Please feel free to ask questions or post comments about the documentary film, “My Big Fat Diet”, or anything you see on this site or its links. I will endeavour to reply to all posts.
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Hi again Dr.Jay,
Thanks for your response. I was wondering if you will be doing any more studies. My children are desendants of a reserve here in the Interior and the people there are concerned about the rise in the incidence of diabetes. My granddaughter has develped it at the age of 13 and is finding it hard to control. Do you think low carb would be good for her or is it different with this type of the disease, ie in children?
My Dr. was very skeptical but he is skinny….thanks again.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Type 2 diabetes has become a very serious problem in many First Nations communities. When I trained in medicine it was unheard of in children but now it has become relatively common. This is a tragic situation. In the case of your granddaughter, if she has type 1 diabetes (so-called juvenile diabetes) she will need to take insulin injections regardless of what she eats. If she ate fewer carbs her insulin requirements would go down. The expert on this is Dr. Richard K Bernstein (not the Bernstein weight loss clinic doctor) who has type 1 diabetes himself and has developed a very low-carb approach for the management of type 1 diabetes. You can learn more by clicking on his name in my links section. If your granddaughter has type 2 diabetes, I would encourage you to try lowering her carbohydrate intake. A good book that can guide you is, “Atkins Diabetes Revolution” by Vernon and Eberstein. Perhaps, if you gave it to your doctor, he might be more inclined to consider this approach.
As far as further research goes, I am currently not planning anything beyond completing the data collection in Alert Bay. The people there have indicated that they want to continue the diet beyond the 12 month research period so I may start a study to follow them over the long term. I would like to do more in other communities so we’ll see what happens in terms of whether I get the opportunity to pursue this or not.
Dr. Jay,
I was wondering if any of the study participants developed gall bladder attacks during the study, like some people do when they have rapid weight loss and if not, why not?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
One study participant, who had a prior history of gallstones, had a gall bladder attack while on the study diet but continued with the diet. Another, also with a prior history, dropped out and we were not clear whether it was because of a gall bladder attack or for some other reason.
When it comes to rapid weight loss and gall bladder attacks, it has been well documented that this can be a problem with very low fat diets or very low calorie diets (which will, by necessity, be low in fat). I think it is less of a problem with low carb diets which allow fat, as ours did. Here’s why. In the very low calorie or low fat diets, it has been documented that participants (mostly women) will actually develop gall stones while on the diet. We know that gall stones tend to develop when the gall bladder is not active. Fat in the diet activates the gall bladder. It has also been shown that women who skip breakfast and therefore fast for longer periods overnight are more prone to gall stones. The mechanism is the same, ie that the gall bladder is inactive allowing sludge and then stones to form. Then, if that person does eat a fatty meal, they are at risk of an acute attack which occurs when the gall bladder becomes active and expels a stone which gets stuck in the bile duct. So, on a low-carb diet which allows fat, if you don’t already have gall stones, it is highly unlikely you will develop them. If you do have gall stones, unless you increase your fat intake, you shouldn’t be at any greater risk of a gall bladder attack than if you weren’t dieting. In our study diet, fat was not restricted. However, as people lose weight on this type of diet, they burn internal fat which has no effect on the gall bladder. Once their weight loss plateaus, they would then increase dietary fat consumption and may increase the risk of a gall bladder attack. Or not. Weight loss is beneficial for a range of conditions including gall bladder disease so the gains from the weight loss may offset the risk of a gall bladder attack. I certainly haven’t seen gall bladder attacks reported in the published low-carb studies.
Any recommendations on what would be ok to drink, other than water?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Water is good. I also like tea. Ideally, you want to keep your caffeine intake down, so non-caffeinated teas are better. If you have a coffee habit, a cup or two is okay but don’t put sugar or too much milk in it. If you miss sweet beverages, an occasional diet soft drink isn’t going to upset the apple cart. There was some research getting media attention lately which suggested a link between diet soda and obesity. I don’t know how that would work, frankly. I met a young man recently after I gave a lecture who told me he had just shed 20 lbs just by switching from regular soda to diet soda. A glass of wine will have about a gram of carb per ounce, so use in moderation. On the other hand, distilled spirits don’t have any carb, unless you mix them with something sweet. Anyway, when in doubt, there is always water.
Hi Jay,
Watched the program again tonight. What is the long term plan for people on a diet such as this? Do you think this way of eating will become a life long habit?
Also, as a follow up question about my son and his diagnosis of candida infection – how are diabetics normally treated for this?
He is trying a naturopathic approach by eliminating sugar from his diet, and the naturopathic diagnosis implicates antibotics as the cause. This makes it seem that cutting sugar from the diet is the only solution – as he has not had much support from the traditional medical community for this condition.
You are the first person I have heard say that diabetics get candida.
Great show. Thanks.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
In Alert Bay, the diet subjects indicated strongly that they wanted to continue eating this way beyond the point when the study ended. I am hoping to be in a position to continue to help them do that.
I am not that familiar with the concept of whole body candida infection although I am aware that many alternative practitioners diagnose this condition. In the case of diabetics, I have seen females who tend to get vaginal yeast infections more often which I think is a function of the higher sugar levels which the yeast like. The treatments were the usual ones, creams mainly, just applied more frequently. Antibiotic use can be implicated as a cause of candida infection as it can upset the natural equilibrium of organisms that colonize our bodies and allow the yeast to overgrow. Anything that normalizes blood sugar should help, I would think.
Dear Dr. Jay
After reading Taubes’ GCBC I’ve really lowered my intake of sugar and refined carbs. I have lost about 8lbs without any hardship at all. My weight is now in the normal BMI range. I’ve noticed that my weak spots, bread and beer, are losing their appeal and I don’t crave them like I did the first couple of weeks.
I’ve been eating lots of eggs and sausage or bacon for breakfast and I feel full for hours afterward. Is there cause for concern regarding the frying? I’ve heard that when fat reaches high temperatures it is harmful. Is it?
Also, is there any way to get more attention for GCBCalories. I heard about it on Quirks and Quarks. I’ve been recommending all of my clients to read it and then lend it to a friend. Keep up the good work!
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
If poly-unsaturated vegetable oils are used in the frying, they can become oxidized, which is not good. I would expect, however, that your bacon is providing its own fat when fried and you wouldn’t be adding vegetable oil. The only vegetable oil that is good for frying is olive oil because of its high mono-unsaturate content. Even canola, which I recommend for other things (like salad dressings) because of its low omega-6, should not be used for frying because it still has enough omega-3 PUFA to become problematic at high temperatures.
I agree that Gary Taubes’ book, “Good calories, Bad calories”, should be widely read. I have given away a lot of copies and promote it whenever I can.
Hi Dr. Wortman: Was wondering if people would be willing to share good recipes that follow this meal plan? I saw your program on Saturday evening and very much enjoyed it. It is clear that mainstream is still very skeptical about the diet’s success and long-term health benefits. I’ve been following the basic rules now for 3 days and have lost 1 pound already. One amazing thing I noticed is my appetite dropped and my heartburn disappeared. I also noticed I felt full very quickly upon eating. So, that’s a thumb’s up in my book. Thank you again for bringing this way of eating to public attention. I’ve been sharing your website with other women who have PCOS. You might have your revolution yet!
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I have posted some of my favourite low-carb recipes on the site. I will continue to update them as I discover more new dishes. I would also encourage others to post their favourite recipes, too.
Dr. Jay,
Saw the show the other night. EXCELLENT!
Have read all the comments.
Congrats on this. I hope it is my answer.
I will spare you my profile/history and get to my??
Exercise and portions?
No one seems to mention these aspects
Can you please comment.
Also I am assuming that cream means whipping cream. What about 10%, 18%? sour cream?
Avacados??
You mentioned that you use Equal? I have always avoided sugar substitutes as I have avoided margarine. Please comment.
How does splenda fit in?
Thanks a million for this ..am off to get the Atkins and Taubes books
Andrea
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
When you drop the carbs, your appetite goes away. For this reason we don’t get into counting calories or worrying about portion size. There are some good studies that show it is the carbs in the diet that seem to drive excess eating. Most of the recent research on low-carb has used this approach and people get better weight loss than others who eat a reduced calorie diet that includes carbs.
Exercise is good. I believe that people who are overweight, especially if they are starting to develop insulin resistance or diabetes, have low energy levels. They just don’t want to get up of the sofa and go jogging. I tell people not to worry about exercise until they get their diet sorted out. What usually happens is that once they get carbs down to a very low level, they experience a surge of energy and feel like becoming more active. In the study, people spontaneously became more active.
Cream means whipping cream. I like sour cream, too, and avocados.
As far as the artificial sweeteners go, I don’t fear them but it is a good idea to limit them. I think it boils down to personal preference in terms of which one you should use. Personally, when I eat Splenda I feel kind of like I have eaten sugar so I tend to use Equal or Twin.
Hi Dr. Wortman
I wanted to thank you for bringing this issue to peoples attention.
