4th March 2018
A bit on the late side, but I want to make readers of the blog aware of a meeting to be held in in London 17th/18th March.
It is part of the Health Icons Lecture Series. The main guest will be Gary Taubes. It will be in London at 1 America Square. Details are here: https://re-findhealth.com/event/health-icons-lecture-series-gary-taubes/
Other guests/speakers will be
- Ivor Cummins
- Campbell Murdoch
- David Unwin
- Aseem Malhotra
- Andreas Eenfeldt
- Me
Here is some of the blurb
For the past half a century, the concept of a healthy diet has been synonymous with a diet low in fat, and particularly low in what is all-too-often referred to as “artery-clogging” saturated fat, the fat found in quantity in eggs, butter, meat and dairy products. The result has been a national dietary prescription to eat ever more plant-based diets: copious fruits, green vegetables and whole grains, while we minimize our consumption of animal products.
For those of us who are overweight or obese, this advice has been accompanied by the insistence that we got that way merely by eating “too much” and that the only way to solve our problems is to eat less and exercise more. And yet this now ubiquitous dietary advice has coincided with unprecedented increases in the prevalence of obesity and diabetes, raising the obvious question of whether this advice and the belief system associated with it may somehow be to blame.
Are they based on sound science? And if they’re not, which the evidence strongly suggests, then how did we come to believe them and why? And, perhaps most important, what’s the alternative? Why do we get fat and diabetic, and what can we do about it?
By asking these questions for the past 20 years, Gary Taubes has become perhaps the single most influential journalist covering nutrition and health today. He’s certainly the most controversial. His investigative reporting on the science of nutrition and the dietary triggers of obesity and diabetes are fundamentally changing the way we eat and live. Michael Pollan has described him as the closest thing we have to a “scientific Alexksandr Solzhenitsyn,” exposing the intellectual bankruptcy of current nutrition science. The Atlantic recently described his investigative journalism as so tenacious and obsessive that he had “fallen through a wormhole from reporting into expertise.”
Taubes’s skeptical, rigorously scientific approach to nutrition science is unparalleled and now he wants to share both the approach and the implications to our health and how to eat to remain healthy.
I hope some people can get along.
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
What a line up, but surely you are missing a Welshman.
Weird, after all this, still no evidence based science on reversal of clogged coronary arteries on a keto diet? How is that better than a whole food plant based diet?
Sven Orlenski: The only credible evidence I’ve seen concerning reversal of atherosclerosis involved guinea pigs given large doses of vitamin C, and only in the early stages of the disease. In humans we have only the claims of Doctor Dean Ornish, and involving a very small number of people. His findings have never been replicated. It may be impossible to reverse advanced atherosclerosis. As far as a plant-based diet, it probably is the best choice for some, but certainly not for everyone. Plant foods are simply not nutrient dense, as animal foods are, so a plant-based diet will surely lead to nutrient deficiencies over time, if not carefully designed and monitored. The carnivorish diet which I eat, on the other hand, contains all the vitamins and minerals in sufficient amounts to give robust health.
All these speakers seem to be on the LCHF side of the “fence”.
Gary Taubes book Good Calories & Bad Calories converted me as well as Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt some years ago. (The Dietdoctor). Remarkably Dietdoctor has now 50 000 members paying 100 Euros per year to support the LCHF-“revolution”. And I think around 500 000 people now receive his newsletters.
I wonder if any LFHC supporters were invited to present their point of view. It would speak volumes if they refused the challenge.
Goran & David, a low saturated fat high carb diet, is the officially sanctioned advice. Blessed & promoted by governments and medical bodies in many countries. And in some places doctors who wake up and see the stupidity of this advice and offer different councelling, are set upon and banned. Gary Fettke for example here in Oz. Tim Noakes in South Africa.
Given this situation why would a conference being organised to discuss HFLC want to taint it with yet more of the old paradigm which has generated growing obesity levels and Type 2 diabetes etc.
And in case anyone is curious about just how deceptive high carb diet propaganda can be take a gander at this completely lopsided article by Tara Leong just put up on the Conversation’s website.
https://theconversation.com/you-dont-need-to-quit-sugar-to-improve-your-health-92032
Imagine that ! We don’t have to quit sugar. Really Tara ?
What I find interesting is the clear target audience for this article : It’s aimed at the young college educated female demographic..Which is also the demographic that the veganists target…
Cutting out sugar is confusing? Not as confusing as the article. Cutting sugars is not the point, it is cutting the refined carbohydrates, and the food items that are high in carbohydrates. Bananas are not amongst tthese foods, just don’t binge on bananas.
“Given this situation why would a conference being organised to discuss HFLC want to taint it with yet more of the old paradigm which has generated growing obesity levels and Type 2 diabetes etc.”
Well some time back, Malcolm gave over his blog to a prominent supporter of the cholesterol / statin approach to CVD. It was remarkable and valuable, because his guest made no attempt to explain why Malcolm was wrong, it was more an appeal to authority.
Malcolm’s blog is obviously a pain in the backside for many (I am sure he would agree with that assessment!), and yet when given an opportunity to explain the orthodox viewpoint, no explanation was forthcoming!
Heartfelt thanks as always for the vital information that you share with us all. For those of us who may not be able to attend we look forward to your next posting.
Would love to go, but $130 a day would buy me a lot of eggs, cream and butter 🙂 I also think it would be better the seats were occupied by the carbohydrate proponents, especially those in the NHS, then they stand a chance of becoming a health service.
Best wishes for your talk.
PS please advise the organisers I would be prepared to pay a substantial amount (albeit reasonable amount) for recordings of the speeches.
If only I were young enough, and nimble enough to attend I would be there like a shot.
We have been brainwashed for far too long by those who think they know better than us. They have prescribed diets and medication along the wrong lines altogether and made many of us ill, or infirm, in the process. I, for one, no longer trust my G.P. as implicitly as I used to do. However you, Dr Kendrick, seem to come out of a different mould and I thank you for that.
Much of the content on this blog, of late, may just as well have been in a foreign language for me but, nevertheless, I read it and take a great deal of it on board. I do not have a scientific background but manage to make some sense of much of it, and it has been a great to help me, if only to encourage me to stop taking the dreaded statins!! along with the flu jab for the last two years.
I eat all the dairy products anyone can mention, drink milk like it is going out of fashion, eat red meat – lovely fatty lamb, sirloin steak and everything that we are told to avoid like the plague by ‘the experts’.
Keep up the good work Dr Kendrick, we are behind you 100%
Sylvia, for the dairy supplies, you may be interested in this page which has a suppliers index http://rawmilk.simkin.co.uk/what-is-raw-milk.html. I make truffle centred chocolates using the cream, no one has died yet through eating them. If the milk goes sour, it’s turned into cheese, something not to do with pasteurised product.
AH Notepad.
Thank you for that, I will certainly take a look. Those chocolates sound good.
When I was a girl my father used to bring raw milk home which came from a herd of cows kept at a local Stately Home (all above board I hasten to add). The cream was something to behold and I always got the job of making it into butter, and the milk was just wonderful.
Have a good day.
Sylvia.
Thank you AH Notepad for the link to my nearest farm shop for raw milk! Just what the doctor ordered – well, any doctor who understands what healthy milk really is.
Excellent – about time some useful noises started to be made.
Any chance of watching it on YouTube later on?
I am glad it is happening; But time & finances prevent me attending. It would be great to see the speakers on Youtube afterwards.. Hope this can be arranged..
I so wish I could! ( from Australia)
I hope it will be reported.
Many thanks for all your work,
Kay Souter Mobile: 0418 762 004
Fantastic! Now I know your speaking on Day 1 of the Health Icons Event Malcolm…. I’d better get another ticket! I hope to meet you and get my books signed!!
Ah, wouldn’t a YouTube presentation be great? I’d LOVE to be able to go but unfortunately it’s not possible, geographically or economically. Just saying to bolster the possibility of a YouTube presentation.
Cheers all
Looking forward to seeing you there! Afifah
>
Dr Kendrick,
Thanks for the heads up but the Atlantic Ocean is too large! I hope a recording or a transcript of the event including ALL the speakers will be available.
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA
Dear Dr Kendrick
I’m not having much (any!) success in finding the timings of the weekend and how to book a place. It’s probably because I’m not very computer literate, particularly when it comes to using wordpress. Help please!
When I saw you were coming to London I remembered that you were once able to combine such a visit to giving us a Sunday morning talk at the Conway Hall Ethical Society, something I would very much like to repeat.
With best wishes
Fiona Weir
Malcolm, for those of us unable to attend this meeting (I live in Scotland), would it be possible (if it is being recorded) for this to be put on something like YouTube?
I firmly believe that the medical profession has the topic of nutrition and diet ‘base over apex’. Having read all of Gary’s books on the subject (and yours!) it would be great for those of us who cannot attend to be able to see the meeting.
I will find out. I am pretty sure it will be recorded, but that aspect has nowt to do with me. I am but a small cog in this particular machine.
From the brochure: ” there will be video available to Premium and Featured Members of Re-Find Health. Join today and get access to this video… Video will be available approximately 2 to 3 weeks after the event”
Well I’ve just joined as a subscribing member which states gives full access to videos. We’ll see. I’ll let you know.
Gary Taubes Live in London On-Demand Video (Pre-Order)
Pre-order the full event video (60 day access) for $120.00. Use the coupon code “preorder-video” and save an additional 15%.
One really has to question the wisdom of this. Why not put it on some mainstream VOD site like Amazon, charge the going rate for a blockbuster movie (as in $ 5 to 10) and make at least the same revenue while reaching a larger audience.
Edit: just went to the site, and it is geared towards professionals and the fee seems to be for the video of the four hour Gary Taubes seminar only. That explains the pricing.
On the other hand, I am currently reading the Case against Sugar, and while it is well-written, anyone who has done some reading around LCHF will definetely not find a new morsel of insight on every page. One also cannot really read it like a mystery story, and the outrage at the sugar industry’s manipulations does not carry one through the book.
So considering the previously unexposed professionals will probably not attend, who will really benefit from this seminar?
