Keep 'em tight, Part 2.

Keep 'em tight was about the ramifications of excessive gut permeability, a.k.a."Leaky Gut".

Graphic From: www.leakygutcure.com

Almost as an afterthought, I added to that post a link to Physiology and Immunology of Digestion. As this article is interesting & informative and since only 706 people have read the first post since it was published (the link was added quite some time later), I thought that I'd give it another airing, with a picture to make the post more attractive.

A little moderate to vigorous physical activity does more than you think.

There are others!

Hat-tip to Bill Lagakos for tweeting this:- The Influence Of Physical Activity On Vascular Complications And Mortality In Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

"RESULTS: Forty-six percent of participants reported undertaking moderate to vigorous physical activity for >15 minutes at least once in the previous week. During a median of 5 years of follow up, 1,031 patients died, 1,147 experienced a major cardiovascular event and 1,136 a microvascular event. Compared to patients who undertook no or mild physical activity, those reporting moderate to vigorous activity had a decreased risk of cardiovascular events (HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.69-0.88, p < 0.0001), microvascular events (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.76-0.96, p0.010) and all-cause mortality (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.73-0.94, p0.0044)."

A HR of 0.83 is a reduction of 17%. That's quite impressive, for at least 15 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity at least once a week. Must. Get. Off. This. Sofa. More. Often.

Monday musings.

Firstly, a video.

Sometimes you gotta fight, when you're a man.

Secondly, another video!
Need I say more? No, but I'm going to, anyway!

On the internet, there is no such thing as anonymity. I can find every post made by an anonymous keyboard warrior and cross-reference the information within. I'm a nerd, lol!

Last night, after telling her how I found Eddie Mitchell's name and address in a few minutes, a karaoke friend challenged me to find her real name (she uses a nickname), address & photo of her house taken from Google Street View and PM it to her on Facebook. She gave me 24 hours.

I got home at ~1am this morning. At ~2am, I PM'ed her real name, address & (a link to a) photo of her house taken from Google Street View to her. The file-name of the photo included the names of the other people living in the house. She loled!

Vitamin D, cancer, cliques and flouncing.

First Google Image Search result for Vitamin D, cancer, cliques and flouncing.

This is a continuation of my previous post Enzyme kinetics, standing on the sun and weird blog comments sections.

Apparently, I didn't like the answers that I received on the blog in my previous post, so I flounced. The study that I asked for opinion on was Vitamin D and calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial. If I showed you an RCT where deaths from all cancers fell by 77%, what would be your reaction? My reaction would be "That looks promising. More work is needed to investigate it". One person (sophia8) reacted thusly. Other reactions that I received (with their logical fallacies) were as follows:-

Pure coincidence. Argumentum ad ignorantiam.

More than 1,100iu/day of Vitamin D is harmful. Straw man. I didn't say that people should take more than 1,100iu/day of Vitamin D (even though I take 5,000iu/day, which isn't harmful). Also, argumentum ad ignorantiam. See enzyme kinetics in the previous post.

You're cranky. Ignoratio Elenchi.

The study wasn't testing Vitamin D on its own. Straw man. I didn't say that it did.

By the way, “Nigeepoo”, taking supplemental vitamin D is not a proven way to prevent sunburn and is not an adequate method of protection from getting skin cancer (despite assertions in your blog). Straw man for the first part of the sentence. I didn't say that it was. Argumentum ad ignorantiam for the last part of the sentence.

Going for long drives with the top down and broiling gently without sunscreen on a repeated basis is dumb. Straw man. I didn't say that I did. I obviously don't go for long drives with the top down in the middle of the day on a sunny Summer's day. That is dumb. Like, duh!

I'm curious why you found my response to be satisfactory but lilady’s to be unsatisfactory. Could you explain? Ignoratio Elenchi.

Did I mention all of the mis-quoting?... Oy!

Maybe they should have done a bit of basic research, like:-

Vitamin D and musculoskeletal health, cardiovascular disease, autoimmunity and cancer: Recommendations for clinical practice.

The effect of calcium and vitamin D supplementation on obesity in postmenopausal women: secondary analysis for a large-scale, placebo controlled, double-blind, 4-year longitudinal clinical trial.

Vitamin D, cardiovascular disease and mortality.

Why randomized controlled trials of calcium and vitamin D sometimes fail. Essential reading.

I'm the sort of person who's not interested in cliques or secret societies. I'm therefore not interested in joining a cliquey, ivory-towery blog where you have to conform to a set of unwritten "rules" to be accepted, some of which are eccentric (Question: Which blogs insist on the use of manually-typed blockquote tags? Answer: Only that one). I decided to leave. I even apologised to some commenters for my language in some of the arguments.