I am 38 year old First Nation of Ojibwa descent. I was once 245 lbs. I managed to trim down to 165 lbs. During my “education” and “research” on learning how to improve my life, I stumbled upon one facet that I was surprised no one has really done any thorough research on (that I’m aware of).
I read a book that suggests that the introduction of hormones, pesticides, antibiotics, heavy salt, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, lactose and a multitude of other chemicals can have a cumulative effect on a body. I began to wonder how this is affecting First Nations people whose ancestors were never exposed to this as much as we are now. I am wondering how much of this can be linked to higher tendencies to depression, suicide, emotional/mental imbalances, anxiety, panic attacks, and more. This book made a link of cummulative effects of chemicals in the body/brain to a persons mental well-being.
When I ballooned to 245 lbs, I was on high blood pressure pills and was told I’d have to take them for the rest of my life. I was also told I’m prone to heart disease and stroke. I was convinced it was all because I was First Nation, and that I had no choice in that so I accepted it…for now.
Over the course of 5 years I began to do research on my own. I began cardio and weight training. I ditched coffee, alcohol, sugar, dairy products, focussed on eating low fat and living foods. I stopped junk food almost completely, and I ditched my desk job for a physically demanding job.
I am no longer on any medication whatsoever. I am more muscular, stronger and in far better shape than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and my mental/emotional state has returned to “normal”. Whenever I go home for visits everyone says “Wow! Have you ever changed!” and no one can believe it’s really me. I begin to feel bad for my childhood friends who used to be so cute and sweet have ballooned beyond the point of recognition, and some have already died due to complications of diabetes, heart attack and stroke.
I really wish someone would do a study on chemical cumulative effects on First Nations peoples especially when it comes to the emotional/mental effects. Many First Nations that I talk to always seem to have one thing in common; depression, anxiety/panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. I can see why First Nations are now prone to alcohol/drugs to cope with those feelings. But that’s just adding fuel to the fire.
Les Bruce – Vancouver
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
No doubt all the things you mention are contributing to the health problems of First Nations people. I do think, however, that the big change in diet over a very short time is the greatest contributor of all. One of the things we noticed in the Alert Bay study was the big improvement in mood and outlook of the people in the study. For some, it was a dramatic change for the better. It is an area that deserves more research.
I have a question about the HgbA1c tests. I am a Type 2 Diabetic and my last test results were .98. My doctor tells me that I will never be able to get my results any lower without insulin. I do not want to go on insulin, I am overweight enough. I need to lose 60 lbs. I am considering following the Atkins (Phase 1) for 3 months to see if I can lower these results. I also have high blood pressure (which is controlled by meds) and the doctor thinks I probably have PCOS, although I have never been tested for this condition. My doctor wants me to have another HgbA1C test in 3 months and then if the results are not down, he wants me to take insulin. Do you think when I follow Atkins for 3 months, my test results will be down significantly? And, does exercise play a big part in this also? I am willing to keep close records while I am following this plan ie: blood glucose monitoring, weight, exercise, and keep a journal of everything eaten etc.
Thank you
Judi – New Brunswick
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I can pretty much guarantee that if you go on Atkins induction, your blood sugar will drop to normal values within a couple of days. If you stick with the diet, your HgA1c will be normal after 3 months. If you are on meds for blood sugar or blood pressure you will need to reduce them or get off them entirely very quickly or your sugar or blood pressure will go too low. I recommend “Atkins Diabetes Revolution” as a guide. It is best done under the supervision of your doctor, of course. PCOS seems to resolve fairly quickly on a low-carb diet, as well.
Hi folks,
I have been living a low carb for five lifestyle for 5 years, I lost 100lbs in the first year and have slowly gained back about 70 lbs. I do not miss high carb food.
I use keto-sticks and will be in a moderate state of ketosis for about one month and then the rating drops. I then go off the diet for one or two days and ketosis kicks in again. But it does not result in weight loss.
I have a hypothyroid condition and have been treated for it for six years.
My GP is not very informed about a low carb lifestyle so is not much help so I am looking for an MD in the Vancouver area that knows about low carb and hypothyroidism.
I think that I’d make a good case study as I have had blood work done regularly for the last six years. By the way it is always good in terms of cholesterol, etc. I am continually amazed by this considering the amount of natural fat that I eat.
Can anyone give me advice about what I may be doing wrong? Sometimes it is like my body has just gotten used to the diet and has shut down the weight loss processes, maybe by simply using the incoming fat and protein to create energy.
Thoughts, advice, suggestions?
Tommy O
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Here’s the thing about ketosis. When you start low-carb, your liver starts producing ketones for your brain to use in place of glucose. Your muscles also burn ketones at first until they adjust to burning fat. Your kidneys leak ketones and testing for it in your urine with the keto-sticks is a good way to know if you have lowered the carbs far enough to cause ketogenesis. Now, what a lot of people seem to overlook is that, since ketones are a source of energy that is being wasted as it leaks out of the kidneys, the body eventually wises up and stops letting them leave via the urine. If you are sticking to the diet and you find that the keto-sticks are not showing positive readings anymore, it is likely that you are still making and burning ketones at the same rate but you are just not leaking them anymore. In your case, by going off the diet when this happens you are contributing to weight re-gain. Going off and on is not a good idea as, for some reason, many people find it harder to lose the weight when they resume after being off.
Hypothyroid can be a reason for stalled weight loss so it is important to make sure you are getting enough thyroid replacement therapy. Unfortunately I don’t know of a good MD who is experienced in low-carb and thyroid management in Vancouver.
I am not surprised that your cholesterol readings are good while you eat lots of fat. The research has shown this to be the norm if you are significantly reducing carbs.
Dr. Wortman,
Sorry to bother you once again. I have another question if you could be as generous with your time. Here goes: I like adding sea salt to my food, and i notice you advocate the consumption of salt, especially when adhering to a very low-carb diet. Could the addition of salt impact potassium levels, especially seeing as fruit consumption is not recommended on your diet? I’ve heard that potassium deficiency can cause a number of symptoms similar to those of both magensium and/or sodium deficiency, such as faintess and fatigue.
Best,
Peter
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I like sea salt for its flavour. It also contains some potassium and trace minerals. When you lose sodium as a result of carb restriction, the body compensates by shifting other electrolytes like potassium and magnesium (to a certain extent). You wouldn’t need to take a potassium supplement to correct a potassium deficiency in this case, all you would need to do is get enough sodium and the potassium will equilibrate on its own. With magnesium, usually the problem is a sub-clinical magnesium deficiency which is unmasked by these electrolyte shifts which is why I recommend a slow-release magnesium supplement to those who show symptoms (usually muscle cramps and hyper-reflexia).
Hi Dr. Wortman
The show of your study rekindled my return to Atkins, thank you for that. I am scheduled to have my gallbladder removed soon. My concern is the processing of fat without the gallbladder.
I had pancreatitis in December which the doctors are unsure of the cause. In February I had gallstone like symptoms, but again the cause was unresolved. I was then referred to a surgeon who wants to remove my gallbladder. After reading the various forums about the after effects of the operation I am contemplating not having the procedure. It sounds like it becomes difficult to intake the proper amount of fat.
I am interested in your comments and any suggestions you would have. I hope the study is continuing well. Thank you for your reply.
Richard
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I am sorry to hear of your gall bladder problems. A major contributor to gall stones is inactivity of the gall bladder due to inadequate fat intake. Once you have the stones, a big fatty meal can trigger an attack as the gall bladder will contract and a stone can become lodged in the bile duct. If someone with gall stones were to do Atkins, initially they wouldn’t need to increase their fat intake and there should be no increased risk of a gall bladder attack. During the time they were losing weight on a low-carb diet, they would be burning stored fat and this has no effect on the gall bladder. Once their weight loss plateaus, however, they should ideally start to increase the fat content of their diet. This may lead to a gall bladder attack or it may not. It is hard to predict. If someone has the surgery and then goes on the Atkins diet, they would have to be careful about adding fats after weight loss plateaus but should be able to do this by slowly increasing the amount of fat they eat and then backing off if they develop symptoms like bloating, gas and discomfort.
Hello Dr. Jay,
I just wanted to thank you for your good work. I did go on the Atkins style diet and lost 20 lbs. But my wife of 32 years who is a nurse was upset that I was eating too much fat. I as well did not understand the diet. Like many others I thought that it was high protein. But in your film, you put me straight that really it is a high fat diet. Realizing this has changed things around for me. I immediately went back on the diet but this time not with the negative attitude towards fat. And I have lost 5 lbs in the last 6 days. A lot of it was water that I think was kept in my system because of all the sugary stuff I ate that the body could not process well. I feel so much better now and I plan to keep going.
