2008 - Age of Awakening / 2016 - Age of disclosures / 2021 - Age of Making Choices & Separation / Next Stage - Age of Reconnection! Heretic

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Dairy cuts mortality by 25% and strokes by 60%

Heretic'm mom's pie



Quotes:


Some 4,374 UK children from a 1930s study were traced 65 years later by researchers in Bristol and Queensland.
...
Despite dairy containing artery furring fat and cholesterol, high consumption did not raise the heart disease risk.
...
The study looked at family diets and found higher intakes of both calcium and dairy, predominantly from milk, cut mortality by a quarter.
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A higher daily intake of calcium, of at least 400mg as found in just over half a pint of milk, cut the chance of dying from stroke by as much as 60%.
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Joanne Murphy of The Stroke Association said: [...] "In the meantime, we advise parents to opt for a diet rich in fruit and vegetables and low in saturated fat and salt for the overall health of their children."

27 comments :

Gwennie said...

Lordy. That article reads like an old comedy sketch--the sort where people bumble around searching for a criminal and end up dragging the wrong man to the police station whilst the real perp slinks off, twirling his moustache. I wonder if it accurately portrays the researchers' conclusions. There's no direct acknowledgement of the fact that children in the 1930's would have been drinking whole milk, is there?

The input of the experts quoted in the article is particularly amusing when contrasted with the "Fat 'crucial' in children's diet" health story, linked on the right. (Of course, that other piece goes on to blacklist saturated fats anyhow.)

Also, hello and thanks for the interesting blog. I have enjoyed what I have read so far. =)

Stan Bleszynski said...

Hi Gwennie,
- you are very welcome and thanks for your encouragement. I am glad that somebody is reading, at least I am not totally wasting my time. 8-:)

Of course they didn't mention the fact that skimm milk is a modern abomination and children in the past used to drink full fat milk and lots of cream with most dishes. Cream for soups and sausses, and creamy salad dressings, gravies etc.

The authors did not fail to pay their tithe to the Anti-Animal Food religion by inserting that totally out of place bit about "fruit and vegetables". This was so nonsensical that I could not resist quoting it.

It makes me wonder if that culture (both European and N.American I mean) is really totally hopeless or is that just some peculiar degenerated intellectual elite? And how did that brain rot manage to promote themselves into the positions of power in all those prominent sectors of medicine (and beyond...).

I will have to write some post about the issue of negative selection in corporate business, based on my experience. There is a lot in common.

Jeff Consiglio said...

Stan - What do you think of Loren Cordain's hypothesis that dairy is bad due to it's effects on IGF, which may stimulate cancer, acne, etc?

Of course he's not keen on saturated fat either...which I think he's missing the mark on...but seems like he might have a good argument in terms of dairy's insuligenic and IGF promoting tendencies.

I know you sometimes post on the McDougal site...I did find it interesting that he also talks about dairy + IGF connection...but also says that soy raises IGF quite a bit MORE than dairy.

Stan Bleszynski said...

Hi CoachJeff, welcome!

Since the primary role of milk is to boost calf's growth, it is not that surprizing that it has an effect on IGF or may contain its analogues.

Because the overall mortality over 65 years was 1/4 lower in the study for the highest milk group, therefore this extra IGF stimulation (or presence) must not have been substantial enough to matter.

Milk (and meat) detractors often latch onto some partial aspects of the story and like generalizing those out of proportion like. That's why the long term studies are so impoprtant because they basically cut through the side issues.

I never read Cordain's so cannot really comment. If he really believes that saturated fat hurts then I might be a good case to falsify his theory since I have eaten probably ~300kg of saturated fat since 1999, about 80g/d (~100-200g total fat/d or 60-80% of calories) and am still alive and typing. 8-:)

Regards,
Stan

Jeff Consiglio said...

Cordain is definitely worth reading. And in his defense, he has done extensive research on the whole carcass bodyfat of wild animals. So he agrees with the argument, often used by low carbers and Weston Price folks, that hunter-gatherers would have eaten pretty much the entire animal - but that even in that case - there simply isn't a ton of saturated fat to be had from wild animals the way there is from modern, obese cattle.

