Calcium shift: An interesting hypothesis.

More serendipity! Billy the k left a comment that piqued my curiosity.

From http://www.health-heart.org/acceuil.htm The atheroma 'junk' in the media is cholesterol + calcium in older people.

From Aging and calcium as an environmental factor. (emphasis mine)
"The consequences of calcium deficiency might thus include not only osteoporosis, but also arteriosclerosis and hypertension due to the increase of calcium in the vascular wall, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and senile dementia due to calcium deposition in the central nervous system, and a decrease in cellular function, because of blunting of the difference in extracellular-intracellular calcium, leading to diabetes mellitus, immune deficiency and others.

I highlighted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in red, as many Facebook friends have been having buckets of water & ice cubes tipped over themselves to raise money for research into this horrible & ultimately fatal condition.

So, what prevents & reverses migration of calcium from hard tissues to soft tissues?
Clue: It carboxylates osteocalcin in bone matrix Gla proteins. Yes, it's Vitamin K2.

See also Calcium, parathyroids and aging. N.B. 50iu/kg bodyweight/day of Vitamin D3 significantly lowers parathyroid hormone.

ItsTheWoo, Me, and Sheeple.

This post is about http://itsthewooo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/so-i-had-to-ban-nigel.html

EDIT 28th Feb 2019: Having just taken a look at the above post, she's edited it a lot, possibly as a result of reading this.

I don't mince my words, but I didn't stalk her and I didn't create a dummy account called Janey Planey. Itsthewoo isn't averse to making defamatory statements about me, which makes it obvious as to who actually has severe mental problems.

From http://campvolant.com/2013/11/11/be-that-man-travail-en-cours/ I am "That man", where diet & nutrition is concerned.

My cunning plan worked! I needed an excuse to never have to visit that cluster-f*ck of a blog ever again, so I gradually increased the level of (well-deserved, may I add) snark & insults, in response to ItsTheWoo's insults to me, and misrepresentations about me, until she did what I wanted - i.e. banned me forever. Thank you!

In http://nigeepoo.blogspot.com/2014/08/dear-itsthewoo-how-do-you-do.html, I rebutted & debunked ItsTheWoo's strawman fallacies about me. I thought that she was merely ignorant of me, so I sent her a Friend Request on Facebook, which she accepted. I thought that if she knew more about me, she wouldn't use so many strawman fallacies.

Well, that was a complete waste of time! I took the opportunity to get to know her better, and what did I learn? She appears to be completely self-obsessed, and is mainly concerned with being as popular as possible, with as many followers as possible. To achieve this requires her to be constantly zany & "off the wall", with regular melt-downs to keep the troops entertained. She also likes nail varnish!

I don't actually have anything against her, other than her constant misrepresentations of me, which she's taken to an entirely new level in her latest melt-down.

After asking her pertinent questions in a friendly way, I ascertained that she was probably urinating excessive amounts of magnesium. See Magnesium and the Brain: The Original Chill Pill.
"Finally, magnesium is sequestered and wasted via the urine in times of stress."
This can create a vicious circle, whereby magnesium deficiency increases anxiety, which further increases stress. ItsTheWoo was complaining that dietary protein was making her too "wired", so I suggested that she increase her magnesium intake, and collect 24 hours of urine for analysis. I didn't even ask her to stick a needle in her arm for a blood test (as serum magnesium means nothing).

You'd think that I'd asked her to sell her mother from the way she carried on, making excuse after excuse to not wee into a 5 Litre container. I'm done with her, now. She obviously isn't interested in finding out the underlying reason why she has to eat a ketogenic diet all the time. She admitted that she's spent 12 years on a ketogenic diet, going from one supplement to the next, when tolerance develops. She's even tried Lithium. She's currently faffing about with a supplement called Kratom.

I'm sticking to Epsom Salts. It's cheap, it works and if you do overdose on it, you get a good run for your money! :-D As magnesium is a substance found naturally in the body, tolerance never develops.

The "Sheeple" part of the title is referring to ItsTheWoo's followers, who are no doubt slagging me off. Number of f*cks given = 0. It's interesting how she's built up a large following of mostly feeble-minded people who can't think for themselves, and who praise her for every post she writes, no matter how incorrect it might be.

I don't blog to be popular. I blog to help people, with accurate & up-to-date information about ways to treat nasty medical conditions that impair people's lives.

Hopefully, my next post will be back to business as usual. There's something big coming, and this time it's got nothing to do with Gluten or A1 Casein!

EDIT: As a result of the 191(!) comments to this post, here are some thought experiments in logic:-

Q1. If Woo's followers don't give a f*ck about me, why post about banning me?
A1. Because Woo is an attention-whore.

