A survey of patients with self-reported severe food allergies in Japan] - PubMed - NCBI

A survey of patients with self-repor... [Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI

Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2008 May;19(3):270-4. doi: 10.1111/j.1399-3038.2007.00621.x.

Imamura T, Kanagawa Y, Ebisawa M.

Source

Department of Planning, Information and Management, The University of Tokyo Hospital, Tokyo, Japan. imamura-t@umin.ac.jp

Abstract

Food allergies have increased in recent years in Japan. Details of causative foods, places where anaphylaxis developed, and other allergic factors remain unknown, and we investigated them. A'questionnaire survey for the prevention of food allergies' was conducted using a nationwide group of patients with food allergies. A total of 1383 patients from 878 families (including 319 patients who experienced anaphylaxis) provided valid answers to the questionnaire. The average age of the first anaphylactic attack was 3.20 +/- 6.327 yr.

The most common allergens causing anaphylaxis were in order milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, and soybeans, followed by sesame and buckwheat.

The most common place where anaphylaxis developed was the patient's own home, followed by fast food restaurants, places visited, restaurants, and schools. In patients' own homes, fast food restaurants (buffet), places visited and schools, the most common allergens were milk, eggs, and wheat.

In restaurants and accommodation facilities, eggs were the most common allergen followed by milk. As possible food allergies can cause anaphylaxis, it is necessary to provide precise information for consumers regarding packaged and processed foods.

PMID:

18397411

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

A sick person can react to ANYTHING. And a very healthy person can tolerate a lot of terrible things | Melissa McEwen

The many-venomed earth | Melissa McEwen on food anthropology, economics, and culture

Posted Mon, 03/19/2012 - 14:39 by Melissa

 

 I've written before on how the typical "paleo" paradigm didn't fix my digestive problems. That's because paleo divides things into good and bad in a somewhat arbitrary manner. The reality is that good and bad are relative to the functioning of your body and your individual biology. As Dr. Ayers said in his latest post:

This suggests that the problem is somehow in the intolerant person, even though there are no genes for food intolerance and very few cases of food intolerance result from an immune reaction. Food intolerance is actually the inability of an individual's incomplete gut flora to digest certain types of food.*

The question becomes whether or not you can figure out which foods you are intolerant of and then whether or not you can become more tolerant. Your malfunctioning gut bacteria probably don't care about whether or not a food is "paleo" or not.

This becomes clear now that an army of paleo cookbooks have been published that contain nut and coconut flours. My family has discovered the hard way that these flours can be quite harsh on the digestive system. My mother told me she reacted terribly to some coconut flour baked goods she made, but not to plain old bread. I found that I reacted to both about the same, which meant that both seemed to lead to cramping and bloating. That's not really surprising, since it seems fructans are my main enemy.

Almond and coconut are "paleo" ....why? Because they are not seeds (actually, they are technically seeds, which is pretty hilarious that people don't think of them as such) and grains? Even though there is ample evidence for seed and grain consumption in the actual Paleolithic. And almond and coconut share many of the properties that some "paleo" advocates claim are the problem with grains, such as high levels of phytic acids and potentially-reactive lectins and other proteins.

For example, Robb Wolf tweeted that he didn't think grains could be a "safe starch" because there are some papers on various immune-system reactions to them. But I can find papers on very similar reactions to our sacred cow. I'm sure in some parallel vegan circle-jerk twitterverse, Dr. Dean Ornish is tweeting those papers to confirm his follower's various biases, but as I wrote about sialic acid from meat, not everyone reacts this way. And in particular, I don't think healthy people are as likely to have such dysfunctional immune responses to food, but Westerners raised on crap in a "hygienic" environment are very vulnerable.

My mantra is that a sick person can react to ANYTHING. And a very healthy person can tolerate a lot of terrible things. I always like to remember the story of Mithridates VI of Pontus, who was so paranoid about being poisoned that he took small doses of various poisons in order to accustom his body to them (hormesis perhaps). When he was defeated by Pompey, he tried to commit suicide by poison, but couldn't because he was immune to what he had on hand. So he had to have his bodyguard execute him by sword.

He is immortalized in an excellent poem by A. E. Housman

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
–I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

– A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad

I love the line "the many-venomed earth" and it's one that has struck with me often as I study science, along with Tennyson's "Nature, red in tooth and claw" from In Memoriam.

Interestingly, through self-experimentation I've found that I do not just OK, but much better eating things made with rice and certain pseudograins. My skin improves when I eat finely sifted fermented buckwheat (a pseudograin) and I have much more energy and digestive stability when I have some rice in my diet.

I also think some of these gluten-free grain-free things are pretty much torture to cook, requiring all kinds of fruit/vegetable purees or five million eggs to produce something even somewhat appetizing. And I don't have any particular interest in eating things that are only somewhat appetizing unless they are exceptionally nutritious.

Sometimes I get asked what my diet is like and that's a hard question to answer. I'll go through periods where I cook some particular ingredient over and over again, and then I kind of forget about it for awhile. It's like that with buckwheat for me. Perhaps the craving has something to do with buckwheat being particularly rich in magnesium?

Lately, one of my favorite meals is buckwheat pancakes with delicious toppings. My method for making buckwheat pancakes is that I sift the flour and then soak it for a day in sour whey or sour cream. Then I mix in an egg and cook it in fat of some sort. This one I topped with bacon-wrapped elk, REAL lingonberries (not the jam from IKEA, I bought them frozen at Erickson's Delicatessen and they are very sour, so they work very well with savory dishes), and seaweed.

