In yet another over-hyped study, researchers are trying to suggest a link between sausage and pancreatic cancer.  Now, this is somewhat interesting because they are saying that eating sausage everyday MIGHT increase your risk of pancreatic cancer by 0.3%.  That ain’t much.  Certainly not worth all the media hype.

But if you don’t read the article and just look at the headlines, then you don’t get to see that that’s a very small increase in risk, if the study is even accurate.

Interestingly enough, the author of the study suggested that it may be nitrites in the sausage and other processed meats.  And ironically, our low carb website has ALWAYS advocated the use of PRESERVATIVE-FREE meats and products.  That’s what I eat and will continue to eat.

Also, I am not sure how they can reduce that study down to the active ingredient being sausage.  Most people that i know eat sausage with pancakes (and lots of syrup) or french toast or biscuits or any number of other high carb foods.  I just don’t see how it’s possible that they can suggest that sausage is the problem. How do we know it’s not a combination issue, like sausage & sugar.  Or whatever.

I’m still going to eat bacon and sausage and I’m gonna enjoy the heck out of it too.  Life is a terminal disease and is far too short not to enjoy it.

In a recent study, researchers at the BC Cancer Agency were studying the effect of diet on cancer.  They found that simply reducing carbohydrates helped slow down the growth rate of cancer in mice.

The suggested intake of carbs was set at 15% for the low carb group.  So based on a 2,000 calorie diet, that’d be about 300 calories of carbs or about 75 grams of carbs per day.   For a 1,500 calorie per day diet, that equals out to roughly 50 – 60 grams of carbs per day.

The researchers also suggested that the increase in protein (60% of the diet) could help the immune system function better when compared to a higher carb/lower protein diet.  Ironically, the mice eating the Western diet (55% carbs) gained weight and had a higher incidence of cancer.

Even at 15% carbs for the day, that’s still plenty of carbs.  I have eaten less than 20 grams of carbs per day for a couple of months and personally noticed numerous health benefits.

The study also suggested that reducing carbs also helped increase the effectiveness of anti-caner drugs and the ever popular anti-inflammatory drug Celebrex.  I have commented in other posts that I thought a low carb diet even seemed to increase the effect of coffee (a natural drug).

Recently, I can’t help but to wonder if eating a low carb diet helps eliminate food allergies and consequently reduces systemic chronic inflammation caused by those allergies and just might ultimately help boost or even normalize the body’s immune system.  Just a thought of my own.

In a recent study, over 8 weeks, it was suggested that reducing fat could help decrease the risk for type 2 diabetes more so than reducing carbs for 69 overweight people.

They apparently compared a low carb diet to a low fat diet.  I guess they were suggesting that by reducing fat intake, you can still enjoy being fat and not increase your risk of type 2 diabetes.

The problem is that the low carb numbers in this study were set at 43% of daily carb intake?  So on a 2,000 calorie diet, 43% of the carb intake would equate to about 215 grams of carbs by my math?  And that’s supposed to be low carb?

How about under 100 grams of carbs?  Or maybe under 60 grams of carbs? That’s what I call low carb.  200 grams of carbs per day is NOT low carb at all.

“At eight weeks, the group on the lower-fat diet had significantly higher insulin secretion and better glucose tolerance and tended to have higher insulin sensitivity,” the study’s lead author said.

Higher insulin secretion?  Now we know that one of insulins job is to move fat into fat cells.  Does it make any sense health-wise to eat a diet that actually increases insulin secretion?  Unless you were already diabetic and uncontrolled / medicated?  I suspect based on this study, a high carb, high fat diet would make for a really bad diet.  I would add that if you are eating a high carb diet, then you probably do want to cut the fat.

Of course, it would have been interesting to have kept the carb count the same and varied the protein intake.  Or kept the fat content the same and vary the protein intake.  Might have gotten similar results?  Who knows.

The real problem is jumping to conclusions on small amounts of data that could entirely erroneous and generalizing the results.

