And you thought gasoline was expensive

2. June 2009 William Davis (5)
In 1995, the Palmaz coronary stent was introduced, the brainchild of Drs. Julio Palmaz and Richard Schatz. Medical device manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, priced the device at $2500 per stent.

Let's put this into perspective: At just 0.05 grams per 15 millimeter stent, that put the price of the common stainless steel used to manufacture the stent at $22,650,000 per pound.

Only after several competing stents finally made it to market did J&J reduce its price to its bargain price of $1200, or $10,872,000 per pound. And to think that most of us were shocked to find out that the U.S. military paid $200 for a hammer.

Since 1995, a competitive market for stents has developed, pushing prices down. Now, you can purchase a brand-new coronary stent for as little as $4,000,000 per pound.

Medical device manufacturers have been guilty of a degree of greed that would make many Wall Street bankers blush. That's why I call medical devices "the industry of infinite markups."

"Hey buddy, wanna buy some exorphins?"

31. May 2009 William Davis (18)
Dr. Christine Zioudrou and colleagues at the National Institutes of Mental Health got this conversation going back in 1979 with their paper, Opioid peptides derived from food proteins: The exorphins.

Exorphins are exogenously-derived peptides (i.e., short amino acid sequences obtained from outside the body) that exert morphine-like properties. Mimicking the digestive process that occurs in the gastrointestinal tract using the gastric enzyme, pepsin, and hydrochloric acid (stomach acid), Zioudrou et al isolated peptides from wheat gluten with morphine-like activity. They followed this research path because of the apparent association of wheat and mental illness.

In the bioassays used, wheat-derived exorphins competed successfully with the endogenous opiate, met-enkephalin. Interestingly, casein-derived (i.e., casein milk protein) exorphins were also identified that also displayed opiate-binding activity, though less powerfully. The morphine-like activity was also blocked by the drug, naloxone (the same stuff given to people exposed to morphine overdose).

Among the many devastating effects of celiac disease , the immune disease that develops from wheat gluten exposure, are mental and emotional effects, such as anxiety, fatigue, mental "fog," depression, bipolar illness, and schizophrenia, that disappear with removal of gluten. Many parents of autistic children also advocate wheat-free diets for similar reasons.

Among the many wonderful comments posted on the last Heart Scan Blog post, "I can't do it," was Anne's:

I am not the Anne in your post, but I was addicted to wheat. It was my favorite food. I lived on and for breads. Then I discovered I was gluten sensitive and I did go through a withdrawal of about 4 days. After 4 days I noticed my health problems were disappearing. Depression, brain fog and joint pain are 3 of the many symptoms that disappeared. That was 6 yrs ago.

Tell Anne that I had dreams about bread in the beginning - they will pass. Now the donuts, breads, cookies and cakes in the stores and at work don't even look good. In fact, I don't like the smell of bread anymore. It takes time, but the cravings do pass.


Combine wheat"s exorphin-driven addictive potential with its flagrant blood sugar-increasing properties, and you have a formula that:

1) makes you fat
2) increases likelihood of diabetes, and
3) makes you want to keep on doing it.

Reminds me of nicotine.

My personal view: I have absolutely no remaining doubt that wheat products have no place in the human diet. Not only does the research provide a plausible basis for its adverse health effects, but having asked hundreds of people to remove it from their habits has yielded consistent and remarkable health benefits. Just read the reader comments here and here.

"I can't do it"

30. May 2009 William Davis (20)
Anne sat across from me, bent over and sobbing.

"I can't do it. I just can't do it! I cut out the breads and pasta for two days, then I start dreaming about it!

"And my husband is no help. He knows I'm trying to get off the wheat. But then he brings home a bunch of Danish or something. He knows I can't help myself!"

Having asked hundreds of people to completely remove wheat from their diet, I witness 30% of them go through such emotional and physical turmoil, not uncommonly to the point of tears. For about 10-20% of people who try, it is as hard as quitting cigarettes.

Make no mistake about it: For many people, wheat is addictive. It meets all the criteria for an addictive product: People crave it, consuming it creates a desire for more, lacking it triggers a withdrawal phenomenon. If wheat were illegal, there would surely be an active underground trafficking illicit bagels and pretzels.

Withdrawal consists of fatigue and mental fogginess that usually lasts 5-7 days. Just like quitting smoking, wheat withdrawal is harmless but no less profound in severity.

