2011 nutrition lessons #5: Calcium, Vitamin D, Vitamin A, and Vitamin K-2
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | February 3, 2012
It’s February 2012, so it’s late to reflect upon lessons learned in 2011. I’ve had this entry on the “to be done” list for weeks now and just have not managed to get to it as I have moved on to other interesting topics. However, this entry concerns several very important lessons from the 2011 health / nutrition research saga. There is so much here I can really only summarize and point to other resources. But these related topics are very important and can greatly affect long term health and at the same time they are not widely known so I think it’s important to at least get the ball rolling so people can get a start.
The advice to drink your milk to get your calcium for strong teeth and bones, is well known nutritional advice. It is less well known that a series of vitamins / nutrients are necessary as part of an overall regulatory cycle to make proper use of calcium. When this regulatory cycle does not work right bad things happen over time. For example, your body may not make use of the calcium at all. Or it may not deposit that calcium in your bones but rather deposit it in the walls of your large arteries (atherosclerosis) which is a major step in the cycle of deadly heart disease.
SUMMARY:
To summarize the lessons: 1 – get plenty of sun for Vitamin D (“Throw away that sunscreen”, or at least delay its usage), 2 – get plenty of Vitamin A (variety of food sources) and 3 – get plenty Vitamin K-2 (probably via supplementation).
Results: prevention or even REVERSAL of atherosclerosis (calcification of heart arteries), reduction of cancer risks, reduction of weak and brittle bones (osteoporosis), and improved dental health.
Lesson 1: Vitamin D (sunshine) – Vitamin D is synthesized by our bodies primarily in response to ultraviolet light coming into contact with our skin. For many years now one of our public health emphases has been to make major use of sunscreen and to protect yourself from skin cancer. However, it is becoming clear that this was an overreaction and has led to health issues in some cases. Insufficient Vitamin D has been linked to all kinds of internal cancers and also to cardiovascular disease. The best experts now suggest getting sufficient sunshine (15 to 30 min a day when possible) while avoiding unnecessary sunburning. In far northern climates where getting sufficient Vitamin D via sunshine is difficult, some supplementation may be necessary for short periods but should be done in moderate doses for relatively short periods as it is possible to take in too much Vitamin D by supplementation.
See for example:
On the other hand, some people have gone off the deep end in some cases and started taking massive doses of Vitamin D via supplements, which can lead to Vitamin D toxicity. So balance is important. 15 to 30 min of sun a day is good. Then you shouldn’t have to supplement much unless you live in northern Alaska.[1] Your body will manage itself via tanning when you get Vitamin D from sun exposure so go for that first. A few weeks without much sun in January will probably not matter too much as the body stores some Vitamin D. Take advantage of every sunny winter day you can.
Lesson 2: Vitamin A - Next in the complicated calcium regulatory cycle, the body requires sufficient Vitamin A to regulate the usage of Vitamin D. Vitamin A also supports vision, basic cell growth, the reproductive system, etc). Vitamin A is found in liver, sweet potatoes, carrots, spinach etc., and is found in most vitamin supplements. Too much Vitamin A can also lead to toxicity. So be careful in this regard as well. [2]
Vitamin A and D together have much broader effects than just assisting with processing of calcium. This whole area is just emerging but every bit of new information reinforces the importance of this combination. See for example: Synergy between Vitamins A and D: Protection Against Autoimmune Diseases
Lesson 3: Vitamin K-2 – “Vitamin K” refers to a family of related substances. The family can be broken into two major branches, K1 and K2, although these can also be broken down further. Vitamin K1 is the better known of the two and is regularly associated with blood clotting and is found in foods like spinach and broccoli. [3] Vitamin K2, however, turns out to be vital in the calcium, vitamin D, vitamin A, regulatory cycle. And the realization about the critical role of Vitamin K2 and its effects are much more recent and not so well known.
The most impressive information about K2 is that although the body can synthesize a little bit of K2 from consumption of vitamin K1 in vegetables, it generally does so only in very limited amounts. Secondly, K2 is not found in normal plant foods in any significant amount. In fact it is very limited in today’s general westernized diet and most people are deficient and thus probably suffering the effects of a somewhat broken calcium / D / A processing cycle. One of the most important of these defects is atherosclerosis, the deposit of calcium in the walls of major arteries, often near the heart. This a first major step towards a heart attack. It has now been shown that vitamin K2, eaten in foods or supplemented can not only halt the progress of this disease, but can even REVERSE it in time. [5] Once again the entire calcium process of the body is dependent upon vitamin K2. In Japan a common method of treating osteoporosis is not calcium supplementation but Vitamin K2 supplementation.
On the importance of vitamin K2 see:
Vitamin K2: Putting Calcium Where It Belongs
On the Trail of the Elusive X-Factor: A Sixty-Two-Year-Old Mystery Finally Solved
Vitamin K-2, the missing nutrient
A major reason for understanding the importance of K2, is that it is so difficult to get in the normal modern diet and the body does not store it. So regular consumption or production is required. Thus many people today are deficient. K2 can be found somewhat in egg yolks and dairy products especially butter. But the amount varies greatly and is highly dependent upon the diet of the animals producing the eggs and dairy products. Our average grocery store products provide very low levels of vitamin K2 because of the way industry typically produces them. Pasture / grass fed animals as opposed to grain fed produce much more vitamin K2 in their dairy / eggs (but this is even dependent upon the type and quality of grass). This is because the cow turns vitamin K1 found in the grass into K2 which appears in the milk / fat / butter. Grain does not contain much if any K1 so the dairy products from such an animal do not contain much if any K2.
