Free the Animal

What You're Up Against - The American Diabetes Association

If you harbor any doubt that the American Diabetes Association is the arch enemy of all diabetics everywhere, all the time and in all situations, look no further than Jay's comment to a post over on Art's subscription blog.

Friday I stopped by the local office of American Diabetes Association to pick up materials for the Tour de Cure bike ride. Participants were stopping in all day to register for the event. There were Dunkin Donuts available for anyone. There were large bags of M&Ms to be given to participants on race day. I was shocked! This is the ADA and they are giving out donuts!

Saturday was the bike ride. I road 100k. I road for fun not exercise. I went slow by biking standards I’m sure. I met a “pre-diabetic”. He looked slim by diabetes standards. I thought he a type 1 like myself. I told him about EF and my diet. When he told me that he rides his bike daily(over 100m/wk) and can’t do it without carbs I realized his pre-diabetes will likely become full blown. He is what I’d call “skinny-fat”. He is consuming large amounts of carbs to fuel long/slow exercise. His pancreas is working overtime. This is a recipe for disaster.

This is particularly annoying when you consider that on this blog and many others, and forums like Dr. Bernstein's, one can read dozens and dozens of personal stories of greatly improved type 2 diabetes, and even cures -- i.e., people getting off insulin. Then there's Jenny. She'll do a type 2 diabetic more livesaving good than all the diabetes associations worldwide, combined. That's not hyperbole.

So how do we get to such an upside-down state of affairs? Well, I think part of it is the top-down, institutional, collectivist nature of modern society and its irreconcilable clash with our evolved ancestry as hunter gatherers (where every individual was of utmost importance to the small group). Now, people gain importance though other means, many of which involve a self-referential, circular system of prestige, position, favor -- much of it ultimately sustained at gunpoint or prison sentences.

Setting that aside, there's also the fact that the American Diabetes Association receives millions every year from junk "food" manufactures and drug companies. Talk about incest. A perfect storm of downright fraud, presided over by Chairman of the Board, George J. Huntley, Chief Executive Officer, Larry Hausner, and their petty bands of miscreants.

The ADA, which relies mainly on donations to fund its efforts, accepted more than $23 million dollars from food manufacturers and drug companies in 2005. The charity would often license its logo to food companies for use on diet or low-sugar products in exchange for sponsorship money.

You know, referring to the quoted comment at the beginning, this is really no different that an open bar at an AA meeting.

Actually, it's worse. One could understand alcoholics having their weaknesses and falling off the wagon.

...But what if they claimed that regular drinking was necessary for alcoholics, so that they don't overdose on counseling, help, and self-control?

The ADA is a fraud because, rather than instruct diabetics on a proper diet, then having the drugs and procedures available for those who simply won't, they instead act as though donuts, candy, and other high-carbohydrate poisons are perfectly fine, even healthy. At the same time, they condemn food like meat and animal fat, leaving those susceptible to their lies with ittle to eat but the junk that's manufactured by their benefactors.

The American Diabetes Association is literally presiding over the maiming (foot amputations, blindness, morbid obesity) and early deaths (heart disease, typically) of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.

Poison Sugar - In Shocking Pictures

I do a fair amount of harping about processed foods, focussing a lot on grains and frankenoils and such. I should talk more about what I consider to be the number one killer in all the world: sugar, especially refined sugar and concentrated forms.

Now, let me show you why. But first, how much sugar is circulating in your entire body at any one time? Let's say you have ideal fasting blood glucose (80 milligrams per deciliter -- mg/dl). For an average sized person with a blood volume of 5 liters, that comes out to...ready for this?...ONE 4 gram SUGAR CUBE. Skeptical? Well, let Dr. Michael Eades convince you.

Now, at an average consumption of 156 pounds per American per year, "only" 29 pounds of that is from the sugar bowl. The rest is added sugar in the products most Americans are eating. How much is that? Well, here's what 4,373 of them look like.

At 4 grams each (remember, that's the total volume of sugar in a fasted, healthy person), that block is 17,492 grams, or only 38 pounds (it's actually hollow). That's only 10 pounds more than what the average person gets from the sugar bowl. So, how many sugar cubes does the average American consume, per year? How about 17,690 sugar cubes, meaning that the Average American consumes over seventeen thousand times their normal fasted blood sugar in the space of the year. That means they consume 49 times their blood sugar every day and if they're awake for 16 hours, that's 3 times per waking hour. If we look at it in terms of three meals and two snacks, that's 10 times normal blood sugar per meal or snack.

And it's a mystery to everyone why health is so messed up, consuming that quantity of something that was never in our diets in any quantity before 100 years ago? Instead, we hear endless calls from expert-morons that we need to cut the fat, something that has been part of our diet in significant quantity for eons. Frankly, I'm amazed the problems aren't far worse. What a resilient organ, that pancreas.

So, how do we get so much sugar? Here's how, right here: Sugar Stacks. Keep in mind as you browse through the many illustrations, that each sugar cube represents total blood glucose volume (4 grams) in a healthy fasted individual.

So, one can of cola, 9 times normal blood sugar.

Be sure to get LOW- FAT ice cream. Don't worry that a scoop is five times normal blood sugar.

Uh oh! I think Mrs. Fields uses REAL BUTTER in her cookies. Run away!

Tell me you've never downed a whole bag of these. And how about the movie theater king sized ones?

The HEALTHY LOW-FAT alternative!

Stick with the berries, paleo people!

And veggies!

At nearly 14 times normal blood sugar. Caution: don't get it with the arterycloggingstaturatedfat butter melted on top. That's unhealthy!

At nearly 28 times normal blood sugar, I sure hope they don't use real FULL-FAT CREAM in these. That would really be a lot of FAT!

So, be sure to look at all the pictures over at Sugar Stack, bookmark it and pass it along to family and friends, and pass around this entry as well. Most people have no clue about the massive amounts of sugar they are eating.

And keep another thing in mind: this is based upon average consumption of 155 pounds of sugar per person per year. There are plenty of individuals consuming over 250 pounds per year.

Swine Flu Sanity

Don't we just eat up hysteria? I'll bet Google is just raking in the hits, worldwide, as people watch in near real time as the swine flu virus spreads its lethal tentacles across the entire globe.

Or not.

This sort of hysteria is fueled by one simple thing, and it's something we deal with here all the time: mass ignorance of evolutionary biology and its logic. Human evolution is pretty slow (though getting faster), but bacteria and viruses evolve rapidly. Why? Simple: generational length and population size. The larger the population equals higher chances for "favorable" mutations (mutations that help survival and/or reproduction) and the shorter the generation equals more rapid dissemination of the modified genes throughout the population.

Well, kinda, in this case. Our reason for concern, of course, is infection in humans and the ill effects, to include possible death. So, applying the logic above, we need a large population of infectious people in close proximity, and we need just exactly the right generational length.

We have neither, in this case.