People who lack an addictive relationship with wheat usually have no idea what I'm talking about. To them, wheat is simply a grain, no different than oats.

But wheat addicts immediately know who they are. They are the ones who can't resist the warm dinner rolls served at the Italian restaurant, need to include something made of wheat at every meal, and crave it every 2 hours (matching the cycle of blood sugar peaks and valleys, the "valley" triggering the craving). When they stop the flow of immediately-released glucose that comes from wheat (with blood sugar peaks that occur higher and faster than table sugar), irresistible cravings kick in. Then watch out: They'll bite your hand off if you reach for that roll before they do.

Break the cycle and the body is confused: Where's the sugar? The body is accustomed to receiving a constant flow of easily-digested sugars.

Once the constant influx of sugars ceases, it takes 5-7 days for metabolism to shift towards fat mobilization as a source of energy. But along with fat mobilization comes a shrinking tummy, reducing the characteristic wheat belly.

If you try to quit smoking, you've got "crutches" like nicotine patches and gum, Zyban, Chantix, hypnosis, and group therapy sessions. If you try and quit wheat, what have you got? Nothing, to my knowledge. Nothing but sheer will power to divorce yourself from this enormously destructive, diabetes-causing, small LDL-increasing, inflammation-provoking, and addictive substance.

Spontaneous combustion, vampires, and goitrogens

26. May 2009 William Davis (17)
What do the following have in common:

Lima beans
Flaxseed
Broccoli
Cabbage
Kale
Soy
Millet
Sorghum?

They are all classified as goitrogens, or foods that have been shown to trigger goiter, or thyroid gland enlargement. Most of them do this either by blocking iodine uptake in the thyroid gland or by blocking the enzyme, thyroid peroxidase. This effect can lead to reduction in thyroid hormone output by the thyroid gland, which then triggers increased thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) by the pituitary; increased TSH acts as a growth factor on the thyroid, thus goiter.

Add to this list of goitrogens the flavonoid, quercertin, found in abundance in red wine, grapes, apples, capers, tomatoes, cherries, raspberries, teas, and onions. Most of us obtain around 30 mg per day from our diet. Quercetin, often touted as a healthy flavonoid alongside resveratrol (e.g., Yang JY et al 2008), has been shown to be associated with reduced risk for heart disease and cancer. Many people even take quercetin as a nutritional supplement.

Quercetin has also been identified as a goitrogen (Giuliani C et al 2008).

What to make of all this?

Most of these observations have been made in in vitro ("test tube") preparations or in mice. Rabbits who consume a cabbage-only diet can develop goiter.

How about humans? The few trials conducted in humans have shown little or no effect. In most instances, the adverse effects of goitrogens have been eliminated with supplemental iodine. In other words, goitrogens seem to exert their ill thyroid effects when iodine deficiency is present. Restore iodine . . . no more goitrogens (with rare exceptions).

Should we as humans adopt a diet that avoids apples, grapes, tomatoes, red wine, tea, onions, soy etc. on the small chance that we will develop goiter?

I believe that we should avoid these common food-sourced goitrogens with as much enthusiasm as we should be worried about spontaneous combustion of humans or the appearance of vampires on our front porches. We are as likely to suffer low thyroid activity from quercetin or other "goitrogens" as we are to experience the "mitochondrial explosions" that are purported to set innocent people afire.

Magnesium and you-Part II

25. May 2009 William Davis (17)
Blood magnesium levels are a poor barometer for true body (intracellular) magnesium.

Only 1% of the body’s magnesium is in the blood, the remaining 99% stored in various body tissues, particularly bone and muscle. If blood magnesium is low, cellular magnesium levels are indeed low—very low.

If blood magnesium is normal, cellular or tissue levels of magnesium may still be low. Unfortunately, tissue magnesium levels are not easy to obtain in living, breathing humans. In all practicality, a blood magnesium test only helps if it’s low, while normal levels don’t necessarily mean anything and may provide false reassurance.