Interestingly enough, he and Dr. Eades of Protein Power fame are good friends. Though obviously they disagree with each other on the saturated fat issue.

Keep up the good work!

Stan Bleszynski said...

I am not convinced about the lean wild game argument. We were not the only hunters hunting together and we were not the only consumers of the hunted prey during our good old days. One is just staring at me and licking me demanding to be fed. A couple of million years of co-evolution is a long time. Almost a symbiosis.

If a buffalo weight say 1 ton and has only 5% of fat (50kg) then I with my two legged friends would of course eat all those parts with the fat, giving away all the rest that is lean sinusy, bony or skinny to our four legged friends and their friends. Or just discard since it could not be kept for too long anyway. We are not terribly good at chewing and digesting the lean meat scraps but the dogs are!

dav0 said...

That's a nice smidgen of cream there Stan. You should watch your cholesterol ;-) Dave.

Stan Bleszynski said...

Hi Dave0,
Yes but I can always take some Lipitor, 8-:)
It was only a tiny wee smidgen of a cream on my mom's apple pie...

Mark said...

Hey Stan.

I just found this paper today. Haven't looked through it in any detail, but the title is:

Higher Total Serum Cholesterol Levels Are Associated With Less Severe Strokes and Lower All-Cause Mortality: Ten-Year Follow-Up of Ischemic Strokes in the Copenhagen Stroke Study.

It's from the American Stroke Association, A Division of the American Heart Association.

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/38/10/2646

Mark.

Hendrickus Brokking said...

Study may show nothing more than that milk is a less injurious choice of beverage than soda or slushies or iced teas, as instances. Kwasniewski as you already know routinely warns against excessive milk consumption for its lactose, and Donaldson condemns it wisely for the real possibility of modern pooled milk being impure at point of consumption.

Study does not square with truly phenomenal health of strictly carnivourous (buffalo and antelope alone) plains Indians prior to adoption, in whole or in part, of the comparatively calcium-rich diet of enlightened and civilized white man. Anyone who objects to the assertion that the health of the plains Indians on their traditional fare of meat and water alone was stellar, is encouraged to furnish proofs to the contrary, secondary to primary source study.

Ms. Murphy's guarded initial reaction was very wise, but it is rather sobering she was not similarly cautious in recommending an interim diet that for decades now has shown itself to be wanting, and that gravely.

Good studies found are the fruit of severe research, that is for sure.

Incidentally, 1930s era milk was less likely to be spoiling for days in an insulted refrigerator before consumption (gut cramps anyone?), less likely to be fortified, less likely to be pasteurized, less likely to be pooled, less likely to be homogenized, less likely to be low-fat, less likely to come from cows raised on formula, less likely to come from incarcerated cows fed diets richer in processed and fortified feeds, and less likely to come from cows impregnated artificially with the stored semen of purportedly superior bulls. One or all of these differences could significantly influence the findings.

Stan Bleszynski said...

There are problematic things in milk that may pose some problems for some people, if they consume too much milk. One is lactose sugar, another one is caseine. At the same time milk contains plenty of good fat which is protective for some of our organs and tissues. It is a big issue and the studies are only partial and infrequent.

I agree that dairy is not really necessary providing that one consumes enough animal fat in other forms. We need to eat fat!

I agree about the benefits of native American Indian diets but it is hard to convince them and others now to go back to eating game. Pizza is "cool" and cheap. Our best bet is probably to develop some kind of processed food but high in natural saturated fat and low in carbs. I like the way Chinese do it: there are plenty of high fat snacks for those who look for them, available everywhere: pork bellies, ducks, everything cooked traditionally in pork lard etc.

Hendrickus Brokking said...

