Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Archive for the ‘Medicine’ Category

Why Stephan Guyenet is a wise man

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Here’s my “get out of jail free” card, my post where I go off on a tangent.  Perhaps, this isn’t the first time, and after all it’s a blog for goodness sake.  I will make a full circle, it may be a bit of a lopsided circle, but I’ll come back around.  Here I go.

Awhile back I posted something about “Paleo Medicine.”

One of my underlying  points in that piece was if we are so ready to accept that medically trained professionals are giving out bad medical treatment and advice along the lines of low-fat dogma, then perhaps we shouldn’t think that the best paleo/primal/evolutionary advice is exclusively coming from a trained MD.

There are differences of opinion regarding many things in the paleo diet and lifestyle such as intake of dairy, starchy carbs, and whether the % of saturated fat from paleolithic times indeed is significant in a modern paleo diet even though saturated fat has not been shown to be a contributer to heart disease.  On the other hand, putting one’s self into a state of hyperlipidity via a can of lard, though perhaps not possible 10k years ago, may be an effective treatment.  There are paleo medical & research doctors from various medical fields that are on different sides of the above mentioned issues.

That’s why I really take my hat off to  Dr. Stephan Guyenet of Whole Health Source.  In the comment section of a post he did last year, Guyanet wrote when someone questioned why Guyenet would bring up the work of Colpo:

“I disagree. Every time I’ve looked up one of Colpo’s references, what he claimed about it has been correct.

If you’ll notice, my favorite nutrition authority is a dentist. Being trained in medicine does not qualify a person to correctly interpret scientific studies or know the first thing about nutrition. I can tell you as a Ph.D. student, M.D.s do not receive the training necessary to critically interpret scientific papers. Many of them can do it well, but it’s because they’re intelligent people who took the time to teach themselves, not because they’re M.D.s. So the fact that Colpo isn’t an M.D. or a nutritionist doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

I never call anyone Dr. so-and-so in the comments section on this blog. Everyone goes by their first name here, and anyone with a good idea gets to voice it on an equal footing. That’s because I’ve discovered that good nutrition-health information often comes from people without credentials.

Colpo is one of the very rare people who actually seems to read the studies he cites in detail.

However, I’m always interested to hear the other side of the story. I’d appreciate it if you could pass along the critique you mentioned. Although I don’t see Yahoo answers by random M.D.s as a very reliable source.”

Quick side note regarding Eades and Colpo (feel free to skip over the below paragraphs to the end if you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about)

Now, I don’t have a dog in the “metabolic advantage discussion” that happened between Eades and Colpo.  I think Colpo had a point regarding caloric deficit and the fact that Eades’ initial remarks on the low-carb metabolic advantage subject didn’t clarify that the metabolic advantage for weight loss is indeed in a narrow 100-200 calorie range due to the difference in energy required to metabolize protein vs. carb.

Again, I think Eades’ initial statements on the subject might have implied that the low-carb metabolic advantage for weight loss extended for feeding ad libitum no matter how many calories were consumed.  I think Eades went on to clarify that indeed caloric deficit is indeed relevant, and acknowledged that Colpo had a point on the matter that was indeed correct for clarification’s sake.  I also agree with Eades’ point that it’s all to do about nothing when you consider that a higher fat & protein diet provides more satiety thus making one feel that you may have eaten more calories than you actually did.

I also think that Eades’ main point that it’s nearly impossible to gain weight on a paleo low-carb diet regardless of how many calories one tries to consume though still stands, though stands taller with the metabolic advantage better defined.  Without taking sides here, I think it’s unfortunate that the discussion devolved, but it doesn’t influence how I feel generally about what both men contribute.   However, with that said!, I’ll say this.  In Eades’ writings he has noted that he respects Colpo’s abilities as a researcher and writer, and noted that there are some points that Colpo makes that are indeed unfortunately not as well received because Colpo doesn’t have a “Dr.” before his name.

