Cholesterol and Fats in Blood - Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics UCSF

Uploaded by UCtelevision on Sep 17, 2009

Tracy Fulton, Professor, in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics UCSF explores cholesterol and fat in blood. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public [9/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 16716]

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• i bet she is in favor of us all eating canola fried foods. nothing goes better than heart disease than a little lipitor induced heart tissue damage combined with some rape seed oil toxins. when this bitch dies i hope she burns in hell. her entire crowd know they are soft killing us because we are two stupid to figure it all out. well fuck you i figured it out you sorry bitch.

  datzfast 2 months ago
• the fiber while an irritant to the gut of wheat damaged human does not bother humans that do not eat irritating foods such as grains, legumes or milk. its just no fiber study has been done on humans that eat low carb diets. however if fiber is causeing you gastic issue you need to dump it from your personal diet. i also have taken my own responsibility for my health.

  datzfast in reply to brutus64 (Show the comment) 2 months ago
• my trigycerides are 48. un godly low. i eat all the fat i can tolerate. i actually keep a spoon and a tub of coconut oil beside my computer so i wont froget to take my daily dose. it has in it a fatty acid that kills bacteria,fungi,virus and i have been told some parasites. yet it is a food and not a medicine.

  datzfast in reply to brutus64 (Show the comment) 2 months ago
• What about the suppressed truth by many "real scientists" who don't have an agenda to fill like Vilhjalmur Stefansson ... have a read here... dub dub dub drbass dot com/stefansson1 dot html

  brutus64 2 months ago
• So you got that too! I'm right there with you on that!

  brutus64 in reply to datzfast (Show the comment) 2 months ago
• I'm 47 and haven't seen a doctor in many years... EVERYONE I KNOW , especially my age and older who have a history of going to the doc and taking the drugs ALL have worse problems than me and at 47 I haven't done the best I could but I'm paving my own way to grow old healthy and strong ...I cut out sugar and went primal,,,then I removed all fiber and now eat my eggs and meats raw and I never felt better! Look up "Fiber Menace" and "Nora Gedgaudas" and "WAPF" and "Aajonus Vonderplanitz" Greatness

  brutus64 in reply to datzfast (Show the comment) 2 months ago
• the carriers of lipids have receptors on targets and DAMAGED TISSUE. the deposition on arterial walls is by design not by accident. diet has no effect. this was proven in 1985 by a couple of Nobel prize winners. do not buy into the lipid disease hypothesis

  datzfast 2 months ago
• what are you trying to cure? a blood profile or an actual disease process?

  datzfast in reply to brutus64 (Show the comment) 3 months ago
• she takes money from the lipitor mafia, they are all the same. oh they understant fructose none give a damn though they are out to get rich by spreading lies.

  datzfast in reply to mousegunatmac (Show the comment) 3 months ago
• mmkay?

  Ju Ant 4 months ago

• she lost me at "the types of fatty acids you eat influence your lipid profiles more than eating actual cholesterol"... not one comment on how fructose is the actual culprit for high triglycerides. She glossed over diet completely and jumped straight onto the old "drugs will save us" bandwagon. Too bad.

  mousegunatmac 6 months ago
• snarky lady, I think she's on lipitor cause she doesn't act right. Screw drugs, I'll continue with self treatment with nutrients.

  brutus64 6 months ago
• She is more like a high school science teacher.

  Lucas Muiruri 7 months ago

The Sadder Side of Serotonin – 180 Degree Health

The Sadder Side of Serotonin 

Posted September 24th, 2012

 454 24  44  

Are you sad?  Depressed?  Tired?  Crave them evil #$%#ohydrates?  Well hell son you just need you some serotonin!  Serotonin makes you happy!  Whee!!!

The research and cultural status quo on serotonin doesn’t make much sense, and is full of contradiction.  Strangely, everyone seems to be madly in love with serotonin (people even have tattoos celebrating it – I hope they don’t read this post!) and is fully satisfied with the label of “happy juice.”  Serotonin makes you happy, everyone seems to believe, and if you aren’t happy then well, let’s figure out how to get more serotonin in ya.  Buck up little camper, we’ll beat that slump, together.

When everyone in the media, in the health field, and beyond start to collectively believe in a very simple and narrow story about any one thing, you can probably be sure that some kind of Scientific Sasquatch has come into being.  The belief that serotonin is like the biochemical equivalent of Happy Gilmore sharing a Happy Meal with a bunch of Care Bears in heaven holding hands and skipping with Mr. Rogers and Bob Ross is not just Kardashingly shallow.  It’s criminally inaccurate.

In pursuit of maintaining good mitochondrial respiration and keeping metabolism from declining with age, in pursuit of squelching stress hormone production and keeping the anabolic hormones of youth in full swing, and in pursuit of minimizing inflammation and more – what science increasingly leads us towards when it comes to the prevention and cure of the modern world’s most common illnesses, the recruitment of serotonin in that fight is about as productive as (insert clever, sarcastic metaphor).

What I’m really getting at is that serotonin sucks, in a general sense.  And what people think about serotonin – in terms of how to raise it, what it will do for you when it rockets up, and so forth are really kinda dumb and poorly thought out.  But it doesn’t take a whole lot of research to determine that serotonin isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and that those who think it’s going to cure everything from depression to seasonal affective disorder and help you shed some pounds while you’re at it are some pretty confused people with only a very superficial understanding of the many things that serotonin regulates in the brain and body.

Anyway, I’ll stop playing around.  Let’s discuss 6 sad things about serotonin:

1)      Serotonin is highly involved in hibernation, lowering body temperature and more.  It rises as daylight shortens and helps to trigger many of the metabolic changes that occur with hibernating animals – all of which are synonymous with a reduced metabolic rate, reduced respiratory rate, increased insulin resistance, reduced carbon dioxide levels, reduced energy level, reduced body temperature, increased histamine, reduced peristalsis, and so forth – just to name a few.  If those things were good, we would get progressively healthier with advancing age.  But they aren’t, and we don’t.  Those are all biomarkers of poorer health, lower vitality levels, and increasing risk of degenerative disease.