Q2. Woo could have shut me up by saying that she'd already had a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion. She didn't. Why?
A2. Because in 12 years of suffering mental issues, she's never had a had a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion.

Q3. Woo could have shut me up and shown that she's right and I'm wrong, by taking a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion. She didn't. Why?
A3. Because she knows that she's wrong and I'm right, because a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion would show excessive Mg excretion.

Q4. Why does Woo insist that a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion is worthless (it isn't)?
A4. Because EITHER she's worried that she'll lose her "shtick" of nuttiness and will lose followers (she's playing you for fools in which case she should be avoided), OR she's scared of change (she's mentally ill in which case she should be avoided).

Please discuss the above statements without deflecting onto irrelevancies e.g. my Aspergic tendencies. Yes, I admit that I have Aspergic tendencies. I've also admitted to being a nerd (click Nerds). So shoot me ;-)

Blindly following someone & believing everything that they say without ever verifying facts is dangerous, and can lead to the situation depicted in the picture at the top of this post (Godwin's Law alert). The opposite (total cynicism) is also unhealthy.

People need to do research of their own, or just read my blog, as I've already done loads of research. If your health problem isn't mentioned anywhere in my blog (check the labels first), please email me (there's a disguised email link in my "About me" section) and ask. I love doing research, as I never know what I'm going to discover, and I occasionally stumble across something really important by accident, as my recent posts on Constipation/IHD/Type 1 Diabetes/Schizophrenia/Autism, Hyperinsulinaemia, Age-related Macular Degeneration, Rheumatoid Arthritis & Calcium Shift have shown.

If I've been of help to you, please tell any family members or friends who are suffering from any conditions that are impairing their life. My suggestions must always be checked by someone's GP first, in case of contraindications with other medical conditions or medications that I don't know about. My suggestions must always be used as adjuncts to, NOT replacements for, someone's existing medication(s).

If symptoms improve, people should negotiate with their GP for a reduction in the dose of their medication(s), if their medication(s) has/have undesirable effects (e.g. bad side-effects, or a need for further medications such as PPI's like Omeprazole to reduce stomach acidity when taking NSAID's like Aspirin or Naproxen).

A "discussion" with Dr. Garth Davis M.D.

I put "discussion" in quotes, for reasons which will become obvious.

The Pyramid of Disagreement. You should be using the top 3 levels at all times.

I've written this because Dr. Davis has blocked me from leaving comments on his Facebook page, and I really need to reply to his last reply to me.

See https://www.facebook.com/drgarth/posts/834305339923709
I was acutely aware as an omnivore, of "walking into the lion's den", by posting a dissenting comment on a vegan's thread, but it was necessary as I had evidence of harm of vegan diets. The evidence on Denise Minger's teeth is supported by her own blog. The evidence on Jay Dinshah's fatal heart attack at the age of 66 is supported by a YouTube video by Dr Michael Greger, the vegan M.D. Dr Greger's video showed evidence of other harms caused by vegan diets that were lacking in vegan DHA & Vitamin B12.

EDIT: Dr. Davis has deleted all of my comments. However, he hasn't deleted his replies to them.

It's impossible to prove a hypothesis, even with n=1,000,000, as the 1,000,001th subject could be the "Black Swan" that disproves it. On the other hand, it only takes 1 "Black Swan" to disprove it. Therefore, n=1 evidence of harm is sufficient to disprove a hypothesis that something is harmless. See Falsifiability.

I provided n=2 evidence of harm.

Dr Davis's final comment to me:-
" Nigel Kinbrum really? You are giving me a n of 2. There is no data that vegans teeth fall out. If she was vitamin K deficient then she was eating a crappy diet lacking greens. It so stupid it's just silly. I also laugh at the idea that authority is some how bad. I have written a book with thousands of references. I give lectures on the topic and have treated thousands of patients yet Denise knows more than me. Silly."

My reply:-
1. As stated above, an n of 2 is double the n needed to disprove your hypothesis that there is no evidence of harm for vegan diets. I'd already pointed that out to you in a previous comment that you've since deleted.

2. I said that Denise's teeth were disintegrating. I didn't say that they fell out. That's a strawman fallacy.

3. Greens contain phylloquinone (Vitamin K1), not menatetrenone (Vitamin K2). Only Vitamin K2 carboxylates osteocalcin in MGP's. The only vegan source of Vitamin K2 is Nattō, a.k.a. pungent beans in a snot sauce.

4. See 3. Denise Minger was not eating a "crappy diet". That's an extremely insulting & uninformed comment for a medical professional to make about someone.

5. I never claimed that authority is bad. When you say "I am an expert in "X", therefore I am never wrong about "X".", that's an "Appeal to authority" fallacy. Jeez!