A Massive collection of noteworthy LCHF people. I wonder if Big Pharma and the Jackals have clubbed together to drop a bomb on the lecture hall ? I’d love to attend but sadly am on holiday, I’d especially love to see any recorded videos. Ivor tends to video all of his work so hopefully the others will too. I really wish that people from the NHS and government would attend in a hope that their rigid mantra of sameness from the camp of “Experts” – I suspect that you’ll never convert these types until everyone else is already converted and they don’t want to feel like the odd one out so they’ll simply accept it then. I cant believe after 50+ years of Low Fat diets whilst looking at a nation of ever increasing fat people they simply put it down to all of those greedy people who are incapable of following the advice of the experts. Never would it occur to their excellence that the advice is wrong! Any ways rant over, have a good event.
Mike Smith, I think given the current social climate, your second sentence could have been left out.
Good rant Mike. How is it that the jackals always manage to find ways to become government advisors? Maybe we need a “Heath March” or similar. Not sure though, that many members of the public understand enough to join one. Keep up the good work Dr Kendrick and Co. Our numbers are growing.
Hehe, exactly what I was thinking. I hope the venue will be searched for bombs and the audience for dieticians in suicide vests.
Obviously the Usual Suspects will follow up with the Usual Dogma I wonder what the response of our Authorities will be and whether anyone will subsequently end up on charges a la Noakes, Fettke et al.
Sounds fabulous- I so wish I could attend, but have a previous engagement.
Joanne
________________________________
Unfortunately I live to far to attend.
I think it is good to hear critical voices, yet I am sceptical: The problem with nutritional science is that substances in food that influence health (in both positive and negative ways) are innumerable. Forget about all the possible combinations that can be made with these substances.
On top of that there is the human body that -as we know, since the science of genetics arose- is enormously complicated, meaning another set of genes could make you react quite differently to the same food as your neighbour.
I think that is one of the reasons why there are such contradicting results in nutritional science.
We know that there are “tribes” who are very healthy on a lot of fat, but there are also tribes who are very healthy on a diet rich with carbohydrates.
As long as there is so much uncertainty and a doctor or scientist cannot tell me which nutrition is right for my body with my genes, I live by the adagium “all in moderation” and I avoid the extremes.
But in all probability both tribes have one thing in common – very little sugar.
Hello Jan,
That depends on how you define sugar.
Eating just sugar without all the healthy substances like in fruits isn’t a good thing to do, I believe.
However, tribes who do well on high carbohydrates get their carbohydrates often from non-processed and fibre rich food like rice, plantain, manioc, corn, but they also eat fruits, so while their intake of sugar (by fruits) might not be extremely high, it probably also isn’t very low.
With respect to this, I think the Paleo diet isn’t that bad though the advise not to consume dairy for example, is questionable. Many studies show dairy can help protect the cardiovascular system.
Also the advise not to consume legumes, grains and potatoes is questionable and certainly not clear cut.
The high fat low carb diets that virtually “prohibit’ fruits I consider cults that are damaging to one’s health.
These diets might be appropriate in some very specific medical conditions, but not in healthy people.
Avoiding extremes is best. There is no solid science backing any extremes.
In that context, I would define ‘sugar’ as that found in er…sugar, in cakes, biscuits, manufactured sauces, ketchups, etc., in ALL manufactured, processed ‘foods.’ And those fruit eaters would by and large eat fruits both local and seasonal. That, I appreciate, is a rather broad brushstroke, but it’s only relatively recently that we have had access to all year and exotic fruits. I am old enough to remember the wonderful but short strawberry season here in the UK – now we can have them on Christmas Day (though I think those strawberries should come with inverted commas.)
…and unprocessed foods!
I dont think sugar is the problem as such. Well not in the form of fructose in fruit. As a hunter gather race we would have happened across berries and apples in the UK. If you think about it logically, the whole point of fruit is to over eat them in Autumn to gain fat to carry us through winter. Trouble is that nowadays its forever autumn and there is no winter when thinking about food.
I think you just answered your question. If you don’t eat more calories than you expend, you can eat, pretty much, any diet you like. When you start eating more calories that you expend, fructose becomes a major metabolic problem.
The whole issue of sugar and fruit has lead to many many clashes among the various diet factions…..
A key question to ask is whether humans as a species have evolved to eat fruit despite it’s relatively high fructose content.
The answer I think is “We have”. For most of our existence as a species we existed in tropics and sub tropics where lots of species of fruit exist and are enjoyed by humans…Just think for example of the tropical fruits of South East Asia…and Southern China..- durians, jackfruits, mangosteens, bananas, mangos, guava, papaya ( paw paw ), pineapples, pomelos and other citrus fruits like kalimansi, rambuttan,coco nuts, lychee lanzones, etc etc. All these fruits while they may be seasonal are basically always available all year round.
It is only in the northern temperate zones of America, Europe & Asia that there is an Autumn and then a Winter with no fruit naturally available.
Thus the idea that we are evolved to eat fruit only in Autumn to fatten up for Winter is I suggest a ‘furphy’.
By the way Denise Minger wrote an excellent article about this issue back in 2014. Check it out on her blog.
All in moderation won’t take you anywhere.. Good luck with that..
This is good. Wish I could attend! (3,265 miles.)
That said, have we just dialed food/nutrition vs. heart disease back up to 11 on our blog here?
JDPatten, noticed that too: discussions about food choices might make it back into the spotlight. LCHF is a guideline, low glucose/low insulin is the goal. Mitochondria and gut bugs is where the action is.
Andy S. Exactly! We are getting closer and closer to explaining the diabesity conundrum.
1) Keep to a low intake of healthy carbs…..thus keeping insulin at bay, and encouraging a healthy gut biome.
2) Keep a few hours between meals to give the gut a break from the constant onslaught by insulin, and try longer periods without carbs a couple of times a week.
3) Ensure a regular intake of gut-beneficial foods.
4) Dismiss the myths regarding dietary fat intake.
5) Understand that our body functions better on fluctuations of high to low blood glucose/insulin. We really do not need to keep glucose and insulin at constant levels; the body is clever enough to cope!
Slightly off topic : A High Fat Low carb diet assumes that people do not eat much bread etc. But there are complexities in the science. Some people cannot safely eat high complex carb foods while others can & do. ( And I do NOT mean sugar here. )
What is going on ?
Well we have not discussed the gut and the microbiome much here. But the character of our microbiomes makes. a huge difference to how food is digested and whether there are problems – such as ‘insulin spikes’ for example.
For decades I have always tried to avoid white bread because it results in poor nutrition. Instead I have preferred to eat sourdough oat. rye & multigrain breads – preferably organic. Intuitively that seemed right.
But now there is a research project in the USA examining the micro-bacteria present in sourdough starters used to make breads from many many different places..
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/17/536485684/more-than-bread-sourdough-as-a-window-into-the-microbiome?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170717
One of the interesting results is the discovery that without sourdough starter being added, it is the flour itself which is the major determinant. Flour made by a particular flour milling company, all has the same suite of micro-organisms even when it is used to make bread in widely different places..
Now that is a) curious but also b) obvious ! It probably reflects the ‘hygene’ or clean down practices used in the milling machinery & processes. A very clean hygenic milling process leads to flour with very limited micro-organisms being present in the flour and in the bread made with it.
And so to a very restricted input into our microbiomes.
An unintended consequence of modern large, standardised food processing plants !
This confirms in my mind the wisdom of eating sourdough bread with a wide variety of grain flours in it.
Bill in Oz
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705319/ The Dietary Intake of Wheat and other Cereal Grains and Their Role in Inflammation
“In the present review, we describe how the daily consumption of wheat products and other related cereal grains could contribute to the manifestation of chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases. Both in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrate that gliadin and WGA can both increase intestinal permeability and activate the immune system.”
Might not affect everyone equally, only time will tell. Could predigestion of wheat by bacteria reduce lectin levels?
Bill,
As a sourdough maker myself, I believe that whatever microbes are best adapted to living off flour will dominate, and it’s likely to be the same set of species wherever you are. Whether they derive from the flour, which in turn would derive from wheat growing out in the open air, or from the local aerial microbe population settling in your starter, would be very difficult to determine.
I must have made ten different starters in the last couple of years. They seem to fluctuate a bit in the first couple of weeks, then settle down to a stable mix of microbes which turns out a consistent bread. I always mix fresh flour into the starter while outside so I’m always getting fresh wild yeast settling into the dough, but the starter doesn’t seem to vary in quality.
The one exception was a starter that developed a definite smell of doggy-doo. I put it down to taking it outside on a windy day and wind-blown dust from dried poo getting into the mix. The bread tasted okay, but as soon as my new starter was ready I ditched the old smelly one.
My bread is made from an equal mix of white, wholewheat, and rye stone-ground flour. As it gets stale it gets a vinegary smell, but still tastes good.
Martin, looks like sourdough is partial digestion by microbes. A complete digestion would result in poo.
Andy,
As we say in South Africa… sis!!! (= ew!!!)
A wonderful thing indeed. We are, slowly but surely, winning the battle against stupidity. We must never rest, though.
Thankyou so much. Having read most all of his work on the science of nutrition and corresponded briefly via E Mail I would love to be there. Hopefully some of the coference will desseminted via Youtube?With greatest respect,Paul Helman, MDWilmette,Il
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
For those interested in a plant based nutrition conference, on the other side of the pond
https://pbnhc.com/conference-faculty
I agree with a previous poster, mixing viewpoints on the panel can be tricky but it makes a more interesting debate
Any chance there will be a video of the confab available afterwards?
Dr. Kendrick you mentioned Diabetes. The 5 ‘New’ Types of Diabetes, Explained. https://www.livescience.com/61917-diabetes-five-types.html
Thanks, will have a look. My central problem is that I do not believe type II diabetes is a disease, nor to I believe in insulin resistance. Apart from that, my views are pretty mainstream. I am going to write about this in more detail at some point.