By far the highest concentration of K2 in a food is found in a Japanese fermented dish called Natto. Google it. It looks gross. Fortunately now there are many companies extracting K2 from Natto and providing it in a supplement form. But normally K2 is NOT included in Multivitamins. Perhaps this will change with time. One can also buy grass fed butter and eggs but they are more expensive. You can buy K2 or K2 / K1 supplements from a number of vendors now.
In the end, the suggestion of Weston Price made 60 years ago to consume small amounts of real fermented Cod Liver Oil every day (for Vitamin A, Vitamin D, and heart health Omega-3 fatty acids etc) combined with some type of K2 (“High Vitamin Butter Oil” or K2/K1 supplements) is still a good way to go for better heart health, dental health, and general bone / internal systems health.
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1. See blood level suggestions given by a very recent study: Vitamin D levels of the Massai and Hadzabe of Africa. However, it should also be noted that all is not perfectly clear on the Vitamin D front. First note Vitamin D – Problems with the Latitude Hypothesis by Chris Masterjohn. Also of interest, note Masterjohn’s citation of Weston Price who noted in the 1930′s in the Pacific Islands that natives would smear cocoanut oil on their skins as a form of primitive sun protection of some type, not necessarily a sun blocker. What did this do for them? Why did they do this? Apparently the natives viewed this as some type of “nutrition” that was good for them.
Recently some research has come out saying that the very link between Vitamin D to cancer prevention is not so perfectly clear. See the text and video at How Compelling is the Evidence?. And New Evidence on Vitiamin D, cancer and heart disease. The “inconsistency” noted by the researchers, most likely, imo, relates to the interrelation of Vitamin D to these other vitamins. When you test the question of Vitamin D’s relation to cancer with out controlling the other factors, you will probably see inconsitency.
2. On Vitamin A’s role in Vitamin D regulation see Masterjohn on Tufts and Vitamin A D and K.
3. Vitamin K1 foods here.
4. You can see the difference between grass fed / pastured eggs and butter just by looking at the color of the butter / yoke. See Is All Butter Created Equal?
5. See for example: Dietary Intake of Menaquinone Is Associated with a Reduced Risk ofCoronary Heart Disease: The Rotterdam Study.
Topics: Nutrition, Western Diseases | No Comments »
NASA produces and promotes new LENR video: Nuclear power coming soon to your home
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | January 12, 2012
NASA is all in and claiming to “be working on another way of producing energy with efficient nuclear power.” NASA as an organization apparently suddenly wants to be seen as in the forefront of this new thing they see coming. Pretty cool actually.
NASA has produced and featured a video presenting LENR as a technology. The video features Dr. Joseph Zawodny, Senior Research Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center. The video highlights the potential of having a LENR nuclear power generation device in your home to provide all the power needs of your home as the “easiest” implementation, even though it could potentially be used even for transportation and infrastructure. The technology is “clean” producing no ionizing radiation or waste.
See the video highlight on the right of the NASA technology gateway page here.
The video directly is here.
In the meantime, A. Rossi continues to move apace claiming he is working on putting his e-cat LENR device into production. He is working with National Instruments to complete his design. He claims that the first small home units that generate electricity and can heat / cool the home will be in production by the end of 2012 for around $1500 and he plans on producing a million the first year after they get going. See here and here.
Two interesting notes:
1. The NASA video avoids using the term “cold fusion.”
2. The NASA video interestingly right toward the end uses an image to represent LENR somewhat abstractly which it attributes to the US Navy SPAWAR within the video (see lower left).
Topics: LENR, nuclear energy | No Comments »
2011 nutrition lessons #4: gluten sensitivity
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | January 5, 2012
One of the most surprising lessons for me in 2011 was learning about the whole area of celiac disease, gluten, grain hating, leaky gut, and the whole area of autoimmune diseases. I knew nothing of any of these things in January 2011. This is a summary of my lesson learned and pointers to directions where anyone interested can continue research and reading.
“Celiac Disease” has been around for a long time but was not properly diagnosed till the 1970s.[1] At that time actual physical damage caused to the small intestine as a result of the disease was able to be seen / observed via biopsy.[2] This damage is actually caused by an immune system response to gluten, a protein in wheat, when it improperly gets past the gut wall and into the body / blood stream.
Until recently very few realized that Celiac Disease is not a special one-of-a-kind gut disease. There have been a few doctors and books around that have pointed this out. [3] But until the last few years this was not generally acknowledged or properly recognized.
In addition, there was a large number of studies in the 1970s and 1980s which had associated the genetic marker HLA-B8 with a long list of auto-immune diseases. Autoimmune diseases were recognized as diseases in which the immune system reacted to things within the body as if they were foreign disease agents. Also in the 70′s it was recognized that the HLA-B8 gene was a marker for celiac disease.[4] But it was also noted that unlike all the other autoimmune diseases, celiac was related to an external agent, gluten intake. How the autoimmune diseases and celiac disease were actually related is only now being pieced together, as we will see.
The first important concept to grasp is the working idea that a person’s gut, is really viewed medically as “outside the body” because it is essentially one long tube with an input and an output. That which goes in is broken down and useful parts are absorbed across the intestine wall “into the body” but the rest remains “outside of the body” until it is ejected. That is how it is supposed to work.