6. See 5. I never claimed that Denise Minger knows more than you. That's another strawman fallacy.


So, there you have it. Comments will only be approved if they meet my Moderation Policy. As long as I am blocked from commenting on Dr. Davis' Facebook page, Dr. Davis is blocked from commenting on my blog.

Rheumatoid Arthritis: It's the food!

I had an email query about Rheumatoid Arthritis, so off to PubMed I went.

From http://www.webmd.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/ss/slideshow-ra-overview

I found Controlled trial of fasting and one-year vegetarian diet in rheumatoid arthritis.

"Fasting is an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, but most patients relapse on reintroduction of food."
This suggests that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an ongoing process, triggered by something that's consumed.

"After an initial 7-10 day subtotal fast, they were put on an individually adjusted gluten-free vegan diet for 3.5 months. The food was then gradually changed to a lactovegetarian diet for the remainder of the study."
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I'm thinking Gliadorphin-7, as per Wheat, Constipation, Ischaemic Heart Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, Schizophrenia and Autism.

This suggests that RA is caused by peptide chains passing through loose "tight junctions" in the gut, triggering an (inappropriate) autoimmune response. For ways to improve gut integrity, see Cow's milk, Schizophrenia and Autism.

BCM-7 can be avoided by drinking A2 milk. Most cheeses are made from A1 milk, so should be avoided. Swiss cheeses like Gruyère and Emmental are probably made from A2 milk, so suck 'em and see.

To reduce inflammation in joints, consuming oily fish may help, as an adjunct to prescribed anti-inflammatory medications.

Continued on Fibromyalgia: It's the food, again! (probably).

Why (LDL particle) size matters.

Having gone through the math(s) with several people, I thought I'd stick it in a blog post for posterity.

This is a diagram of a chylomicron or VLDL-c (high TG/C ratio) 'cos I couldn't find one for LDL-c!

Cholesterol synthesised in the liver is exported in LDL particles. The more cholesterol that's synthesised, the more particles there need to be to carry it.

∴ LDL-P (particle number) ∝ LDL-C (total amount of cholesterol)

The particles are roughly spherical with a very thin wall (consisting of a phospholipid mono-layer, the yellow wiggly lines with a green end bit in the above diagram).

Volume of a sphere = 4/3 * π * r³, where r = half the diameter.

If there's a 10% reduction in LDL particle size, the volume reduces to 0.729, relative to the original size. Therefore, to carry the same amount of cholesterol requires 1/0.729 = 1.37 times more particles, which is a 37% increase in the number of LDL particles, relative to the original size.

∴ LDL-P (particle number) ∝ 1/LDLsize³

As it's LDL particle number that determines the infiltration of LDL cholesterol into the media of artery walls (see image below), it's advisable to keep cholesterol synthesis to a reasonable level by keeping fat intake to a reasonable level (i.e. not Nutritional Ketosis!) and keeping LDL particle size to a reasonable level by keeping added sugar (e.g. sucrose & fructose) intake and rapidly hydrolysed/overcooked starches (e.g. amylopectin & maltodextrin) intake to a reasonable level (i.e. a level that's oxidised by the body without having a chronic excess). An acute excess of carbohydrate can be stored as liver/muscle glycogen, provided that mean carbohydrate intake is less than mean carbohydrate oxidation.

How COULD I write a post about LDL-P and forget to include THIS?

Neovascularization/Neovascularisation: It doesn't ONLY cause CHD.

Another serendipitous moment.

From http://www.aao.org/theeyeshaveit/optic-fundus/retinal-neovascularization.cfm

After talking to someone with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), I Googled the condition and spotted the word neovascularisation. This reminded me of Neovascularization of coronary tunica intima (DIT) is the cause of coronary atherosclerosis. Lipoproteins invade coronary intima via neovascularization from adventitial vasa vasorum, but not from the arterial lumen: a hypothesis.

So I did a search on PubMed for Neovascularization/Neovascularisation. This is what I got:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28%28%22neovascularization,%20pathologic%22[MeSH%20Terms]%20OR%20%28%22neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%20AND%20%22pathologic%22[All%20Fields]%29%20OR%20%22pathologic%20neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%20OR%20%22neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%29%20OR%20%28%22neovascularization,%20pathologic%22[MeSH%20Terms]%20OR%20%28%22neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%20AND%20%22pathologic%22[All%20Fields]%29%20OR%20%22pathologic%20neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%20OR%20%22neovascularisation%22[All%20Fields]%29%29%20AND%20%28%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDAT]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDAT]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29%20AND%20%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDAT]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDAT]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%20AND%20%28%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDAT]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDAT]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29%20AND%20%28%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDAT]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDAT]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29%20AND%20%28%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDat]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDat]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29

Even after restricting results, there were 5253 results. Wow!

