Category Archives: Around the Web - Page 10

Our prayers for the people of Joplin, Missouri and the victims of recent tornados.

Here are things that caught my eye this week:

[1] Interesting posts: Don’t miss Stephan Guyenet’s podcast with Chris Kresser, which I’ll comment on this week. Also, Stephan explains what “food reward” is.

Emily Deans discusses the influence of dirt on health; Stabby thinks he has a dirt deficiency.

Dennis Mangan notes that BCAA supplements may extend lifespan. At Robb Wolf’s blog, Amber Karnes reports an autistic child improving on Paleo. Matt Stone and Danny Roddy have been summarizing Ray Peat. Chris Highcock reports that sprinting up stairs may be the best exercise.

Mike the Mad Biologist recalls a lucky episode of serendipity in science. Craig Newmark thinks the Greeks have the most talent.

Don Matesz reports some lore from Chinese medicine:

[T]he Chinese medical view [holds] that sugar has yin effects, where yin stands for the overlapping sensory characteristics cool, calm/quiet, soft, and moist.  According to Chinese medicine, this makes sugar a medication for excessive yang conditions characterized by heat, agitation, tension, and dryness; but because it has relatively extreme characteristics, long term regular use of large amounts will create an excessively yin condition, i.e. excessive coolness, lassitude, weakness/impotence, and moisture (e.g. watery phlegm accumulation, excessive salivation), and a generally deficient condition.  Chinese dietary principles classify whole food starches as more desirable, more balanced foods–having a balance of yin and yang characteristics making them suitable for use as staple foods.

The yang condition sounds like that produced by low-carb ketogenic dieting (high body temperature, dry mucosal membranes) and the yin condition like that produced by high-carb dieting. The Chinese lore is consistent with our view that starches are better than sugars, and that eating some starch is desirable to avoid excessive ketosis which would promote fungal infections. Fungal infections are “hot” diseases in Chinese medicine.

This reminds me of an oldie but goodie, Chris Kresser’s explanation of Chinese medicine: qi is oxygen, meridians are vessels, and acupuncture points are neurovascular nodes.

Andrew Badenoch of evolvify.com argues that vegans are hotter. I refute him thus: Ms. Julianne Taylor.

Finally, John Durant offers a video of cheetah cubs playing:

[2] A song to read by:

[3] Why we don’t recommend high-dose niacin: A clinical trial of high-dose niacin for heart disease had to be stopped early this week, because it didn’t reduce heart attacks and increased strokes.

We have always counseled against supplementing niacin. Our reasoning is that niacin has both good and bad effects, but the primary good effect (raising HDL) can be achieved by dietary means via occasional ketogenic dieting without the ill effects (promotion of bacterial infections). See the book or How to Raise HDL, April 20, 2011, for more.

Thanks to Erik for mentioning the study. As I noted in my reply, strokes are strongly linked to bacterial infections of the vasculature, so it’s not a surprise that niacin would increase stroke risk. It’s also possible the statins administered with the niacin undermined its benefits.

[4] Gimme shelter:

[5] H. Pylori can cause Parkinson’s in mice: New results.

[6] Compelling scientific discovery of the week: If you have migraines and drink too much alcohol, caffeine can help you recover from a hangover.

[7] Nanny state chronicles: Denmark has banned Vegemite (Marmite) because it has too many vitamins. John J. Ray counters: “Australians have unusually long lifespans. Which is entirely due to Vegemite, of course!”

[8] I hate when that happens: Truck driver blows up like a balloon:

A New Zealand truck driver said he is “lucky to be alive” after an air hose became lodged in his buttocks and blew him up “like a balloon.”…

McCormack was rescued by coworkers and taken to an intensive care unit at a Whakatane hospital. He said it took nearly three days for his body to deflate to normal size.

Farting and burping is the therapy:

[9] Is that precipitation infectious?: Hail is full of bacteria. No word on whether they’re probiotic.

[10] They’re getting more human all the time: Scientists have discovered a bacterium that lives on coffee.

[11] Northern Lights: Photographer Stephane Vetter captures an aurora reflected off Jökulsárlón, Iceland’s largest glacial lake:

[12] Why I went to MIT: “At MIT, everyone is eccentric”.