According to a recent paper by A. Fasano of the University of Maryland, there is now good evidence to show that many autoimmune diseases are associated to a phenomenon called “leaky gut”, or high intestinal permeability. Leaky gut tends to occur in people with particular genetic markers, like DQ8, but others as well. When leaky gut occurs, the intestine wall barrier does not work correctly in some way and allows unusable substances past the boundary into the blood stream.[5] And the body’s fix for such things varies by substance leaked. But generally, the body’s immune system starts to attack the foreign substance wherever it is found in the body. This causes the immune system of some individuals to attack their own body in various ways potentially causing one or more of an incredibly long list of diseases. Dr. Fasano has presented experimental data tying this “leaky gut” phenomenon to Celiac, Gluten Sensitivity, Asthma, Type 1 Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Exactly what “leaks” in each of these diseases (and probably the long list given earlier) and specifically how the body reacts to such a leak are details that will be studied for years to come.
However, Dr. Fasano was led to this general discovery specifically because of his specific work with gluten. At this point, gluten is the only substance / protein positively identified that follows this leaky gut route into the body (although there may very well be many more). And when gluten manages to get across the gut boundary, bad things happen. In his latest paper, Dr. Fasano claims that there are now “at least 50 toxic epitopes in gluten peptides” [6] which are involved in gut permeation which means that gluten can cause a variety of bad things to happen in a variety of disease paths. The details of all of this are the objects of current study.
So many other things besides Celiac disease can happen to an individual when the gut leaks gluten components, that is, when one has “gluten sensitivity”. For example, one area that has been investigated to some degree are the many neurological symptoms due to the immune system mounting a response to gluten which ends up attacking various parts of the nervous system.
In “Neruological Manifestations of Celiac Disease in Children and Adults”, a 2010 review of the medical literature found that there are now many studies which have linked various neurological problems to immunological response to gluten:
Epilepsy, cerebellar ataxia, peripheral neuropathy, myoclonic ataxia, progressive leukoencephalopathy, cerebral vasculitis, dementia, migraine, chorea, brain stem dysfunction, myelopathy, mononeuritis multiplex, and Guillian–Barre-like syndrome were described (in the literature). More recently, a range of “soft” neurological disorders were found to be associated with CD. Chronic headaches, developmental delay, hypotonia, learning disorders, or attention-deficient/hyperactivity disor- der appeared in the literature.
…
Regardless of the etiology, if not promptly treated, CD can cause irreversible neurological damage. In support of this hypothesis, a significant correlation was found between the duration of the disease preceding diagnosis and treatment, and the neurological findings detected even years after the diagnosis.
In another literature review, Fasano and others point out that general observations had been made as early as the 1940′s connecting celiac disease with schizophrenia.[8] There was a suggestive enough association that in 1946 FC Dohan did a study that compared the rates of admission to psychiatric hospitals to the rate of consumption of wheat in WWII. In WWII, scarcity of grain in some countries caused wheat consumption to decrease significantly. Dohan found that rates of admission to psychiatric hospitals were significantly correlated to the rates of consumption of wheat.[9] A study published in 1996, found that 57% of patients with neurological dysfunction showed evidence of gluten sensitivity via blood test in contrast to only 12% of his control group.[10] These are just a few references in a long list of medical articles on this topic. In at least one mental hospital schizophrenia became known as “bread mania” because of the observed correlation.
There is much less known about the gluten and cancer. Nevertheless, many studies have indicated that gluten sensitivity and Celiac disease increase the risk for cancer especially of the mouth, stomach, and even more so the esophagus and small bowel. For example, one study published in the American Journal of Medicine in 2003 found that those with Celiac disease were 9 times more likely to die of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma than the general population, 30 times more likely of cancer of the small bowel, 10 times more likely from esophageal cancer, 5 times more likely of melanoma, and so on.[12] Some studies have indicated a gluten free diet can lead to reduced risk of such cancers. Others have not indicated such a benefit. The study referred to concluded that it can take several years of eating a gluten free diet before the risk of some of these cancers declines. There is still much work to be done in this area though. Even the basic mechanism of how gluten sensitivity leads to such cancers is unknown.
On top of all that there are other studies which have looked into and linked gluten intolerance to other issues like arthritis and even skin issues like psoriasis. See here.
Now, all of that was eye opening enough. But what makes it really hard to believe is that classic Celiac Disease seems to affect only 0.3% to 1.0% of the U.S. population of Caucasian European descent (others of other genetic descent such as blacks or Asians have a lower incident rate). However gluten sensitivity, that is those who have “leaky gut” but not the classic intestine damage of Celiac, is estimated via blood test to affect between 6% and 12% of the population. But other stool tests, claimed to be more sensitive and consistent, estimate that there may be as much as 35% of the population affected in some way by gluten sensitivity.[11] This indicates that up to 35% of the population has some form of leaky gut in relation to gluten and are suffering from symptoms and issues probably related to the various diseases mentioned in all the medical literature.
On a personal note, after having read much of this material I had myself and members of my family tested because of symptoms that seemed “too familiar.” I came back positive. And my genetic tests indicated gluten sensitivity related genes, although not HLA-DQ2 or DQ8. Having been mostly gluten free now for a while, I can say that I have seen digestive differences, but one of the most notable to me has been the lack of headaches. I have had regular headaches for various periods during my whole life and was a consistent consumer of Ibuprofen in recent years. It was just something I lived with. But those have pretty much gone away at this point, which I did not anticipate at all but am quite happy with.