It would appear that AMD has a lot in common with CHD. Ischaemia/Ischemia (lack of oxygen) to tissues causes the body to produce an adaptive response by growing new blood vessels (neovascularization/neovascularisation). Unfortunately, the new blood vessels are a bit crap, and cause other problems to develop e.g. CHD & AMD.

Therefore, prevention is better than cure. The things that lower the RR for CHD may also lower the RR for AMD. See Cholesterol And Coronary Heart Disease.

Another penny drops: Why severe hyperinsulinamia can occur with a small increase in exogenous carbohydrate intake.

This blog post is a result of Vim's comments in the previous blog post. A penny suddenly dropped!

From http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/85/1/69.full

Insulin has a Chalonic (inhibitory) action on blood glucose level (via the liver, muscle mass & fat mass), blood FFA level (via fat mass) and blood ketone body level (via the liver).

As mentioned in the comments, GHB has a stimulant effect - up to a certain level of blood GHB. Beyond that level, there's a powerful sedative effect. This is because at low levels of exogenous ketone body input, insulin secretion increases slightly to reduce hepatic ketogenesis.

At a certain level of exogenous ketone body input, hepatic ketogenesis falls to zero and cannot be reduced any further. Any slight increase beyond this point in exogenous ketone body input, results in a large increase in insulin secretion, as the pancreas increases Ketone body-Stimulated Insulin Secretion to maximum in a (failed) attempt to reduce blood ketone body level.

Exactly the same thing happens with exogenous carbohydrate or BHB input.

At a certain level of exogenous carbohydrate input, hepatic glucogenesis falls to zero and cannot be reduced any further. Any slight increase beyond this point in exogenous carbohydrate input, results in a large increase in insulin secretion, as the pancreas increases Glucose-Stimulated Insulin Secretion to maximum in a (failed) attempt to reduce blood glucose level.

Fun with maths: How many grams of "X" does it take to achieve "Y" mmol/L of "X" in the blood?

There are ≤3 fuels in blood - Glucose, Palmitic acid (FFA) & Beta-HydroxyButyric acid (Ketone body).

From http://www.medbio.info/horn/time%203-4/homeostasis1.htm#Sources%20of%20blood%20glucose:

Taking blood volume as 5L (a petite woman has less):-

5mmol/L of Glucose ≡ 4.5g of Glucose.

1mmol/L of Palmitic acid ≡ 1.28g of Palmitic acid.

6mmol/L of Beta-HydroxyButyric acid ≡ 3.12g of Beta-HydroxyButyric acid.

Instead of going on a ketogenic diet (with all of the health hazards associated with it), why not just add Beta-HydroxyButyric acid to your drinks?

There's a problem. All metabolic fuels produce an insulin response (from functioning pancreatic beta cells) - this is one of the ways the level of each fuel is regulated in a NFB loop. Therefore, drinking more than 3.12g of BHB (more than 2.76mL) produces a large insulin response, which results in sleepiness. Ditto for GHB.

When bad science goes...pretty much the same!

After the previous post, you may have got the impression that things are getting worse. Hmmm!

From http://covermyfb.com/covers/27316/say%2Csee+and+hear+no+evil

Hat-tip to James Beckerman, MD for https://twitter.com/jamesbeckerman/status/507544419847786496, which refers to Comparison of Named Diet Programs Finds Little Difference in Weight Loss Outcomes.

This study comes to the opposite conclusion of the study in my previous blog post. As that study was a pile of poo, that must mean that this study is 100% correct, right? Hmmm!

Your enemy's enemy is not necessarily your friend. See What about the Other Weight Loss Diet Study??
"Previous meta-analyses, such as Hession et al, had balanced inclusion criteria that allow us to directly compare low-fat to low-carb diets.  They reported exactly what anyone would expect who is familiar with the weight loss diet literature:

1. At 6 months, low-carb diets consistently lead to greater weight loss than low-fat diets. 
2. At one year, the difference has all but disappeared. 
3. Neither diet produces particularly impressive weight loss at one year or more.
4. The weight loss effectiveness of typical low-fat diets tends to be modest at all time points.

Oh, well. It could have been a lot worse!
 

When good science goes bad, part n+1.

In When good science goes bad , I looked at the effect of funding bias on research.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ5jbxMjexo

Effects of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets: A Randomized Trial has just been published. As expected, low-carbers are positively creaming themselves over it. I instantly smelled a rat, as the full study was behind a pay-wall.