[13] Shou-Ching’s photo art:

[14] Heroism and grief in the Joplin Tornado: This is a heartrending video, but love should be honored even – or especially – when it meets with misfortune:

Via Eric Falkenstein.

[15] Gaudeamus Igitur (“Therefore let us rejoice”): Via Danielle Ofri in the New York Times, a poem called “Gaudeamus Igitur,” by John Stone, a cardiologist from Atlanta. This poem was delivered as a commencement address to a class of Emory medical students, and gives a doctor’s view of life. One stanza:

For this is the end of examinations
For this is the beginning of testing
For Death will give the final examination
and everyone will pass.

[16] Science done the old-fashioned way: We’ve learned as much from personal experience with disease as from reading the journals – and personally-acquired knowledge is more likely to be novel and therefore scientifically significant. Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one; and then in recovery she became inspired.

“How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I’ve gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career.”

Here’s her story:

Here’s what caught my eye this week:

[1] Interesting posts this week: Paleo Pepper has compiled an online encyclopedia: the top 120 Paleo blog posts. Richard Nikoley asks: is optimality in diet a fool’s errand? He takes the view that individuals have an optimum, but not humanity. Via Seth Roberts, a fascinating story of how even doctors cannot get good care out of today’s medical system: How modern medicine killed my brother.

Also from Seth, his “morning faces therapy” has produced a great result for a man with bipolar disorder. We believe that “circadian rhythm therapies,” and bio-rhythm restoring techniques generally, are an underappreciated therapy. See, for instance, Intermittent Fasting as a Therapy for Hypothyroidism (Dec 1, 2010) and Seth Roberts and Circadian Therapy (Mar 22, 2011).

Emily Deans offers up a surprising danger of smoking pot – fungal infections of the lung:

[S]moked joints could easily be adulterated with natural fungi that grow into big nasty (and deadly) fungus balls in the lung.  I saw a case of this fungus ball in medical school in a patient immunosuppresed with HIV who also happened to smoke a lot of pot.  It could have been from other sources, of course, but my attendings assured me they had seen it several times in AIDS patients who were heavy pot users.  It’s not a pleasant way to go, and the treatments are horrible.

In a more controversial post, Emily argues that greater dopamine in the male brain creates “Genius and Madness,” while the lower dopamine feminine brain promotes sociability and social stability. But I wonder if a world led by “Generation XX” is really going to be more stable.

Mark’s Daily Apple notes that city living can be a brain drain. It certainly is for Shou-Ching and I; our nightmare would be living in New York City. Curiously I didn’t have the same sense of oppression in Tokyo, a much more open city. Boston is better than New York but we would prefer the country.

Robert Krulwich discusses the “loneliest plant in the world”: a male tree that can’t find a mate, as it is the only known surviving member of its species. Scientific American discusses how gut bacteria shape the brain. Chris Kresser suggests ways to keep your brain from aging.

Finally, if you’ve never seen a deer eat a bird, and would like to, Bix has you covered.

[2] Music to read exercise by:

The video can’t be embedded but is great. I wonder if the gymnastics were influenced by Parkour?

[3] My Favorite Posts This Week: The best posts this week were by Melissa McEwen of Hunt Gather Love, who has been running a series on “The Human Colon in Evolution.” All posts are great – I loved today’s (part 5) because it was new to me, and part 4 because it argues our “safe starches” are great foods for the gut – but they’re all outstanding:

• Part 1, Comparative Anatomy http://huntgatherlove.com/content/human-colon-evolution-part-1-comparative-anatomy
• Part 2, Fiber Follies http://huntgatherlove.com/content/human-colon-evolution-part-2-fiber-follies
• Part 3, Creepy Crawlies in the Gut http://huntgatherlove.com/content/human-colon-evolution-part-3-creepy-crawlies-gut
• Part 4, The Secrets of Butyrate http://huntgatherlove.com/content/human-colon-evolution-part-4-secrets-butyrate
• Part 5, Human Variation http://huntgatherlove.com/content/human-colon-evolution-part-5-human-variation

[4] Human origins elucidated:

An important paper on human origins came out this week. “A Revised Root for the Human Y Chromosomal Phylogenetic Tree: The Origin of Patrilineal Diversity in Africa” used Y-chromosomes to trace the male “Adam” back to 142,000 years ago and northwest Africa, in what is now the Sahara but was then an open woodland environment. This is significant for many reasons, but one is that this region had easy communications with the Middle East along the Mediterranean coast and supports the possibility that interbreeding between Neanderthals and Africans, with significant back-migration into Africa proper, may have been an important process in the evolution of modern humans. Dienekes (here and here) and Razib Khan comment.

