The single most succinct and most comprehensive article on diet that I have yet found

In summary:

There is no one diet that characterises pre-agricultural humans, who ate from a fabulously broad menu, according to geographical location. However, there were commonalities. These include:

·High wild meat/fish intake with a preference for fatty prey

· Rare consumption of cereal grains

· No added sugar

· No refined vegetable oils

· Extensive range of wild plant foods, where available.

Here is the link to the article

Are humans carnivores?

For decades we have been told that grains and oils from seeds are the healthiest food we can eat. This has proved to be wrong.

For decades we have been told to drink fruit juice as a healthy alternative. Now we know that it is as bad for us as pop.

For decades we have been told that we have to eat vegetables, lots of them. Now this is being questioned.

Now we are learning that humans evolved nearly 2 million years ago to be mainly carnivore. THIS is in today’s world is heresy. But the case is a sound one based on science and on a study of our evolution.

Amber O’Hearn is a very considered speaker. Dare to be open minded enough to hear her through.

Dr Jason Fung – On the Science of how we use food and so why fasting works

This is the clearest explanation I have yet found

Vitamin K2 and Prostate Cancer

Fried Kidneys on Toast

Is there more you can do if you have or fear prostate cancer? The quick answer is consume more foods that contain vitamin K2.

“A study recently published by the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) has revealed that increased intake of vitamin K2 may reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 35 percent. The authors point out that the benefits of K2 were most pronounced for advanced prostate cancer, and, importantly, that vitamin K1 did not offer any prostate benefits.

The findings were based on data from more than 11,000 men taking part in the EPIC Heidelberg cohort. It adds to a small but fast-growing body of science supporting the potential health benefits of vitamin K2 for bone, cardiovascular, skin, brain, and now prostate health.”

The full article is here (Source Chris Kresser)

Foods that contain K2 include – most organ meats and

Foods high in vitamin K2
Natto
Hard cheese
Soft cheese
Egg yolk
Butter
Chicken liver
Salami
Chicken breast
Ground beef

Are potatoes “paleo”

In summary – yes.

Long article here that explores all aspects of the potato

Children’s Ear Aches

Most young children suffer now and then from an ear ache. Most of us take them off to the doctor who prescribes an antibiotic. But are these mainly infections really? 

Dr Lawrence B. Palevsky, MD suggests that we think more carefully about this snap diagnosis:

Inflammation occurs in the body as characterized by the following five observations–
redness, swelling, heat, pain and loss of function. When a young child has an ear ache, on
exam the ear drum is usually red (redness) with clear fluid or mucus buildup in the middle
ear (swelling) causing pain, often accompanied by fever (heat) and occasionally
accompanied by an acute loss of hearing; clearly a description of inflammation. Even if
there were an infection, most studies confirm that viruses are the main organisms
responsible for causing the development of these symptoms, not bacteria. When a
bacterium is isolated from the middle ear via tympanocentesis, we conclude that it must be
an infectious agent. It is possible, however, that the bacteria are merely colonizers in the
middle ear. Neither a viral infection, nor an inflammation in the ears improves when treated
with antibiotics. Only bacterial infections respond to antibiotic treatment. Therefore, in the
majority of cases, antibiotics do not help. And, in many cases, antibiotics, when used
inappropriately, may contribute to problems with intestinal and immune system health.

Palevsky points us in the direction of most ear ache being rooted in inflammation

Conventional pediatric practice focuses on prescribing treatment interventions once a
child’s symptoms have already appeared. Non-conventional medical approaches
concentrate on preventing the development of inflammation and infection and attempt to
evaluate the causes that contribute to their presentation. In addition, non-conventional
approaches use remedies and interventions that facilitate the body’s natural healing abilities
in a nourishing way in an attempt to avoid suppressing the inherent healing mechanisms
that are present in the body. Often, elimination of the factors that are known to contribute
to the development of the underlying symptoms is sufficient to treat the problem(s) without
introducing additional remedies. This is especially true when it comes to ear pain and ear
inflammation.

Here is the full text of a very helpful article on this topic 

It’s not just what we eat but when we eat

Much new work is being done on how when we eat affects our health. Again, going back to first principles, for most of human existence, we did not eat three regular meals a day and we certainly did not snack. Athletes understand the concept of rest. High performance athletes do not train every day. They do rest the system. This concept of resting our digestive system is what is now being found to have many benefits.

More in this video

Inflammation – The deep cause of so much chronic illness and even dementia

It is becoming increasingly accepted that most chronic illness – no matter how different in its expression – has causal roots in inflammation. Much of the early work on this has involved diet. But recently many more aspects of how we live have entered the mix – stress, sleep, relationships, when we eat as well as what we eat.