Compared to just a few years ago it is much easier now to go gluten free. Restaurants and markets are now providing gluten free products because the size of the market is increasing so much so as to make it worth while. All indications are that the size of this market will continue to increase as testing continues to increase. We will almost certainly hear much more about “leaky gut” in the future as more is understood of this phenomenon and how many illnesses / diseases it related to.
The above type of information has led to a certain “grain hating” among various nutrition parties, especially the paleo crowd. Cries of “grains are poison”, for example, can be heard from time to time. Historically and even today of course millions depend on grains for much of their basic caloric intake. The same was true even in antiquity when Rome required the grain of Egypt to keep its urban population fed. We know that many people in the past prepared their grains before consumption via soaking and fermentation etc. which tends to break down some of the gluten content in grains. We also can not be certain if modern varieties of grain contain more or less or equal gluten to what was consumed in the past. We do know that testing of preserved blood samples from 50 years ago indicates that gluten sensitivity has increased dramatically among the population in the last half century. But why is this? There are many such questions and comments for which there is no room left in this post. I think this has been enough to fuel the fire for someone interested in the topic.
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1. See this video here where Professor A. Fasano of the Univ. of Maryland and a leading Celiac expert in the U.S. introduces a lady who was born in the late 1930s and suffered with celiac until she was first diagnosed properly in the early 1970s. These kids were called “banana babies” because that is what they were fed to keep them alive.
2. The disease is described on the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse website here.
3. For example see James Braly M.D. and Ron Hoggan, M.A., Dangerous Grains: Why Gluten Cereal Grains May be Hazardous To Your Health, (New York: Penguin, 2002). The forward to this book was written by Jonathon Wright who makes mention of a book Your Family Tree Connection which was written by Dr. Christopher Reading of Australia. Dr. Reading, in the mid-1980′s, apparently had documentation of over 100 patients he had cured of various seeming undiagnosable symptoms by taking them off of grains and dairy products.
4. There are many such studies. Jonathon Wright in the forward to Dangerous Grains states that this genetic marker in the 1980′s is was already associated with:
- Addison’s disease
- Autoimmune hemolytic anemia
- Celiac disease
- Childhood asthma
- Chronic autoimmune hepatitis
- Dermatitis herpetiformis
- Diabetes mellitus
- Graves’ disease
- Insulin-dependent diabetes (type 1)
- Lupus erythematosus (systemic)
- Myasthenia gravis
- Pernicious anemia
- Polymyalgia rheumatica
- Scleroderma
- Sjoegren-Larsson syndrom
- Thyrotoxicosis
- Ulcerative colitis
- Vitiligo
5. See Alessio Fasano, “Leaky Gut and Autoimmune Diseases”, Clinic Rev Allerg Immunol, Nov 2011. Dr. Fasano and his colleagues have identified a potential way in which this happens. They already have a drug developed called Larazotide Acetate which they believe corrects at least one of the major ways leaky gut develops. This drug is currently in Phase IIb studies. It will have to pass a long Phase III test before it would be on the market. So it is at least several years away yet. Nevertheless, the rights to this drug were bought from Alba by a company called Cephalon in early 2011. And in late 2011, Cephalon was bought by a large pharmaceutical company, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, from Israel.
6. ”Leaky Gut and Autoimmune Diseases”, Clinic Rev Allerg Immunol, Nov 2011. Published online.
7. Aaron Lerner, Badira F. Makhoul, and Rami Eliakim, “Neurological Manifestations of Celiac Disease in Children and Adults”, European Neurological Journal, 2010.
8. AE Kalaydjian, W. Eaton, and A. Fasano, “The gluten connection: the association between schizophrenia and celiac disease”, Acta Psychiatr Scand, 113 (2006): 82-90.
9. FC Dohan, “Wartime changes in hospital admissions for schizophrenia. A comparison of admission for schizophrenia and other psychoses in six countries during World War II. Acta Psychiatr Scand 42 (1946): 1 – 23.
10. M. Hadjivassilou et al., “Does cryptic gluten sensitivity play a part in neurological illness?”, Lancet 347 (1996): 369-371.
11. See the claims here on the website of Dr. Kenneth Fine’s EnteroLabs.
12. Peter Green et al., “Risk of Malignancy in Patients with Celiac Disease”, Am. J. Med. 115 (2003): 191-195.
Topics: Nutrition | No Comments »
e-cat cold fusion coming to Home Depot in 2012?
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | January 3, 2012
Inventor A. Rossi claims in a new interview that he is in talks with Home Depot to sell small home size LENR/Cold Fusion generators of 10kW to 20kW starting in late 2012. It seems a little hard to believe given all the things that would have to stand in the way of something like that especially in regard to all the safety certifications that would be required. But if it should happen it would speak to 2 things (probably more):
1. how simple this technology really is once you know how to get it to basically work – in other words, putting it into production will not be a multi-year affair.
2. in spite of all its weaknesses and all the things that stood in the way, it was basic old fashioned ingenuity, hard work, and an open capitalistic system that enabled this to happen with such rapidity in the face of so much lack of progress in governmental systems for 2 decades. It would be a tremendous event easily overlooked in the bright light of revelation of the basic technology / phenomenon itself.
