I’ve been tied up the past month, finishing and closing my New York Times Magazine article on sugar and high fructose corn syrup, It came out in the newspaper today. But before the sugar article took over every spare minute of my life, my wife, Sloane, a source of wisdom and humor (and patience) in the family, strongly suggested I get my blood lipids checked and post the results for those who were dismayed or discouraged by my choice not to do so on the Oz show. Sloane wasn’t the only one to suggest this was a good idea. Some of those commenting on my blogs were insistent, to put it mildly.
So it took me awhile to get to a Quest lab with a prescription. Then it took another week for the results to come back. That was three weeks ago. Now I finally have the time to post them. Keep in mind as you go through these that I do indeed eat three eggs with cheese, bacon and sausage for breakfast every morning, typically a couple of cheeseburgers (no bun) or a roast chicken for lunch, and more often than not, a ribeye or New York steak (grass fed) for dinner, usually in the neighborhood of a pound of meat. I cook with butter and, occasionally, olive oil (the sausages). My snacks run to cheese and almonds. So lots of fat and saturated fat and very little carbohydrates. A deadly diet, according to Dr. Oz. Without further ado, here are my numbers,
I pretty much knew that you were healthy from what you’ve been eating Gary! I too see how pointless these numbers are though. Why bother finding out what they are if I am eating healthy?
your results are not surprising at all and I sure hope Dr. Oz takes the time to take a look at it and I would be curious to see how it compares with his own results! =)
Great stuff Gary.
Well done, Gary. Thanks for sharing. It was great to see you at Caltech.
What a cruel joke it would be, if eating the diet we evolved to eat was “deadly.” But wait…if this is a deadly diet…shouldn’t we have become extinct about a million years ago? Great NYT article, btw — thanks for a job well done!
What a cruel joke it would be, if eating the diet we evolved to eat was “deadly.” But wait…if this is a deadly diet…shouldn’t we have become extinct about a million years ago? Great NYT article, btw — thanks for a job well done!
The low CO2 is interesting, I believe this is due to respiratory compensation for ketones in the bloodstream in order to maintain blood pH. Effectively we low carb folk breathe more to reduce CO2 in our bloodstream to reduce the acidity of the bicarbonate ion, in order to offset acidic ketones. Anyone else seen this on blood test results ?
Burning fat also produces less CO2 than burning carbohydrate because fats are poor in oxygen compared to carbs.
don’t follow your argument – the CO2 would depend on the carbon content of fats vs carbs, the oxygen will come from the lungs to supplement the (small) amount of oxygen in carbs. Sucrose C12H22O11 for example appears to have a lot of O in it but only enough to make 11 H2O molecules, needing 12 O2 from the lungs to make 12 CO2.
Oleic acid (major component in olive oil) is CH3(CH2)18COOH which needs 19.5 O2 from air to burn the C plus another 18 for the H (approx).
You might end up in the right place with your lower CO2 from food hypothesis because the H in the fats provides a lot of energy that sucrose doesn’t have, but you got there by the wrong route. The C:H ratio is key.
In the end the blood gases are regulated by respiration not nutrition.
It’s not quite as simple as how much carbon is in a molecule. I don’t know all the physiology, but the respiratory quotient of fat is lower than that of carbs. In other words, more CO2 is produced in the oxidation of carbs than fat. When I treat ICU patients with advanced lung disease, I find they do better on low carb, high fat diets. The more CO2 we produce, the more we have to breathe to eliminate the CO2. But that isn’t the issue. The primary process here is a metabolic acidosis created by the generation of ketones. The acidosis lowers the pH. We respond by “blowing off” more CO2 to bring the pH closer to normal.
Yes! My CO2 level was also measured as out of range, think it was 19 or 20. It was the only out-of-range result on my labs. I had been eating low-carb/primal for about a year at that point.
Yes! My CO2 level was also measured as out of range, think it was 19 or 20. It was the only out-of-range result on my labs. I had been eating low-carb/primal for about a year at that point.
Looking at Gary’s labs the anion gap is 16 which is elevated. among the most common of the common list of causes of anion gap acidosis would be ketones, the bicarb falls to maintain electroneutrality in the blood as the ketones are effectively unmeasured anions whose paired hydrogen ions have been buffered. the bicarbonate in this case is regulated by the kidneys more so than the lungs. these lab values don’t tell us what his dissolved carbon dioxide is. i suspect that this is a typical fasting morning result and a late day sample would be different.
You are right about the high anion gap metabolic acidosis. But fasting overnight won’t produce a high AG acidosis. As Gary is on a ketogenic diet, I am sure he has this mild high AG acidosis any time of day, and is experiencing the benefit of his ketonemia.
Doug McGuff (Body by Science) recently put up a post (http://www.bodybyscience.net/home.html/?p=988) entitled Not Everything Needs to be Measured. He argued that he doesn’t even know what his data are.
“It is difficult for most people to accept that I do not even check my cholesterol numbers. If my numbers were less than ideal, I would respond by doing what I am doing already.”
Subject to a disclaimer re those already ill, he also says:
“Many, many times the human urge to measure and document can cause much more harm than good. My advice is to eat a hunter-gatherer diet, perform a BBS type workout, remain active and productive and resist the urge to have some sort of documentation of how you are doing.”
Sounds good to me.
On the other hand, those of us willing to document this stuff will be the ones proving to the doubters that our way of eating does a lot of good. Without our evidence, they will keep believing the vegan party line that animal foods fatten, clog arteries, and destroy bones.
I think the point is that without measurement people will not be able to see firstly where they are and secondly where they are heading.
If you are going to be scientific about your improvements without regular observations you will be floating in the dark.
Type your reply…
Michael,
Doug’s attitude was my attitude. What would I do if I found out my total cholesterol was 300 or my LDL 200? Go on a low-fat diet? Take a statin? I doubt it. So why bother checking when you’re committed to your own research. Still my wife made a good point and the Oz show changed the formula a bit.
Best,
gt
I have total cholesterol over 300…
Yes it is disconcerting despite the rationalizations, even for one similarly committed to believing the science.
I have been eating this way for three years, now, since being diagnosed as prediabetic in February, 2008, and finding Dr.Richard Bernstein’s The Diabetes Solution shortly thereafter. I dropped 40 pounds, and have kept my BGs under control. While my HDL and triglycerides have improved, my total cholesterol and LDL have not:
At diagnosis, my lipid panel looked like this:
TC: 248
LDL (direct): 190
HDL: 40
Trig: 148
Two years later, it looked like this:
TC: 357
LDL: 231
HDL: 95
Trig: 44
In between, it was slightly higher. After a few conversations with my doctor and one of her partners, during which I made clear my extreme reluctance to take statins, she has decided that she doesn’t need to track my cholesterol.
But don’t you know that your high-fat, high-protein diet is horrible for you?
))))
Well done Mrs Taubes. Sensible move.
Happy birthday for 30th April, Gary.
How come the test doesn’t include a Magnesium reading? That’s also part of heart health, I understand.
Nina
Gary
I’ve just tried to post the link to this on Dr Oz’s site by your episode, but it repeatedly ignores my log in. Coincidence? I’ve sent it to Dr Oz via the ‘contact us’ button.
Nina
OK my mistake. Message should appear on Dr Oz site with the link.
Nina
Mr. Taubes – I’m curious as to why this article only discussed sugar’s suspected health impacts. If I understand your arguments elsewhere, you believe/suspect all carbs to be implicated in these health problems. Perhaps you limited the scope of this article to very specifically address the potential health problems that stem from glucose and sucrose, but if you feel that all carbs are equally suspect, I would have thought you’d at least mention starches as well. Am I correct in thinking that starches are still high on your list of suspected contributors to metabolic syndrome?
I don’t know about Gary’s take on this but I do know indigenous groups have been documented eating starchy tubers without the degenerative diseases we get here. It may be that in the absence of excess sugar, starch is not quite as bad for you.
Mind you, we seem to have a multi-whammy going on here.
Choline is thought to be protective against fructose’s adverse effects on the liver. Best sources of choline: eggs and liver. We are discouraged against eating eggs and liver.
Vitamin K2 (not K1, which must be converted, and is converted poorly) aids in the production of the substance osteocalcin, which in turn stimulates the fat cells to release adiponectin, which increases insulin sensitivity. Best sources of K2? Animal foods, particularly grass-fed dairy, and they must be full-fat since K is a fat-soluble vitamin. We are discouraged from eating full-fat dairy; indeed, in many cases, we’re discouraged from any dairy at all. The only reason the government’s holding out on dairy and telling us to keep consuming it but cut the fat is so many people still believe dairy is the best source of dietary calcium.
Vitamin A is beginning to be linked to diabetes prevention. Most people try to get their vitamin A from beta carotene, yet research suggests that as many as 40 to 50 percent of us are not able to convert enough beta carotene to adequately meet our vitamin A needs. Again, the best source of vitamin A? Liver.
And of course we are discouraged from eating animal fats and told that polyunsaturated oils are the most healthful for us. Yet these are inflammatory in the body, and systemic inflammation is linked strongly with diabetes.
I could go on and on. So many puzzle pieces and they all add up to wrecked health.
Hi Douglas,
I do think it’s possible, even likely, that sugars trigger the initial insulin resistance and then that in turn makes all carbs. It’s the simplest possible explanation for why some populations eating carb-rich diets have high levels of obesity and diabetes and some don’t. The latter — the Southeast Asians, for instance — don’t eat sugar. The former do. But more than anything as soon as I write about all carbs, it looks like I’m doing my schtick again and the way the media works, the schtick has to be new. So by focusing exclusively on sugar I could get the story into print. Had I branched out anywhere along the way into the dangers of all carbs, I’d appear to be treading on familiar ground. So I made compromises to get the story into print — but I think what it says is important, obviously, and most likely right. The ultimate question is whether you can trigger metabolic syndrome with starches, or whether they exacerbate it. I don’t know, but I’m willing to buy that they make it worse and it’s sugar that triggers it. And I’m hoping that the NYT M article will help motivate the NIH to fund the necessary studies to find out.
Thanks for the thoughtful question.
gt
I thought southeast Asians ate quite a bit of fruit, and therefore sugar?
Fruit usually has a lot of fibre as well as sugar, so it slows down the processing of fructose. Overall fibre content is probably pretty high, since we’d eat a lot of raw vegetables too. I guess that’s a difference that makes a difference. All but one of the diabetic SE Asians I know (I’m Thai-American, so a lot) became so after moving to the US.
I would not say that SE Asians don’t eat refined sugar, though. Many savory Thai dishes have small amounts sugar added, and desserts can be VERY sweet. Normally the serving size on sweets is quite small though. I actually think the SE Asian diet is a good argument for moderation in all things (except for chili peppers, which are always to be used to excess), with a bias towards less-processed foods. My Thai grandmother is currently pushing 100, with no particular health regimen at all. So you can pry white rice from my cold dead hands.
And you Thai’s also eat a lot of coconut milk. and you are not afraid of saturated fat from beef, pork and chicken. (I love Thai food and Indian food. It’s my downfall when it comes to reducing carbs.) And that probably works to slow the rate at which all the carbs–sugar, rice, etc.–enter the bloodstream and so moderate the amount of insulin floating around. I think it’s possible to eat carbs in moderation if (and this is a big if) you have never eaten low fat, high carb, (with massive amounts of sugar) as so many people in this country have on the advice of our good government and medical profession. Mediterranean populations as well as Southeast Asians do and–correct me if I’m wrong–I believe they don’t have the widespread chronic health problems that we do. Because they have always eaten carbs, especially sugar, in moderation along with plenty of good fats.
I think your approach to this article makes a lot of sense when looked at from another direction as well. When trying to get science to look at the question of carbs in general, it’s a pretty broad subject with a lot of ways to set up studies into the subject. But if you can get initial testing to be focused on something a little more specific, i.e. sugar’s effects, perhaps answers can be uncovered more quickly, and be more useful in breaking the hegemony of ‘fat/calories are the culprit’ thinking. Thanks for taking the time to answer.
I think that the Asian population that doesn’t get obese eating high carb foods are simply less glutinous people with fewer and lesser varieties of food available to them anyway. — There is also the fact that about 25% of our population right here in the United States that eats high carb diets are thin and average people despite the way they eat. — Again less glutinous. They just enjoy their “buzz” at a certain level and consciously stay that way without overindulging.
Good comment – I think you meant ‘gluttonous’ – as in being a glutton.
Yes, I did mean ‘gluttonous’. Sorry about that, Thanks.
It appears you haven’t read Gary’s seminal work, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” or his more recent book, “Why We Get Fat and What to do about it”. If you had, you’d know it’s not about gluttony or the lack thereof. And thin does not necessarily equate with healthy. My friend’s husband has always had a sweet tooth and preferred cookies and bread to meat at every turn. Did he get fat? No. He remains quite normal in proportion, but developed type II diabetes. Sadly he prefers drugs, rather than diet, to control his diabetes and cholesterol and his doctor encourages him in this. He’ll probably die of a heart attack in the not too distant future!
It’s not about gluttony unless your a glutton and many of us are just that. Closeted or otherwise! You equated thin with healthy, not me! — Sugar and hybrid carbohydrates and carbohydrates in general, are all deadly poisons. Simple as that!
If you look closer you will see that they are skinny fat.
Oh no, now there’s a skinny-fat we have to worry about?
As soon as I saw the sugar article, I thought, “he should have written that BEFORE Big Fat Lie, GCBC, and Why We Get Fat.” It would have established your credibility and made it a whole lot easier to go out on the carbs-are-what’s-evil limb. Who knows, it might have changed the course of the obesity epidemic!
Aha! I’m glad I found this response. I initially had the same question, and even posted on Huffpo that I guessed that you had to go the “sugar is dangerous” route to get this article published. Brilliant, as always!
I love it. Well done. Eventually, the world will wake up and realise that we were designed to eat plenty of protein and saturated fat, and that the new carb loaded diets are making us sick. One day soon I hope. My blog talks about similar issues: http://christinecronau.com/the-great-cholesterol-myth/
too funny. congrats on being healthy! where was the caveat about these numbers not meaning anything and the question being what would the numbers be if you were eating a different diet?
you are clearly please and it is very much deserved! i am glad that we will get to continue reading your work for a long time to come. now, keep your eyes on the road!
Gary that is fantastic! My wife and I have been following a lo-carb dietary plan since Feb. 21. Due, in large part, to your books and the New Atkins book. We feel fantastic! Additionally, my wifes blood glucose levels, which have been under questionable control for some time now, IMMEDIATELY fell into normal range. (Fasting <110, 2 hrs after eating <140). She was thrilled. We go in for fasting blood work on April 25, with the results appointment the following week. We are very excited about seeing the results.
Thank you, for the research, the long hours, and tireless effort you have put into both your books. You have given us inspiration to be healthy, and possibly extended our lives for several years.
Chuck G.
Wichita, KS
Looking good Gary.. I bet you feel great!
This is a conversation that addresses the short term and the “numbers” of a particular issue. Is this the issue of most concern, or does is distract us from a bigger understanding. What of the effects our systems experience in the long term development of disease and illness. What of inflammation and the correlation between protein levels, especially animal sources and incidence of cancers and other systems breakdown. (The China Study). Absolutely, there is imbalance and over dependence on carbohydrate calories. The direction of best utilization of nutrients in support of cell health is with plant based foods.
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/08/03/the-china-study-a-formal-analysis-and-response/
Taubes has been eating like this for over 10 years… not that it matters, I immediately stopped reading your post at “The China Study.”
43 articles debunking Campbell – and one from Dr. Eades where Campbell even admits the “study” was based on correlation and confirmation bias: http://freetheanimal.com/2010/07/the-china-study-smackdown-roundup.html
Inflammation? Gary’s C-RP is 0.72, in the lowest possible category, showing he doesn’t have any significant inflammation going on.
Inflammation? Gary’s C-RP is 0.72, in the lowest possible category, showing he doesn’t have any significant inflammation going on.
Inflammation? Gary’s C-RP is 0.72, in the lowest possible category, showing he doesn’t have any significant inflammation going on.
Read jayteemo’s link. T. Colin Campbell didn’t pay attention to his own data.
re: plant based foods…
Tell that to these people…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNeNTMmltyc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUpo_mA5RP8
For what seems to this layperson a devastating takedown of Campbell’s analysis of the China Study data:
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/08/03/the-china-study-a-formal-analysis-and-response/
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/09/02/the-china-study-wheat-and-heart-disease-oh-my/
As it turns out, Campbell has been less than objective in his approach to the data. Animal foods are not correlated with disease. But guess what is? Wheat.
Great stuff.
Gary although you have a big following in the paleo and crossfit spheres you never mention them.