This post, By James P Watson, with contributions and editorial assistance by Vince Giuliano, is the most comprehensive that I have seen yet and stands as a benchmark for advice on the process and for what each of us can do to reduce our chances of developing chronic illness and dementia.

INTRODUCTION AND OVERALL PRINCIPLES

This is the first of a pair of blog entries concerned with dementias – neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and its cousins.  This Part 1 write-up was inspired by a recent small, non-randomized clinical trial done by Dr. Dale Bredesen that showed true “Reversal of Cognitive Decline” in 9 out of 10 patients with documented cognitive decline (Bredesen, 2014).  Not all of these patients had AD, but all had cognitive decline.  Five had AD, two had SCI (subjective cognitive impairment), and two had MCI (mild cognitive impairment).  Although this study was too small to allow any statistical conclusions, it is the most positive report in a series of disappointing reports on the recent failures of Big Pharma’s monoclonal antibodies against amyloid-beta.  Dale Bredesen’s approach was a multifactorial one – utilizing 24 different approaches to halt or reverse cognitive decline.  We explore those 25 interventions here, focusing on the first 19.  They do not depend on drugs.   The focus of this blog entry is “What can be done about dementias now?”

The forthcoming Part 2 blog entry will provides a detailed discussion of some of the key science related to AD and dementias.  This is the “What is science telling us about dementias?” part which gets quite complex.  We review major theories related to AD there including the Hardy Hypothesis related to amloid beta, the GSK3 theory and more detail on the neuroinflammation theory which we introduce in this Part 1 blog entry.  We expect to emphasize the emerging importance APP (Amloid Precursor Protein).  And we will describe some very recent research that appears to establish that a basic cause of AD is the proliferation in aging of vestigal DNA segments in our genomes (known as LINEs which are long interspersed nuclear elements and SINEs which are short interspersed nuclear elements) with encode over and over again for the production of APP and for the failure of its clearance.  This could well finally explain the role of beta amyloid in AD.

We have published a number of earlier blog entries relating to AD and dementias.  For example, you might want to review my August 2014 blog entry The Amyloid Beta face of Alzheimer’s Disease.

The full post continues here

Mother’s Milk – More than Nutrition – Medicine

Just as we are starting to learn about why real food is more than simple nutrition – so we are starting to see breast milk as being more than a meal too. It also sets the baby’s immune system and gut flora and may do many other things too.

“When we come out of the womb, we make our way to the breast. We enter the world knowing we’re mammals, with milk on our minds.

But even as grown-ups, we have never known exactly what’s in that milk—or, as strange as it may sound, what the point of it is. For decades, milk was thought of strictly in terms of nutrients, which makes sense—milk is how a mother feeds her baby, after all. But providing nutrients turns out to be only part of what milk does. And it might not even be the most important part.

“Mother’s milk is food; mother’s milk is medicine; and mother’s milk is signal,” says Katie Hinde, an assistant professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard. (She also writes the fascinating blogMammals Suck, which I suspect is the only place on the Internet where you can fill out a Mammal Madness bracket.) “When people find out I study milk, they automatically think we already know about it, or it’s not important. And I’m like, ‘No, we don’t know about it, and it’s super important.’”

But first, a disclaimer—because conversations about lactation always seem to require disclaimers, especially if you happen to be someone who will never ever lactate. (I’m pretty sure.) In my new bookBaby Meets World, I write about how, contrary to myth, not nursing has never been a death sentence. Hundreds of years before halfway-decent formula, infants were fed gruesome substitutes for breast milk (mushed bread and beer, say)—and although many more died than those who were nursed, many also survived. So the lesson of the new science of milk isn’t that formula is some sort of modern evil. (It isn’t modern or evil.) It’s that milk is really complicated—and evolutionarily amazing.

Your baby’s gut health – the platform for good or poor lifetime health – what to know and to do about this

It is clear now that a child’s gut flora drives many allergies – including eczema – Here is a short and illuminating article on this that joins the growing literature on the importance of gut health generally and how, in infants, gut health drives lifetime health.

This is yet one more study that highlights the importance — and complexity — of gut bacterial composition and development in early life. As we say, optimal digestive health is the foundation upon which total body health is built.

They key finding here is that prolonged breast feeding – well into 18 months – helps set up the ideal gut flora. But this is hard to do in today’s culture. The consequences of limited breast feeding are poor though. Maybe as we get to know more, it will be more acceptable. In the interim the author suggest this workaround.

It has been known for more than 30 years that children who continue at least partial breast feedings until age 3 have lower incidences of most all infectious diseases as well as asthma, allergies, and eczema. Since that is not likely to happen with the Western lifestyle, starting an infant on probiotics, fish oil, and vitamin D may help prevent this microbial shift, but I still think food and stress are primary shifters of the microbiome.