* I also agree with Mat Lalonde that reactions to specific proteins can be an issue, though the two things are somewhat interconnected

Is Paleo a band-aid? - Dr Kurt Harris says ....(PaleoHacks.com)

Is Paleo a band-aid? - PaleoHacks.com

This is what Kurt Harris says in the comments for Melissa's recent article The many-venomed earth : Hi Chris I must respond to your comment as it is so spot-on. I am starting to think the core paleo conceit of our health being ruined by eating particular things, and we can all be fixed by avoiding them, is simply wrong. Dangerously, misleadingly, wrong. I've long ago tossed the idea that a particular macro ratio is poison, and am now starting to think that the EM2 (or EEA) is defined less by novel NADS as particular substances, and more by the gut microbiome and environmental pseudocommensals and their critical effects on our health. I believe loss of tolerance for eating just about anything (except obvious NADS like excess LA and huge amounts of fructose) is a sign of immune dysregulation in MOST cases. It definitely is a sign of immune dysregulation to have an allergy to beef, or shellfish, or rice (very common in Japan). I disagree with Dr. Ayer's on that point. Even IBS has been recently shown to be characterized by abnormal mast cell populations in the gut- the same cells mediating airway and skin allergies. Take the case of Wolf. Robb Wolf was not poisoned by wheat and saved by paleo. He was rather a victim of a particular disease of immune dysregulation- celiac disease - which was and is ameliorated BUT NOT CURED by a wheat free paleo diet. He must stay off gluten to stay in remission. He is not "cured". If he were he could eat wheat with impunity like I can (Yes, my tests for celiac were negative). In the same way, someone with Crohn's disease or AS is not being poisoned by starch feeding particular bacteria in the gut, they are victims of an abnormal immune response to gut bacteria macromolecules that we are supposed to be able to - are actually evolved to - tolerate. The GAPS diet or similar, if it works for IBD, is palliative and not curative. The idea that starch or even gluten are per se NADS is wrong. As you have discovered, one may eat any of a variety of PERFECT paleo diets and still not really be emulating the EM2, and therefore may still be or become seriously sick. In your own case, you've palliated your Crohn's disease with diet, but still have a haywire immune system, which now has given you the disease of Lupus. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that any paleo diet or guru with do anything for your Lupus, because what particular foods you eat is not the most important part of the EM2 that you are missing. If you want to, you can email me off blog.

Not enough people mock Ray Peat- Plus, a rant about quacks frauds and charlatans praying on the ignorant.

The Scribble Pad: Not enough people mock Ray Peat; Plus, a rant about quacks frauds and charlatans praying on the ignorant.

I really really cant stand Ray Peat.

The reason I loathe him so is he is such a *brazen* quack. He's worse than Jack Kruse when it comes to spouting total lies and getting away with it.

I've been reading this article @ 180degree health (home of brother in quackery, Matt Stone) for 1 minute and he has already mislead people into believing rhemuatoid arthritis = hypothyroidism, that graves hyperthyroid symptoms = hypothyroidism, and that there are no normal biological values with a wide range as exists for TSH, and that hypothyroid people are actually manic full of energy. LOL.

These kind of outrageous lies depend on the medical ignorance of the reader. An educated reader would spit out their coffee reading Peat. It is so shameful because most readers are simple, uneducated types and trusting Peat hoping to gain insight into their own health problems; they never realize the full extent of the out of this world medical lies Peat spouts w/o a hint of irony because they don't have the background. Let's focus on his discussion of the signs/symptoms of myxedema for a moment:

"The mucousy materials [myxedema] that are overproduced can also cause blood vessel inefficiency and rigidity, and contributes to things like varicose veins.  When this material gets in the joints, it causes cartilage deformities.  The old textbooks used to show teenagers with deformed joints that caused the same deviation of the bones — at the elbow joint especially, and the knee joint especially, with knock knees for example — but in old people you see the fingers deviating to one side, because the cartilage is getting deformed."

Ignoring for a second the totality of bullshit in this paragraph, I would like to focus specifically on his claim that myxedema causes severe finger joint deformities. This is a typical Peatism - to brazenly misrepresent medical reality to his readers, hoping/praying no one in the audience has a basic medical background.

The "medical textbooks" which feature elderly people's hands with fingers deviating to the side are demonstrating the effects of a specific connective tissue illness, most specifically rheumatoid arthritis, and this sign is called a swan's neck deformity. 

It is rather specific for rheumatoid arthritis, and if you see an old person whos fingers are all leaning away from their hand, that person has a severe connective tissue illness like rheumatoid arthritis. The reason this is so is because RA specifically targets synovial joints, and that severity of deformation localized to that area of the body is a fairly specific sign for RA. It can occur in other illnesses affecting connective tissues, but it is *not* a sign of hypothyroidism generally speaking. A person can perhaps have hypothyroid as well as a connective tissue disease (and I assume some patients exist with multiple autoimmune disorders), but one is not related to the other pathophysiologically speaking.

Furthermore, a lot of autoimmune illnesses (including thyroid and RA) tend to strike older individuals, due to poor health/weaker immune systems as part of aging.  In example, a large percent of older females will have hypothyroidism (real hypothyroidism, not made up Ray Peat bullshit hypothyroidism)... but very very few young women will have hypothryoidism. Same is true of RA; there is a minority of young people with RA (and it is specifically called juvenile onset RA) but most RA is found in an elderly population; therefore, older people's hands are the ones most of us have observed with this deformity in our day to day lives. This is why Peat slyly says  "old people's hands"; he knows most of his readers have only ever observed this in an elderly hand. RA, like all illnesses, is a spectrum of severity illness. Some people with RA you will encounter are bed bound and in chronic pain with all joints contracted and torturous. Others, more commonly, have some mild deformation and pain but are not complete invalids. It's a SPECTRUM disease, and most of us have seen someone who has had RA before whether or not they told us, simply because the hands are a giveaway sign... the swan's neck deformity of fingers.