Now, that doesn’t mean that Eades agrees with Colpo on everything, but I take off my hat to Eades, who in the course of the metabolic advantage discussion, did give proper due credit to Colpo.  Whether Colpo would agree that he received such acknowledgement from Eades might be another matter, and I do not speak for either of them, that’s just how I saw it.

I do respect Guyenet’s, Eades’ or Colpo’s opinions enough to read them in this information overloaded world.  I think Guyenet offers a great perspective regarding how to best process information.  Be aware of ANY medical caregiver professional who rests his/her entire argument on their sheepskins and not on the science.

Certainly, someone’s experience and education comes into play when I judge what they are saying to me.  Aside from what the opinion actually is (!), I partly judge someone’s opinion on their adherence to a point of view that lacks how to falsify the opposing view.

bowling-with-dean

If I thought otherwise, Dean Ornish and I would be bowling partners,

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and that Dude Sisson would be entirely unknown to me.  And “Good Calories, Bad Calories” would still be on the book shelf at Barnes & Noble and not on my coffee table.

As I recently read, Richard Feynman said that “science is the culture of doubt.”  That’s why I enjoy reading people’s views in this paleo community.  It’s full of thinkers, and people wanting to relearn how to think for themselves.  We may be a small group compared to the millions that are adhering to the Standard American Diet (SAD) coming down with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, cancer and obesity in droves.  If 100 million people have an indoctrinated stance in something (e.g. the SAD)…. well, that stance can still be wrong despite how many people are taking it.

I’m ripping this following quote off of someone, I forget who, “2 wrongs don’t make a right, neither do millions of wrongs.”  In a herd of lemmings jumping off of the cliff to their deaths, I’m sure in the back of the pack there’s a certain amount of peer pressure to keep sprinting toward your doom.

But that’s not the case on the paleo sites and among the evolutionary living people whom I know.  For the most part, they’re polite about it, but someone eating real food and thinking for themselves won’t hesitate to question whether the direction you’re going or pointing them toward is over a cliff.  So, enjoy the debates, which thankfully are mostly amongst polite civilized paleo types.  Wouldn’t you rather be in a group like that than in a group of lemmings that show their solidarity to you by screaming beside you as you both fall to your deaths?

Posted in Medicine | 9 Comments »

Soon they’ll tax all non-sugar, non-grain foods as medicine, too

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

I have never been in better health.

The raging health care debate concerns me because I have seen the rubble of other countries’ health care systems that were created with utter socialism, and saw the underbelly (and saving grace!) of black market medicine.  Government medical care was/is so rationed in these countries, the facilities falling apart, and the prices controlled causing greater scarcity, it literally is a saving grace when the doctors moonlight by coming to your home for a house call.  They can earn an extra buck from their meager government salaries, you get the care you need when you need it.  All very dangerous for both parties involved, in the same way it was dangerous to sell watermelons above the government set price in the Soviet Union.

Life and death medical care paid for underneath the table.  Life sustaining food paid for underneath the table as the shelves in all the stores were bare.  In both cases, it was illegal, in both cases you were an enemy of the State.

I am not a schill for the doctors or the insurance companies nor lacking compassion for the poor amongst us that don’t have access to good medical care, but it concerns me to see such a large sector of the economy, like health care, becoming owned by the government.   I’ve seen this phenomenon in other countries which criminalizes/criminalized private medical care, and that’s why I’m concerned.

Banks and car companies… owned by the government.   More and more Health Care planned, controlled, owned by the government.  We may be on opposite ends of the political spectrum here, to whom it may concern, but we’re on the same side of the barricades when it will come to the rationing of medicine.   Will it come to food, too?

The piece of the pie of the economy that is falling into the hands of the government grows larger, and the remaining pieces under “private sector” control are a result of favors paid to the government by these companies to have tariffs, regulations, and subsidies put in place that benefit these said companies/corporations and squash their competition.  I am not anti-capitalism.  No, far from it.  I’m against corporatism.  I’m against the government giving special uncompetitive measures for certain companies.  There’s a big difference.