JS Stanton at gnolls.org had a nice essay. I don’t agree with everything in it; in particular, JS underestimates the violence of Paleolithic society. The work of Lawrence Keeley is helpful in this regard:

In browsing the comments to JS’s post I saw a link to a weird book by Danny Vendramini called Them and Us. A video by the author presents his case: Neanderthals were chimp-like super-predators and predation and rape by Neanderthals killed all the dumb humans, until the smarter humans figured out how to kill all the Neanderthals. Here’s how Vendramini imagines the Neanderthals:

There is plenty of evidence indicating that this view of the Neanderthals is wrong. I will just note that the fraction of Neanderthal genes in present-day humans is of the same order of magnitude as the level of mixing African-Americans and European-Americans have achieved in 200 years – this despite 30,000 years of selection which will have tended to work against survival of most Neanderthal genes. The idea that such extensive mixing came about through rape conducted by radically different species in perpetual warfare is, I think, totally untenable. There must have been extensive voluntary interbreeding.

Curiously, the Vendramini view recapitulates one of the earliest hypotheses about Neanderthals. This talk by Carl Zimmer shows that (at 2:40) in 1909 leading anthropologists shared Vendramini’s view of the Neanderthals, whereas today they seem — ahem — considerably more attractive:

[5] We’re glad it’s helping! Chris Kresser on Twitter:

I’ve been having some success w/modified ketogenic diet a la Paul Jaminet w/50g CHO, 6 TBS MCT oil 5g leucine.

This method of producing ketosis is much healthier than the zero-carb low-protein diets sometimes used.

UPDATE: It’s mood disorders generally, and depression specifically, that the ketogenic diet has been helping with.

[6] More on Food Deserts: Beth Mazur of Weight Maven has written of the significance of “food deserts” in the obesity epidemic. Basically, where fresh whole foods are difficult to buy, obesity rates are high.

Now the USDA has a cool interactive map showing the locations of food deserts:

Via Razib Khan

[7] Did monkeys keep pets?:

Via Yves Smith.

[8] Our book on sale: I know of at least one store that offers our book for sale: The Grainery in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Their web site has a great line from Thomas Edison:

“The doctors of the future will give no medicine , but intrest their patients in care of the human frame, diet and the cause and prevention of disease.” — Thomas A. Edison

The proprietor of The Grainery, John Kessenich, spoke recently on “Eating for Perfect Health” and might have used some of our ideas. If you happen to find yourself in Baraboo, check out The Grainery and ask John for health tips!

[9] Why the Kindle version isn’t available: I have too much brain.

[10] Primal Fashion Week: No, this is definitely not Paleo re-enactment. I doubt Neanderthal women ever wore a Sperm Coat or paired it with a Heart Tube Hat.

Personally I would prefer a cheetah skin.

[11] Low-dose naltrexone is great for Crohn’s: On my editorial calendar is a discussion of the role of endorphins and enkephalins in immunity, and the opportunity to increase their levels and circadian variability and thus modulate immunity through low-dose naltrexone (LDN), with beneficial effects against certain diseases.

While I dither, clinical studies of LDN are progressing. This week, a report came out on LDN for Crohn’s disease:

Eighty-eight percent of those treated with naltrexone had at least a 70-point decline in Crohn’s Disease Activity Index scores compared to 40 percent of placebo-treated patients.

[12] Shou-Ching’s Photo-Art:

© 2011 Shou-Ching Jaminet.

[13] Not the weekly video: Ducks Against the Wind:

Via erp, who says, “It’s getting harder and harder to keep your ducks in a row!”