I agree: a life bereft of dietary fat, especially animal fats, must be a slavish existence indeed. The primitive plains Indians deliberately sought out bison cows in the fall of the year for their rich fats, which they used rendered as a dipping sauce, and as a superb fuel for their tipi fires. See Francis Parkman's 'The Oregon Trail'. (Parenthetically, I understand ancient Hebrews used massive quantities of olive oil as a fuel for their lamps.)

I neglected to mention that Ms. Murphy's recommended interim diet is that to which both TC Fry and Herbert Shelton subscribed, theoretically so and practically so, and by all accounts to the letter. Notwithstanding their Spartan diet, these two eminent nutrition narcs died horrible deaths, secondary to degenerative disease: the one succumbed to bowel cancer, the other, Shelton, suffered from an advanced Parkinson's for many years, so much so he was obliged to dictate his publications to an amanuensis, apparently in a whisper. No saturated fat, low sodium, and an abundance of fruits and vegetables: Ms. Murphy's diet precisely. Tragic and sad. Very slim anecdotal evidence, confessedly, but too common amongst the vegan/vegetarian camp to wink at.

Man desperately requires animal fat and animal protein, but the trick is to find reputable sources for domesticated species, dairy, beef, swine, lamb, et al. - a Herculean challenge if ever there was one. (Wild greasy fish is ridiculously over-priced, especially when it is remembered that these species are nearly always in a state of advanced decomposition upon purchase, even in those stores with the most stringent standards. Perhaps confirmed anglers ought to be working at seafood counters?) I will say that the vegan concerns regarding animal welfare are fearfully accurate, and on this point Kwasniewski in his English translations is most unfortunately silent.

Hendrickus Brokking said...

Forgot to say one of my heroes, Walt Kempner, MD, was obliged to make recourse to whipping to ensure co-operation from his patients on the rice-fruit-sugar-fatless diet he prescribed with considerable success for heart and renal subjects. Too bad he imbibed the cholesterol and sodium theories: he was a giant otherwise. I'm afraid no one doctor has a monopoly on the answers the health hunters are seeking, but we're trying to put together the puzzle by learning from all those medics who realized meaningful success on very different regimens, different excepting the very sparing use of pharmaceuticals...

Stan Bleszynski said...

I thought TC Fry died of a heart attack, after suffering from bad arteriosclerosis for a few years.

Re: Kempner's rice-fruit-sugar-hapless diet

I suspect that some therapeutic successes of such diets can be explained by the lower daily glycemic load, thus allowing burning of body fat. Such diet can be a de-facto high fat diet even though the patients might not consume any fat through their mouth. See also:

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.com/2008/08/snacking-and-glucoseketogenic-cycling.html

If Kempner had to whip his patients to submission, then perhaps there might have been something wrong with him, not just with his diet?

Stan

Hendrickus Brokking said...

Really thought humourous your play on my description of the Kempner diet: "rice-fruit-sugar-fat(hap)less". LOL. As I previously said, a fat-free diet must be slavish, and I have no idea why Kempner forbade fats. He appears to have swallowed hook-line-and-sinker the cholesterol theory, but why he would not have then permitted plant fats, is obscure.

It may be attractive and it may be tempting to censure both Kempner and his diet owing to the doctor's use of the whip, but in view of the facts, I am obliged to question whether it is logical to do so. I would encourage you to read his scientific publications if you have not already done so, and there you will learn just how successful this diet was; you will, however, have to travel to a good medical library, since many of his pulications have not been scanned by those journals which published him when he was writing extensively in the mid-1900s.

The success of his diet cannot be attributed to a lower glycemic load: Kempner permitted 500 (five hundred) grams of white sugar per day to those patients who were of normal weight, in addition to 250 - 300 grams (dry weight) white rice, and fruits ad libitum. You will concur that this cannot be regarded as a low glycemic load diet.

