How shellfish saved the human race Boing Boing

How shellfish saved the human race Boing Boing

Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance

There's a good chance someone you know has told you, "Low carb! I tried that, and I felt horrible." Further conversation will reveal that your friend switched abruptly from eating lots of carbs -- if not in the form of sugar, then definitely in the form of starch: bread, pasta, potatoes and so forth -- to eating virtually no carbohydrate at all. Whatever the ratio of protein to fat in the diet your friend jumped into, the resulting effects included lethargy, hunger, muscle weakness. Further conversation will, no doubt, also reveal that your friend did little reading, followed no particular author or doctor's plan, and simply winged it, with little information and less understanding about how and why reducing carbohydrates leads to fat loss, and what it takes to adjust your metabolism to this new regimen without suffering. Or even any understanding that a low-carb diet is healthier overall, not just a quick way to weight loss.

Or you may have heard that studies show the benefits of carb-loading for exercise, or that carbohydrate provides better fuel than dietary fat for exercise.

The key concept missing in all this is "keto-adaptation." It takes time to adjust after carbohydrate consumption is cut down. That means that studies lasting less than a week don't really show how well the body works in the absence of carbs; they only show how rocky the withdrawal phase can be.

Here's a paper that expands on this topics, explaining what the studies really show. It's easy to read and has lots of good info.

Ketogenic diets and physical performance

Stephen Phinney wrote this paper, which appears on the National Institutes for Health (NIH) Web site, and was published by Nutrition and Metabolism (London) in 2004. It appears on the NIH site courtesy of BioMed Central.

Thanks to Richard Tamesis, M.D, whose comment on this Protein Power post on a natural treatment for GERD led me to Phinney's paper.

Dr. Phinney was featured in the "Atkins Nutritionals Teleconference Call with Dr. Stephen Phinney and Dr. Jeff Volek in Episodes 170, 171 and 172 of Jimmy Moore's spectacular Livin' La Vida Low Carb podcast show. At the time of this posting, I am unable to access the podcast files from Jimmy's site, but if you contact me via the comments field, I'll do my best to get the MP3 files to you.

What's become of Mediterranean Diet Central?

A lot has changed since the famous Seven Countries Study, in which Ancel Keyes creatively presented data that would support his hypothesis that a diet high in saturated fat leads to heart disease, and that a diet low in saturated fat protects against it.

Rosenthal, who evidently hasn't read Good Calories, Bad Calories, mistakenly dates the identification of Crete as an exemplar of good nutrition from the early 1990s, but Keyes put forth his views in the 1950s.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/24/europe/diet.php

Flood of junk food puts Greeks at risk
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
Published: September 24, 2008
International Herald Tribune (an international version of the New York Times)


Excerpt:

KASTELI, Greece: Dr. Michalis Stagourakis has seen a transformation of his pediatric practice here over the past three years. The usual sniffles and stomachaches of childhood are now suddenly interspersed with far more serious conditions: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. A changing diet, he says, has produced an epidemic of obesity and related maladies.

Small towns like this one in western Crete, considered the birthplace of the famously healthful Mediterranean diet - emphasizing olive oil, fresh produce and fish - are now overflowing with chocolate shops, pizza places, ice cream parlors, soda machines and fast-food joints....

The conversion of a raw vegan family

In the UK Independent:

"How our vegan diet made us ill"

By Natasha Mann
June 17, 2008

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/healthy-living/how-our-vegan-diet-made-us-ill-848322.html

Excerpt:

One morning over breakfast, Holly Paige looked at her daughter and realised things weren't right. Lizzie should have been flourishing. Instead, her cheeks were pinched, she was small for her age, and although she had skinny arms and legs, her belly was big and swollen. When Lizzie smiled, Paige suddenly noticed her upper front teeth were pitted with holes.

"I was absolutely horrified," recalls Paige.

At the time, Paige was feeding them what she thought was the most nutritious diet possible. They had been raw vegans for three years, and ate plenty of fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, soya and pulses, but no meat, fish or dairy.

Thanks to renegadediabetic at livinlowcarbdiscussion.com forum for the tip.

Epidemiologist Paul Marantz criticizes dietary guidelines

Here's the Feb. 13 podcast of Scientific American.

Fat Chance: Do Dietary Guidelines Actually Contribute to Obesity?

http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=13BE8F96-CC52-62E0-362994556CDDD508

Paul Marantz criticizes the dietary guidelines to reduce dietary fat, as well as the standard practice of treating markers for disease (cholesterol levels, blood pressure) rather than the diseases themselves. Here's he's interviewed by Steve Mirsky in the weekly podcast, Science Talk.

The link above will take you to a written transcript, as well as a link to the audio podcast.

Thanks for laughingW on the Protein Power forum for mentioning it in this thread about whole grains.

http://proteinpower.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4760

Pro-Low-Carb article on ABC News!

This article was written by Adam Campbell, features editor for Men's Health Magazine and apparently a force behind that magazine's favorable stance towards dietary fat.

Five Reasons You're Still Fat
Five Weighty Mistakes That Many People Make -- and Advice For Shedding Pounds
April 15, 2008

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Fitness/Story?id=4649098&page=1

Michael Pollan interviewed on Democracy Now

This is a transcript of Amy Goodman interviewing Michael Pollan about his newest book, the bestselling In Defense of Food.


http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/76987/?page=entire


I wonder whether Pollan has read Taubes, specifically Good Calories, Bad Calories. I wonder what those two think of each other. For all the great insights Pollan has, he still seems to be under the impression that red meat is not good for humans to eat. But maybe that's because he hasn't come upon the same source materials in the course of his work that Taubes has.

He does, in this interview, use words like "probably" when talking about whether it's good or bad, and he exonerates cholesterol early on here. However, the mantra of "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much" (other articles call it a mantra; I didn't come up with that myself) is what people quote over and over.

His idea of "nutritionism" as ideology is priceless.

A link to an MP3 audio file of this interview can be found in the third (non subthreaded) comment.