Low HbA1c is as bad or worse than high HbA1c in non-diabetics

Low Hemoglobin A1c and Risk of All-Cause Mortality Among US Adults Without Diabetes

This study looked at roughly 14,000 NHANES III participants that were not diabetic.  I think this is an important distinction because it looks at differences in normal range, "free", if you will, of what the frank hyperglycemia associated with metabolic dysfunction might do to mean and/or median values.  Here is the hazard ratio plot:  

Adjusted hazard ratios for the association between HbA1c and all-cause mortality among participants without diabetes using a quadratic spline with knots at the 2.5, 10, 50, 90, and 97.5 percentiles. Adjusted for age, race-ethnicity, sex, lifestyle factors (education, income, current smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, body mass index, and aspirin use), cardiovascular factors (systolic blood pressure, antihypertensive medication use, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, log triglycerides, elevated C-reactive protein, and history of CVD), metabolic factors (prior diagnosis of thyroid disease, thyroid-stimulating hormone, estimated glomerular filtration rate, and albuminuria), red blood cell indices (hemoglobin, red blood cell distribution width, mean cell volume, and serum folate), iron storage indices (serum albumin, ferritin, and transferrin saturation), and liver function indices (hepatitis C seropositivity, AST, and ALT). Knots were placed at 4.3%, 4.7%, 5.3%, 5.9%, and 6.2%, representing HbA1c levels at the 2.5, 10, 50, 90, and 97.5 percentiles; shaded area represents 95% CI.

Read more »

Drama! Vegan v. LC

I can't help but weigh in on this this morning.  It seems a vegan  has come out with a new one:  Low Carb Guru of the Month.   

Yes, I'm aware that posting about this here puts me at risk for promoting such activity, but I'm going to take that risk.  Why?  Because Jimmy Moore has sought fit to respond and there are several things about this response that are worthy of being "called out".

Read more »

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.

Read more »

CrossFIT?

Short post here gang.  I was collecting the final clips needed for the upcoming vid and watched Gary Taubes' appearance at CrossFit just today.  OMG people.  Is it just me?  Or does the CEO of CrossFit make you a little ... umm ... uncomfortable?

Paging Dr. Davis!  I mean, really.  I'm no physical specimen myself.  But I'm also not Founder & CEO of CrossFit either!  Promoting Gary Taubes and how CrossFitters have been behind him for a long time.  Ummmmm....  Especially fun was after the intro how Gary (looking pretty fit if you ask me, or at least lean) lamented being the least fit person in the room. 

I JUST DON'T GET THIS FOLKS!!!

I don't know much about CF & the Paleo roots and whatnot.  I've learned a little more of late, but please realize I'm pretty much totally out of the loop and don't even really know what CF is specifically.   So when I see stuff like this it does make me gasp and wanna shake some people!  Really man ......... :-(

Jimmy Moore, PSS

In recent comments here, someone hit the nail on the head about Jimmy Moore.  He's become a professional sympathy seeker, PSS.  This is evident in his latest whine blog post:  Aren’t You Going To Respond To The Negative Attacks Against You?

Jimmy posts some screenshots of comments made about him and says this:

I guess these people have an expectation that if they write a comment like this on my blog, Facebook wall or Twitter page, at a YouTube video, on my forum or elsewhere online that I have a duty to publish it. I do not. I tend to agree with the famous blogger Tim Ferriss from “The Four-Hour Workweek” blog and his doctrine of it being okay to disagree with the ideas I share on my blog. But once you cross the line into personal attacks against me or others, there is no expectation that your comment will ever see the light of day. DELETE! I’m more than happy to entertain lively debate and discussion of the topics I blog about (that’s what a blog is for, right?). But if you decide to write some of the kind of stuff I shared above, it’s a guaranteed way your comments will never be approved.

Read more »

carbsmart??

You've probably all seen it somewhere perusing the low carb web ... the carbsmart affiliate logo, or even that yellow and blue CS.  Carbsmart is ... err was ... an online retailer of low carb foodstuffs -- mostly the stuff we'd call junk foods.  For over a decade low carbers could order up their favorite goods from this outfit.  As many low carbers do still depend on some of these "frankenfoods", I actually have no problem with outfits like the former CS  filling their needs.  In my opinion this is "honest business" whether the founder and CEO weighs 180 lbs or 380 lbs.  CS was a "middle man" in such potential low carb frauds as Dreamfields pasta and similar products, and I hold DF's makers responsible for that fiasco.  I also have no problem with CS  advertising on websites and blogs with subject matter likely to attract potential customers.  I'm a bit more critical of same-said bloggers and website owners, especially more recently when these folks are making $$ off these affiliations, posting reviews that at least infer endorsement, but having long since altered their personal diets to avoid the very "candy cigarettes" they make money from.  It's a step up from making money from Google Ads for Medifast and Jillian Michaels, but not a large step in my book.

Read more »

Hold the Hoax! The Dreamfields Dilema

"I've been on a Dreamfields kick lately and I love having a low-carb alternative to pasta that actually tastes like pasta. It's a nice treat I enjoy eating when I get the opportunity. Some think you shouldn't ever have these kinds of foods, but I disagree. If this keeps me from the real thing that is LOADED with carbohydrate, then what's the harm I say? It's not making me go out and binge on the real thing or sugar or any other carbage."

~ Jimmy Moore 1/16/10

Yes, I've had these spoof blog titles swirling in my head and they are too apropos to pass up.  Hold the Hoax!  Livin La Vida Low Clue (not my original idea) started this, clearly a take on Jimmy's blog/podcast/etc.  Hold the Hoax! is spoofing on Dana Carpender's blog/podcast/etc. titled Hold the Toast!  I don't know if it's been more than the usual amount of time on my hands, or reminiscing over the events of the past year, if Jimmy has been posting some particularly annoying commentary of late, or a combination of the three, but recently Jimmy posted the following:  Considering The Reliability Of The Dreamfields Pasta ‘Low-Carb’ Claim.  Perhaps I'm the only one offended by Jimmy's newfound holier-than-thou view of frankenfoods, the manufacturers of them, and the validity of the nutritional information on the purported content.  Perhaps not.  I think his participation in the Dreamfields hoax is worthy of mention.

Read more »