Topics: Alternative Energy, LENR, Uncategorized | No Comments »
2011 nutrition lessons learned #3: Misc – sugar, dairy
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | January 2, 2012
This is the third nutrition entry documenting the nutrition things I learned while reading in 2011. The last two entries have been more summary in nature with many references to lead the reader on to other sources. I have already written blog entries about all these topics so I am trying to keep these short and sweet but get everything in one place as I do not expect to spend as much time on nutrition in 2012. Having said that, this will be the last of the summary entries, then I will move on to two final entries which will be about topics that are very interesting, leading edge, and about which I have not written blog entries before.
TOPIC 1: SUGAR / FRUCTOSE
In the original entry here at the start of this summary series, one of my starting points on my 45th birthday was to cut sugar out of my diet. It is very hard to make this a hard “none.” But I have probably cut sugar down by 90% or more since I began. On occasion, like last night’s Starbuck’s whole milk hot chocolate, I will still have some sugar. But it is definitely maintained in a “treat” class and kept as rare as possible. I avoid it pretty much altogether in my main meals which means almost no packaged or processed foods. No boxed cereal. Very few sauces or salad dressings are used. Little to no fruit juices. No sugar soft drinks or energy drinks.
Did you know, with all these things in the diet the average American eats 130 – 150 lbs of sugar a year? That is a drastic increase in the last 30 years and an enormous increase in the last 100 years.
Did you know that your basic white sugar is essentially the same chemically as High Fructose Corn Syrup, the recent boogeyman that public pressure forced out of lots of foods?
Did you know that sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. It is the fructose, which is the thing that makes most fruit sweet? And because of the chemical nature of fructose it is only processed by the body in the liver. Fructose in whole fruit is good. Fructose outside of the context of its natural fruit container is not so good.
A must watch on sugar is Sugar: The Bitter Truth by Robert Lustig here.
It is amazing how “sweet” things containing even a modest amount of sugar taste, once you are off the drug for a couple of months. You’ll taste sugar in places you never tasted it before. And “sweet” things will be almost grossly so. And getting out the sugar “haze” often helps in clearing up foggy brain problems, lack of concentration capabilities, etc.
TOPIC 2: DAIRY
Dairy products are an interesting topic. It is a controversial topic even among the various nutrition camps. Some vegetarians will eat dairy. Vegans do not. Within the paleo camp, dairy is somewhat contentious. Some feel its a useful animal product. Other people suggest avoiding it.
A couple of concrete observations and recommendations can be made though.
1. There are people who eat lots of dairy even making it most of their diet, like the Massai in Africa (who mix it with cow blood). And these people are able to live for years on this very high fat dairy diet and not suffer the heart and obesity problems that modern Americans experience.
iN SUMMARY: Dairly is not the cause of obesity and heart attacks.
2. On the other hand there are lots of people in the world who suffer various kinds of dairy intolerance. Most of the Asian world does not eat dairy and yet can be very healthy. The “you need dairy to have strong bones” argument doesn’t make much sense when you compare incident rates of things like elderly falls which break hips and pelvis bones and see that these are bigger problems in American where dairy is regularly consumed, than in many Asian countries where it is not.
IN SUMMARY: Dairy is not an essential part of the diet. You can live without it.
My wife is lactose intolerant. She doesn’t eat any dairy. I find dairy makes my skin oilier and I get small breakouts after eating it (quite predictably now). So in general I avoid dairy and I drink the very nice unsweetened Cocoanut Nut milk product from Turtle Mountain seen here. Hey, Jilian Michaels promotes it so how can you argue with that? 
Almond milk is another yummy alternative.
Sometimes I have a craving for some Greek Yogurt or a Starbucks Chai Tea or Hot Chocolate and then I will have some milk. When I do, going back to the last post on fat, I go all in and order whole milk in order to get myself a good dose of dairy fat. But it is only on occasion. And now there is the very yummy Cultured Cocoanut milk that is like Cocoanut based Kefir. It’s still hard to find here in Lincoln. But it is slowly replacing my yogurt.
Soy appears not to be a good substitute for milk. Drink milk instead if you can. Regarding the reasons to avoid soy milk see here and here. On the other side of the fence read here. Clearly soy affects different people differently. But the fact that it is a non-natural highly processed product when there are simply good nutritious yummy natural alternatives means I have no personal need to consume it or defend it. On the other hand, I have had soy milk on a few occasions.
TOPIC 3: REFINED WHITE FLOUR
Just don’t do it. If you make it this far you already avoid most of the processed stuff due to sugar so just don’t do all the refined white flour based breads and pastries. Do whole grain like the USDA says. At least until my next post. That’s when I will get extreme, and crazy, and so interesting.
Topics: Nutrition | No Comments »
2011 nutrition lessons learned: #2 Dietary Fat and Cholesterol Summary
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | January 1, 2012
Mainstream nutritional advice, which is largely that promoted by the federal government, among others has a major theses regarding cholesterol and fat which it promotes:
Eating foods that contain saturated fats raises the level of cholesterol in your blood. High levels of blood cholesterol increase your risk of heart disease and stroke. Be aware, too, that many foods high in saturated fats are also high in cholesterol – which raises your blood cholesterol even higher.