I really look forward to that. I notice in the newspaper article that there was no mention of the several forms of Mody – all monogenetic forms inherited from a parent. Exeter Medical School is doing a lot of work on this and it was they who confirmed my faulty HNF1Alpha gene and helped me to alter my drug regime.
Like you, I am very dubious about the much bandied about type2. When I was a child attending the diabetic clinic at a major hospital there was ‘severe’ and ‘mild’ diabetes and the mild patients were, almost without exception, what was euphemistically called ‘stout.’ I was one of the exceptions, being ‘mild’ but thin as a rake which I am to this day and with a low renal threshold.
Sorry to bang on -it awoke long dormant memories.
P.s.happy to say, I don’t appear to have passed on the faulty gene to either if my children.
Dr K, I would really like to hear again your views on Diabetes whether 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc….I find the whole area confusing and perlexing. I read the Guardian article on the 5 types of Diabetes and came away more confused than before….Which was not needed at all.
“nor to I believe in insulin resistance”
Say what? Please, Doc, make “at some point” be in the very near future. It’s not fair to drop a bomb like that and say you’ll talk more about it “at some point.”
How about giving us the Cliffs Notes version very soon (this week would be nice!), and then elaborate further “at some point”? 🙂
Yes, Joe, yes!!
I sure hope so! If not insulin resistance, then what?
Hi AnnaM, the problem with insulin resistance is the term itself. Low insulin can lead to insulin resistance and is beneficial. On the other hand when glucose and insulin are both high this is also termed insulin resistance as determined by Kraft test. Insulin poisoning might be a better term to use. The cure is to reduce carbs.
Seeing as the cells refuse to admit more glucose, despite insulin banging on the door, surely it should be called ‘glucose resistance’?
Martin Back, “glucose overload” could be another term. The glucose comes first then insulin has to deal with it.
https://www.docmuscles.com/diabetes-mellitus-really-the-fourth-stage-of-insulin-resistance/
…which implies that you should stop eating and drinking so much stuff that turns to glucose when digested.
AnnaM
I think Dr. Kendrick must be pulling our legs. Denying insulin resistance is like denying gravity. The only way that the good doctor could have said he did was if he was under the influence of Aberlour A’bunadh at the time. 🙂
“It’s the insulin that causes insulin resistance
How can we explain this apparent paradox? The vital clue is that insulin itself causes insulin resistance. The primary problem is not the insulin resistance, but the hyperinsulinemia.
“Insulin resistance refers to the fact that for a given amount of insulin, it is more difficult to move glucose into the cell. But this does not necessarily mean that the gate is jammed. There are other possibilities why glucose cannot get into that resistant cell. Perhaps the glucose cannot enter the cell because it is already overflowing. The new paradigm of insulin resistance as an overflow phenomenon resolves the central paradox.
“This changes EVERYTHING. If you believe the old ‘lock and key/ internal cellular starvation’ model, then the appropriate treatment is to increase insulin as much as needed to push that pesky glucose into the cell. That has been the way we have treated type 2 diabetes for the last 50 years. And it’s been a complete disaster. The ACCORD/ ADVANCE/ VADT/ TECOS/ SAVIOR/ ORIGIN randomized controlled trials all proved the failure of this paradigm.
“However, if the ‘overflow’ paradigm is correct, then increasing insulin to push more glucose into an overflowing cell is EXACTLY wrong! This would only make diabetes worse. Which is EXACTLY what we see clinically. As we prescribe insulin to type 2 diabetes, patients don’t get better, they get worse. Their blood glucose is better, but they gain weight and they still develop all the complications – heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness etc.
“The correct treatment of the overflow paradigm is to empty out the BODY, not just the blood of the excessive glucose. How? LCHF and intermittent fasting. And guess what? That’s EXACTLY what we see clinically. As we start fasting type 2 diabetes patients, they lose weight, their medication requirements go down and eventually it reverses.”
https://www.dietdoctor.com/new-paradigm-insulin-resistance
Now that is perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve read in a long, long time Joe. One of those things that seems blindingly obvious once said, but until said, just doesn’t occur to the average, err, Joe. Certainly not to me. It’s a very, very elegant explanation of so much that is puzzling about diabetes. Strikes me that, if proven correct, it’s Nobel Prize-winning stuff. Also sticks it to the nutrition “scientists” good and hard, an added bonus.
What’s the level of evidence for it? A bit better than that for the cholesterol-heart disease model, I hope.
Having done my own post facto and personal anecdotal research on nutrition, diet, environment , lifestyle and its holistic effect on physical and mental health, I am in broad agreement with Gary Tabu whose book on Bad Sciience is an excellent introductory read for those too easily influenced by the media and by those charlatans who sell the naive public snake oil!
Much of Western research is alas too often based on inaccurate even unwittingly false western research as Japanese researchers using basic meta analysis found to our dismay, thus “the blind leading the blind as it were in Western society.
Thankfully, I have ploughed my own independent furrow,! and if Dr. McKendrick is on the same cue, I am sure that Gary Taub and indeed my Individual personal research are consistent with more reliable recent findings re the dairy/fat and most certainly the false medical cholesterol/statin hypotheses etc exposed heroically by Dr McKendrick, and others based on an in depth knowledge of vascular physiology and experimental statistics alone.
Leslie Eric Blennerhassett
Retired educationalist and nutritional psychologist
Taubes and Kendrick, thanks.
I’ve been studying your excellent The Great Cholesterol Con, Dr K.
(i) Have you thought of doing a second edition?
(ii) Or perhaps you could have open threads for comments and questions by people who have read it? Perhaps the threads could be organised by chapters. Maybe you could make preliminary remarks to get the ball rolling.
(iii) How about an open thread on similar lines for readers of Doctoring Data?
I realise that you could reply that basically this blog does those jobs; I am suggesting that the books would provide a natural focus for discussion.
P.S. I am also reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Pharma. Have you by any chance reviewed that book anywhere?
Tis written and will be coming out in July
Thanks for the heads-up. I appear to have loaned my copy to a non-returner, so I will wait till then to replace it. Calendar anotated
I hope there’s an index.
So you’re a Health Icon then. Well done! I’m sure we all agree.
I am a Health Icon minion.
I hope that a transcript of the meeting will become available shortly after its conclusion.
Closely allied with the obsession with eating less saturated fat food is the obsession with lowering LDL.
But low LDL-C is associated with higher mortality among older people – above the age of 60..I have the feeling that many of us here are either close to or older than 60 years. So this blog article by PD Mangan may be of some interest.
http://roguehealthandfitness.com/older-people-with-high-cholesterol-live-longer/
Thanks for the heads up. I am sure the overall meeting will be very interesting.
I am just curious: you are the one who keeps telling us that nutrition is not a signficant factor in CVD. Are you really going to be talking about nutrition?
Let me turn that question round. Long ago, I recognised that the diet-heart hypothesis was wrong. I had little other interest in diet. However, I can clearly see that the current dietary dogma (high carb low fat) is extremely bad for people with diabetes, thus indirectly CVD, and it causing significant health damage. I have worked with Dr David Unwin to attempt to dispel the myth that fat/saturated fat is harmful to health. I think anything that helps to kick the stupid anti-fat phobia into touch is worth supporting.
Nice succinct summary, restating things you’ve said before.
I think the obsession with diet amongst the Kendrick Komentariat simply reflects the long-standing human fascination with food and magic.
And, like others, I very much look forward to your comments about insulin resistance
Pity I can’t make the conference.
This would mean that anyone who see’s improvement through dietary change is deluding themselves. The change must have been from some other means. I have been careful not to use ‘reverse’ as it seems you do not believe the published data on reversal. I do not doubt that other factors play a part, in particular stress, but these days we see arterial lesions in men of age 20. Have these occurred due to something other than diet. Are the populations that exhibit little or no heart disease really stress free or could it be that what you eat occupies most but not all of the CVD territory. Also dietary change seems to alter cardio markers. Some we agree with others we dont. Putting cholesterol aside Homocysteine can be lowered, Thyroid function can be improved, Lp9a) can be improved all by diet or supplements. Are all these factors worthless and not worth altering via dietary means. If diet does not matter why champion saturated fat, why not eat anything but stay calm and take 2 hours to eat it.
I do not ‘champion’ saturated fat. I think – like almost all foodstuffs – it has a neutral effect. The problem is that saturated fat has been demonised for many years. Today, simply stating that it is perfectly alright to eat is seen as ‘championing’ it. Such is the way the world works.
smartersig: I don’t think that makes sense, your conclusion from Dr. Kendrick’s comment that those of us (including you and I) who see improvements in health from dietary changes must be deluding ourselves. If we look at traditional diets which produced healthy populations from around the world, we see a wide variety of macronutrient ratios, some of them very carbohydrate-rich. What is entirely missing from these traditional diets is industrial food and food grown through modern agricultural practice. I suspect one of the main culprits in the epidemic of modern degenerative diseases, such as CVD, is nutrient deficiencies, particularly minerals. It is well established that agricultural soils today have been mined of key minerals, that the plants can survive and prosper with a partial chemical replacement for the missing soil constituents, and have been selected to do so, but are incapable of delivering sufficient quantities of essential nutrients to human eaters because they lack them. You, and I, and many people here have seen improvements from dietary changes. These are real.
Your standpoint:
“My central problem is that I do not believe type II diabetes is a disease, nor to I believe in insulin resistance.”
I find this very interesting and think you are right.
Is it then at all possible to put a name on a common denominator to all the symptoms we normally associate with “T2D”. Are the symptoms to be treated individually as specific “abnormalities” or what are we say and do?
Well, my wife diagnosed and cured herself of her serious “conditions” by ditching all carbs. “Slowly poisoned by carbs.” would in her case then be an obvious diagnos. Her glaucoma diagnos was conventionally treated to no avail but subsided and disappeared in a year on the LCHF.
Malcolm,
I know this is off topic, but I really appreciated your reply to me (and others) about Denise Minger and the Kemperer diet.
In essence you pointed out that any diet is going to help an overweight diabetic person if it succeeds in greatly reducing their calory intake!
Unfortunately you started a new blog subject so soon afterwards and I felt this was too important to get lost!