Incidentally, Kempner's use of the whip can be variously interpreted. We have known those who have battled addictions with alcohol, porn/sex and drugs for years, and in spite of full consciousness of the consequences and risks, bodily, psychological, spiritual, and domestic, the power cannot be broken. Sometimes dramatic measures are taken in order to an anticipated cure: quitting out-right the most attractive jobs, and entering a treatment facility at the cost of thousands, and being thus obliged to either lie or confess to inquirers and to closest loved ones. Nevertheless, not infrequently do these steps fail miserably. Knowing this, I wonder if I would be so averse to subject myself to the extreme discipline of severe coporal punishment, if with it my family, income, financial assets, health and sanity could be salvaged. In which case, the question must be agitated whether the whipping was initited by the patients, that Kempner was merely an accessory deploying tough love, and that perhaps only after considerable personal anxiety, the doctor most reluctantly availed himself of the whip. After all, an addiction to bad food is little different than an addiction to booze or coke, and perhaps is more dangerous if for no other reason than that it is commonly perceived to be less so.

Classical literature knows something of this. A Bible author wrote, "God loves whom he chastens", and Jesus said, perhaps not so metaphorically, "If your eye offends you, excise it."

Kempner, W. Treatment of Hypertensive Vascular Disease with Rice Diet. Arch Intern Med. 1974 May;133(5):758-90.

Stan Bleszynski said...

Hendrickus,

I am not convinced about necessity of using coercion to force patients or anyone into compliance. I do not understand tht kind of attitude at all. I am more than willing to let other graciously follow whatever they like even if they choose self-destruction. I used to try otherwise in the past. When I tried convince t2 diabetics to adopt a diet that would cure them in 2 weeks, all I received was contemptious rejecton. I learned my lesson and in a sense am grateful to them (thank you webmd.com). You cannot force anyone to live against his/her will. We should not try to save people who do not request it!

Your quoted "excising one's offending eye" or similar ideas regarding hands etc, is an expression of senseless self-destruction inherent in all martyrdom cults. I think that people who sincerely follow a guru of this kind have a secret or not so secret death wish.

If they follow that kind of philosophy they are bound to end up destroyed like their idol, and will inadvertently suck those around them into it as well, because one experiences and causes what one believes in!

Regards,
Stan (Heretic)

Hendrickus Brokking said...

Hi, Stan:

Many thanks for the instructive and compelling exchange. The resistance by the carbohydrate intolerant, comprising more-or-less the entire human race but especially the pitiable diabetics you mention, to adopt a form of nutrition that has a long and celebrated history of success, is sad, and is very suggestive of the power of addictions. And like you, even the enigmatic Jesus charged those of his followers who aspired to teach, to promptly move on if their message met with resistance - and this I myself mean to do presently. Matt. 10: 14-6; Luke 10: 10, 1.

Excising one's eye was quite obviously a figure of speech uttered by a "guru" for whom Kwasniewski himself apparently had a considerable amount of respect; my parenthetical comment connected with this Biblical citation was to be understood within the larger context of my reply, namely, the use of severe personal discipline in order to a cure from a fatal course of disease, whatever that might be. I offered the interpretation that Kempner's whip was summoned by his patients as a means whereby they could better adhere to the prescribed diet. I certainly do not condone Kempner's use of the whip; perhaps if he had not mistakenly implicated the sodium ion, no corporal discipline would have been required.

I should stress that I do try to learn even from those with whom I in the main disagree (e.g., Kempner, Henry Bieler). Kempner's therapeutic successes have furnished me with some important clues why an ordinary low-carb diet, even with an emphasis on animal fat, may in some cases back-fire, even as it did with me. (Perhaps I was able to better see the diet's need for improvement thanks to meticulous record keeping and a hermetic lifestyle I very much loathe?)

I'm not sure how one can otherwise explain the findings of a recent truly low-carb study of 12 weeks duration which compared and contrasted those eating eggs, a food Kwasniewski praises, with those eating an egg substitute: the egg eaters experienced a 27% increase in TNF and no change in a number of reputable inflammatory bio-markers, with a significant reduction in but one parameter, hsCRP. Incidentally, the authors made a great noise about the 27% CRP reduction and an 18% increase in adiponectin in the egg group, whereas a 27% increase in TNF in the egg group, and a 30% reduction in MCP-I in the non-egg group with no significant change in the egg eaters (authors still had the surprising gall to write on page 7 of 9 that the egg group experienced a decrease in this parameter!), was very conveniently only alluded to. Given the foregoing, I have suspicions the study authors were so many bigots for eggs.