The critical aspect is generational length. The only deaths have been in Mexico near the epicenter of the outbreak. The virus that killed those people is different from the one now spreading around the globe. In the case of the former, its generational length was too short, i.e., it incapacitated and killed too rapidly to get a foothold and spread. This is why one of the most lethal viruses know, Ebola, has always been confined to the jungles of Africa. It's literally too lethal to spread very far.

So, what is spreading, then? Well, go back to the logic of evolution. What's spreading has of necessity to be mild enough to allow its victims to walk around infected. Sure, you'll have some deaths, but not many, and those deaths will most likely be confined to people with other severe problems.

Relax.

Here's a couple of articles that should ease your mind. The first is a Critical Alert from Dr. Mercola. Dr. Mercola authored NYT bestselling The Great Bird Flu Hoax, where we learned that more people died from the vaccine than from infection of the virus itself. And the last swine flu scare, in 1976? 25 people died from the vaccine, and there was $1.3 billion in claims filed from victims of paralysis, including healthy 20-somethings ending up paraplegics. Now, you'll have to go read the actual article to find out what actually killed most of the 50-100 million people worldwide in 1918 (hint: it wasn't influenza).

And here's some sanity from the LA Times. (via @DianaHsieh)

As with any new outbreak, unraveling all of this flu's mysteries will take time. But, using the lens of Darwinian evolution, certain aspects are starting to come into focus. For one thing, it's clear that the virus, which originated in Mexico, is most virulent in that country. The 1,000 or so reported Mexican cases have been either fatal or severe enough to require hospitalization. But because of natural selection, the strains spreading across the world are milder.

According to evolutionary biologist Paul W. Ewald of the University of Louisville, human influenza is usually a mild to moderate disease because it depends on host mobility to spread. The U.S., Canadian and New Zealand teenagers on their spring breaks did not sit in hospitals with the very sick and dying; they mingled with people who were sneezing and coughing but walking around, riding subways, perhaps going to the beach or dancing in nightclubs. People don't start being really infectious until they show symptoms, and whatever symptoms those people had must have been mild enough to remain out in public. The strains sent out around the world were, by definition and necessity, milder than the most lethal strains.

And finally, reader, commenter, and friend Monica -- with a PhD in biology -- tells you how this sort of thing gets going in the first place, closing in full circle on a more paleo-styled life, where our livestock for food ought to be pastured and free roaming, simulating their natural life, just as we attempt to do. Moreover, according to Monica, it can be done.

Not All Sugars are Equal

A quick hit on an interesting bit of new research, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans

Studies in animals have documented that, compared with glucose, dietary fructose induces dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. To assess the relative effects of these dietary sugars during sustained consumption in humans, overweight and obese subjects consumed glucose- or fructose-sweetened beverages providing 25% of energy requirements for 10 weeks. Although both groups exhibited similar weight gain during the intervention, visceral adipose volume was significantly increased only in subjects consuming fructose. Fasting plasma triglyceride concentrations increased by approximately 10% during 10 weeks of glucose consumption but not after fructose consumption. In contrast, hepatic de novo lipogenesis (DNL) [RN: liver making fat] and the 23-hour postprandial triglyceride AUC were increased specifically during fructose consumption. Similarly, markers of altered lipid metabolism and lipoprotein remodeling, including fasting apoB, LDL, small dense LDL, oxidized LDL, and postprandial concentrations of remnant-like particle–triglyceride and –cholesterol significantly increased during fructose but not glucose consumption. In addition, fasting plasma glucose and insulin levels increased and insulin sensitivity decreased in subjects consuming fructose but not in those consuming glucose. These data suggest that dietary fructose specifically increases DNL, promotes dyslipidemia, decreases insulin sensitivity, and increases visceral adiposity in overweight/obese adults.

Wow, that's quite an indictment, as well as a contrast. So, fructose makes your liver create new fat, gives you more small dense LDL and oxidized LDL -- the worst, true artery "clogging" kind -- and gives you a fat belly.

Think about that next time you purchase products that contain HFCS, which just about all processed food does.

It's useful to note that primitive man in most environments would probably have had quite a bit more access to higher glucose concentrations (tubers and such) than fructose (fruits, honey, and so on) most of the time. It could be that we specifically evolved to put on fat in the late summer and fall in preparation for winter, and that fruit was a primary vehicle for accomplishing that.

Perhaps potatoes aren't as bad as thought, and maybe fruit isn't as good. I like to limit both, but if I had to choose, I'll take some potato with my meat.

Later: Hadn't seen this yet, but Stephan blogged about this study.

GOINSULIN - "It's Not What You Think. It's What You've Hoped For."

Reader Bryan emailed this last night. At first, I thought it was going to be a story of someone who went the standard ADA & drug company-partnership route, to gradually get people to pop more Metformin, Glucophage, et al, until that glorious day when the pill alone is insufficient and they have to start on the needle.

Then, of course, the gentleman in this video -- not to be anyone's fool -- would get on the internet -- maybe he joins Dr. Bernstein's forum and leans from other enlightened T2s --  educate himself, and finally tell the ADA and the drug companies to go prey on someone else. He cures his own T2, as thousands have done via high fat, low carb diets, takes off a bunch of weight, and lives happily ever after.

Bzzzzt!

Clue number one? He's still obese and sporting the classic visceral belly fat that's so strongly associated with heart attack and death in men (GOINSULIN!). Now, here you go, parts two and three, each about two minutes. Part two is: Greg's Triumph: Overcoming Insulin and Diabetes Fears. No, he didn't triumph over a condition that's curable for almost all T2s; he "triumphed" over his rational fear of sticking himself with a needle so he can continue to chow down on the deli sandwiches, chips, and sodas.

Wanna guess? Part three: Greg's Happiness: "Insulin Is Just Something I Do". GOINSULIN! GO 49ers! Go Giants! Go Go Go. Go Good Food. Go Great sleep. Go good job. GOINSULIN! It's all just something we do. We're not worried. We're happy. It's what we've hoped for!

Here's the YouTube Channel, and here's the website, at which, no spurpise at all, you'll find the ADA guidelines. Oh, and the website itself is a part of the pharmaceutical company sanofi-aventis.

Come on, now.

I hear youre feeling down.

Well I can ease your pain,

Get you on your feet again.

...

Ok. Just a little pinprick.

Therell be no more --aaaaaahhhhh!

But you may feel a little sick.

Can you stand up?

I do believe its working. good.

Thatll keep you going for the show.

Come on its time to go.

There is no pain, you are receding.

A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.

You are only coming through in waves.

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're sayin.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,

Out of the corner of my eye.

I turned to look but it was gone.

I cannot put my finger on it now.

The child is grown, the dream is gone.

I have become comfortably numb.

-- Pink Floyd; Comfortably Numb

Sugar Feeds Cancer

I've previously posted on this, one post you should definitely read. Via a comment on Art's private blog, I see even more evidence that that ingesting sugar (including too much grain and/or fruit / juice) in the presence of cancer kills people a lot faster. Read what Patrick Quillin, PHD, RD, CNS has to say.