This was in response to a lengthy discussion about this blog post:
I think your observation is important because perhaps that is how the counter-intuitive high-carb treatment for diabetes originally gained respectability!
David Bailey, here is a reference to rice diet by Jason Fung that might answer some questions:
https://idmprogram.com/thoughts-on-the-kempner-rice-diet/
My version of the “rice diet” when faced with a glut of kale from my garden:
– substitute carrots and potatoes for the rice, add onion
– add whatever greens are available, kale, broccoli, spinach, sorrel, etc.
– combine in large pot and add water and spices, boil until tender then blend
– add favourite fat when serving
Sure any diet is going to help loose weight if the person can stick to it. This thermodynamics, or in other words, when taken to extremes, CICO is still correct.
Peter, as he usually does, has taken a mangifying glass to the mechanics described by Denise:
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.de/2015/10/protons-and-ultra-low-fat-once-more.html
If you don’t want to dig through a very long post, zip straight to the end. Right before this quote, he observes that both LC and LF are about mainting low insulin. The finale is priceless:
“How can you compare carbosis with ketosis, or even mild carbohydrate restriction? It’s like comparing boiled rice followed by boiled rice plus table sugar with a char-grilled fatty steak (rib eye is my preferred choice), buttered broccoli on the side plus Optimal ice-cream to follow. With extra double cream if you’re losing too much weight.
The biochemistry of carbosis is very interesting. It might help just over a half of people who try it. Its therapeutic use seems to be of dubious relevance when real food can provide results in 100% of people who comply to carbohydrate reduction. It’s strictly for the anhedonic out there but even these poor souls should be cautious about finding themselves in the group of 13-15% who end up f*cked, metabolically speaking.
No thanks.
Peter”
IMO this calories in vs calories out is just not as simple as people would have you believe. How are you going to measure the calories out? If irt was as simple think then weights would be rising and falling, possibly alarmingly, as the input fails to equate to the output. Yet many people don’t have any significant weight change. Why is this? Are they taht good at matching their food requirements to tgheir energy output? I very much doubt it, so there is something else going on.
AH Notepad re. energy balance.
The microbiome might be where many calories are consumed. Also the brain uses a lot of energy thinking about this problem.
This is a good conversation and worth people looking into. I certainly have. It emphasises that the human body is not a simple machine. It is very complex. And thus different things work for different people …..
I have never ever tried out the extreme high carbs diet used by the experts cited by Dense Minger. And I don’t want to. I suspect that a HFLC diet is far better long term. But it definitely worked for some folk.
By the way, the way that Peter at Hyperlipid blog examined this issue with Denise Minger chiming in, is a good example of a good science discussion…People listening to each other…
Lets hope Tim Noakes gets mentioned somewhere in the debate.
Good
Bill in Oz,
I don’t know why my reply button is in short supply. I have been reading onJason Fung’s site about diabesity. He points out that many foods, fruit included, have quite low glycemic loads.
I wanted to also point out that there seems to be a common misconception that paw paw and papaya are the same fruit. They are not. Paw paw is a new star in the cancer world. I live with quite cold winters and I have a grove of paw paws on my land, but papaya cannot grow here as it is a tropical fruit. Certainly the two trees look different and the fruit is very different.
AnnaM, Here in Oz we call papaya ” paw paw”. It is only when we get to SEA that we actually meet the name ‘papaya’ for the same species of fruit..
I suspect you have “Mountain Paw paw” = Carica pubescens = Vasconcelles pubescens. It has some cold winter hardness. ( but does not cope with ground freezing at all ) I think that this species comes from South America and is completely different in species & gebus to the tropical papaya (= paw paw in Oz ! )
Bill in Oz: According to my Bailey’s (Manual of Cultivated Plants), papaya and paw paw are simply two names for the same species, he lists as Carica Papaya. The lumpers and splitters have been fighting it out, both before this was published (1950), and since, so the current specific name is possibly different, or perhaps more than one variety is now recognized. By the way, you made my mouth water with you’re lovely list of tropical fruits. My personal favorites are the mangosteen, guyabano, and atis, the tart ones, but I must say the durian is the best vanilla ice cream I’ve ever tasted!
Well, I see this as a problem because as I read on the net constantly in Alternative Cancer World this confusion abounds and people do not know what plant they are searching for. I think paw paw is only native to North America so I wonder how this came about, calling papaya paw paw. Papaya is a wonderful fruit and full of digestive enzymes, but I have paw paw supplement here to help kill off and/or prevent a recurrence. We have gotten temperatures of 20 below zero, which is 30 below for you. Our ground does not freeze as deeply as the horrible midwestern states, but it certainly freezes several inches.
American paw paw is Asima triloba. It is related to the tropical, South American Graviola fruit and tree, and they look related. Graviola is far more well known for cancer, but it turns out paw paw is much more powerful.
What/where is SEA? South east Asia?
Now when you pick a pawpaw
Or a prickly pear
And you prick a raw paw
Well next time beware
Don’t pick the prickly pear by the paw
When you pick a pear
Try to use the claw
But you don’t need to use the claw
When you pick a pear of the big pawpaw
Have I given you a clue?
If its good enough for Baloo, its good enough for me
AnnaM: Now we’re getting somewhere! This is the problem with common names for plants. I knew there was an American Papaw (Asimina triloba), but since it doesn’t grow on the west coast, and isn’t planted, I’ve never seen it, and I’d forgotten about it. A member of the same family (Annonaceae, or Custard-apple) as those lovely tropicals like the guyabano and cherimoya. What’s nutty is that the papaya is a member of the Caricaceae, or Pawpaw family. Confusing indeed!
Gary. I always enjoy trying out ‘new’ fruits. There is a local group here in SA called the “Rare Fruits Society” with bimonthly meetings down in Adelaide. They have popularised lots of different rare fruits.But Papaya/ PawPaw ( = Carica…??? ) is not one of them as it needs long hot moist Summers and no frosts in Winter.. But fruits are always available in the supermarkets…so they are not missed..
I have looked for Asima Triloba here in Oz ever since seeing trees in Vuirginia. But it is not readily available..Very rare indeed..Again needs a warm moist summer but can easily cope with ground freeze…
Bill in Oz: Me, too, as far as loving new fruits. The PI is heaven in that regard. The American papaw (Asimina triloba), while a member of a mostly tropical family, is not a tropical at all, growing from Ontario, Canada, to Michigan, Florida, and Texas. I’ve never seen one, except in pictures. We do have a kalamansi in the yard, and I despise it because the thorns are so nasty, and we don’t need it because the neighbor has a lemon (I am amused when my wife picks lemons rather than the kalamansi, which is a huge producer).
Bill in Oz: Have to tell you something funny. Yesterday I was weeding the garlic, and right next to a spot where one didn’t come up was what looked like an onion. An onion it was, hiding, as it were. I had onions there last season, and let some go to seed. I got tons of seed, and one must have escaped the paper bags I put over them to catch the seed!
Rare Fruits, Rare Fruits – I love them!
Not what you thought, but maybe better.
Listen to eight and a half minutes of the Rare Fruits Council and feel your destructive STRESSES vanish.
Gary, Kalamansi is really a must have fruit for Filipinas..My lady loves it to squeeze kalamansi juice in with with soy sauce at the table for putting on food.
I could not find a kalamansi tree when we first got back to Oz. But one day she saw a citrus tree with small fruit on it growing over a side fence next to the street. She grabbed some fruit.. Kalamansi !
I looked at the tree: it was a sour cumquat tree.. And the fruit were cumquats just with an organgish skin instead of green as they are usually picked in the Philippines..And now we have a Kalamansi tree outside our bck window.. Almost 2 meters high
Bill in Oz: Yes, kalamansi is essential to squeeze on any dish with pancit. Inedible otherwise.
PS Gary, I have given up growing leeks from seed. If leeks are left alone after they flower & set seed, they will also grow little bulblets at the bae of their stems – just like garlic.
And the bulblets are far easier & quicker to grow new leeks than from the tiny black leek seed. My leeks are now about 6 inches high from bulbs planted in late January…
I wonder how many other other family plants will do this. Maybe lots. I suspect that is what has happened with the onion plant in among your garlic…
Bill in Oz: Very interesting that one of the onions last fall produced no seed, only bulblets where the flowers normally would be. I planted them, and they’re happy as can be, growing nicely. Never seen this before. I’ve never grown leeks, except elephant garlic, which is a type of leek. They have naturalized in the garden, and seem to prefer poor soil. One allium I regret ever planting is garlic chives, a weed from hell because they make many bulblets at the base, very deep. I’ll be spending the rest of my life trying to get rid of them. Onions I plant in 3″ pots, and separate and transplant them when big enough. Laborious, but it works. I dearly love eating onions!
Gary Elephant garlic is not the same as Leeks. Leeks are in fact a very superior tasting vegetable – at least to me. Elephant garlic are common in old gardens here in Oz. But they were grown for the ornamental flower heads and because they do not needed added watering. But in my experience they do indeed become weedy so I weed them out. You mention garlic chives. I have tried them out here a few times but they keep on dying out on me..Puzzling !
But leeks though are good tucker…Long tall sweet stems about 1-2 inches thick . No garlicy flavor at all. And the national vegetable of Wales !
Leek seed is very hard to get growing. Not enough moisture and they die; too much and they promptly rot. But if you got some seedlings I suspect they would do well if sown/planted in late Summer providing another great vegetable in late Autumn & through Winter. But leave one or two in the ground to flower and set seed and you might also get the bulblets for easier replanting next season
OT: Years ago here in South Africa the paw-paw gained a reputation for medicinal properties. It was said that if you laid paw-paw skin on a wound, orange side down, the wound healed quickly. There were several other things you could allegedly cure with paw-paw as well, which I forget now.
After some months the source of the story was traced to Groote Schuur hospital. They used wound dressings impregnated with bright orange antiseptic which they nicknamed “paw-paw”, and someone obviously misunderstood the situation, and the legend of paw-paw was born, and gained more power as the story spread.