So, yes, I’m in the best health of my life.

Though we’re heading toward a collision course of rationed medical care, and drug prices are set to soar despite what may be promised, I’m comforted by the fact that I have my health.  I understand the toast so much more profoundly now, “Here’s to your health.”  Indeed.  I at this point in time don’t require any prescription drugs, and I believe I have reduced the likelihood of the need for prescription drugs in the future.

In addition to eating mostly an evolutionary diet, I provide my children Vitamin D supplementation between 400-1000 IU daily depending on the weather, depending on the level of their snotty noses, depending on whether I remember to and whether it’s in the house.

-With the healthy portions of meat, vegetables and fruit (and dairy products in a few dishes)

-the rare treats

-the near lack of wheat, corn, rice and potatoes

-and total lack of foods with High Fructose Corn Syrup

my kids are some of the strongest and healthiest on the block, and I’m not talking genetics here regarding height, etc.

They hiss and whine and moan, sure, but they’re less of the hissing monkey from Dr. Dan’s post on the lil’ monkey suffering from sugar withdrawals.  They are strong and healthy in the inside.  When I see an obese 6-year-old in the store with her/his mother with a shopping cart full of manufactured foods high in carbohydrates, high in inflammation causing sugar, I understand that both the kid and the mom will likely have a lifetime of prescription drugs to look forward to.

These drugs will be paid for by you and me, the need for these drugs will be caused by the officially approved American diet (with/without junk thrown in to top it off).  The officially approved American diet has seriously been influenced by lobbying from both the ag and drug cartels.  Many of the crops like corn, wheat and sugar (including HFCS) gained their government subsidies thanks to powerful agricultural lobbies.   The subsidies and tariffs that corn, wheat, and sugar enjoy really amount to a tax on non-sugar and non-grain foods, it really should be looked at in that manner.

So, in life, I know there may be some traumatic events, some expensive health care needs, some skinned knees that may require stitching best not done by me, and not cured by extra Vitamin D, but I feel safer as the health care debate rages around me…. until I read that:

MCCAIN WANTS FEDS TO REGULATE VITAMINS, SUPPLEMENTS…

h/t Drudge

In this perverted overly-regulated country, food is now toxic, and drugs and chemicals are safe for ingestion, no matter the harm that results. This inversion should remind us that those who best have the consumers health and safety interests at heart are the consumers themselves. It is big government that has a proven track record of not protecting the public.  And it is big government that is seeking to take away yet another individual freedom, the right to choose one’s own treatment.

What will be regulated next?  Taxed directly and “taxed” by an expensive regulatory process.   The cost of these extra regulations will be borne by the consumer because it will be more expensive for the manufacturers to comply with these regulations.  Will Vitamin D become available only by prescription?

In addition to Vitamin D and fish oil daily, I intermittently take various antioxidants, Branch Chain Amino Acids, and some other stuff.  From great sites out there and mentors like Arthur De Vany, from Peter’s Hyperlipid, to Stephen’s Whole Health Source, from Sisson’s Mark’s Daily Apple to the Eades’ sites and books, I have crafted together a rather good diet, understanding of fat, and a weekly supplement schedule that factors in when I take certain supplements based on my work out schedule, sleep schedule, when I plan to fast (usually just once a week on Friday night, btw), when I plan to break the fast.

I can tell you that my mitochondrial mass is the largest it’s ever been.  How’s that for a pick up line!?  Hey baby, I’ve got big mitochondria, what’s your sign?  See, I’m a believer in the mitochondrial free radical theory of aging, which along with a lot of other issues out there, fuses rather well a lot of studies on aging and what I’ve read from Peter’s Hyperlipid about toxicity and the peroxidation of lipids.  1) paleo/evolutionary diet is enough, 2) paleo/evolutionary diet with workouts better, 3) diet, workouts, and supplements pretty darn good.