Remembering Krauss' shenanigans with "carbohydrate", consisting of 50% sugars + 50% "complex" carbs (maltodextrin & amylopectin are complex carbs that hydrolyse into glucose so rapidly that they have a GI of 100 on the "Glucose=100" scale.), I suspected dodgy carbs in the "Low-fat" group.

Luckily, David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP had read the full study, and wrote about it in Diet Research, Stuck in the Stone Age.

As I suspected, it was another "fix-up" job, rigged to make low-carb diets look good, and low-fat diets look bad.

See also:-
Low-carbohydrate vs. Low-fat diets for Weight Loss: New Evidence,
What I Learned By Actually Reading That Low-Carb Is Best Study,
Is low-carb really the best weight loss diet? and
A Question about the latest diet study ...

The Minimally-Processed Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet.

It looks something like this:-

From http://littlesttumor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/whole-food-plant-based-diet-challenge.html

The commenter Melanie McSmiley reduced her weight by 45% using something very much like the above diet, and didn't suffer from any horrible side-effects such as Metabolic Shut-down. Well done, Melanie!

Here's an interesting talk by Denise Minger, which contains some big surprises:-

Wheat, Constipation, Ischaemic Heart Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, Schizophrenia and Autism.

Did you see this coming?

Gliadorphin 7, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliadorphin

The above 7-peptide chain contains 3 molecules of proline (the pentagon with a "N" at one corner), just like:-

Bovine β-casomorphin 7, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casomorphin

From Further research for consideration in 'the A2 milk case'.
"Prior to discussion it must be clarified that the hypothetical link between A1 consumption with autistic spectral disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia relates not to the cause of the condition but to the aggravation of symptoms associated with these neurological conditions. More specifically, the hypothesis states that the absorption of food-derived exomorphins such as beta casomorphin 7 (BCM 7) may aggravate symptoms associated with ASD or schizophrenia.

This hypothesis is the basis of 'dietary intervention' that excludes gluten and casein (Knivsberg et al., 2002) from the diet of ASD patients. The former, gluten, has been shown to release gliadamorphin, an exomorphin comparable in opioid activity to BCM-7. A number of laboratories in the United States and Europe offer urine tests, which determine the level of peptides including BCM 7 and other beta casomorphins to serve as an indication of the potential usefulness of dietary intervention in the treatment of ASD patients. One published study reports that a casein- and gluten-free diet was accompanied by improvement in 81% of autistic children within 3 months (Cade et al., 2000)."


According to What is gliadorphin?
"What is gliadorphin? Gliadorphin (also called alpha-gliadin or gluteomorphin) is a substance that resembles morphine. Ordinarily, this is a short-lived by-product from the digestion of gluten molecules (found in wheat, barley, rye, oats, and several other grains). Gliadorphin is very similar to casomorphin. Gliadorphin has been verified by mass spectrometry techniques to be present in unusual quantities in urine samples of children with autism, and are believed by many to be a central part of the system of causes and effects that cause autistic development. The most probable reasons for the presence of these molecules are:
* One or more errors in the breakdown (digestion) process caused by enzyme deficiency and/or
* Abnormal permeability of the gut wall (that would allow these relatively large molecules to enter the bloodstream from the intestine in abnormal quantities)."

Continued on Rheumatoid Arthritis: It's the food!

Cow's milk, Schizophrenia and Autism.

As a result of comments to my previous blog post, I did a bit of digging. I dug up something.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk

Stella Barbone linked to The A2 milk case: a critical review.

This was refuted by A critique of Truswell's A2 milk review.

That referenced Autism and schizophrenia: Intestinal disorders , Can the pathophysiology of autism be explained by the nature of discovered urine peptides? , Enzymatic release of neocasomorphin and beta-casomorphin from bovine beta-casein. & Opioid activities of human b-casomorphin.

Babies have naturally-high gut permeability, so wrong milk proteins may cause damage. Human breast milk contains only A2 casein.

In older humans, gut permeability is modulated by several factors.

1. Insufficient sun exposure, causing hypovitaminosis D. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22Vitamin+D%22[All+Fields]+AND+%22tight%20junction%22+AND+hasabstract[text]

2. Excessive consumption of oils high in polyunsaturated fatty acids. See Dietary Fat Can Modulate Intestinal Tight Junction Integrity.

3. Excessive consumption of Wheat. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22Wheat%22[All+Fields]+AND+%22tight+junction%22+AND+hasabstract[text]

4. Excessive exercise. See Shedding Some Light on the Leaky Gut <> Exercise Connection. Plus: 20+ Things You Should or Shouldn't Do to Protect and Restore the Integrity of Your Intestinal Wall.

5. Lack of dietary Sulphur. See Sulphation and Autism: What are the links? A good source of sulphate is Epsom Salts.

See also Physiology and Immunology of Digestion.