Is this because you’re afraid that it will be too easy for the mainstream media to dismiss you if you seem to align yourself with them?
Gary hardly ever *blogs,* I think he just wants to get said what most needs to be said and move on. He sounds like a pretty busy guy.
In all honesty, it just never came up. I’m more worried about being perceived as an Atkins acolyte than an ally of the paleo and crossfit camps. And even with my anxieties about Atkins, I believe in giving credit where due, even if it costs me.
gt
Very good, Gary.
Quick question: do you supplement with vitamin D at all? Your levels are very good.
Yes. Over the counter D3.
gt
You do know that there are various websites where you can order just about any bloodtest, no doctor visit needed?????
Looks pretty good to me. Regarding your diet: you mention grass-fed beef for dinner. Are your other food selections pastured or free-range?
Hi Jim,
Free-range and grass-fed as much as possible, but with kids, compromises are made for what they’ll eat. Although having read Eating Animals by Safran Foer, I always feel guilty for the compromises.
gt
“Large boyant LDL”, great Triglycerides, <1 risk factor….awesome!!! Would love to see Dr Oz match that. Although I heard that he secretly does eat what most would consider low carb, but still probably not as healthy as you. You are my hero! I sent you a long email a couple days ago.
“Large boyant LDL”, great Triglycerides, <1 risk factor….awesome!!! Would love to see Dr Oz match that. Although I heard that he secretly does eat what most would consider low carb, but still probably not as healthy as you. You are my hero! I sent you a long email a couple days ago.
Further adieu? I’m sure you meant further ado, right?
Of course, I did. Thanks. Sigh.
Gary, I’m looking forward to the day when you are finally able to get into the mental aspects in all this. — Patiently waiting! — To big a pill to swallow in this day and age to be sure. — Your New York Times April 13 article was well thought out and a wonderful piece of work! Exceptional! You are a gifted communicator who has moved this thing along ten years or more.
Yours Truly
Tom Bunnell
You can go to a Walgreen’s or CVS or other drug stores in your area and get a lipid panel without a prescription.
Also, are you in Michigan?
Nope. He’s in Cali. But I too wonder why the lab-prescribing doctor is from Livonia, MI. I googled him and he seems to be a quack-weightloss doctor. He gives weight-loss injections and advocates eating a canned “cat food diet” (not real cat food). Strange, no?
I was wondering about that too, after reading your post. The guy does seem kinda fishy, at least how he presents himself. And the emphasis on injections and pre-packaged bars, etc. Odd that Taubes would go through him when the idea was probably to appear legitimate to people who follow Oz, etc. Maybe just someone he knows from conferences who could quickly order a panel? Weird, though…
who nagler is has no bearing on whether the results are credible. red herring.
I don’t think it does either. But appearances matter in the court of public opinion, so I wondered why go with someone with a website like that when folks like carbsane will run with it? I figured Gary just needed a script and hit up someone he knew, and it sounds like that’s the case. If Oz posted results from some woo-woo psychic surgeon type, people would bring it up also.
you cant really guard against logical fallacies; thats whats so great about em–theyre versatile. it really doesnt matter what gary does. thing is, the results arent coming from a woo woo guy; theyre coming from quest.
Yes, but he got his labs through someone with a diet website who comes off kind of quack-ish. For someone who talks so much about “bad science” and “these were some of the worst scientists” and all that, it’s an odd choice is all. It doesn’t make the results bad, but it does make even me, who’s read GCBC and bought like four copies for friends/relatives, etc., wonder about his judgement a little. I would imagine that someone who just saw Taubes on Oz and happened to Google the doctor’s name or read Carbsane’s take or what-have-you, they might just write Taubes (and his ideas) off, unfortunately.
but nagler didnt do the science… your questioning garys judgment over this logical fallacy makes me question your judgment. if they write his ideas off for it, theyre fools. good riddance.
It’s not a logical fallacy. Posting lab results with someone’s name on them who comes off online as being a bit of a quack could be seen as a lapse in judgement. That’s all. If someone is listed as your doctor, that can come off as some sort of endorsement, intended or not. And since the point of listing the results was to ease the minds of those newly reading his works for the most part, it seems like something worth commenting on other than “he’s a friend.” Like whether Taubes is a supporter of appetite suppression injections and “the cat food diet” and all that. Either Taubes is okay with that stuff, or he didn’t know that aspect of Nagler’s practice. I’m kind of curious as to which.
I’m not trying to make more out of it than that. I’m not saying it means anything about the veracity of what Taubes argues, which is where a logical fallacy would come into play (“Taubes is wrong – his bloodwork was signed by a quack.” Not saying that.). I’ve spent plenty of time trying to hip people to what Taubes says, so I’m not some knee-jerk critic. And I’ve spend hours upon hours (way too much time actually) pointing out actual logical fallacies in the online postings of T. Colin Campbell. Anyway, I get so tired of people, regardless of where they fall on an issue, acting like whoever they champion is unassailable. Nutrition is seeming more and more like religion, unfortunately.
Also, the volume I’m writing about this is a gross distortion of how much I care about the topic. It’s the “logical fallacy” responses that I’m responding to, mostly…although I am curious about Taubes’ view of Nagler’s practice. But I’m much more interested in seeing Oz post his own results, or explain why he thought replacing salmon with steak on his show with Taubes in his ridiculous “one-day diet” was anything but disingenuous. Or what “the sacredness of food” means in the world of science that he allegedly holds dear. Or why he treated Taubes with such hostility and yet has con men like John Edward on his show (“Someone in the audience has lost someone whose name starts with “D”…).
nagler didnt produce the results. his name is of no consequence to anyone other than the irrational. trying to mitigate susceptibility to logically fallacious arguments is impractical, since by definition they arent dependent on facts anyway.
Did you even read what I wrote?
i did.
I can’t ever have a worthwhile point because “his name is of no consequence to anyone but the irrational”? I was about to point out how this utilizes a logical fallacy (not that your repeatedly just shouting “logical fallacy” without being specific is much better either), but in reading it again I’ve just suddenly got the feeling you’re quite aware of that fact and that I’ve been trolled, so I’m going to bow out.
no. but you had no point to make anyway. run along.
Charming.
cute
Quest Diagnostics is a large business of medical testing labs in the US. According to their FAQ, a doctor’s order is required to have a lab test done, as patients cannot order tests themselves.
http://www.questdiagnostics.com/common/faq/faq_patient_inquiry.html#requesting1
Gary Taubes lives in Berkeley, California, and Dr. Nagler is in Michigan. After getting Nagler’s lab order, Mr. Taubes probably went to a local Quest office to have his blood drawn. It is not necessary to go to the doctor’s office to have the test done.
Quest probably does thousands of lab tests daily, and Mr. Taubes’ would have been one among many.
Who ordered the tests is irrelevant — only the results count.
This is precicely what I was concerned about – the public opinion of critics.
Where did I say the results weren’t credible?
Bill Nagler is a bariatric physician and a friend. I haven’t got a physician in California — just moved out a year ago — so I asked Bill for the script. Nothing nefarious. Just easy.
gt
Your good buddy Carb Sane is making the most of your choice of doctors on here blog…surprise, surprise!!
lol, she is a nut. by the looks of it, angry because atkins didnt work for her.
What difference does it make who the doctor providing the script is? He didn’t do the tests, the lab did!
I’m not disputing the lab results. I just wondered what the Michigan connection was because I live here. The first thing that sprang to mind was “Is this a good, low-carb friendly doctor? I could use one of those!”. But upon investigation he seems to be a very unusual doctor. Not someone I would have pictured GT aligning with. Gary responded that it is his friend. See what “g” said below. No need to get defensive. I’m not an Oz supporter or a Taubes critic. Just a curious low-carber.
It’s one thing to argue in favor of a low carb diet because we are dubious of the conventional wisdom of blood cholesterol – we won’t play “their” game. But it’s remarkable to entirely dismiss the established recommendations for a healthy diet and still optimize conventional blood cholesterol – “they” don’t even know how to play “their” own game. While others may have a blasé impression of these numbers, I’m blown away (and I’m sure Gary can’t help but feel a little victorious). I’ll join Gary and stick with my daily three-egg and cheese breakfast.
First of all, the scientific evidence makes it quite clear that there is a link between cholesterol and heart disease. For example, in all the years of the Framingham Heart Study, noone with a total cholesterol <150 has had a heart attack. To say that figure is coincidence would be delusional.
Additionally, "they" can indeed play "their" own game. The typical LDL of someone on a plant-based diet is <80, generally even lower, not Taubes's 116. Here is a standard example: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/diet-changes-lower-disease-risk-pt-1. Just 12 weeks on a plant-based diet and LDL dropped from 157 to 80. The Tarahumara Indians, who traditionally ate plant-based diets and had no diseases of affluence, often had LDL levels of ~50.
It is possible that Dr. Robert Lustig is right, and both high-fat, animal-based, diets and low-fat, plant-based, diets can be healthy if sugar is cut out. It seems unlikely that such diametrically opposed diets, however, could both be healthy for the human body. Keep in mind that Dr. Robert Atkins lived to 72. Donald Watson, the founder of veganism, lived to 95. Dr. Esselstyn is 77 and going strong. Dr. T. Colin Campbell is 76 and going strong.
Dr. Atkins slipped on the ice while walking to work — so his death at the age of 72 proves nothing.
(http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/atkinsdiet/a/dratkinsdeath.htm)
I’d like to see a credible source for your claim about the Framingham data, because I find it hard to believe. Total cholesterol isn’t even considered a good predictor today.
And cardiovascular disease, of course, isn’t the whole of medicine. All-cause mortality matters much more, and the authors of “Serum cholesterol levels and six-year mortality from stroke in
350,977 men screened for the multiple risk factor intervention trial” report that at serum cholesterol levels below 160 mg/dl, all-cause mortality actually *increases*, while at levels up to 200 mg/dl, the increase is negligible. They found coronary heart disease reductions with declining total cholesterol, yet even at <140 mg/dl, the rates were well above zero.
The graph is reproduced here: http://www.healthforeveryone.org/tag/mortality
and the abstract is on PubMed.
The data are good that high cholesterol in the Framingham study correlated with heart disease. This is a classic case that is taught in statistics courses but as in my answer to Robert Mauri, this is different saying that if you lower cholesterol with diet that that will make any difference in outcome.
Ian, if you read Good Calories, Bad Calories – you will see that cholesterol under 160 is bad for mortality but not necessarily bad for strokes/heart attacks. You need to dodge all potential killers, not just heart disease and the graphs in the book show issues below 160 and above 260.
You could, though likely won’t, read many books that discuss Framingham in more detail, such as Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You, by Dr. Ravnskov, in which the overall death rate is a bath tub curve (high at low total cholesterol and high at high total cholesterol, with lower death rates in the middle). But really, Framingham doesn’t matter as this is epidemiological evidence, which proves correlation not causation. Moreover, many studies indicate that lowering total cholesterol does nothing for improving heart disease and that it’s incredibly hard to lower cholesterol through diet. I could go on and on…
The goal is not to reduce cholesterol. The Framingham study showed that there was no correlation between dietary total fat, saturated fat, dietary cholesterol and heart disease. The argument was that because saturated fat raised cholesterol and cholesterol correlated with heart disease, therefore saturated fat caused heart disease. Not all operations are transitive like equality (A=B, B=C, therefore A=C). Because the Framingham data is statistical, you must show that the same people whose dietary SF correlated with higher cholesterol are also the ones whose high cholesterol correlated with heart disease. This was obviously not the case since A did not predict C. I tried to make an analogy between focussing on secondary markers with the point in Moneyball that baseball focussed scouts looked at speed and athletic ability rather than the ability to actually produce runs ( http://wp.me/p16vK0-80 )
Well it appears that your lipid levels are indeed something to be satisfied with. Mine, on the other hand, dramatically worsened after switching to a diet similar to yours. In fact, my current LDL numbers are now higher than what my previous total cholesterol figure was.
Can’t figure it out ~
There are a number of factors to consider. It takes a good 5 to 6 months to see the best results. Numbers can have dramatic temporary changes earlier than that following a switch to a low carb diet, particularly if you eat at ketogenic levels. Further, if you only know your total LDL number, but don’t know the subtypes, your LDL number is meaningless. If it’s higher but it’s all Pattern Type A, that’s fine.
See my reply above to Dana. I’m well aware of the apolipoproteins and their affects on CVD. My question is simply why do lipids increase. I’m not the first person to notice this.
LDL is the lipoprotein that carries cholesterol away from the liver into other parts of the body. Sometimes cholesterol is used as a repair molecule. Is there anything else going on with your health that might need repairing?
Everything else on the blood panel tested fine, from CRP to A1C to mineral levels to thyroid to testosterone…and on. I purchased a glucometer, and glucose readings have never exceeded 100, even after meals.
I had a typical lipid panel done, and also a VAP. The B/A ratio of LDL was OK, but my overall CH soared from 271 to 348, with triglycerides increasing as well.
I’ve been full paleo since Oct ’08, and am not on a ketogenic diet.
If LDL goes up because LDL type became type A (large and fluffy) its a good thing.
I read the sugar article and loved it! I remember when I was a kid, many decades ago, sugar was evil. Then the low fat fad happened and sugar wasn’t evil anymore, fat was.
Hey, those results look good, except maybe for the VLDL. Your D3 levels are rather low too. You might find some of your cholesterol results improve if you increase your D3. Dr. Davis of http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com has had wonderful results (verified by coronary calcium scans) fixing calcium deposits in the cornary arteries, and subsequently improving cholesterol scores, by making sure his patients have good blood levels of D3.
Anyway, you did get the good test so I assume they directly counted your LDL particles instead of calculating them. I hear the Friedewald calculation gets messed up if your triglycerides are below 100. So low carbers should get VAP tests to get more realistic results.
I’d love to see Dr. Ornish’s lipid panel.
Awesome typing, hs-CRP, and TG values. Ignored the rest *grin*
Gary, awesome numbers! Your HDL and trigs say it all. Go boy! And I was surprised by how high your Vitamin D3 numbers were. Do you hang out in the sun a lot or do you high-dose supplement?
Hi Jimmy,
Supplement, since there hasn’t been any sun here in Berkeley for the past few months. I may have to write an article on the vitamin D story just so I can learn for myself what the science says. At the moment, I’m just going with the flow since so many people I respect recommend it.
gt
Hi Jimmy,
Supplement, since there hasn’t been any sun here in Berkeley for the past few months. I may have to write an article on the vitamin D story just so I can learn for myself what the science says. At the moment, I’m just going with the flow since so many people I respect recommend it.
gt
No sun in Berkeley?! Surely we have entered dark times.
Yeah, the Bay Area has been more like Seatle the California.
Gary, I’m digesting your audio book as quickly as I can (pun intended). I’ve already made a change in my diet to reduce sugar intake and eliminate carbs. So far today I’ve have a ton of energy and been able to concentrate through some pretty mundane tasks with out getting drowsy or loosing focus. I’ve gotten pretty overweight over the years and I always figured it was my sedentary job and the fact I stopped playing hockey. My first day into this paradigm shift and I feel better then I have in years.
Twinkie diet also reduced cholesterol levels. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html
And that guy also lost something like 8 pounds of lean mass and his bodyfat level was just under obesity for his age and activity level. He posted his body comp test results on Facebook and I went and looked at them. Lower cholesterol does not mean better cholesterol. It’s the particle numbers and size that matter, if anything about cholesterol matters at all.
Also, that guy cheated. He did not live on only Twinkies. He also ate vegetables and took a multivitamin. I believe he also said he drank a protein shake every day but it’s been so long since I read his stuff that I don’t remember for sure now.
And no one is saying that is some sort of good diet to follow. You can get good results a variety of ways
in addition to what Dana said, it’s also worth noting that losing weight is pretty much a sure-fire way of lowering cholesterol. And we’d probably see the pattern B on his test.
twinkie diet guy should get a darwin award (i know, he didn’t die so it doesn’t count)! anyone following that diet, for whatever reason, is just thinning the herd. nice knowing you…
Here’s Tom Naughton (of “Fat Head”) who ran the numbers.
http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2010/11/16/the-twinkie-diet/
And explains them. This is THE answer to the “Twinkie Diet” B.S. Gary posted it as a response in his latest Is Sugar Toxic article.
Very nice! What do you suppose would have happened had you checked your cholesterol on the dr Oz show? Your numbers might actually be better than those of dr Oz…
Besides, they mention you on Huffington Post today (not a very intelligent blog post though):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/sugar-health-evil-toxic_b_850032.html
Hi Andreas,
I assumed that if my numbers were better than Oz’s, they wouldn’t have used them. One reason I didn’t take their test.
gt
Possible. But that would leave Mehmet Oz only two options – toning down his retoric on cholesterol or feel like a hypocrite.