Bait and switch then occurs for the reader: "I saw it, he said it, it must be true, therefore, everything he says is probably just as insightful!" The bait and switch comes in when Peat presents this as some kind of sign of hypothyroidism, when it isn't at all. The reader trusts Peat thinking he is insightful because it matches their personal experiences, never realizing what a lousy crazy quack he is.

Possessing even a basic medical education would demolish Peat's work without breaking a sweat; I usually reach an exasperation stage about 30-60 seconds into a ray peat article for this reason... it takes him about that long to say something Jack Kruse like in degree + severity of outrageous lie. He is sooo terrible about misleading people medically speaking, but as stated most of his readers are too medically ignorant to catch on. I cry a little bit whenever anyone tells me they read Peat. He's a sigma above Mercola in quackishness, and he's probably much worse than Jack Kruse when it comes to medical lies and deception.


I could continue to humliate this pathetic article. Scrolling down on the Matt Stone joke-site, it appears Peat drones on and on like this spinning lie after lie. Out of all the quacking going on in this extremely long article, I would award Peat the most points for his "Lipofuscin" rant. He attempts to present a case that "age pigments" are the cause of human aging and disease and this is lipofuscin. God, I love it when quacks develop a T.O.E. and arbitrarily peg some novel/poorly understood metabolite or hormone to be the great alien space ship to hale bopp. Kruse's hale bopp space ship was "leptin", Peat's used to be progesterone, but I like the "lipofuscin" alien ship better because it is so poorly understood you can really say anything you want to/attribute it to it, and most people wouldn't know the difference. Including me. Because no one knows ANYTHING about what lipofuscin does or does not do.

Unfortunate for Kruse, and for Peat, we know pretty well now what leptin does, and what progesterone does, so it is very easy to expose these lies for what they are. When Kruse started out, most were less educated regarding leptin. Most women are also very ignorant regarding their hormones / what they do, which gives Peat leverage to advertise the crazy shit he does.


The losers are always the people at home just reading the internet trying to make heads or tails of things. People like Ray Peat are what give the phrase "Don't believe what you read on the internet" real power. Of course the internet can provide one with access to a great deal of information, much more than formal education sometimes; but then on the other hand, there is Ray Peat and Jack Kruse, and Mercola and Matt Stone, and various other fucking assholes.  It is inexcusable + shameful more people do not denounce these frauds.

Here are the losers:

180 gullible fools, I guess 1 for every degree of health. Maybe it is 1 degree of temp increase after pigging out at the chinese buffet, huh. Turns out if you want to defeat obesity, just be a naturally thin 20 year old man and eat a lot! Turns out food becomes heat, not body fat!!! It works for Matt Stone!!! It's that simple, lol! 





Oh and P.S., I find it ironic Peat has a gallery of artistic nude paintings on his website. The women he paints to admire female beauty are classically demonstrating the appearance of high estrogen with very low /brief progesterone exposure. Pale edematious skin particularly of face, arms, hips/legs, with marked diminished fluid/fat retention around waist, very thick hair. This is classic female beauty; all men all over the world are attracted to this because pale skin is a significant fertility indicator, as much so as a narrow waist/flat stomach, and the fatty/edematious arms and legs which are demonstrated by his painting. These changes are only possible from high estrogen, without prior history of extreme progesterone exposure (lack of prior pregnancy).

Peat writes this of his painting:

Painting and science have been closely associated historically, because both used to involve close, intense examination of their subject, generalization based on experience, and imaginative consideration of the possibilities. That has changed but not because of any intrinsic change in knowledge.

...

In the 19th century, biologists were usually competent painters, but as specialization took over at the beginning of the 20th century, both science and painting became "abstract." Mathematics came to be called the language of science, and a science was considered to be more scientific when it was more mathematical. The mathematical habit of mind inclines biologists to see organisms as disembodied information, ultimately as the information contained in the genetic code. Change (they are likely to say) is random, "chaotic," ultimately unknowable. There is no place in this system for a radical critic of the purpose and direction of the system.

 He claims he is a student of observed life and this informs his biological/medical theories, meanwhile he is inept to understand the appearance of "healthy fertile female" he finds oh so poetic and riveting, is nothing more than some estrogen, and youth, in the context of low testosterone and naivete to high progesterone.  This hilarious tard has a whole webpire dedicated to selling progesterone cream and  convincing women high youthful estrogen is "bad" , meanwhile he uses the appearance of females who express the results of that evil endocrine system to advertise his theories. I couldn't make this up.

 The quackosphere never stops being entertaining, and they are usually most hilarious when they are dead serious.

Posted by ItsTheWooo at 2:47 AM

Ketogenic Diet Resources- Site Map

Site Map for Ketogenic Diet Resources

Here's a site map listing by category:

Ketogenic Diet Plan

• Antioxidant Foods: Antioxidant foods are foods which provide chemicals which act to repair or prevent oxidative damage in the body. How does a ketogenic diet impact these foods?
• Atkins Diet: The Atkins diet is by far the most famous ketogenic diet.The diet was developed by the late Robert C. Atkins, M.D. in the late 1980s, and it has been the focal point of the unfounded criticism over low carb diets.
• Atkins Induction: Atkins induction is the first phase of the Atkins diet, and it is often associated with the symptoms of adapting to a low carb diet. Here's a quick list on minimizing the side effects.
• Best Weight Loss Program: Here's why a ketogenic diet is the best choice for losing weight. It addresses and corrects the underlying hormonal reasons for weight gain.
• Best Way to Lose Weight: Here's a step by step plan for using a ketogenic diet to lose weight.
• Weight Loss Plateau: Here's my weight loss story and tips on breaking a low carb weight loss plateau.
• Calorie Counting: Calorie counting is not really necessary on a ketogenic diet. As long as you keep your carbohydrate intake super low, and your protein intake moderate, you shouldn't have to worry about calories.
• Complex Carbs: Dietitians advise their clients that complex carbs are are an important part of the diet. These "good carbs" are the "quality" carbs and are the healthiest foods to eat. But is that true?
• Counting Carbs: Counting carbs is easy to do. Here are some tips on how to count accurately.
• Daily Protein Requirement: Here's a chart which shows how much protein you should be eating on a daily basis for optimal health.
• Facts About Vitamins: Warnings about vitamin deficiencies on ketogenic diets abound, so let's look at the facts about vitamins in relation to a ketogenic diet.
• How To Stop Sugar Cravings: Suggestions and tips on how to overcome the sugar monster and get control of your eating habits.
• Gluten Intolerance Symptoms: One of the best things about a ketogenic diet is that is cuts grain from your diet, and resolves many of the vague symptoms associated with gluten intolerance.
• High Intensity Interval Training: High intensity interval training (HIIT) is exercise which is brief, infrequent, and intense. It has different metabolic effects than low intensity exercise, like long walks or slow jogs, or an hour on the stairmaster at a slow rate.
• High Carb Foods: Here's a list of high carb foods which should be avoided on a ketogenic diet.
• Ketogenic Diet Benefits: The list of ketogenic diet benefits is a long, happy one. Here's what to expect the first month after switching to a ketogenic diet plan.
• Ketogenic Diet Menu: This page has a few examples of a daily ketogenic diet menu. It all about eating controlled portions of meat, as much fat as you like, and low carb veggies.
• Ketogenic Foods: Ketogenic foods are essentially just whole, real foods. They are usually higher in fat, moderate in protein levels and very low in carb.
• Low Carb Diet Side Effects: Low carb diet side effects aren't that bad if you understand why they happen and how to minimize them.
• Low Carb Dieting Myths: these myths are some of the most pervasive about low carb, ketogenic diets. I do my best to debunk them.
• Low Carb Diet Plans: My recommendations for the best ketogenic low carb diets.
• Low Carb Food List: Here’s a low carb food list and the buying techniques I use which will help you buy ketogenic foods that are clean, whole and offer the best nutrition.
• Low Carb Grocery List: Here’s a low carb grocery list to help you stock your kitchen the low carb way.
• Magnesium Deficiency: The list of health problems associated with a magnesium deficiency is a long one. Are you at risk?
• Magnesium Rich Foods: Eating more of these foods will help you keep your magnesium intake at healthy levels.
• Natural Supplements: Many of the reasons for taking these natural supplements have to do with supporting cellular respiration. Your health depends on the health of your cells and mitochondrial function within them.
• Printable Food Diary: Use this diary to track your food intake, carb counts, protein and fat intake, exercise and other details of your diet plan.
• Protein Power Diet: My favorite ketogenic diet docs created this diet. The book is actually fun to read.
• Rabbit Starvation: Rabbit starvation is a type of malnutrition associated with lean protein intake without fat to balance the diet.
• Reactive Hypoglycemia: Reactive hypoglycemia is a condition in which the body reacts to a perceived catastrophic drop in blood sugar. It's a common reaction when starting a lower carb diet.
• Vitamin C Deficiency: Fears over a vitamin c deficiency is one reason that people worry about when embarking on a ketogenic diet. However, it has been shown in several scientific studies that this fear is unfounded.
• Zero Carb Diet: A zero carb diet is a diet in which no carbohydrate at all is eaten. It is an extreme form of the ketogenic diet, and not recommended for various reasons.

Ketogenic Science

• Dawn Phenomenon: This may be the reason for elevated fasting blood sugars in the morning.
• Diabetic Ketoacidosis: Diabetic ketoacidosis is an abnormal form of benign dietary ketosis. It's a danger mostly to people with type 1 diabetes, but it can also happen to people with type 2 diabetes under certain circumstances.
• Gluconeogenesis: Gluconeogenesis is a metabolic process of making glucose, a necessary body fuel, from noncarbohydrate sources such as protein (amino acids), lactate from the muscles and the glycerol component of fatty acids.
• Ketoacidosis: Some doctors think that a ketogenic diet is dangerous because they confuse ketoacidosis, an extremely abnormal form of ketosis, with the normal benign dietary ketosis associated with ketogenic diets and fasting states in the body.
• Ketosis Symptoms: Ketosis symptoms are driven by the way the body gets rid of the ketone bodies building up in the blood stream.
• Ketosis: Ketosis is a cellular process which gets ramped up when you switch to eating a ketogenic diet.
• Insulin Resistant: Being told you are insulin resistant doesn't mean much unless you understand what that implies, and how it effects your health.
• Metabolic Pathways: The metabolic pathways in the body are involved in the digestion and absorption of the carbohydrates, proteins and fats we eat, and are critical in the maintenance of our health and well being.
• Metabolic Syndrome: Metabolic syndrome, or Syndrome X, is a term coined to describe a constellation of health symptoms related to insulin resistance in the body.
• Why We Get Fat: Here's an big picture view of why we get fat and how high intensity interval training and a ketogenic, low carb diet can help with fat loss.