Short of performing a biopsy to measure tissue magnesium levels, several signs provide a tip-off that magnesium may be low:

• Heart arrhythmias—Having any sort of heart rhythm disorder should cause you to question whether magnesium levels in your body are adequate, since low magnesium levels trigger abnormal heart rhythms. In fact, in the hospital we give intravenous magnesium to quiet down abnormal rhythms.
• Low potassium— Low magnesium commonly accompanies low potassium. Potassium is another electrolyte depleted by diuretic use and is commonly deficient in many conditions (e.g., excessive alcohol use, hypertension, loss from malabsorption or diarrhea). Like magnesium, potassium may not be fully replenished by modern diets.
• Muscle cramps— Magnesium regulates muscle contraction. Leg cramps, or “charlie-horses”, painful vise-like cramps in calves, fingers, or other muscles, are a common symptom of magnesium deficiency. (Leg cramps that occur with physical activity, such as walking, are usually due to atherosclerotic blockages in the leg or abdominal arteries, not low magnesium.)
• Migraine headaches—Reflective of magnesium’s role in regulating blood vessel tone, low magnesium can trigger vascular spasm in the blood vessels of the brain. In some emergency rooms, they will actually administer intravenous magnesium to break a migraine.
• Metabolic syndrome—Magnesium plays a fundamental role in regulating insulin responses. Metabolic syndrome (low HDL, high triglycerides, small LDL, high blood pressure, increased blood sugar, excessive abdominal fat, etc.) is triggered by insulin responses gone awry and is clearly linked to low magnesium levels.

The absence of any of these tell-tale signs does not necessarily mean that tissue levels of magnesium are normal.

Then how do you really know? There really is no easy, available method to gauge body magnesium. As a practical solution, we therefore have aimed for maintaining serum levels of >2.1 mg/dl or RBC magnesium (a surrogate for tissue levels) of >6.0 mg/dl. (Going too high is not good either, so occasional monitoring really helps. However, I've only seen this once in a psychotic woman who drank ungodly amounts of magnesium-containing antacids for no apparent reason; she almost ended up on a respirator due to respiratory suppression by the magnesium level of 11 mg/dl!)

In all practicality, because of magnesium’s crucial role in health, its widespread deficiency in Americans, and the growing depletion of magnesium in water, supplemental magnesium is necessary for nearly everyone to ensure healthy levels.

More on magnesium to come.

Lethal Lipids II

22. May 2009 William Davis (7)
I call the combination of low HDL, small LDL, and lipoprotein(a) "lethal lipids," since the trio is an exceptionally potent predictor for heart disease. Uncorrected, the combination is a virtual guarantee of heart disease.

Ed is a perfect example of someone who came to my office recently with this pattern. His starting values:

HDL: 34 mg/dl

Small LDL: 78% of total LDL
NMR: Small LDL 1655 nmol/L; total LDL particle number 2122 nmol/L)

Lipoprotein(a): 205 nmol/L


The atherogenicity, or plaque-causing potential, of this pattern was reflected in Ed's heart scan score of 2133.

You can readily see that, of this combination, only HDL cholesterol would be adequately identified through conventional lipid testing. Small LDL and lipoprotein(a) need to be specifically measured via lipoprotein testing.

And, contrary to the drug industry's "statin drugs for everybody" motto, this pattern, while improved with statin therapy, is not shut off.

Specific correction of each abnormality is required. For instance, niacin addresses all three: increases HDL, reduces small LDL, and (usually) reduces lipoprotein(a). A standard low-fat diet makes this pattern worse by reducing HDL, increasing small LDL, and (usually) increasing lipoprotein(a).

"You've got 10 minutes"

20. May 2009 William Davis (0)
There's a new trend in office healthcare in Milwaukee: Time-restricted office visits.



I'm told by several physicians who are employed by a major healthcare system here in town that they are peridically watched--physically watched by an administrator--to make sure that they do not exceed the allotted 10 minutes of time. My cardiologist colleagues, I gather, were at first incredulous at such intrusions into their practices, but apparently had no choice: They were employees.



Goiter, goiter everywhere

20. May 2009 William Davis (25)
The results of the recent Heart Scan Blog poll are in.

The question:

Do you used iodized salt?

The responses:

Yes, I use iodized salt every day
94 (28%)

Yes, I use iodized salt occasionally
56 (16%)

No, I do not use any iodized salt
41 (12%)

No, I use a non-iodized salt (sea salt, Kosher)
126 (37%)

No, I use a non- or low-sodium substitute
15 (4%)


Thanks for your responses.

If only 28% of people are regular users of iodized salt, that means that the remainder--72%--are at risk for iodine deficiency if they are not getting iodine from an alternative source, such as a multivitamin or multimineral.