2)      Serotonin is fattening and triggers insulin resistance.  Knowing serotonin’s role in hibernation, it should come as no surprise that “antidepressant” drugs like Prozac, which increase serotonin levels through sort of a recycling process, are very fattening and known to dramatically increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.  Wow.  Real shocker there.  Increase the levels of a substance that makes you tired and want to sleep all the time and induces weight gain and insulin resistance and watch it cause weight gain and insulin resistance!

3)      Serotonin plays a primary role in seasonal affective disorder (SAD).  There is a great deal of shocking bull$#@^ when it comes to seasonal affective disorder, as the bass ackwards rumor that seasonal affective disorder has something to do with decreasing levels of serotonin is pervasive, yet increasing darkness and shortened day length causes INCREASES in serotonin, and increases in laying around all day, lifeless, sad, and wanting to shoot your Alaskan self in the face in early January.  Oh yeah, “sunlight raises serotonin” says the brainwashed serotonin lovers.  That must be why serotonin peaks at midnight when the sun is really shining bright!  Both high-powered lights in the morning as well as negative ions have been shown to be effective treatments for seasonal affective disorder, which is interesting when you consider the quote coming up in #4…

4)      Serotonin causes depression.  I was perusing through a pro-serotonin article and found this contradictory gem lying there, plucked from a book on controlling asthma (more on that in a sec).  It says a lot, and is probably part of the reason why I have always found failure to make it outdoors by about 10am to be extremely depressing (modern dwellings are notoriously high in positive ions, which raise serotonin)…

 “Research by Dr. Leslie Hawkins at the University of Surrey, UK, showed that levels of the hormone serotonin in the blood, brain and other tissues seemed to be reduced by negative ions. Serotonin is a substance that plays a part in brain chemistry, and imbalances in it lead to depression and other mental disturbances. Dr. Hawkins suggested that air rich in negative ions has a stimulating effect while too many positive ions, and thus high levels of serotonin in the body, are depressing. This may explain why ionisers help in cases of irritability and stress.”

5)      Serotonin exacerbates and may even cause asthma.  That should be no surprise seeing that serotonin is synonymous with reduced carbon dioxide levels, constricts bronchioles, plays a role in the general inflammatory response (stimulating the pituitary gland), and so forth.  It would also make sense that if negative ions decrease seasonal affective disorder that they would also reduce asthma symptoms if the cause (high serotonin) was the same, which they of course do (negative ions reducing asthma symptoms, that is).

6)      Serotonin may play a causal role in schizophrenia, autism, and countless other neurological disorders.  The bulk of our serotonin supply is produced in the digestive tract.  Serotonin increases with digestive distress.  Serotonin forms somewhat of a vicious cycle with the digestive tract.  Serotonin suppresses metabolism, suppressed metabolism fosters the overgrowth of yeast and bacteria in the small intestine, which in turn produces a much greater outpouring of serotonin produced in the gut, especially when “health” food like whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and raw fruits and vegetables are consumed.  Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride’s Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS), a theory that groups many psychological disorders and pins it on digestive abnormalities is most likely related to the increased serotonin activity with impaired digestion.

This is just a short list of course.  Serotonin is involved in the general disease, aging, inflammation, and degeneration process – from hypertension to asthma to schizophrenia to insomnia to diabetes to depression – of which there is tremendous overlap and redundancy between all of them, them, them.  The list easily could have been titled “66 Sad Things About Serotonin.”  More on serotonin to come in the future, including very simple practical measures that can reduce the serotonin burden.

If you see lots of authors, researchers, and even formal studies that seem to contradict what was said here, keep looking, look carefully, and review the breadth of what you find only after thoroughly taking in a comprehensive viewpoint – keeping in mind that Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) drugs are some of the top selling drugs on earth, and that the pharmaceutical industry is the primary financier of medical research, medical education, and the media empires that have hardwired you to believe that serotonin is great stuff, and if you are sad or anxious or tired you need more of it.

For further geekage, listen to Josh and Jeanne Rubin’s interview with Ray Peat on serotonin, and some of the links below that provide some validation to the claims made in this post.

Serotonin and Asthma
Serotonin and Hypertension
Hibernation and Insulin Resistance
SSRI’s Increase Diabetes Risk
Serotonin and Schizophrenia
Serotonin and Autism
Serotonin and IQ, ADD, ADHD, Downs Syndrome, Depression
Asthma and Positive and Negative Ions
Bright Lights and Negative Ions for Winter Depression
Serotonin and Hibernation
Dawn Stimulation and Ionizers for Seasonal Affective Disorder
Negative Ions Lower Serotonin
Histamine and Serotonin in Hibernation
Ionizers as an Anti-Depressant
Serotonin, Aggression, and Depression
Tryptophan, Serotonin, and Aging
Serotonin: The Misery Hormone 

 

Asthma, Autism, body temperature, CO2, Depression, diabetes, hibernation, histamine, ionizers, light therapy, Metabolism, Schizophrenia, seasonal affective disorder, Serotonin, Weight Loss

Related Posts:

• Causes of Depression, Depression and Diet
• Causes of Addiction, Addiction Treatments & Addiction Cures
• FUMP Day 6
• Serotonin and the Carbohydrate to Protein Ratio
• Serotonin September

Is Alzheimer’s disease the new diabetes? - healthuncut.com : healthuncut.com

Is Alzheimer’s disease the new diabetes? - healthuncut.com : healthuncut.com

Glen | September 14, 2012 

 

Across the globe, the incidence of diabetes is undergoing exponential growth. According to the WHO, more than 346 million people worldwide have diabetes.  In the US alone, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes is expected to more than double in the next few decades from 6% of the population in 2005 (16 million) to 12% in 2050 (48 million) [1].

The consequences of diabetes will be well known to many. The disease carries a heavy burden, which includes a high risk of cardiovascular disease (responsible for between 50-80% of deaths in people with diabetes), as well as complications such as blindness, amputation and kidney failure. But could we add another to that list, Alzheimer’s disease?

The connection appears to be strong. People with type 2 diabetes are much more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than their healthy counterparts (up to 65% [2]). In fact, the association also appears to be strong linking the metabolic syndrome, essentially a pre-diabetic state, and Alzheimer’s disease [3].