Possible. But that would leave Mehmet Oz only two options – toning down his retoric on cholesterol or feel like a hypocrite.
I eat pretty identically as Gary, and started eating that way about 13 months ago. I had a cholesterol test after about a month on the diet and totals were higher (I later read something about that being reflective of fat I was losing breaking down and being more measurable in the blood at first) and of course my doctor freaked out and wanted me to take statins (which I thankfully refused). I was recently retested and this was about 12 months into the diet, and my totals were higher than Gary’s (267 total), but I have high HDL (74) and I got tested for LDL particle type, and found I had an even better type A fluffy reading than Gary’s. So I believe I am probably genetically predisposed to somewhat higher readings, but I don’t buy into the typical medical establishment reaction that the total is all that matters. I’m 61, I have no health issues whatsoever, and my weight is again normal thanks to over a year on this type of diet. After a lifetime of feeling terrible due to how I ate (lots of sugar!!), a really low carb, grainless, sugarless way of eating has been a revelation to me. My body shape and weight normalized when I started eating this way.
CMCM49: I’m curious. What made you change how you were eating? (FYI for hubby and myself, it was reading GCBC – AND this was of eating was a revelation to us as well!)
Paula, before reading GCBC I had already learned that I did best on that sort of diet through doing a fairly traditional Atkins program. Eliminating grains and thus gluten led me to realize I had celiac disease, and that I was also extremely carb sensitive. Eliminating those things along with sugar made such a positive change in all aspects of my health, not to mention allowing me to easily drop the weight I wanted to lose and get back to what I consider my “normal” state. So GCBC and then WWGF both really illuminated the “WHY” of all my good results from eating this way. Suddenly it all made such sense. I originally embarked on Atkins to lose about 30 pounds but learned so much more along the way!
CMCM49: Nice, thank you for the answer! Hubby and I too have learned so much more along the way! His acid reflux which had plagued him all his life went away immediately, we don’t get colds (well, we’ve each had one in a year, but brief — with symptoms amazingly attenuated; a great visual for how this can possibly be is to be seen on YouTube: Jorge Cruise’s “Death by Sugar” — one sees in a darkfield microscope blood of a guy who has lost 47 lbs being on Atkins BEFORE and 15 mins AFTER a carb/sugar binge — and the ‘whys’ of the great health changes of LCHF become clear; blood cells before are separate, round, and truly beautiful; the post-carb/sugar-binge rouleaux and spicules are truly hideous, and if you wiki rouleaux, cancer is mentioned prominently…Tho I’m not saying this takes precedence over GTs “Is Sugar Toxic”s “mot” that fatty liver seems to be the harbinger of all that follows via metabolic syndrome…Yet the beautiful blood of LCHF makes one understand the ‘whys’ at least of the energy and sense of well being one feels; and the ability to fight infection…).
Other health benefits noticed: joint pain completely gone, daily sleepiness gone – we’re in our mid-50s and feel like we’re in our 20s. Crazy energy. Prior to 3/21/10 when we started, we’d never been off carbs & sugar our entire lives. Not for a single day. He lost 25 lbs, I lost 20, in 4 mos, with zero exercise at that point. My TGs 105 to 54; HDL 52 to 65. Another inspiration is to google and watch “The Unconquerable Dave’s” submission with photos to marksdailyapple.com! Amazing.
Funny thing: Watching the game with friends on Thanksgiving. All the guys in a row on the couch. Big Belly #1, Big Belly #2, Big Belly #3, Flat Belly #1 (my hubby), and Big Belly #4. Big Belly #4 points to his (Big Belly #4′s) belly, then hubby’s belly and says, “Hey, what’s up with that?” Ha ha ha! If you knew this guy! His joking insinuation was, “Hey, we’re ‘normal’ – what’s up with you?”
After being blessed truly by personal knowledge of LCHF’s efficacy in reaching, as you say, one’s “normal” state, it becomes poignant and disturbing to see all about one people to whom GT’s (and Robert Atkins’) message is obviously essential. Yet one is separated from them by a wall that human communication can’t breach. And if you try, it’s like telling an alcoholic “Put down that drink and you can get your life and your loved ones back” but he cannot, being owned, and I mean owned, by his problem. Maybe we’re lousy communicators: I think I’ll have a card that says “Taubes” printed out to hand to anyone who comments on how hubby and I now look. And refuse to say more!
I think the secret is, people have to learn each thing (that GCBC teaches) themselves. They have to be disabused of notions (with GCBC’s proofs) one at a time (a wonderful process as those who have read GCBC can attest), that one pent-up schpiel just can’t teach them. They need to be initiated into the secrets themSELVES. By an education THEY seek.
The cancer not seen in traditional diets, but rampant in Western ones: My best girlfriend, my age (56) got CANCER last summer (actually, she’s Big Belly #4′s wife) and after radiation and lots of hope that it had been squelched for good; it returned last month – now it’s chemo and radiation. And now this woman who has taught me so much in my life is probably going down for the count. She won’t give up the carbs and sugar (tho in WWGF which hubby and I just reread, there is one mention of LCHF curing cancer potentially, if memory serves; it would certainly prolong her life). I’ve promised not to bother her any more after subjecting her to my schpiel – before her 1st encounter with the cancer I’d given her a copy of GCBC…but people are resistant… :-/ Even tho she says she KNOWS Atkins works ’cause she’s done it…
Great results Gary, and you also provided more data against the D’Adamo blood type theory. According to him, people with A-type blood should eat vegetarian diets and get high lipids and increased heart disease risk when eating meat. Its totally bogus, I debunked it on my blog, and I am going to link to this to show that A-types can eat meat-based diet with excellent results.
http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2010/12/blood-type-diet-primal-perspective.html
D’Adamo is probably wrong, but you could at least quote him accurately. I’ve read something like three of his books. He does NOT say type As have to be vegetarian, only that they CAN be vegetarian with fewer bad effects. However, he also states that vegetarians fare better on chicken and fish and not so well on red meat, so yes, he’s wrong about that.
Holy dude, you were thorough! Direct count of cholesterol particles! Not Friedenwald! *applause*
I hope to have numbers as good as yours at some point. It would help if I’d stay on the wagon. Sigh.
Read GCBC cover to cover, and you’ll stay on the wagon! And be driving the wagon train!
I did had my lipid panel (not quite as extensive as this one) this past January and compared it with July 200 when I was low fat/high whole grains and since getting back onto sat fat and off grains by number are all way better (trig down by about 50%, HDL up, LDL down)…my ribs for breakfast the past two days sure tasted better than bran buds!
Glad to see VLDL and hs-CRP included in the test.
Those were the ones I was most interested in seeing.
Last time I had bloodwork, my HDL was 137. No anomaly….. it’s always in that area since I have been lowcarbing. Been lowcarbing for going on 13 years. Best decision I ever made.
My HDL runs between 89 and 110 and I thought that was off the charts! I took an online health evaluation and the drop-down box for HDL stopped at 100. Wow – 137! What does your doctor say?
The last time I went to my doctor was almost 2 years ago. She is usually pretty open-minded about my lifestyle choices (including the fact that I only go in every 3 years or so and refuse mammograms and colonoscopies and opt for the least expensive screenings which she says are actually OK; I never meet my insurance deductible, so even routine screenings have been out-of-pocket costs; I believe with “Obamacare” these will be covered, so I may go in this summer.) Well, back to the point. Since my HDL was 90, my total cholesterol was “border-line high.” When I received my lab results by mail, she had actually written ” let me know if you want to do something about your cholesterol.” Say what? I thought for a moment that she was joking, but I suspect she wasn’t. It is possible the comment was a “CYA” necessity to avoid potential lawsuits? If I go in to see her in a month or two, I will probably ask her about it. I haven’t had a blood draw since. I thought about going to a health fair where I work and paying the $30 for the lipid profile. Then I thought, what would be the point? I feel fabulous at age 58 and I have no intention of changing anything in my diet/lifestyle, so I saved the time and $30.
Your Vitamin D scores show D2 of 42ng/ml.
This indicates you’ve been using the prescribed form of vitamin D2 ERGOCALCIFEROL.
May I suggest you read
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17023693
The case against ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) as a vitamin supplement.
Dr Davis’s blogpost The case against vitamin D2
and
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/89/11/5387
Vitamin D2 Is Much Less Effective than Vitamin D3 in Humans
Over the counter vitamin D3 is much cheaper, safer and more reliable than prescription D2 and it doesn’t speed up the catabolism of the vitamin.
Hi Edward,
Nope, over the counter D3. The Pharmaca store brand in CA.
gt
I had the same thought about D2. My tests always show all of my vitamin D as D3 and 0 D2. Strange.
Congratulations on the report — I think you are likely to be with us keeping science honest for a good long while.
I love you Gary and additionally, I’m curious where is the rest of the beef, um, I mean, INSULIN fasting level?? That ALSO would’ve beat the cr*p out of carb-o-philic, sarcopenic, low HDL Doctor Oz’s labs…!!
Naturally other low carb, high saturated fat (like me) reflect similar metrics as you (not that we need to measure them)
http://drbganimalpharm.blogspot.com/2009/06/benefits-of-high-saturated-fat-diets_12.html
I love you Gary and additionally, I’m curious where is the rest of the beef, um, I mean, INSULIN fasting level?? That ALSO would’ve beat the cr*p out of carb-o-philic, sarcopenic, low HDL Doctor Oz’s labs…!!
Naturally other low carb, high saturated fat (like me) reflect similar metrics as you (not that we need to measure them)
http://drbganimalpharm.blogspot.com/2009/06/benefits-of-high-saturated-fat-diets_12.html
Now to further allay your wife’s fears you should have her tested, for comparison of effects of any differences between your respective diets. Seems like I remember you saying she’s still skeptical & doesn’t eat the same as you, i.e. less fats.
I don’t know, Gary. I’ve got better numbers and I’m a diabetic. Of course, I’m a ketosis prone T2 and we are known for remission. That’s it! You’re in remission. Congratulations.
Dr. Oz’s insistence that high saturated fat must be bad was a reminder to me to get my bloodwork done. The result? Total Cholesterol has gone up as expected, but so is my HDL, by a whopping 43%. Triglycerides are 25% below the low reading of the reference range. I blogged about it here: http://carboholicsanonymous.blogspot.com/2011/04/impact-of-meat-diet-on-triglycerides.html
I purposefully made sure to consume a can of coconut milk (full fat) and 85/15 grassfed beef daily for 2 weeks pre-lipid panel. My HDL was 81, LDL 53, TOTal 154 Triglycerides 33. Your liver makes cholesterol regardless of how much saturated fat you make. Might as well consume it.
Oh dear, you are deficient in CO2. What will Oz say?
Take that, Dr. Oz and all the others that continue to insist that a high fat diet is sure to kill you !
suck it Oz. Really triglycerides and Vit D numbers
suck it Oz. Really nice triglyceride and Vit D numbers.
I’m A Positive too Gary. Can I have some of your blood?
Elevated VLDL-3 levels may correspond to an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes because they interact with the vessel walls?
Exactly. In GCBC, p. 172, GT puts it this way: “Small, dense LDL [i.e. VLDL] can squeeze more easily through damaged areas of the artery wall to form incipient atherosclerotic plaques. Sniderman describes small, dense LDL as the equivalent of “little bits of sand” that get in everywhere and stick more avidly.
“The relative dearth of cholesterol in these particles may also cause structural changes in the protein that make it easier for it to adhere to the artery wall to begin with. And because small, dense LDL apparently remains in the bloodstream longer than larger and fluffier LDL, it has more time and greater opportunities to do its damage.”
Uh, if he’s eating sausage and bacon every day isn’t he significantly increasing his risk of pancreatic and bowel cancer? So, lower your cholesterol then die of bowel cancer? Sorry guys, not buying this. AND – these studies aren’t saying that fat is the unhealthy bit about processed meats – the culprit is one of the additives – so it’s not part of the low-fat conspiracy/dogma industrial complex.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-550729/Why-eating-just-sausage-day-raises-cancer-risk-20-cent.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7921095/Additives-in-sausages-and-bacon-increase-bladder-cancer-riskcan.html
I didn’t mean to “like” this. Studies are showing that pancreatic tumors preferentially feed on fructose.
1. How do you know he’s not eating sausage and bacon that do not have the (questionably) harmful additives? He didn’t specify. There are plenty of options for bacon and sausage that do not have nitrites and nitrates (I’m assuming those are what you were referring to) and, since he eats grass fed steak, my guess is GT also opts for the more natural processed meats, too. I know I do.
2. If you don’t want to eat those particular kinds of meats, you can still benefit from his kind of diet. There are plenty of other options for food to eat while still avoiding sugars, starches, and other bad carbohydrates. Then you can avoid cancer AND heart disease, because there is evidence that higher cholesterol levels protects against cancer!
Contact Dr. Oz and ask him to publish this result on his show and comment. It would be interesting to hear what he has to say.
Just got here via your NYT article (really well done, kudos). Your obsession is more fully developed than my own!
Do you think your BUN number is on the high side because of all the protein metabolism? I’ll have to read more of your site to figure out why you’re not replacing some of that protein with leafy vegetables.
Just got here via your NYT article (really well done, kudos). Your obsession is more fully developed than my own!
Do you think your BUN number is on the high side because of all the protein metabolism? I’ll have to read more of your site to figure out why you’re not replacing some of that protein with leafy vegetables.
Interesting article but what are the implications for fruit consumption if Lustig is right? If I understood the article correctly, frutose is more dangerous than glucose? If this is so, should we avoid fruits where the fructose to glucose ratio is more than say 1? Or should one still be concerned with the total amount of glucose in one’s diet, even if fructose is reduced? How much of each is safe? How much fruit can one eat before elevating fructose to unsafe levels? Is there ANY researched guidance on this?
Another thing to note about the fruits we eat is that they are genetically modified to have higher fructose(sweeter) then would occur in nature. That’s because we like sweet things. Wild fruits invariably have lower fructose then farmed fruit.
I worry that Lustig gives fruits a pass, partly because the fructose is diluted by water, and partly because of the fiber/fibre.
But how much fiber does, say, an apple contain? Or a melon?
Not that much I’d think, and they both can taste incredibly sweet. I don’t think the fiber is doing much in the way of slowing down absorption.
Plus you can get addicted to fruit. I was. I could eat a whole bag of apples, or a bunch of bananas in a sitting. And / or I would combine them with grapes. Or have, say, bananas, grapes, nuts, and – get this – dried fruit in a bowl and pig out on them. No wonder I became overweight and pre-diabetic.
Now, we don’t hear enough about dried fruit. They sell it in healthfood and wholefood shops and on the healthfood counter of your local supermarket. Sweet, brown and deadly.
“But Mike, “, I hear you say: “It’s fine in moderation. Normal people don’t pig out on it like you did”.
Well fine. Good for you little goodie-two-shoes, if you can moderate this stuff.
I can’t. Perhaps I have an addictive personality, or am, as my Mother might say (or Gary’s Mother might say) just plain greedy.
So now they have to be a complete no-no for me, at least.
Other people may do fine on them.
But then, some other people do fine on white bread and spuds.
Regards,
Mike Ellwood
Gary, this is spooky. As you know I have also been on the 3 eggs a day, high fat, very low carb diet about 2 years. Just yesterday I had my lipids checked, with almost identical results as yours:
T Chol 192, TG 65, LDL-C 114, HDL-C 65.3, VLDL 13, Chol/HDL 2.9
Weight staying mid 180s. Thanks again for your good work.
Hi Frank,
Spooky it is, since you don’t eat any meat at all and I live on it. Nice numbers and nice to hear from you, as ever.
gt
Gary,
Even you Lp (a) and Apo B were in the healthy range! I hope you make sure that Dr OZ sees this. Why test cholesterol when you know the numbers will look like this? The reason is that doctors use this, as a measurement of health and proof that low carb is anti-inflammatory and healthy. One last point, the lipid profile demonstrates the effect of inflammation, rather then the cause of inflammation. Way to go!