(Taken from the www.heart.org website as representative of this general thesis)
In fact the scientific data supporting this thesis is actually quite poor. Consumption of dietary cholesterol and fat may have mild effects upon the blood cholesterol of some people, but not in many. And even where blood cholesterol is elevated a bit this has little affect upon heart disease and heart attacks. In fact the interpretation of measured blood cholesterol levels has changed over time. The LDL to HDL ratio seems to be more important now than absolute levels. And in general high Triglycerides and low HDL has some correlation with heart disease, more so than just high LDL. And now there is emerging talk of “big fluffy LDL” and “small dense LDL” so the story continues to change.
In terms of the Vegan crowd, they are usually like this general thesis and mutate it slightly into their own rule “no saturated ANIMAL fats”. T.C.Campbell of The China Study fame is all about avoiding animal products in general so saturated animal fats definitely goes on the list of no-no’s. Caldwell B. Esselstyn in his Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease is all about lowering overall all cholesterol levels to below 150, which they believe can only be done by avoiding dietary fat and cholesterol, because he believes this makes a person “heart attack proof.” His claim is that:
After 5 years on Dr. Esselstyn’s plant-based diet, the average total cholesterol levels of his research group dropped from 246 milligrams per deciliter to 137 mg/dL (Above 240 mg/dL is considered “high risk,” below 150 mg/dL is the total cholesterol level seen in cultures where heart disease is essentially nonexistent.) [1]
Contrary to this dietary fat = heart disease hypothesis I propose you investigate the alternative information sources. There is no use reproducing all the content. Here are a few conclusions I have come to and some suggestions for further investigation:
1. The history of how the “consumption of dietary cholesterol and fat” became to be mainstream dogma is presented in good detail by Gary Taubes in his Good Calories, Bad Calories section titled “The “Fat-Cholesterol Hypothesis”. It is worth the read.[2]
2. In regard to dietary cholesterol, even Ancel Keys did not think it had a link to heart disease.[3]. Very good material has been presented by Chris Masterjohn in numerous places. See here on his own blog. And here. A very good podcast (audio) on the subject can be listened to here and here. Do a little googling. There is material all over. One significant result: start eating eggs again. They are an awesome food. Try and find good cage free range chicken eggs. The yolks are much more colorful orange than the pale yellow of the typical caged grain fed chicken eggs. They are more expensive but worth it. Eat your eggs! [4] And liver too if you can stand it.
3. There is a lot of evidence that in fact the poly-unsaturated fats (PUFAS) in vegetable oils (corn oils, soybean oil etc.) are much worse for you than the saturated fat of lard, butter, or coconut oil. We use much more butter than we used to. In addition, consider the good saturated fat in coconut oil. Very good for you contrary to the mainline dogma. It turns out that the poly-unsaturated fats are very unstable compared to saturated fats and tend to “oxidize” easily. Oxidized fats are a bad thing to have running around in your body. Chris Masterjohn compares these broken molecules to being like broken shards of glass floating around damaging your body. Avoid the PUFAS. Go lard, butter, cocoanut oil.
4. And, yeah, that bacon is OK too.
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1. http://www.heartattackproof.com/. I went from 200 to 157 in 2 months eating more cholesterol (eggs) than ever. How does that work?
2. He goes to great effort to demonize a guy named Ancel Keys as the source of all dietary fat nonsense. Most of the Peleo diet group have jumped on this Ancel-Keys-Hater bandwagon. For a more balanced presentation see this article by Denise Minger which is well studied and presented: http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/12/22/the-truth-about-ancel-keys-weve-all-got-it-wrong/
3. see the quotations provided in the Denise Minger article referenced in Note #2.
4. Another interesting topic to read up on is choline and the proper fat metabolism in the liver – eggs are a significant source of choline. Chopping eggs out of the diet in the name of supposed better cholesterol was a major mistake. Read about choline, the liver, and eggs: here and here.
Topics: Nutrition | No Comments »
2011 nutrition lessons learned: background
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 31, 2011
It is the end of 2011. One of the biggest changes in my life in 2011 has been changes in diet and nutrition in response to ongoing questionable cholesterol levels. Since this is the last day of the year, I want to get some of this documented for the benefit of others. I am in a successful new routine and am moving on to other things that have my attention now.
Happy New Year and I hope the following posts are of benefit:
For over 2 years I had been pretty good at following the generally accepted practice of a “low fat low calorie diet with regular exercise.” I averaged at or below 2000 calories a day. I exercised via running, biking, weights, or swimming, about 30 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. I was down to 207 lbs from a high of 215 lbs in 2009. But I could not push it lower. And my measured cholesterol levels continued to be high to marginally high and would not budge down far, especially tryglycerides, but LDL was high and HDL was low. Example numbers from before:
Total Chol: 191
LDL: 101
HDL: 44
Trygl: 227
They were worse at one time. But the above was after 2 years of pretty regular attack as described above. Frustrating! So this finally led, on my 45th birthday in August 2011, to start reading, learning, and making changes.