Thank you Dr. Jay and all the participants in the diet for setting me straight about fat being good rather than bad. I am back losing weight and feeling better every day.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
The loss of water at the beginning is the result of two factors. You will burn off your stored glycogen in the first couple of days after restricting carbs and this releases water. This effect lasts only a short time. Secondly, while you are eating a high carb diet, your kidneys tend to retain salt. When you cut the carbs the salt is released into your urine and takes water with it. If you try to restrict salt while you are eating a low carb diet you may become salt depleted and experience symptoms of dehydration which can include headache, weakness, constipation and muscle cramps. My friend Dr. Phinney recommends people on a low-carb diet should drink a cup of bouillon twice a day to maintain adequate salt balance.
Thank you for the positive feedback and good luck with your new way of eating.
Hello Dr. Wortman,
Your show was excellent, I taped it for later reference.
I am 54 years old and have hypothyroidism, 5′ 10″ and 225lbs. I got encouraged by your show and started a low-carb diet just over a week ago. I eat less than 20 calories a day and so I expected to lose at least a few pounds by now. It did not happen and I may have metabolic resistance as described in Dr. Atkin’s book. Since hypothyroidism is not a rare disease, I am wondering if your study group had any such individual and if yes, what their progress was in losing weight. My keto-stick shows no loss of ketones and I am not losing weight. I also would like to know your opinion on the following:
1. Meat consumption promotes the production of uric acid which in turn, may contribute to arthritis. Is there any guide line to follow?
2. We are encouraged to eat lots of fibre to avoid colon cancer. Is there any research to show the incidence of colon cancer among low-carb dieters?
Thanks again for the show and your research!
Regards,
Steve
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
We didn’t have anyone in the study with thyroid disease. Hypothyroidism can get in the way of weight loss on a low-carb diet unless you are getting sufficient thyroid hormone replacement therapy. It is still odd that the very low-carb intake you describe did not trigger ketosis.
Meat and some other protein-rich foods lead to uric acid in your system which is excreted by the kidney. Excess uric acid over time is the cause of gout, a painful inflammation of the joints. When eating a low-carb diet, if done correctly, the protein intake usually increases only a little. However, at the beginning of the diet, the kidney excretes ketones which can inhibit the excretion of uric acid. This would, theoretically, increase the risk of gout until the kidney adjusts to ketosis and stops excreting the ketones. Although this may happen I have not seen it in any of the published literature on low-carb diets so far.
There was a recent meta-analysis of dietary fibre studies which could not demonstrate a benefit in terms of reducing the risk of colon cancer. There was a study done out of the BC Cancer Control Agency a few years back which looked at colon cancer among Chinese men and it found an increased risk with higher levels of carbohydrate consumption. We also know that the risk of colorectal cancer is higher among type 2 diabetics. Another recent study demonstrated that a low-carb diet significantly improved the symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease. All this to say that there appears to be no benefit from fibre but probably some harm associated with high carb consumption.
Dr. Wortman: I watched the program and was interested in one individual’s result of lowering his blood pressure because of being on your diet. I am 60, weigh 140 +/- lbs, cycle at least 50 k every other day, eat no red meat, nor dairy products, nor heavy starchy foods and yet my blood pressure and cholesterol are still elevated somewhat. I consume a lot of soy (soup cubes, soy drinks, cheese subs., marg. etc.) as well as consuming a lot of foods with flax/fiber (bread, waffles, dry cereal), 2-3 portions of fruit, 3 cups of veg. and 1 cup greens per day. I eat one ‘big meal’ per day and before 18:00 hrs. And when I bike I have calculated almost exactly how much to eat to counter what I expend/hour such that I weigh the same before/after and with no loss of energy. Still I have found getting close to 135 lbs to be hard.
Apart from a belief (backed up by Chinese research I found) that by and large blood pressure pills increase cholesterol, my cholesterol and blood pressure could be better. I have also tried most cholesterol-type meds except statins which I am resisting. Do have any suggestions?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Based on my own observations and a number of studies in good scientific journals, I think a low-carb diet is a good way to lower blood pressure and improve cholesterol. I have a 60 year old colleague who exercises a lot and eats a very healthy diet who tells me that the only way he can avoid being on two blood pressure medications is to severely restrict the carbs. The studies also show a benefit in cholesterol even when subjects increased their intake of fat, including saturated fat.
Dr. Wortman,
So far so good. These new eating habits are almost fun! Two things that I noticed almost immediately were firstly I actually feel full. I don’t remember feeling full for a very long time. Previously my husband would be moaning and groaning complaining that he ate too much, blah blah blah. Meanwhile I’m thinking I could go back for more. Not now, I feel full! Secondly, on all my many diets over the years, I have alway had to force myself to drink water. Now I’m thirsty. Every little while through the day I’m looking for water. Before I would have been looking for food. These are both very unusual changes for me. Is this commonly reported, particularly the thirst?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
One of the nice things about cutting the carbs is that your appetite changes. You don’t get ravenously hungry anymore. I typically don’t feel hungry in the morning but eat a good breakfast anyway and then don’t get hungry until around 3:00 pm or later, even when I am skiing all day.
Have a look at all the posts here to get some information on salt needs when doing low-carb. Your thirst may be a sign that you need to get more salt into your diet. When you do low-carb you lose salt. A good way to replace it is to drink a cup of bouillon twice a day. Good luck with your new way of eating.
Hi again Dr. Jay,
I am pleased and amazed. Have been following the food plan (refuse to call it a diet) for 11 days now and have lost 10 lbs. I weigh on Sunday mornings and could barely believe my scale. I did not feel deprived at all, but had difficulty getting below 30 carbs a day so now i scout for the vegies with the lowest count. I was doing this a year ago and took some advice from my doc to go down to 800 calories a day. I stopped losing and caved in. So I have wasted a year. If I hadn’t seen your T.V. doc. i wouldn’t have tried again. So my thanks to you…
Yours,
Ellie
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Good for you, Ellie. Please read through all the posts here to get more information on how to manage salt, which fats to eat, etc. Good luck with the new way of eating.
Hi Dr. Jay,
I watched with interest MBFD on CBC. I am a white female of 56 years. I admit that I have tried other ‘lifestyle’ plans to remove weight and only suceeded in adding more. I am on Crestor (no problems there) and have been concerned that I could be pre-diabetic as my weight has collected around my midsection.
I am not asking for a diagnosis or anything like that.
I have found that in the brief time that I have been using the food plan, I no longer have the big highs and lows of blood sugar and feel much better mentally. I do run on my treadmill every other day or try to jog as well – going to the gym to do a 1-1/2 hour weight program on alternate days.
My questions is were any of the participants on cholesterol lowering medication? and has there been any changes on that?
Sincerely Janet
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I believe we had a couple of participants who were on a statin drug. I do not recall if they discontinued the statins or not; I would have to go back through the charts to find out. What I can tell you, though, is that the recent studies on low-carb diet have consistently shown improved lipid profiles among participants. I know people who have been able to discontinue their statins by following a low-carb diet. Some of them were unable to achieve normal cholesterol on the statins but were able to do that on low-carb without the statins.
Hello Dr. Jay, how important is fibre? It seems to me that fibre takes a minor role in low carb diets. By far are not the bulk of the meals fat and protein? As a matter of fact in traditional aboriginal diets were their diets literally devoid of any fibre for alot, if not most, of the year?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
While I think fibre is highly over-rated, you can actually eat a lot of fibre on a low-carb diet. Fibre is not counted as a carb. I get a lot of fibre from the big salads I eat with dinner plus the other veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, etc. Some indigenous peoples ate zero fibre and maintained good health. The Inuit, for example. Also, the Masai in Africa. Most Canadian Aboriginal diets, however, appeared to include edible wild plants to some extent and from what I can gather, they would have added some fibre but little in the way of starch or sugar.
Why do I think fibre is over-rated? There was a big meta-analysis recently that pooled data from many studies on dietary fibre and they were unable to show a significant benefit.
Hi Dr Jay,
I have been trying the food plan for a week now & am pleasantly surprised with the stability of my energy level
No highs or lows. & feel better than before.
May I ask – the participants in your program- have they noticed a drop in their cholesterol?
Sincerely Janet
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Yes, in the study we saw an improvement in cholesterol among participants. In our interim analysis there was a statistically significant increase in HDL (good cholesterol) and HDL/total cholesterol ratio while there was a decrease in triglycerides. There was a very small, statistically insignificant increase in LDL (bad cholesterol). We know from recent work by Forsythe and Volek in Connecticut that among people on low-carb diets, the LDL sub-fractions shift from the bad type to the good type, so even if there was no apparent improvement in LDL, I would assume that there would be an improvement in the sub-fractions (we weren’t set up to measure the sub-fractions in our study).
Dr. Wortman
Hello again. You mentioned that a major contributor to gall stones is the inactivity of the gall bladder due to inadequate fat intake. To me this sounds like the various low fat diets that I have been on over the years may be the cause of my current gall stone. Is this a safe assumption? In my case I don’t think it was a gall stone attack triggered by fat as I had not changed my food intake at the time. Is it possible that both my pancreatitis and gall stone attact could have been caused by high work stress? The reason for both my hospital visits were “unresolved” by the doctors involved. The doctors had told me that with the stone being 250mm (1 inch) that they did not think it block the bile duct. I believe that my gall bladder is being removed to eliminate a possible cause. Am I out to lunch?
