the-psoriasis-treatment

Gary Taubes makes insulin out to be a bad guy. In his latest article in Newsweek Magazine commenting on HBO's  Weight of the Nation documentary, he once again challenges energy balance (energy intake versus energy expended) as a paradigm for understanding obesity. The author of  Good Calories, Bad Calories  offers an alternative theory: refined sugars and grains trigger insulin, which leads to fat accumulation. He also doesn't think much of physical activity as playing a "meaningful role in keeping off the pounds." Is Taubes right? Not according to Jim Hill, Ph.D., a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver. Hill is the cofounder of the National Weight Control Registry, a registry of individuals who've succeeded in maintaining weight loss over time. He is also the co-founder of America on the Move, a national weight-gain prevention initiative. At a session at Experimental Biology, Hill said that the the ...

One of the biggest problems with modern diets rich in industrial foods is that they promote unnatural hunger patterns. For example, hunger can be caused by hypoglycemic dips, coupled with force-storage of fat in adipocytes, after meals rich in refined carbohydrates. This is a double-edged post-meal pattern that is induced by, among other things, abnormally elevated insulin levels. The resulting hunger is a rather unnatural type of hunger. By the way, I often read here and there, mostly in blogs, that “insulin suppresses hunger”. I frankly don’t know where this idea comes from. What actually happens is that insulin is co-secreted with a number of other hormones. One of those, like insulin also secreted by the beta-cells in the pancreas, is amylin – a powerful appetite suppressor. Amylin deficiency leads to hunger even after a large carbohydrate-rich meal, when insulin levels are elevated. Abnormally high insulin levels – like those after a “healthy” breakfast of carbohydrate-rich cere...

The idea that protein powders should be consumed prior to weight training has been around for a while, and is very popular among bodybuilders. Something like 10 grams or so of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) is frequently recommended. More recently, with the increase in popularity of intermittent fasting, it has been strongly recommended prior to “fasted weight training”. The quotation marks here are because, obviously, if you are consuming anything that contains calories prior to weight training, the weight training is NOT being done in a fasted state. (Source: Ecopaper.com) Most of the evidence available suggests that intermittent fasting is generally healthy. In fact, being able to fast for 16 hours or more, particularly without craving sweet foods, is actually a sign of a healthy glucose metabolism; which may complicate a cause-and-effect analysis between intermittent fasting and general health. The opposite, craving sweet foods every few hours, is generally a bad sign....

A great deal of discussion has been going on recently revolving around the so-called “carbohydrate hypothesis of obesity”. I will use the acronym CHO to refer to this hypothesis. This acronym is often used to refer to carbohydrates in nutrition research; I hope this will not cause confusion. The CHO could be summarized as this: a person consumes foods with “easily digestible” carbohydrates, those carbohydrates raise insulin levels abnormally, the abnormally high insulin levels drive too much fat into body fat cells and keep it there, this causes hunger as not enough fat is released from fat cells for use as energy, this hunger drives the consumption of more foods with “easily digestible” carbohydrates, and so on. It is posited as a feedback-loop process that causes serious problems over a period of years. The term “easily digestible” is within quotes for emphasis. If it is taken to mean “refined”, which is still a bit vague, there is a good amount of epidemiological evidence in support...

It is often pointed out, at least anecdotally, that potassium deficiency is common among low carbohydrate dieters. Potassium deficiency can lead to a number of unpleasant symptoms and health problems. This micronutrient is present in small quantities in meat and seafood; main sources are plant foods. A while ago this has gotten me thinking and asking myself: what about isolated hunter-gatherers that seem to have thrived consuming mostly carnivorous diets with little potassium, such as various Native American tribes? Another thought came to mind, which is that animal protein seems to be associated with increased bone mineralization, even when calcium intake is low . That seems to be due to animal protein being associated with increased absorption of calcium and other minerals that make up bone tissue. Maybe animal protein intake is also associated with increased potassium absorption . If this is true, what could be the possible mechanism? As it turns out, there is one possible and somew...

For as long as diets existed there have been influential proponents, or believers, who at some point had what they thought were epiphanies. From that point forward, they disavowed the diets that they formally endorsed. Low carbohydrate dieting seems to be in this situation now. Among other things, it has been recently “discovered” that the idea that insulin drives fat into body fat cells is “wrong”. Based on some of the comments I have been receiving lately, apparently a few readers think that I am one of those “enlightened”. If you are interested in what I have been eating, for quite some time now, just click on the link at the top of this blog that refers to my transformation. It is essentially high in all macronutrients on days that I exercise, and low in carbohydrates and calories on days that I don’t. It is a cyclic approach that works for me; calorie surpluses on some days and calorie deficits on other days. But let me set the record straight regarding what I think: there is no ...

My interview with Jimmy Moore should be up on the day that this post becomes available. (I usually write my posts on weekends and schedule them for release at the beginning of the following weeks.) So the time is opportune for me to try to aswer this question: What is a good low carbohydrate diet? For me, and many people I know, the answer is: a low calorie one. What this means, in simple terms, is that a good low carbohydrate diet is one with plenty of seafood and organ meats in it, and also plenty of veggies. These are low carbohydrate foods that are also naturally low in calories. Conversely, a low carbohydrate diet of mostly beef and eggs would be a high calorie one. Seafood and organ meats provide essential fatty acids and are typically packed with nutrients. Because of that, they tend to be satiating. In fact, certain organ meats, such as beef liver, are so packed with nutrients that it is a good idea to limit their consumption. I suggest eating beef liver once or twice a we...