[14] Weekly video: Marriage is health-improving and life-extending, especially for men, so I consider this (done in moderation!) an exemplary health practice:

Via Orrin Judd

Here’s what caught my eye this week:

[1] Interesting posts this week: Stephan Guyenet’s discussion with Chris Kresser is sure to be fascinating, because the material left on the cutting room floor is great. I especially liked Stephan’s observations about insulin’s contributions to weight loss, via promoting satiety and leptin sensitivity.

Chris Masterjohn refutes an old canard: The cannibals of New Guinea preferred fishermen, not missionaries. Of course – fishermen are more nutritious, they have more iodine.

Apropos this week’s post (Can Endurance Exercise Promote Cancer?, May 11, 2011), Keith Norris of Theory to Practice discusses the relation between fitness and health:

Personally, I’ve never gotten to the right of the part of the curve labeled “Health” and “Performance,” and spent too much time in the area off the chart called “Unhealth” and “Non-performance.”

Via Obesity Panacea’s Travis Saunders, exercise induces weight loss in controlled laboratory conditions but not in real life. Scientists discover that Vancouver bedbugs are carrying antibiotic-resistant staph (MRSA). Chronic acetaminophen (Tylenol) use doubles the risk of blood cancers. Aspirin is better.

Via Dr Cobb at Z-Health, a study showing that walking barefoot decreases stress on the knees and hips of people with osteoarthritis. Charles Poliquin defends his high-dose fish oil recommendation with a study showing that 7 people were able to take 60 g/day fish oil for 12 weeks without “serious adverse events.”

Finally, Richard Nikoley has some mouth-watering food photos.

[2] Post-Mother’s Day music:

[3] Morgellons, a medical mystery: Via The Guardian, a mysterious complaint:

Morgellons was named in 2001 by an American called Mary Leitao, whose son complained of sores around his mouth and the sensation of “bugs”. Examining him with a toy microscope, Leitao found him to be covered in unexplained red, blue, black and white fibres. Since then, workers at her Morgellons Research Foundation say they have been contacted by more than 12,000 affected families….

Optical image of what sufferers are adamant are morgellons fibres in skin samples – are they made up of alien ­matter, or are ­everyday materials the more likely explanation? Photograph: Vitaly Citovsky/Suny at Stony Brook

Back in London, I find a 2008 paper on morgellons in the journal Dermatologic Therapy that describes patients picking “at their skin continuously in order to ‘extract’ an organism”; “obsessive cleaning rituals, showering often” and individuals going “to many physicians, such as infectious disease specialists and dermatologists” – all behaviours “consistent with DOP”. (For treatment, the authors recommend prescribing a benign antiparasitic ointment to build trust, and supplementing it with an antipsychotic.)

These dermatologists don’t know much, but they know an antipsychotic drug is the treatment.

Fortunately there is an excellent doctor looking into the matter:

I contact Dr Anne Louise Oaklander, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and perhaps the only neurologist in the world to specialise in itch. I email her describing morgellons, pointing out it’s probably some form of DOP. But when we speak, she knows all about morgellons already. “In my experience, morgellons patients are doing the best they can to make sense of symptoms that are real. They’re suffering from a chronic itch disorder that’s undiagnosed. They have been maltreated by the medical establishment. And you are welcome to quote me on that,” she adds….

“That they have insects on them is a very reasonable conclusion because, to them, it feels no different from how it would if there were insects on them. To your brain, it’s exactly the same. So you need to look at what’s going on with their nerves. Unfortunately, what can happen is a dermatologist fails to find an explanation and jumps to a psychiatric one.”

[4] Let’s ride:

Via Yves Smith

This picture reminds me of a story. I once was on a long airplane flight seated next to two girls who demanded piggy-back rides around the cabin. They asked me to guess their ages. After I had guessed every age from 3 to 13, I gave up. Can you guess how old they were?

Select for the answer: They were 5½ and 7½!

[5] Does it cure being a lawyer?: A “therapy dog” is available for checkout at the Yale Law School library. But he can’t be removed from the library, because he’s a rufference work. (Via Tom Smith.)

[6] They’re born and they’re off to college, just like that: Via John Durant, a robin raises her chicks:

Robins: 4 Eggs, 4 Weeks from Fred Margulies on Vimeo.