Continued on Wheat, Constipation, Ischaemic Heart Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, Schizophrenia and Autism.

Cow's milk, Constipation, Ischaemic Heart Disease & Type 1 Diabetes.

Hat-tip to Jamie Scott and https://twitter.com/_Jamie_Scott/status/503383804686262272 , which led to A1 threat to NZ dairy.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk

There are a few problems with feeding cow's milk to baby humans.

1. It contains bovine beta casein A1. During digestion, this is broken down into a 7-amino acid peptide chain beta-casomorphin7 (BCM7), which appears to cause issues (e.g. increased gut permeability) increasing the RR of diseases like Type 1 Diabetes and Ischaemic Heart Disease. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=A1[All%20Fields]%20AND%20%22beta-casein%22[All%20Fields]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%20AND%20%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29 A solution is to use A2 milk, or goat's milk which is apparently naturally A2. See also Further research for consideration in 'the A2 milk case'.


2. It's much higher in protein (4g/100mL) than human breast milk (1.1g/100mL), as baby cows are supposed to grow very rapidly, unlike baby humans. As 80% of the protein in milk is casein, and casein is joined to calcium as calcium caseinate, this increases the calcium intake, and too much calcium relative to magnesium is constipating. A solution is to increase magnesium intake, or dilute 1 part cow's milk with ~3 parts water & add some coconut oil, to get the fat content back up to 4.4g/100mL.

Continued on Cow's milk, Schizophrenia and Autism.

"Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity" is partly a myth.

Yoni Freedhoff has already blogged about this in The New England Journal's Obesity Mythbusting

It's a mythtery.

I don't have anything to say about Yoni Freedhoff's blog post on Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity (PDF), except for Myth 1.
"Small sustained changes in energy intake or expenditure will produce large, long-term weight changes."

This is misleading. One small sustained change (say, -100kcals/day) in energy balance results in one sustained change in weight of -10lbs. If no further changes are made, there are no further changes in weight. However...

If, after the result of the small sustained change has stabilised, another small sustained change (say, -100kcals/day) in energy balance is made, there's another sustained change in weight of -10lbs. And so on...

A series of small sustained changes in energy balance will produce large, long-term weight changes.

Little changes, big results.

I never expected THAT to happen!

Fancy some Ramen Noodles?


As I clicked on the video, I was thinking "I bet those instant Ramen Noodles disintegrate instantly, causing a big surge of glucose into the blood".

Watch and learn. Well, did you expect that to happen? If instant Ramen Noodles are a heart health risk, it's not because they digest too quickly. BPA? Something else?

The Facts of Life.

No, not those Facts of Life!

From http://www.clipartbest.com/stork-carrying-baby

It's becoming painfully obvious that there's a lot of ignorance about certain dietary "Facts of Life". This post will dispel the myths - backed up by evidence, where necessary.

1. Everyone is Different: This has been a recurring theme on my blog, starting in 2009 with the aptly-named Everyone is Different. What this means in practice, is that:-
a) You can't calculate your Energy Expenditure exactly, using one of those fancy equations (e.g. Harris-Benedict).
b) Weight change is proportional to caloric excess/deficit ± inter-personal variation.

2. CALORIES COUNT: If there's zero caloric surplus, there's zero weight gain. There can be water balance shifts due to glycogen shifts, hormonal shifts, electrolyte shifts etc. Somebody fitted a lovely straight line to the weight gain data in Bray et al shows that a calorie *is* a calorie (where weight is concerned), but their line didn't pass through 0,0. Duh!

3. Glycaemic Index (GI) has NOTHING to do with calories: A low-GI carbohydrate still has 4kcals/g. GI is a useful hint as to whether a carbohydrate may disturb blood glucose levels, but it isn't as useful as Glycaemic Load (GL = GI x grams of carbohydrate in the serving). Watermelon has a very high GI, but 100g of watermelon contains only ~5g of carbohydrates, so the GL is less than 5 i.e. watermelon is as safe as houses.

4. Exercise DOESN'T burn as many calories as you think: Exercise is for fitness, not weight loss (unless you're a professional sports-person, who can expend 1,000's of kcals a day in training).

5. Weight loss doesn't ALWAYS result in reduced Basal Metabolic Rate: Whether or not Basal Metabolic Rate reduces with weight loss depends on the degree of Adipocyte Hyperplasia that occurred during weight gain. Humongous weight gain, also weight gain in childhood, increases adipocyte hyperplasia, which is protective against developing T2DM, but makes the subsequent loss of significant amounts of FM more difficult.

6. For Muscle Hypertrophy, a STIMULUS is required: Eating too much food and/or swallowing loads of protein without hypertrophy training doesn't make muscles grow significantly bigger. See http://hillfit.com/. Chris Highcock knows what he's talking about.