Jeffry N. Gerber, MD
http://denversdietdoctor.com
Longevity, wellness, prevention and treatment through lifestyle modification including diet, weight loss and exercise. Teaching patients how to make better food choices based on carbohydrate content, glycemic index, low carb and Paleo diet. Family Medicine, Family Practice, Family Doctor and Occupational Medicine. Board certified physician, Dr. Gerber, Jeffry N. Gerber, M.D., Denver’s Diet Doctor, is located in Littleton
Jeffry N. Gerber, MD
http://denversdietdoctor.com
Longevity, wellness, prevention and treatment through lifestyle modification including diet, weight loss and exercise. Teaching patients how to make better food choices based on carbohydrate content, glycemic index, low carb and Paleo diet. Family Medicine, Family Practice, Family Doctor and Occupational Medicine. Board certified physician, Dr. Gerber, Jeffry N. Gerber, M.D., Denver’s Diet Doctor, is located in Littleton
Jeffry N. Gerber, MD
http://denversdietdoctor.com
Actually, I think Gary was correct in what he said – a cholesterol test is pretty worthless (unless you have a E3 genetic problem). The one they should be using is the oxLDL test – like the triple marker available from Shiel Medical Laboratory. IMO, it is only oxLDL that causes the immune response and cascade that causes coronary Artery Disease.
Thank you for publishing your results. I was so mad when I saw you on Dr. Oz because of the way he treated you and distorted what you were saying. Now you have the only kind of proof that they seem to understand.
The recent AHA statement on triglycerides recommends that they be reduced by, among other recommendations, limiting carbohydrates to 50 – 50 percent of caloric intake, “added” ( Poured on top rather than mixed in?) sugar <10 percent, and saturated fat <7 percent. I do not think GT is following the program!
I think that you are right about dietary fat, but you may be wrong about hormone replacement therapy. Others may also be wrong about sunscreen.
As you have pointed out, when looking at a preventative health practice you need to look at total mortality from all causes, not just the effect of the preventative practice on an individual disease.
If you will look at the chart on page 64 of the hardback version of “Hot Flashes, Hormones & Your Health” by Dr. JoAnn Manson you will see that women in their fifties who took hormone replacement therapy had lower total mortality from all causes combined. In other words, for women in their fifties hormone replacement therapy reduced their chance of dying.
A similar approach with the use of sunscreen would be to look not just at the effect of its use on skin cancer incidence but rather its effect on total mortality from all causes combined. As you probably know, one of the side effects of sunscreen is that it reduces vitamin D absorption and vitamin D is a powerful anti-carcinogen.
That’s a riot! I didn’t know that Taubes had chickened out publicly on Oz’s show. Anybody would see that refusal as necessarily detracting from credibility, except for the truly blind-followers. That’d be like somebody being asked to take a drug test, but they refuse and come back with a test weeks later.
Did he fast for days or weeks and then take the test? That’s make his numbers look good. Of course, if they weren’t good then I bet he never would have showed them. No matter now much Gary claims that the numbers don’t matter (and he might possibly be right), even so a large portion of the population (aka customers for Gary) would have been scared off.
As far as speculation about why he didn’t foresee being asked by Oz? I think it’s simple: Gary is very far from being the world’s greatest genius that his followers claim him to be. I bet he does have a good memory, and probably is an obsessive organizer. But aside from that, I doubt that he has any true understanding of things. After all, he did write his whole ‘epic tome’ but apparently had no idea that proteins can provoke insulin secretion. That’s just one of his epic flaws.
IIRC, if you were to check Eades’ site, you’d find Eades saying that Oz secretly believed in Gary’s ideas, but that Oz couldn’t say so because Oz’s viewers weren’t ready for that big switch. Hehe… so Gary maybe thought he was heading into another Gary-Taubes-lovefest, like he usually gets.
Well, in the end we know that somebody submitted some blood sample that had Taubes’ name on it. He could have removed all doubt, though, by simply not chickening out with Oz. Cluck, cluck, Gary. Your numbers might have even been good, but now you are suspect.
Then again, Atkins’ heir could have released his hospital records to remove doubt, too.
Btw, why does the world’s greatest genius call it a ‘prescription’? It’s an ‘order’. A prescription is for a drug, or for some device(s), such as syringes, e.g.
Hey, should this blog be subtitled, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
Cute, but I give this a 3/10. The Birthers have already done this shtick.
You’re just as funny as those guys that think the moon landing was faked.
I agree Jean.
Those fake moon landing people obviously are very unaware that the ” paper trail” is public record. Anyone who bothered to look this up would know no one would go to all that trouble and detail to fake a landing.
The paper trail simply debunks all moon myths. More examples of the loons who abound on the Internet.
Take care,
Raz
Your postulating might be a little more credible if Gary were the only one with great blood lipids. But many more of us are getting similar results.
http://www.carboholicsanonymous.com
Idiot. Fasting won’t suddenly lower triglycerides or HDL/LDL ratio.
If the public had been more educated on the cholesterol/coronary artery disease literature , I would bet Gary would have done it.
However, Gary knowns and understand many people are not educated and a potential elevated result ( as can happen to anybody regardless of diet) would or might scare off people.
My own lab work is very similar to Gary’s. My HDL is 68 and total cholesterol is 187 mg/dl. My LDL is anywhere from 70 to 127 mg/dl. This varies by season. Winter it is more. Summer it is less.
No one is omniscient on the subject of obesity or athersclerosis Razz Putin. To do so would REQUIRE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANING OF HUMAN CELLULAR METABOLISM. Science does not currently understand cellular metabolism – ONLY BITS AND FRAGMENTS.
You are the one being a fraud here. Genuine science always admits uncertainty and unknowns.
I sense the presence of an unpublished and professionally jealous “writer”
Eating low carb also makes people less cranky and improves their sex life too! cheers!
Just wanted to add my blood test results to your page here. I also have switched in the last 12 months toward eating very little processed food, and lots of saturated fat in the form of eggs, butter, whole milk, whole milk yogurt & cheese, etc. I do still eat carbs in the form of whole wheat pastas maybe once a week, and my own homemade wheat bread made from wheat berries I grind myself. Very fresh and minimally processed.
Anyway, my cholesterol totals came back great. I’m 33 years old.
195 total cholesterol
121 LDL
63 HDL
I have always been thin no matter what I eat, but I find that eating this type of diet makes me have the most energy. If I don’t have my pastured egg in the morning, I get hungry by lunch time and start to feel my blood sugar levels drop.
It’s going to be very, very difficult for me to reduce the amount of sugar I consume. While I don’t eat packaged meals anymore, I do have a sweet tooth for candy now and then. I’m going to have to start picturing the poison control center frown face sticker when I see candy.
Your diet is almost identical to mine. My blood profiles are very similar, although my HDL tends to run between 90 and 110.
My son works for Whole Foods and was really excited about getting his “biometrics” measured to qualify him for a larger discount. He is also a low-carber (age 22 and convinced that his “ADHD” that nearly wrecked his life was due to his high-carb diet as a kid). His numbers came back in the “gold star” categories for almost everything, except that his LDL was 113 (very similar to yours). That was enough to preclude him from getting even a small increase in his employee discount. He is really bummed about this. I really wish the public would get over the “total cholesterol” and “high LDL” fallacies. I am pretty sure Whole Foods did not differentiate between the types of LDL. I suspect my son has the light, fluffy LDL with his very healthy, low carb, organic diet. Well, maybe your wonderful work Gary, will finally lead to a revolution in the understanding of insulin and human metabolism and the real causes of heart disease.
I LOVE your articles and books and have followed your work for ten years. In my family, you are a HERO!
Oz and his unquestioning ilk will just exclaim, “Total cholesterol of 204?! YOU NEED STATINS!”
Gary, pretty impressive numbers. You are a lucky man and I agree it’s not the totals as much as the breakdown of lipids and your lipid subfractions are beautiful. Good genes, Good environment or both. Congrats. Mike C. MD
Gary, you didn’t have to do this.
As a born-again low-carber and even crusader (pitty my poor relatives and colleagues), I am thrilled to see GT post his lipids (kudos to his wife for her communication instincts). But alas, I cannot share in everyone’s enthusiasm for red meat. I eat eggs and whole-fat dairy and butter and olive oil and coconut oil. I eat chicken skin and fatty chicken sausages. But I keep running across new (post-GCBC) studies showing a relationship between red meat consumption and cancer. Ajit Varki at UC San Diego has done some really intriguing work on the sialic acid neu5Gc that suggests a mechanism (inflammation, immune system stuff; nothing to do with satfat) through which red meat might cause cancer. I am really curious to see some discussion about this from GT or any other of you knowledgeable folks in the low-carb community.
I don’t pretend to be an expert, but what I do know leads me to suspect that, if there is a problem with red meat, it is red meat that is raised on corn and/or soy feed–i.e. industrially raised, found in supermarkets everywhere, beef. I would seriously doubt that consuming grass fed beef would lead to cancer, particularly since the fat in grass fed beef has a great lipid profile and is high in CLA. CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid) from natural sources (not supplements) may actually provide some measure of protection from cancer–at least according to some studies. I won’t eat red meat out, but do fix and eat it at home. I purchase only the grass fed variety.
I believe the studies that show a relationship between red meat consumption and cancer include processed meats in the “red meat” category. Crazy, no?
Crazy, yes. Another factor is how fatty the red meat is or how much fat is eaten with it. (Barry Groves suggests this may be a factor). I wonder if the fat content of the meat is ever taken into account in these studies?
It is so awesome that you are blogging now! You rock Taubes!
Great VAP, you must have a great family history as well. Please share with your readers that they can learn more about the VAP cholesterol test, and see other patient cases, at my blog: http://www.cobblescorner.com.
Mike Cobble, M.D.
Gary’s readings do not necessarily mean he has a great family history. My daily diet is nearly a carbon copy of what Gary purports to eat. I have been eating that way for 11 years. My lab results are similar to his, except that my HDL tends to run between 89 and 110. My family history is terrible, including a grandfather, father, sister and aunt (on different sides of the family) with so-called Type II Diabetes, a grandmother who had her first of several heart attacks at an early age and whose mother, sister, and brother died of strokes in their 40′s. My mother has been taking blood pressure meds since I can remember. So, I attribute my great health to my decision 11 years ago to abandon my 20 years of low-fat dieting that was taking a toll on my health and well-being, and follow a low-carb lifestyle that made sense when I read and understood the science of insulin and human metabolism.
What do you mean by so-called Type II Diabetes? I’ve been diagnosed, three of my mother’s siblings were. Low carb (no sugar, little starch in green veg) will keep my glucose at an acceptable level.
What I mean by “so-called Type II Diabetes” is that I do not acknowledge chronic high blood sugar to be a “disease.” There is so much misunderstanding caused by calling high blood sugar from excessive carb consumption in a person with insulin-resistance “diabetes” and allowing it to become a medical condition that is then treated with pharmaceuticals and insulin injections that I don’t know where to start.
High blood sugar in people with a functioning pancreas must be differentiated from the very different condition “Type I Diabetes” in which the pancreas no longer produces insulin and requires intense medical monitoring and treatment.
High blood sugar in those of us with insulin-resistance is a symptom, not a disease. It cannot be cured, but can be managed with diet and other lifestyle changes. No medications needed (they cause more harm than good) and prescribing insulin injections should be considered malpractice.
All that said, I was well on my way to being another “diabetic” until I discovered the writings of Atkins, Eades, and Gary Taubes, among others who explained the science behind insulin-resistance. My father died of congestive heart disease and was nearly blind from retinopathy 15 years after his diagnosis with “Type II Diabetes.” His father was also “diabetic” and died a month after a leg amputation. My mother’s sister had serious high blood pressure as early as her 20′s, struggled with her weight, and died in her early 60′s with breast cancer and “diabetes.” (She made many, many trips to the Mayo Clinic, and they apparently were not able to help her) Having seen these loved ones suffer horribly in spite of their medical treatment for “diabetes,” I am convinced that proper diet was all that was needed to prevent those tragedies. I am on a campaign to end this travesty, and my first step is to call this condition what it really is and let people know that there is a simple and effective way to manage it.
I am convinced that I was on the same road to the horrors of “diabetes” had I not reversed the trend with my change to a low-carb diet 11 years ago. My brother has had the same result. My sister has not been as fortunate, I think because she continues to see a doctor and take a lot of medications and her high blood sugar had progressed quite far before she started cutting her carb intake. (I think she still eats to little fat and maybe too much protein and carbs for her severe resistance) So that’s my personal experience and why I am so adamant about low-carb dieting for people like me and my family and so angry at the medical profession. (BTW – my ex-husband was a general internist who preached low-fat, low-fat, low-fat. My son had severe ADHD and my daughter was a morbidly obese teenager. Happily, they are both now low-carbers and happy and healthy; their father, sadly had terrible health and even some cognitive impairment – my kids say they are worried about how much sugar he eats; his grandfather also died after a leg amputation from “diabetes” and he was always adamant that if we ate low-fat we wouldn’t get fat and get diabetes; my kids say he suspects he may be borderline “diabetic.” Sigh).
Are you sorry you asked?
What I mean by “so-called Type II Diabetes” is that I do not acknowledge chronic high blood sugar to be a “disease.” There is so much misunderstanding caused by calling high blood sugar from excessive carb consumption in a person with insulin-resistance “diabetes” and allowing it to become a medical condition that is then treated with pharmaceuticals and insulin injections that I don’t know where to start.
High blood sugar in people with a functioning pancreas must be differentiated from the very different condition “Type I Diabetes” in which the pancreas no longer produces insulin and requires intense medical monitoring and treatment.
High blood sugar in those of us with insulin-resistance is a symptom, not a disease. It cannot be cured, but can be managed with diet and other lifestyle changes. No medications needed (they cause more harm than good) and prescribing insulin injections should be considered malpractice.
All that said, I was well on my way to being another “diabetic” until I discovered the writings of Atkins, Eades, and Gary Taubes, among others who explained the science behind insulin-resistance. My father died of congestive heart disease and was nearly blind from retinopathy 15 years after his diagnosis with “Type II Diabetes.” His father was also “diabetic” and died a month after a leg amputation. My mother’s sister had serious high blood pressure as early as her 20′s, struggled with her weight, and died in her early 60′s with breast cancer and “diabetes.” (She made many, many trips to the Mayo Clinic, and they apparently were not able to help her) Having seen these loved ones suffer horribly in spite of their medical treatment for “diabetes,” I am convinced that proper diet was all that was needed to prevent those tragedies. I am on a campaign to end this travesty, and my first step is to call this condition what it really is and let people know that there is a simple and effective way to manage it.
I am convinced that I was on the same road to the horrors of “diabetes” had I not reversed the trend with my change to a low-carb diet 11 years ago. My brother has had the same result. My sister has not been as fortunate, I think because she continues to see a doctor and take a lot of medications and her high blood sugar had progressed quite far before she started cutting her carb intake. (I think she still eats to little fat and maybe too much protein and carbs for her severe resistance) So that’s my personal experience and why I am so adamant about low-carb dieting for people like me and my family and so angry at the medical profession. (BTW – my ex-husband was a general internist who preached low-fat, low-fat, low-fat. My son had severe ADHD and my daughter was a morbidly obese teenager. Happily, they are both now low-carbers and happy and healthy; their father, sadly had terrible health and even some cognitive impairment – my kids say they are worried about how much sugar he eats; his grandfather also died after a leg amputation from “diabetes” and he was always adamant that if we ate low-fat we wouldn’t get fat and get diabetes; my kids say he suspects he may be borderline “diabetic.” Sigh).
Are you sorry you asked?
Thanks for your response. I’m not sorry I asked, at all. You confirm what I’ve thought — where is this diabetes disease in my now defective (since diagnosis) body — and how can it disappear if I don’t consume sugar or starch, just protein and mostly green veg and whatever saturated fat comes with the protein. I understand I am what might be called sugar sensitive after a lifelong sugar addiction (but why am I addicted to sugar and others are not? why are all of my family on both sides heavy sugar/starch and alcohol consumers?). I explained for years to doctors that my mother’s two sisters were diabetic but I wasn’t tested till my mother’s brother had part of his leg amputated for poor circulation and diabetes II, then I was at 12 HbAic — now I am at 6 with low carb — and doctors still tell me how dangerous the low carb diet is! I was lucky that the doctor at diagnosis did not suggest drugs (because she certainly did for everything else) but losing the sudden weight gain, then she worried I might be anorexic because the weight fell off on Dr. Richard K. Berstein’s low carb diet. My husband and I had a laugh at me being anorexic — not if a chocolate bar is in sight! My husband thinks meat is good and is glad all the information provided validates that saturated fat is good. I still don’t get the idea of insulin “resistance” — I seem to be resistant to many things — is that some other “disease”? And why don’t people try a glucose meter to see their body’s reaction to various foods? Maybe you have to get sick enough and realize the orthodox medical profession provides only drugs and surgery and look elsewhere.