Once the truth was out, the story died as quickly as it had arisen.
I was a student at the time, living in a communal student house. We were all keen to try psychedelics, which were just coming in at the time, but had no access to them, and in fact were too scared to try them, anyway.
However, when the paw-paw story came out, we decided to play a trick on the medical student in our midst, who was also keen to try drugs. The rest of us spread the story that along with its medical properties, the pips of the paw-paw were hallucinogenic. We bought a paw-paw, dried the pips out in the oven overnight, crushed them, mixed them with tobacco, and said to the medical student he was welcome to join us in a smoke.
“You go first,” he said to me.
I gulped. I had no intention of smoking paw-paw pips. Maybe they was even poisonous. But I was on the spot, so I took a big lungful.
It was ghastly. There was an acrid, burning sensation in my lungs. I tried to pretend I was seeing beautiful visions, but I didn’t fool anyone. Nobody else tried it. The only one tricked was me.
I spent the next couple of days wondering if I was going to die, but the burning feeling in my lungs went away and I seem to have suffered no lasting damage. But it was the last time I ever tried a stunt like that.
Sigh. Well, that was obviously a papaya. Paw paw does not have an orange side. The fruit is a light custard yellow. And you can’t go to the store to buy it. It just doesn’t keep or travel well and is very soft when ripe.
It’s entirely possible that papaya has healing properties for wounds.
Paw paw fruits are about the size of a pear and taste wonderful, if you keep the skin away. Something like a banana-mango custard.
Papayas are known as papinos here. I don’t like pawpaws or papaya/papinos much. They both smell slightly of vomit to me.
Having the same species name means they are much like the cabbage – broccoli – Brussels sprout family, which all have the same species name. I love broccoli and my home-made cabbage sauerkraut, but I cannot abide Brussels sprouts. Nasty, bitter little things of no benefit to the human race IMO.
Apparently about 20% of people have a mutation that causes them to perceive Brussels sprouts as bitter. I obviously have a double copy of the gene.
Re Brussels Sprouts- It’s all about preparation. I slice mine up very thin and cook them with sliced leeks. Add a finely chopped garlic clove (raw) and serve with a general dollop of good mayo. and maybe chuck in some broccoli. Bliss. I used to absolutely LOATHE sprouts until I discovered my method of preparation – now I love ‘em. Sometimes, instead of garlic and mayo I add a little ginger and coconut oil.
Previously, to my mind, they really were loathesome. By way of confirmation of this fact, even our Labrador, who would eat ANYTHING, would turn up her nose at them. We always gave our dogs a nice Christmas dinner – the real thing, and Biscuit would gobble up everything but the single Brussels sprout, which she would push round the dish and out.
Sorry, Dr. K. I know that this isn’t a cookery blog but would just like to spread the good news about the sadly misunderstood sprout.
JanB: Amazing! I’ve had quite a few dogs in my life, and know they’ll eat anything that smells even remotely like food. I am a brussels sprout fan, and like them coated with olive oil and roasted in a very hot oven.
Gary, That sounds good. I’ll try it.
Thank you.
Ah, dogs and brussels sprouts! I have had two dogs that 0olved them – a Hungarian Komondor who stood and barked until I peeled some for her as well as us, and a Cocker Spaniel also had ways of making her wishes known. Our present hound likes all green veges. I believe that there are two tribes – sprout lovers and sprout haters. Personally, I rather resent the recent efforts to breed out the bitterness/
Dr K Prickly pear definitely needs to be handled with care. It’s hard to get the prickly out of the skin as they are so tiny. I think it was in Argentina I saw them being bbq’d to burn the prickles off before eating..
By the way Martin we have a “Papaya ‘ ( It used to be called Paw paw when I was young ) ointment here in Oz. It’s popular as an alternative for boils burn, chaffed skin etc ..But I have not a clue what it is made of.
🙂
Anna M : After reading your reply about getting some ground freeze on your land, I confess I do not know what it is you have. There seems to be a lot of botanical confusion.
Well, it’s the American paw-paw, now sold as a standardized supplement by a company called Nature’s Sunshine and called Cell-Reg. And the founder of that company has done years of research upon it.
Asima triloba then ?
JD P, yes indeed a rare fruit ! rare bass, guitar and violin ? Thanks for the destressing 8 minutes….
Meanwhile, just when it seems that common sense is poised to prevail, I must report that the vegans appear to be mounting a whole new effort. I’ve been inundated with offers in my email to watch video series on this and that. It started with one on the medical healing properties of cannabis, which was very good, and there was Ty Bollinger’s series called The Truth About Cancer. I’m watching cancer-related ones and now I am watching one about diabetes and obesity, the epidemic.
I’m getting a little flustered. They interview some pretty intelligent people and many of their messages are very good. They are going after the processed and junk food diet (in my opinion this is the main problem) and really getting it clear to “regular folks” that this whole way of eating just has to stop. But they are also, while giving vital information, hitting the whole foods, plant based diet very, very hard. Over and over and over! It becomes convincing after a while, especially when laced with what I consider excellent advice and educational items. I don’t know who these people are or what their agendas are. They don’t seem particularly Christian because several of them mention evolution a lot.
They seem just as down on dairy as meat. These people are truly vegan. I’ve been able to pick apart of couple of them, but mostly they don’t cite data. They just state this stuff like it was factual.
T. Colin Campbell was on there. He wrote the China Study. It is amazing how many people were converted by his book. My husband and I were laughing about how odd it is that they so often use the Chinese as an example of people who live this way, when anyone who knows anything about the Chinese knows that they eat absolutely everything alive, whether it walks, crawls, swims, flies or runs. And the favorite meats in China are pork and duck, not exactly lean!
Of course they have been very poor and will not have our same diseases of excess.
At the same time that these guys have a new approach to low fat and vegan eating, I think they will basically lose people because people are simply not going to go vegan. Oh, and several mention eating with no “SOS” – added salt, oil or sugar. So, no salt? Where does this crap come from? And yes, they are aware that processed cooking oils are not good. They actually expect people to eat mostly fruits and vegetables, perhaps grains and potatoes, and not add salt or oil, no margarine, and if I’m not mistaken, no coconut oil or butter.
AnnaM, unfortunately vegans are very fervent believers and always keen to gain converts. It is fact a new sort of faith driven by what they see as a desire to save the planet.
On one occasion I had a young female vegan stay at my farm as a WWOOF for 3 weeks.
It was only on arriving that she announced she was a vegan and that she would not eat anything I prepared for meals. But that she would prepare the evening meals for all of us on the farm. So for 3 weeks I ate vegan. No oil, salt, no butter, no dairy…t was poor fare
I think what I’m trying to say is I am not sure these people are part of the vegan community per se, or just exactly what. But there seems a continuum among the videos I have watched that is leading inexorably to all sorts of ‘factual’ proof that we need to eat as little of animal foods as possible. The bait and switch is that they are offering some really good info on cleaning up our lives, but then hook them in with the vegan stuff. I recall a few people who were interviewed that I know are not on the vegan bandwagon, like Jason Fung and Dr. Mercola. But on a series about diabetes, that is cutting edge and against the mainstream advice, you’ve got to include Fung. But the snippets they have are not about him going against the dietary advice they are peddling.
I actually think, and have said here before, that I suspect we are having diseases of excess. The food is good, (at least for some of us like me) but we take in too much flour and sugar, and most people gorge on junk food, and drink sweetened soft drinks or artificially sweetened ones which provoke the brain and have an insulin response to that people get fatter on them anyway, and we also snack all day long, never giving our digestive system a rest, and never going a few days eating lighter fare.
I’m impressed by the wisdom of the church I grew up in – eastern Orthodox, which has many fasting days regulated throughout the year, in which nearly half of the days are actually vegan, sometimes without oil. Not that regular families always obey it all, but still. 4 major fast periods a year plus 2 days a week. I think this gives the body a nice break from rich foods and ups your fiber and all that, but you still get plenty of the animal fats and protein. Even a rich person, if they are pious, will not be able to get into the kind of excess as, say, Henry the 8th.
The Vegans I have met are by no means all clean eaters. We have a vegan week in the uk and in my home town I attended a vegan food courtyard where you could eat a variety of food. There was also a talk given and towards th end I put my hand up and suggested that the food on sale was mostly unhealthy and that although I avoid meat there was little there for me to eat. This indeed drew a hostile response from the crowd who by and large are ethical vegans. For me however this has positive notations, if Vegans and Veggies eat potentially just as badly as typical western diet munchers then it makes me wonder what results can be found if WFPB is adopted. I continue to be led by the data and the diets of long living populations who will probably at the end of all this be found to providing the best clues
I’m noticing more than a few people “claiming” not to be vegan while actually pushing a vegan agenda. This must be a new course at Training School.
AnnaM, many of those traditional fasting periods did have beneficial effects on people. nd intermittant fasting is now very popular among the informed folk with an awareness of good food.
A PS : PD Mangan has a discussion about insulin resistance and the benefits of of eating a high protein foods ( instead of high carb foods ) in reducing T2D.
http://roguehealthandfitness.com/higher-protein-greater-weight-loss/
PD suggests that it is the trend toward high carb diets over the past 30 years which has lead to increased obesity and T2D.
Andy S,
You said “Hi AnnaM, the problem with insulin resistance is the term itself. Low insulin can lead to insulin resistance and is beneficial.”
Why would low insulin level lead to insulin resistance? How could that be beneficial?
AnnaM, for explanation about insulin resistance have a look at this reference, there are others by Peter Hyperlipid
https://www.docmuscles.com/does-long-term-ketosis-cause-insulin-resistance/
Statins are supposed to lower ferritin (iron). By the way Curcumin & Quercetin are helpful with iron reduction. From a study – Certain statin effects appear to be mediated by mechanisms similar to iron reduction. Lower ferritin levels were associated with significantly better outcomes in FeAST,42 whereas higher, presumably better, HDL/LDL ratios were not… Favorable outcomes might be attained without a need for universal drug treatment to achieve a low risk…. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673278/
Here is an entry I made on a Swedish blog (Annika Dahlqvist) which I think is well on topic here and here as partly Google-translated from Swedish.