Blake Donaldson was a genius.

And I am saying too much. Once again, many, many thanks, and know I especially commend you for welcoming without monitoring comments from all readers of your blog: a true spirit of democrarcy and mutual respect this shows.

Ratliff et al. Eggs modulate the inflammatory response to carbohydrate restricted diets in overweight men. Nutrition & Metabolism. 2008, 5:6.

Stan Bleszynski said...

Hi Hendrikus,

What exactly back-fired in your LC diet, I am asking in case I may be able to help? Was it really high animal fat diet or something with lots of meat like Atkins?

Re: Jesus

I did my own research into it and came to different conclusions than most of his followers or mainstream Christianity would let me believe.

Who was Blake Donaldson?

Thanks for the reference paper on eggs, I didn't read it yet but I am going to.

Regards,
Stan

Hendrickus Brokking said...

Hi, Stan:

Blake Donaldson was a NY City MD who practiced medicine from WWI to at least 1961, the year his "Strong Medicine" was published (I thankfully managed some years ago to obtain one of the last reasonably affordable copies of this volume). Amongst other things, he doubted whether it was possible to work too hard, and he saw it as his most solemn responsibility as a clinician to return his ill patients to meaningful employment as soon as possible. This required in his opinion radical dietary and lifestyle interventions. The diet prescribed consisted of fat and amino acids, and occasionally fruit and aspirin; as for the latter, he insisted on 30 minutes of daily exercise upon arising. He was a very vocal critic of starch, and exemplary in his ability to invalidate pseudo-diagnoses.

Donaldson once kept an ill patient for nine months on nothing but greasy meat and water, and reports in the above book that at the conclusion of this regimen, the patient was in excellent condition. And I believe it.

You were grateful for the reference to Ratliff's egg study; please kindly show your appreciation by favouring me with a critical perspective on both it and my inital comments.

Re: Jesus. You may be surprised to learn I was quite gladdened to read you have not adopted that view of Jesus held by mainstream Christianity. Mainstream Christianity in spite of its countless millions of adherents, has proven itself to be more-or-less impotent in reversing or at the very least stalling in larger society the present tide of divorces; abortion; crime; labour strikes; employee abuses; alcohol, drug and pornography addictions; political ambition, games and fiascos (cf. present shameful state of Canadian federal politics); financial unrest; pharmacuetical-driven medicine; lax and oft-times perfectly destructive nutritional recommendations; wage discrimination; ad infinitum, and I suggest it may have something to do with its view of Jesus. So, differing from the apparently orthodox here might not be so...heretical? LOL.


Cordially.

Stan Bleszynski said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hendrickus Brokking said...

Hi, Stan:

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Quickly now. (LOL.)

Ratliff study was of 12 weeks duration, not 30 days. As little as 4 weeks of exercise (60 minutes x 3 days/week) while maintaining carb consumption at previous high levels (360 g/day) is sufficient time to improve markedly some blood inflammatory markers, so I suggest 30 days should be sufficient time to explore the efficacy of a strict low carb diet. Moreover, Kwasniewski commonly noted significant reductions in patient ESRs in as litle as 2 weeks with adoption of ON, and in the absence of exercise; however, his recommended introductory diet is rather narrow, and that has proven a clue to me.

Oberbach A et al. "Effect of a 4 week physical training program on plasma concentrations of inflammatory markers in patients with abnormal glucose tolerance." Eur J Endocrinol. 2006 Apr;154(4):577-85.

