Tipping Point?

Wouldn't that be nice.

Corollary books:

the science: "The China Study"

the method: "The Pleasure Trap"

Dr. Robert Lockhart

A 30 minute talk with Dr. Robert Lockhart at the 2015 Woodstock Fruit Festival, where he presents a general introduction to his life's work. For those of you who don't know Robert, he's a 71 year old chiropractor / naturopath / yogi with deep experience and knowledge about the cause of optimal health in humans!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm1YLZlsio8

why can't a paleo diet reverse heart disease?

this blog post is a little bit rushed, please excuse the capitalization errors.

woke this morning with an insight into a hoary chestnut i've been wrestling with for some time, why is it paleo apparently reverses insulin resistance and hence diabetes, but not heart disease.  easy to understand why both paleo and high carb vegan prevent insulin resistance - fat in the blood inhibits uptake of fuel (carbs), so the bod either needs to be put on an alternate fuel source (fat), or dietary fat has to be reduced to a level where uptake of (carb) fuel is efficient. (from basic sports performance science, which also shows a fat fueled body cannot reach optimal levels of physical performance, a telling point perhaps).

the answer is actually obvious in retrospect, don't know why it eluded me for so long. heart disease is essentially the buildup of fat (plaque) in the cardiovascular system. paleos will argue that fat is not the cause of fat build in the body, insulin resistance is, and that is true, imo, to a relative, relevant point. so if fat consumption in the absence of insulin resistance is not the cause of fat accumulation, why is it not also reversing heart disease in the same way high carb vegan does?

the nutrient format of a whole plant diet may have something to do with it, but i think the primary reason a plant diet with no overt fat (7-10% of calories coming from fat) reverses cardiovascular disease is because the body (obviously) needs fat on an ongoing basis to function properly, and if it's getting only the bare minimum found in whole  plant foods it will start consuming body stores of fat, including, of course, the fatty plaques and particles lodged in in the arteries, veins and capillaries. this would also explain why the long term 7-10% crowd is so lean, in fact the leanest population on the planet that is also "healthy", going by blood work and physical performance measures. the 7-10% whole plant diet essentially puts the body on a "fat fast", where it begins consuming it's stores. and since it's difficult (but not impossible) to over consume calories on a whole plant diet, this approach can be relatively unsophisticated - no calorie counting necessary, eat till full, all you want.

and over time, in that process, the body's internal satiety measures, which have been blown to smithereens by modern diet, will come into balance, and back into play. i was struck by the “pleasure trap” (recommended book) factoid that only humans and their domesticated animals have any problem whatsoever (of the millions of species on the planet) with under or overweight, demonstrating that correctly functioning autonomic satiety measures essentially work perfectly, given sufficient availability of native foods.

the corresponding question is how can this 7-10% population be so healthy with so little fat consumption, and i think the answer lies in the quality and density of micronutrients on this dietary approach. we are beginning to understand that supplementation is a problem because those supplemented micronutrients are not supported by a "whole organism host" (nutrients contained within whole unadulterated fresh foods). there are complex interactions here we can so far only posit, they are not well understood as yet, but the difference between whole food nutrition and supplement supported (otherwise inadequate) diet are anecdotally clear - when we discovered vitamins a little over a hundred years ago it was thought disease would be eradicated, but progression of industrial era disease has been exponential instead... so much for early scientific conclusion....

an interesting question remains: once cardio vascular disease has been eliminated from the body with a "whole plants only" 7-10% fat program (which is a fairly long process for complete eradication of advanced cases, probably 5--10 years, esselstyn probably has this data), is it then better for overall level of health to increase fat consumption again, and if so, to what general level? this is a question i have not seen asked or answered. the mcdougalls and esselstyns are adamant however, do they know something i don't, or are they unconsciously operating on "if a little bit is good, a lot must be better" ?

Brain Maker

I have been too busy moving to Florida and getting settled to do blog posts recently, but several things have flown by I thought would be good to share. This one is too good to pass up, so briefly, this is a podcast interview with the neurologist Dr. Perlmutter, talking about his new book "Brain Maker".

http://undergroundwellness.com/330/

I have two small quibbles, should I write them before you listen? Oh heck why not, see if you agree with me. First of all I am thrilled this perspective is making it into the main stream, to which I say "took long enough!" (leading to quibble # 1)

1. we have known anecdotally "all disease begins in the gut" since Hippocrates, with diet oriented health care professionals of recent times reversing disease and teaching the conditions of robust health using this exact approach. Dr. Perlmutter, IMHO, does not do enough to credit the pioneers in this field who came before him, taking most of the credit for recent establishment docs and researchers learning about the importance of "gut flora". They are learning about it in more detail, a good thing, but it can also be misleading. (leading to quibble # 2)

2. Dr. Perlmutter does not make clear enough in this interview (hopefully he does in the book) the actual cause of whole body health (including the brain) is simply a very fiber rich diet, based on consumption of predominately fresh whole ripe raw organic fruits and vegetables. Too simple? it might seem so, but in fact it is not. If all of us ate this diet (of predominately fresh whole ripe raw organic fruits and vegetables) the medical industry would undergo a relative economic collapse! (perhaps this is why Dr. Permutter is somewhat obtuse on this point?)