Hope the study is going well
Thanks
Richard
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
There have been studies which have documented that people who start a low-fat diet without gallstones can actually develop them over a fairly short period of fat restriction. It is clear that low-fat intake which leads to stasis of the gall bladder is a major contributing factor in the development of gall stones.
As for stress, yes, I think that a lot of real physiological pathology can be attributed to life stress. I find that my shift to a low-carb diet greatly increased my ability to cope with stress and I found my threshold of irritability also dramatically improved. I speculate that this may be linked to the decrease in inflammatory markers that occurs when carbs are restricted. That high level of inflammation associated with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes not only would make you feel irritable but probably also weakens your immune system function. I find that I rarely have any cold or flu symptoms now, for instance.
Hi Dr Jay,
After watching “My Big Fat Diet” I was motivated by your work and the people of Alert Bay. So, after a bit of research I started the Atkins Diet and lost 9 lbs in my first week. It’s great – the pounds are melting, yet amazingly, I’m not very hungry anymore and feel I full on half of what I used to eat. I also have more energy. It’s empowering to learn how insulin, glucose, and lipolysis affect our health. I’m a male heart-attack survivor and since going low-carb I’ve stopped taking my beta blocker and statin. However, I’m trying to find out how to safely get off aspirin after taking it daily for years. Apparently, it’s dangerous to suddenly stop aspirin therapy because there’s a risk of heart problems or strokes.
Interestingly, research reveals there’s only a mere 1% net health benefit in taking daily aspirin – versus a 1.8 % risk of possible side effects like: perforation of the digestive tract, ulcers, and bleeding in the brain. Clearly, the risks outweigh the supposed benefits. Furthermore, aspirin’s blood-thinning properties don’t work in 75% of the population. This is all depressing news if you’re on daily aspirin like me. Before doctors automatically commit heart patients to a lifetime of risky aspirin therapy, wouldn’t it be prudent to first verify if it will actually work for that patient?
It’s totally mad how the entire world became brain washed into believing that a low-carb diet is unhealthy – in reality, it’s exactly the opposite! I plan on staying low-carb forever. Watching “My Big Fat Diet” was an epiphany; many thanks for showing the path to a healthy dietary lifestyle.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. You may be interested to know that some recent research on low-carb diets has shown that the markers of inflammation that we associate with cardiovascular risk go down significantly on this diet. Also, fibrinogen, which is a measure of the clotting tendency of the blood, also goes down. Good luck with the diet.
Dr. Jay,
I was wondering if you plan to do a similar study on the general population in Vancouver. Because if you do, I would like to be part of it. I am having such a hard time trying to lose some weight and I could use your guidance.
Thank you, Danielle
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I would love to do a big study in the general population but it is unlikely that that will happen. My time at UBC has come to an end and I have returned to my regular position which offers only limited opportunities to pursue further research. If that changes and there is an opportunity to recruit subjects for a bigger dietary trial I will post a notice on this blog. In the meantime, have a look at the Dr. Atkins books. The most recent one, “Atkins Diabetes Revolution”, is good. I recommend it for people even if they don’t have diabetes.
Dr. Wortman,
This question and answer section is a great gift for people like me who are seeking to improve their lives through diet. I agree with your comment about the unimportance of fibre. For me, fibre causes bloating and seems to prevent proper digestion of protein. Anyways, the big problem i am having with making the transition to low-carb living relates to my mental state. I find that my ability to concentrate/think clearly is greatly impeded if i do not eat carbs. For instance, last night i felt a bit lightheaded and unable to think clearly and i ate a few peanut butter and honey sandwiches which provided great relief and improved clarity. This morning, i ate a high fat, low carb breakfast, but found myself unable to think clearly shortly after eating. Thus, i had to eat some carbs to pick up my concentration. I am using sea salt and taking magnesium. I drink lots of water. I am in my mid-20s. I am lean. But i seem not to be able to focus until i eat carbs. I can manage to go through a day of high fat and low-carb meals, but come evening time, i feel i need carbs to relax and improve mental clarity. Can you offer any suggestions? I know low-carb is the healthy route and i desperately want to make it my dietary approach.
Peter
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I am sorry to hear you are having difficulty sticking to a low-carb diet. This is not uncommon. Many people find the initial cravings hard to overcome and cannot bring themselves to relinquish their high-carb comfort foods. The parts of the brain that are associated with pleasure and addiction appear to be involved suggesting that quitting carbs may resemble withdrawing from other addictive substances for some people while others seem to breeze through it without any cravings. In my opinion, if a person continues to alternate between low-carb and high-carb eating, their chance of getting beyond the initial cravings is not great. In terms of mental functioning, most people report an improvement in mental clarity after starting a low-carb diet. People in my study used language likening it to a “fog lifting”. I suspect if you could actually stick to low-carb eating for a period of time you might find the same effect. What you currently describe, however, eating high-fat/low-carb meals followed by high-carb snacks, doesn’t sound like a very healthy eating pattern at all.
Hello Dr. Jay, some more questions on fibre. How did the Masai or Inuit keep their bowels moving? With no fibre in their diet didn’t food just sit in their intestines and rot away? And wouldn’t their stools be painfully difficult to expel when they finally did move?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
It is a common misconception that fibre is necessary for normal bowel function. The science on the benefits of fibre has been weak. A recent meta-analysis actually couldn’t demonstrate an overall benefit from dietary fibre. I haven’t asked any Inuit or Masai about how their bowels functioned on their traditional zero fibre diet but my bet is that it was fine. I am going to stick my neck out here and further suggest that the modern diet that is high in refined carbs may actually lead to abnormal bowel function and that the addition of fibre to that diet may mitigate this problem. Personally, I find that after adjusting to a low-carb diet, bowel function becomes very sensitive to carb intake.
Dr. Jay
Congradulations on a great body of work! — It’s only fitting, or is it ironic, that a Native American cure the ills of this world after all that has been done to him.
-Tom
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Thanks for the supportive comment.
Dr. Jay
Contrary to the below writings, before Columbus, most Native Americans commonly lived to over 100 years of age and more often than not, they lived to 110 and 120 years of age and in perfect health.
This was told to me by Ted Archer, Nephew of Chief Joesph-Nez Pierce.
I wholly believe this to be an absolute and provable truth when looked at as an absolute fact of life as it is. This changes everything!
-Tom
“The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race”
by Jared Diamond, Prof. UCLA School of Medicine
Discover-May 1987, pp. 64-66
“Life expectancy at birth in
the preagricultural community was about twenty-six years,” says Armelagos, “but in the
postagricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress
and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive.”
http://www.nezperce.org/History/FrequentlyAskedQ.htm#how
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I tend to agree that we have misconceptions about life-expectancy in those times. Having said that, a high infant mortality rate would account for a low life-expectancy at birth while still allowing for the fact that many people lived to a ripe old age. There was a large study of health status among native Americans in the southwest published in 1908 by Ales Hrdlicka, in which it was found that the numbers of very elderly people among the natives was much greater than among the surrounding white settlers.
Hello Dr. Jay – As my id says, I am a low carb convert. Although I have been eating moderate carb for the last few years, I took the plunge to very low carb last fall after hearing about Gary Taubes book. Since then, I have lost 20 lbs which is great. But I have been amazed at the health benefits of this way of eating. The one benefit that I would like to mention is about the liver. You had mentioned that you did not allow participants in your study who had NAFLD. This is very unfortunate as this has been the best improvement for me. My liver enzymes used to be very high and I have been taking Orso for the last few years with modest lowering results. After 3 months of very low carb (Atkins induction level), my liver enzymes have returned to completely normal.
What was the reason your study did not allow participants that had elevated liver enzymes?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Your observation is correct that a low-carb diet will reverse NAFLD. There have been two studies that I am aware of that have shown this. It appears that NAFLD is the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome and like all the other elements of MetS, it, too, responds to carb restriction.
In our study, there probably were some people with NAFLD although it was not something we specifically looked for. The exclusion criteria was for liver enzymes high enough to suggest compromised liver function so people with moderately high enzymes were included.
Dr Jay
Were there any nuts involved in coast diets? Hazel nuts, pine nuts.
For your own purposes, check out coconut oil.
Ed the grocer (really)
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I am not aware of any nuts in the traditional diet in this area. I am aware that coconut oil got a bad rap for its high content of saturated fat. It would appear that this was unwarranted and that the so-called “tropical oils” may actually be good for us. It’s not an area where I claim to be particularly knowledgeable so I will leave it at that.
I am wondering why items such as eggs, cheese, cream and nuts are allowed? It is my understanding that eggs (other than fish eggs), dairy products and nuts were not a part of the First Nation traditional diet or of any other traditional, pre-agricultural diet. As a long-time low-carber, I certainly understand how nuts and dairy add variety to the diet and also fat (most meat is pre-trimmed and hence too lean) — but I find that dairy and nuts are also common trigger foods and can cause weight loss stalls in people trying to reach ideal weights — not just “normal” weights, but to become lean. Also, eggs are a common allergen — although I do love the way they taste. Thoughts??