If Alzheimer’s disease goes hand in hand with these metabolic abnormalities, should we be braced for a tsunami of dementia in the wake of the burgeoning epidemics of type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome? It’s certainly what the data predicts, with experts forecasting that the cases of dementia will virtually double by 2030, reaching 65.7 million, and could reach an immense 115.4 million by 2050 (4). For those who like mechanisms, the increased risk of dementia seen in people with type 2 diabetes and obesity could be explained by such factors as chronic hyperglycemia, peripheral insulin resistance, oxidative stress, accumulation of advanced glycation end products, increased production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and/or cerebral microvascular disease [5].

It’s an intriguing idea; could Alzheimer’s be a metabolic disease? Certainly, some researchers think so, and have dubbed it ‘type 3 diabetes’. This is based on research showing that levels of insulin, and its receptors, diminish significantly in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease [6]. It is the idea that impaired insulin signaling has such a central role in the neurodegenerative process that has led to the proposal that Alzheimer’s is indeed a distinct form of diabetes.

Much remains to be discovered about this whole idea of Alzheimer’s as a form of diabetes, and the extent to which having diabetes or being obese are implicated in driving the disease process (probably it is a contributing factor, not the cause). But it does again raise the question as to what extent our 21st Century diet and lifestyle could be fuelling not only the epidemics of obesity and diabetes, but also Alzheimer’s disease. It adds yet more strength to the idea that diet could be a powerful modifier of Alzheimer’s disease risk, as has already been aptly illustrated by research on such factors as regular fish consumption [7], diets rich in fruits and vegetables, light-to-moderate alcohol intake [8], and adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet [9].

How many more catastrophic consequences to our health do we need to witness before we start taking the whole idea of diet and lifestyle as preventive medicine more seriously?

[1] Mitri et al (2011) European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 65:1005–1015
[2] Diabetes UK (2012) http://www.diabetes.co.uk/type3-diabetes.html
[3] Vanhanen M et al (2006) Association of metabolic syndrome with Alzheimer disease: a population-based study. Neurology 67(5):843-7.
[4] Gulland A (2012) Number of people with dementia will reach 65.7 million by 2030, says report. British Medical Journal 344:e2604.
[5] de la Monte SM, Wands JR [2008] Alzheimer’s disease is type 3 diabetes-evidence reviewed. J Diabetes Sci Technol 2(6):1101-13.
[6] Steen E et al (2005) Impaired insulin and insulin-like growth factor expression and signaling mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease – is this type 3 diabetes? Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 7:63–80.
[7] Morris MC et al (2003) Consumption of fish and n-3 fatty acids and risk of incident Alzheimer disease. Archives of Neurology 60(7):940-6.
[8] Solfrizzi V et al (2011) Diet and Alzheimer’s disease risk factors or prevention: the current evidence. Expert Rev Neurother 11(5):677-708
[9] Sofi et al (2008) Adherence to Mediterranean diet and health status: meta-analysis British Medical Journal  337:a1344.

Your Scientific Reasoning Is More Flawed Than You Think: Scientific American

Your Scientific Reasoning Is More Flawed Than You Think: Scientific American

New concepts don’t replace incorrect ones: they just learn to live together

By Jason Castro

In one sense, science educators have it easy. The things they describe are so intrinsically odd and interesting — invisible fields, molecular machines, principles explaining the unity of life and origins of the cosmos — that much of the pedagogical attention-getting is built right in.  Where they have it tough, though, is in having to combat an especially resilient form of higher ed’s nemesis: the aptly named (if irredeemably clichéd) ‘preconceived idea.’ Worse than simple ignorance, naïve ideas about science lead people to make bad decisions with confidence. And in a world where many high-stakes issues fundamentally boil down to science, this is clearly a problem.

Naturally, the solution to the problem lies in good schooling — emptying minds of their youthful hunches and intuitions about how the world works, and repopulating them with sound scientific principles that have been repeatedly tested and verified. Wipe out the old operating system, and install the new. According to a recent paper by Andrew Shtulman and Joshua Valcarcel, however, we may not be able to replace old ideas with new ones so cleanly. Although science as a field discards theories that are wrong or lacking, Shtulman and Valcarcel’s work suggests that individuals —even scientifically literate ones — tend to hang on to their early, unschooled, and often wrong theories about the natural world. Even long after we learn that these intuitions have no scientific support, they can still subtly persist and influence our thought process. Like old habits, old concepts seem to die hard.

Testing for the persistence of old concepts can’t be done directly. Instead, one has to set up a situation in which old concepts, if present, measurably interfere with mental performance. To do this, Shtulman and Valcarcel designed a task that tested how quickly and accurately subjects verified short scientific statements (for example: “air is composed of matter.”). In a clever twist, the authors interleaved two kinds of statements — “consistent” ones that had the same truth-value under a naive theory and a proper scientific theory, and “inconsistent” ones. For example, the statement “air is composed of matter”  is inconsistent: it’s false under a naive theory (air just seems like empty space, right?), but is scientifically true. By contrast, the statement “people turn food into energy” is consistent: anyone who’s ever eaten a meal knows it’s true, and science affirms this by filling in the details about digestion, respiration and metabolism.

Shtulman and Valcarcel tested 150 college students on a battery of 200 such statements that included an equal and random mix of consistent and inconsistent statements from several domains, including astronomy, evolution, physiology, genetics, waves, and others. The scientists measured participants’ response speed and accuracy, and looked for systematic differences in how consistent vs. inconsistent statements were evaluated.

If scientific concepts, once learned, are fully internalized and don’t conflict with our earlier naive concepts, one would expect consistent and inconsistent statements to be processed similarly. On the other hand, if naive concepts are never fully supplanted, and are quietly threaded into our thought process, it should take take longer to evaluate inconsistent statements. In other words, it should take a bit of extra mental work (and time) to go against the grain of a naive theory we once held.

