My review of Sally Fallon Morell's review of Robb Wolf's book and the "Original Human Diet"

Around a month or so ago Sally Fallon Morell, President o the Weston A. Price Foundation, reviewed Robb Wolf's book and gave it a "Thumbs Down".  What's up with her?  Wasn't the response to her President's Message from this past June enough to put her in her place?   I had parts of a post together at that time, but since the full letter wasn't publicly available at the time, and who knows what else was going on, I never published it.  I was going to augment that and include with this, but perhaps another time ... it got too long and convoluted.  Some day ... I make no promises though.  In any case, my link here is now to the full letter for anyone interested, but to sum up she wanted to clear up some myths about WAPF:

• It's not high protein, most do best on 10-15% protein and WAPF diet is small amounts of fatty animal protein, including organ meats, with each meal ... emphasis on fat, while high lean protein depletes Vitamin A.
• It's not low carb.  Some of Dr. Price's studied cultures ate quite high carb diets.
• It's not paleo. 

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Low Carb Circus Acts ...

In the Center Ring:

Jimmy Moore was on the Christian Broadcast Network's 700 Club yesterday.  I was going to leave this just for the social media stuff, but the appearance was quite disturbing in a few ways so I thought I'd share a few thoughts on that.  

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A tale of two "Wheat Bellies"

Before Dr. William Davis' name became synonymous with the elusive* Wheat Belly, he was well known for his subscription Track Your Plaque website.   This website currently charges $90 (all prices rounded) for the first year with yearly renewals at $72, for the basic membership ... more for shorter "contracts".  That's just the membership fee, that basically affords you discounts on various TYP products such as your Basic Membership Kit for $70 (reg. $110) or a Supplement Kit for $175 (reg. $215) or the testing kit for a cool $530 (reg. $570).   In the marketplace you can purchase all manner of testing supplies, etc.  

Now Davis is a huge backer of Jimmy Moore's Cholesterol Clarity book.  He contributed to it as an expert, provided an Editorial Review for Amazon.com and, as if that weren't enough, offered up a glowing 5 Star review on same, entitled Cholesterol bashing at its finest.  In it he writes:

Widely-held beliefs, many of them propagated by "official" agencies like the FDA, USDA, American Heart Association, Academy of Dietetics and Nutrition, American Diabetes Association, etc., are crumbling under the scrutiny of informed people uninfluenced by the pharmaceutical industry, agribusiness, or the excessive profiteering ways of modern "healthcare."

Uninfluenced by them, but influenced by profiteers and profiteers in their own right nonetheless.

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Jimmy Moore's Cholesterol Clarity ~ Ongoing Review and Information ~ Most Recent Update 9/19/13

The original opening to this post can be read by scrolling to the end or using your browser search function to find ##### .

The intent of a single post is that for as long as this content is relevant, I will add new information to this post and "bump" it to the top of the feed.  If it grows to be unmanageable, I'll have sections with search strings for easy navigation.  For now, each update will get popped to the top of the feed reader.  New "entries" will be at the top, and will be separated from prior content with "▼▼ Content added XX/XX/XX ▼▼".    Different topics within each update will be separated by ***** and a horizontal line ... like this:

***** ▼▼ Content added 9/19/13 ▼▼ 

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Interpreting Cholesterol Panels?

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When Size Matters (and when it doesn't) ...

Off the bat notice:  This will not be one of my usual referenced posts.  It's off the top of my head but based on research and the statements of others made in the past.  So if I get something wrong please let me know, if you want links and references, please ask and as soon as time permits I will get to them.  I am very busy with other matters besides this blog at the moment so please be patient.  Thanks!  

I think it is fair to say that Dr. Dayspring is "the particle number guy".  For good reason.  Of the various lipoprotein biomarker predictors these days, apoB and LDL-P seem to be the leaders of the pack.  But what of LDL-C?   For all the caution expressed by those clinging to TWICHOO about not throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, these same people seem more than willing to throw out the bathtub, fixtures and attached plumbing!

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Biomarkers: Context and Are They Causative Agents?

I received a comment recently on the Blood Sugar 140 series that prompted this post.  Actually, it prompted a post on the best predictor for T2 which will be forthcoming, but in fleshing out some background for that, I realized it was worth a post on its own. Below are links to previous post series I'm referring to:

• Blood Sugar 140: Where did the 140 mg/dL threshold come from?
• Blood Sugar 140: Context is Everything I - Diabetic vs. Non
• Blood Sugar 140: Context is Everything II: The OGTT
• Blood Sugar 140: Diabetic Neuropathy, Is it All About Hyperglycemia?

"Cliff Notes" Blood Sugar 140:  There is a commonly repeated "fact" out there that blood glucose levels over 140 mg/dL lead to nerve damage (and organ damage) generally attributed to the process of glycation.  Also implied in this is that such damage is cumulative such that any excursion over 140 is inflicting a little damage along the way.  This traces back to the following page on Jenny Ruhl's website:  Research Connecting Organ Damage with Blood Sugar Level:

The studies you will read below, some of which are not cited in the AACE guidelines, make a cogent case that post-meal blood sugars of 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/L) and higher and fasting blood sugars over 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/L) cause permanent organ damage and cause diabetes to progress.  {emphasis mine}

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An American Justice System for Food ~ Part I Intro and Carbs in General

The cornerstone of the American justice system:  Innocent until proven guilty.  According to Wikipedia: sometimes referred to by the Latin expression Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat (the burden of proof lies with who declares, not who denies).  I like the first part of that Latin expression and suggest that what is truly needed in nutritional circles is to put the burden of proof on those making claims.  My point here is not a political one, it is not to argue the merits of my country's justice system or its implementation, or anything of the sort.  It is to put forth a suggestion -- that ALL who demonize foods be tasked with proving their charges.   I suggest this because it is darned near impossible to do the opposite especially in the face of baseless charges.  