[7] The raccoon who will live forever in our memories: Stabby has been immortalized:

It’s only the beginning, I believe. That raccoon has great things ahead of him!

[8] Those were the days: The medicines weren’t that great, but the advertising posters were cool. Via The Scientist, a slideshow of mostly 19th century medicinal posters:

[9] The old mannequin head drop prank: This one always works.

via Amy Alkon.

[10] Shou-Ching’s photo-art:

© 2011 Shou-Ching Jaminet.

[11] Video of the week: Polar photographer Paul Nicklens shares some remarkable photographs. Don’t miss the part where the friendly leopard seal tries to feed him penguins:

Here’s what caught my eye this week:

[1] First, thank you to Mark Sisson: Our thanks to Mark Sisson and Mark’s Daily Apple for listing us among his “18 Underrated Blogs You Should Be Reading”. We’re in excellent company because all 18 are great blogs. Many of the blogs are fairly new, which demonstrates how rapidly the Paleosphere is growing. Mark is in many ways the leader of the Paleo movement (deservedly so), so we’re honored and proud to be recommended by him.

[2] For aural amusement: I love the way Dinah Washington sings this song.

[3] Interesting posts this week: Speaking of Mark, he somehow produces high-quality interesting posts every day. This week I was intrigued to learn that Australian aborigines were engaging in eel farming on a massive scale as early as 6,000 BC.

Melissa McEwen commented on “Venus-gate”.  Also in Paleolithic commentary, anthropologist Julien Riel-Salvatore gives an update on the finding that Neanderthals cooked starches by boiling in water or moist baking. Quick summary: at Shanidar, Iraq, they cooked date palms, wild barley and legumes; at Spy, Belgium, they cooked water lily corms, sorghum, and five other starchy plant species.

Chris Masterjohn had a fascinating post: “When Fat Burns In the Flame of Lean Muscle Mass — Better Put That Butter Either on Steak or Potatoes”. I left some thoughts in a comment there.

In his post welcoming Mark’s Daily Apple readers, Chris mentioned us among his top referrers. We’re delighted to have passed readers along, but disappointed that we rate so highly – it means others aren’t linking to him enough!

Emily Deans writes on who’s vulnerable to stress and why.

The Scientist tells us that oxidative stress in birds produces timidity as well as shortened lifespan.

Greg Laden of Science Blogs addresses the claim that Paleolithic peoples didn’t live long. In fact, it appears that life expectancy of girls was well into the 50s; as in all premodern societies, the greatest mortality was at childbirth and infancy.

The New York Times joins Ray Peat, Matt Stone, and others in discussing possible benefits of fructose at low doses. It turns out that after intense exercise or fasting has depleted glycogen, glycogen is replenished most rapidly by a mix of 2 parts glucose to 1 part fructose. Precisely the ratio in bananas! Perhaps bananas are the best breakfast.

The New York Times also reported on a study which found the lowest mortality with intake of more than 6 grams of sodium per day. That’s about 2 teaspoons of salt.

In yet a third New York Times report, we learn that removal of the tonsils causes obesity. Of course, the tonsils have an immune function, obesity is a disease, and pathogens cause disease. But that’s not the explanation doctors are proposing:

One of several theories is that enlarged tonsils cause difficulty swallowing, prompting a child to eat less. Once the tonsils are removed, appetite returns.

For lovers of baked goods, Chef Rachel Albert, the Healthy Cooking Coach, has a 99% Perfect Health Diet compliant (save for a bit of legume-derived xanthum or guar gum) recipe for Rosemary-Garlic Popovers.

[4] That plush toy looks real:

[5] Venus-gate revisited: Those odd-shaped Paleolithic figurines? Maybe they were a result of the Gravettian liposuction industry.

Gina Kolata (“With Liposuction, the Belly Finds What the Thighs Lose”) reports that liposuction doesn’t produce lasting weight loss. When liposuction is used to remove fat from one part of the body, the fat comes back elsewhere:

It took a year, but it all returned. But it did not reappear in the women’s thighs. Instead, Dr. Robert H. Eckel said, “it was redistributed upstairs,” mostly in the upper abdomen, but also around the shoulders and triceps of the arms.