———–
I get very tired when I think of how the “establishment” acts regarding diabetes.
For starters, recognize that they don’t have “a clue” about what causes diabetes even though we now have 500 million diabetics in the world. Yet they claim that what they are doing in medicine is “science”! Why don’t they just feel ashamed of taking the word science in its mouth.
Second, they deny the importance of diet, but when they do, they turn it completely upside down concepts. The horse ends up behind the carriage.
The horse is in this case is the carbohydrates we eat and that is actually the part of the food that pulls the blood sugar carriage with it. The “evidence based medicine” are now putting the horse behind the cart and explains that carbohydrates are “innocent” when it comes to diabetes.
Diabetics Type 2 is, by definition, high blood sugar and must be brought down in order to address the disease. The carbohydrates in the diet, bread, pasta, rice and potatoes, are the ones that gets the blood sugar to soar and a fact that is so fundamentally pure physiology that you must facepalm when healthcare in principle denies this relationship and instead recommend diabetics to just eat carbohydrates. At the same time they forbid saturated fat that does not raise blood sugar in the least. They recommend instead plant oils with their polyunsaturated fatty acids known to increases the degree of inflammation in the body of the diabetics but the last thing these patients need is actually more inflammation in their wretched bodies.
The whole thing is just incredibly sick.
As the “icing on the cake” insulin is pumped into type 2 diabetics who already produce large amounts of insulin ( “hyperinsulinemia”) when they have become insulin resistant. Then you should also know that high insulin levels are considered to be part of the actual course of the disease in diabetics.
All diabetics who master their illness and when insulin functions properly in the body, ie, with normal insulin levels, by throwing out the carbohydrates from their diet and replace them with natural saturated fat can attest to how insane medical advice today is.
That the medical establishment around the world now haunt and prosecute doctors who turn their diabetic patients healthy by recommending LCHF to them is grotesque, and especially when it is scientifically proven how great LCHF diet works for diabetics.
Annika Dahlqvist was a pioneer in the world and, at the risk of his own medical license, managed with the feat of getting LCHF approved for the treatment of diabetic and overweight in Sweden in 2008. We will now see how it goes in Australia with Dr. Gary Fettke who was silenced after saving his diabetic patients from amputations by using the dietary guidelines for LCHF and is now struggling to be cleared and with Prof. Tim Noakes in South Africa where the “judgment” in the latest “trial” falls at the end of this month . More than 35 000 from all over the world have now signed a petition to Noakes defense.
Is it strange that I now see the medical establishment as a “criminal” establishments?
Goran it is such a great pity that the USA originated false medicine & fake science for treating type 2 diabetes has penetrated even to Sweden….
But great to read that Swedes are pushing back….
Goran. The sooner the NHS routinely measures insulin levels the better. Measuring blood glucose levels/clearance is very interesting, but I believe insulin levels are so important.
In type II, I understand that insulin is discharged on ingesting carbs. So, when glucose levels remain elevated, it does seem a bit daft to administer yet more insulin. (I had this discussion 30 years ago, whilst working on a surgical ward dealing with diabetic amputations, but I got no explanation.) If background insulin levels were measured and found to be consistently high,( and they will be), surely that is the time to advise patients to go low carb, thus reducing excess (unhealthy) insulin sloshing around their blood stream. If blood glucose starts to get scarce, the good old glucagon will be itching to kick in and release glycogen reserves in order to safely raise glucose levels, just sufficiently for the minimum of insulin to be produced to cope with it. And thus the cycle continues. With high insulin in the blood stream, the glucagon doesn’t get a look in, so….keep insulin levels low…so minimise carb ingestion. Simple? Physiology is so clever.
I learned this business in the 1960s and have no reason to disbelieve it; unfortunately, essential physiology seems to have been taken over by extremely complex explanations, such that few of us seem to understand the process, and, perpetuated by professionals encouraging type II’s to eat lots of carbs! [ to hell with the consequences…..Oh those multiple prescriptions for Big Pharma].
I think low carb regimes are healthy for everyone. Note, I say LOW carb, not to be equated with NO carb. Good carbohydrates have lots of goodies in them, and type I diabetics (totally dependent on injected insulin) are advised to eat healthy carbs in “moderation”…that old fashioned concept
I think I am beginning to sound like a stuck needle on an ancient gramophone record.
p.s. on a personal level….red sauerkraut and bone stock are working very well for me these days, thanks to your encouragement.
Doctors believe that glucose = bad, and insulin = good. So lower glucose and higher insulin is doubleplusgood. It is more than likely that the substance doing the real damage in diabetes is the insulin – not the glucose.
So, we appear to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Drs I have been in contact with do not agree, or else do not discuss with a Registered Nurse. Surely some others must see the logic?
Dr. K, does insulin damage endothelial cells? Search turned up this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18407031
The effects of insulin on the endothelium.
Abstract
Recent data suggest that diabetes in general, and particularly diabetes in association with insulin resistance, obesity, and hyperglycemia, results in inflammatory changes including the production of cytokines, adhesion molecules, and reactive oxygen species that are toxic to the endothelium and could lead to vascular damage. Insulin suppresses these effects, either indirectly by decreasing glucose levels or directly by stimulating nitric oxide production and inhibiting important pathways in the inflammatory cascade. In addition, insulin directly reduces plasma concentrations of adhesion molecule production in endothelial cells and thus may decrease vascular inflammation. Some of these effects of insulin may be attenuated in patients with insulin resistance, and this finding may provide a mechanistic link for the increase in vascular disease seen in patients with insulin resistance. Doses of insulin adequate to restore normoglycemia may help overcome these abnormalities, although some patients may require insulin sensitization with lifestyle changes or pharmacologic therapy.
Appears that insulin is good for endothelial cells. Help!
Andy S. Forgive me, (and maybe I am having a ‘senior moment’), but I haven’t a clue what that abstract was saying. Can anyone do a quick précis for me, please?
Jennifer, insulin is good. Insulin resistance is another matter.
Thankyou. There is certainly a need for insulin, otherwise the body would never have evolved to produce it. As to insulin resistance, I think I need a better understanding of its role in type II. In the mean time, my simple belief is that by ingesting as few carbs as possible, it can be avoided.
I.e. Minimal ingestion of healthy carbs = good insulin.
I.e. High ingestion of unhealthy carbs = insulin resistance.
I.e. pure insulin = good.
I.e. insulin resistance = bad.
My present line of interest is the gut biome, and I understand that statins interfere negatively with the good bacteria in the colon, which has a direct bad influence on glucose metabolism. Could this be the reason that statins are a cause of type II diabetes ?
Malcolm, I am way over the 12 comments per post you suggested a week ago. But my interest in this is whole area of health is still strong.
I do not have type 2 diabetes but your comment that it is ‘insulin which does the real damage’ has made me sit up and think.
Among the questions in my head are :
‘What does this mean ? Presumably high insulin levels not normal levels.”
” Does high glucose do damage ?”
Anyway I went googling and came up with some interesting information here in a book online with a section about this :
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=kw0ib6CNwNQC&pg=PA332&lpg=PA332&dq=%22Insulin+damage+%22&source=bl&ots=naa-kmUp0O&sig=Fy3xvmYwrJoofCEsPsb_II7uoeY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja36C7oePZAhUMgLwKHXMxCgI4ChDoAQgoMAA#v=onepage&q=%22Insulin%20damage%20%22&f=false
Andy,
Very interesting.
This paper is eleven years old and Fonseca VA seems to have lost interest since then.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=(((Fonseca+VA%5BAuthor%5D)+AND+insulin%5BTitle%5D)+AND+endothelial%5BTitle%2FAbstract%5D)+AND+resistance%5BTitle%2FAbstract%5D
But there’s no lack of current interest on the part of others!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=((insulin%5BTitle%5D)+AND+endothelial%5BTitle%2FAbstract%5D)+AND+resistance%5BTitle%2FAbstract%5D
JDPatten, I was searching for deleterious effects of insulin. Lot of info on insulin resistance. Question is, is excess insulin worse than excess glucose. Both are needed in small quantities.
Any chance of having his lecture put up on the net for those out of town (or the country?) please?
Sent from Outlook
________________________________
If you read through the blog you will find links to various routes you can use to get videos after the event. They are not free, but then why should they be?
Sadly I wont be in the UK otherwise I would love to attend. I have been rereading some posts the last couple of days and I just want to say a big thank you to you Dr Kendrick. You must come home some days and think why am I running this dam thing. I agree with most of your views and not sure on a small percent concerning diet but that has added to the ride rather than detracted from it. I hope the talk go’s well and the book which by the way will put you one ahead of that money grabbing Dr Greger 🙂
Who has ever accused Greger of being money grabbing ? I have not. Rather I have accused him of being a misleading zealot.
I’ll happily second (or third maybe) smartersig’s “thank you” to Dr K and repeat my suggestion that he add a “tip jar” to the blog if possible, if for no other reason than to allow some of us grateful readers to help defray costs.
I stumbled over a 10 min video worth the time in my eyes and ears. And it for sure relates to the subject of the meeting with Gary Taubes.
It is about a food industry (criminal??) which is using sophisticated science to make their food (it is not food but substitutes with long shelf lives.
Very informative video. I was interested in the concept of “vanishing caloric density” — food that melts, and fools your brain into thinking the calories have vanished. (Cheetos and the like.)
It throws light on something I have always wondered about — why can I eat nearly a thousand calories of my favourite biscuits, then go on to have a normal meal, as if I hadn’t eaten at all? Somehow the caloric intake from biscuits wasn’t registering on my internal meter.
What seems to be happening is that the enzymes in one’s saliva immediately start dissolving the biscuits, turning them into a sugary liquid, and sugary liquids are not recognized as calories by the body. Probably because in nature sugary liquids are never found by themselves (except honey), only in association with fruit which has to be eaten, and the fruit pulp is counted by the internal meter as it is swallowed.
What/where is the “internal calory meter” please?