Thanks for your response. I’m not sorry I asked, at all. You confirm what I’ve thought — where is this diabetes disease in my now defective (since diagnosis) body — and how can it disappear if I don’t consume sugar or starch, just protein and mostly green veg and whatever saturated fat comes with the protein. I understand I am what might be called sugar sensitive after a lifelong sugar addiction (but why am I addicted to sugar and others are not? why are all of my family on both sides heavy sugar/starch and alcohol consumers?). I explained for years to doctors that my mother’s two sisters were diabetic but I wasn’t tested till my mother’s brother had part of his leg amputated for poor circulation and diabetes II, then I was at 12 HbAic — now I am at 6 with low carb — and doctors still tell me how dangerous the low carb diet is! I was lucky that the doctor at diagnosis did not suggest drugs (because she certainly did for everything else) but losing the sudden weight gain, then she worried I might be anorexic because the weight fell off on Dr. Richard K. Berstein’s low carb diet. My husband and I had a laugh at me being anorexic — not if a chocolate bar is in sight! My husband thinks meat is good and is glad all the information provided validates that saturated fat is good. I still don’t get the idea of insulin “resistance” — I seem to be resistant to many things — is that some other “disease”? And why don’t people try a glucose meter to see their body’s reaction to various foods? Maybe you have to get sick enough and realize the orthodox medical profession provides only drugs and surgery and look elsewhere.
Hello dlmc… A good place to start is by watching Tom Naughton’s FatHead movie.. free on HULU or YouTube (I think). I have just finished reading Gary Taubes’ book Why We Get Fat (excellent!) and have just started Good Calories, Bad Calories. Of course there is always Atkins.. a good cover to cover read as well. You are clearly craving more information… beats craving candy any day! I am more than 100 lbs lighter because of low carb eating! I forget about eating for 5-6 hours at a time…. that alone feels like magic.
Wooohooo thanks so much for doing this Gary. When my husband triglycerides were through the roof–he’s a typical meat, bread and potatoes Brit, heavy on the bread and potatoes, I suggested he switch to eggs for breakfast vs toast or sweetened yogurt shots, delete the bread on his lunch sandwich and eat plenty of meat or fish with no potatoes at dinner. In 3 months his numbers were in a healthy range.
Your article in the Times is exceptional as always Gary.
GT,
Your blood test results are not dissimilar to those I received about 7 years ago after following a similar diet, which I adopted after reading “What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?.” Because my total cholesterol numbers were up, my doctor advised me to stop the diet. After explaining to me that “calories in – calories out” was the ONLY way to explain my weight loss (regardless of what I told him I was eating), he finally convinced me that I was on was dangerous path and I went back to eating a diet based on the USDA pyramid… with the eventual result of gaining back every pound I had lost.
Reading Why We Get Fat gave me the confidence to go back to the diet that my gut knew was the right one for me. The only problem is that it is no longer working very well. When I starting eating low carb/high fat again, I initially lost 15 lbs, but have not been able to lose any more weight for almost three months now. The major difference is that I am now menopausal. As such, the sections about LPL in WWGF were of great interest to me, but there was no clear recommendation as to what to do about it. So my question now is:
Can LPL levels be tested, and is there a way to reconcile changes in LPL to this way of eating?
I have searched the internet for information regarding menopause and a low carb/high fat lifestyle, but cannot find anything that seems credible. Some information indicates that HRTs cause weight gain, others say that HRTs prevent weight gain. Most of the information I have found seems to be more anecdotal rather than based on any actual studies.
I imagine there must be other women who are struggling with this as well, so if you can lead me to any credible information about effectively losing weight during menopause while eating low carb/high fat, I would appreciate it more than you know.
Many thanks,
WM
Hi Wende — I’ve been eating meat, fat and eggs for years! and my #’s were always low but early in menopause the total went up to 200 or so, the HDL higher than the LDL at about 100. For a variety of reasons, I became convinced that taking bio-identical hormones would improve my health (strong family history of breast cancer, also some heart disease and colon cancer) and once on the bio-identical (NOT conventional) HRT, my total cholesterol fell to 160 and the balance stayed about the same… I recommend bio-identical HRT to all my patients as a means to improve their health! (See Holtorf’s article in Postgraduate Medicine, January 2009?)
A week or so before the great NYTMagazine piece on sugar, the NYT had an unfortunately incomplete critique of conventional HRT, lacking any information on bio-identical.
The estrogen component should function as an anti-insulin (WWGF) and the progesterone kept to a low normal amount so it doesn’t cause weight gain.
You’ll need to check with a doc near you specializing in bio-identicals.
Hi Gary,
Do you know of the research that shows that the Friedwald equation, which is used to calculate LDL, is inaccurate and overestimates LDL numbers when triglycerides are very low? You had the expensive direct measurement, but most people on low-carb diets are getting inaccurate estimates.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/06/ldl-calculator.html
Hi Gary,
Do you know of the research that shows that the Friedwald equation, which is used to calculate LDL, is inaccurate and overestimates LDL numbers when triglycerides are very low? You had the expensive direct measurement, but most people on low-carb diets are getting inaccurate estimates.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/06/ldl-calculator.html
Hi Gary. I’ve read your fantastic book yesterday. I’ll certainly be reading it a couple of more times to make sure I understand it all, and that I haven’t missed anything. I totally understand the insulin connection in the storage of fat and it explains a lot of things about my weight and health. A question that I don’t have an answer for is, if we’re eating mainly protein and fat (let’s say we’ve eliminated carbs), how come we can eat as much as we want (knowing that many of us tend to over eat)? What happens to the excess amount of food/calories (I know you hate thinking about calories)? Does our body burn/use the energy provided to us in form of fat and protein completely, despite it being provided an excess? Thank you. The insight you’ve given me is just amazing.
Since Gary can’t reply to every question: The tendency to overeat is caused by what we eat. Appetite becomes less once you are low carb. According to Dr. Mike Eades (who along with his wife Dr. Mary Dan Eades authored Protien Power and Protein Power Life Plan) falling blood sugar (even if it is too high) is interpreted by the body as hunger. In addition to both being MD’s they both explain the science well and each as a website with many blog posts. You might find answers there.
Im a little confused, can we eat legumes and pulses?
Im a little confused, can we eat legumes and pulses?
Hi Gary,
Your books are great! Just what I needed to change my diet: science, good science.
I’m just wondering what is the diet of your kids. I have an almost 2-year-old son and I keep him on a low carb diet as much as I can convince my husband. Would love to read a blog post about this.
Thanks!
Hi Gary,
Love your books, just what I needed to change my diet: science, and good science when possible!
I wanted to know your kids’ diet. I too have a toddler and try to feed him low carb and high fat as much as I can convince my husband. Would love to read a post on this.
Thanks!
I’m new to this and maybe others can shed some light for me. I have not ordered Gary’s books yet and I think I will be purchasing GC/BC very soon.
Anyhow, I went grain-free two months ago. Eating all natural, nothing processed, etc. I have had a return of thyroid symptoms. This is not fun and I need to find out if this is a rebound reaction that will correct itself. My thyroid labs are low while taking 4 1/2 grains desiccated thyroid. I’m hesitant to increase my dose if resistance is the problem. Right now I have swollen tongue, hair falling out, and sleeping half the day. I can’t even work right now. Does anyone have any suggestions?
After two months grain free, my HDL has gone up 2 points, LDL down 2 points, and triglycerides up over 100 points. I think the triglycerides are up due to the low thyroid function.
My other question is if the progress with cholesterol numbers will continue to progress over time or do you get to the point (maybe 6 months in) where that’s the best they’ll be?
Thank you for any input.
Gary, I printed out your blog post for my doctor. He was intrigued and VERY interested!
I would think the low-carb hypothesis applies only if you’re alright hormonally speaking.
Thank you, Arrow. I will “google” the low-carb hypothesis for more information. I am eating vegetables and figured I was getting enough carbs that way. Maybe not.
Also, had several other hormone tests done and will have those results next week. Very well could be something there.
My tests included estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and DHEA. Do you know if I got them all covered? I’m expecting low progesterone because I’ve read that low thyroid will cause low progesterone. I didn’t know it could be the other way around.
I wanted to update this thread as my Free T3 came back upper end of range. What the heck?!! Ok, so no conversion problem from the diet. yay!!! So…. resistance problem… I think I have it traced to my ferritin level which has dropped. Time will tell. In any case, I no longer think the problem was the diet.
You know, the doctor had run my Total T3 which was mid-range. The last time my Total T3 was mid-range, my Free T3 was low. So, I assumed that my Free T3 would be low. How wrong I was!
I was disappointed in my recent numbers:
Total- 291
HDL- 90
LDL- 186
TRIG- 73
RATIO- 3.2
CRP- 7.7 (this one really bothers me)
I had been eating a lot of tomatoes, plus weekend boozing for about two years. Why are my numbers so high? I eat paleo, btw.
How is your thyroid? Do you exercise? How consistent is your paleo-diet?
I have seen that thyroid plays a direct role in my cholesterol numbers.
As far as I know my thyroid is fine. I do exercise 2-3 times a week with weights. My paleo diet is fairly strict; “cheats” consist of occasional dairy, peanuts, processed meat snacks (not often).
Robert, do you have the breakdown for the LDL? Small or Large, Pattern A or Pattern B? My thoughts are that with your HDL/TRIG ratio, you most likely have Large buoyant LDL, which are neutral. I personally would be very happy with that cholesterol profile. Although, I am a newbie and not nearly as informed as others here. Perhaps others will comment as well. I can’t comment on CRP because I have yet to learn about that. Good luck to you.
I haven’t had a particle test. I was scheduled to get one but I have to cancel due to insurance issues.
Booze = carbohydrates!
Awesome article, Gary. I linked it to my own blog. I want to get the word out. Interstingly, my own HDL is exactly 68.
I also wanted to say that for all the outspoken critics of Gary Taubes and Robert Lustig, Science Daily shows the research demonstrating fructose is NOT a good thing.
Google “Science Daily limiting fructose might boost weight loss’ and “Science Daily Why is fructose so fattening ?”.
It’s his critics who are wrong. Genuine science is demonstrating fructose to be not your friend as far as obesity, and cancer , as well as liver health.
Gary Taubes and Dr. Robert Lustig ‘s assertions of the harmful effects of fructose are backed by genuine science.
That is very interesting. I wish there were a way that my son could let the “powers that be” at Whole Foods know about this and have them re-evaluate his biometrics. His triglycerides were 50 and LDL 113. Because his LDL was considered high, they refused to give him the increased store discount they use as a “reward” for being healthy.
Gary, if you read this, please, please write a rebuttal. This article is a perfect example of the sort of poor science you have made you career exposing. I’d like to see all of the articulate, intelligent low-carb supporters on this blog go straight to Huffingpost and expose this article for the “hooey” it is.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-harlan-md/lowcarb-diets-linked-with_b_851506.html
Out of interest, is there anything in that panel that might lead you to change anything in your lifestyle/diet?
Nicola,
I’m in the UK as well. I went to an “online doctor” firm called E-Med, who can prescribe/order a test to your specification from a lab they use. They have a brochure of tests you can pick from. It’s a bit like online shopping
It meant a trip into London, to pick up the prescription/order and then go on to the clinic to have the blood test, but that wasn’t a problem for me.
It cost an arm an a leg – pay to join E-Med, pay for the prescription, and pay for the test, but I considered it worth it. Not something I can afford to have done very often though although I might have a less extensive test done next time. I’ve posted elsewhere about my concerns with HbA1c. You can have that done on the NHS, but you can’t exactly go your GP and demand it. And if you did, you would be more or less obliged to accept any drugs he insisted on, or probably get struck off his patient list and/or being put on the “awkward squad” list. I don’t go near my doctor. I just know that I would be statinated, and there is no way I’m going to let that happen.
Actually, E-Med said they would copy my results to my GP unless I objected. I thought about this and then decided not to object. (After all, what could he actually do? Bring me in with a SWAT team?). But it’s been two years now, and I’ve never heard from my GP’s surgery about it. Perhaps E-Med forgot to send it, or more likely the surgery (large group practice) were too busy to be bothered about it.
Not directly-related note: I ordered a copy of the US paperback version (it’s better than the British paperback) of GC, BC and had amazon send it directly to them, with a brief covering note of the type that amazon allows with gifts. I had meant to make it anonymous (I didn’t want to draw their attention to me), but my name must have been in there somewhere, and I got a communication of surprised but polite thanks from the practice manager
Of course, there is no guarantee that anyone there has read it.
Regards,
Mike
The Cochrane Collaboration came out with an extensive review of the science and said there is very little evidence that statins benefit those with no history of coronary artery disease and at low risk. I am happy more people are being exposed to the contradictory evidence to the lipid hypothesis. Much more mainstream now.
On a side note, in those who have heart disease, statins’ mechanisms of action are most likely their 11 pleotropic effects, not cholesterol reduction.
I enjoyed GC/BC immensely when I read it.
However, some critics might look at the total cholesterol number and think it is too high. The “healthy” number I used to hear was 180. Now, sometimes it is 200 and the reference number on the test results gives a healthy range as “< 200". I don't know if Drs. Oz or Ornish would have expected to see something like 250???
Joe: I refer you to the J-Lit study referenced by Peter at Hyperlipid in which “cardiac mortality relative risk was 6.23 times greater in patients who’s cholesterol dropped below 160mg/dl compared to those with TC 200-219mg/dl.”
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/search/label/Cholesterol%20and%20the%20J-LIT%20update
Ron
Thank you so much for your post. I have a question for you. How do you reconcile the fact that cows are very polluting? I espouse your work (read everything), but I am still having a hard time dealing with the fact that cows pollute.
Julie (I am a registered dietitian and nutritionist by the way!)
The pesticides and chemical fertilizers that plants require in order to feed 6 billion people on this earth, pollute the earth at an even greater ratio than that of cows and other livestock and poultry.
As far as the fruits and vegetables we eat, I encourage all my clients to eat organically grown produce. However, the pesticides and chemical fertilizers used on the crops grown to feed the livestock and poultry is part of the pollution problem I am talking about. Plus the run off into the rivers, many of which lead to the Gulf of Mexico, and the algae blooms forming as a result which are killing the food that the fish there eat. There is plenty of research on the negative effects.
I am not discounting GT’s diet, I am just questioning how this world would survive if everyone ate that much meat. I also wonder if the same health results could be attained from a low caloric, vegetable-based diet, without grains, starches or sugar, and supplemented with protein. I also think that there are so many genetic differences, that perhaps some would do well with one approach, and others with a different one? I know plenty of extremely healthy people who eat mostly vegetables, and there are many cultures or isolated groups that have eaten this way and suffer very little disease, such as the monks at Mount Athos in Greece.
I would guess the real answer is to stop having so many babies.
Those organic fruits and vegetables your encouraging your clients to eat are all hybrids, hybrid to increase their sugar content. Usually heirloom hybrids. Combine this with the abundant availability of all fruits and vegetables and the fact that we all become addicted to these massive amounts of sugar that nature never intended, and you are looking at the huge dilemma that we all face in our world of health as well as psyche. — Sugars in these massive amounts become “stimulant drugs” not unlike cocaine and speed and effect our minds and bodies and lives, dramatically.
If I am recommending hybrid kale that has a higher sugar content, then it is minute. I hardly fear that. And, if we are talking about hybrid, so are all the cows in this country. I have never seen anyone get addicted to vegetables, and if they just ate a lot, their health markers were beautiful.
Besides, this is not my question. And I addressed it to Gary Taubes.
Exactly! The problem is that there are too many people on the planet to allow us to eat both how we should and in a sustainable way. It’s the double-edged sword of agriculture: it allowed for an incredible increase in population but at the same time ruined our health.
Mostly, people who have problem with weight, eat too much of everything because they are too hungry on their diet of carbohydrates , proteins and fats. If you remove most of the carbs from their diet, they would loose their hunger and eat less amount of food less often. People who eat grains eat too much food overall most of the time.They eat 5 – 6 times a day.It is not necessary to eat too much meat on LC diet. I eat 2 times a day on my diet, and now buy less groceries and generate less garbage. Production of grains does not do out planet any good as well.
Of course a huge pollution problem from intensive beef production is the lakes of fecal matter… the other is the methane. But perhaps if cows were fed their natural diet – grass – rather than soy and corn and other grains, they wouldn’t be in such dire digestive distress and the methane problem would resolve. As to the lakes of fecal matter… was this a problem when herds of millions of bisons lived on the prairies?
Gary – My results are just in as well. It was funny – I had to tell the doctor what tests I wanted ran in order to get the right ones done. They commented that they had not seen any this in-depth for a normal physical. My numbers are almost identical to yours – I have been primal/paleo for about 6 months now – hardcore and strict. I eat lots of meat and eggs as my normal daily intake with little to no carbs on many days – lost my taste for most of it. No grains and no starches or sugars ever!