This is exactly what Shtulman and Valcarcel found. While there was some variability between the different domains tested, inconsistent statements took almost a half second longer to verify, on average. Granted, there’s a significant wrinkle in interpreting this result. Specifically, it may simply be the case that scientific concepts that conflict with naive intuition are simply learned more tenuously than concepts that are consistent with our intuition. Under this view, differences in response times aren’t necessarily evidence of ongoing inner conflict between old and new concepts in our brains — it’s just a matter of some concepts being more accessible than others, depending on how well they were learned.

There are, though, a few lines of evidence arguing against this interpretation. First, the authors found that participants who had best mastered scientific concepts (determined by their overall accuracy) were especially slow to verify inconsistent statements. A learning-based explanation of performance would have predicted the opposite — that mastery and speed should go hand in hand. More convincingly, a different study has shown that even those who’ve achieved an extremely high level of competence in a specific scientific field are still prone to make classifications based on naive, early concepts from childhood. In a speeded classification task analogous to Shtulman and Valcarcel’s, university biology professors were found to take longer to classify plants as living relative to moving nonliving things, a bias toward equating motion with life that is evident in young children.

Taken together, these findings suggest that we may be innately predisposed to have certain theories about the natural world that are resilient to being drastically replaced or restructured. These naive theories provide hunches and rules of thumb that likely helped us survive long before we needed to contemplate the atom, cells, or relativity. While some theories of learning consider the unschooled mind to be a ‘bundle of misconceptions’ in need of replacement, perhaps replacement is an unattainable goal. Or, if it is attainable, we may need to rethink how science is taught.

Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas.

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1. 
   

   1. RSchmidt 12:38 PM 8/21/12

   Yet we have many that not only continue with the Old OS but install in their children a bronze age OS. I have been talking about the ALL curriculum for years. Instead of the 3Rs, reading, righting and 'rithmatic you have Arithmetic, Literacy and Logic. The other subjects, excluding physical education, are there to apply the knowledge gained by these core subject. With the addition of logic, less emphasis is placed on teaching "facts" and more is placed on reasoning and the ability to evaluate data sources. The best thing you can do for your child's future is to teach them the benefits of delayed gratification, I believe the second best is to teach them critical thought. One of the worst thing to teach them is that faith is a valid replacement for knowledge, and that faith is more important that evidence. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



2. 
   

   2. RogerPink 01:10 PM 8/21/12

   I'm more concerned with unsupported superstitions that scientists, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, believe. For instance "The simplest answer is most likely the correct one" is almost never correct and requires herculean feats of rationalization to defend, yet this misunderstanding of Occam's Razor (not even close to what his intent was when he wrote it) pervades science and our society as a whole. These are the real dangers to science, not that we have to think an extra second in order figure out the correct answer to distinguish between colloquial and scientific definitions. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



3. 
   

   3. Derick in TO in reply to RSchmidt 01:23 PM 8/21/12

   If you teach your children critical thinking, and teach them to apply it to everything, you don't need to teach them that faith is not a valid replacement for knowledge - it's self-evident to anyone who has ever thought critically about their own beliefs. Of course, critical thinking among the general population is anathema to religious and political leaders. It's so much harder to control a populace that questions what it sees and hears and challenges established ideas. Hence the lack of logic and critical thinking in school curricula, and the inclusion of (un)intelligent design and "teaching the controversy". Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



4. 
   

   4. WRQ9 01:37 PM 8/21/12

   You ( the SI editing staff ) continue to refer to some people as "you". When I read that, it refers to me, and anybody else reading it. It gets annoying at times. I am fully aware that even the best scientific reasoning can be flawed, and the flaws are therefore generally of greater scope than imagined. I can anticipate weaknesses in any of my notions and make allowances regarding language and so forth. Like a good engineer, I imagine what total breakdown could look like in every phase of an operation. Still in all, I do not assume imperfection in others as an exorcise in respect. I assume adults have performed to their peak capacity and any failure would be directly related to the complexity of the task and/or their ability to perform it. Assumed perfection is an unavoidable flaw in reasoning, but without it no reasoning is possible. Without evidence to the contrary, many arguments, however ridiculous in hindsight are daily tried in trepidation. Many humans will retry pet ideas well beyond the point of reason fearing the alternative, this is a form of psychosis, with the exception of legal circles. An open mind respects all attempts at reasoning. Religious people are granted by the constitution, the right to assume in a benign fashion certain unprovable concepts. Science does not allow this argument, but many scientists share dual loyalties. In effect much scientific knowledge became possible because of biblical teachings. Multiple interpretations of phenomena are not always contentious. Any good scientist must be comfortable with the circumstance of many possibilities in order to progress without the stigma of prejudice. It is good exorcise to imagine the possibility of these " unprovable concepts " if just to " cleanse the palette " for new endeavors. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



5. 
   

   5. lucaspa in reply to RogerPink 01:52 PM 8/21/12

   I applaud you for knowing that "The simplest explanation is most likely the correct one" is not Ockham's Razor nor correct. It actually derives from Newton. But it is not a danger to science, because scientists don't use it in theory evaluation. It comes up in apologetics, usually atheist apologetics. What Ockham meant was not to add hypotheses to descriptions of phenomenon. His example, from his time, was "objects move because of an impetus". Ockham argued that movement was change in space over time, so all you needed to say was "objects move". That "because of an impetus" was a hypothesis that was not necessary to explain the phenomena. To Derrick: not all religious leaders or politicians deride reason. To say that they all do is to violate reason and critical thinking. Nor is faith necessarily an absence of evidence or reason. It can be, but often is not. Faith is belief in the absence of PROOF. We all believe things we cannot scientifically demonstrate. That does not mean we lack evidence or reason. For instance, the idea that democracy is a good form of government is not scientific nor "proven" by scientific evidence. Yet it does have evidence and reasons behind it. "It is important to recognize that not all "facts" are susceptible to scientific investigation, simply because some observations and experiences are entirely personal. I cannot prove that someone loves his or her child. The emotions that any individual claims to have are not susceptible to scientific documentation, because they cannot be independently verified by other observers. In other words, science seeks to explain only objective knowledge, knowledge that can be acquired independently by different investigators if they follow a prescribed course of observation or experiment. Many human experiences and concerns are not objective, and so do not fall within the realms of science." Douglas Futuyma, Science on Trial, the Case for Evolution, 1995, p 167. My children have faith that I love them. That faith is based upon evidence. But it's not science and it's not "proof". Millions of people have evidence for the existence of deity. It's faith, but not without evidence or reason. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



6. 
   