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
We did include foods that weren’t, strictly speaking, traditional as long as they conformed to the general macronutrient pattern of the traditional diet. This is why we allowed eggs, cream, cheese and vegetables like cauliflower and salad greens. We allowed a few nuts, as well. I haven’t observed that these foods are a cause of stalled weight loss and I eat a lot of them myself. I have omega-3 eggs for breakfast virtually every day, for instance, often mixing them with cream and cheese in little omelets.
Hi Dr Jay.
I am glad to see a health professional, especially an MD in the Vancouver area seriously looking at nutrition and diabetes. I am the parent of a young Type 1 diabetic and have read Dr. Richard Bernstein’s book, which has useful tips but is really written for adults, especially Type 2’s.
I would be very grateful for any information or referrals to dietitians or MD’s on the North Shore who would be able to help us safely adapt a reduced carb approach. I’ve been disappointed with the moral support and the acceptance of or resignation to abnormal blood sugars and A1Cs of most professionals.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I share your frustration that medical providers are not knowledgeable in administering a low-carb diet approach for their obese or diabetic patients. It is also troubling that we are resigned to abnormal blood sugars which are the consequence of an approach that encourages people to eat the foods they can no longer tolerate. I do hear from time to time of physicians who are supportive but they seem to be doing this quietly while keeping their heads down. I am unfortunately unable to direct you to anyone on the North Shore. I hope this will change over time.
Hi Dr, Jay,
Just stopping by to give you the results of my 1 month Tokelau diet experiment.
I have lost 5 pounds, my blood pressure is stable (consistent readings in the 101/62 range), I have lost 1/2 inch around my ribs, 1/2″ on my hips, and 1/2″ on my thighs.
I feel great and will continue basing my diet on mostly coconut (oil, meat and milk) while adding in poultry and beef. I will also test whether or not cheese is a reason for my previous stalls…but I am enjoying my success too much right now to start the test.
I can’t say enough good things about native diets. I have also researched the Celtic diet prior to the introduction of the potato and Scandinavian diets during the Viking era. I am also looking in to the diets of the Native Americans in Colorado, where I now live. Including your experience in Alert Bay, they all seem to have the same basic structure…a good reliable source of fat, adequate protein, with vegetables and starches playing a minor role…either being used more as a seasoning and thickener or as an emergency food source during famine.
No matter what your heritage is…go native! What type of native? This is the cool part…it depends on what food is easiest to get in your area and what your taste buds like the most. As long as healthy fat is your primary fuel source, it is hard to go wrong.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Congratulations on your progress. I will be seeing Gary Taubes next week and I will share your story with him. I have also found that every indigenous culture seemed to base their diet on a staple fat. Around here it was oolichan grease, among the Inuit it was whale fat, on the prairies it was buffalo pemmican, in the boreal forest it was moose fat, on the east coast it was caribou fat, and among the Australian aborigines it was emu fat. It’s a fascinating story to be sure.
Dr. Wortman
I would like to make one additional comment regarding the traditional indigenous diet and the traditional indigenous peoples longevity and health.
Prior to white mans arrival, almost everybody lived to be more than 100 years old and often 110 years old and more and everybody lived in near perfect health. Not just a few. — Everybody.
By the time we started recording, white mans horses and disease and war and guns had profoundly effected everyone.
The bones that they are finding are not 25 and 35 year old people with bones like 100 year old people because of a harsh, difficult living environment. These people are 100 year old and more. — They lived as perfectly and healthfully as all the rest of the creatures and plants and animals on this earth. — The perfection that we still see all around us.
This is the exact opposite of what white man teaches and believes and portrays to be the truth.
Traditionally, the entire world was the same, — before hybrid carbohydrates.
— One additional point please.
The native traditional peoples susceptibility to diabetes and alcoholism is not a weakness inherant in there genes and systems. Rather, it is because white man has been bombarding himself with these hybrid carbohydrates and sugars and alcohol for thousands of years and has built up a tolerance to them. Blacks face the same thing.
These hybrid carbohydrates and alcohol are like amphetamines and adrenaline in our bodies. They create an amplified intelligence and power and greed and self interest and self confidence. — Survival.
Adrenaline sharpens all of our senses by nature in a needed situation and then goes back to normal, like the deer in the forest. — Speed and amphetamines and these these powerful hybrid carbohydrates stay with us continually because we continue to ingest them. — For Thousands of Years!
Thank You
Tom Bunnell
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
See my earlier response on longevity. I think we tend to have a preconceived notion that the lives of people in primitive cultures were “nasty, brutal and short” when, in fact, these observations were made after those cultures had already been damaged by factors such as introduced diseases. There is an excellent recent book on this, “1491” by Charles Mann. I think you would enjoy it.
Dr. Jay
It’s a common misconception that pure alcohol has no carbohydrates. Alcohol is in fact the highest form of sugar there is. — Like heroin is to opium, alcohol is to sugar. Both deadly substances.
I don’t know how many alcoholics have said to me they eat very little sugar and sweets. I guess so, they are eating tons of the purest form of sugar there is with there alcohol consumption. They don’t need to eat sugar, they are eating and addicted to sugar in it’s highest form, alcohol.
This as there diabetes sets in and there legs are being cut off from this dastardly disease, diabetes, caused by sugar, alcohol and carbohydrate consumption.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I have to disagree with you on this one. While we know that alcohol has been a scourge for many native people it is not because alcohol is a sugar. Although alcohol is made from sugar by the action of yeast, once that transformation has happened it becomes something quite different from sugar in terms of how it is metabolized in our bodies. It is handled exclusively by the liver where it can cause harm in the form of fatty liver disease, hepatitis and cirrhosis when taken in excess. Unlike sugar, it does not cause insulin to rise and may actually be somewhat beneficial to type 2 diabetics by improving insulin sensitivity. There is also evidence that moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, increases good cholesterol and lowers blood pressure. Some forms of alcohol, like wine, contain other beneficial things like the powerful anti-oxidant, resveratrol. All this to say that, even though alcohol can cause harm, we can’t totally demonize it as it appears to also offer benefits if used in small amounts. The maximum recommended intake to achieve benefits while minimizing risk is estimated to be one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men.
For people on a low-carb diet, who are relying on gluconeogenesis (the process where the liver converts protein to glucose) for their internal glucose needs, there may be another concern. Since alcohol tends to inhibit gluconeogenesis, excessive consumption may be doubly bad for them.
I should hasten to add that, if you are not currently using alcohol, this is not an argument to start. And for those who have had a problem with alcohol, I would certainly not recommend a return to drinking in the hopes that the benefits would outweigh the risks – they most likely would not.
Hello, Dr. Jay. Just wanted to say I’m thoroughly enjoying the comments by Tom Bunnell!
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
So am I.
Dr. Jay
I would bet my life that infant mortality was close to zero before white man came to this country, just like every other species.
William Randolph Hearst did an editorial on this about 1972 when his daughter was kidnapped and held captive by the SLA. I will try to find it. It points explicitly to the mentality and teachings we’re dealing with here. Thank You.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Sounds interesting. Let us know if you find it.
Dr. Jay
Thank you, yes it is very interesting.
I was living there at the time is how I happened upon this Editorial. I was working as an aid in adult corrections as a aid to a parole agent for adult males. We tried to help them. There were several Indian activists working there as aids at that time. Kieth Taylor and Archie Fire were Native Americans working with Native Americans and all races. We had Chicano’s and Blacks and Asians working there too.
Hearst sold the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in 1986. The Los Angeles Public Library has on Microfilm the entire publication from it’s beginning in the late 1800’s I believe. It has not been digitized. For $5 they can send me a copy if I have the exact issue date and the title of the Editorial. I have the date and day, Sunday, within a few months in 1974, probably about June of 1974, give or take a few months.
He spoke explicitly of the Alaskan Native peoples receiving settlements and allotments from the government for there land use in the building of the Alaska Pipeline and the drilling and exploration on there land.
He was angered that they should receive this money, about $30,000 per person at the time or more and spoke vehemently against it. This is 1974
He said these people had nothing before the white man came here. He said they lived in the most terrible primitive extremes with no health and no medicine, with little food and no nothing.
They should be grateful Hearst said for white man coming here and bringing a great and abundant life and medicine and health to them, not charging them.
I think he was a little extra vehement because some blacks had kidnapped his granddaughter and were forcing him to feed the hungry with truck loads of food for ransom in San Francisco and Oakland and I think LA, so he lashed out against the American Indian because he couldn’t lash out against the blacks.
It shows the current mentality plainly. Of course the exact 100% opposite is the actual truth.