The big difference in my numbers were my Vitamin D 25 Hydroxy – My number was 126 – that is right 126. I had a really low number a year ago – 24. I have been taking 8,000 iu gel caps (over the counter daily for over 6 months). I am now cutting back to 1,000 iu’s to see how they level in 3 months. My doctor was not overly concerned just said I should cut back for 3 months to see where it levels at.
I am a 54 y/o male and very active. I have never felt this good in over 25 years!!! I am 6′ 2″ and 190 pounds now – down from 235 pounds. My Body Fat with calipers is right at 11% now….
My doctor was so surprised from the results considering what they were a year ago. He actually took notes to my diet and exercise as well as the reference materials I was using which includes your books.
Bottomline – I am fully on board and sold out! It was funny – I really did not need the lab tests to tell me how I felt or was doing. I can see it in the mirror and feel it with how my body is behaving. I feel wonderful!!! Thank you for your incredible work in this area and for telling those that will list
Let’s see if Dr. Oz will post his blood test results online
Re-Tweet this post with @DrOz and #DrOz in the tweet
Sample Tweet: @DrOz – @GaryTaubes posted his cholesterol test online – Are you willing to do the same? – http://t.co/OgmsIhH – #DrOz #health #lowcarb
Great post, Gary! Back in the ’70s (I’m 59), I got rid of a lot of bodyfat by simply eating all I wanted of meat, cheese, and eggs, along with a small salad every once in a while. I’m low-carbing again, but I include a lot more veggies than I did back then, though I hate ‘em and would prefer to just use a freeze-dried low-carb (high ORAC) fruit/veggie powder. What does your veggie intake look like? Do you use a supplement like Greens+ or Superfood (Biotest)? Also, have you ever figured your calorie intake?
Many years ago a doctor used my lipid test results to push me in the direction of a “cholesterol-reducing” diet away from my Atkins-inspired (and very successful) regime. My health suffered. I started to apply the same scepticism that drove me to Atkins to the question of the cholesterol theory of heart disease.
The quality of science I found was comparable but not quite as bad as that applied to diet. But I found Taubes-like work by Uffe Ravnskov, Malcolm Kendrick, T.J. Moore et al. I no longer bother with lipid panels (or doctors).
Once upon a time doctors examined the excreta of their patients. The advent of the thermometer and blood pressure devices shifted the focus to these simple tests. Now we religiously test blood as the arbiter of health.
None of these tests amount to much but they do drive “treatments” which often do more harm than good.
To everybody over-analyzing their blood test results – read Ravnskov.
Excellent points. As Gary pointed out in GCBC, the basic cholesterol test became popular, among other reasons, because it was relatively simple to do. Even when the science advanced, the more sophisticated tests could only be done in a few labs and would have been expensive.
Until the advent of antibiotics, about the only thing the average general practitioner had to offer was bedside manner (not to be under-estimated though, for its placebo effect). Their only bit of practical science was the thermometer and the sphygmomanometer.
Antibiotics finally gave them a magic bullet and they became prescription-happy. (The problems with over-use of antibiotics took a generation or so to emerge).
Anti-depressants were another magic-bullet, finally something to keep the bored housewives out of his hair.[I'm over-simplifying for effect and using irony here
]
And when statins came along, at last a magic bullet for heart problems. Prescription pads had to be ordered in bulk and the result is a billion-dollar pharmaceuticals industry.
Go to a doctor and by and large he will prescribe because that is what doctors do. Patients came to expect it and even demanded prescriptions when the doctor was reluctant to comply (especially in Britain where NHS patients rarely paid the full cost of the treatment).
Doctors do what they always do and what is expected of them, not what is actually in the bests interests of the patient.
I don’t doubt there are honourable exceptions, as there always have been.
So help me out with this Science Daily piece. As summarized by science daily, the results seem to be saying that saturated fat is bad because it prevents the body from clearing sugar, and the effect is worse when combined with caffeine. But if I’m following (and maybe I’m not getting it), you could equally interpret the results as meaning–if you are going to eat a fatty diet and drink coffee (which may not be harmful in themselves or together), for pete’s sake don’t also consume sugar. In short, why is fat and/or coffee the villain of the piece and not sugar. What am I missing?
All that said–is it news that fat, sugar and caffeine together are uniquely bad? Here’s the article:
Got a Craving for Fast Food? Skip the Coffee, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2011) — Eating a fatty fast food meal is never good for you, but washing that meal down with a coffee is even worse, according to a new University of Guelph study.
See Also:
Health & Medicine
* Diet and Weight Loss
* Obesity
* Cholesterol
Plants & Animals
* Food
* Molecular Biology
* Fisheries
Reference
* Blood sugar
* South Beach diet
* Saturated fat
* Diabetic diet
Researcher Marie-Soleil Beaudoin has discovered not only that a healthy person’s blood sugar levels spike after eating a high-fat meal, but that the spike doubles after having both a fatty meal and caffeinated coffee — jumping to levels similar to those of people at risk for diabetes.
“The results tell us that saturated fat interferes with the body’s ability to clear sugars from the blood and, when combined with caffeinated coffee, the impact can be even worse,” said Beaudoin, a PhD student who conducted the study with U of G professors Lindsay Robinson and Terry Graham. “Having sugar remain in our blood for long periods is unhealthy because it can take a toll on our body’s organs.”
Published in the Journal of Nutrition, the study is the first to examine the effects of saturated fat and caffeinated coffee on blood sugar levels using a novel fat cocktail which contains only lipids. This specially designed beverage allows researchers to accurately mimic what happens to the body when we ingest fat.
For the study, healthy men drank about one gram of the fat beverage for every kilogram of body weight for their first meal. Six hours later, they were given a second meal consisting of a sugar drink.
Typically when we ingest sugar, the body produces insulin, which takes the sugar out of the blood and distributes it to our muscles, said Beaudoin.
But the researchers found that the fatty meal affected the body’s ability to clear the sugar out of the blood. The subjects’ blood sugar levels were 32 per cent higher than they were when the men had not ingested the fat cocktail.
The researchers also tested the impact of caffeinated coffee combined with the fatty meal. For this test, participants received the equivalent of two cups of caffeinated coffee five hours after ingesting the fat beverage. An hour later, they were then given the sugar drink.
The results showed blood sugar levels increased by 65 per cent compared to what they were when participants had not ingested the fat and caffeinated coffee.
“This shows that the effects of a high-fat meal can last for hours,” said Beaudoin. “What you eat for lunch can impact how your body responds to food later in the day.”
Besides testing the participant’s blood sugar levels, the researchers looked at gastro-intestinal effects by measuring incretin hormones released by the gut after ingesting the fat. These hormones signal the pancreas to release insulin to help clear the blood of sugar. The researchers discovered these hormones’ responses to carbohydrates are blunted after ingesting the fat beverage.
“Ultimately we have found that fat and caffeinated coffee are impairing the communication between the gut and the pancreas, which could be playing a role in why participants couldn’t clear the sugar from their blood as easily,” said Beaudoin.
The results of the study are particularly important for people at risk for metabolic diseases and Type 2 diabetes, she adds.
“We have known for many years that people with or at risk of Type 2 diabetes should limit their caffeine intake. Drinking decaffeinated coffee instead of caffeinated is one way to improve one’s glucose tolerance. Limiting the intake of saturated fatty acids found in red meat, processed foods and fast food meals is also beneficial. This study has shown that the affects of these foods can be severe and long lasting.”
This kind of article is truly “in the weeds”. Its head-spinningly difficult to study the low-level interactions within the human body. Our models of the operation of the body are hugely incomplete and essentially missing as far as I can work out. Here lies madness.
Try reading Mary Enig on the chemistry of dietary fats. What ultimately matters in my mind is longevity and the guidelines for that are much easier to discern than the impact of random combinations of food and drink.
Good Luck!
Looking at a Quest report from last year, my Lipid panel official report does not list as much detail as yours. Is there a specific type of report your doctor had ran? I have a lab appoint this Friday and want to request additional analysis, however I’m not sure what I would ask my MD to request.
Thanks!
Anthony Colpo is up to more unfair Gary Taubes bashing. My rebutall can be found at my blog.
Anthony Colpo is NOT a genuine scientist. GENUINE scientists understand obesity is hellishly complex and far, far from solved.
GENUINE science admits vast unknowns about obesity. Colpo et al admit NONE of that.
I think I have done a good job of discrediting CarbSane and Colpo completely with the information from GENUINE science by world renowned obesity scientists at my blog.
To solve obesity we will need a complete explanation of the fat cell lipid exchange mechanism . We do not even know the chemical behavior of fat cell receptors currently.
Top tier, world renowned obesity scientist Dr. Jeffrey Friedman ADMITS eat less move more does NOT work to solve obesity and we need to look toward in 21 st century medical science advances to guide us, rather than an often repeated NOSTRUM . As we discard our belief systens and dogma and assumptions a NEW VIEW EMERGES.
One day Manuel Uribe and numerous other morbidly obese 800 pound plus people who suffer will be succesfully treated and cured.
Fat cell dysregulation is a disease state. it is MORE than time for the medical commnity, and diet industry to TAKE RESPONSIBLITY for the FAILURE of their own fat loss advice., Scmmers ALWAYS put the blame on the patient, rather than EXAMINING the efficacy of their own methods.
Obesity is almost as hereditary as HEIGHT.
Intelligent readers will be able to tell whose information is the real deal.
Looks like a great report. I just did a VAP through HealthcheckUSA.
I’m not sure what to think because
1. LDL Density Pattern was A (good)
2. Metabolic Syndrome Risk? No (good)
3. Triglycerides 106 (decent)
4. Lp(a) 5 (good)
5. apoB100 184 (Seems very bad)
Part of the problem I’m having is interpreting a test like this. If I go to my doctor, she will faint at the overall cholesterol and prescribe statins.
“EVER TRIPPED OVER AN INCH?”
Dang, I’m going to start stealing other people’s posts from the internet, that’s what I’m gonna do! I was googling to see if I could find reactions to GT’s “Is Sugar Toxic” article and I like this lady! Dana Seilhan.
http://www.grist.org/corn/2011-04-22-taubes-sugar-makes-excellent-case-diversifying-agriculture
And after watching the documentary “King Corn” and reading Lierre Keith’s “The Vegetarian Myth,” I totally agree with what Dana S. says here – in short, dig it — and she’s very funny!
24 Apr 2011 10:48am DANA SEILHAN WRITES:
Animal fats were all we *had* before the advent of industrial food and it was probably the only thing sparing us from completely ruined health on a diet that heavy in grains. People don’t understand that grains make us sick too–paleopathologists have seen proof of it in the remains of ancient societies. They can tell a farmer culture from a forager (hunter-gatherer) culture just by how diseased and underdeveloped the remains look.
And yes, sometimes you should demonize a food group.
We don’t get nourishment from a group of food (and we don’t get nourishment from calories–good lord, man, calories are a legal fiction, not a real object! Ever tripped over an inch?), we get nourishment from nutrients. If we’re getting enough of the nutrients we need, it doesn’t matter where they come from.
What I’d like to see happen with American food production–and I realize this is a pipe dream–is that we bring back the bison herds. I mean into the millions like they had been before we came along and mass-slaughtered them. Fill the Great Plains with the herds again. We’d have more animal food than we’d know what to do with and that’s a far better use of Plains land than growing crops on it.
Don’t put them on feedlots, just harvest them when they’re ready. Meat would become so amazingly cheap that we would become truly food secure. And have people grow their own vegetables on their land or in community gardens. Presto, our nutritional needs would be taken care of. If someone wanted to eat grain they’d have to grow it themselves–and they’d quickly understand why grain’s not an efficient food even when it’s fed to people, much less all the health problems it causes.
Pipe dream. But in my ideal world that’s what we’d do.
As far as Dana Seilhan’s “Bring back the bison herds” … I love that! Pipe dream? Well, I’m smoking it! Joel Salatin has the right idea with his Polyface Farm and sustainable agriculture. We’re going to visit this summer. Watch him on YouTube. After you watch King Corn and Big River (both by Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney)…a couple of stunning documentaries (on streaming Netflix) by these zany but serious guys…who set out to do and see things for themselves.
After the revelation of reading GCBC and GT’s other things on diet (and finding how incredibly well the diet works) and THEN getting hooked on learning more about it all…in short, stumbling on “King Corn,” “Food, Inc.” – reading and watching Mary C. Vernon, reading the WAPF folks on the venerated “soy” with its thyroid issues (babies should be no where NEAR it, much less the sugar in baby formula) — yadda yadda yadda, one thing is clear:
We are planting America MASSIVELY — watch the King Corn on streaming Netflix, then read Lierre Keith “Vegetarian Myth” — in CORN, WHEAT and SOY. MASSIVELY. You won’t believe it till you see it. They ruin the earth (anhydrous ammonia anyone? Kills all the earthworms, and THEN spray your Round-up on your Round-up Ready Type 2 yellow dent corn etc. genetically modified by Monsanto to withstand the Round-up…).
CORN, WHEAT and SOY are all lowest common denominators, nutrition-wise. They’re TERRIBLE for us and for the animals we force to consume them. The corn burns thru their stomachs, they have lifespans of less than 2 years instead of 12… Instead of grazing on pasture which they were meant to do (no fecal effluent; on pasture they just fertilizes their own food!), we torture these animals in CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) that cover half the state of Montana, not to mention other states, and then all that fecal effluent is collected in massive lakes, to be sent MASSIVELY down our rivers — not to mention all the pesticides sprayed on this HUGE ACREAGE of crappy s—- crops…
THEN, just to be so wonderful, we dump all our excess corn (that we’re not making into ridiculous ethanol) on developing countries to ruin their economies…their farmers’ incentives and lives, and everyone’s health…just as we’re doing to our own.
Ellis and Cheney’s “Big River” documentary shows them following the river that runs thru these (massively planted, fertilized and pesticided) states, thru water treatment plants (where they interview those who run them who say the bad stuff can’t be gotten out of the water) and then they arrive at the Louisiana gulf, off of which is created a dead zone the size of the state of CT. Shrimp off Louisiana? Not no more, honey. Fishermen in Louisiana take good-will trips up the river to try get states NOT to fertilize so heavily. But the gov’t lets them. In fact The gov’t makes this all this happen. The EPA gives these heavily subsidized farmers all along the Mississippi an “OK” to pollute. They’re exempted.
Not to mention all the pharmaceuticals we employ due to the crappy SAD diet consumed in Western societies. THINK of how ALL the medications people take end up in the water supply. They don’t? They do. This is not just a concern of me on a screed. I know a fertility doctor who has seen a HUGE difference since the 1980s in his practice; much more difficult to get women to conceive than it used to be. Now he has to take every trick out of the bag to effect it, and sometimes that still doesn’t work. He wonders about all the hormones of all these women on the pill (95% of the of-age female population) peeing out this man-made concoction all their fertile lives into our water supply — what it’s doing not only to women, fertility-wise, but to men as well.
If I had $700,000 – I’d give it to GT to study this pharmaceutical angle. The BCPs, the statins, the Viagra, Zoloft, and God knows what else… What would we call this book?
Here is a stolen blog post from Don Matez http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2011/03/operation-hope-meat-is-medicine-for.html about benefits of herding to the earth
“Savory won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Prize of $100,000 for the Africa Center for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe by demonstrating that by INCREASING the number of livestock on barren land by 400% we can convert it from desert back to productive grassland:”
Thanks Galia, great stuff, I’ve saved it! Right on the money!
Reminds me of Will Allen, Founder/CEO of Growing Power, Inc. located at Silver Spring Drive, Milwaukee, WI. He got a MacArthur Genius Grant for his work in urban (vertical use of land/space, not horizontal) sustainable agriculture, has some great stuff on YouTube. Allen raises tilapia (and yellow perch) where the water is competely cleaned by plants grown long-wise above the long fish tanks (a pump is used to get water up to the plants and it all cycles in a circle; never a need to “clean” the water in any other fashion).
Farmers “cut out” of small-scale farming are being taught by Allen to convert their barns (in the midwest! Land of the cold winter!) to raise fish and plants in this way. The tilapia need heated water, so they’re above-ground; the perch need cold water so their tanks are dug in-ground.
Allen’s urban farming community (in the same bldg where they raise fish) also creates compost in huge bins using worms; very cool how they separate the worms from the earth to start a new batch…
I do believe that food production model will be different in a future.
Humans survieved bacause they used their brains in order to adjust for
changing enviroment. Earth is not big enough to feed growing population
according to current model of food production , whatever it is meat or grain
production, but it doesn’t mean we all have to sustain on grains.