Even the occasional users of salt can be at risk. The common perception is that occasional use is probably sufficient to provide iodine. This is probably not true and not just because of the lower quantity of ingestion. Occasional users of salt tend to have their salt canister on the shelf for extended periods. The iodine is then lost, since iodine is volatile. In fact, iodine is virtually undetectable four weeks after a package is opened.

In my office, now that I'm looking for them much more systematically and carefully, I am finding about 2 people with goiters every day. They are not the obvious grotesque goiters of the early 20th century (when quack therapies like the last post, the Golden Medical Discovery, were popular). The goiters I am detecting are small and spongy. Yesterday alone I found 5 people with goiters, one of them visible to the eye and very distressing to the patient.

It seems to me that iodine deficiency is more prevalent than I ever thought. It is also something that is so simple to remedy, though not by increasing salt intake. Kelp tablets--cheap, available--have been working quite well in the office population. My sense is that the Recommended Daily Allowance of 150 mcg per day for adults is low and that many benefit from greater quantities, e.g., 500 mcg. What is is the ideal dose? To my knowledge, nobody has yet generated that data.

Thyroid issues being relatively new to my thinking, I now find it incredible that endocrinologists and the American Thyroid Association are not broadcasting this problem at the top of their lungs. This issue needs to be brought to the top of everyone's attention, or else we'll have history repeating itself and have goiters and thyroid dysfunction galore.

For more on this topic, see the previous Heart Scan Blog post, "Help keep your family goiter free."

Goiter and the Golden Medical Discovery

17. May 2009 William Davis (19)

Thick neck, or goitre . . . consists of an enlargement of the thyroid gland, which lies over and on each side of the trachea, or windpipe, between the prominence known as "Adam's apple" and the breast bone. The tumor gradually increases in front and laterally, until it produces great deformity, and often interferes with respiration and the act of swallowing. From its pressure on the great blood vessels running to and from the head, there is a constant liability to engorgement of blood in the brain, and to apoplexy, epilepsy, etc.

The causes of the affection are not well understood. The use of snow water, or water impregnated with some particular saline or calcareous matter, has been assigned as a cause. It has also been attributed to the use of water in which there is not a trace of iron, iodine, or bromine. . . The disease is often due to an impeded circulation in the large veins of the neck, from pressure of the clothing, or from the head being bent forward, a position which is often seen in school children.


Treatment

We have obtained excellent results in many cases, not too far advanced, by a method of treatment which consists in the employment of electrolysis. . . Many cases at the present time are operated upon with entire success.

Those who are afflicted with this disease and unable to avail themselves of special treatment cannot do better than to take Doctor Pierce's Alterative Extract, or Golden Medical Discovery, and apply over the skin around the tumor, night and morning, the following, which may be prepared at any drug store:

Resublimed Iodine--One dram
Iodide of Potassium--Four drams
Soft Water--Three ounces 


Apply to the tumor, twice daily, with feather or camel hair pencil.


From The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser by R.V. Pierce, MD; 1918.

Magnesium and you-Part I

15. May 2009 William Davis (11)
If this were 10,000 B.C., you'd get your drinking water from streams, rivers, and lakes, all rich in mineral content. Humans became reliant on obtaining a considerable proportion of daily mineral needs from natural water sources.

21st century: We obtain drinking water from a spigot or plastic bottle. Pesticides and other chemicals seep into the water supply. Municipal water purification facilities have intensified water purification in most communities to remove contaminants like lead, pesticide residues, and nitrates. (For a really neat listing of the water quality of various cities, the University of Cincinnati makes this data available.)

But intensive water treatment also removes minerals like calcium and magnesium.

Many people have added water filters or purifiers to their homes,, like reverse osmosis and distillation, that are efficient at extracting any remaining minerals, converting “hard” into “soft” water. In fact, manufacturers of such devices boast of their power to yield pure water free of any “contaminant,” minerals like magnesium included. The magnesium content of water after passing through most commercial filters is zero.

Modern enthusiasm for bottled water has compounded the problem. Americans consumed a lot of bottled water, nearly 8 billion gallons last year. In the U.S., nearly all bottled water has little or no magnesium.