   6. lawman108 02:14 PM 8/21/12

   I wonder what the researchers would have seen had they done brain scans as people answered the questions. Just speculating, maybe the pre-conceived notions that people grow up with correspond to different parts of the brain. So an answer that is consistent doesn't need to be checked, but one that is inconsistent has somehow be "tagged" so that the answer gets shunted off to a different part of the brain for consideration. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



7. 
   

   7. Will_in_BC 03:34 PM 8/21/12

   I am not sure I would read too much into the longer time it took people with a good science background to respond to the inconsistent statements. A simple explanation would be that they are trained to look for subtleties and not accept the obvious. For example when I looked at the statement about air and matter I stopped to think of the various definitions of matter and which one might best apply. I think it's a good think that trained minds stop and ponder. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



8. 
   

   8. FloriodaJ782 in reply to lucaspa 04:36 PM 8/21/12

   "For instance, the idea that democracy is a good form of government is not scientific nor "proven" by scientific evidence. Yet it does have evidence and reasons behind it." Democracy is not, necessarily a good form of government, nor does it have evidence behind it. Historically, democracies have been short-lived. We have only been a democracy since we legislated universal suffrage. It's true that we are betting our lives on it, but I don't think most of us are comfortable making that bet; we just don't seem to have much choice. As to "reasons behind ..." your belief that democracy is good, that's demonstrably wrong. We already see evidence of the idea that 50% can get what they want by making the other 50% pay for it, is alive and growing. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



9. 
   

   9. tharriss in reply to lucaspa 05:10 PM 8/21/12

   "My children have faith that I love them. That faith is based upon evidence. But it's not science and it's not "proof". Millions of people have evidence for the existence of deity. It's faith, but not without evidence or reason." Whatever this evidence based faith tells your children and whatever this "evidence" is for existence of a deity, it is not a process well recommended for making good decisions or finding the actual truth. Children have faith Santa will leave presents under the tree for them, and evidence backs them up on it. The fact is that faith easily misleads people, even if they use some facts to rationalize their faith. If people want to take a statue that cries blood as "evidence" their faith is valid, and don't bother to look at the rusty plumbing in the ceiling above the statue, it says a lot about the value of their faith in reaching a true conclusion, but very little about the actual existence of a deity. A bit of science would go a long way into clearing up such delusions, but hey, by your stated standards, better to declare areas that are unprovable by science and just romanticize faith (backed up by "evidence") as holding the key.... what sillyness. "We all believe things we cannot scientifically demonstrate. That does not mean we lack evidence or reason. " Perhaps you are right that the one thing doesn't necessarily directly mean the other, but it does demonstrate a willingness to believe things that actually may not be true. Just because we all do it, doesn't mean it is a good way to reach a good conclusion. The beauty of the scientific method is that the process gets around our natural inclination to just believe all sorts of silly things, whether the evidence in front of our eyes seems to back it up or not, and instead makes us go through a strict process that strips away our biases and brings us ever closer to knowing what is actually happening around us. It isn't a perfect process, and usually takes time and many iterations to get past our built in preconceptions and misconceptions and human failings, but it is the best tool ever devised for eventually getting at the truth of things.... and I imagine before very much longer, will even have a scientifically verifiable way of scanning your brain and actually proving you love your kids.... although I agree most kids won't be much interested in such proof of something that seems obvious to them.... but it isn't the obvious nature of it (that you describe as faith) that makes it true... plenty of obvious seeming things actually aren't true. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this



10. 
    

    10. jgrosay 05:14 PM 8/21/12

    Yeah, it seems that Abrahan Maslow was the first in pointing that any new knowledge is put on the basis of the previously existent info on the field the subject has, be it a conjecture, a prejudice, or anything lacking an experimental basis. This would be one of the reasons learning things for an examination by reviewing old multiple choice questions on the subject is very dangerous: your mind records at the same level, and associated with the question, all the possible answers offered, and when in an actual situation, it will present to your conscience at similar levels of certainty the false and the right answers, in real life decision making this can lead to dangerous mistakes hard to notice until you're confronted with its consequences. Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