I appealed to the Ratliff et al. egg study in part not because I am a critic of stabilizing regulatory and counter-regulatory hormones via carbohydrate control and concurrently suppressing GI bacterial counts, but because this investigation, in conjunction with Kempner's work and that of others, supports my contention that identifying a healthy low carb diet is rather more complicated than merely reducing carbohydrate and increasing one's consumption of animal products and dietary cholesterol.

Incidentally, the increase in adiponectin, marked in the egg eaters and noticeably less so but still significant in the control group, might not after all be such a good thing. Work showing raised adiponectin in the presence of auto-immunity was first reported in 2003, long before Ratliff's egg study saw the light of day. And this could explain the dramtically increased CRP of 42% in the control group, and the 27% increase in TNF in the egg group, with no consistent trends otherwise, in Ratliff's subjects.

A rather natural and pressing question is, why does an ordinary un-well common labourer, completely bereft of the relevant education, have to identify serious research and doctoring flaws and oversights, when those to whom he is implicitly appealing for help have the germane "education", an abundance of abbreviations behind their names, have ready access to many thousands of pages of research and case reports, and are commanding no little recognition and a hefty salary, to boot? Is it mere sloppiness, or financial greed, or interference by those who sit on editorial boards, or prejudice, or peer pressure? In any case, the phenomenon, alarmingly common, is most disturbing. This is precisely how sensible and ordinary civilians develop a profound distrust of basically everything, and are obliged to go head-over-heels before coming to trust in any one person or thing. E.g., Canadian politics, medicine, religion. People are craving truth and reason, and by-and-large are not getting it from those who are entrusted with the solemn responsibility of truth-bearing, of leadership.

Fantuzzi G. Adiponectin and inflammation: consensus and controversy. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2008 Feb;121(2):326-30. Epub 2007 Dec 3.

To close, please refer me if you can to the literature which shaped your current conception of the historical Jesus. I am prepared to revise my beliefs, provided of course the evidence is sufficently compelling.

Gratefully.

Stan Bleszynski said...

Hi Hendrickus,

I appologize for my slopy misquoting of the "30 days" instead of 3 months for the duration of the study.

Re: ...supports my contention that identifying a healthy low carb diet is rather more complicated than merely reducing carbohydrate and increasing one's consumption of animal products and dietary cholesterol.

That is not my experience. My experience and most people around me who follow this (quite a few, surprizingly) is that no matter what you eat, as soon as you drop most carbohydrates especially wheat produce and sugar (pop soda etc) EVERYTHING becomes almost immediately improving, especially for people over 40-ty! It happened every time regardless what kind of food people begun eating instead of the carbs, some ate more eggs some less eggs and more fish + vegetables, some ate mostly pork, some prefered dairy, cheese beef etc. In every case that I know exept one, the result was very positive in all their health markers and in their general well being.

It does typically take more than 30 days to sort-of adapt, unless you are below 30-ty (2 weeks then). Many of the initial problems are just that, initial!

Re: adiponectin

Fascinating. I did not pay an attention to adiponectin but from wiki it follows that it is a powerful factor REDUCING metabolic syndrom that is increases insulin sensitivity. It's correletion with RA and other AI diseases may be just second removed, for example RA seems to be common among people who are often slim just like diabetics t1. Therefore the higher adiponectin may be just coincidental rather than causual, but I am not sure.

Re: rant against scientific establishment

I totally share your sentiments, probably because I used to be a scientist myself until 1989, (interlanetary space research) when I quit and took up a job as electornic engineer for a small company. What prompted me to quit was the way the establishment reacted to the newly announced cold fusion. I saw also some shenanigans and weird suppresion of data from the space probe I used to worked on (Phobos II to Mars)

I appologize if I may have unintentionally offended your religious views, I am going to delete my last reply (re: Jesus) but please keep in my that what I wrote was't a joke. This is what I found but I cannot corrroborate all this only some of that and in a circumstantial way. What I found to be a probale truth might not be the same (in fact it shouldn't be ) as what is true for you at this time, and that is perfectly fine! The bottom line is that it does not really matter what do I or you think about that story or if what I think is true. What does matter is the very act of asking questions - that act makes us alive and allows us to better express of who we really are.