“Internal calorie meter” is my shorthand for whatever is inside us that tells us to stop eating because we’ve had enough.
It must be something we are born with, because babies stop suckling when they’ve had enough. And it stays with us, because adults of normal weight stop eating when they’ve had enough even though they are surrounded by food.
But obese people don’t seem to get the message. Either their internal systems are broken, or they ignore them, or (my theory) modern industrial food somehow bypasses the system.
I have no idea how the system works. Something to do with leptin and ghrelin, I believe.
‘Leptin (from Greek λεπτός leptos, “thin”), “the hormone of energy expenditure”, is a hormone predominantly made by adipose cells that helps to regulate energy balance by inhibiting hunger. Leptin is opposed by the actions of the hormone ghrelin, the “hunger hormone”.- — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptin
Goran, Well this does not tell me anything I did not already know. But it does put it all in our faces straight down the line… And so well worth the watch. Thank you.
So it looks like the name paw paw is actually a derivative of papaya. I had assumed it was a Native American name, since it grows only here. Martin, you say you didn’t like it, but I find it hard to believe you’ve ever had it. It is not available in stores but maybe that have cultivated it somewhere in Europe?
Papaya, I agree, is not very tasty.
Bill, as far as insulin resistance, Dr. Fung says that protein also stimulates insulin somewhat. The most neutral of the macronutrients is fat. Anyway, I think protein can be over done.
Anna,
In most of the English-speaking world, the word “pawpaw” refers to Carica papaya. Only in America does pawpaw mean Asimina triloba, because the early settlers though the Asimina tasted like a pawpaw. We have the custard-apple, which apparently is similar to the American pawpaw. I have never tasted a custard-apple or an American pawpaw.
Cardiologist away? Then you might be more likely to survive a heart attack, study suggests https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/03/09/fewer-heart-attack-patients-die-top-cardiologists-away-conferences/
I think one day we all should do this. On a Pharma board a person named Biomaven who is the Emcee used a continuous glucose monitor for 10 days. He seem surprised with the readings. I.e. – I’ve also discovered I spike on bananas but not on white bread. He posted starting @ 49660 http://www.siliconinvestor.com/subject.aspx?subjectid=26145&LastNum=49680&NumMsgs=25
Hi Dr Kendrick I am a little late to this comments party but there a few points I need to make. I will preface these by saying I am not in any dietary camp and I eat a variety of foods without focussing on a particular macronutrient.
I can’t agree with you that “Taubes’ skeptical, rigorously scientific approach to nutrition science is unparalleled”. In particular, when it comes to carbs/sugar/insulin Taubes ruthlessly cherry picks studies to support his hypothesis.
To try and prove his point, His NuSi initiative has funded two robust studies which both disproved his thinking that insulin/carbs are uniquely fattening and that LCHF diets offer some metabolic advantage for fat loss. Ask him whether he still clings to his views. Keep in mind there have been numerous metabolic ward studies that have shown that isocaloric diets with varying fat/carb ratios do not lead to any greater weight loss.
In truth, Taubes is one of a long list of authors that write books that cherry pick to suit their agenda – and people swallow it – because they don’t get to see the omitted studies that refute the hypothesis…oh those black swans lol.
The true irony here is that although humans spend billions and billions on studies in the field of diet and nutrition, our collective health is going to hell in a hand basket and we are getting more obese. Lions, elephants and other wild animals don’t seem to suffer the same kinds of issues, and aren’t plagued by obesity epidemics.
The biggest problem has been the mindless obsession with calories, despite the fact that caloric values for macronutrients are only approximations and have never been proven (eg fat has 9 kcal/gram). Also, Calories don’t have mass. When you put food/liquid into your body it’s the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen atoms that have mass…and they have to go somewhere. Carbs are ALL converted to glycolytic intermediates and used for energy, to supply carbons for anabolic pathways such as pentode phosphate pathway, stored as glycogen, or if consumed in major excess…converted to fat. Proteins are broken down to component amino acids which are used to create muscle, enzymes and other compounds, or can be used as energy or to produce glucose via gluconeogenesis. The excess nitrogen from amino acids is converted to urea and excreted via the urine. Fats are broken into fatty acids and are used for energy, used for anabolic processes, used to make cell membranes or stored in adipose tissue.
The main way humans lose mass is via respiration…which produces CO2 and H20. If you are putting more carbon into your body than can be used via respiration over time…you will gain weight.
Most of the biochemistry associated with energy homeostasis was discovered in the early to mid 1900s. Unfortunately the field of nutrition largely ignores the biochemistry and instead relies on results of poorly designed studies to come up with recommendations.
If you look at historic photos of Eskimos, from a time when the vast bulk of their calories came from fat, the children are all chubby, the women a little plump. and many of the men are a chubby-cheeked as well. Clearly, a high-fat diet doesn’t guarantee slimness.
Martin, don’t worry eating a high fat diet will not make you fat. The Inuit have evolved with more brown fat and different fat distribution. Brown fat will generate more heat when metabolism runs on fat.
OT: Spot the deliberate mistake in this paragraph from The Guardian:
“New research, published on Sunday, reveals that Australia’s free HPV vaccine program in schools has led to a dramatic decline in future cervical cancer rates.” — https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/04/australia-could-become-first-country-to-eradicate-cervical-cancer
Since reading Dr Kendrick I have become far more careful about believing reports of medical breakthroughs, but I nearly missed this one.
Er… how do you know future cervical cancer rates have declined dramatically? You can’t know, unless you have a time machine. You can only say that future cervical cancer rates are expected to decline dramatically, or more accurately, we hope that rates will decline dramatically.
It looks promising, but let’s not count our chooks before they are hatched.
Martin, sorry to contradict, but it doesn’t look promising at all. When you consider the adverse effects, with many children damaged by the vaccine, it is another greed and lies position adopted by the manufacturers.
We had a heated discussion recently with Bill in Oz, when he made a supporting statement about Gardasil. It is an unnecessary treatment for a relatively small problem, but the treatment is a BIG problem.
AH,
I’ll take your word for it that Gardasil is bad (no time to view videos).
The question I put to you: For vaccination, how bad does the problem need to be?
In the case of Australia, population 24 million, 898 new cervical cancer cases, 230 deaths.
https://www.cancer.org.au/about-cancer/types-of-cancer/cervical-cancer.html
That is indeed a relatively small problem to justify mass immunization of schoolchildren. How many deaths would you say is necessary before an immunization program is justified?
IMO (bigoted) no vaccine is necessary for any reason. Nutrition is the fix for diseases and conditions, vaccines are a totally unnatural invasion of tissues. Vitamin C is probably the single most important nutrient. You would do well to look at Suzanne Humphries videos and her website, http://www.drsuzanne.net for information about vitamin C.
AH Notepad: Agreed. In addition, I think it cannot be a good idea to alter the immune system of an infant before it has even begun to develop.
PS Martin, Even if people had some possible benefit from vaccines, they may end up being autistic or suffering from Alzheimers. Be aware the adjuvant in HPV vaccines appears not to be aluminium hydroxide, but amorphous aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulphate (AAHS).
View at Medium.com
Well AH Notepad, Gardasil has been introduced here in Oz to all girls at school as part of the standard vaccination ‘process’. Whatever the Guardian says about future cervical cancer rates, we will know in a few years what is actually happening. The experiment has happened so to speak.
Bill in Oz, In effect the electorate is allowing the government and their paymasters, the pharmaceutical companies, to conduct this “experiment” on their children. I am incandescent with rage (figuratively speaking) that this disgusting assualt is happening. It is not with active permission, it is with apathy. Maybe you should make a point of talking to the parents of a vaccine damaged child and see if you maintain your position.
Bill in Oz: What is happening in Australia with vaccine policy is truly horrifying. Nobody knows what role, if any, HPV infection plays in the etiology of cervical cancer. A terrible affliction, but quite rare, and easily caught with routine screening. Gardasil is clearly a very dangerous vaccine. In the trials the investigators were told to log all adverse events occurring after 8 days post-vaccination as “new medical conditions,” and thus unrelated to the administration. A worldwide scandal it has become.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/12/health/great-recession-health-study/index.html The toll 2008 GFC took ie Stress reaction to Financial meltdown
Bit off topic but i am sitting here thinking five days after having an icd fitted that things could have been totally different. When i went to the wellman clinic before my 50th birthday i was told my bmi,cholesterol and blood pressure were all ok and i was fit and healthy only to suffer a heart attack six months later.
Had i been told my blood was thick my arteries had calcium/plaque and i was deficient in this or that vitamin/mineral and told what to do about it, it could have saved the nhs a lot of money and me a whole lot of problems. The screening process needs to be alot better instead of closing the door after the horse has bolted.
On a side note if tai chi and qigong are so good for health why dont the chinese live as long as the japanese and koreans.
Martin, I missed your reply comment about sourdough way up above..Here I always cover the starter with a cotton cloth and put it aside for a day or so in my house- not outside. Also once I have my starter I put half aside and put that half in the freezer…Till next time it’s needed..
Dear Dr. Kendrick,
what’s your opinion about the idea, repeated by some people in the web, that a low-carb diet may reduce insuline sensitivity? I have read the case of one woman who was following a low-carb diet and became diabetic. As she tells, when she began to add carbohydrates, her diabetes disappeared. Can that be true in some cases? It seems to me strange, but I have read it in several sites. Can pancreas become “lazy” due to lack of carbohydrates??
I’ll thank your answer because I’m prediabetic since some months a go, was following a low-carb diet and don’t know if I am doing wrong. Iim following you some time ago and your medical opinions seem very interesting to me, since you think and rethink your ideas and don’t conform to scientific dogmas just for “comfort”.
Thanks a lot for reading this.
I wish you the best. Go on with your attitude. It’s corageous and intelligent.
It is difficult to know how adding carbohydrates to the diet can decrease blood sugar levels. If true, it is interesting, but I am at a loss to explain how it can happen.
Then you consider it possible. What can I do? Adding carbohydrates o reducing them?
I would recommend a visit to your GP. If it is MODY, then you will need proper medical management
Test: I’ve sent a comment but it does not appear. Must it be approved?