One common outcome of doing glycogen-depleting exercise (e.g., strength training, sprinting) in combination with intermittent fasting is an increase in growth hormone (GH) levels. See this post for a graph showing the acute effect on GH levels of glycogen-depleting exercise. This effect applies to both men and women, and is generally healthy, leading to improvements in mood and many health markers. It is a bit like GH therapy, with GH being “administered” to you by your own body. Both glycogen-depleting exercise and intermittent fasting increase GH levels; apparently they have an additive effect when done together. Still, a complaint that one sees a lot from people who have been doing glycogen-depleting exercise and intermittent fasting for a while is that their fasting blood glucose levels go up. This is particularly true for obese folks (after they lose body fat), as obesity tends to be associated with low GH levels, although it is not restricted to the obese. In fact, many people d...

Let me start this post with a warning about spirits (hard liquor). Taken on an empty stomach, they cause an acute suppression of liver glycogenesis. In other words, your liver becomes acutely insulin resistant for a while. How long? It depends on how much you drink; possibly as long as a few hours. So it is not a very good idea to consume them immediately before eating carbohydrate-rich foods, natural or not, or as part of sweet drinks. You may end up with near diabetic blood sugar levels, even if your liver is insulin sensitive under normal circumstances. The other day I was thinking about this, and the title of this article caught my attention: Alcohol Consumption and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus . This article is available here in full text. In it, Kao and colleagues show us a very interesting table (Table 4), relating alcohol consumption in men and women with incidence of type 2 diabetes. I charted the data from Model 3 in that table, and here is what I got: I used the dat...

The “great blogosphere debate” rages on regarding the effects of carbohydrates and insulin on health. A lot of action has been happening recently on Peter’s blog , with knowledgeable folks chiming in, such as Peter himself, Dr. Harris, Dr. B.G. (my sista from anotha mista), John, Nigel, CarbSane, Gunther G., Ed, and many others. I like to see open debate among people who hold different views consistently, are willing to back them up with at least some evidence, and keep on challenging each other’s views. It is very unlikely that any one person holds the whole truth regarding health matters. Unfortunately this type of debate also confuses a lot of people, particularly those blog lurkers who want to get all of their health information from one single source. Part of that “great blogosphere debate” debate hinges on the effect of low or high carbohydrate dieting on total calorie consumption. Well, let us see what the China Study II data can tell us about that, and about a few other things....

The term “diabetes” is used to describe a wide range of diseases of glucose metabolism; diseases with a wide range of causes. The diseases include type 1 and type 2 diabetes, type 2 ketosis-prone diabetes (which I know exists thanks to Michael Barker’s blog ), gestational diabetes, various MODY types, and various pancreatic disorders. The possible causes include genetic defects (or adaptations to very different past environments), autoimmune responses, exposure to environmental toxins, as well as viral and bacterial infections; in addition to obesity, and various other apparently unrelated factors, such as excessive growth hormone production. Type 2 diabetes and the “tired pancreas” theory Type 2 diabetes is the one most commonly associated with the metabolic syndrome, which is characterized by middle-age central obesity, and the “diseases of civilization” brought up by Neolithic inventions. Evidence is mounting that a Neolithic diet and lifestyle play a key role in the development of ...

Hormone replacement therapies are prescribed in some cases, for medical reasons. They usually carry some risks. The risks come in part from the body down-regulating its own production of hormones when hormones are taken orally or injected. This could be seen as a form of compensatory adaptation , as the body tries to protect itself from abnormally high hormone levels. More often than not the down-regulation can be reversed by interrupting the therapy. In some cases, the down-regulation becomes permanent, leading to significant health deterioration over the long run. One can seriously regret having started the hormone replacement therapy in the first place. The same is true (if not more) for hormone supplementation for performance enhancement, where normal hormone secretion levels are increased to enhance (mostly) athletic performance. Rosenfalck and colleagues (1999) conducted an interesting study linking growth hormone (GH) replacement therapy with insulin resistance. Their conclusion...

An adult human has about 5 l of blood in circulation. Considering a blood glucose concentration of 100 mg/dl, this translates into a total amount of glucose in the blood of about 5 g (5 l x 0.1 g / 0.1 l). That is approximately a teaspoon of glucose. If a person’s blood glucose goes down to about half of that, the person will enter a state of hypoglycemia. Severe and/or prolonged hypoglycemia can cause seizures, comma, and death. In other words, the disappearance of about 2.5 g of glucose from the blood will lead to hypoglycemia. Since 2.5 g of glucose yields about 10 calories, it should be easy to see that it does not take much to make someone hypoglycemic in the absence of compensatory mechanisms. An adult will consume on average 6 to 9 times as many calories just sitting quietly, and a proportion of those calories will come from glucose. While hypoglycemia has severe negative health effects in the short term, including the most severe of all - death, hyperglycemia has primarily long...

The notion that exercise reduces blood glucose levels is widespread. That notion is largely incorrect. Exercise appears to have a positive effect on insulin sensitivity in the long term, but also increases blood glucose levels in the short term. That is, exercise, while it is happening, leads to an increase in circulating blood glucose. In normoglycemic individuals, that increase is fairly small compared to the increase caused by consumption of carbohydrate-rich foods, particularly foods rich in refined carbohydrates and sugars. The figure below, from the excellent book by Wilmore and colleagues (2007) , shows the variation of blood insulin and glucose in response to an endurance exercise session. The exercise session’s intensity was at 65 to 70 percent of the individuals’ maximal capacity (i.e., their VO 2 max). The session lasted 180 minutes, or 3 hours. The full reference to the book by Wilmore and colleagues is at the end of this post. As you can see, blood insulin levels...