[6] How to lose weight fast: Stephan Guyenet continues his must-read series on links between the brain’s reward system and obesity with a post on “How to Make a Rat Obese” and “How to Make an Obese Human Lean”. Secret to the latter? Stock your refrigerator like this:

I wonder if this refrigerator would work as well:

[7] Seth Roberts has another long-term weight loss chart: This time the Shangri-La Diet comes out the best.

The Shangri-La Diet fits in with Stephan’s ideas, but makes a radical claim: that although eating tasteless calories causes weight loss, it’s not necessary that the whole diet be tasteless – only one spoonful a day is enough!

Seth’s ideas are incorporated into our weight loss recommendations indirectly. Our recommendation (Perfect Health Diet: Weight Loss Version, Feb 1, 2011) is to eat normal dietary levels of carbs and protein, reducing fat intake a bit but eating the usual Perfect Health Diet foods – but to eat intermittently with a daily 16-hour fast. During the fast, meet any hunger with a spoonful of coconut oil, Shangri-La Diet style.

[8] Bravo: Our view of obesity was superbly summarized by Stabby on Mark’s Daily Apple forum, and then reduced to a pithy aphorism by NourishedEm:

Stabby: Perfect Health Diet strives for…well…perfection in health and what follows from that? Better body composition.… [O]besity is a disease of metabolic syndrome, and eating a healthy diet can help in reversing it. The general mindset of someone trying to lose weight is that they would like as much of it gone as quickly as possible, but as always with everything it is the sustainability of things that ultimately matters. When we make health numero uno we put ourselves on the best possible path for the future.

NourishedEm: You don’t need to lose weight to get healthy, you need to get healthy to lose weight.

[9] I love this photo: The Hadza of Tanzania:

From National Geographic via Conditioning Research.

[10] Willie Mays turns 80 today: Here’s his famous catch:

[11] As if we needed more reason to avoid prostate exams: Biopsies are causing dangerous infections:

Studies emerging during the past year have uncovered that a small, yet growing percentage of those undergoing routine needle biopsy tests are becoming critically ill and dying from bacterial infections…. Nine out of 10,000 men whose tests were negative died within a month, researchers in Toronto reported in the Journal of Urology in March last year….

When he looked at hospital admissions among patients whose biopsy was negative for cancer, Nam discovered the chance of being hospitalized within a month of the procedure had increased fourfold in less than a decade, reaching 4.1 percent in 2005 from 1 percent in 1996, according to the Journal of Urology report.

When Nam searched for the cause of the hospitalizations, he found 72 percent had an infection-related diagnosis.

[12] Post of the week: In a week with some great competition, anthropologist Peter Frost of Evo and Proud wins the prize with a really interesting post on Candida infections. He presents evidence that a few substrains of Candida, which thrive in the mouth and vagina, have evolved an ability to infect the brain and induce a preference for sexual activity in “non-Euclidean” geometries. Startling if true. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before many pathogens evolve these abilities.

[13] Shou-Ching’s Photo-Art: This week’s installment – click to enlarge:

[14] But do the computers have health insurance?: Scientists afflict computers with schizophrenia to better understand the human brain:

Computer networks that can’t forget fast enough can show symptoms of a kind of virtual schizophrenia, giving researchers further clues to the inner workings of schizophrenic brains, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Yale University have found.

Pouring corn oil and sugar into the computer also impairs it, giving further clues to the origin of mental illness.

[15] Not the weekly video: The ultimate dog tease:

Via Bix.

[16] Video of the week: The Coral Triangle is a huge area centered on the Indonesian archipelago. The Bajau are a people who not only maintain Paleolithic lifeways – they live much their lives at sea. The Bajau are often hard of hearing due to intentionally puncturing their eardrums to facilitate diving. This video is mainly about conservation, but I thought the parts about the Bajau were most interesting:

People of the Coral Triangle from James Morgan Photography on Vimeo.

The conservation part touches upon a topic that came up in the comments last week, in which Peter argued that to save fisheries we need a system of oceanic property rights. Someone in the film (at 10:25) makes the same point in different words:

In order to enact a really sustainable and meaningful conservation program for the Coral Triangle region, we need to empower groups such as the Bajau to look after and curate their own environment.

Video via Barry Ritholtz.