However, if you’re eating junk, your workouts won’t be as beneficial, and your supplements won’t be a panacea for all of your resulting metabolic woes.  There is no ultimate panacea other than living your life by the way.

Based on the biochemistry and physiology research of Dr. Feinstein, Dr. Volek, and many others, I get it.  I may not be able to regurgitate it yet as coherently as a 1-st year biology or chemistry major, but I get it.  The paleo diet has worked wonders, the weekly strength workout with a sprint session thrown in once every 2-3 weeks are improving my health daily.  The supplements though, well, that’s been the paleo icing on the cake.

The diet alone I could live with.  I’ve worked out all my life, but I’m working out more smartly, and my goals are for improving my immune system, not for mass for mass’ sake.  I don’t necessarily want to “get big.”  The supplements are just that, supplementing what I’m doing, the time outside in the sunshine and the shade, just living life.  Too much measuring, too much analyzing of all of this can drive you batty.  Again, live and be respectful toward others, even those people who haven’t quite come to terms with Sat Fat.

Except for the egregious SAD propagandists who are wed to their points of view because of their financial stakes, the laymen like you and I, the doctors, researchers, we’ll all likely be more receptive to changing our views with a kind word rather than a shout.  Just about every well known name in this paleo community used to be one of those SAD zombies, and I would assume they were converted by a voice of reason, not by smugness.

So, as I was saying.  I have never been in better health.  I’m thankful that I know better, which resulted in this better health.  I’m thankful I have the means to afford healthy real food, which really is about the same cost as a crappy carb-filled diet, if you know how to shop.  How long that will be the case, I don’t know.  I’m thankful that I’m working out to improve my immune system, not out of pure vanity’s sake.

When I see a person in the gym that’s fat, skinny, weak, or shy, I’m always very thoughtful in welcoming that person into a new world.  A new world of metabolic health with lean muscle mass (h/t De Vany) and not the world that may have mocked them previously.  A bodybuilding Hans and Frans world that probably prevented them from checking out lifting weights because they were embarrassed by their weakness, ignorance or looks.  I’m thankful that in the paleo community there are voices of reason that may teach me new ideas about nutrition and health, and I’m thankful that I’m receptive to these new ideas.

I’m thankful that I have the choice to supplement, to top off my chances in this life for maintained health.  Why?  To live life.

IF health care is controlled, IF supplements are controlled, IF non-sugar, non-grain foods are squeezed out and become more expensive in comparison to subsidized high-carbohydrate monocultural crops of annual grasses, will the things in my life that I’m thankful for be diminished?

I have never been in better health.  

Posted in EF-De Vany reference, Granary, Medicine | 1 Comment »

Huntington’s Disease: Drugs & Wheat or No Wheat?

Monday, February 8th, 2010

A couple of months ago I remember reading on Dr. Cordain’s website his answer to a question about Huntington’s Disease.   It’s the first question/answer on this link.

Listening to NPR this evening as I packed up around the house (I’m moving soon),  I heard this piece regarding a new drug treatment for Huntington’s.  My oh my, what a different story.  No mention of wheat.  A mention of mitochondria without really going into detail, and a very accurate statement regarding how this disease shares various symptoms with other autoimmune diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

If you have read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, he reviews quite well how the high levels of insulin may be the cause for Alzheimer’s given how an enzyme is too engaged with breaking down insulin rather than cleaning up the proteins that gather in the brain and are involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s.  Essentially, there’s not enough of this enzyme to clean up both the excessive levels of insulin and these proteins.

The common thread here from my limited readings is wheat, but perhaps for different reasons.  Gliadin from wheat being involved in the onset of Huntington’s and the high carbohydrate content of wheat causing the insulin spike involved in the accumulation of a protein that is involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s.  There appears to be a good amount of “counter-literature” out there that supports the hypothesis that Cordain is working with regarding wheat and Huntington’s.  It’s shocking to me that there hasn’t been a significant study regarding eliminating wheat from the diet of a person afflicted with Huntington’s.