A mouse model of human breast cancer demonstrated that tumors are sensitive to blood-glucose levels. Sixty-eight mice were injected with an aggressive strain of breast cancer, then fed diets to induce either high blood-sugar (hyperglycemia), normoglycemia or low blood-sugar (hypoglycemia). There was a dose-dependent response in which the lower the blood glucose, the greater the survival rate. After 70 days, 8 of 24 hyperglycemic mice survived compared to 16 of 24 normoglycemic and 19 of 20 hypoglycemic. This suggests that regulating sugar intake is key to slowing breast tumor growth.

In a human study, 10 healthy people were assessed for fasting blood-glucose levels and the phagocytic index of neutrophils, which measures immune-cell ability to envelop and destroy invaders such as cancer. Eating 100 g carbohydrates from glucose, sucrose, honey and orange juice all significantly decreased the capacity of neutrophils to engulf bacteria. Starch did not have this effect.

A four-year study at the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection in the Netherlands compared 111 biliary tract cancer patients with 480 controls. Cancer risk associated with the intake of sugars, independent of other energy sources, more than doubled for the cancer patients. Furthermore, an epidemiological study in 21 modern countries that keep track of morbidity and mortality (Europe, North America, Japan and others) revealed that sugar intake is a strong risk factor that contributes to higher breast cancer rates, particularly in older women.

If I had to speculate, it would be that cancer is brought about by unnatural foods in our diets (grains & vegetable oils, primarily) that generate and promote chronic inflammation and this inflammation, in-turn, causes cancer. And, once that job is complete, sugar takes right over to feed that cancer.

Wanna read something really dumb, then, continuing with Quillin?

In 1990, I called the major cancer hospitals in the country looking for some information on the crucial role of total parenteral nutrition (TPN) in cancer patients. Some 40 percent of cancer patients die from cachexia.5 Yet many starving cancer patients are offered either no nutritional support or the standard TPN solution developed for intensive care units. The solution provides 70 percent of the calories going into the bloodstream in the form of glucose. All too often, I believe, these high-glucose solutions for cachectic cancer patients do not help as much as would TPN solutions with lower levels of glucose and higher levels of amino acids and lipids. These solutions would allow the patient to build strength and would not feed the tumor.

Good job, folks. Give them intravenous nutrition, 70% of which is the primary fuel for cancer cells, a medical fact know since 1931 -- a discovery by Otto Warburg that earned him a Nobel prize in medicine.

Oh, well, even though high fat-eating gunter-gatherers don't get cancer, we certainly couldn't feed cancer patients high fat.

Finally, if you read that previous post of mine that I highlighted at the beginning of this post, then you are aware of the anecdote of a man putting his metasticized lung cancer into remission via a high-fat diet a-la Jan Kwasniewski (see here, too). Well, Dr. Quillan has another similar one.

A female patient in her 50s, with lung cancer, came to our clinic, having been given a death sentence by her Florida oncologist. She was cooperative and understood the connection between nutrition and cancer. She changed her diet considerably, leaving out 90 percent of the sugar she used to eat. She found that wheat bread and oat cereal now had their own wild sweetness, even without added sugar. With appropriately restrained medical therapy -- including high-dose radiation targeted to tumor sites and fractionated chemotherapy, a technique that distributes the normal one large weekly chemo dose into a 60-hour infusion lasting days -- a good attitude and an optimal nutrition program, she beat her terminal lung cancer. I saw her the other day, five years later and still disease-free, probably looking better than the doctor who told her there was no hope.

Now, if all this is true, and we know what other bad things sugar does -- like making you fat & diabetic -- then why in the world would you want to touch it in any significant way?

Oh, and by the way, can you guess the other thing we talk about here a lot that actually protects you should you get cancer and require chemotherepy? (hint: it starts with an 'f')

Why You Got Fat

I'm back and getting in the swing of things. I hope to get to most, if not all lingering emails and comments throughout the day, among other business matters to attend to.

The day before leaving for Puerto Vallarta, I was fortunate to get my Amazon order for Fat Head and watched it during the flight down. This is a must see, folks. It's really two movies in one. In the first part, he thoroughly discredits that lying, opportunist bastard, Morgan Spurlock. Tom Naughton also goes on a fast food diet for a month, but a sensible one, keeping total calories to about 2,000, and total carbs to 100 grams (400 calories, so 20% of total kcals). He loses about 8-10 pounds, as I recall, and most of his blood work is improved.

The second half (the best) is about the awful state of nutrition science and dietary advice in America. Naughton even employs an evolutionary basis, as seen here. Now Tom has up an additional clip from the movie that explains pretty well how you get fat and diabetic. Do note: I am always hearing people talk about "diabetes in the family." That's utterly false, folks -- for Type 2, anyway. You get Type 2 diabetes because and ONLY because you eat too much sugar, fruit juices, sodas, grains and all the processed products those things are found in. There's a genetic component for how easily you can get Type 2, but that's not the cause. The cause is eating too much sugar (all those things above equate to sugar; yes, bread is essentially sugar, once metabolized).

Consider this: for the average person with normal blood glucose levels, you have about the equivalent of one single teaspoon of sugar circulating in your entire body. One. Single. Teaspoon. So, what that means is that when you drink a regular Coca Cola at 27 grams of carbohydrate (or a six-pack plus per day, for some), you are ingesting in a very brief period, over 5 times the amount of sugar as is contained in your entire body. How about an 8 oz. glass or orange juice? Same thing (26 grams). Now, consider that as you go throughout your day. Look at food labels, and divide the amount of carbohydrate by 5 to see how many times your total blood sugar you're ingesting all at once.

Dr. Eades does the math, in case you're skeptical.

I Know What I'm Doing

But not everyone agrees. Here's an email I got yesterday. While I appreciate the effort and obvious concern that went into it, needless to say that I disagree with most of it. The one part I do agree with is that's it better to eat free range animals eating their natural diets, rather than grain fed. That said, I do not believe it's the issue that some make it out to be. While I do eat a lot of grass fed / finished meat, I still do eat some from decent quality sources that's grain finished, out of convenience. However, my napkin calculations suggest my n-6 intake is not all that high (no processed oils or foods), and I take n-3 in the form of fish oil and CLO, I eat lots of seafood, and so my ratio intake is pretty Paleo even in the face of some less than optimal meat.

Also, legumes are in no way, shape or form part of a Paleo diet (nor are psyllium husks). In my opinion, ingesting toxins from legumes is orders of magnitude worse than eating grain-fed meat. So, here's the email, and I hope it generates some discussion (Monica, Dr. BG, Stephan? Others?).