POSITION 1: VEGAN
I bought a Kindle (the original). And the first book I read after a quick Google search was The China Study by Colin Campbell. It is basically about Dr. Campbell’s role and experience in analyzing the enormous amount of health data gathered from a large selection of Chinese. The study generated an enormous amount of data. Campbell presents his interpretation of it in this book. And that interpretation is: You should be a vegetarian, really a Vegan vegetarian because all animal based food products cause cancer and heart attacks. It was my first read. It seemed initially convincing. I thought: wow, going Vegan. Never thought I would do that. I was considering being a Vegan … for about 2 days. Then I came across the disease rates for Vegans presented by Vegans on the VeganHealth.org website here. I thought: That’s not very impressive, particularly cancer rates which in some cases are noticeably higher for Vegans/Vegetarians. Ok – back to Google then:
Never being one to settle for one point of view, I did some Googling for responses to this book. Everyone pretty much acknowledges the book for its importance and influence. That’s fine. At least I wasn’t wasting my time reading it. However, there are many contrary opinions. And one of the best presentations of an alternate point of view is found on the web by an ex-Vegan author Denise Minger, who is not a doctor, but has a very sharp analytical mind, loves bathing in the statistical analysis details of a study like this, is a major medical study nerd in her reading, and is very clever and witty in her presentation of her findings. She’s a great author. She has several responses to The China Study, that have become a thorn in Campbell’s back side. See here for example.
So this immediately started to appear like ground I am quite familiar with, the party / faction mine field of theological opinion. And the same skills can be used to navigate both.
POSITION 2: LOW CARB / PALEO
I decided to read another work but one that is on the other side of the current nutrition spectrum: Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. Gary Taubes argues just the opposite of Campbell. His working theory is that the “dietary fat leads to high cholesterol and hear attacks” dogma that is widely promoted by official US Government sources, is wrong. He argues that the animal based foods are the best for you and that carbohydrates (sugars, starches, grains, etc.) lead to bad sugar / glucose blood levels and this leads to all kinds of bad health. Eat high fat, high protein, low carbohydrate, is his mantra. Taubes’ argument can be viewed as being similar in philosophical source to Atkins. But they both have common roots from before that.
An associated party to the Taubes argument is the Paleolithic party that builds itself on the foundation of an evolutionary argument, which essentially says: our genetics were put into place thousands of years before agriculture so it would be healthier to eat more like our cave man ancestors than to eat like a modern day farmer. This argument has been promoted by Dr. Loren Cordain, professor of exercise physiology at Colorado State University. He has a book: The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating theFoods You were Designed to Eat. This argument has been picked up and promoted by many other people especially a host of web bloggers. It has turned into the latest dietary fad. (Oh, and if you are into following fads – we are already leaving Peleo behind and moving toward the post-Paleo age – so try and keep up).
They differ in some details, especially in how much they despise or hate grains (esp. wheat), but their fundamental arguments are the same: eat low carbohydrate to keep blood glucose low. This leads to better health.
POSITION 3: STUDIES OF EXISTING NON-WESTERNIZED POPULATIONS
So there we have two major differing parties. But a different approach has been taken by others. And this approach was motivated by the observation that the health of technologically sophisticated Western societies was superior in some ways, to non-modern non-Westernized societies, especially in regard to treating infectious diseases, but actually is not superior or even lacked in regard to those same non–Western societies in other ways, in particular those major modern problems of obesity, cancer, and heart attack. It was noted many times in the 19th century and into the 20th that as modern Western countries “westernized” populations and changed their life styles and diets that “Western Diseases” came along – namely cancer, hypertension, diabetes, heart attacks. These things were uncommon and hardly known in many of the primitive populations.
So in the mid 20th century there were a number of people who studied this westernizing process and its affects. Dr. Weston Price was one of these people. He travelled the world for many years (many times with his wife) and met and investigated “native” peoples and observed their health mostly via observing their dental health. He and others found many native peoples who barely suffered from modern dental issues like cavities (caries) or other health problems like heart attack and cancer. This method of investigating native non-westernized peoples continues to this day by researchers, but has become a much harder thing to do since there are so few non-westernized primitive populations left.
I tend to favor the POSITION 3 approach even though it is harder to make a clean systematic philosophy out of it compared to when you start with a clean philosophically sharpened point like “low carb diet” or “animal foods kill”. This is because the populations studied are so varied and different. But they are real people leading real and successful and healthy lives. So the data is real. You can see Dr. Price in short video here.
One basic premise of his work and of those carrying on similar investigations in the 20th century was that the western food basics of sugar and refined white wheat flour were major components of the degeneration of dental and general health of people. The introduction of these foods effectively substituted for other foods that were more nutritious and healthful even if these native foods were highly varied from population to population.
FIRST PLAN FOR MARK in 2011:
As varied as these approaches are, a couple of things all have in common as dietary suggestions: NO SUGAR, NO REFINED WHITE FLOUR. Meanwhile, continue reading and learning. That’s what I did, starting Aug 25, 2011.
You will find that those two simple rules affect a modern American diet quite a lot. They eliminate almost all processed foods. The “no sugar” rule is very difficult to do absolutely but I did so for about 8 weeks. I kept my overall calorie intake the same as it was or a little higher even. I kept up my normal exercise routines.
Ater 2 weeks: I had lost 10 lbs. Down from 207 lbs to 197 lbs. [1] After only 2 months, when 2 years of previous effort had produced few results, my measured cholesterol was:
Total Chol: 157
LDL: 79
HDL: 49
Trig: 143
This was accomplished with no drugs involved, just better foods. Now on Dec 31, I am down to 191 lbs or so, just above where I was about 25 years ago.
I still follow those rules, although I allow a small amount of sugar now. In addition, as I learned more I have added a few new rules. I will speak about these in the following end-of-year posts.
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1. This rapid first stage loss of 8 to 10 lbs actually seems to be a fairly common experience. It is referred to in many of the above sources even if it is attributed in each to their special diet in particular. My two oldest kids, 19 and 21 yrs old, had the same experience.