We need somebody to walk into that library in LA and locate this on the Microfilm. I wouldn’t expect it to take over a half an hour or so because we have enough information to get close. If it was digitized we could just type in a few key words but it’s not. I called them and talked to them. They gave me some phone numbers of research people in the area that will do it for a fee. I will contact them if I need too.
I will try my local library and see if they can contact the library and maybe get it. We will get it one way or another and post it here for everybody to read.
I believe that this discussion regarding the indigenous peoples diet and health and longevity and infant mortality is the key to understanding what has happened to all of us and what we can do about it.
We went from total perfection to total destruction.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
From what you say of Hearst’s editorial, it sounds like it reflects an unfortunate line of thinking that is still around today in some quarters. I am not sure it is worth all the effort to find a copy, though. It won’t move us any closer to learning the truth about pre-Columbian times. I would encourage you to read “1491” by Charles Mann. It does have a lot of good information that is more relevant to this pursuit.
Dr. Jay
I’m sure your right. To me it turns there whole world upside down with the reality that native people lived a life of pure health and longevity on a perfect earth the world over just like all of the other species on a perfect earth until the stimulated carbohydrate addicts with there greed altered and changed and destroyed everything.
This means Africa was a perfect land with a perfect people. Look at Africa today.
They being the powers that be, be it education or politics or science or business.
There world is turned upside down with this truth because this means everything we have done has taken away from the quality of life rather than having added to the quality of life like the major population believes to be true.
Every single thing we have done has been wrong and destructive and has taken away from the quality of life.
To this we could stop and attempt to turn this thing around.(for the children)
I believe that without a change in our diets away from sugar and starch and carbohydrates and we becoming non-stimulated, non-drugged people, none of this change is possible.
I realize this is a lot to ask and more than most people want to deal with but this perspective I believe to be pertinent to the recovery of our health.
You and your people have the unique ability to accomplish this. Nobody else has this power available to them or the desire or the intelligence to do so.
It’s only the truth!
I wish you well.
Dr. Jay
I owe you an apology here!
I forget sometimes that I am coming from a place that nobody else is coming from and this makes me very hard to understand and follow. A lot of people just throw up there arms and roll there eyes and call me a crackpot.
As frustrating and uncomfortable as this is I completely understand this. I would have thought the same thing had I not stumbled upon these bits and pieces of this puzzle that I have.
Some would call it a hypothesis. I call it a fact although it’s very hard to prove. It would in fact be an hypothesis or scenario though. I think it was a hypothesis that the world was not flat but rather that the world was round one time too so being an hypothesis doesn’t entirely blow this out of the water. It was probably an hypothesis that man could build an object and get on it and fly or make electricity at one time.
That said, my hypothesis is that these sugars and starches and carbohydrates and alcohol and caffeine are powerful man made drugs that stimulate the human mind like adrenaline and that they are what turned white man into this waring monster that takes over the whole world.
This coming from a white man. I am Scotch Irish and German and English and French. Bunnell is French from my dad and Perkins is English from my dads mothers side and Dodd is Scotch Irish from my grandfather on my mothers side and Hartman in German from my mothers mother. That’s 1/4, 1/4, 1/4, 1/8, 1/8.
I believe that my ancestors would be proud of what I’m doing and not consider what I’m doing a traitor.
I always knew something was wrong from early on. Even as a child I could see things. I, like every child in my generation was fed sugar and grains and starches and dairy and fruit from early on with almost every meal. Some of those with every meal starting sometime during and after my nursing years. I remember my mother putting Karo syrup and sugar water in babies bottles for my younger brothers Ron and Jeff, they are ten and eight years younger than me. I’m sure I was fed the same when mother would be gone a few hours and the baby sitter would sometimes care for me. Mother would leave the bottle with the sitter.
Something similar to this happened to almost everyone of us.
At a few months of age I was fed mashed potatoes and cake and ice cream, again like most everybody. We also ate a lot of meat with all of this.
Getting back to my realizing at an young age that sugar was a potent powerful drug. On a school field trip in the second or third grade we went to a large zoo in Tacoma, Washington, south of Seattle. Our whole class, about twenty or thirty of us kids and the teachers and several mothers. We went on a bus.
At the primate cages which we happened upon, these cages were large glass enclosures the size of a fairly large room with a few dozen or so monkeys with tails and of all ages from babies to old. They were hanging from trees and tires and moving all over the place and chattering and masturbating there brains out. Both males and females. The teachers and guides quickly moved us children on. As we left the area I looked at the monkeys and the floor and it was littered with wrappers and half eaten Twinkies and cup cakes smashed all over the floor with many of the monkeys with these crazed looks eating them as they mutually and singularly masturbate with these crazed looks in there eyes and looking off into space. They were totally insane.
I concluded at that moment that the sugar as well as the caging had caused this insanity. I didn’t know about the wheat flour being the exact same thing as sugar for another fifty years.
Just a couple of years ago I learned that wheat and corn and potatoes were the exact same thing as sugar.
The worlds insanity with the kings and rulers and there kingdoms in there pantaloons and wigs now made sense to me. Stimulated, greedy, self centered, heartless fools. They were all crazy.
The same rulers rule today.
Hybrid plants that were once only available to Royalty and the Rulers throughout the Kingdom became a commodity readily available to the whole world along with processed sugar and alcohol and caffeine as barters for trade and to live on. The cat was out of he box.
Sails and gunpowder and horses had been there earlier markings for many centuries while only the kings held these sugars.
Now with everybody eating sugar everything that has occurred the last 150 years has happened. Everything from Atom Bombs to electricity to gasoline power to telephones and space ships and computers and with no end in sight.
The rest of the takeover of the world has occurred and is occurring as we speak. Every natural resource has became a commodity for profit, including humans.
This greed and insanity is fueled by hybrid carbohydrates. Corn, wheat, potatoes and rice and sugar and alcohol. All of our fruits and vegetables are hybrid a thousand times for sugar.
That’s why I come down so hard on sugars and alcohol and caffeine and all of the other drugs. They have destroyed the earth and all of mankind and continue to do so.
That’s a lot more than just making us fat and giving us diabetes and heart disease.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
No apology necessary.
Your views are not totally inconsistent with what lots of other people who have posted here have found vis a vis the power of carbohydrates (although, I would wager, that for most of them the penny didn’t drop because of masturbating monkeys!). People like me found that carbs were harmful when we eliminated them and discovered huge health benefits as a result. I also believe there is a mental health component to this. I assume you haven’t seen the documentary, “My Big Fat Diet”, yet but this is one of the things that comes through, that people were suddenly feeling much better and things like family dynamics were improving. I think that people who are in the throes of metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes feel crappy. I think they tend to be grouchy and irritable. I am not sure it is the cause of all the woes of the world but, in my opinion, the removal of dietary carbs brings such an improvement in one’s sense of well-being that there has to be something to this. I don’t dismiss your ideas out of hand.
Dr. Jay
Thank You. — I believe you people have rolled the snowball off from the mountain top in a way like nobody else could have done. It’s now just a matter of truth and application and logical understanding. Fortunately you have an abundance of all three. I applaud and commend you.
I’m going to guess that you had little understanding when you scratched this surface what you were about to encounter. It’s just remarkable that something of this magnitude could lay in waiting all these years.
Billions of peoples lives will be saved and billions of peoples health will be improved remarkably because of your interest and work.
When they hand you that Nobel Prize and you say that you just stumbled on to this. The rest of the story will be what you did with what you stumbled on to.
Congratulations again, I’m honored to be your guest.
Thank You
Tom Bunnell
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Thank you for your kind words.
I’ve had type 2 diabetes for a couple of years. I’m taking metormin (and for high blood pressure – Altace and hydrochlorathiazide). I’ve lost weight and blood pressure is much more stable, has been for some time. However, I was also diagnosed with hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) and now take synthroid. Blood test recently showed high levels of prolactin, low levels of fsh … is it common for your endocrine system to crash when diabetic?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
While there are recognized endocrine failure syndromes associated with type 1 diabetes, I am not aware of similar entities associated with type 2. The recognized syndromes share a common autoimmune etiology and type 2 diabetes is not an autoimmune disease. On the other hand, since the endocrine system is highly complex and inter-linked it is tempting to think that something that damages one part of the system is going to have an impact on other parts, as well. That is speculation on my part, for now, as I don’t have the science to back it up.
Dr. Jay
One of the greatest misconceptions out there is this thyroid gland thing. About it being out of whack and needing to be elevated because the person is not getting enough of these hormones and that this is possibly the core cause of there weight loss problem or there lethargy or energy loss or depression, etc. etc. etc.
That’s not to say that a genuinely low (hypo) thyroid doesn’t exist and cause weight gain or weight retention or that it doesn’t cause mental problems. It definitely does. High thyroid or (hyper) thyroid also causes serious problems.
The question that has never been answered until right now at this moment is ‘what is the cause of our thyroid gland not functioning properly’. They once thought it was a lack of iodine, that’s one of the main reasons salt is mostly iodized. Until now the cause is completely unknown except by me and now you and your readers.