BTW, here's the lipid panel she refers to. And my wife's, after about three months on my high fat regime.

~~~

Hello Richard,

My brother-in-law turned me on to your website as I'm a Naturopathic physician practicing in Portland, OR who specializes in nutrition and diet. Currently I'm doing a lot of research on the effects of various foods and diet on our endocrine function, especially on insulin. In any event, I applaud your obvious (visual) progress. Good on ye! I did want to comment on your "lipid" profile though. I don't know if the profile you have on your site is your most recent one and/or whether it represents an improvement from a previous state or not, but I wanted to fill you in on a few things.

First, just because the lab has reference ranges doesn't mean they're truly optimal, they often just concur with the average numbers seen by that lab. I don't know what lab your doc uses, but I haven't seen a lab in years that sets its total cholesterol reference range limit above 200 like yours does, and in terms of optimal health even that is too high. Frankly, I find your lipid levels to be of concern, particularly given your ideas about fat consumption.

Know that over half of all heart attacks occur with people who have a total cholesterol levels between 160 and 200, and half of all fatal heart attacks occur in people with no prior symptoms of heart disease, not even high blood pressure! The bottom line is that how you look and feel on your new diet will not warn you if you have a potential MI coming right around the bend. Below 150 (total cholesterol) heart attacks are virtually non-existant. Just telling you to beware that you've got a ways to go if you want to protect yourself from this.

While paleolithic man did consume game regularly and craved fat given the amount of calories consumed by their level of activity and exposure, keep in mind that wild game typically has about 3 - 5% body fat, whereas commercial meats often contain 30% to 50% or more! So make sure you're comparing apples to apples in what you're consuming. Your relationship to fat consumption, despite the weight loss you're experiencing, is off if you're committed to your health as well as your looks - which it seems to me you are.

If I were you, I would cut back on your meat consumption and/or at least consume only grass fed graisers/completely freerange chicken or turkey - ie: animals that are consuming their own paleolithic diet. And I would definitely cut back on your apparently eager fat consumption. Because for what it's worth, if you're eating unhealthy animals that were fed grain, they will pass on poor health to you regardless of your weight.

One other thing I saw on your site about constipation; you suggested consuming more fat. This is very unsound advice to be giving people. In order for fat to cause enough lubrication to promote a BM in someone who has constipation, they would have to consume more than they can properly digest. Typically fat is emulsified by elements in bile, and so it doesn't appreciably improve lubrication of the bowels unless it's not being digested properly. If it seems to do so in your experience, it is a sign that you have less than optimal digestion, and are either eating too much for your body to deal with at one time or that you may have subpar liver or gall bladder function.

But more to the point, in the case of humans the way to maintain healthy bowel tone and function is by consuming large quantities of fiber, period. This is that way nature designed us omnivores who have such long GI tracts compared to the extremely short ones of pure carnivores. Meat, fish, foul, eggs, milk products & fat (all animal based foods) contain ZERO fiber. That's "0" as in none whatsoever. We need lots of fiber to remain healthy and that's just the way it is. Psyllium husks certainly provide fiber and are a much more appropriate choice than increased fat intake which frankly is inappropriate for this purpose and will only increase your risk of cancer and heart disease. But why not consume fiber in the form of actual food - fruits, veggies, legumes, and consume more water to keep your bowels moving as well as prevent future bowel cancer, diverticulitis, etc.?

While a high meat & fat diet can definitely lead to weight loss, looks aren't everything when it comes to actual health. There is no doubt that the more meat and fat you consume the higher your cancer and heart disease risks. So if you're truly committed to keeping your new figure in great health until you die a very old man in your sleep, you should stick to a TRULY paleolithic diet. One that consists of fruit, a LOT, LOT, LOT of vegetables, legumes, nuts & seeds, and wild fish/foul/game (or domestic critters themselves fed a paleo diet, not the grain diet we feed them - even our farmed fish!).

While you didn't ask for any advice, since so many others are apparently reading your blog and you seem authentically interested in optimizing your health I assumed you would be interested. Hope that's the case and I haven't overstepped myself here (something I've been accused of in the past I must admit, though my heart is in the right place). If you're not personally interested, I hope you'll still post this to your blog (although I'm not a "member") for the sake of those who want information from various sources. I was impressed by your sketch about no guru's, so I assume you're willing to consider information from a variety of sources and pass it on to those reading your blog.

Here's to your health!

Carole A Warner, ND, LAc

Poison Soy

I last blogged about the dangers of unfermented soy here. And, actually, I'd only use fermented soy very sparingly.

Here's another article on soy (Thanks, Uwe), and interview with Kaayla Daniel. The whole thing is worth a read (though I do wish they'd ditch the exclamation marks), but what comes out most prominently is the danger of feeding infants soy-based baby formula.

Soy lowers Testosterone levels! Just about all soy products on the market contain the phytoestrogens (plant estrogens) known as isoflavones. Plant estrogens have lowered Testosterone levels in rats, monkeys, and other animals as well as humans. For grown men, this usually leads to decreased libido and lower sperm count. There's an old wives tale that Japanese women punish their straying husbands by feeding them a lot of tofu!

We can joke about that but not about the effect on baby boys fed soy formula. Pediatricians are reporting more and more cases of emasculated boys reaching puberty with breasts and tiny penises. Undescended testicles are also far more common than they were in the past. [...]

Infants on soy formula are extremely vulnerable. Remember that soy formula constitutes most if not all of their diets. Based on figures from the Swiss Federal Health Service, some of my colleagues have calculated that an infant on soy formula is getting the hormonal equivalent of the estrogen found in three to five birth control pills every day! [...]

Studies on rats, sheep, monkeys and other animals suggest that the estrogens in soy infant formula can irreversibly harm the baby's later sexual development. And this is exactly what we're hearing from both parents and pediatricians.

Did you know that baby boys are supposed to experience a Testosterone surge during the first few months of life and in the large amounts you'd expect from a grown man? Most people don't, but all that Testosterone is needed to program the boy for puberty, the time when his sex organs should develop and he should grow facial and pubic hair and start speaking with a deep voice. If receptor sites intended for the hormone Testosterone are occupied by soy estrogens, however, appropriate development may be delayed or never take place.

For girls, soy formula has the opposite effect. It's likely to accelerate puberty and may cause reproductive difficulties later in life. The studies which supposedly prove that infants on soy formula develop normally consider only height, weight and other measurements of growth as measured in infancy and early childhood. Many of the negative effects don't become obvious until puberty.

Folks, if you eat processed foods, you're getting a lot of soy. Even those low-carbing without a Paleo approach to what you eat are getting lots of soy.

Going Sweetless

New research out on Splenda, one of the popular artificial sweeteners. And Dr. Mercola has done a review of the study.