Topics: Nutrition | No Comments »
NASA seriously believes in Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR)
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 13, 2011
A recent Freedom of Information request by Steve Krivit has turned up 3 significant presentations given at a NASA LENR Innovation Forum in Sept 2011, where three major presentations by current or former NASA scientists all assume that LENR reactions (which have been referred to as Cold Fusion reactions by the press and others) are real and that they should be investigated and developed for use in NASA missions.
See here.
A summary is given here also as well as elsewhere.
A few major highlights according to NASA:
“LENR is a form of nuclear power. However, LENR is NOT cold fusion”
LENR reactions are somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000,000 more energy dense than typical chemical reactions – that is, much less fuel required per energy generated compared to oil, coal, natural gas, etc..
“Total replacement of fossil fuels” (at least for NASA uses [mdn])
“A cheap, abundant, clean, scalable, portable source of energy will impact EVERYONE” (emphasis in original)
“Singular solution to peak oil, climate change, fresh water, and associated geopolitical instabilities”
“Enables widely distributed generation. Homes and businesses generate what they need – on site”
“Over 2 decades with over 100 experiments worldwide indicate LENR is real, much greater than Chemical, Transmutations (of elements), Minimal radiation”
“The 2 decades of experiments and the weak interaction theories have removed the existential risk (that is, NASA is convinced it is real [mdn]), what is remaining is to ENGINEER for improved performance.”
“The first step (for NASA) is to complete basic testing of this technology … This should be completed by early 2012 if not sooner if testing can start in the near future. This effort will be a collaborative effort between Glenn Research Center, Langley Research Center, Marshall Space Flight Center.”
“In short, LENR, depending upon the TBD performance, appears capable of Revolutionizing Aerospace across the board. No other single technology even comes close to the potential impacts of LENR upon Agency Missions.”
Topics: LENR | No Comments »
It’s getting cold in here. US Govt data confirms US temps have been cooling for a decade
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 13, 2011
This entire post from Anthony Watts is worthwhile. But in summary, for the last 10 years, even actually longer, since 1998, US annual, summer, and winter temperatures have been getting cooler, according to the best US govt. temperature data. But winters in particular have been getting notably colder, especially, unfortunately, here in the northern plains.
Winter Temperature trends by US region:
Annual temperature trends by US region:
Some arguing for climate change action suggest that man made pollution is masking the man made climate warming. For example, according to this article, China is causing global warming with all that CO2 they are producing with dirty coal, but all the dirty sulphur coming out of the plants at the same time is masking the warming effect and actually making it colder. Now, apparently, the risk is that if China cleans up the output of the dirty coal power stations, then the real effect of the CO2 will come forth and warming will occur rapidly. Others have suggested that the new and unusual low activity of the solar cycle in Cycle 23 and Cycle 24 will mask CO2 warming. Yet others claim the lull in solar activity will not significantly affect the rate of climate change (that is, warming temps).
Anyhoo, the US temps are currently in a down trend, the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) officially started a cool phase a couple of years ago (see the blue way at the right end of the graph) and will probably last for multiple years. [1] The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation appears to be rapidly approaching a cool phase with the first significantly negative November temperature anomaly since 1996 .[2] And on top of that the equatorial Pacific just officially entered a new La Nina period that will last at least into next spring, if not summer. This is the 2nd La Nina in the last few years. All of this portends colder temperatures in North America and elsewhere. On top of all that the sun is acting weird by generating so few sunspots which may actually all disappear by 2015, according to one active theory[3]. What the heck?
So in spite of all that new crazy wild CO2, I would buy some new winter gloves rather than some new short shorts.
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1. See the PDO explanation with a current graph here and here. See the current raw data here. The November 2011 anomaly (-2.33 deg C) is the coldest November anomaly since 1955.
2. See an explanation here and here.
3. If you like solar stuff Google Livingston and Penn and watch the active recording of data by Leif Svalgaard here. So far they are pretty accurate even though no one can explain for sure what’s going on.
Topics: climate, ENSO, La Nina | No Comments »
U.S. a net petroleum product exporter in 2011? Say what?
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 6, 2011
ok – so, remember the common headlines that the US imports 60% of its oil, from a few years ago (as recently as 2008), implying impending doom? Much less attention was paid to the forecast that this was going to fall to around 40% (see here) And only 2 years later, the 2010 percentage fell below 50% for the first time in a long time, in large part due to lower usage blamed largely on a slower economy. See here for example. The 2011 numbers won’t be in for a while, but they should be lower yet.
Of that 49% or so of our oil that we import, did you know that about half of it comes from the combination of Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela?
Granted, that still leaves quite a bit coming from OPEC which continues to be a concern.
OK – so in light of those numbers does this headline take you by surprise?
U.S. on Pace to Become Net Fuel Exporter
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/05/us-on-pace-to-become-net-fuel-exporter/#ixzz1fiBdDMfU
referenced from the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203441704577068670488306242.html
Alright – so we have this big “we import soooo much oil” problem right? Uh, … but in 2011 we will actually send more of it out to other countries in exports than we bring in with imports! So we import 49% of what we use. But we export more than that amount. Yeah. Ok. Ever heard that one before? Or am I the only one who missed it?
Looks like we now import a bunch of crude, process it, and then export it as various processed fuels to all those developing economies, presumably for more than we bought it for and for what it cost to process. Hmmm. That’s a different take on the “we’re all doomed” energy reliance problem.
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