The result is that we can no longer rely on drinking water to provide magnesium. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA)—the amount required to prevent severe deficiency—for magnesium is 420 mg per day for men, 320 mg/day for women. In cities with the highest magnesium water content, only 30% of the RDA can be obtained by drinking two liters of tap water per day. In most cities, only a meager 10–20% of the daily requirement can be obtained. That leaves between 70–90% that needs to come from other sources. As a result, the average American ingests substantially less than the RDA.
Are humans meant to be omnivores?

Are humans meant to be omnivores?

28. September 2008 William Davis (24)
Are humans meant to be omnivores?

Does the ideal human diet include animal products like meat, fish, cheese, eggs, and dairy products?

Or should the ideal diet be devoid of all animal products?a vegetarian diet?

Though the argument is distorted by modern food processing methods (e.g., factory farming, long-term administration of antibiotics), convenience foods, and pseudo-foods crafted by food manufacturers, there are, obviously, proponents of both extremes.

The Atkins’ diet, for instance, advocates unrestricted intake of animal products, regardless of production methods or curing (sausage and bacon). At the opposite extreme are diets like Ornish (Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversal of Heart Disease) and the experiences of Dr. Colin Campbell, articulated in his studies and book, The China Study, in which he lambasts animal products, including dairy, as triggers for cancer and heart disease.

So which end of the spectrum is correct? Or ideal?

For the sake of argument, let's put aside philosophical questions (like not wanting eat animal products because of aversion to killing any living being) or ethical concerns (inhumane treatment of farm animals, cruel slaughtering practices, etc.). Does the inclusion of animal products provide advantage? Disadvantage?

The traditional argument against animal products has been saturated fat. If we accept that we’ve demoted the saturated fat question to a place far down the list of importance (though this is yet another argument to discuss another time), several questions emerge:

• If humans were meant to be vegetarian, why do omega-3 fatty acids (mostly from wild game and fish) yield such substantial health benefits, including dramatic reduction in sudden death from heart disease?

• Why would vitamin K2 (from meats and milk, as well as fermented foods like natto and cheese), obtainable in only the tiniest amounts on a vegetarian diet, provide such significant benefits on bone and cardiovascular health?

• Why would vitamin B12 (from meats) be necessary to maintain a normal blood count, prevent anemia, keep homocysteine at bay, and lead to profound neurologic dysfunction when deficient?


Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins K2 and B12 cannot be obtained in satisfactory quantities from a pure vegetarian diet. The consequences of deficiency are not measured in decades, but in a few years. The conclusion is unavoidable: Evolutionarily, humans are meant to consume at least some foods from animal sources.

That's not to say that we should gorge ourselves on animal products. Gout (excessive uric acid) and kidney stones are among the unhealthy consequences of excessive quantities of meats in our diets.

It pains me to say this, since I’ve always favored a vegetarian lifestyle, mostly because of philosophical concerns, as well as worries about the safety of our factory farm-raised livestock and rampant inhumane practices.

But, stepping back and objectively examining what nutritional approach appears to stack the odds in favor of optimal health, I believe that only one conclusion is possible: Humans are meant to be omnivorous, meant to consume some quantity of animal products in addition to vegetables, fruits, nuts, and other non-animal products.

The question is how much?
Tags :

Comments (24) -

  • Francis

    9/28/2008 4:55:00 PM |

    From the title I thought the debate would have been omnivore vs carnivore instead of omnivore vs vegetarian. Any solid arguments against a carnivorous lifestyle?

  • GK

    9/28/2008 6:21:00 PM |

    Hm, fingering meat as a cause of gout again?  Peter's Hyperlipid blog had some fairly convincing arguments that fructose may be worse.  See http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2006/12/which-drink-causes-gout.html and http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2008/02/fructoase-and-gout.html

    --GK

  • Jeremy

    9/28/2008 9:09:00 PM |

    The comment about gout is not true. Loren Cordain, author of the Paleo Diet, has reviewed the literature on gout in his Paleo Diet Newsletter, Volume 2, Number 4.

    The back issues of the newsletter are products you must pay for, so I won't discuss the contents in extreme detail. But he argues the body adjusts uric acid execretion in response to purine intake. Meanwhile, he cites studies showing fructose and alcohol for increase uric acid levels in the body.

    He cites a study where a high-protein diet relieved gout in 7 out of 12 patients!