Post navigation ← Viva La Revolution! Dr. Peter Attia and Gary Taubes Launch NuSI: the Obesity Epidemic Quakes in Its Boots… I Second Adele’s Question… → Why Does “Eat Less Move More” Persist Among Folks Who Should Know Better? Posted on September 13, 2012 I’m fascinated by a small segment of people — those who have read and apparently fully understood the Lipophilia Hypothesis about obesity and who have chosen to reject Lipophilia in favor of the tired, wrong and ridonkculous notion that I call “Causal CICO” but which the rest of the world calls Eat Less Move More. How can you still believe in Eat Less Move More after you’ve been exposed to enlightening evidence, such as the terrible tale of the starved-to-death-obese Zucker rats? Here’s the money quote again, for anyone who missed it: From pg 366 of Good Calories, Bad Calories: [Certain genetically obese mice] will fatten excessively regardless of how much they eat. The obesity is not dependent on the number of calories they consume… ‘These mice will make fat out of their food under the most unlikely circumstances, even when half starved,’ [researcher Jean] Mayer had reported. And if starved sufficiently, these animals can be reduced to the same weight as lean mice, but they’ll still be fatter. They will consume the protein in their muscles and organs rather than surrender the fat in their [fat] tissue. Indeed, when these fat mice are starved, they do not become lean mice… they become emaciated versions of fat mice. Francis Benedict reported this in 1936, when he fasted a strain of obese mice. They lost 60 percent of their body fat before they died of starvation, but still had five times as much body fat as lean mice (!!!!!!)* that were allowed to eat as much as they desired. *[bolded font and exclamation points are mine!!!!!] Eat Less Move More. The rats tried it. Not a great outcome for them, eh? “Fine, fine,” retort the Calorie Wizards, “but the starved-to-death-obese rats constitute just ONE data point, and we have all this other evidence that proves that Eat Less Move More works!” My rebuttal: If obesity science were an actual science, as opposed to a pathological pseudo-science, then your first reaction to evidence like this should be to questions your hypothesis. If you accept that Francis Benedict’s starvation experiment got the results that it did, then the onus is on the defenders of Eat Less Move More to explain that evidence within the framework of how you think nature operates. If you cannot do that — if you can neither reject the evidence, nor explain it in the context of the ELMM hypothesis, then you have no choice – NO CHOICE – but to a) scrap your hypothesis or b) modify it somehow to accommodate the new information. But the ELMM people don’t do that. They offer no hint of scrapping their hypothesis or even of modifying it to accommodate this information. For instance, I would be overjoyed to hear something along the lines of: “Well, the rats do show that, in very special situations, there can be more to fat loss than just “eat less move more,” but I still believe that ELMM is an appropriate/the best way to deal with obesity in the vast majority of situations.” “I am dubious of Francis Benedict’s experimental results. Until I see them replicated, I am going to hold firm to the ELMM hypothesis.” Either answer would totally work for me and would be totally scientific! But the ELMM crowd ain’t saying that, at least as far as I can tell. Look, the rats don’t tell us all that much. Sure, the rats starved-to-death-obese, but that doesn’t mean that insulin causes obesity or even that ELMM might not be a sound – or even the best! – way to treat most normal cases of human obesity. What the rat experiment convincing shows, however, is that the standard model for treating obesity, that 99.9999% of humanity believes – “just burn off more calories than you consume” – is, AT BEST, an oversimplification. It is not an appropriate solution for ALL cases of obesity that we see in nature. Science is not a democracy or a courtroom. A “preponderance of evidence” doesn’t cut it. One “off” data point – one SINGLE PIECE of annoying evidence, such as the starved-to-death-obese rats – in and of itself has the power to bring down/modify an entire paradigm. Or at least it should, if you want to call what you’re doing a science. So why does the “hard” version of ELMM persist, even among those who’ve read what you just read? This interesting aricle in Scientific American may begin to explain it. Check it out.Why Does “Eat Less Move More” Persist Among Folks Who Should Know Better? |

Why Does “Eat Less Move More” Persist Among Folks Who Should Know Better? |

Posted on September 13, 2012

 

I’m fascinated by a small segment of people — those who have read and apparently fully understood the Lipophilia Hypothesis about obesity and who have chosen to reject Lipophilia in favor of the tired, wrong and ridonkculous notion that I call “Causal CICO” but which the rest of the world calls Eat Less Move More.

How can you still believe in Eat Less Move More after you’ve been exposed to enlightening evidence, such as the terrible tale of the starved-to-death-obese Zucker rats? Here’s the money quote again, for anyone who missed it:

From pg 366 of Good Calories, Bad Calories:

[Certain genetically obese mice] will fatten excessively regardless of how much they eat. The obesity is not dependent on the number of calories they consume… ‘These mice will make fat out of their food under the most unlikely circumstances, even when half starved,’ [researcher Jean] Mayer had reported. And if starved sufficiently, these animals can be reduced to the same weight as lean mice, but they’ll still be fatter. They will consume the protein in their muscles and organs rather than surrender the fat in their [fat] tissue. Indeed, when these fat mice are starved, they do not become lean mice… they become emaciated versions of fat mice.

Francis Benedict reported this in 1936, when he fasted a strain of obese mice. They lost 60 percent of their body fat before they died of starvation, but still had five times as much body fat as lean mice (!!!!!!)* that were allowed to eat as much as they desired.

*[bolded font and exclamation points are mine!!!!!]



Eat Less Move More. The rats tried it. Not a great outcome for them, eh?
“Fine, fine,” retort the Calorie Wizards, “but the starved-to-death-obese rats constitute just ONE data point, and we have all this other evidence that proves that Eat Less Move More works!”

My rebuttal:

If obesity science were an actual science, as opposed to a pathological pseudo-science, then your first reaction to evidence like this should be to questions your hypothesis. If you accept that Francis Benedict’s starvation experiment got the results that it did, then the onus is on the defenders of Eat Less Move More to explain that evidence within the framework of how you think nature operates. If you cannot do that — if you can neither reject the evidence, nor explain it in the context of the ELMM hypothesis, then you have no choice – NO CHOICE – but to a) scrap your hypothesis or b) modify it somehow to accommodate the new information.

But the ELMM people don’t do that. They offer no hint of scrapping their hypothesis or even of modifying it to accommodate this information.

For instance, I would be overjoyed to hear something along the lines of:

• “Well, the rats do show that, in very special situations, there can be more to fat loss than just “eat less move more,” but I still believe that ELMM is an appropriate/the best way to deal with obesity in the vast majority of situations.”
• “I am dubious of Francis Benedict’s experimental results. Until I see them replicated, I am going to hold firm to the ELMM hypothesis.”

Either answer would totally work for me and would be totally scientific! But the ELMM crowd ain’t saying that, at least as far as I can tell.

Look, the rats don’t tell us all that much.

Sure, the rats starved-to-death-obese, but that doesn’t mean that insulin causes obesity or even that ELMM might not be a sound – or even the best! – way to treat most normal cases of human obesity.

What the rat experiment convincing shows, however, is that the standard model for treating obesity, that 99.9999% of humanity believes – “just burn off more calories than you consume” – is, AT BEST, an oversimplification. It is not an appropriate solution for ALL cases of obesity that we see in nature.

Science is not a democracy or a courtroom. A “preponderance of evidence” doesn’t cut it. One “off” data point – one SINGLE PIECE of annoying evidence, such as the starved-to-death-obese rats – in and of itself has the power to bring down/modify an entire paradigm. Or at least it should, if you want to call what you’re doing a science.

So why does the “hard” version of ELMM persist, even among those who’ve read what you just read?

This interesting aricle in Scientific American may begin to explain it. Check it out

Wheat avoidance: I'm now a cult member [comments only] - The Scribble Pad

The Scribble Pad: Wheat avoidance: I'm now a cult member.

22 comments:

Christopher said...

Interesting anecdotal testimony, but if I'm not mistaken CarbSane debunked the whole 'Wheat Belly' thing some time ago. Her evidence seemed rather compelling.