7. Yo-yo dieting isn't ALWAYS a bad thing: Bodybuilders (BB'ers) do cycles of "cutting" and "bulking". Cutting is Fat Mass (FM) loss with minimal Lean Body Mass (LBM) loss. Bulking is LBM gain with minimal FM gain.

Non-BB'ers tend to get it the wrong way round. They go on crash diets with insufficient protein intake and lose loads of LBM (which increases weight loss, due to the lower Energy Density of LBM relative to FM). They then eat way too much, gaining weight way too rapidly for much (if any) of it to be LBM, even if they are doing hypertrophy training.

8. FM loss CAN be rapid: See The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook. A Scientific Approach to Crash Dieting.

9. LBM gain CANNOT be rapid: See What’s My Genetic Muscular Potential? to find out how much LBM you can gain and how quickly you can gain it.


Finally, see http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/. What Lyle McDonald doesn't know about fat loss, general nutrition, muscle mass gain and training fits on a postage stamp. He also explains things in language that the sort of person who reads my blog can understand. Just don't leave a comment asking him a question, that's already been answered elsewhere on his site!

Dry carbohydrates, wet carbohydrates & energy density.

Karen N Davids thought of it first!

From https://www.amazon.co.uk/Carbs-Weight-Manage-Nutritional-Carbohydrates-ebook/dp/B00DJF2GKU

Here's a list of commonly-eaten carbohydrates and their Energy Density, in kcals/100g. From https://nutritiondata.self.com/

Dry Carbohydrates:-
Bread, White_________________________________________________266
Bread, Multi-grain___________________________________________265
Bread, Rye___________________________________________________258
Bread, Pumpernickel__________________________________________250
Bread, Whole-wheat___________________________________________247
Bread, reduced-calorie, white________________________________207
Bread, reduced-calorie, wheat________________________________198

Wet Carbohydrates:-
Pasta, fresh-refrigerated, plain, cooked_____________________131
Rice, white, long-grain, regular, cooked_____________________130
Rice, brown, long-grain, cooked______________________________111
Peas, green, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, with salt_______78
Beans, kidney, red, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, with salt__127
Lentils, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, with salt_____________114
Vegetables, mixed, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, with salt_60
Broccoli, frozen, spears, cooked, boiled, drained, with salt__28
Sweet potato, cooked, baked in skin, with salt________________92
Potatoes, boiled, cooked in skin, flesh, with salt____________87
Grapes, red or green (European type), raw_____________________69
Cherries, sweet, raw__________________________________________63
Pears, raw [Includes USDA commodity food A435]________________58
Apples, raw, with skin________________________________________52


If a diet is high in carbohydrates:-
Which of the above foods are most likely to result in weight gain?
Which of the above foods are most likely to result in weight loss?
Answers on a postcard, please!

A new low for denialists.

Here's a new Pyramid of Argument, with an extra level added below name-calling.

Originally from http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/08/15/weekend-diversion-how-to-argue/

What's worse than name-calling? When I defecate science all over my opponents, it makes it difficult for them to respond with refutation. If they are unable to use the top 3 levels of the pyramid, they usually use the 4 levels below that. Until the other day.

See Seth Yoder's review of "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet" - by Nina Teicholz.

If you think that Seth's review is a bit verbose, check out The Big Fat Surprise: A Critical Review; Part 1 and The Big Fat Surprise: A Critical Review; Part 2. They make "War and Peace" look like a pamphlet!

Anyway, Seth got the usual logical fallacies, including the inevitable ad-hominem from Skruby of "You're a vegan, so you don't know what you're talking about/you're biased!"

As Seth is a science guy, and I don't stand by & let science guys get attacked without doing something about it, I pitched-in with some comments in support of Seth. Well...

Check Zahc's comment out. And Allen I. Branson's comment. The new low is the BLATANT LIE.

Notice how the troll Zahc uses standard baiting practices to "suck me in" to replying to him. He:-
1) Repeats the lie about me cherry-picking 2 studies. Those are the only studies that produced results reaching statistical significance, as all of the other studies had RR ~1, with 95% CI's less than 1 and greater than 1.
2) Makes an irrelevant point about mortality. Siri-Tarino et al & Chowdhury et al are about CHD.
3) Repeats the lie about dairy fat not being protective.
4) Issues a challenge to me to comment on his blog post http://diettrialclaims.blogspot.com/2013/06/is-cholesterol-really-that-important.html I've already commented on Zahc's blog. His blog contains two posts riddled with cholesterol denialism and backed-up by a bunch of cherry-picked studies.
5) Gets aerated over me linking to his comment. Things are about to get worse.