Stan (Heretic)

Hendrickus Brokking said...

Hi, Stan:

Thanks for the apology; as you will learn below, I was guilty of some sloppiness myself in an earlier post, for which I am obliged to publicly apologize...

I was not at all offended by your religious comments, and the comment removal was certainly unnecessary.

Let me be clear that I was not ranting against the establishment, though I understand why I may have left you with that impression. Many doctors, for instance, are not to be condemned but pitied, since their education did not include a preventive or causal component, and they presumably did not have the time at their disposal during medical school to make a foray in this direction. If I were a typical modern North American MD, I would embrace and welcome all demonstrations of sympathy and pity, for I could not in clear conscience treat symptoms, knowing that sending the patient off with skin cream for dermatitis, e.g., would do nothing more than likely conceal a visible proof of GI injury. And perhaps if more patients demonstrated to their physicians that they were prepared to abandon bad habits while concurrently pressing their doctor for causes, we would witness a sort of medical revolution. Those who have agreed to draft the medical school curriculum must, however, shoulder a heavier load of responsibility; and I often agitate the question whether the curriculum emphasizes too much discriminating finely between close diagnoses, rather than emphasizing and exploring the possibility that whatever our many and varied ailments, they likely share only a few higher causes, whether viral/bacterial, nutritional, or genetic. This subtle change in emphasis would speedily reduce doctoring to fundamentals, the most basic and neglected of which is etiology.

I have poked around a little more and am now sufficiently convinced that the increase in adiponection in Ratliff's subjects was very likely the sort of adiponectin increase that is desirable: these same patients, as an earlier study (1) showed, had significant reductions in TGs and BP by the end of the study, and I submit such changes are desirable. Still, I wonder why Ratliff et al did not mention that adiponectin increases can be variously interpreted, and I wonder also at the inconsistent results obtained otherwise in the Ratliff study.

I still hold to the position that a healthy low carb diet is more complicated than you would argue. The Kwasniewski study (2) showed that CRP levels and the BMI of subjects adhering to ON for >3 years are no different than those randomly selected from a Nottingham, UK, district in 1991 (3): the former, numbering 22, presented with average CRPs and BMIs of 1.26mg/L and 24.1kg/m2, respectively, whereas the latter presented with CRPs and BMIs of 1.14mg/L and 25.5kg/m2. Average age of the Kwasniewski subjects was 52.5 years, and those of the very large Nottingham study, 44.4, hardly a marked difference. If a healthy low carb diet is as you insist not much more complicated than merely eating more animal products and lowering carbohydrate, I do not understand why the average CRP of demonstrably committed ODers is not considerably lower than that of the ordinary UK citizen, subsisting as he or she does on bread, sugar, oats, fruit, vegetables, milk, etc, or, conversely, that the average CRP of the typical adult UK citizen is not substantially higher.

Thanks.

1) Mutungi G et al. Dietary cholesterol from eggs increases plasma HDL cholesterol in overweight men consuming a carbohydrate-restricted diet. J Nutr. 2008 Feb;138(2):272-6.

2) Grieb P et al. Long-term consumption of a carbohydrate-restricted diet does not induce deleterious metabolic effects. Nutr Res. 2008 Dec;28(12):825-33. NB: I contacted one of the study authors to obtain average CRPs of those who held to ON >3 years.

3) Fogarty AW et al. Is higher sodium intake associated with elevated systemic inflammation? A population-based study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Jun;89(6):1901-4. Epub 2009 Apr 22.

Stan Bleszynski said...

Hi Hendrickus,

The age difference of 52 vs 44 years is very significant. In addition there is a systematic bias in comparing the OD patients since most of the people in Poland adopting Kwasniewski's diet are diabetic and old. This is a kind of last resort theorapy for people who exhausted all other medical methods. It appears that 90% of clients of Arkadia spa clinics are diabetics. Polish OD dieters were simply more sick to begin with. Very few people, even in Poland are as heretical as me and are willing to plunge by themselves into an unknown territory eating all that scary "artery-clogging" fat (just kidding), unless they have no other choice.