    Jeremy

  • rabagley

    9/28/2008 10:24:00 PM |

    Personally, I find the analysis of the paleolithic diet to be most compelling.  In that analysis, we were almost entirely meat eaters, with the occasional smattering of vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc.

    There have been several indigenous cultures, both modern (Masai) and in recent history (Inuit) that lived long and healthy lives almost entirely free of diseases like diabetes or heart disease while eating almost 100% animal products.  I refer to the Inuit as "recent history" because their modern diet only rarely resembles their historical (and much healthier) diet of seal and whale fat and meat.

    After reading "Good Calories, Bad Calories", I'm convinced of the merits of the position that humans are non-obligate carnivores.  We can fall back to non-animal foods if absolutely necessary, but it's a bigger compromise to our health the farther you go.

    I do agree that the biggest problem with being a modern-day carnivore is the inhumane treatment of meat animals by agribusiness.  I spend quite a bit of money on meat that I trust has come from humanely treated animals.  I know the names and faces of the people who raised those cows, chickens, pigs and lambs.  This is a luxury.  Most people don't have the food budget that I do.

  • JD

    9/29/2008 1:13:00 AM |

    I think a better question is what diet was mankind's genetics formed from over 2 million years. Agriculture is only 10,000 years old. If you read Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, there were cultures such as the Inuit and the Masai who basically only ate meat and did not suffer from the diseases of civilization including heart disease, cancer, etc.

  • Stephan

    9/29/2008 3:26:00 AM |

    Hi Dr. Davis,

    I agree there are many animal nutrients that seem important to human health: you mentioned long-chain n-3s, vitamin K2 MK-4, and vitamin B12; I'd also add preformed vitamin A and heme iron to the list.

    I read a paper a while back in the AJCN that analyzed the diet composition of 229 historical hunter-gatherer groups (Loren Cordain's group).  The average percentage of calories from animal foods was about 70%.  Many groups were completely or almost completely carnivorous, while none ate less than about 15% of calories from animal foods.  

    That being said, the diets varied widely, from complete carnivory to plant-rich omnivory.  By all accounts, none of them suffered from the modern diseases of civilization such as cardiovascular disease.  I posted on this study a while back:

    http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/08/composition-of-hunter-gatherer-diet.html

  • Peter

    9/29/2008 12:23:00 PM |

    Hi Dr Davis,

    Great post. I have to agree with your concerns about modern meat production techniques and animal welfare as serious issues which need addressing, but we humans have always been pretty awful to our prey. Just thinking of traditional "harvesting" of marine mammals in the Faroes and subsistence whaling techniques here. No excuse for any of us to feel comfortable with these practices or to support factory farming, but humans are humans and we are top level predators after all. Lions are not exactly kind to their prey either.

    To be driven to omnivory acceptance by logic and evidence, against ones basic inclination, shows a great respect for facts and evidence that is seriously thin on the ground in both conventional and more alternative cardiological circles.

    What else can anyone say? Great post.

    Peter

  • Jeanne Shepard

    9/29/2008 3:00:00 PM |

    Vegans say that if the walls of slaughter houses were glass that noone would eat meat. I'm inclined to think that instead, there would be demands for humane animal handling.
    Agriculture kills many small mammals and ground nesting birds, with heavy farm machinery and fertilizers/pesticides. If you want to eat, there is no free lunch, in terms of animals losing their lives.
    As someone who is humane but feels that being a carnivore is essential to my health, I buy locally grass fed beef that is is humanely slaughtered.

  • Anonymous

    9/29/2008 3:32:00 PM |

    I wonder how it would be possible to gather 2000 to 2500 calories' worth of wild plant foods every day to survive.  It would amount to something like a bushel-basket full of stems and leaves and fruits -- every single day, for every member of the group. Maybe 20 pounds a week per person.  The only way around this is to include relatively large amounts of high-fat nuts, or high-starch tubers, or high-starch grass seeds, such as wheat.  And to have to do that ALL YEAR LONG.  Nuts and seeds aren't always available year round.

    Leaf-eating vegetarians, such as the gorilla, have HUGE guts amounting to some 70% of their body volume to process the vast amounts of leaf matter needed to survive.  And they eat pretty much constantly.

    That isn't us.

    If

  • Anonymous

    9/29/2008 5:03:00 PM |

    Man evolved eating lots of animal products, with some vegetation thrown in seasonally for hundreds of thousands of years. Then about 10,000 years ago we began introducing agricultural products into our diet. So rationally, we have evolved to process animal products much better than vegetation.