Agricalture always distrois enviroment, herding is not. Cows are not the
only animals suitable to be a meat source.What about goats? What about
rabbits? They breed well, taste good.There is a lot of food wasted, instead
of being fed to the farm animals. We live in a wasteful society.Who knows,
may be in a future we would be breeding incects in order to get our
proteins, or the regulation in my subdivision would require having couple
goats or sheeps instead of maintaining a perfect lawn using fertolisers,
fungecides,pesticides,herbicides (whole warfere, actually, against Florida
inviroment.).
I agree completely!
Gary — We can fairly well ascertain that the beginnings of agriculture on this earth and the effects of this deliberate “farming” and the growing of plants and vegetables, some tens of thousands of years ago, in lets say Asia and Greece and the Mideast and Central and South America and other places throughout this world, be it one place it all “started or began” and then spread from there, or the mysterious evolution of same, in different parts of the world in approximately the same time eras, is an unknown — We do know from observation that this deliberate and accidental seeding of natures wild seeds in any given area and then nurtured by man, produced abundant and manageable plant-life and crops and man’s proliferations began. These were some eons ago, we know that. — What we don’t know, is exactly when the “hybridization” of these “plants” began. — We do know some things about the civilizations that developed in response to this hybridization and agriculture that we now call “hybrid carbohydrates” and the resulting “high carbohydrate” and “high yield” and “high sugar” content and consumption of these plants by man. — These hybrid, high sugar content plants, made sugars abundantly available to man and he loved it, as he loves it, now. — They also made him stimulated and “high” and effected his whole being, but he didn’t that and still doesn’t “know that”, yet today. Hybrid carbohydrates, right along with agriculture, are the core of this dilemma we find ourselves in. — Alcohol, the highest form of these sugars is also a major player here, as is caffeine and it’s effects on man as well as nicotine and it’s effects. — Keep up the great work Gary, you are on to ” The Mother Lode”, but it’s not “Gold”, it’s greater, much greater, than gold. It’s the core of modernization and civilized life and man. Be that “good” or be that “bad” is up to the observer and you to say. — Good luck and may the “sugar and stimulant gods” be with you. Tom
Here is a point to ponder. — We all assume that the hunter/gatherer that turned to agriculture and farming, kicked off the population explosion that eventually got us to this six billion plus people on this earth, today. It seems logical and there are few to none other explanations for this phenomena. — Now lets take my “hybrid carbohydrate” hypothesis, that these massive amounts of sugar in these hybrids are “stimulant drugs” in that capacity and that did, in fact, induce this “feeding frenzy” and “sexual frenzy” that made for this proliferation and not simply the farming and raising of crops. — An interesting point I believe. Additionally and cumulatively, this is where I believe this whole “mental” and “Psyche” phenomena stems from. — Sugar and carbohydrates in these concentrations, are stimulant drugs with enormous implications. “They exaggerate everything”, besides destroying our body chemistry in the process.
Mr. Taubes, you are my hero. Yes, I am a dietitian and a medical librarian!
One question—your new book had the Duke diet which included lots of “greens” and veggies; your blog indicates no veggies in your diet. I’m curious if you think adding (or skipping) them makes any difference?
I have read both of your books from cover to cover (LOVED Good calories, Bad Calories) and admire your writing skill so much that words fail me!
p.s. do you ever “cheat” on your diet…have a piece of fruit or chocolate occasionally…
Have you ever commented on this study that is touted by Dean Ornish?:
“A major study was just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine from Harvard. In approximately 85,000 women who were followed for 26 years and 45,000 men who were followed for 20 years, researchers found that all-cause mortality rates were increased in both men and women who were eating a low-carbohydrate Atkins diet based on animal protein.
However, all-cause mortality rates as well as cardiovascular mortality rates were decreased in those eating a plant-based diet low in animal protein and low in refined carbohydrates. Although this plant-based diet was called an “Eco-Atkins” diet, it’s essentially the same diet that I have been recommending and studying for more than 30 years.”
Ornish says you have to look at stuff like mortality and not just risk factors like HDL. What do you think about this? Is there any reason to think this study isn’t legit?
The study itself did not study or conclude what Dean Ornish reported in that article. Ornish was seriously lambasted by a number of the physicians and researchers who are studying the science of metabolism for that very flawed and misleading article.
Thanks so much. The Ornish piece sort of got me worrying–I’ve had great success with a ketogenic diet and I don’t want to go off it, but I don’t relish the idea of premature death either.
If you happen to know where I can find criticism of Ornish’s article, I’d appreciate the help. Either way, thanks.
Thanks Gary the low carb life style has been a blessing to all my family health.
Criticism of Ornish’s article can be found here:
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2010/09/new-study-shows-that-lying-about-your.html
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/09/08/brand-spankin-new-study-are-low-carb-meat-eaters-in-trouble/
I am curious if GT has read the article on HuffPost – Low-Carb Diets Linked With Type 2 Diabetes – it seems to be predicated on the science that GT found to be incorrect/unfounded. But I would be interested if he had a response. link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-harlan-md/lowcarb-diets-linked-with_b_851506.html
I’ve been wondering the a same thing. A rebuttal by a respected source like Gary is sorely needed. That article is a travesty and needs to be answered with the science of insulin and sugar metabolism.
Great book and article ! Thanks for postng your labs , but I’d like to see a more accurate determination of your LDL-particle count – its the NUMBER of LDL particles that determine risk, not their SIZE. This lab (Atherotech) uses a “calculated ” measure of LDL particles, their calculated apoB , rather than a clinical outcomes validated, direct measure of atherogenic particles, such as a real radioimmunoassay ApoB or better yet, the NMR LDL-P (see http://www.lipoprofile.com or http://www.myhdl.com). It would also be interesting to see what inflammatory markers reveal (such as PLA2 and myeloperoxidase, available at http://www.myhdl.com) .
For those interested in advanced lipoprotein testing, these two labs are the gold standards, and one can find a Clinical Lipidologist (“cholesterol expert”) through the National Lipid Assn. website at http://www.learnyourlipids.com.
Gregory S Pokrywka MD FACP FNLA NCMP
Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and Women’s Menopausal Health
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Diplomate American Board Clinical Lipidology and Fellow, National Lipid Assn.
Certified Menopause Practitioner: North American Menopause Society
Director: Baltimore Lipid Center. Board Member, South East Lipid Assn.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you have a certain mass of LDL particles, and know their size, you can calculate their number. And if you have a mass of LDL particles, and you know their number, you should be able to calculate their size.
That is to say, if I had “200″ LDL, and I found out I had 50,000 particles, I’d know those particles were very small, and if I had “200″ LDL, and I found out that they were all the size of “1″ LDL, I’d know I only have 200 of those particles.
This shows pics of bones of diff groups…From Dr. Eades…
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/nutrition-and-health-in-agriculturalists-and-hunter-gatherers/
Tom – Interesting hypotheses! I remember the first time I came upon any such ideas: reading Protein Power Life Plan by the Eades, and their “aside” that we may have settled down to raise crops due to the addiction factor of grains (including making them into alcohol…very addictive…). No wonder man settled down, to hang out at all the bars in town
Some other hypotheses about the world, agriculture coming to the fore and the world becoming more populous:
Agriculture, Cities and the Arts seem always tied; the arts (metallurgy, etc – I’m not talking about the fine arts! medicine, mechanical farming devices) allow us to sustain greater populations.
POPULATION FLUCTUATION IN THE PAST: Aristotle believed the world is eternal and experiences periodic cataclysms — plagues and what not — during which human civilization is reduced in size, resorts to primitive savagery whence it slowly rises, recovering all that was previously lost, until the next cataclysm…
Then came Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) with his project of “torturing Nature to reveal her secrets for the relief of man’s estate” – i.e. the project of modern science. Which wasn’t NECESSARY. Man had survived and would have survived without it. Irony: Science definitely has brought about the “relief of man’s estate” – a great prolongation of our lifespans (esp. if we eat LCHF
while at the same time giving us the ability to destroy ourselves and our world…
Hmmmm…
Does make you wish we could start over.
CarbSane EXPOSED at my blog. She blocks all my comments, the better I expose the lack of evidence in regards to the Caloric Hypothesis .
Did you ever notice that Harvard educated doctor, Dr. Weil , supports Gary Taubes? And that the only people who rail on him all the time are UNDEREDUCATED self appointed Internet gurus who are DEEPLY ignornat of the complexity of obesity?
After my wife’s recent blood work to (satisfy her doctor about her cholesterol), I was interested in Gary’s lipid profile. The high HDL was especially interesting since some folks commented on this as being really high and good. My wife’s HDL was 182 which was higher than her LDL of 154. Her VLDL was only 5 and her triglycerides were 24. Her total cholesterol was 341. That was down from 420 just six months ago. However, her HDL is always high, giving her a favorable ratio. The doctor is amazed and has never seen an HDL this high, certainly not higher than the LDL at this level. Even with the high HDL, he wanted to make sure about her heart and vascular system (conventional doctors are still so keyed into the cholesterol/heart hypothesis!) so he ordered three ultrasound scans of her peripheral arteries, aorta and carotid artery. He then ordered a complete heart workup including a treadmill stress test. All arteries were clear and the stress test was normal. My wife is 56, weighs 121 and is 5′ 5″. She eats a paleo diet including bone marrow beef broth, heart, liver and egg (yolks only!)–all from pastured animals. She eats cold-water fish some and takes cod liver oil. No grains, sugars, caffeine, processed foods (except for the cod liver oil) or fake sugars.
My question is this; if a good ratio of HDL to LDL is favorable but a high total is not, how does a conventional doctor decide whether she is at high risk or low risk of heart disease. Since we don’t buy into the whole “cholesterol is the root of all evil” idea, the levels don’t matter to us. It’s just that their logic seems to break down when trying to deal with a case like my wife. By the way, after all the tests, her doctor seemed satisfied that she is “okay” and said that he had never before seen a lipid profile like hers.
If Gary, or anybody else, would like to answer one other question, we would love to know what supplements, if any, are are recommended with this kind of “paleo” diet.
Tim, I like the particulars of your wife’s diet and her numbers are amazing! I’m going to get hubby to try it.
The famous “Hyperlipid” also has very high total cholesterol and is not worried about it.
Here, by the way, Hyperlipid writes about what they feed their kids: http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/search/label/What%20do%20I%20eat%3F%20%281%29
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/search/label/What%20do%20I%20eat%3F%20%281%29
As for your question: “If a good ratio of HDL to LDL is favorable but a high total is not, how does a conventional doctor decide whether she is at high risk or low risk of heart disease?”
FOR THAT, I GIVE YOU (THANK YOU, G.T.!) p. 172 of Good Calories, Bad Calories (of course conventional doctors don’t know anything and are just drug pushers, till — hope springs eternal — they read this):
“…Peter Kwiterovich, a lipid-metabolism specialist from Johns Hopkins, together with Allan Sniderman, a cardiologist from McGill University. Kwiterovich and Sniderman collaborated with Krauss on the last of his three papers on the heterogeneity of LDL. In 1983, they reported that the disproportionate elevation in the apo B protein in heart-disease patients was due to a disproportionate elevation in the amount of the smallest and densest of the low-density lipoproteins.
“This explained what Krauss had set out to understand: why two people can have identical LDL cholesterol levels and yet one develops atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease and the other doesn’t – why LDL cholesterol is only a marginal risk factor for heart disease. If we have low LDL cholesterol, but it’s packaged almost exclusively in small, dense LDL particles – the smaller balloons – that translates to a higher risk of heart disease. If we have high LDL cholesterol, but it’s packaged in a smaller number of large, fluffy LDL particles – the larger balloons – then our heart disease risk is significantly lower. Small, dense LDL, simply because it is small and dense, appears to be more atherogenic, more likely to cause atherosclerosis.
“Small, dense LDL can squeeze more easily through damaged areas of the artery wall to form incipient atherosclerotic plaques. Sniderman describes small, dense LDL as the equivalent of “little bits of sand” that get in everywhere and stick more avidly. The relative dearth of cholesterol in these particles may also cause structural changes in the protein that make it easier for it to adhere to the artery wall to begin with. And because small, dense LDL apparently remains in the bloodstream longer than larger and fluffier LDL, it has more time and greater opportunities to do its damage.
“Finally, it’s possible that LDL has to be oxidized – the biological equivalent, literally, of rusting – before it can play a role in atherosclerosis, and the existing evidence suggests that small, dense LDL oxidizes more easily than the larger, fluffier variety.
“Through the 1980s, Krauss continued to refine this understanding of how LDL subspecies affect heart disease. He discovered that the appearance of LDL in the population falls into two distinct patterns or traits, which he called pattern A and pattern B. Pattern A is dominated by large, fluffy LDL [GARY’S LIPID PROFILE SHOWS THIS!!!!] and implies a low risk of heart disease; pattern B is the dangerous one, with predominantly small, dense LDL. Pattern B is invariably accompanied by high triglycerides and low HDL. Pattern A is not. In 1988, Krauss and his collaborators reported in JAMA that heart-disease patients were three times more likely to have pattern B than pattern A. Krauss called pattern B the atherogenic profile. Diabetics have the identical pattern.”
Paula,
Thanks, that’s very interesing and it answers my question. We are reading GCBC but haven’t gotten the part you quoted. By the way, my wife first tried this kind of diet because of severe hypoglycemia. She had passed out several times from low blood sugar so it was getting dangerous. Plus, whe was dealing with Crohns/IBS for years. The inflammation from that problem also caused esophageal pain mimickiing a heart attack. Well, this diet of raw heart, liver, yolks, bone marrow beef broth with the occasional cooked wild-caught salmon has solved both problems and she is doing well. No more pain!
Tim,
I’m glad to hear she is doing SO well – plus she has the most amazing numbers I’ve ever seen! I really think LCHF is the answer to just about everything. My 17-year-old daughter’s not completely on board; she started laughing hysterically at the table on Mother’s Day — when I finally got her to be coherent, she had been trying to say that she was sure I blamed the extinction of the dinosaurs on High Fructose Corn Syrup. :-_
Here’s a VERY interesting url: http://www.scdiet.org/7archives/lutz/lutz7.html Just do Ctrl F and type in Crohn’s Disease to get to that section. It’s Wolfgang Lutz, M.D.’s “Dismantling a Myth: The Role of Fat and Carbohydrates in Our Diet.” He talks about what LCHF can do for LOTS of conditions.
Tim,
The only answer to your question that I can think of is that the conventional doctor you refer to is misinformed. It’s well established by now that low HDL and high triglycerides are the most potent predictors of heart disease. I would suggest that it’s impossible to be at risk with a high total cholesterol count if your wife’s HDL and triglycerides are stellar.
I’m in a similar situation myself and it’s something I’ve given a lot of thought.
Philippa
http://carboholicsanonymous.blogspot.com/2011/04/high-hdl-is-good-for-you.html
“a treadmill stress test” I suppose he ‘forgot’ to mention that stress tests are pretty useless for women?! {eye roll} Wonder how much $ he makes for prescribing that test…
LOW CARB MEMORY: Watching the game with friends on Thanksgiving. All the guys in a row on the couch. Big Belly #1, Big Belly #2, Big Belly #3, Flat Belly #1 (my hubby), and Big Belly #4. Big Belly #4 points to his (Big Belly #4′s) belly, then hubby’s belly and says, “Hey, what’s up with that?” Ha ha ha! If you knew this guy! His joking insinuation was, “Hey, we’re ‘normal’ – what’s up with you?”
After being blessed truly by personal knowledge of LCHF’s efficacy in reaching, as you say, one’s “normal” state, it becomes poignant and disturbing to see all about one people to whom GT’s (and Robert Atkins’) message is obviously essential. Yet one is separated from them by a wall that human communication can’t breach. And if you try, it’s like telling an alcoholic “Put down that drink and you can get your life and your loved ones back” but he cannot, being owned, and I mean owned, by his problem. Maybe we’re lousy communicators: I think I’ll have a card that says “Taubes” printed out to hand to anyone who comments on how hubby and I now look. And refuse to say more!
I think the secret is, people have to learn each thing (that GCBC teaches) themselves. They have to be disabused of notions (with GCBC’s proofs) one at a time (a wonderful process as those who have read GCBC can attest), that one pent-up schpiel just cannot teach them. They need to be initiated into the secrets themSELVES. By an education THEY seek.