Let me expand on this a bit. I am not saying eating a very fiber rich diet is psychologically simple - we have long established patterns going the other direction. I am only saying this is the primary "mechanical" cause of health, and from that perspective, yes, it is quite simple. Other things are, of course, also important --- enough good quality sleep - clean air and water - physical activity - love - sunshine - gratifying work.

another quibble relating to point 2, let's call it 2a:)

2a. Dr. Permutter goes on quite a bit about "fecal transplantation". I hope it can be shown to CURE AUTISM. That would be a true miracle, and one of the best medical advances of our lifetime. But it is still treating symptom, not cause! What caused gut flora degradation to begin with? Are we going to put patients on a life long (expensive) regimen of fecal transplants? No! We're going to tell them to modify diet and lifestyle choices to HEAL and MAINTAIN healthy gut flora.

It is not expensive or mechanically difficult to consume a diet that heals and maintains healthy gut flora. That is the bottom line for you and me.

I have no problem with the Paleo diet

Many email exchanges between myself and friends on the topic of diet, activity, and health do not get recorded as entries in my little health blog, that I feel should. So, correcting the most recent example of that is the topic of this particular blog post, my response to a recommended blog. I am basically quoting directly from my email to my friend below:

---------------------

Taking some Q time this Sunday to look at John's blog, I like him, his blog is helpful and good. Bouncing around a bit I stopped on his weight loss plan

http://lifespa.com/dr-johns-weight-loss-plan/

I have no problem with the Paleo diet, because of enculturation and bias it is probably the most accessible solution for many with diet related health problems. That makes it "best" from a practical perspective, perhaps. But from an absolute standpoint I feel a correct reading of the evidence, anecdotal and scientific, points clearly to the high-carb low-fat approach as the cause (with other factors of course) of the highest levels of health possible. But I also recognize that a diet that cannot be done, for whatever reason, is no help at all, and so back to "what works", a variable depending on who and where we are right now.

But I am still interested in helping others see the memes of "carbs make you fat", and "fruit is bad for you, too much sugar", are simply wrong, on an absolute basis. How does this meme survive when it is abundantly clear the leanest (and arguably healthiest) folks on the planet, now and historically, are high-carb and low-fat cultures?  Answer: we have been confused by marketing, misunderstanding, and pre-existing biases.

Getting to specifics:

In the first paragraph I agree completely with the first sentence, but the remainder of the paragraph he presents several ideas that are very debatable.

First, while fat is the longest lasting fuel (is that what he means by efficient?), it is not the most efficient conversion of food to usable fuel by far. As you probably know, except for brain cells which need glucose to function, all cells burn a combination of fat and glucose, with oxygen, for fuel, when glycogen is available. The ratio varies depending on what's happening, but it averages about 50% fat vs sugar. Fat can be converted to glucose http://www.livestrong.com/article/440138-can-fats-be-turned-into-glycogen-for-muscle/

and ketones (the other sugar like fuel cells can use), but it is considerably less efficient than the conversion of carbs to glucose, in particular fructose and other simple sugars.

You probably know for example that an endurance athlete running out of glycogen cannot restore reserves by consuming fats, the conversion is too slow. He/she must consume carbs to restore glycogen reserves (in midst of ongoing activity). Fruits and sugar water are both efficient, and most modern endurance athletes use some form of sugar water, but are increasingly turning to fruit, and finding they perform better (who woulda thunk it:)

You probably also know that individuals in full blown ketosis cannot perform at their normal levels either physically or mentally.

Kevin (link below) is a good example of what happens to folks who do the raw-vegan low-fat lifestyle consistently and correctly (and as Kevin points out, the "cooked" version of low fat vegan works nearly as well). objective medical measures, and across the board performance levels go well thru previous ceilings. Why is that? it's pretty simple actually, and it has to do with conversion efficiency combined with nutrient density.... conversion efficiency depends not only on how much work the body must do to get fuel to the cells from any given food source, but also how much energy is spent on digestion vs fuel and nutrition resulting.

BTW there is no such thing as a low-fat diet that includes animal products for the simple reason animal products are typically very high in fat, for example, in eggs, a commonly cited "high protein" food, the actual calorie breakdown (available energy in the egg) is 61.9% fat, 35.5% protein, and 2.6% carbs, almost twice as much fat as protein.

Short vid with Kevin showing "a day in the life"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM3slLVmhp8

What does Monsanto have in common with Joseph Stalin?

A fascinating and tragic cautionary tale about the world's greatest explorer of food diversity, Nikolay Vavilov.

http://www.splendidtable.org/story/how-nikolay-vavilov-the-seed-collector-who-tried-to-end-famine-died-of-starvation

MicroBiome , the latest thing

Recent research is showing a very important part of health - the diversity, vigor, and balance of our gut flora - is compromised by modern living in post industrial societies. We've variously known this anecdotally for the millennia, but it hasn't been common knowledge in recent decades. If you've heard the term "leaky gut syndrome" then you have some exposure to this concept already. If you understand the importance of healthy gut flora, and understand how the body heals from the opposite condition, then you also understand the anecdotal (can we say real world?) perspective on the importance of healthy gut flora.... it is thought to be the foundation mechanism to our varied and diverse immune functions (referred to as our "immune system").

Here is a news article on this recent research

http://gizmodo.com/a-remote-amazonian-tribe-harbors-unprecedented-microbio-1698678476

and here is a very interesting audio interview from NPR with the lead scientist in this study

http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/04/17/2015/exploring-remote-villages-for-clues-to-the-human-microbiome.html

and to conclude, a brief youtube video by Dr Michael Klapper of the Truenorth Health Center in California on leaky gut, how we get it, and how we heal it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRDoqS6QHQw