I wondered why that blog and its owner annoyed me so much. Then it hit me (like a lost boomerang)!

Hmmm. See Brain Surgeon - That Mitchell & Webb Look , Series 3 - BBC Two ;-)

Oh, look who just turned up.

Eddie Mitchell
UK
May 19, 2013
Hi Folks
It seems almost everywhere I go these days on the internet, I find Nigel hurling foul mouthed abuse at posters or trying to extricate himself from arguments and back tracking on threats he has made. In my humble opinion the man is one wave short of a ship wreck and best avoided.
Eddie

That's another nail for Eddie Mitchell's metaphorical coffin. :-D

This is amazing.
Orac
May 19, 2013
Nigel, you need to tone it down, too.
I’ve warned both of you once already. This is the second warning. There won’t be a third. To show you I mean business this time, your comments are going into automatic moderation. You two have already wasted more of my time than you’re worth.

Which part of "Can people please stop leaving comments aimed at me, unless it’s an acknowledgement. I don’t want to have to leave any more comments on here – ever." did you not understand?

I posted the following comment, for David Gorski's (and your) eyes only.

"I wish to leave no further comments here, so please don't publish this. I'm afraid that the information in the following links is not very complimentary, but it's how I feel. FYI only, obviously.

http://nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/enzyme-kinetics-standing-on-sun-and.html

http://nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/vitamin-d-cancer-cliques-and-flouncing.html

Please leave a comment on my blog or email me if there's anything on my blog that you're not happy about.

P.S. I am currently taking legal action against Mr Mitchell for malicious defamation. I also had to contact Hampshire Police, concerning a threat made by Mr Mitchell to me, on his blog.

I intend to use Mr Mitchell's comment http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/05/16/the-quack-view-of-preventing-breast-cancer-versus-reality-and-angelina-jolie-part-2/#comment-258471
as additional evidence, so please don't delete it.

Regards, Nigel Kinbrum"
I'm beginning to wonder what the commenters there have inside their skulls that they use as brains.

MI Dawn
May 19, 2013
@Nigel: we responded to the Lappe information. It didn’t prove what you say it proved. Now, if you do have something to say, give the peer-reviewed proof.

Straw man. I didn't say that it proved anything. Which part of "Can people please stop leaving comments aimed at me, unless it’s an acknowledgement. I don’t want to have to leave any more comments on here – ever." did you not understand?

lilady
May 19, 2013
Thank you Orac for your intervention.
The bottom line for Nigel and Lisa is that they, by their vicious unwarranted personal attacks, have drawn unfavorable publicity to themselves and their blogs.

There's no such thing as unfavorable (sic) publicity for my blog, as far as I'm concerned. What you have done, by your vicious, unwarranted, lying and malicious defamatory personal attacks on me, is to draw unfavourable interest from me. A few minutes of Googling has revealed enough information about you to allow my solicitors to obtain your full name and address, if I request them to. So, if anyone from http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/ reads this, let lilady know that I'm on her case. If she doesn't start to "do the right thing", she's going to get the "Eddie Mitchell Treatment".

flip
In a place where no federal police turned up today
May 20, 2013
What a pity they both seem to have flounced off without bothering to respond to the questions put to them. I am not surprised though.

What a pity you seem to have the same level of intelligence as the above commenters.

Enzyme kinetics, standing on the sun and weird blog comments sections.

Firstly, enzyme kinetics.

How to Optimize Vitamin D Supplementation to Prevent Cancer, Based on Cellular Adaptation and Hydroxylase Enzymology from Edward Hutchinson

Secondly, see Standing on the Sun Will Not Prevent Depression.
"It is probably safe to say that giving 70 year old women massive doses of vitamin D3 once a year is a bad idea - bones and mental state accounted for. "Clinical studies of vitamin D in clinical populations with documented insufficiency remain warranted." And, indeed, at no time in history would we ever have been exposed to 500,000 IU vitamin D3 in a single day."

Thirdly, bearing all of the above in mind, see The quack view of preventing breast cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie, part 2. I soon became aware of a weird "dynamic" in the comments section. Trolling of newbies (that was my first and last time posting comments there) was not discouraged by the blog owner. In fact, the blog owner himself (Orac) implied that I was an old troll that had returned. Charming! If someone attacks me, I do not turn the other cheek. I "hit" them back - hard. I did a lot of "hitting".

I've decided to not leave any more comments there. That's the only blog I've been on where newbies are expected to instinctively know the "correct" way (typing the tags "blockquote" and "/blockquote" in every comment) to quote the commenter to whom you're replying. Ivory Tower, much?