The cause is sugar and hybrid carbohydrates. Just like diabetes our thyroid and sugar clocks get all thrown out of whack.
If people when breaking there carbohydrate addictions like we are doing will wait long enough, this clock, like the sugar clock, will fall back into place where it belongs. It takes longer than the sugar clock but it will re-regulate when we stop bombarding it with carbohydrates.
The common consensus is that thyroid prescriptions if not prescribed in huge doses but rather small amounts are no more dangerous than a baby aspirin. — Nothing could be further from the truth.
Our thyroid gland regulates our whole body. Our sweat and our digestion and our heart rate, our mind, everything. This is no small potatoes.
Unless somebody is in the extremes of high thyroid or the extremes of low thyroid it’s impossible to tell what there thyroid levels should be because of the way levels vary from person to person. This leaves the door open to prescribe synthetic thyroid elevators that are thought to be nearly identical to our natural hormones and without any dangers in prescribing them.
It’s one of the biggest travesties out there. Everybody got caught up in this, and most still are. It has been handed out like candy for something like 80 years now. The Mayo Clinic’s founding partners were early pioneers in the field of thyroid studies and it’s treatment. It was one of their core programs from the very beginning.
You get a count of people that are prescribed this hormone replacement by there doctors since lets say 1940’s or so and you will find so many people that are using this stuff that it is staggering. Millions and millions and millions.
All through the 1940’s and 1950’s and 1960’s if you went to the doctor and you weren’t feeling well or you wanted to lose weight the first things they would do is prescribe amphetamines. The second thing they would prescribe would be levothyroxine to elevate your thyroid hormones. Usually both before they then prescribed sleeping pills and tranquilizers and all of the rest of the psychoactive drugs in an attempt to unravel the nightmare they had inadvertently begun. Many, many of these doctors and staff members themselves used amphetamines in this time period. It was common and thought to be OK, even good (see Dr. Atkins 1972 Diet Revolution to verify this). This is a mostly hidden fact with profound and far reaching implications and repercussions.
I acquired this information bit by bit when I first got Graves Disease (hyperthyroid) and almost died about 20 years ago and treated it at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I had lost over 100# and my heart went wild and I couldn’t do anything but lay for months and months I was so weak. I was sleeping under a freeway overpass bridge in Spokane, Washington while on my way back to Minnesota by freight train (to die, but I didn’t know that then) (I couldn’t work I was too weak) when I slowly walked to downtown Spokane to give blood so I could get something to eat. They wouldn’t take my blood and called an ambulance to take me to the hospital. My heart rate was something like 250 plus and wildly erratic. They asked me about my next of kin before they intravenously gave me (I can’t remember it’s name but the very well known famous for returning your heartbeat back to normal medicine) (digitalis). I slowly came back and then was treated later at the Mayo Clinic. Had I not went to sell my blood so I could get something to eat I would have never known and then died later from heart failure. We did the nuclear medicine radiation treatment to shrink up the thyroid gland like a prune and die and then I was supposed to take replacement thyroid for the rest of my life. Instead I was the one in a thousand that it takes out the bad part of the thyroid that is excreting too much hormone and leaves the good part alive. I took nothing for the first few years and then trying to treat my weight and depression they put me on a 100 MCG daily tablet. I quit it a few times throughout the years but they convinced me to keep taking it, again trying to treat my obesity and depression. I currently am taking the 100 MCG. I take nothing else and never have.
I know thyroid and I know it as a great a travesty as there is, the same as the sugar and carbohydrate travesty. Nothing is greater.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
That is a remarkable story! I must say that you come by your opinions honestly. There was a a lot amphetamine produced during WWII as it was provided to the troops for use during battle. Similar drugs are still used by the military today (remember the US pilot who dropped the bomb on Canadian troops in Afghanistan). When WWII ended, the big stockpiles of amphetamine found their way into the mainstream and were widely used, mainly as diet medications. There are lots of examples of how certain medications were used liberally before we figured out that we were doing more harm than good. A recent example would be hormone replacement therapy.
Dr. Jay,
What dietary recommendations would The Bunnell Farm recocommend for someone who thinks they might have a problem with their thyroid? For instance, should certain foods be emphasised, while otheres minimised? I’ve often read that carbs are essential for supporting thyroid actions in that a lack of carbs supposedly disrupts the production of thyroid hormones.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Higher levels of T3 are associated with high-carb diets and lower levels are associated with low-carb diets. This doesn’t mean that a lack of carbs impairs T3 production. It is more likely, in my opinion, that a high-carb diet demands more T3 production just as it demands more insulin production although the mechanisms would be different. This may be another reason why high-carb is not good for you.
See my reply to the next comment. If the body needs to burn off glucose to get rid of it, it then makes sense that T3 would rise in the face of a high-carb diet to crank up the metabolic rate to get burn off the glucose more quickly. Maybe, just as running at a higher rate of output under these circumstances causes the pancreas to burn out and lose its ability to produce insulin, perhaps the same is true of the thyroid gland. Interesting to speculate.
Dr. Jay,
i read this report which caused me some concern. Are you familiar with this study. The theory does not make sense to me.
Murray Braithwaite
Resistance to insulin that precedes type 2 diabetes may stem from a “metabolic traffic jam” that blocks the body’s ability to switch between glucose and fat as energy sources, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
Normal blood glucose (sugar) control depends on insulin, a hormone that’s released after eating that stimulates sugar uptake in muscles and other parts of the body. Insulin resistance arises when the body no longer responds to insulin’s signals. It’s a serious condition that often accompanies obesity and increases risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a disease marked by dangerously high blood sugar levels. Scientists have been studying the disorder for years, but have not been able to agree upon its root cause.
But Debbie Muoio, an assistant professor of medicine in Duke’s Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center thinks she may have a pretty good idea. She and her colleagues trace the development of insulin resistance to overworked mitochondria – the tiny power plants inside each cell – that simply get worn down and worn out trying to burn excess fat.
The study appears in the current issue of Cell Metabolism.
Normally, the body switches fuel sources during the day, says Muoio, a phenomenon known as “metabolic flexibility.”
“For example, overnight and during periods of fasting or exercise, muscles and other organs in the body burn fat as fuel. That’s because there is usually more fat available at that time. But during the day, and especially after a meal, mitochondria switch to glucose,” she says. This makes sense, because food makes more glucose available and healthy individuals increase glucose use when it’s on hand. But there’s the hitch: If the diet is consistently too rich in fat and calories, the switchover does not occur. The mitochondria just keep working harder and harder to burn all the fat, and the effort eventually fails.
This is what leads to a “metabolic traffic jam,” – a mitochondrial gridlock where fat accumulates and blocks the use, or metabolism, of glucose. Muoio believes that chronically stressed mitochondria send out a distress signal that prevents insulin from doing its job, allowing sugar to build up in the blood.
“We think this is what leads to insulin resistance,” says Muoio, who acknowledges that the idea is not entirely new. “The first seeds of this hypothesis were actually planted fifty years ago, but it died out because researchers lacked the investigative tools to prove it.”
Now, they have them. Muoio’s team used a mass spectrometer to identify mitochondrial metabolites – by-products of fat-burning – that were found to be associated with obesity and the onset of insulin resistance.
They also developed cell and animal models that showed that when deprived of a fat-importing enzyme, mitochondria were protected and muscles continued to respond to insulin’s signals, suggesting that fat overload was indeed the culprit.
There is some good news in all of this, though, says Muoio. “There are two very easy ways to prevent insulin resistance: Exercise more – you’ll help mitochondria burn fat more effectively, or eat less fat in your diet. That’s always easier said than done, of course.”
Several other investigators from the Stedman Center contributed to the research, including lead author Timothy Koves, Robert Noland, Dorothy Slentz, Merrie Mosedale, Olga Ilkayeva, James Bain, Robert Stevens and Christopher Newgard. Additional co-authors include Gary Lopaschuk, John Ussher and Jason Dyck, from the University of Alberta. Lopaschuk and Dyck investment in a company interested in developing inhibitors to an enzyme central to the mitochondrial activity described in the study.
Source: Duke University Medical Center
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Here’s what I think – the body partitions fuel. The muscle cells probably prefer fat for fuel but preferentially burn glucose because the body needs to get rid of it. Too much glucose is toxic to the cell. The cell eventually develops insulin resistance to defend against too much glucose. The tissues that are most vulnerable to diabetic complications, which we know occur when glucose levels are too high, are those that do not require insulin for glucose to enter the cells and are therefore not able to defend themselves by developing insulin resistance. When there is a lot of glucose available the body produces insulin to get it into the cells to be burned off. While this is happening, insulin also plays a major role in shifting fat into the adipocytes and keeping it there. When glucose supplies drop, insulin levels drop allowing fat to come out of the adipocytes to be burned as fuel. Insulin also drives the liver to convert excess glucose into fat to be stored in the adipocytes. All this excess fat production can lead to “ectopic” fat storage, ie fat appearing in places where it doesn’t belong. Ectopic fat is associated with various dysfunctions. In the liver, it is “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease” (NAFLD). Some colleagues are doing research on this right now that shows it is clearly related to the carb content of the diet, not the fat content. It appears that ectopic fat is also related to insulin resistance. To me the essential question is whether this argues for dietary fat restriction or dietary carb restriction. I think you know which side of that argument I support. In the research you cite, I would be really interested to see what happens to the signaling and insulin resistance if these mice were fed a low-carb. I bet it would all get better.