There’s overwhelming evidence that consuming artificial sweeteners will likely wreak havoc on your body. Previous news has centered mainly around artificial sweeteners’ ability to impair your appetite regulation and leading to weight gain.

For example, it’s been discovered that diet soda increases your risk of metabolic syndrome and, ultimately, heart disease.

However, the study mentioned above, published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, found even further disturbing news besides weight gain. Splenda:

• reduces the amount of good bacteria in your intestines by 50 percent
• increases the pH level in your intestines, and
• affects a glycoprotein in your body that can have crucial health effects, particularly if you’re on certain medications

They also found unmistakable evidence that Splenda is absorbed by fat, contrary to previous claims.

I've been mostly "sweetless" for quite a while, now, and don't miss it a bit. The reason for not using them had nothing to do with the foregoing new information, however, but because they will tend to stall your fat loss or even cause you to put on fat even in the midst of an ultra-low-carb diet. As Mercola explains:

The belief that consuming artificially sweetened foods and drinks will help you to lose or maintain weight is a carefully orchestrated deception. So if you are still opting for diet choices for this reason, please understand that you have been sorely misled.

In reality, these diet foods and drinks can cause serious distortions in your biochemistry and ruin your body's ability to control calories. As a matter of fact, it’s been shown that diet soft drinks can double your risk of obesity!

Nearly a decade ago, studies were already revealing that artificial sweeteners can:

• Stimulate your appetite
• Increase carbohydrate cravings
• Stimulate fat storage and weight gain

Unfortunately, most public health agencies and nutritionists in the United States still recommend these toxic artificial sweeteners as an acceptable alternative to sugar.

That was enough for me to avoid them as much as possible (I've maybe had 2-3 diet sodas in the last year), but with this new information I think I'll just stick to my unsweetened coffee, unsweetened tea (hot & cold), and my most favorite of all: San Pelegrino.

What Do You Think You Know About LDL Cholesterol? (Pt 2 of 2)

Part One

The purpose of part one was to demonstrate the meaninglessness of calculated LDL cholesterol in relation to the equation used to calculated it, and how triglycerides, while being a very important risk factor for heart disease in its own right, have been steadily increasing on average and potentially giving a false sense of security as increases in triglycerides cause a mathematical (not necessarily biochemical) lowering of calculated LDL serum cholesterol.

I promised that in this second and final part, I will demolish the notion that you have any real idea of what your actual LDL cholesterol is, based on standard bloodwork involving calculated values. And I shall deliver.

Let me frame what I'm going to say this way: there are millions of people with low calculated LDL (say, <50-60) who are at infinitely more risk for atherosclerosis, rupture, and fatal heart attack than are many people with calculated LDLs in the high 200s and higher. If you eat significant amounts of carbohydrate, especially as processed food, have low HDL (<60), high triglycerides (>200), then it's essential to know exactly what your LDL really is. The standard blood panel is essentially worthless for this.

But I'm here to help. But first, let me show you what I mean by turning to Dr. William Davis, the cardiologist who originated Track Your Plaque and who blogs at The Heart Scan Blog. Dr. Davis, who used to practice by performing various coronary procedures such as installing stents, now spends his time detecting, preventing, and reversing heart disease.

He has lots of stories to tell. Let's get started.

Don't believe your LDL cholesterol!
"Harry's case is typical. For years, his doctor told him his LDL cholesterol of 123 mg was okay. But a heart scan score of 490 (90th percentile at age 52) made him question just where his coronary plaque came from.

"Lipoprotein analysis told a very different story: His LDL particle number was 2400 nmol, meaning his true LDL was more like 240 mg, nearly double the value of LDL obtained through his doctor. Harry had other sources of risk, too, but the LDL particle number was a clear stand-out. [...]

"...When LDL's are actually meaured, you find that LDL is rarely accurate. In fact, in our experience, inaccuracy of 30-50% is the rule, sometimes 100%. The one telltale hint that calculated LDL is wrong is when HDL is <50 mg -- that's nearly everybody. "

How accurate is LDL cholesterol?
"If there's so much attention paid to LDL, how accurate is it? 100%? 90%? 80%?

"Well, it varies widely. Occasionally, it's truly accurate, but most of the time it's miserably inaccurate. Every single day, I see people with LDL cholesterols that underestimates true (measured) LDL by 40%, 50%, and even over 100%. In other words, LDL cholesterol might be 120 mg/dl by the conventional method, but the genuine measured value might be 160 mg/dl, or even 240 mg/dl. It can be that far off -- and it's not rare.

"The converse can occasionally be true, though rarely in my experience: that conventional LDL overestimates true LDL. I saw someone in the office today like this, with a conventional LDL of 142 mg/dl but a true measured LDL of 115 mg/dl. I may see one or two more people like this the rest of this year."

When LDL is more than meets the eye
"I pointed out to Jerry that, given the low HDL and high triglycerides, his calculated LDL of 112 was likely inaccurate. In fact, if measured, LDL was probably more like 140-180 mg/dl. LDL particles were also virtually guaranteed to be small, since low HDL and small LDL usually go hand-in-hand (though small LDL can still occur with a good HDL).

"So Jerry's LDL is really much higher than it appears. To prove it, Jerry will require an additional test, preferably one in which LDL is measured, such as LDL particle number (NMR), apoprotein B, or "direct" LDL.

"It's really quite simple. Jerry likely has a high number of LDL particles that are too small. This pattern confers a three- to six-fold increased risk for heart disease."

The many faces of LDL
"Ginnie came in for an opinion about her heart scan score of 393. At age 57, this put her in the 99th percentile, a high score.

"LDL cholesterol: 96 mg/dl - This value puts Ginnie's LDL in the most favorable 25% in the country.

"LDL particle number: 2140 nmol/l - This value is in the worst 25% of the country and is the equivalent of an LDL cholesterol of 214 mg/dl (take off the zero).

"In addition, over 90% of Ginnie's LDL particles fell into the small class."

Making Dr. Friedewald an honest man
"Colleen started with the usual discrepancy between conventional calculated LDL cholesterol of 121 mg/dl and the far more accurate LDL particle number (NMR) of 1927 nmol/L. [...]

"In other words, by this simple manipulation, Colleen's Friedewald calculated LDL is off by 58%. This is very common, a phenomenon I witness several times every day.

"By LDL particle size, 75% of all Colleen's LDL particle were abnormally small (small LDL particle number 1440 nmol/L). This is a moderately severe small LDL tendency."

A Tale of Two LDL's
"Kurt, a 50-year old businessman with a heart scan score of 323, had a:

"--Conventional (calculated) LDL of 128 mg/dl - Real measured LDL 241 mg/dl.

"Laurie, a 53-year old woman who underwent a coronary bypass operation last year (before I met her), had a:

"--Conventional LDL of 142 mg/dl - Real measured LDL was 85 mg/dl.

"(By "real, measured" LDL, I'm referring to LDL particle number in units of nmol/L obtained through NMR lipoprotein testing and dividing by 10, or just dropping the last digit to convert the value to mg/dl. This technique was arrived at by comparing the population distributions of these two parameters, LDL particle number and calculated LDL. This is the gold standard in my view. Similar numbers can be obtained by measuring apoprotein B, direct LDL, or calculated non-HDL, with diminishing reliability from first to last.)

"In other words, Kurt's conventional LDL underestimated real LDL by 88%. Laurie's conventional LDL overestimated real LDL by 40%."