I’m rather busy right now, and will be over the next couple of weeks.   If I had the time, I would write a longer piece attempting to piece together some of the research out there.  My hope is that I’ve put enough key words in here so that if someone is interested in hearing a different viewpoint on all of this, they will be directed on a different path than the one NPR led me down on.  Let’s just say that just about anytime I hear the latest drug research being touted on NPR and other news programs… 9 times out of 10 it’s for a disease that has some sort of connection to the non-human high carbohydrate diet brought to us by the food pyramid.

The real choice on so many diseases that afflict modern humans really comes down to relying on the pills or simply avoiding grains and high amounts of fructose and sugar.

red-pill-blue-pill

But we’re really never even given that choice if we were to only listen to mainstream corporate media outlets (whose advertisements and/or endowment donations are paid by whom?).  I believe that there are some fantastic professionals/researchers out there, putting on their lab coats every day highly motivated to find cures, highly motivated to extend our knowledge, to clarify the science.  Thank you for your work.  I ask you to please consider the picture above and consider whether you may someday ever think it’s worth it to:

to test a hypothesis that eating wheat causes Huntington’s with an experiment that would manipulate whether or not subjects ate wheat.  Thus, NOT eating wheat is the independent variable.  Each subject’s diet would be tested to see if wheat eating had any effect.  Thus, the diet is the dependent variable.  The subjects assigned to NOT eat wheat are in the experimental group, whereas subjects eating wheat are in the control group.

I mean… out of hundreds of thousands of things to eat on the planet, asking subjects to not eat wheat for 6 months doesn’t seem like it would be too controversial or expensive?  Oh, but it is controversial.  A viability study on feeding humanity without wheat and corn would have to be done before this research would ever be funded.  If an environmental organization were truly serious, they would consider funding both the Huntington’s research and this human feeding viability study.  A return to prairies and perennial crops may be what the folks in lab coats will help us achieve, though they may not understand the implications of their research at the time.  

Posted in Granary, Medicine | No Comments »

Paleo Medicine

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

I’ve always liked the line from Good Will Hunting regarding not underestimating where a novel questioning of the status quo may come from:

Professor Lambeau:

“In 1905 there were hundreds of professors renowned for their study of the universe, but it was a 26 year old Swiss patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time who changed the world. Can you imagine if Einstein would have given that up just to get drunk with his buddies?”

good-will-hunting

By the way, it wasn’t a “Swiss patent clerk”, it was the German-born Einstein working in Switzerland.  But I digress…

What’s unique in the paleo/evolutionary living community is that there are paleo medical professionals who admit what they previously didn’t know and acknowledge that they learned it from people outside of a so-called prerequisite field. There are also many paleo health and fitness professionals rendering nutrition and weight training “treatments” that are doing more for people than any mainstream M.D. pushing a low-fat concoction of horror. In turn, there are a lot of low-fat, low-intensity, heavy on the pasta and cardio type of trainers making a lot of money in appearance fees but whose actual advice isn’t worth a penny compared to a low-carb (normal carb!) doctor’s medical appointment.

In the end, it’s the combination like that of Professor Arthur De Vany, Mark Sisson & Robb Wolf with Drs. Eades, McGuff and Davis (and countless others) that allows for the paleo remnant to see that the clinical and the research minded evidence is out there, understood, explained and offered by the Doc to his patients, by the trainer to his trainee, and by the wise professor to a gathering crowd seeking epistemology.

Mainstream Medicine would like you to ignore evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology and all forms of evolutionary medicine and accept on faith and faith alone the government approved food pyramid, HFCS, and the false correlation of cholesterol & heart disease.  Mainstream Medicine hoists up a cheap sheepskin (educational/medical degree) onto a vanquished and crumbling low-fat/high-carb rampart as if that sheepskin allows for someone to deny gravity (or the existence of insulin).  And in the same breath, they reject all of humanity’s accumulated medical knowledge from the dawn of time until Ancel Keys did his Seven Countries Study with cooked books.  Essentially, such skewed statistics became gospel, and those that questioned “the modern low-fat medicine men” were called witch doctors.