    Speaking for myself, gout runs in the family (among other things). Eating high animal products/low vegetation, relieves all my pains (gout and arthritic) and solves dozens of my other health complaints. And my bloodwork is the envy of people 1/2 my age.

    My only concern is how the animals are treated and raised. I only buy organic free-range eggs and try to buy organic meats and wild fish.

  • Anonymous

    9/29/2008 5:57:00 PM |

    I think we don't lose the abilities formed as evolving.  We evolved to eat nuts and bugs, then fish, then plants and finally meat. We're a true omnivore with the ability to choose.  I choose not to eat meat because I'm a veterinarian with 25 years experience dealing with unwholesome meatpacking industry.

  • stephen_b

    9/29/2008 7:38:00 PM |

    In my opinion any conversation about vegetarian vs. omnivore diets or low-carb vs. low fat diets need to take into account how the food is prepared. Any diet with high advanced glycation endproduct (AGE) content will be unhealthy.

    StephenB

  • Jeff Consiglio

    9/29/2008 9:11:00 PM |

    Holy synchronicity Batman! This is the exact question I've been mulling over for a long time and have just recently resolved the issue in my own mind, to my satisfaction. Having done and advocated low carb diets for a long time, I no longer do.

    There are numerous traditional cultures that live on a high carbohydrate intake - WITHOUT obesity, diabetes etc. So that inarguable fact always bothered me, when it came to trying to justify extreme low carb.

    For instance, here's a link to a Men's Health article on a tribe in Mexico that thrives on about an 80% carbohydrate diet.

    http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?conitem=3b4b1ca01e91c010VgnVCM10000013281eac____&page=1

    Also, I believe the science is pointing more and more toward fructose being the primary "bad carb" as opposed to starches which are chains of glucose. It is the fructose half of sucrose causing the problems, rather than the glucose.

    Not that eating pure glucose is a good idea. Nor starches that convert too rapidly into glucose.

    But I can tell you from my personal experience that as someone who once was sure that I was "carb intolerant" I now thrive on a high carb diet of WHOLE FOODS.
    I eat legumes, sprouted grain bread, slow cooked rolled oats etc. And yes I eat lean, and minimally processed meats as well.

    And my grocery bill is MUCH cheaper than it was when my wife and I were both living the low carb lifestyle. By the way, I used to suffer from reactive hypoglycemia, yet I thrive on plenty of UNREFINED carbs now.

    Here's a link to an amazing interview with a Dr. Lustig who discusses how fructose causes de-novo lipogensis, insulin resistance and high uric acid levels. he also discusses the Atkins diet and why Asians are able to thrive in spite of high intake of white rice. Ties in very nicely with this topic.

    http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2007/2104024.htm

    And here's just one more link that I think ties all this together. it's an seminar by Micheal Pollan who wrote  "In Defense of Food."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-t-7lTw6mA

    Having read literally thousands of books and scientific papers on the topic of nutrition, I feel Micheal's is the all time best. It exposes the fallacy of nutritional reductionism - what he calls "nutritionism - the idea that we should study individual macro or micro nutrients, rather than looking at overall eating patterns. He makes a brilliant case for the notion that to discover the "secret" to what constitutes the ideal human diet we need look no further than what traditional healthy cultures eat. Traditional, healthy cultures have all kinds of varying macro-nutrient ratios. But they all eat REAL FOOD.

    And I now believe that explains why totally "opposite" diets like Atkins and vegetarian can both work. Because they are both based on real food!

    Sure, some folks don't do well on high carb intake. Some don't seem to tolerate a lot meat very well. But I do not believe most people need to go to extremes in regards to high/low carb. Forget about macronutrient ratios and just eat real food and avoid sugar and refined carbs.

    And probably take a vitamin D3 supplement since most of us do not get enough sunshine to make it on our own these days.

    Sorry to make this so long, but I just had to get this off my chest.

    Keep up the good work. I enjoy your blog very much.

  • Stephanie

    10/1/2008 12:31:00 AM |

    Just to concur with your findings, at a recent 'food aid' symposium at Columbia University, sponsored by Doctors Without Borders, and a WHO conference in Geneva, it was concluded that animal proteins must be included in international food aid in order to save the millions of children who die each year of malnutrition. The standard emergency food distributions of grain-based flours (corn-soya blend) are not working. The milk powder seems to be the essential ingredient that prevents both wasting and stunting in children under 5.