~~~

Had enough? Now do you see what I mean? I'll finish by quoting the heroic Dr. Davis once more from the last of those series of links.

Interestingly, Laurie's doctor had insisted she take Lipitor for a high LDL cholesterol. Her real LDL was, in fact, low to begin with and benefits of a statin drug would be little to none. (Remember, in our Track Your Plaque approach, multiple other treatments are included, such as omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil, vitamin D normalization, and wheat elimination, strategies that yield benefits that others expect to obtain with statins.) Laurie's real cause of her heart disease proved to have nothing to do with LDL cholesterol, but involved lipoprotein(a) and thyroid issues.

Kurt proved to have a severe preponderance of small LDL particles--the worst kind of LDL, while Laurie had none--a benign pattern.

Then how can anyone make sense of the conventional, calculated LDL cholesterol that is generally (95% of the time) provided? If accuracy can stretch to plus or minus 80% . . . you can't. Conventional LDL is a miserably inaccurate number. The problem is that obtaining a superior number requires a step or two more testing and insight, something most busy primary care doc's simply don't have in the midst of a day filled with arthritis, bronchitis, diarrhea, belly aches, and seborrhea.

Yet conventional--I call it "fictitious"--LDL serves as the basis for this $27 billion (annual revenues) industry selling statin drugs.

This is meant to be neither an argument in favor of nor against statin drugs. However, it is plain as day that any study designed to reduce LDL cholesterol will be hopelessly clouded by calculated LDL imprecision. A calculated LDL of, say, 143 mg/dl might really be 187 mg/dl, or it might be 74 mg/dl--you can't tell by looking just at LDL. Yet billions of dollars of research and billions of dollars of healthcare costs are based on the treatment of this number.

So, what's your LDL? Unless you've actually had it measured, you do not know. Neither does your doctor. Are you on medications or dietary prescriptions as a result of the fiction that you believe is your LDL? And how about particle size? Large & fluffy are actually good, while small and dense are very bad. You might have a low LDL, but with a high percentage of small and dense particles, and you could be at 6 or 10 times the risk as someone with an LDL of 250, but 99% large & fluffy. Don't be fooled by your doctor, HMO, hospital, or the drug companies.

And guess what will reduce your small and dense LDL every time? You guessed it: get off the grains, (particularly wheat), sugar, processed foods, processed vegetable oils; and take omega 3s and vitamin d to get your levels above 60.

How do you find out what your LDL actually is? Dr Davis says, "Our preferred method is NMR (LipoScience) LDL particle number, probably the most accurate of all. Second best: apoprotein B, direct measured LDL, and non-HDL."

What Do You Think You Know About LDL Cholesterol? (Part One)

Are you aware that the LDL cholesterol results you get in your routine blood workup is likely a complete fiction? That's right, and it's because LDL isn't measured, but calculated. Here's the formula, called the Friedewald equation:

LDL = Total Cholesterol - HDL - Triglycerides/5

So, for example, if one goes on a grain based, high carb, low fat diet which is well known to make triglycerides skyrocket, what would be the effect on your (calculated) LDL, all else remaining about equal? Your LDL would go down, your doctor would be pleased, you'd be ecstatic, and you may have actually increased your risk of, um, death (but maybe not of a heart attack, so yippee!). In fact, both very high and very low LDL associate with all-cause mortality (death from all cause, not just cherry picking heart disease). Where does risk appear to be lowest? I'm not sure, but for cancer risk, it's an LDL of around 130, i.e., lower or higher equals greater risk, and remember, I'm talking about LDL alone.

So, you want to reduce your LDL like a good soldier? Then increase your triglycerides dramatically. All else remaining equal, each 5-point increase in Trigs gets you a point off your LDL. Increase Trigs by 100 (easy to do with grains, sugar, and other refined carbs) and you can lower your LDL by 20.

So what are triglycerides? Most simply, fat circulating in your blood. Government recommendations are for a level of 150 and below. Mine are 47, and what you might not know about high-fat (and consequently low-carb) dieters is that they all have pretty low triglycerides (in the 50-80 area). Those who eat lots of grains and sugars in the form of bread, pasta, rice, processed foods, sweetened sodas, and, yes, fruit juices: you'll see triglyceride (fat circulating in blood) levels of 200 and on up, sometimes way up. 300-400 and above are not uncommon. Alright, so, eat lots of natural fat (from animals, coconut, and olives) in order to reduce your sugar intake (carbohydrate) and you'll dramatically reduce your triglycerides; eat low fat with lots of sugar (carbohydrate -- yes; bread and pasta is, essentially: sugar), raise the fat levels in your blood, and potentially lower your LDL.

Conclusion: a six-pack of Coca Cola per day ought to do the trick. Trigs will skyrocket and your LDLs will probably go down. Your doctor will tell you you're doing a great job, and you can live in ignorant bliss.

Or, you can get wise about triglycerides. Jonny Bowden was out with an informative post a few days ago, Triglycerides: What You Need to Know. Now, with the foregoing Friedewald equation in mind, and my rather pedestrian analysis and examples, get a load of this.

New Analysis Shows Troubling Trend in Triglyceride Levels May Be Linked to Rising Rates of Obesity (that does not look to be a permalink, so you may end up having to search the NLA site)

A new 30-year analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database conducted by the National Lipid Association (NLA) indicates that while Americans are doing a better job of managing LDL or "bad" cholesterol, the percentage of adults with high triglycerides, a blood fat linked to heart disease, has doubled, leaving many people at risk for potentially life-threatening events such as heart attack or stroke. Results of the analysis were presented today at the American Heart Association's Annual Scientific Sessions in New Orleans.

So, now, watch how they can't see the forest through the trees.

Between 1976 and 2006 the number of Americans with unhealthy isolated LDL levels dropped from 43 percent to 40 percent, an improvement that researchers attribute to more aggressive educational initiatives and treatment. However, far less emphasis has been placed on controlling triglycerides. The rising rates of isolated high triglycerides seen over the last three decades underscore the need for physicians and patients to understand and treat all three key lipids, which include LDL, HDL or "good" cholesterol and triglycerides.

Get it? They attribute lower LDLs with better education and treatment, when the Occam's Razor explanation is that by virtue of the equation they use, the majority of the lowering of LDL is likely a simple mathematical relationship having to do with elevated triglycerides. In other words, their "educational initiatives" have been to prescribe low fat, high sugar (carbohydrate) diets, resulting in grossly elevated triglycerides and moderately lower LDLs.

This is the outright FRAUD that's being perpetrated against you by "authorities" and "experts," many in the pay of the drug companies who want you popping statins.