However, the strength of the evolutionary living community is completely opposite.  There are no sacred texts.  The paleo clinicians (the trainers, the crossfitters, the lifters, the reformed carb-addicts) and the paleo doctors are learning with each other.  One group feeding data to the other group and circling back again.

The challenge before you is to learn what all of these different voices are saying. If you’re a doctor, resist pride and understand that the Ancel Keys textbooks you have studied are no more than a bucket of leaches. You’re still required to pay those medical student loans that made you take those Ancel-inspired courses, however, that fact shouldn’t stand in your way.   On the other hand, if you’re a layman, whether a bricklayer, a bodybuilder or a lawyer, resist the temptation of submitting to the “approved” health advice meme. You were never given the full explanation of all of what they said before, so don’t just repeat the words of the medical professionals you see on CNN or on Oprah and accept it as the gospel truth.

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This requires you not to just regurgitate the latest epidemiological statistic paid for by the obligatory interest group, but to actually dig in a bit on the endocrinological basis of the paleo diet. Read up on the evolutionary basis as to why our fast and slow twitch muscles do that they do. Why lifting heavy things beats a spin class. Why a 30 minute walk or jog doesn’t mean you’ve ”earned” your breakfast of a yogurt, bagel and orange juice. Don’t take it all at face value. Cross reference. Google it.

Read The Paleo Diet.

Read Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Read Primal Blueprint.

Read The Protein Power Plan.

Read Body By Science.

Read articles from Nutrition and Metabolism (with a dictionary handy expecting to only understand 30% at first).

Read the dozens of other paleo sites out there of people (whether they have a medical degree or not) performing n=1 methodology (h/t health epistemocrat).

If you can’t explain it in layman’s terms to someone else, you’re not there yet. As a layman or doctor if you can’t politely discuss this with low-fat doctors without posing questions leaving them speechless, you’re not there yet.  I don’t have a cabinet to store this all in, instead it’s stored in the evolutionary living community members I listen to, the things I read, the decisions I make, it’s in the food I eat, it’s in the rest while I sleep, and it’s in the words I offer up to others for their sake in return.

There’s a Native American phrase when praising someone that says,”He/she has strong medicine.” But in the English vernacular that doesn’t mean that the person necessarily had the best pharmacy in the tribe (e.g., really knew about herbs), it could have meant a whole host of things. The person offered good words at a pow-wow or meeting, the person offered good prayers or perhaps provided good spiritual guidance. Maybe, the person was indeed the best at presiding over a religious service. Or, it could actually mean that his/her ability to look for and find herbs for medicinal purposes was second to none.

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A couple of weeks ago I made a list of the great evolutionary living sites out there. I made a mistake by putting the group in cardinal order. What I should have done was to describe these sites as members of a “support group” or even a paleo council. So, those that were on my recent list should not be seen as being numbered from 1 to 10, it should be seen rather as a group sitting in a circle, with no distinction of rank or title. They were mentioned because I find them to provide rather good paleo medicine, in the above mentioned sense. Mark Sisson may be the only “medicine” I take on a given day, other times it’s from many others not even on that list.

Learn how to make “medicine” for yourself. This means actually understanding why and what your doctor is prescribing for you. This may indeed require prescription pills under the supervision of a doctor or perhaps even surgery at points in your life.  In no way am I implying that modern medical knowledge shouldn’t be considered, or that you should avoid going to the hospital when you have a broken leg! But remember, just because an Ancel Keys indoctrinated doctor can write a prescription on a pad of paper doesn’t mean that he’s giving good medicine. Thankfully, we have doctors amongst us in this online paleo world that are humble and wise enough to admit to you that they learned about good paleo medicine after years of handing out bad medicine.

Posted in Medicine, The Paleo Garden Party | 6 Comments »