Dr. Jay
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/travel/06hours.html?8dpc
These are the stimulants we are dealing with!
Hello, Dr. Jay. Rice, wheat, corn, potatoes. Millions upon millions of people depend upon these staples to survive each day. The oceans are already depleted of fish. There is no more game to hunt. Land is becoming scarcer and scarcer upon which to raise animals for food. These masses don’t have the privilege or the money to be able to go to a supermarket to buy their beef or chicken or pork. How can they realistically suddenly be expected to change to a low carb diet?
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Obviously the change from a hunter-gatherer diet that was mostly protein and fat to an agrarian one of mostly carbohydrates was sufficiently advantageous to cause this to happen all around the globe. Jared Diamond describes how this shift made it possible to develop civilization as we know it since a farmer could produce and store more food than needed by his immediate family. This excess food production capacity allowed for the rise of other classes in society who could build structures, develop bureaucracies, raise armies, etc. etc. While all this is true, there may also have been a downside to this dietary shift. If you read the article by Diamond in my links section, you will find there is evidence that there were significant health consequences. I think Tom in the next comment hit the nail on the head in terms of your question. It is entirely possible that the earth could not sustain its current population on a hunter-gatherer type diet, that many people need to eat a high-carb diet because a diet of meat and fat is not sustainable in their circumstances. This is, as Tom says, a dilemma.
Tim, — If I’m allowed to answer.
They can’t! — This is the dilemma we face!
Dr. Jay,
I was able to take the time to read your story on this site. It is very authentic and compelling. I hope your journey continues to progress and motivate a lengthy and productive contribution to your family and public health. Everything you mention accords with my own experience.
My background is law. In the course of my careful study of legal reasoning and rhetoric, it struck me that most people develop emotional attachment to positions well in excess of the strength of any justification they can offer. Plainly the position served as some sort of cognitive crutch or shield for a deeper emotional need. This lead me to a Ph.D in legal reasoning, Nietzsche and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Applying the analytic skills I have acquired, it seems plain that the resistance we encounter over low-carb diet demonstrate that carbovorism is an addiction like many others, which gives rise to a deep emotional need to be defensive over the security of supply, including any moralistic, public health or scientific suggestion that carbohydrate indulgence is unhealthy or irresponsible. Read the comments to any article on diet and one sees near-religious fervour.
I therefore believe education without addressing the deeper emotional needs of carboholics will fail to move society off of its carbohydrate addiction–the deadly white powders of starch and sugar.
Concerning yesterday’s Globe column of Leslie Beck, I would suggest that restaurants be designated “safe ingestion sites” where carboholics would be permitted their indulgences, with counselling and medical supervision. Restaurants should be legally liable if the allow patrons to leave with blood sugar levels over a legal limit, just as we now hold them responsible for over-intoxicating people who leave and injure others by driving.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Interesting observation. You have articulated very well something I have noticed ever since I started on this tack. If you talk to people about reducing fat or protein, no problem. But talk about reducing carbs and the body language changes, blood pressure starts to rise, there is a sense of panic, emotions take over and logic and reason fly out the window. It reminds me of what it is like talking to an addict about taking away their drug. Fascinating. Much as I like your suggestion, I don’t foresee the police carrying glucometers anytime soon.
Dr. Jay,
I note a report today of research from Toronto General Hospital on the effect of lipids in the gut on brain signals to lower glucose production in the liver: “Upper intestinal lipids trigger a gut-brain-liver axis to regulate glucose production” as an advance on-line publication of the international science journal Nature.
The Physorg.com report concludes as follows: Working with rats, Dr. Lam and colleagues designed and performed a series of elegant experiments which showed for the first time that the lipids or fats which enter the small intestine trigger the afferent neuronal signal to the brain which then sends signals to the liver to lower glucose production and blood glucose levels in as little as fifteen minutes. No drop in levels occurred when nerves were cut or blocked between the gut and the brain or between the brain and the liver. The trigger to lower glucose was also disabled when rats were fed a high-fat diet for three days prior to the experiment, a finding which may suggest that those who eat a high fat diet lose this beneficial signaling pathway.
—
It seems to me this is of little concern where the diet is low-carb, since you want the liver producing blood sugar for the brain (as there is reduced flow of sugar from the gut in a low-carb diet). Nonetheless, this keeps me suspecting that the rate o fat ingestion in the upper small intestine is important and why I suspect that extruded fats may be less desirable (from a metabolic perspective) than fibre-bound fats, as in nuts and avocados, casein-encased fats in cheeses, or non-visible fats in meat, such as salmon. Concerning meat fat, it seems to me that animals not fed domestically cereal grains do not develop the extensive visible fat marbling. Rather, these animals have a greater proportion of polyunsaturated fats. Marine animals have visible fat, but again the quality of the fat seems different.
I do not raise these studies to be difficult. My only vested interest is to discern the most healthy strategies for living a long, vigourous and productive life with my family.
Cheers
Murray Braithwaite
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
Sorry for taking so long to reply. I have been attending conferences in Phoenix and Montreal.
I am not sure how to explain the results in this study. I do know that when the body is short of glucose from the diet, gluconeogenesis in the liver provides sufficient glucose to those tissues that must rely on glucose as their only fuel. The liver tends to do this by converting protein to glucose although it can also get some from fat but the efficiency is much lower. Why the ingestion of fats would cause the liver to reduce gluconeogenesis is puzzling. Most people would be eating enough carbs that the liver wouldn’t need to do this anyway. In most people, the liver is making fat (lipogenesis) from all the excess carbs.
By the same token, I don’t know that casein-encased fats are better than others. With carbs, the idea is that the more unrefined and fibre-bound the carb the better since there is a less sharp rise in glucose and a more muted insulin response. Since the metabolism of fats is much different, I don’t think the same principles would apply.
What is clear, is that excess omega-6 is a problem. The main source of omega-6 is vegetable oil. The only ones that aren’t too high are olive and canola.
Dr. Jay,
One last study to mention for today, I promise (lots on the web today). This one found that conjugated linoleic acid promotes the loss of fat from adipose tissue, but that leptin levels also fell and their was insulin resistance from the excess amount of fat building up in other cells (the metabolic rate apparently did not keep up with the rate of fat release from adipose, having been accelerating by CLA supplementation). This seems to accord with the Duke research on excessive fat choking the mitochondria.
This should not be a concern from a low-carb high-fat diet, since CLA levels in cheese and meat is modest (compared to supplement levels) and the rate of release one would expect would correlate with the metabolic rate.
From the report: Without leptin, fat loss occurs in mice eating a diet containing CLA, but the mice also become insulin resistant. When mice are fed CLA and given leptin, the same fat loss occurs but insulin resistance does not develop.
So though leptin is not essential to the fat loss, it has important protective effects to maintain insulin sensitivity, said Martha Belury, lead author of the study and associate professor of human nutrition at Ohio State University.
“Fat loss is not dependent on leptin but if we didn’t have leptin, CLA could have some short-term effects on insulin resistance,” Belury said.
The study appears in a recent issue of the Journal of Lipid Research.
CLA is an essential fatty acid found naturally in trace amounts primarily in beef, lamb and milk. Synthetic forms of CLA are marketed as supplements that help reduce body fat.
But continuing research shows that there are consequences associated with the loss of fat. Because fat in the body is energy, it has to go somewhere if it is not burned away by metabolism. When CLA is driving fat out of fat tissue, the fat tends to end up in the liver or in muscles. If that fat can’t be used, insulin resistance results. So Belury and colleagues are trying to find out precisely how CLA works to reduce body fat and how to prevent any associated side effects.
“You can reduce body fat, which is a good thing for a person trying to avoid diabetes. But if that body fat is lost too rapidly, the fat has to go somewhere else and in mice, it creates insulin resistance,” Belury said. Sometimes, insulin resistance can lead to Type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Jay’s Reply:
I don’t think anything ‘drives’ fat out of fat tissue. The way fatty acids cross the adipocyte membrane is by simple diffusion. Various hormones influence this by promoting or inhibiting the formation of triglycerides which cannot cross the membranes. If CLA promotes the release of fatty acids the net result would be higher serum levels and more available to be burned in the muscle cells. Whether this would lead to ectopic fat deposition and resulting cellular dysfunction, I don’t know. My friend Phinney recently published a paper showing that a gamma linoleic acid supplement will help prevent weight regain, so I expect there is something to this. On the other hand, he is currenlty doing some fascinating work on mice diets that is going to throw into question a lot of the existing research when it gets published.