@flip: Which part of "Can people please stop leaving comments aimed at me, unless it’s an acknowledgement. I don’t want to have to leave any more comments on here – ever." did you not understand?

Fructose: this may blow your mind.

Hat-tip to Beth@WeightMaven for posting a link to this.

 Nicked from sodahead.com

Watch the following video.

No fat belly: no rocks and no hard places.

I finally defeated Google Image Search!

 Boo-Ya, Google!

I've been blogging about the problems associated with having a fat belly. It therefore figures that not having a fat belly is advantageous. I was asked whether "skinny-fat" people might have problems with high serum NEFAs when on a very-low-carbohydrate diet (~50g/day of carbohydrate).

In my opinion, if fat cells in the belly area aren't stretched to the max, they won't be spewing NEFAs into the blood. Therefore, even "skinny-fat" people can safely go on a very-low-carbohydrate diet and stay on it indefinitely.

Impaired Glucose Tolerance: also between a rock and a hard place.

A high percentage of people with excessive visceral adiposity (belly fat) have Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT). This post is about them.

Image from http://carbsanity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/insulinproinsulinetc-in-normal-igt-and.html

IGT is caused by excessive NEFAs spewing into the blood and/or deficiencies and/or sedentariness.

If nothing is done about it, IGT will progress to full-blown Type 2 Diabetes, which will get worse and worse as per the graphs to the right of the IGT one.

To do something about it, see http://nigeepoo.blogspot.com/2011/02/insulin-resistance-solutions-to.html

What to do if subjected to a Denial of Service attack.

A couple of weeks ago, I lost internet access for about 30 mins due to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack.

I feel honoured that I've annoyed someone on the internet so much that they spent time and effort DoS attacking me!

Brute-force attacks from individuals are difficult, as my downlink speed is much faster than most people's uplink speed. To mount an effective brute-force attack requires multiple computers infected with a trojan. This is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack and requires a lot of computer knowledge.

A much simpler approach is the SYN flood attack. I believe that I was subjected to one of these, as on rebooting, I temporarily had internet access but lost it after a few seconds when all of the available connections on my pooter became "half-open".

To defeat such an attack is simple. All that you have to do is harden the TCP/IP stack. See also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302363.aspx and http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/1237.

1-2-3 Magic: effective discipline for children 2-12.

It works for adults, too!

Now that's Magic!

Hat-tip to Jason Sandeman for mentioning this ages ago in reference to someone who was behaving badly on the internet. I did some research into the method and was impressed by how clever it is.

It relies on the parent having an "Ultimate Deterrent", i.e. a punishment that's so horrible, a child won't risk suffering it more than once, but which causes no physical, mental or emotional harm (e.g. the loss of something precious, including a single meal). It also relies on the parent actually using the "Ultimate Deterrent", as failing to do so results in a total loss of credibility.

Having explained to the child the "Ultimate Deterrent" that will happen if the child fails to comply with the request by a count of 3, the parent then gives the child time to comply by counting 1 . . . 2 . . . 3. If, by the time 3 is reached, the child hasn't complied, the "Ultimate Deterrent" is dealt.

Hopefully, the "Ultimate Deterrent" is so horrible, the child won't risk suffering it more than once. Job done!

See also 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (Google Books).

I am about to do "2" to an adult who failed to comply at "1". A solicitor's letter will be dropping through his letter-box in a few days' time. If he doesn't comply within 14 days of receiving the letter, that's "3" and the "Ultimate Deterrent", which is the High Court in London. He doesn't have a leg to stand on, defence-wise.

Disqus is da bomb!

I'm the small yellow sphere with a big grin.

That's me, that is.

Disqus deletes comments from Anonymous commenters that contain links (clickable and plain text) without putting them in the Spam folder. I've been flooded with these, recently. I only get a Blogger notification email for my information, which I delete.

I can Whitelist trusted commenters, so their comments appear immediately without me having to moderate them. Deep Joy!

Oops, I did it again! Part n+1.

After a week of relative peace and quiet (I had viral laryngitis), the world groaned once again.

Roadrunner.

Last night, RoadRunner played at The Falkners Arms, Fleet. I asked the lead singer if I could have a go. I got to do the backing harmonies & other vocals on Mustang Sally. No pictures or videos were taken, so here's a picture of me performing with Jukebox at the beginning of March, instead.

That seemed to go well.

Type 2 diabetes: your good signalling's gonna go bad.

A little bit of Tammy Wynette.