Using the Ketogenic Diet to Treat Disease

• Alzheimers Disease: Studies on neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimers disease have demonstrated that the ketogenic diet may not only provide some relief of symptoms, but could also reverse some of the brain cell death processes associated with these diseases.
• Cancer Research: During our 40 year "War on Cancer", survival rates for people diagnosed with cancers has changed very little. Why is that?
• Cancer Treatments: Mainstream cancer treatments are expensive, dangerous and not all that effective. What if a ketogenic diet is more effective, and if so, how does it work?
• What Causes Cancer: Even after 50 years of research, nobody has the definitive answer on what causes cancer. There are few facts which make interesting "food for thought"on the subject.
• Causes of Coronary Heart Disease: Most mainstream medical people will tell you that cholesterol and saturated fat cause heart disease. But it just ain't so.
• What Causes Heart Disease: Here's a list of the true causes of heart disease, and it has nothing to do with fat or cholesterol.
• Controlling Diabetes: The primary objective of any diabetes diet plan for controlling diabetes should be the improvement of diabetic health markers.
• Diabetes Treatment: The best diabetes treatment is a plan which gets back to the basics, and that's where a ketogenic diet shines. It treats diabetes at the root cause, and is a much safer, more effective plan than injecting insulin to counteract the consumption of high carb foods.
• Diabetic Diet: Following a "recommended" diabetic diet is difficult for many newly diagnosed diabetics because so many new lifestyle changes must be learned, and old food habits must be broken.
• Diabetic Meal Plan: A successful diabetic meal plan is one that helps a diabetic patient stabilize and reduce blood sugar and insulin levels. Here's how to design a meal plan that works.
• Epilepsy Treatment: Ketogenic diets are well known in the epilepsy treatment field because they are used with increasing frequency to treat epileptic seizures, especially in children.
• Epilepsy Diet: An epilepsy diet, also known as a ketogenic diet, is a diet in which the ratio of grams of fat consumed is 3-4 times higher than the grams of protein and carbohydrate consumed.
• Fatty Liver Disease: Non alcoholic fatty liver disease responds very favorably to a ketogenic diet, because the diet treats the root causes.
• Gluten Allergy Symptoms: These studies have confirmed the wide range of poor health conditions associated with consuming grain gluten. A ketogenic has been shown in many case studies to resolve these serious health issues.
• Ketocal: This product is not a great choice for kids with epilepsy. Here's why.

NB:

Sugar Alcohol Sweeteners: Get the facts about sugar alcohols here. You might be surprised to learn that these sweeteners are "antiketogenic".

 

About This Site

• About the Author: Want to know a little about me? This is the page.
• Legal Disclaimer: All of the information provided in and through the web site located at http://www.Ketogenic-Diet-Resource.com is intended solely for general information and should NOT be relied upon for any particular diagnosis, treatment, or care.

How Processed Meats Harm Health and Increase Diabetes Risk - Bulletproof Executive

 The Truth About Red Meat and Diabetes

A) Most processed meats throw off your omega-6:omega-3 ratio

Processed meats fed from soy and corn also have extra omega-6 oils. The correct balance of omega-6 to omega-3 fats is essential to optimizing your health and reducing your risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, depression, Alzheimer’s, and rheumatoid arthritis. According to anti-aging researchers, the minimum ideal ratio of omega-6 oil to omega-3 is 4:1, but the typical Western diet is between 20:1 and 50:1 because people consume far too many processed and fried foods like vegetable oils and industrial meat. After I started eating totally Bulletproof, my omega-6: omega-3 ratio dropped to 1.28:1.⁴

Although all meat, even grass-fed, contains some omega-6’s, processed, cured, and overcooked meats contain higher levels of oxidized toxins in omega-6’s called 4-Hydroxynonenal (HNE). These toxins are absorbed into your tissues and cause inflammation, which drastically increases fat oxidation in your cells.⁵

This is one reason the Bulletproof® Diet recommends grass fed meat that is carefully prepared at lower temperatures. It’s also one reason most studies on meat consumption and health are woefully inadequate – they fail to consider how the meat is cooked.

B) Dry-cured meats are breeding grounds for mycotoxins

Mold toxins are common contaminants of all industrial meat, but there are even more in dry-cured meat products.⁶ Mold toxins, also known as mycotoxins, are damaging compounds produced by various molds and fungi. In addition to causing poor human performance, they can also cause cancer, brain damage, and heart, liver, and kidney disease. High performance people should minimize all routes of exposure.

C) Bad gut bacteria mixed with processed meats may decrease insulin sensitivity

Your gut bacteria help to maintain your health, partly by maintaining the intestinal barrier that prevents toxins from entering your bloodstream. Bad gut bacteria actually form new toxins from processed meats, and increase their ability to enter your body.

Poor quality processed meats tend to be pumped with antibiotics that are harmful to gut flora. Studies show that antibiotics cause a profound and rapid loss of diversity and a shift in the composition of the gut flora that can not be recovered without dietary interventions.⁷

Nitrates in processed meat, especially bacon, get a lot of attention. Although processed meat contains up to 50% more nitrate than unprocessed meat, nitrates themselves are only a problem when you have bad gut bacteria. With an imbalanced gut flora, diabetes experts say that nitrates lessen the release of insulin, which reduces glucose tolerance and increases risk of diabetes. This negative effect on glucose levels helps explain why Harvard researchers found that eating just one serving a day of processed meats (i.e. two slices of salami or a hot dog) was linked to a 20% increase in risk for diabetes.³
Bad gut bacteria will also make nitrosamines from dietary nitrate. See below for more…

D) Nitrosamines in processed meats are linked to increased risk of stomach cancer

Swedish researchers found a higher risk of stomach cancer among those who ate processed meat.⁸ In Hawaii, researchers followed participants for seven years and concluded that those who ate the most processed meat showed a 67% greater risk of pancreatic cancer over those who did not eat processed meat.