It is a bit of a stretch, but keep in mind that many of the compounds, such as water, can be toxic at some level of ingestion.  Furthermore, some of the chemical and/or physical properties of many innocuous compounds found in foods can seem quite daunting when taken out of context.   This is an obvious spoof, but hopefully it makes a point.

Now, the vegans and vegetarians and raw and fruitarian crowds are all just as guilty of this, but since I've never been even remotely a part of any of those communities, I'll leave it to someone else to call out their hyperbole, scaremongering and outright disinformation.   I'm also not talking about new non-foods such as artificial sweeteners, chemically modified foods (e.g. hydrogenated fats), non-food chemicals such as preservatives and I'll even throw in GM in with substances that should be considered unsafe until proven otherwise.  

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Surrogate Biomarkers for NEFA?

For reasons related largely to the difficulty (thus presumably expense) in measuring them, one fasting lipid that is not routinely assessed in lipid panels are the free fatty acids (FFA) aka the non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA -- Wholly irrelevant but I prefer the latter acronym as I like to sound them out in my head and knee-fah "sounds" better than eff eff ay to me).  And yet, like glucose, it is NEFA that is elevated in diabetes.  Unlike glucose, however, NEFA is elevated in non-diabetic obese as well as elevated NEFA preceding frank hyperglycemia in the progression of Type 2.  

One of insulin's primary roles vis a vis adipose tissue is to regulate the "basal" triglyceride/fatty acid cycle, acting on both adipocytes and the liver, to keep NEFA in a relatively small range of levels (amounting to roughly half to three-quarters of a gram in circulation under normal fasted circumstances).  

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Is there any such thing as "safe fat" for diabetics?

So some of the AHS12 videos are now online, HERE.  I'll have some comments on particular presentations, though by no means a majority.  Still, I had to, of course, watch the Safe Starches panel.   For the record, I think Paul & Chris did a good job, especially considering the circumstances, but this thing was an abomination in the making from the get-go.  I'll have more on that in another post.

The whole "debate" goes back to Jimmy Moore's "data dump" post on safe starches.  You remember that one, right?  Is There Any Such Thing As ‘Safe Starches’ On A Low-Carb Diet?  As I said, I'll have more to say on this follow-up, but as one would expect Jimmy expresses his concerns over the safety of starches, and around the 5 minute mark essentially tries to take Paul to task for using the term "safe"!  Citing Webster's Medical Dictionary 

SAFE: not causing harm or injury; especially : having a low incidence of adverse reactions and significant side effects when adequate instructions for use are given and having a low potential for harm under conditions of widespread availability

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It’s high time we start treating actual DISEASE rather than risk factors anyway.

I’m currently on a personal quest to find the answers to these questions [why his lipid profile has gone from almost normal to nightmare territory after 7 years of LLVLC] and more by speaking directly with as many of my expert friends in the medical, nutrition and research fields over the next six months researching and writing my book all about this topic tentatively titled A Patient’s Guide to Understanding Your Cholesterol Test Results (releasing Fall 2013). People are so confused about what to believe about their cholesterol test results that this book is way overdue. Arming people with solid information will help them make a more informed decision about what to do about the current state of their health rather than blindly following some dubious drug therapy promoted by their doctor to treat risk factor numbers. It’s high time we start treating actual DISEASE rather than risk factors anyway.

~ Jimmy Moore 

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Anyone know what study this comes from?

I'm listening (oh it is torture folks!) to Dayspring & Taubes in the Specialty Health series on YouTube.  In the second video, Fat One, around 10:40 mark for context, Taubes says that a research group from UConn (Volek I presume) did a study that showed that you'll have more saturated fat in your bloodstream if you eat a high carb diet than if you eat saturated fats.  Anyone know what study he's referring to, and if this is indeed true?  Thanks!

Also, so I don't waste an entire post on just this, let me throw out another topic for discussion.  If sat fat is good for you and you need some of it (if you go back to around the 10 min mark you'll get this whole thing for context) ... why is high carb bad?  Your body makes "pure" sat fats out of the excesses it chooses to do so with.  

Our bodies make sat fats, cholesterol and glucose ... why is only the glucose bad in the mind of the low carber, or to be fair, sat fats & cholesterol to the low fatter?

Hacking Jimmy Moore's Latest Lipid Report

So Jimmy Moore has released his latest lipid panels, after losing 50-or-so pounds in 5 or so months of his nutritional ketosis experiment.  Before I comment on these, a huge revelation was made in the post:

Interestingly, before I started on the Atkins diet in January 2004, my highest total cholesterol was only about 230. Of course, my doctor put me on both Lipitor and Crestor to lower that number and it did get down to 130 at some point (don’t know what the breakdown was of HDL and LDL nor do I know what my triglycerides or LDL-P were at the time either).

Ummm ... Jimmy, do you even bother to look back at your own blog? Seems not, which is a darned pity for someone so darned and determined to figure all of this out, but who doesn't even look at his own data.  

Before I started livin’ la vida low-carb, my HDL was a dismal 21 and my triglycerides hovered over 250. My LDL was about 250 which brought my total cholesterol to around 275. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

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