 

Good signalling:

There's a famine. You've got nothing to eat. Your body's glycogen stores have just run out. What happens next? As food intake is zero, serum insulin level is minimised, so lipolysis (fat mobilisation) is maximised. Serum NEFAs are maximised. High serum NEFAs provides fuel for tissues that utilise NEFAs and a "stop utilising glucose!" signal, in conjunction with low serum insulin. High serum NEFAs also increase ketogenesis in the liver, to give the parts of the brain that can utilise ketones an alternative choice of fuel, to reduce glucose utilisation to a minimum. Glucose utilisation must be minimised during a famine, as it's generated by the liver & kidneys from glucogenic amino acids, obtained from lean body mass (LBM) by hypercortisolaemia.

Gone bad:

You're a type 2 diabetic with a fat belly. For reasons that I don't understand (blood supply? Proximity to liver?), belly fat deposits spew NEFAs into the blood at a much higher rate than arm, boobs, love-handles, bum & thigh fat deposits. On a very-low-carb diet (50g/day carbs), serum insulin level is minimised, so lipolysis (fat mobilisation) is maximised. Serum NEFAs are maximised. High serum NEFAs provides fuel for tissues that utilise NEFAs and a "stop utilising glucose!" signal, in conjunction with low serum insulin. A type 2 diabetic with a fat belly already has underlying insulin resistance, due to over-full muscle, adipose and/or liver cells (making the liver spew glucose into the blood at too fast a rate and the muscles & adipocytes take it out of the blood at too slow a rate). The very-low-carb diet makes the underlying insulin resistance worse and high serum NEFAs in a milieu of caloric sufficiency wreak havoc. Serum fasting glucose level increases. Serum LDL-c level increases. Serum TG level increases. Serum just about everything level increases, except for serum HDL-c level, which decreases.

Marketing Food to Children: Anna Lappe at TEDxManhattan 2013.

As per title.

We have free will, huh?

Type 2 diabetes: which are the safest carbohydrates?

In my previous post, I stated that people with type 2 diabetes should eat ~100g/day of carbohydrate.

Beans means...

See International table of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2002. Below is a list of carbohydrates that have a low glycaemic load, or GL (GL = glycaemic index * grams of carbohydrate in the serving).

Non-nutritive sweeteners:

It's often claimed that non-nutritive sweeteners produce a cephalic phase insulin response. The mere anticipation of eating produces a cephalic phase insulin response. See How neural mediation of anticipatory and compensatory insulin release helps us tolerate food. An insulin response suppresses serum NEFAs, so it's not all bad.

Sugars and Sugar alcohols:

Fructose is not recommended for type 2 diabetics, as it "barges its way" into the liver via Glu-T5 and fructokinase. Type 2 diabetics who have a high fasting serum glucose level almost certainly already have full liver glycogen stores, so adding to them isn't advisable.
Lactose has a virtually zero GL, isn't very sweet and has/hasn't a laxative effect in large quantities (lactase-dependent). Heating lactose turns it into lactulose.
Lactulose has a virtually zero GI, is sweet and has a laxative effect in large quantities.
Galactose is not recommended, as large amounts may accelerate ageing.
D-mannose has a virtually zero GI, is sweet and doesn't have a laxative effect in large quantities. It can be used to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by e.coli, due to the fact that the kidneys filter it out of the blood and pass it out in the urine. Mannose in urine reduces the adhesion of e.coli to the inside wall of the urinary tract. See Intervening with urinary tract infections using anti-adhesives based on the crystal structure of the FimH-oligomannose-3 complex.
Trehalose has a virtually zero/moderate GI, is sweet and has/hasn't a laxative effect in large quantities (trehalase-dependent).

Lactitol has a virtually zero GI and a laxative effect in large quantities.
Sorbitol has a virtually zero GI and a laxative effect in large quantities.
Xylitol has a virtually zero GI, minty overtones and reduces dental plaque. However, it has a laxative effect in large quantities.
Erythritol has a virtually zero GI, minty overtones and is wee'ed-out like D-mannose, so it doesn't have a laxative effect in large quantities.

Starches:

Don't overcook starches, as that raises their GL. Al-dente is best.
Gram dhal a.k.a. chana dal.
Long-grain rice. Refrigerating cooked rice for 24 hours slightly lowers the GL by forming resistant starch. See item 275 in the table in the first link.
New potatoes. Refrigerating cooked new potatoes for 24 hours drastically lowers the GL by forming resistant starch. See item 605 in the table in the first link. Old potatoes can be used, but they probably won't taste as good.
Bürgen Soya & Linseed bread has 11.9g of carbs/slice.
Pearl barley.
Sweet corn.
Beans.
Chickpeas.
Lentils.
Peas.
Fettuccine.
Egg noodles.
Starchy nuts e.g. peanuts , cashews and chestnuts.
Vegetables.
Root vegetables.
Raw carrots.