The best way to avoid nitrosamines is to avoid overcooking processed meats, or insist on eating grass fed meat cooked on low heat. If you do choose to eat processed meats on occasion, you can help prevent nitrosamine formation in the body by taking at least 250 mg of vitamin C with your meal, or a lot more. (I do at least 1 gram.)  Vitamin C with red meat can increase iron absorption. Increased iron levels (ferritin levels) are correlated with diabetes. Elevated iron levels are not normally an issue for menstruating females, but men should get their iron levels tested regularly, or just donate blood every 3-6 months.⁹

Negative endochrine / other impact of low carb - examination by Andrew Kim Blog:

Andrew Kim Blog: An examination of popular "diets" -- avoid them all

"A high protein diet, as in the Paleo diet, leads to a persistent elevation of the stress hormones, mainly glucagon, adrenalin, and cortisol.  The resulting free amino acids (namely tryptophan, phenylalanine, tyrosine, and leucine) and free fatty acids, inhibit the uptake of T₃ into cells and into the central nervous system by way of the blood brain barrier.² Diets such as these are promoted to be anti-inflammatory and beneficial for metabolism and weight loss, but nothing could be more wrong; they are proinflammatory and anti-metabolic in every sense."

 Some of the dietary practices that are currently promoted have the inconvenience of producing some of the effects that these practices are being undertaken to check in the first place—namely cortisol and estrogen. 

If any person were so persuaded to do so, he or she should bear in mind that a deficiency of calories, carbohydrate, salt, calcium, and excessive amounts of histamine, choline, and prostaglandins are some of the factors that activate both cortisol and estrogen. 

I’ve written about stress and the reasons for keeping it as low as possible.  Refer back to those for context for this post.  But briefly, the stress hormones—cortisol, adrenalin, noradrenalin, growth hormone, glucagon, and some others—are all catabolic and estrogenic.  When they persist in the blood too long or excessively, irreversible degenerative processes are set in motion that affect all aspects and all levels of the body.

First and foremost, a deficiency of glucose—in the cell and blood—potently activates the stress metabolism, operating centrally by way of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.  At the same time, the stress metabolism decreases the output of thyroid hormones: Indeed, it’s been repeatedly observed that thyroid hormone output and adrenal cortex activity share an inverse relationship.

Glucagon and growth hormone are increasingly secreted by the pancreas and pituitary gland in response to a deficiency of glucose. (Overexertion, exposure to cold, trauma, and emotional arousal also stimulate the secretion of these hormones, reinforcing the designation of these hormones as “stress hormones.”)  These hormones liberate free fatty acids, which do not simply stimulate fatty acid oxidation, but also stick to proteins, diffuse in and out of cells, disrupt the structure of cellular water and their associated proteins, and activate inflammatory pathways in fat, white blood cells, etc.

The catecholamines, adrenalin and noradrenaline, can temporarily elevate glucose levels, but they also inhibit the secretion of insulin, promoting the wasteful conversion of amino acids to glucose and glucose to lactic acid.  Lactic acid increases the acidity near the cells that produce it, and this local decrease in pH favors the protonated form of acids, including free fatty acids, in which form they are more likely to enter cells from the blood, potentiating their toxicity.  Keeping these stress hormones as low as possible permits the efficient oxidative metabolism of glucose.

Some stressed people quickly respond by shifting their “autonomic nervous system” away from sympathetic dominance and more toward parasympathetic dominance, of which choline is the grandee transmitter.  Choline acutely stimulates the secretion of insulin, aggravating hypoglycemia, thereby contributing to the exaggerated swings in blood glucose levels.

Recently, I was asked a question on Facebook about agents for diarrhea, and I remembered offhand that anti-histamines, as a side effect, are also anti-cholinergic, which decrease gastrointestinal motility and secretion so as to help with diarrhea.

The so-called first generation anti-histamines, notably diphenhydramine or Benadryl, can be supportive in times of stress by buffering against hypoglycemia—both by blocking choline, which, once again, stimulates insulin secretion, and histamine, thereby activating uncoupling proteins in the pancreas.  Because pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) and riboflavin (vitamin B2) are needed by insulin-degrading enzyme (or insulinase) to break down insulin, a deficiency of pantothenic acid or riboflavin could therefore cause insulin to persist in the blood, aggravating hypoglycemia, too.

Parenthetically, in haste, I forgot to mention the role of anti-histamines in acne in my previous post.  It turns out that histamine receptors are expressed in keratinocytes and that topically applied diphenhydramine reduces stratum corneum lipids and the production of squalene by sebocytes in culture.¹

A high protein diet, as in the Paleo diet, leads to a persistent elevation of the stress hormones, mainly glucagon, adrenalin, and cortisol.  The resulting free amino acids (namely tryptophan, phenylalanine, tyrosine, and leucine) and free fatty acids, inhibit the uptake of T₃ into cells and into the central nervous system by way of the blood brain barrier.² Diets such as these are promoted to be anti-inflammatory and beneficial for metabolism and weight loss, but nothing could be more wrong; they are proinflammatory and anti-metabolic in every sense.

People talk about sugar as if it is a drug, affecting the brain in a way that cocaine does.  Be that as it may, consider for a moment that practically all body changes are made known to the hypothalamus and the hypothalamus governs much of the endocrine system and immune system, in which many (real) functional disorders are thought to originate.  But these functional disorders are really problems of the hypothalamus, rather than problems of the immune system, endocrine system, or whatever.  Know also that there exists a connection between the cerebral cortex and the hypothalamus, and this connection underlies the physiological effects of psychological stress, such as mental conflict.  What has been the effect of telling people to avoid certain foods like sugar and to fight their natural cravings for such?  Or of telling people that they have (imaginary) disorders with no basis in anything?

A decrease in ATP generation tends to reinforce itself, in part, by inhibiting the uptake of thyroxin, T₄, into cells, which is an energy dependent process.  In the liver, free fatty acids inhibit the uptake of T₄ and this is, I think, the major cause of the deficiency of T₃ in diabetes and low-carbohydrate and Palo dieters, as much of the conversion of T₄ to T₃ (about 60 percent) occurs in the liver.