  • Anonymous

    10/1/2008 6:33:00 PM |

    As a vegetarian this sort of thing interests me. I used to think it necessary to supplement with lots of nutrients (such as omega-3 fats) and be careful in order to be healthy. However I'm lately beginning to wonder if a plant-based diet is actually the key to health.

    According to several studies such as the China study, cultures who eat a plant-based diet very low in fat and animal products (even if not expressly vegan very close to it)  tend to be protected from "diseases of civilization" such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.  Certain doctors who've researched this like Dr. Ornish have used this type of diet to reverse heart disease. This idea certainly has been attacked, but I'm sure it hasn't been actually refuted.

    If this is true maybe nutrients like K2 and fish oil become less important, (assuming you're getting the required amount of essential fatty acids and other nutrients). Afterall, if you don't have atherosclerosis to begin with you don't need large amounts of special nutrients such as vitamin k2 that fight against it. Still, I guess vitamin B12 is an issue.

  • Anonymous

    10/2/2008 2:43:00 AM |

    I think it's very telling about who stands to profit if Americans embrace a vegetarian or vegan diet.  Soy, rapeseed, and cereal grains are all much easier to make high profits from than factory farmed chickens, cows, and pigs, not to mention properly, humanely raised animals.  I've noticed the push to dissuade Americans from beef, and cattle are some of the hardest animals to fit into a factory farm model, because the calves must live on grass in a field for a while - they can't be jammed up eating grain the whole time.

  • donny

    10/2/2008 1:28:00 PM |

    They did a study in rats where they either fed the rats a certain amount of vitamin k alone, or a certain amount along with Nadh, and then measured gamma-carboxylation of certain proteins. Increased levels of Nadh increased the levels of gamma-carboxylation just as if more vitamin k had been administered.
    Exercise, alcohol, and niacin all increase levels of Nadh. It's possible that something about our modern lifestyles is exaggerating our need for vitamin k2.
    The same goes for b12. Other vitamins like folic acid, b6, etc., either help in the b12 cycle, keeping it in the system, or spare it like b6 which cycles homocysteine into cysteine instead of back into methionine. People with low thyroid who receive replacement therapy have their homocysteine levels go down as well as their triglycerides, almost as if a b vitamin deficiency had been corrected.

    Dean Ornish shows increased bloodflow on his diet, but what is that diet's effect on calcium scores? Just eating a cup of sugar should increase blood flow, in the short term; vasodilation is an acute action of insulin.

  • rabagley

    10/2/2008 4:38:00 PM |

    First, the China Study authors didn't read the China Study data, or they would have noticed that the Chinese only eat about 12g/day of soy (almost entirely of one fermented form or another).  It is far from a dominant staple.  They also might have noticed that only those extremely close to starvation ate a nearly vegan diet.  Anyone who could afford to eat meat, ate meat.

    Second, Ornish is the master of selectively paying attention to study data.  Any study which can be spun to support his goals is blown all out of proportion to its actual significance.  Those studies that directly contradict his goals?  No mention...

    Personally, I know three people who've tried Ornish.  They were incredibly hungry all the time and gained all of the weight back within six months.  Their blood sugars and cholesterol numbers were even worse afterwards than before.  I and one other friend tried paleo (carnivory) instead.  Now one year into our meat-centered diet, we're both stable with moderate BMI's (me 22, him 23), normal hunger, few or no cravings, my blood sugar is way down, HDL is up, triglycerides are down...

    Ornish is a vegetarian activist claiming to be an authority on diet.  Too bad his diets are counter-productive for real people in the real world.

  • ganeshan

    10/3/2008 8:23:00 PM |

    not exactly ,humans can be carnivores too but they must go through the exact working so as to avoid any disease.being an omnivores will make us much safer.
    --------
    ganeshan

    Sreevysh Corp

  • Diana Obesity News Watcher

    10/16/2008 12:02:00 PM |

    Canadian consumers have different dietary needs depending on the end-goal they want to achieve, such as disease prevention, weight control or overall healthier dietary lifestyle. On this principle, the Compliments Balance program was developed in partnership with the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check program to provide consumers with healthier options for managing their personal diets. http://www.phentermine-effects.com

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