For example, there was a study showing that over a years time, people eating a high carb diet were happier than those on a low carb diet.  But the glaring thing about that was the total weight loss (not to mention 1 out 5 people were on anti-depressants).  They said the average weight loss was roughly the same in both groups over a year.  Now I know for a fact that if you’re obese and eat under 40 grams of carbs per day for a year, you’re going to lose more than 13 pounds.  So what’s that tell you?  These people weren’t following the diet for the entire year?  Probably the case.  Which would skew the results.

So give it another couple months and another study will come out showing something different.

And while I’m totally biased towards low carb, at some point, you have to find the diet right for your body, based on how you feel, how you look, how much energy, and mental clarity and focus it gives you.

Slowly but surely, people are figuring out that eating fat doesn’t make us fat.  Fat helps us to feel full and satisfied.  In an interesting article on skim milk, the author points out some studies indicating that reducing fat intake isn’t all that effective.

There is still a knee-jerk reaction to fat.   In the last couple decades the slogan has been ‘low-fat’ everything.  And in general, people aren’t any less fat now than they were 20 years ago.  Sure skim milk has about half the calories of whole milk, but the studies are showing that people just compensate for those calories sometime during the day.

I’ve seriosly tried low-fat, low-calorie diets and really struggled with them.  You think low carb is hard?  It’s a breeze compared to the other options, because you get to eat fat (which your body needs) and makes you feel full and happy.

These days, I never buy low-fat anything, unless it’s cottage cheese where I plan on adding more flax oil (100% fat).  I want the full fat versions of everything.  Meat, cheese, dairy.  And I’ve only lost 76 pounds eating full fat vs low fat.

Choose to eat low fat?  No thanks, maybe next time.

In a completely surprising study, switching to low fat dairy didn’t help kids lose weight.  Wow, what a shocker!  At least now we have some conclusive evidence that reducing fat doesn’t help kids lose weight.

All kidding aside, the only real surprise is that people/scientists still think reducing fat is helpful.  Obviously, I am a bit biased here.  And I’ve only lost 76 pounds by NOT reducing fat.  I reduced carbohydrates instead and guess what?  I lost weight.

The amusing thing to me is one of doctors was quoted as saying that these kids managed to reduce their saturated fat which will help them later in life with heart disease.  Now this is ironic to me.  Because I just read an earlier study that said there are NO STUDIES showing that eating saturated fat causes an increase in heart attacks or strokes.  There is NO evidence to conclude that.  Maybe they should be looking at inflammation levels, cortisol levels, etc.

So the old dogma is still going strong.  Saturated fat is bad, low fat is good (even though the studies aren’t showing that) and so on and so on.  Maybe one of these days, people will catch on.  I don’t know.

I can only gauge by what I know and have experience with.  I don’t buy low fat ANYTHING.  I don’t think fat is the problem.  I think excessive sugar consumption is a major issue.  I think artificial chemicals, growth hormones, antibiotics, mercury, pesticides, genetically modified food and product marketing are all major issues.

Reducing fat is just not a good idea.  Fat helps slow down digestion, which would help prevent serious blood sugar spikes and provides a highly concentrated source of energy.  Sometimes, I take saturated fat by the spoonful in the form of coconut oil.  Sometimes I even add flax oil (100% fat) to full fat cottage cheese.  And I’m still losing weight eating fat

In one of the sillier studies I’ve come across, this one was a published study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and was suggesting that a low carb diet could cause colon disease.

The problem with this study is that it was based on 17 subjects.  For 4 weeks?  And divided into 3 groups?  17 into 3 groups is 5.67 people per group.  5 people?

Please tell me that you’re not going to come up with ‘scientific’ data over 17 subjects and then generalize that it can cause colon cancer?  Wtf?  You can’t be serious?

But this is the problem with scientific studies and jumping to conclusions and then cyring ‘fire!’ without substantial evidence.  Simply because the headlines get attention.  And the majority of people probably don’t bother to read the details of the study.

This particular study would be even imply that they know without a shadow of a doubt what causes colon cancer.  That’d certainly be news to me.