As to the brain, when the energy charge decreases, neurons become hyperexciteble.  The inability to generate adequate amounts of ATP keeps neurons partially depolarized, which, by allowing calcium to flow into the cell from the blood in droves, increases the neuron’s likelihood of becoming “excited” upon stimulation.   And, the inability to regulate the uptake of calcium into pre-synaptic nerve terminals leads to the inappropriate release of transmitters, which are then available to act on, and to stimulate, their target cells excessively.  Epilepsy, seizure, psychosis are some neurological conditions affected negatively by a deficiency of energy, for which pharmaceutical companies have taken advantage of and developed drugs that target said conditions somewhat rationally.

In the heart, a deficiency of ATP depresses left ventricular functioning, as there is less energy available for robust contractions and complete relaxations.  The impaired contraction also increases the ventricular blood volume so as to impose an increase in pressure on the left side of the heart.   Less blood is pumped for every beat of the heart as a result (reduced stroke volume).  Moreover, the increased resistance to flow in the blood vessels due to the deficiency of energy (or oxygen) adds further to the stress on the heart.  Anything that increases the oxidative metabolism of glucose (of which there are some agents currently in the pipeline) appears to increase the heart’s viability and the chances of survival in patients with heart failure and arrhythmia. 

The addition of magnesium, by sparing ATP, and fructose (or sucrose), by decreasing the cell’s redox potential and by stimulating respiration, can quickly reverse these pathological cellular events.  More generally, a deficiency of energy, acidosis, and hypoxia can be corrected with some supportive care that includes some of the B vitamins, insulin, bicarbonate, and sugar.  Estrogen could apparently aggravate all these problems by interfering with oxygen use.

Persistent hyperglycemia and hypertension are two prominent signs that a person is operating on high levels of stress hormones, due to cortisol and aldosterone, respectively.   An increased susceptibility to infections, gastric ulcers, and eventually, diabetes and cardiovascular disease are others.

Avoiding starvation, high protein, low-carbohydrate, and salt-restricted diets keep the aromatase enzyme, aldosterone, and cortisol in check. (Seems obvious, right?) Prostaglandins and histamine are activators of cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase and thus aromatase, so NSAIDs and diphenhydramine can help to balance excess estrogen levels.

Hydroxylated flavones—apigenin, chrysin, and quercetin—inhibit the final rate-limiting step in cortisol synthesis, cytochrome P450 1B1.³ However, quercetin is known to induce the aromatase enzyme, while apigenin, as well as naringenin, inhibit the aromatase enzyme.  I mention aromatase here to point out the fact that aromatase is activated by stress, like cortisol, aldosterone, glucagon, etc., are.  Finding fruits and vegetables that contain the desirable balance of these flavonoids has been thus far elusive.

There is some indirect evidence that caffeine has anti-estrogenic effects and the organic acids in coffee inhibit the regeneration of cortisol in tissues.⁴ In men, cortisol increases the expression of aromatase and estrogen, and estrogen, in turn, activates the enzyme that regenerates cortisol—the same enzyme that is inhibited by coffee.

I have to go, but I will delve into some of the even more annoying ideas that are bandied about as fact on the Internet.  

 For now, suffice it to say that if you read about or try a diet the goes against your base instincts (believe it or not, even telling you to eat despite not being hungry), run the other way while waving your hands in the air and screaming.


References

1.       Pelle, E. et al. Identification of histamine receptors and reduction of squalene levels by an antihistamine in sebocytes. The Journal of investigative dermatology 128, 1280–5 (2008).

2.       Hennemann, G. et al. Plasma membrane transport of thyroid hormones and its role in thyroid hormone metabolism and bioavailability. Endocrine reviews 22, 451–76 (2001).

3.       Cheng, L.-C. & Li, L.-A. Flavonoids exhibit diverse effects on CYP11B1 expression and cortisol synthesis. Toxicology and applied pharmacology 258, 343–50 (2012).

4.       Atanasov, A. G. et al. Coffee inhibits the reactivation of glucocorticoids by 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1: a glucocorticoid connection in the anti-diabetic action of coffee? FEBS letters 580, 4081–5 (2006).

Walking After a Meal Aids Digestion - NYTimes.com

Really? The Claim: Taking a Walk After a Meal Aids Digestion - NYTimes.com

Really? June 24, 2013, 1:49 pm68 Comments

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

Anahad O’Connor tackles health myths.

THE FACTS 

For many people, the food-induced stupor that often follows a big meal is a good excuse for a nap. But for some, a brief walk shortly after eating is a quick way to burn some calories and aid digestion.
Over the years, researchers have found that a post-meal walk, as short as 15 minutes, can in fact help with digestion and improve blood sugar levels.

In one study in 2008, German researchers looked at what happened when people ate a large meal and then consumed either an espresso or an alcoholic digestif — like brandy or flavored liqueur — or walked at a slow pace on a treadmill. Walking, they found, sped the rate at which food moved through the stomach. The beverages had no effect.

In other studies, researchers have found that walking has a significant effect on blood sugar after meals. Blood sugar typically rises and then falls after eating, but large spikes and variations can raise cardiovascular risk and potentially signal diabetes.

In a study published in 2009, researchers found that a 20-minute walk about 15 minutes after dinner led to lower post-meal blood sugar levels in people with Type 2 diabetes than either a walk before dinner or no walking at all. Another study, published recently in Diabetes Care, found that in older adults who were overweight and sedentary, walking for 15 minutes shortly after each meal improved daily blood sugar levels to a greater extent than a single 45-minute walk in the morning.