Or, if their arteries are already clogged and pancreas shot from a lifelong consummtpion of "superheatlthy" carbohydrates and start having some doubts or they suddenly notice that some people who have done the opposite (i.e started eating animal fat) experience a dramatic reversal of all their symptoms, rather than sudden death as the mainstream medical doctors would let them believe.

Hendrickus, we live in the new middle ages where the new rituals and compliance are valued more than logic and reason. I think you understand that too.

Regards,
Stan

P.S.

Optimal Diet is really much simpler and easier to maintain than you realize.

Once you cut off carbs and replace that with animal fat you will see how easy it is. I assure you that you will have no problems or that you will have no more problems (with health) than you may already have. Me and my wife have been eating like that since 1999 and we were never tempted to change back to the old style.

Hendrickus Brokking said...

Hi, Stan:

Thanks. This will be my final reply, since your enthusiasm is tiring me out. And I don't doubt it's all that saturated fat which keeps you going like the energizer bunny! LOL.

Speaking of fatigue, the notion that excess dietary carbohydrate per se eventually exhausts the pancreas of its ability to respond efficiently to exogenous glucose is rather simplistic: if I were to adopt similar logic, I could argue that excess dietary fat will eventually exhaust the ability of the gall bladder and liver to efficiently respond to exogenous fat. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Kempner's work indicates that dietary factors other than carbohydrate compromise the body's ability to respond efficiently to glucose, and a cursory study of the relevant literature amply proves this to be so. Reducing carbohydrate, then, does not remove the cause, and does not cure even one of the very many diseases of carbohydrate intolerance.

A chronic CRP >1 mg/L is serious business. The medical literature shows a CRP of >1 - <3 mg/L puts one at average risk of developing heart disease, and since millions are dying of this ailment, I suggest that the optimal CRP is considerably lower than what has hitherto been regarded as ideal (i.e., 1 - 3 mg/L). Incidentally, I recently ran across a large far east study showing average CRPs of .35 (point three five) mg/L in 40-year-old Orientals: besides eating considerable quantities of salt and swine, Orientals consume to the order of 200 grams pure glucose per day in the form of rice, besides additional simpler carbs, and these recruits were not an exception. What's more, the rice eaten is typically refined of its fibre, and taken thermally hot, which apparently causes acute post-prandial increases in blood glucose (personal experiments have confirmed this, but I might suffer from a severe carbohydrate intolerance). I have confessedly a rather difficult time squaring a large study showing massive day-by-day carbohydrate consumption and a concurrent low CRP with the notion that carbohydrate per se is as harmful as many low carbohdyrate adherents represent it to be...

I am glad you are feeling well on ON, a diet which the formal study above mentioned showed not to be nearly as harmful as many assume, and which I am sure would be positively superb with the inclusion of a mere two or three additional conditions. I only trust you and your wife have undergone extensive blood examination to ensure feelings are grounded in fact. And I am happy to know that you are sufficently bright to interpret "normal" lab results with caution; that an extensive blood exam is critically important since owing to genetic idiosyncracies, it may reveal marked abnormalities in tests not commonly ordered; and that acute phase reactants may be deceptively low if secondary to strong genes, one is producing at an increased rate various potent endogenous anti-oxidants associated with both longevity and disfigurement...

Cheerio!

Stan Bleszynski said...

Hi Hendrickus,

Thank you for your participation, it was a pleasure to talk. Good luck,
Stan

Stan Bleszynski said...

HB - You may find this interesting:

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/6/1/39

Quote:

... Risk factors for hyperhomocysteinaemia are cHDL and folate deficiency...

Though CRP that you mentioned is not the same as homocysteine but they seem to correlate, both being markers for inflammation.

Plant based nutrition is associated with low HDL. That is one of the factors, high fat nutrition = very high HDL and also high folate intake from liver, organ meat etc!