The ironic part is even suggesting that an increase in hazardous metabolites in fecal material is somehow bad?  Perhaps the body is simply doing it’s job better, after all in this study they are analyzing what the body has effectively eliminated.

Personally, I think it’s totally irresponsible in the name of ‘clinical science’ to generalize and jump to conclusions about the harmful effects of eating a certain diet on such a small sample size and then distort the results.  It’s really fear mongering.

I think at best suggesting that increasing fiber might be a safer suggestion.  But that probably doesn’t sell as well though.

In a recent study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 21 previous studies were examined and researchers could not find a link between saturated fat intake and an increase in heart attacks or strokes.

The old dogma of ‘saturated fat is bad for you’ seems to becoming less and less on an issue.  And actually entirely false.  The researchers in this study could not any evidence to suggest that a diet in lower saturated fat resulted in fewer heart attacks or strokes.

Perhaps the real issue is not saturated fat at all.  The studies showing a Western diet is ‘bad’ for us is clearly evident, even for us non-scientists.  But perhaps the focus on saturated fat being the problem is just plain wrong.  What if it were really refined carbohydrates, sugar, corn syrup and the copious quantities in which they are added to all the processed foods Americans eat?

Personally I believe there is no one diet that fits all.  Every body is different.  I also believe that many of these studies that spread fear and doom & gloom based on ‘may cause’ or ‘potential link’ are not helpful at all.  I suspect the guilt induced by spreading concepts like ‘eating saturated fat is bad for you’ is far worse than eating the saturated fat.

For me, I feel better eating protein, fats (animal and vegetable) and lots of vegetables.  With little to no refined carbohydrates, no preservatives and little to no dairy.   Seems to be working for me and only took me decades to figure out what’s working for my body.  Better late than never I guess.

So what’s for breakfast?  This morning it’s a 3 egg omelet with sausage and spinach.

As I understand it, a recent study by Nutrition and Metabolism has showed that a lower carb diet had a different effect in mice than did a higher carb diet.  And more specifically in the area of adipose tissue (fat) and skeletal tissue (muscle).  After eating lower carb, there was a higher activity in skeletal muscles than when compared to eating a higher carb diet which elicited a greater response in the adipose tissue.

However, not sure too much can be inferred from this particular study.  Protein intake was 3x higher percentage wise in the lower carb group and one would expect to see a higher muscle response as such.  And the lower carb diet fed to mice was remarkably similar to the Zone diet (40/30/30).  This study used a 35/35/30 ratio.  The higher carb diet used a ratio of 60% carbs, 12% protein and 28% fat.

One interesting thing is the higher carb group did also have a larger insulin response.  This is significant because one of the fundamental premises of low carb diets is to minimize the insulin response consistently over time.  The theory being that insulin helps the body convert and store extra carbohydrates into fat.  And it would seem that in mice, at least, that there might just be something to that theory.

I’ve been playing around with my ratio and am testing it.  I suspect everybody has a different ratio and figuring out that ratio for yourself seems like a good life long endeavor.

Apparently a recent study published in the Lancet from the Netherlands was trying to make a correlation between what we eat and if that causes ADHD.

Interestingly enough, they did an elimination diet to the most ‘non-allergenic’ foods on 100 kids ages 4-8, which consisted of meat and vegetables.  Meat and vegetables?  Hmmmm…that sounds almost like a low carb diet?  In fact, that even sounds like my diet.

Except, they also added pears and wheat?  Wheat?  Non-allergenic?  Seriously? Even my dogs know that wheat is one of the most common allergens.  Not to mention highly processed and loaded with carbs and essentially empty calories, unless they add vitamins to the wheat product (which is practically a given in the US). 

Still though they saw a 64% improvement in behavior in children diagnosed wih ADHD.  And speculated that the others might not have followed the diet that closely.  Which is a problem with any non-supervised study.