And just in case you don't know, there's really no meaningful association between LDL and heart disease. Time and time again, if hundreds of thousands of heart attack patients are analyzed, half have low LDL and half have high LDL. It's irrelevant. However, the association with high triglycerides is very well established. See here and here and here, and that's just a 5-second Googling. I could get you a dozen more in five minutes.

Even the National Lipid Association, from which this study and statement originate, acknowledges an independent association with triglycerides.

...triglycerides are the third component of the lipid profile and are an independent and compounding risk factor for heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. Studies have shown that the risk of developing heart disease doubles when triglyceride levels are above 200 mg/dL. When triglycerides are above 200 mg/dL and HDL cholesterol is below 40 mg/dL, a person is at four times the risk of developing heart disease.

Tomorrow, in Part Two, I shall demolish the notion that you have any clue as to what your LDL really is. If you are getting standard blood tests, you have no idea what your LDL is, and I can prove it. That number on your printout is completely worthless and meaningless. And, if you take any real stock in it, and you have triglycerides over 150, or even 100, you are probably living under a false sense of security, courtesy of the "experts."

What Do You Think You Know About LDL Cholesterol? (Pt 2 of 2)

"Spilling the Beans"

Isoflavones, genisteins, lectins, saponins, and phytoestrogens -- don't these wonderful names signal a whole host of cancer fighting, heart disease preventing, cholesterol-lowering miracles?

Uh, no. They're anti-nutrients and toxins. Guess where you'll find them -- some in pretty high concentrations? Meat? No. Natural fats? Wrong again. How about junk food? Bingo! But wait; junk food is processed, refined, shaken, stirred, emulsified, liquified, toasted, frozen, dried, baked, broiled, fried, fortified, vacuum packed, and spoon fed. So, then, what is it in junk food that's composed of all those toxins?

Ah, the chemicals: preservatives, coloring, flavoring, deodorizing, odorizing, texturizing, viscocitizing, right? Naturally...wrong!

Alright, enough suspense: soy. Yep, as "foods" go, soy is among the most toxic. Of course, soy never existed in our diet until some few thousand years ago. Lorette Luzajic has a very worthwhile article on the whole thing, if you'd like to know. You'll be shocked. More on the toxins here (and here, too). By the way, Asians don't eat a lot of it as is claimed (they never have), and also, what they do eat is in fermented form like tempeh, miso, tofu, sauce. Fermenting, soaking, and sprouting are wise techniques and traditions for breaking up toxins and anti-nutrients in grains and beans / legumes going back centuries and longer. I don't advocate eating grains or legumes, but if you must, ferment (like true sourdough) soak (like grandmother used to do for beans), and or sprout.

If you read labels, you'll find soy protein and/or soy oil in almost all processed foods. Here, allow me to stimulate your appetite.

To produce soybean oil, the soybeans are cracked, adjusted for moisture content, rolled into flakes and solvent-extracted with commercial hexane. The oil is then refined, blended for different applications, and sometimes hydrogenated. Soybean oils, both liquid and partially hydrogenated, are exported abroad, sold as "vegetable oil," or end up in a wide variety of processed foods. The remaining soybean husks are used mainly as animal feed.

And for dessert, how about some hexane?

Hexane is an alkane hydrocarbon [...]. Hexane isomers are largely unreactive, and are frequently used as an inert solvent in organic reactions because they are very non-polar. They are also common constituents of gasoline and glues used for shoes, leather products, and roofing. Additionally, it is used in solvents to extract oils for cooking and as a cleansing agent for shoe, furniture and textile manufacturing. In laboratories, hexane is used to extract oil and grease from water and soil before determination by gravimetric analysis or gas chromatography.

Mmm. Yummy.

Blood Glucose and Cognitive Function

Columbia University Medical Center, out with a study published in the December issue of Annals of Neurology, and reported in The New York Times:

Spikes in blood sugar can take a toll on memory by affecting the dentate gyrus, an area of the brain within the hippocampus that helps form memories, a new study reports.

Researchers said the effects can be seen even when levels of blood sugar, or glucose, are only moderately elevated, a finding that may help explain normal age-related cognitive decline, since glucose regulation worsens with age. [...]

In the study, researchers used high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging to map brain regions in 240 elderly subjects. They found a correlation between elevated blood glucose levels and reduced cerebral blood volume, or blood flow, in the dentate gyrus, an indication of reduced metabolic activity and function in that region of the brain.

What can you do, according to the "experts?"

Since glucose regulation is improved with physical activity, Dr. Small said, “We have a behavioral recommendation — physical exercise.”

The typical blind spot, when it's well known that the best way to avoid spikes in blood sugar is to eat a natural, real foods diet of meat, natural fat, vegetables, fruits, and nuts, avoiding grains, sugar, vegetable oils, and all processed foods.

Exercise is fine, of course, but it's no subject for real food. As we've discussed many times, diet is 80% of the equation (or 50-60%, along with 20-30% when not to eat, i.e., intermittent fasting).

I'm surprised this didn't come along with the standard saw to "eat more whole grains."

(thanks to the several people who emailed that article)

Vitamin D Deficiency Speculation in the Increase in Cesarean Childbirth

I got up this morning to a new report showing a significant association between vitamin D deficiency and Cesarean deliveries of children.

Vitamin D deficiency is common in pregnant women, and it may lead to an increased risk for cesarean delivery, early research suggests.

Vitamin D researcher Michael Holick, MD, PhD, and colleagues from the Boston Medical Center report that women in their study who were severely vitamin D deficient during childbirth were about four times more likely to deliver by cesarean section as women with higher vitamin D levels.

What's interesting to me is to connect dots, so here we go. The first thing this report reminded me of is how Weston Price, in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, frequently observed that many things go together, i.e., tooth decay, along with crowded teeth, along with susceptibility to tuberculosis and other diseases not encountered in primitives consuming their traditional diets, and on to heavily labored childbirth, among other afflictions.

As an aside, and I haven't done any particular digging on this point (perhaps someone has who can lay down a comment and reference), but do wild animals existing in an environment adequate to their needs often experience undue problems birthing their offspring in the absence of veterinarians and animal hospitals? I would guess not. Biologically, humans are 100% animals. But, we're domesticated. So where does that lead your thinking? As a final tidbit, Price also documents birthing problems as well as severe deformities in domestic animals.

Here's an excerpt from Price specifically in regard to childbirth in primitives, contrasted with those who had taken on some measure of our Western diet.

One of the outstanding changes which I have found takes place in the primitive races at their point of contact with our modern civilization is a decrease in the ease and efficiency of the birth process. When I visited the Six Nation Reservation at Brantford, Ontario, I was told by the physician in charge that a change of this kind had occurred during the period of his administration, which had covered twenty-eight years and that the hospital was now used largely to care for young Indian women during abnormal childbirth (Chapter 6).