Yes
Dear Dr. Kendrick,
I’m following you some time ago and am very interested in your fundamented medical opinions and your valiant attitude towards conventional scientific thinking.
Is it true, as some say, that a long term low carb diet can provoke loss of insulin sensitivity? I have even read the case of a woman following a lcd that, she says, provoked her diabetes. She affirms that introducing more carbos in her diet cured her. Can that be true?
I’m especially interested in this, because I’m following a low-carb diet (with some infractions) since 2013 and now I’ve been diagnosed with prediabetes. That doesn’t make sense to me and it’s for that reason that I have paid attention to those theories and experience. But it makes me nervous, maybe I’m doing it bad.
Since I respect greatly your scientific opinions and attitude, I hope, not a medical advice, of course, but an opinion about this theory.
Thank you very much and lots of luck in your scientific and personal life. My simpathies for you
Some people develop MODY (Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young) or something like that. This is a genetic problem whereby the pancreas stops producing enough insulin (as per type I diabetes), but it happens later in life. This has nothing to do with diet, it just happens. I am not saying this is what has happened, but it is not unlikely. It is estimated that 100 million people worldwide have MODY.
Hi, Dr. Kendrick – I’m going to be very cheeky now and slightly contradict you. I have Mody3 and was diagnosed 60 years ago when I was 15, as was my brother and one of his children. We all inherited a fault on the HFN1alpha gene from my mother and grandmother which causes an insufficient production on insulin and is accompanied by a low renal threshold. We were born with it but it took some years for it to be expressed, although, looking back, I realised that the dreadful Candida infection I had when I was 13 or so was almost certainly due to the glucose in my pee.
In cases where it’s not discovered until later life, it’s because the insulin insuffiency is so low that it doesn’t cause symptoms and thus remains undiagnosed and it’s progression anyway is very slow.
There are at least 5 types of MODY, all with different outcomes and treatment. I was very relieved to get my proper genetic diagnosis, even though I was told I had MODY shortly after it was discovered back in, I think, the late 80s by a very excited young endocrinologist, as it gave me a much better understanding of my condition and how to tackle it – my diabetic nurse always insisted that I was insulin resistant even though I had not a single symptom. I ditched the Metformin and felt much better for it and now just take a low dose of gliclazide + LCHF. (Mody3s are very sensitive to the effects of gliclazide and usually only need small amounts.
For other followers of your blog who may be interested in the subject, there is an excellent website called phlaunt.com which give details of all the different types of MODY.
Sorry if I’m teaching grandmother to suck eggs. I follow your blog assiduously and am very very grateful to you for all the excellent information I have gathered here.
JanB
Jan. MODY was not a known diagnosis sixty years ago. Nor was anyone able to identify genes responsible for diseases sixty years ago. So, I am intrigued.
Dr. K., this MODY diagnosis got my attention for several reasons. Anything “maturity onset” could be from wear, tear and neglect as a body ages and adequate nutrition could be a factor.
My hypothesis is that if MODY is caused by defective genes they would be in the mitochondria.The solution for better health is to maintain healthy mitochondria in all cell types.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4404204/
Mitochondrial regulation of β-cell function: maintaining the momentum for insulin release
“Among the major metabolic triggers of β-cell dysfunction in T2DM is glucose and lipid-induced toxicity.”
Do you mean I can have MODY? What would you do in my case. I have reduced my carbohydrates. Have I done bad?
Please don’t worry about it. The easiest way to find out is to eat a moderate carb meal and test your your urine for glucose a couple of hours later. Urine should show zero glucose and with the numbers you posted earlier I’m sure yours will. You can pick up urine testing strips from a chemist or from that nice Mr. Amazon. No special equipment needed.
I have just 5,8 glycosilated and 98 fasting glucose. That does not seem a type 1 diabetes, don’t you thinl? Or it does?
Your blood glucose levels seem to me to be perfectly normal. I envy you.
Don’t be.
Yes, I am aware of that, but stupidly didn’t read through my long waffle carefully enough until it was too late.
In 1958 I was diagnosed with ‘mild’ diabetes and a low renal threshold. There was confusion because I was utterly unlike the, ahem, fat old ladies at the clinic. I was stick thin (as was my brother 7 years earlier, the same age and with the added bonus of TB. I was sent off with Rastinon and, would you believe it, a low carb diet book and a set of scales to weigh my food. All very cruel, I remember thinking, for a 15 year old. It wasn’t until I went to a diabetic clinic many years later that the endo, actually there were two them, announced “we think you have Mody! No different categories then and no genetic test. It was based on a BGTT and the low renal threshold. It wasn’t until last year that I had a genetic test done by Exeter Med School as they were eager to chase up family members of their Mody patients, one of whom was my niece.
So there you have it. I’m happy to say I don’t seem to have passed on the faulty gene to either of my children, now in their 50s.
I am still stick thin, and apart from tragic feet and rather wonky kidneys I enjoy rude health on account of my now terribly sensible lifestyle. Lots of tennis etc. and LCHF.
Cheers
JanB, all that information you give seems to me very interesting. Thank you
I don’t understand what you mean by ‘don’t be’ (??)
Hi Angela – my reply,’don’t be’ was addressed to Dr. K., who said he was intrigued by my response and I was just clarifying the matter, as in no need to be intrigued.
Do take a look at the Phlaunt.com website for info about the various Modys since you are interested.
Cheers
J
Andy S, “Among the major metabolic triggers of β-cell dysfunction in T2DM is glucose and lipid-induced toxicity”
I do not understand scientific language. Does that paragraph means that lipids are bad for the pancreas? I have learned in the last times, not in accordance with the main currents, that lipids are not guilty in diabetes…
Could you respond to me?
Hi Angela, I am also struggling with scientific terms. The article did not specify the “lipid”. What I suspect is that the lipid causing mitochondrial damage is actually the “heart healthy polyunsaturated oil”, i.e. linoleic acid. Not to be confused with lipoproteins i.e. “bad cholesterol”. Here is a reference:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17023268
“Induction of mitochondrial nitrative damage and cardiac dysfunction by chronic provision of dietary omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids.”
All mitochondria are damaged. Important to learn how to keep them healthy. There is a lot of confusion about i.e. why is “bad cholesterol” essential for life and the doctor wants to reduce it?
Are then nuts bad??
Ángela: Nuts are good in small amounts. They are rich in minerals, and our gut bacteria appreciate the fiber. The only downside with nuts, that I know of, is their high omega 6/omega 3 fatty acid ratio. The way to neutralize that is to consume omega 3 rich foods such as fatty fish. And avoid vegetable oils and manufactured food, which have a high omega6/omega3 ratio as well. Purchase them as fresh as possible, since they (the polyunsaturated fatty acids) can and do go rancid from exposure to sunlight and oxygen.
Gary, Jan B and AndyS. Yes, nuts are good, and to be fair, can only be eaten in moderation as they are so filling, so I would not worry too much about the omega 3:6 ratio when consuming the nuts and seeds in their natural form. My real concern is the industrial extraction of oils, and their use in high temperature cooking.
In recent months we have heard much about the importation to UK of chemicalised milk and poultry, along with denatured American foods, once we leave the EU.
Apologies to our American bloggers, but I worry about the UK being flooded with unhealthy foods, including extracted oils used to excess in the States. I have learned much on this blog about good and bad foods, and some of the good stuff probably comes from American sources.
But the modern American diet (MAD) seems dreadful, and what happens in USA, crosses the Atlantic eventually.
It is all to do with money.
Angela, nuts are good. It’s the vile vegetable oils and margarine that are bad.
Angela, 1/4 cup of nuts per day are good, read about them here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257681/
Health Benefits of Nut Consumption
“two essential fatty acids, linoleic and alpha-linolenic, cannot be synthesized in the body and must be obtained from food. These basic fats, found in plant foods, are used to build specialized fats called omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.”
The bad PUFAs that promote inflammation are from industrial seed oils- soy, canola & corn
Angela – for more information for those of us who are uneasy with the scientific language, I would recommend the recently published “Eat Rich, Live Long” by Ivor Cummings and Jeffrey Gerber. It’s available from Amazon in book and kindle form and is extremely informative and written in a reader friendly way. I’m half way through and enjoying it. Also, our own Dr. K’s “The Great Cholesterol Con” – a book everyone should read.
Thanks to everyone of you who have responded 😄
Hope the meeting went well.
JanB. If you have half an hour to waste there is the DEFRA paper published last month “Health and Harmony-future for food, farming and health in a GREEN BREXIT” . It ignores all the fine work done to show that eating local food has a positive effect on health and the locality, and it ignores the issue of importing large amounts of poor quality foodstuffs to supplement food shortages that the EU addressed in the 1970s/80s..( and there are suggestions that UK may have food shortages after Brexit, but never mind…cheap, poor quality imports will fill the gap). They want jam on both sides of the bread….stating that during the time we have been in EU, our soil quality, and farming techniques etc etc have deteriorated, yet state that our great farmers are producing excellent crops. How come?
Who writes this garbage? Who stands to gain from such rubbish ideas?
Thanks, Jennifer – I’ll search it out. I’m a great believer in eating locally produced food – veg, fruit, meat, cheese. Everything.
I’m positively grief stricken about brexit and can only believe it will all come to bad. Sigh.
yes, I reckon you are correct. The ‘Eat Rich, Live Long ” book which you recommend is excellent. My present book is “Gut” by Giulia Enders, and is a great, funny read, whilst being jolly good science too.
“Gut” – I read that when it first was published and thought it was/is fantastic. Another ‘must read’ for anyone interested in the goings on inside the strange land we call the human body.
Maybe off topic, maybe not. But, by following a link posted somewhere above, I ended up reading Tim Noake’s story. And I just could not help but notice, all those pictured who went after him, with one exception, were women. The story talks about academic mobbing, which sounds very similar to any other type of mob behaviour. And it’s all women plus one man. What does that mean?
http://foodmed.net/2018/03/noakes-will-academic-mobsters-silence-him/