The cancer not seen in traditional diets, but rampant in Western ones: My best girlfriend, my age (56) got CANCER last summer (actually, she’s Big Belly #4′s wife) and after radiation and lots of hope that it had been squelched for good; it returned last month – now it’s chemo and radiation. And now this woman who has taught me so much in my life — she can analyze a book, a movie, a play, like no one else — is probably going down for the count. She won’t give up the carbs and sugar (tho in WWGF which hubby and I just reread, there is one mention of LCHF curing cancer potentially, if memory serves; it would certainly prolong her life). I’ve promised not to bother her any more after subjecting her to my schpiel a final time – before her 1st encounter with the cancer I’d given her a copy of GCBC…but people are resistant… :-/ Even tho she says she KNOWS Atkins works because she did it in her youth… Talk about poignant.
Talk about who can ever talk to me about the things she can talk to me about?
@ Paula – you might get her a copy of Detoxify or Die (I forget the author’s name); worth a shot. I can’t imagine not reading something like that if I had cancer. Course I can’t imagine not trying the LCHF diet if I had it either. Sigh.
Thanks Marcia, I’m going to look that book up! It’s hard to describe my friend. Adamantine. Completely unmoveable. Her mother was a war bride (married an American G.I.) who was Austrian and did some amazing feats of heroism during the war (she CHOSE to stay behind to care for a ton of Austrians who were being left behind by the army – the army was escaping and she could have gone with them since she worked for them)… Due to this choice she lost an eye to shrapnel. A stubborn woman who saw her duty and did it.
Her daughter (my friend) is stubborn like that, but it works against her. I think my friend sees her duty as being that of dying. She doesn’t have the most fabulous life and part of me thinks she wants to die.
Jerry Brunelle is interviewed in 2006 here, regarding how he boosted his immune system and beat a cancer he had little chance (via regular medicine) of beating: http://www.healthruthrevealed.com/articles/1150/article Discusses how cancer loves SUGAR.
Now I’m going to go look up that book you recommended!
Added to Weight Loss, Nutrition, Diet on Tue 04/19/2011
The Return of the Man Who Thinks Everything I Say Is Wrong
By Mehmet Oz, MDA little over a month ago, we had award-winning science writer Gary Taubes on the show, who my producers aptly nick-named “The Man Who Thinks Everything I Say Is Wrong.” Gary is a well-respected journalist who has been heralding theories that contradict the medical community’s most fundamental assumptions about weight loss. I invited him to the show because, despite our conflicting beliefs, I still respect his drive and research. The main thing that we clash about is diet. Gary believes that eating fat does not actually make you fat – but rather, that weight gain is linked to the way your hormones respond to carbohydrates. While I generally disagree with this statement (I’m a huge proponent of fruits and whole grains), there are a couple of carbs where Gary’s theory proves sound – white flour and sugar. Although you may not think of the powdery sweetener you spoon into your coffee as being in the same family as bread and pasta, the building blocks of refined sugars called sucrose are carbohydrate molecules: fructose and glucose. In a recent article in The New York Times, Gary explores the danger of sugar, referring to both sucrose (white and brown sugar) and high-fructose corn syrup, and metabolic syndrome – a group of risk factors that make you inclined to develop heart disease and diabetes. The piece maintains that the way we metabolize sugar has many harmful implications for your health. Although inconclusive, this research raises some very relevant questions about our diets. Gary was certainly persuaded, and he practices what he preaches in terms of what he puts on his plate. During his appearance on the show, I wanted to put Gary’s ideas to the test, so for 24 hours, I ate only foods that Gary recommended. Because he believes that saturated fat is not detrimental to cholesterol levels, Gary’s diet consists of eggs, cheese and animal protein. My experience was not a pleasant one, and I maintain that the long-term repercussions of such a diet would be detrimental. If I didn’t gain weight, I believe that my overall health would’ve suffered. As we debated, I challenged Gary to get his blood work done to truly evaluate how his diet was affecting his body. He emailed me back this week and I was surprised by the results. All his cholesterol measurements were in the optimal range. In a person who eats a very high amount of protein, we would be concerned about their kidney function; this factor is completely normal in Gary.This is wonderful news and I’m truly relieved for Gary and his family. Although he will argue that these tests exonerate saturated fat, I believe that his positive bill of health is a result of him avoiding simple carbs like sugar and processed white flour. Among other consequences, these foods have been shown to increase levels of triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood). These results do not sway my stance on what you should eat. I stand staunchly behind the value of disease-fighting foods. Incorporating fruits, vegetables and whole grains into your meals can help prevent everything from Alzheimer’s to cancer, along with providing blood pressure benefits and antioxidants. There’s a lot less sugar in fruit and vegetables than processed foods, and the sugar in these foods is bound by fiber and thus digested more slowly. I believe this wholeheartedly because I have seen firsthand (both on the show and in the operating room) the real consequences of food. I encourage you to research what you’re eating. The next time you grab a packet of sweetener or are choosing a snack, be aware of how it will affect your body. Your health is too important to not be informed.
“relieved” – he’s a patronising little so-and-so isn’t he?
Sugar in these foods bound by fiber: Vegetables are one thing, but I question how effectively the fiber in fruits slows down the absorption of the sugars. I googled to find how much fiber was in a banana, and got a hit with a whole list of foods. This was a site about rectal health not blood sugar issues as it happens. Anyway, I found this quote:
“*Important as dietary fiber is, laboratory technicians have not yet been able to ascertain the exact total content in many foods, especially vegetables and fruits, because of its complexity. Consequently, estimates vary from one source to another. Where differing estimates have been found, an approximation is given in the chart, as indicated by an asterisk. The same symbol following calorie content means the number of calories has been estimated, varying
according to other added ingredients, especially fats and sugars, and to the size of the “average” fruit or vegetable unit.”
So basically, we may not know how much fiber there is in a banana, but anyway, they say it’s 3 gm in an average size one. I wonder how much of that is in the “string” that you peel away? But the amount is irrelevant if it’s not actually doing what people like Oz say it’s doing. Has this been tested?
You would have to do a test something like:
Group 1 is given pieces of uniform weight fruit to eat and their insulin and glucose reaction tested at intervals. Identical weight fruit would be analysed to find the sugar content.
Group 2 is given the exact equivalent of sugars in the form of a drink, diluted by the same amount of water that is in the fruit.
Group 3 is given the exact equivalent of sugars in the form of junk food (if an appropriate sort of junk food can be found).
All candidates have their insulin and glucose reaction tested at appropriate intervals and compared
Have any such tests been documented in the literature.?
“relieved” – he’s a patronising little so-and-so isn’t he?
Sugar in these foods bound by fiber: Vegetables are one thing, but I question how effectively the fiber in fruits slows down the absorption of the sugars. I googled to find how much fiber was in a banana, and got a hit with a whole list of foods. This was a site about rectal health not blood sugar issues as it happens. Anyway, I found this quote:
“*Important as dietary fiber is, laboratory technicians have not yet been able to ascertain the exact total content in many foods, especially vegetables and fruits, because of its complexity. Consequently, estimates vary from one source to another. Where differing estimates have been found, an approximation is given in the chart, as indicated by an asterisk. The same symbol following calorie content means the number of calories has been estimated, varying
according to other added ingredients, especially fats and sugars, and to the size of the “average” fruit or vegetable unit.”
So basically, we may not know how much fiber there is in a banana, but anyway, they say it’s 3 gm in an average size one. I wonder how much of that is in the “string” that you peel away? But the amount is irrelevant if it’s not actually doing what people like Oz say it’s doing. Has this been tested?
You would have to do a test something like:
Group 1 is given pieces of uniform weight fruit to eat and their insulin and glucose reaction tested at intervals. Identical weight fruit would be analysed to find the sugar content.
Group 2 is given the exact equivalent of sugars in the form of a drink, diluted by the same amount of water that is in the fruit.
Group 3 is given the exact equivalent of sugars in the form of junk food (if an appropriate sort of junk food can be found).
All candidates have their insulin and glucose reaction tested at appropriate intervals and compared
Have any such tests been documented in the literature.?
Gary and others -
I’d love to see some menu plans (or a weekly food diary) for Taubes-style eating. Is anyone willing to make some suggestions?
A SCARY VIEW FROM “THAT WORLD” OUT THERE – A COMMENT FROM TODAY, FROM DR. EADES’ BLOG:
Author: Melody
Comment:
I just spent a day in the hospital (ruling out post-surgical blood clot/heart problems) where the cardiologist tried to put me on a ‘diabetic diet’ of 160gm of carbs and half the protein I usually eat. When I told him I eat less than 45gm per day and only in low carb vegies (no grains, fruit, etc.) and that if I ate his diet my sugars would be high enough to need insulin, his response was “well that’s why they make medication.” Amazing. He did remove the dietary restrictions when I told him my husband would be bringing my meals in for me.
A SCARY VIEW FROM “THAT WORLD” OUT THERE – A COMMENT FROM TODAY, FROM DR. EADES’ BLOG:
Author: Melody
Comment:
I just spent a day in the hospital (ruling out post-surgical blood clot/heart problems) where the cardiologist tried to put me on a ‘diabetic diet’ of 160gm of carbs and half the protein I usually eat. When I told him I eat less than 45gm per day and only in low carb vegies (no grains, fruit, etc.) and that if I ate his diet my sugars would be high enough to need insulin, his response was “well that’s why they make medication.” Amazing. He did remove the dietary restrictions when I told him my husband would be bringing my meals in for me.
“Then came Tom Bunnell” whom discovered the true and actual “beginnings of civilization”. — Being stimulant drugs called hybrid fruit and hybrid grains and hybrid vegetables..milk was soon to follow as was alcohol and processed grains and processed sugars, along with juice’s and syrups. Caffeine – Nicotine. — But man didn’t know it and man still doesn’t know it, and he was laughed at, and ridiculed and scorned and made fun of and ignored and transposed and banned and disgraced and forgotten forever. — What a fool this man is to say such things. ” He thinks were dumb monkeys, “higher than a kite” but we don’t know it”. — Somebody shut this man up! — Outrageous! Stupidity! — He plunders, on and on. But to no avail. Such a disgrace! A pitiful example of humanity and mind and function and disposition. — Yet he thinks this is real. What a fool! — To think that this is the core to civilization. “Stimulant Drugs”! — “Powerful, potent, meaningful, stimulant drugs. — “All the kings horses and all the kings men”! — And Gods, lots and lots of gods and gods, but one only. One and only. — God and “all the kings horses and all the kings men”. — No we’re not stimulated! — What a fool I am! A fool I am! I am1 I am! I am! — God Bless!!! — We need help. Lots and lots of help here. — Taubes is our man.
Would you have posted it, if your results were less positive? I doubt it and I think other people will doubt that to: http://markyoungtrainingsystems.com/2011/05/should-you-buy-why-we-get-fat/
John
He wasn’t confronted by that dilemma, was he? Is it not unethical to cast doubt on person’s integrity based on what you imagine he might do but hasn’t? What possible defense could someone offer against your implied accusation?
While I was mowing the lawn, your post came to mind, and reminded me of a Mencken quote that is apropos:
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. — H. L. Mencken
Your question implies to me that you don’t really believe what Gary and the other low/zero carbers are saying about the role of carbs in the metabolism. Just saying.
Philippa
http://www.carboholicsanonymous.com
It must have been mentioned, but I’m too busy to look: you don’t need a prescription to order blood tests. There are many sites selling discounted tests obtainable through LabCorp.
Gary, when are you going to post a Fumento-like shot of yourself?
http://www.bigfatblog.com/images/fumento.jpg
Gary, when are you going to post a Fumento-like shot of yourself?
http://www.bigfatblog.com/images/fumento.jpg
I don’t know. You caved in pretty early, a lot earlier than that other guy. I wonder that you didn’t lose it in the ocean or that Oz’ commandos didn’t invade your fortress to obscond it. What does it say when important intellectuals submit to the demands of raving lunatics with bad hair? Maybe you should run for president?
Dr. Robert Eckl just confirms again what myself, Dr. Stephan Guyenet, Dr. Linda Bacon ,Dr. Jeffrey Friedman and other genuine scientists have said all along, and it completely refutes CarbSane. Namely, that body fat regulation is extremely complex, tightly regulated by the hypothalamus, and full of vast unknowns. The brain seems to know when body fat dips too low.
Also, insulin is a MAJOR player in fat storage , as Gary Taubes has shown with his work.
Gary, great lab results! I was curious to see what the effect of eating, say, a bowl of steel-cut oats and one apple daily would have on those numbers. Let’s say over a period of two months. I’d love to see a “before/after” ….would your LDL be not quite as fluffy? Triglycerides spike? It would make for an interesting study I think….
Happy belated bday, btw!
“Sub-clinical, or hidden, gluten intolerance is a health problem at epidemic proportions in certain populations in the United States and remains largely unrecognized by conventional medicine.” (kalishresearch.com).
My question is (perhaps rhetorical), WHY has gluten intolerance become such a health problem of epic, and epidemic proportions? I believe it is related to the AMA, USDA’s Food Pyramid suggestion that we eat carbs, and lots of them. And clearly GCBC, WWGF and Gary’s other articles are revealing the reason why, we have been eating too many carbs, and too much sugar!
@ Skinqueen, couldn’t agree more. Grain is the original processed food (and, I believe, not good for humans or other living animals except, perhaps, mice who seem to love it); you can eat a raw oyster (well, maybe not everyone wants to but it’s possible); as far as I know, you can’t eat raw wheat — not for long, at any rate, and not with any good health results. I gave the stuff up in ’95 and noticed (among other not-so-pleasant side-effects that immediately disappeared) that my joints no longer hurt. All I needed for confirmation. People can bang on forever about the virtues of grains – I’m not buying it!
“The “Origins of The Species and of “Man’s Mind” and Intelligence, “Discovered and Discussed and Disclosed”.
By Tom Bunnell
– A small herd of deer stood near a field by the edge of the forest and woods in northern North Alberta, Edmonton, B.C., Canada. — It was somewhat near dusk with darkness and a moonlit night slowly came forward. — It was warm and becoming dark in the evenings breeze of the coming nighttime. The moon was already rising slightly into the darkening sky. A perfect night for feeding and it was getting nearer and nearer to the annual birthing of the new fawns this year. The yearlings from the year before were romping and frolicking and playing about. It was in the early spring of the year and the young and old alike, frolicked and socialized as they ate and drank water and sniffed about from a nearby creek. All the while shaking off the long winters cold. It had been -40 below zero going on months to this point. It was pure bliss right now and a spirit filled mania had set in. It was also restful and peaceful and relaxing what they were having. They were having it all. The world could not have been a better place and the world could not have been brighter or purer or with less fault. — Then the twig snapped!All hands were instantly focused and alert. Adrenaline surged through their bodies. Their hearing and sense of smell and eyesight intensified instantly. Their eyes were wide and their pupils fully dilated. Their ears stood alert and their smell focused and intensified. — Their muscles and legs readied for instant flight as soon as they were to know what and where they should go, or they might just disappear like a wisp of smoke into the night and into their background, if that was the better of choice’s in this situation. If they hadn’t possibly been seen yet they might disappear like a wisp of smoke into their background. — They can do that, they can disappear right into their background if given the opportunity or if the opportunity avails itself. An indian can do this too.
Moments later two squirrels came out, one chasing the other as they too, frolicked in the early springtime night.
The deer relaxed and their adrenaline glands went back to normal, as did their seeing and other senses that had been alerted and intensified.
Hybrid plants and hybrid fruits and hybrid vegetables and what I call hybrid carbohydrates in general, along with refined sugar and flour, like cocaine and speed, put this adrenaline like substance into our bloodstream non-stop from birth to the grave and 24/7 and /365 days a year for our entire lifetimes. Man and our adrenaline glands never go back to normal because we never stop ingesting these hybrid carbohydrate stimulants.
Country singer “Jewel”, the one from Alaska, — Merle Haggards prodigy, — Does a song where she sings “They say you are only half alive until you give the whitening a try”. — That’s lines of speed or coke or methamphetamine snorted or ingested or smoked into your system.
Speed on top of speed if what I’m saying is true.
What they didn’t tell her, or probably didn’t or don’t even know themselves, is that when you get into this false high, it not only alters your senses but your thought patterns, it alters your life dramatically and not for the good.
Then when you try to enter the normal world which is rich and full in itself, instead you drop to a low you might not be able to get out of. Then you truly are “half alive”.
Playing with our senses is not a good thing to do and the adverse effects far outnumber this false high and euphoria experience .
Cocaine and amphetamine and hybrid carbohydrates, induce “highs” and otherwise, and are mans road to complete destruction and nothing less than that.
There is also a false sense of confidence that comes with these “highs”. — We can’t be told anything.
We will listen attentively and then go right back to what we were doing.
That, my friend, is why an apple or a piece of toast or a glass of milk or a potato, — turn out to be deadly poisons, just like all the other forms of speed.
Sincerly
-Tom Bunnell