A similar impressive comment was made to me by Dr. Romig, the superintendent of the government hospital for Eskimos and Indians at Anchorage, Alaska. He stated that in his thirty-six years among the Eskimos, he had never been able to arrive in time to see a normal birth by a primitive Eskimo woman. But conditions have changed materially with the new generation of Eskimo girls, born after their parents began to use foods of modern civilization. Many of them are carried to his hospital after they had been in labour for several days. One Eskimo woman who had married twice, her last husband being a white man, reported to Dr. Romig and myself that she had given birth to twentysix children and that several of them had been born during the night and that she had not bothered to waken her husband, but had introduced him to the new baby in the morning.

Sherman, (10) who has made many important contributions to our knowledge of vitamin A, has shown in a recent communication that an amount of vitamin A sufficient to support normal growth and maintain every appearance of good health in animals, may still be insufficient to meet the added nutritive demands of successful reproduction and lactation. With the failure to reproduce successfully, there usually appears in early adult life an increased susceptibility to infection, and particularly a tendency to lung disease at an age corresponding to that at which pulmonary tuberculosis so often develops in young men and women. He states, further, that vitamin A must be supplied in liberal proportions not only during the growth period but during the adult period as well, if a good condition of nutrition and a high degree of health and vigor are to be maintained.

Price goes on at length about vitamin A, along with E -- both fat soluble vitamins in combination with D and K2. But let's connect more dots, OK? First, here's a very interesting look by Stephan at Whole Health Source about how all these vitamins work in combination, specifically in the context of vitamin A toxicity.

The question of optimal intake is where opinions begin to diverge. Hunter-gatherers and healthy non-industrial cultures, who almost invariably had excellent dental and skeletal development and health, often had a very high intake of vitamin A (according to Dr. Weston Price and others). This is not surprising, considering their fondness for organ meats. A meager 2 ounces of beef liver contains about 9,500 IU, or almost 200% of your U.S. and Canadian recommended daily allowance (RDA). Kidney and eye are rich in vitamin A, as are many of the marine oils consumed by the Inuit and other arctic groups.

If we can extrapolate from historical hunter-gatherers, our ancestors didn't waste organs. In fact, in times of plenty, some groups discarded the muscle tissue and ate the organs and fat. Carnivorous animals often eat the organs first, because they know exactly where the nutrients are. Zookeepers know that if you feed a lion nothing but muscle, it does not thrive.

This is the background against which we must consider the question of vitamin A toxicity. Claims of toxicity must be reconciled with the fact that healthy cultures often consumed large amounts of vitamin A without any ill effects. [...]

The only problem is, this position ignores the interactions between fat-soluble vitamins. Vitamin D strongly protects agains vitamin A toxicity and vice versa. As a matter of fact, "vitamin A toxicity" is almost certainly a relative deficiency of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency is also tightly correlated with low bone mineral density, osteoporosis and fracture risk. A high vitamin A intake requires vitamin D to balance it. The epidemiological studies showing an association between high-normal vitamin A intake and reduced bone health all sported populations that were moderately to severely vitamin D deficient on average. At optimal vitamin D levels, 40-70 ng/mL 25(OH)D, it would take a whopping dose of vitamin A to induce toxicity. You might get there if you eat nothing but beef liver for a week or two.

The experiment hasn't been done under controlled conditions in humans, but if you believe the animal studies, the optimal intake for bone mineral density is a high intake of both vitamins A and D. And guess what? A high intake of vitamins A and D also increases the need for vitamin K2. That's because they work together. For example, vitamin D3 increases the secretion of matrix Gla protein and vitamin K2 activates it. Is it any surprise that the optimal proportions of A, D and K occur effortlessly in a lifestyle that includes outdoor activity and whole, natural animal foods? This is the blind spot of the researchers who have warned of vitamin A toxicity: uncontrolled reductionism. Vitamins do not act in a vacuum; they interact with one another. If your theory doesn't agree with empirical observations from healthy cultures, it's back to the drawing board.

Now, here's Chris Masterjohn on some of the other roles of K2.

Our understanding of the K vitamins is rapidly expanding and we are likely to discover many new roles for them as the twenty-first century progresses.

The highest concentration of vitamin K2 exists in the salivary glands and the pancreas. These organs exhibit an overwhelming preference for K2 over K1 and retain high amounts of the vitamin even when animals consume a vitamin K-deficient diet.(15) The high presence of the vitamin in both of these organs suggests a role in activating digestive enzymes, although its apparent role in the regulation of blood sugar could explain its presence in the pancreas.(76) The testes of male rats also exhibit a high preference for and retention of vitamin K2,(16) and human sperm possess a vitamin K-dependent protein with an unknown function.(77) The kidneys likewise accumulate large amounts of vitamin K2(69) and secrete vitamin K-dependent proteins that inhibit the formation of calcium salts. Patients with kidney stones secrete this protein in its inactive form, which is between four and twenty times less effective than its active form at inhibiting the growth of calcium oxalate crystals, suggesting that vitamin K2 deficiency is a major cause of kidney stones.(77)

The use of Warfarin during pregnancy produces developmental malformations of the face; as the nasal cartilage calcifies, growth of the nose comes to an early end, resulting in a stubby appearance.(78) Vitamin K2 therefore most certainly played a role in the development of beautiful faces with broad features that Price observed among primitive peoples.

So, my speculation is that this is what happens when you don't heed Francis Bacon's keen observation: "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." While I am all for technology, advancement, science, and medical "miracles," I believe that the downright obstinate arrogance today's modern researchers and "health authorities" get away with is a direct consequence of the general populace buying into Hobbes' fallacy, when he described man's primitive life as "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short." Given that, what do you think of Carl P. Weiner, MD, and the other "experts?" To wit:

Not So Fast, Expert Says

But maternal-fetal medicine specialist Carl P. Weiner, MD, says more research is needed before such a recommendation would be justified. Weiner is chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

"This is an interesting study, but very preliminary, and it should not be seen as the basis for a change in clinical practice," Weiner tells WebMD. "We really can't say if there is a downside or an upside to additional vitamin D."

Do you see right through Dr. Weiner and his brand of "expertise" like I do? I'll speculate and psychoanalyze: I think Dr. Weiner is very enamored of being considered an "expert" and being called upon to render "expert" opinion. Of course, that requires rendering opinion fully in accordance with the doctrines espoused by the "authorities."

Me, and others? We just care about health. The very well established record with respect to healthy hunter-gatherers proves beyond any shadow of any doubt that we have gone far astray of a healthful diet. People like Dr. Weiner have been contributing to that state of affairs for decades. Where once that may have been motivated more by a bright eyed but ultimately ignorant confidence in "modern science," we have come to the point where "authorities" and "experts" are simply standing in the way of proven wisdom for the sake of their fraudulent reputations.

Later: Stephan reminded me of and posted a link to an August post of his dealing with a lot of this very same issue (childbirth), with lots of archeological background. Having just re-reviewed it myself I'm putting up a link here for those who may not see the comments.