September 22, 2012 1:49 AM

Sidereal said...

Woo, since Carbsane "debunked" Wheat Belly, you shouldn't believe your unscientific lying eyes. Anyway, that's great news! I remember some months ago I was arguing against wheat on this blog and you and Jane were like "lulz no" I'm glad you gave it a shot in the end. It adds yet another N=1. I'm curious: what made you give it up now? What arguments were compelling that previously weren't? I'm asking because I'm trying to convince the rest of my family but failing.

September 22, 2012 2:46 AM

ItsTheWooo said...

@christopher wheat sucking has not much to do with wheat belly which is a book. Besides, carbsane's opinion is just an opinion. Plz don't call it a "debunking", a label which gives authority to what is nothing more than some random lay person's internet opinion. From now on I'm going to call all of my opinions "debunkings". I am officially woo teh debunker, my villagers have given me this title from my battle worn victories of internet rants. @Sidereal well I've always questioned the wheat thing, particularly because I spend a chunk of my life in paleoland where everyone says it's absolutely horrible. I never had overt allergy symptoms or any obvious signs of a problem with wheat. What convinced me to try it most of all was, truthfully, Emily Deans blog where she described how all serious mental illnesses relate to immune responses to wheat / dairy. She specifically described how these immune responses are not like allergies but yet the immune system is being activated in a way that is not happening for normal people. That perked up my ears because I always assumed you had to have overt gastric distress or allergic symptoms to have a wheat problem... it never occurred to me maybe like mood stuff could be related. Given my family history of schizophrenia and the fact my more obviously insane family members have obvious dietary intolerances with elevated immune factors on blood work... and my history of being slightly loons myself (just a tiny bit in the past ;) ) I figured maybe I could benefit from trialing wheat free. I have not yet considered avoiding dairy, I figured I would trial wheat. My advice would be to identify a health problem your family member struggles with and explain how wheat might impact that. I only considered trying to avoid wheat when I specifically read that wheat may promote mental health deterioration even without overt allergic symptoms. If not for my concern for mental wellness I wouldn't have been convinced to try avoiding wheat because I have no reason to otherwise. If your family member has any health complaints which may be related to the wheat I would focus on teaching them that symptom may get better or go away, and at least give it a try and see.

September 22, 2012 6:37 AM

George Henderson said...

Carbsane would debunk the "spherical Earth" hypothesis if Gary Taubes went on holiday. The thing is, that the whole wheat toxicity business has so many layers that no single explanation suffices for every case. You can have coeliac disease, gliadin allergy, non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, temporary gluten senstivity triggered by a viral infection, leaky gut and molecular mimicry causing autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, and then there are the various responses to lectins and FODMAP fibres. And any combination of all the above. And the symptoms you get will vary according to your own genome, your vitamin D level, and so on. It's a messy messy business - there is no end of research showing strong and consistent effects in all directions; but there is little that tells us which person might feel which effects and who might be spared. It never depended on the Wheat Belly arguements; anyone who reacts to dwarf wheat is very likely to react to durum wheat and rye, barley or spelt. Maybe not so much, but enough. This is an article about gluten and depression by coeliac researcher Ron Hoggan http://gluten-free.org/hoggan/depr.txt "Do not be misled. Because fats can be made from other foods, the malabsorption associated with gluten intolerance need not suggest an underweight condition in our calorie rich diets." He obviously believes in DNL. Gluten digestion yields unusually high levels of glutamate -that's why wheat's used to make soya sauce. Kurt Harris has provided an impressive array of references to support "the Argument Against Cereal Grains" http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2009/6/23/the-argument-against-cereal-grains.html

September 22, 2012 6:41 AM

v/vmary said...

wooo, do you have any schizotypal personalities in your family? what are they like? my mom fits that type almost to a tee- but she is still high functioning and was greatly respected at ther workplace as an icu nurse and supervior.

September 22, 2012 6:59 AM

Sidereal said...

Given that you avoid meat, if you eliminated dairy too, there would be nothing left to eat.

September 22, 2012 7:34 AM

Denise said...

I eliminated wheat 2-1/2 years ago. Three days into it, I felt like a fog had lifted, that I had not known was there. It was amazing, especially since I was still experiencing withdrawal symptoms. I've only had one relapse, which was terrible and traumatic. I've discovered that I actually can tolerate a tiny bit of wheat, for example, a bite of raspberry pie with crust, but more than that is playing with fire, and I usually just avoid eating any at all, since it can sneak in all sorts of places you don't expect it. The first symptom is cravings and low mood, for me. I also did a dairy elimination for two weeks, and was relieved that it did not seem to make any difference, in fact, I felt better when I added it back in. I did find out that canned coconut milk makes a good coffee creamer, though, which earned it a place in my hurricane supply cabinet.

September 22, 2012 9:21 AM

IcedCoffee said...

I started avoiding wheat when i decided to avoid anything with sugar/flour/vegetable oil. Now if I eat ANYTHING with wheat I get a major inflammatory reaction. Case and point, I had a single communion wafer at a funeral a couple weeks ago, and I had severe digestive issues for the next 5 days. (Side note, the links between gluten and mental disorders are scary. So much suggests a major connection, and it seems like most people improve with its removal.) Next thing is to give up casein. I find an inverse reaction to anything high in casein (cheese, greek yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.) It seems to massively slow peristalsis, and I feel significantly better without it. I have yet to tinker with the whole A1/A2 casein thing, but its on the agenda. Goat products are my only real option in that regard and they are rather expensive where I live.

September 22, 2012 9:22 AM

Sidereal said...

Denise, "terrible and traumatic" is how I would experience my recent run-in with a hamburger bun at a night out. I actually felt like I was going to die, no exaggeration. I've been off wheat for at least a year now with the odd cheat (always followed by digestive problems for days). My OH has had great success with wheat elimination. For him, there seems to be a dose-response relationship. If he has one cracker (which as a Catholic he does on a weekly basis :p), he's fine. If he has bread or muffins or whatever, breakout of red dermatitis patches and other crapiness ensues.