Researchers say that a post-meal stroll helps clear glucose from the bloodstream in part because more of it is taken up by the muscles.

THE BOTTOM LINE 

Heading for a brief walk, instead of the couch, about 15 minutes after a meal may improve digestion and blood sugar control.

How I lost weight (Part 2)| Peter Attia, M.D. The Eating Academy

How I lost weight (Part 2) « The Eating Academy | Peter Attia, M.D. The Eating Academy | Peter Attia, M.D.

« Part 1 of my personal journey: Why I decided to lose weight »
«Part 3 of my personal journey: How a low carb diet reduced my risk of heart disease »

The figure above gives you a timeline of my nutritional journey. Over a 20 month period I made four dietary interventions:

1. September 2009 – I eliminated most sources of sugar in my diet (for a definition of “sugar” click here) six days per week. One day per week I let myself eat whatever I wanted.
2. February 2010 – I switched all white sources of carbohydrates to brown sources whenever possible (e.g., brown rice over white rice, brown pasta over white pasta), switched over to carbs that were higher in insoluble fiber, and eliminated sugar altogether.
3. January 2011 – I reduced starch intake to one serving per day, but continued to eat fruits and vegetables in an unrestricted manner.
4. May 2011 – Reduced carbohydrate intake to less than 50 grams per day and reduced protein intake to approximately 120 grams per day, entering a state of nutritional ketosis.

Essentially, I gradually went on a super low carb diet.
Another way to see the implications of these changes on my actual intake is shown in the figure below.

On the left is where is I started in September 2009 – a typical (Western) athlete’s diet made up of two-thirds carbohydrates – most of them the so-called “good” or “complex” ones.  I ate a lot of lean protein (mostly chicken, turkey, and tuna) and very little, if any, saturated fat.  About a year later (middle circle) I had significantly reduced carbohydrate intake by over 50% while I increased both fat and protein intake.  Note that total caloric intake was about the same, just over 3,000 calories per day.

In May 2011 I made the final metabolic “switch” to a ketogenic diet (right circle) by reducing carbohydrate intake to almost negligible levels and actually reducing my protein intake from very high levels (about 3 grams/kg) to normal levels (about 1.5 grams/kg).  Two things jump out at you, I’m sure: I eat virtually all of my calories in the form of fat and my total caloric intake has actually gone up by about 50%.   Let me reiterate, I don’t exercise any more today than I did 2 years ago.  In fact, if anything, I probably exercise a bit less (i.e., down from 3-4 hours per day to 2 to 2.5 hours per day).

On a low carb diet, I lost weight and reduced body fat

The most externally obvious change that occurred as I ratcheted down my carbohydrate intake was a decrease in body fat. To assess this most accurately I relied on test called a DEXA scan. DEXA stands for Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry. It’s a pretty remarkable test that is now the gold standard for measuring body composition. Back when I was in high school we relied on a combination of calipers (in the hands of an experienced user) and something called hydrostatic testing, where you are weighed in and out of water to calculate your percentage of body fat.

The real beauty of DEXA, besides its accuracy, is that you get segmental information. For example, you can learn how much lean tissue (i.e., muscle) you have on one leg versus the other, and how this changes over time. Furthermore, DEXA gives bone density information.

The other (profoundly simple) “test” I used to track my weight loss was my waist measurement. I recall the days in high school of having a 28 to 29 inch waist. Somehow that ballooned to 36 inches two years ago. As silly as this sounds, I recall, back in the spring of 2009 while stuck in an airport, using calculus to integrate the volume of fat I needed to lose from my waist (both visceral – around my organs – and under my skin) to get down to a 32-inch waist. It’s actually an easy problem if you can remember how to integrate the volume of an oval “cylinder” and you know the density of fat.
Here’s what my measurements showed: I lost weight, sure, but it was almost all fat.



At the outset, I weighed 195 pounds, of which just over 20% was fat –about 40 pounds. My waist was 36 inches. My goal was to reduce my waist to 32 inches and I calculated I would need to lose 20 pounds of fat, without losing any muscle mass, to do this. So this defined my targets: 175 pounds, 11% body fat, 32-inch waist.

Remember one other point, I was not interested in increasing how much I exercised at all. I was examining the role of diet on my body composition, not additional exercise. The figure below shows how my body “morphed” over nearly two years. Total body weight is shown on top of each bar, while the blue bar represents lean tissue and the red bar represents fat. Hence, in September 2009, I weighed 195 pounds, of which 156 was lean, 39 was fat, and my body fat (the number below) was 20%.

Not shown in the figure is that my waist was, as I mentioned, 36 inches. By August 2011 I had actually exceeded my goal, as you can see from the figure. Without any loss of lean tissue, I had reduced fat mass to 13 pounds and body fat to under 8%. My waist measured about 31 inches.

There are a couple of things I should point out, that make this a bit confusing:

1. Between February 2010 and July 2010 I had a bad bout of swine flu, which left me in pretty rough shape for a while. As a result, I probably lost more lean mass than I would have liked, or expected to, even transiently.
2. Pay more attention to fat mass, separately, than overall body weight, and do the same with lean mass. Fat mass decreased monotonically, even as weight fluctuated. Lean mass took a big hit initially (although I believe in my case, the prolonged illness didn’t help), but then recovered. This is actually not uncommon among folks losing weight. Losing weight the “right” way ends with a recovery of lean mass. Doing in the “wrong” way can result in equal loss of fat and lean mass (or, worse yet, disproportionate loss of lean mass).
3. Most people, especially physically active people, probably experience some seasonal variation in body fat, especially at low levels. My body fat probably fluctuations between 7 and 10% over the course of year now, often a function of activity type (more than activity level).