I don’t think 100 kids is really statistically all that significant to be written about on CNN or published in a medical journal.  And the study also had no idea which foods were the ‘culprits’.  I guess the general gist of it was that allergens in food can cause erratic behavior.  Perhaps next they’ll look a little more closely at preservatives and artificial food coloring, perhaps those are the real culprits (besides a high sugar diet).

Eating low carb really isn’t that hard.  It’s kinda like breathing or even sex.  The more you think about it, the more screwed up it can get.  Keep it simple still applies.

I don’t have the foggiest idea how the science of low carb works down to the metabolic pathway.  In fact, I’m not sure anyone on the planet understands the exact science, because we are still learning it as a human species.  There are a lot of unknowns.  And it will probably be after my lifetime before there is even a semi-complete picture of the science and even then, I’d be surprised.  Because each person is unique.  What works for me, might not work for you.

To me, it’s kinda like electricity.  I don’t have a clue as to how electricity works or what it is.  I don’t even think there is a person on the planet who even knows what it is, but we still know how to use it.  We know how to generate it and we know how to manage and direct it.  That seems to be working for us at the moment.  Even  a four year old knows how to turn on a light switch.

So just imagine for a moment, suppose you had to know every detail about how your television works BEFORE you turned it on – for example, you had to know how liquid crystal works, how the colors are generated, how the electricity fuels the whole process, how the cable signal is encrypyed and how that even tranlates into a picture, etc. – and then have to go even deeper and have to understand the electron configuration of each individual molecule ALL BEFORE ever turning on your television, then a few things might happen.

Somewhere along the line, you might leave something out and have to start all over

OR you might get distracted with all the tiny details and forget why the hell you even wanted to turn on your television to begin with

OR you simply could make a mistake and be completely wrong.

And that’s ok.  Why?  Because it’s pretty freakin complicated.  That’s why.  And a TV is a finite machine.  Forget about a living breathing dynamic constantly changing human being. We’ve had science for hundreds of years and there are numerous conflicting studies on a daily basis all in the name of progress.

But the the other thing that would probably happen if you had to know everything about your TV before turning it on would be….

The vast majority of people would simply never turn on their television.

Thank GOD there isn’t a test and this isn’t school and you’re not being graded anymore.  Seriously.  Just press the ON button, baby, cause it’s all good.

I suspect if I were motivated enough, I could teach myself biochemistry and spend a lot of my time tracing metabolic pathways and learning about glycerols, but I don’t need to go to that level, let alone risk being accused of taking financial bribes to skew the science in my company’s motivated self interest (ala big pharma).

But even then I think the people that do function at that level are hypothesizing and speculating about very complex systems in a microscopic vacuum-like fashion and are probably missing the complexity of how those processes work in combination with other processes like breathing or vision or olfactory.  You know the basics.  So it really is like Alice in Wonderland.  How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

For me, I just want to be able to turn on my television.  And I’ve managed to figure that out.  I even have 3 remotes with 50 buttons on each one.  And I press a button and it works.  So I guess I have to remember to pat myself on the back on that one.  Apparently, I just have really low standards for being successful as a human being.

But really, I just want to figure out what to make for dinner.  Because what I’ve been doing for the past 35 years hasn’t been working.  So for now, the bigger picture as of today, right now it’s still low carb for this body.  I tried low carb (I also tried things like low calorie) and low carb got results.  I lost weight, I felt better, and all those BS blood sugar swings are a thing of the past.  Good enough for me.

So let’s make this simpler than possible.  Here’s what I eat these days.  Try it for yourself and see if it works for you.

I eat protein, vegetables and fat with each meal.  Occasionally I eat a handful of blueberries.  On rare occasion I’ll eat almonds and chocolate (85% dark). I tend to avoid natural and artificial sweeteners and am trying as hard as possible to eliminate artificial preservatives.  I drink water and unsweet tea.  And that’s it.  And I’ve lost over 60 lbs since late August 2010.  I also walk 45 minutes about 3 – 5x per week.

And beyond that, I also do one other thing.  I try to pay attention to how my body feels and also try to pay attention to the feedback my body gives me.  But that’s a whole other story….