September 22, 2012 9:50 AM

R.G. said...

"my recent run-in with a hamburger bun" god forbid . . .next thing you know, you will be accosted by a bag of beignets . . . in any event- nothing wrong with a little wheat ingestion- http://runroamrecycle.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/mime-attachment_3.jpg

September 22, 2012 10:47 AM

Kim said...

I've been back & forth with myself about the "wheat thing"- I know I don't have celiac disease, and for the most part, the fact that when I eat wheat I eventually eat too much and it triggers a full on binge episode and craving for other carbs-was enough to convince me to just leave it alone. So I've just been avoiding it. Lately I've noticed that if I eat do wheat, I seem to have a delayed response, sometimes up to a day later-generally arthritic-like muscle/join pain and stiffness. Just ran across this arcticle and maybe it's right: http://gluten-free-blog.blogspot.com/2006/09/celiac-and-delayed-reaction-allergic.html

September 22, 2012 11:29 AM

Roseanna Smith said...

I do think wheat has negative effects beyond being nutritionally void and full of teh bad carbos for lots of people, and I *know* it does for me. About a year into my low-carb journey I was stalled at 190 lbs, and briefly tried Kwasniewski's 'optimal' diet, which requires about 60g/day of CHO (way high for me, much more than I'd been eating). So I added in a daily piece of sturdy german rye bread (which contained a fair amount of wheat in addition to the rye), and promptly began crying every morning. This was a symptom I'd had for years when I was on anti-depressants, which cleared up completely when I went LC. And here it was again! I wondered if it was the higher carb level (swinging blood glucose, perhaps), or something specific to the bread. So I swapped out the bread for half a baked potato, and the morning crying jags stopped cold. The weight re-gain didn't, but that's a different story. I agree with George Henderson -- it's damn difficult to know exactly what any individual's issue(s) with wheat might turn out to be: gluten, gliadin, leaky gut, or a host of other things. But I know for sure that whatever the issue is, I can avoid it completely by not eating anything with wheat in it.

September 22, 2012 11:58 AM

Sidereal said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

September 22, 2012 12:06 PM

FredT said...

It is those bloody exorphins that wheat contains... well that some of us digest out of wheat and dairy...

September 22, 2012 12:15 PM

Sidereal said...

Apologies. I meant to ask if "R.G." was the same dumb troll as "Robert" from the misandry thread.

September 22, 2012 12:20 PM

Taryl said...

My anecdotes are similar to yours, wheat and me aren't friends when it comes to how I feel physically and with my mood. More inflammation, more depressive symptoms, and poor sleep are all par for the course when I've had more than a few bites of wheat, too, nd eliminating it made my migraines go away, my skin clear, my sleep improve, too. Now, I have had blood reactivity tests and know I'm sensitive to wheat and oats, but I hadn't realized they made me feel bad until I eliminated them and felt better, it was the creeping, insidious kind of symptom you don't notice until it is gone. But I've been bother higher carb and higher wheat lately and felt crappy becaus of it. But the darn stuff is SO hard to get back off of once the cravings set in again. Boo!

September 22, 2012 2:36 PM

tess said...

add me to the "wheat sensitive" group. i can't use wheat or even oats without my joints giving me pain. intestinal woes, too! casein is also something i have to take it easy with -- a little cheese, cream, glass of kefir or home-made yogurt is okay, but too much is NOT. with a VLC diet FREE of grains and dairy (except butter), this "medieval" body feels decades younger.

September 22, 2012 4:28 PM

Galina L. said...

Symptoms of allergies could be hard to identify as an allergy, it is not necessary a skin rush or an asthma or itchy lips. Immune system may be attacking whatever in ones body while leaving skin alone. Wheat gives me more water retention than other carbs and I get mysterious pain in hand and wrist joints. My son got on a gluten-free diet and it improved his eczema, and also eliminated an embarrassing problem - after his bowel movements it was impossible to enter a toilet for a while. He didn't realize the extent of his problem until he went to live in a dorm and noticed how much different and stronger the smell he produced was. It is not a health problem, but it is better not to be an inconvenience for others.

September 22, 2012 4:51 PM

FrankG said...

The thing I find appealing about avoiding wheat (or not) is that it seems relatively easy to try out for yourself. Those who report improvements seem to notice them within a few days and there is already a thriving community of coeliac and IBS suffers with readily available advice on how to avoid all the hidden sources of wheat. If you feel confident that avoiding wheat *is* working for you, it also seems easy to double-check by trying a small amount and watching for a rapid return of the previous signs/symptoms. Sure it's anecdotal... sure it's n=1 but in any case it beats the heck out of blindly putting your faith in the words of the shrieking harpy Evil-Lyn-Sane!

September 22, 2012 5:33 PM

zanjabil said...

Count me in as one who immediately notices a reaction from wheat. Migraines, sinus congestion,digestive issues, mood disorders, and the munchies. I stay far away from that grain, and all others too. Low carb higher fat is where it's at!

September 22, 2012 5:39 PM

Denise said...

Regarding gluten and mental problems, this: http://www.zombieinstitute.net/Serenity.htm is pretty terrifying.

September 22, 2012 7:36 PM

George Henderson said...

Good link denise - it led me to Orexin "don't call me hypocretin". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orexin Orexin seems to promote wakefulness. Recent studies indicate that a major role of the orexin system is to integrate metabolic, circadian and sleep debt influences to determine whether an animal should be asleep or awake and active. Orexin neurons strongly excite various brain nuclei with important roles in wakefulness including the dopamine, norepinephrine, histamine and acetylcholine systems[8][9] and appear to play an important role in stabilizing wakefulness and sleep. Orexin increases the craving for food, and correlates with the function of the substances that promote its production. Orexin-A (OXA) has been recently demonstrated to have direct effect on a part of the lipid metabolism. OXA stimulates glucose uptake in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and that increased energy uptake is stored as lipids (triacylglycerol). OXA thus increases lipogenesis. It also inhibits lipolysis and stimulates the secretion of adiponectin. http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20103015907.html;jsessionid=EE3395C3AD9676C71C3024A92C1B81D0 Gluten and Orexin

September 22, 2012 8:46 PM