I replied to Zahc's comment.
Zahc wrote another comment. He:-
1) Repeats the lie about me cherry-picking 2 studies. Persistent, isn't he?
2) Criticises Dr. Dayspring behind his back, a cowardly thing to do. Zahc has no intention of ever debating Dr. Dayspring, as he knows that Dayspring would destroy his uninformed opinions with data.
3) Issues another challenge to me to make another comment. Luckily, I have this blog, so I don't need to waste any more time debating cholesterol denialists.

Zahc has written another comment. He:-
1) Continues with pointless arguments. Typical troll behaviour.
2) Continues to get confused over basic English. "Uninformed Opinion" wasn't referring to what you wrote in your previous comment, you dumbass. It was referring to what you'd be giving Dr. Dayspring. Jeez!
3) Had my previous comment deleted by Amazon. What was I saying about cowardly behaviour?
4) Continues to insult me, in the vain hope that I might leave another comment answering his points. That ain't ever gonna happen. I'll just leave comments with links to this post, or links to other comments. I know a cholesterol denialist when I see one. I know cherry-picked studies when I see them. I know a shite blog when I see one.

Are we done now, Zahc? I can continue this, ad infinitum. This blog post is all about you (& Allen I. Branson). You're just making yourself look like a total pillock. Have you "debated" with Dr. Dayspring or Dr. Edwards, yet? Somehow, I think not.


Blatant lies are worse than Straw man fallacies, as such fallacies are usually caused by my opponent being ignorant of my argument and confabulating.

Blatant lies work on the assumption that the opponent can't or won't ever see them. This is a risky strategy, as if the opponent does see them and calls the liar out on them, the liar's credibility is destroyed. This is what happened with Fredrick Hahn, after I blocked him on Facebook for repeatedly tagging me in Here are the results after one month on my high fat, lower protein, SAME carbohydrate intake. The main differences are: , after I told him to stop tagging me.

He posted Nigel Kinbrum is a coward. He enjoys poking fun at people, but blocks them from commenting. He has blocked me. Someone give this guy what for please. , thinking that I'd never see it. I had a tip-off from a friend, who PM'ed me a screen-shot taken from a logged-out browser (as they had been blocked by Fred and couldn't see him or his content when they were logged-in to Facebook). The rest, as they say, is history!

Keto Clarity: Your Definitive Guide to the Benefits of a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet - My "Review".

I haven't bought the book - surprise, surprise!

From http://www.amazon.com/Keto-Clarity-Definitive-Benefits-Low-Carb/dp/1628600071/

If anybody thinks that I can't review this book because I haven't read it, you really haven't been paying attention! Here's what I wrote in reply to JoAnn Schreffler's comment:- N.B. Hyperlinks added.

Exactly!

Gluconeogenesis also isn't very accurate in terms of generating blood glucose.
Sometimes, it can result in high blood glucose.
http://nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/how-eating-sugar-starch-can-lower-your.html

To reduce blood glucose, reduce protein intake. Unfortunately...

1) Minimising dietary protein starves the liver & kidneys of gluconeogenic precursors.
2) Blood glucose level drops.
3) The pituitary gland secretes ACTH.
4) ACTH stimulates the adrenal cortex to secrete cortisol.
5) Cortisol cannibalises LBM* to create gluconeogenic precursors.
*LBM = Lean Body Mass = muscles & organs.
This doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Also, ultra-high-fat diets are not healthy.
http://nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/ultra-high-fat-80-diets-good-bad-and.html
http://nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/nutritional-ketosis-what-is-it-good-for.html
http://nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/ketogenic-diets-and-sudden-cardiac-death.html

Low-carb diets with up to 50%E from fats are fine. There's no Metabolic Advantage to ketogenic diets and there are many disadvantages to long-term ketogenic diets. If you suffer from refractory epilepsy, a medically-supervised ketogenic diet is fine. Branched Chain Amino Acids can be added as adjunctive therapy, as they are ketogenic.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19687389

I have no axe to grind against Jimmy Moore. I hate pseudoscience and sadly, Jimmy's book is full of it. Check the list.
http://nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/guest-post-science-versus-pseudoscience.html
I practise science and I back up everything I say with quality peer-reviewed evidence. If you don't like it, tough.
Science doesn't care if you believe in it or not. It's still valid. I expect that my comment will be down-voted by pseudoscientific thinkers & cholesterol denialists.
http://nigeepoo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/guest-post-denialism-as.html
I don't care if you believe in it or not. It's still valid.

I'm an omnivore. I'm NOT a vegan, just so's you know!


I've only just added the last line, as I've noticed a tendency for some (stupid) Amazon commenters to accuse an author of being a Veg*n, when they don't agree with the review!