Much more here

Your Waistline – The key measurement for predicting Heart Disease

A fat tummy is a sign of visceral fat which is the #1 predictor of heart disease. We have posted about this before here. But here are some charts that help us see the range.

It’s not just men either.

More here on Mercola’s site:

Sugar and Fructose – The best post yet on the causes of the epidemic of chronic illness

We are close now to a strong agreement that the epidemic of chronic illness is diet related and that sugar and fructose is at the heart of it.

This chart showing sugar consumption is I think the smoking gun for looking at the role of sugar and now fructose in the epidemic of chronic illness.

This article – link here – is complete. It goes into depth on the process by which sugar and then fructose affects us and some people more than others. All who care about their health should read this. All who are in health care should too – for  we have to acknowledge that, until now, we must have been wrong. Our failure to make progress is the proof.

Here are the facts about the load:

Sugar consumption continued to increase in the 1900s, with an overall doubling in the United States and the United Kingdom between 1900 and 1967 (34). By 1993, >110 million tons of sugar were produced worldwide (33). Whereas sugar intake continues to be marked in the industrialized nations, it is in the developing countries that the greatest increase in the rates of sugar consumption has been observed (35 ). By the early 1970s, an additional sweetener, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), was introduced in the United States, which had certain advantages over table sugar with relation to shelf life and cost. This sweetener, the composition of which is similar to that of sucrose, is used extensively to sweeten soft drinks, fruit punches, pastries, and processed foods. The combination of table sugar and HFCS has resulted in an additional 30% increase in overall sweetener intake over the past 40 y, mostly in soft drinks. Currently, consumption of these sweeteners is almost 150 lb (67.6 kg) per person per year (36), which has resulted in the ingestion of >500 kcal/d (37; Figure 1⇑).

Here they make the connection:

A sign that you are at risk from heart disease? You can’t see your willie!

Is this you? It was me. If it is you can’t see an old friend. But it is worse than that. Visceral fat is the most dangerous sign of impending heart disease. More on this site here

“A recent survey of 1,000 British men has shown that a third of men aged between 35 and 60 years, are unable to see their genitals due to a protruding midriff or, less politely, a beer belly.

As a result of the survey, funded by the medical group We Love Our Health, an online men’s health awareness initiative has been launched. The Big Check aims to encourage men to make a potentially lifesaving health check.

“Take off your clothes, stand upright and look down at your penis, if you can’t see it, you are obese,” says the group’s online doctor, Johan du Plessis.

“Don’t ignore it, it can knock years off your lifespan but it can also put you in serious risk from life threatening illness.”

All my visceral fat was gone in 6 months of a strict Paleo diet. I looked better. And my old friend works well again. No need for blue pills. It’s all connected.

“Erectile dysfunction does not just affect overweight men. The world’s largest study to examine links between erectile dysfunction and heart disease found even minor erection difficulties in healthy fit men, can be an indicator of future heart risks.

The authors of the study, undertaken in Australia and published last month in the on-line journal ‘PLOS Medicine‘, examined data of 95,038 men aged 45 years and older.

The researchers concluded that erectile dysfunction does not cause heart disease but may be an early indicator of the problems that lead to it, such as a build-up of plaque in the arteries.

So what to do? Explore the Paleo Diet

Brush your teeth every day? The better choice – Stop eating shit

Image Source: Paleo Foundation

Our mouth is an ecology of bacteria. It can be a good community or a bad one. If you eat a narrow highly processed food diet, it will be a bad one. We eat food that promotes bad bacteria and we use chemicals that kill any good bacteria. The better option is to eat a better diet and to work to enhance the good. Here is a good guide to all of this:

“Dental bacteria aren’t necessarily bad. They’re just some of the trillions of microbes that share our body, and that are as much a part of us as our own flesh and blood. Those in our guts get the most attention and are involved in digesting our food. But microbes abound in other body parts too. Some of those in the mouth are involved in repairing damage to teeth and barring the way to more dangerous germs.

As Europeans moved from hunting and gathering to farming and agriculture, these oral communities changed from healthy, diverse ones into those that we’d typically associate with disease. The advent of processed flour and sugar during the Industrial Revolution made things even worse. “You see the diversity plummet, and the rise to dominance of opportunistic nasties such as Streptococcus mutans, which causes cavities,” says Cooper.

Our mouths are now a gentrified shadow of their former selves. And as Carl Zimmer described earlier this week, ecosystems with an impoverished web of species are more vulnerable to parasites. He was writing about frogs and lakes, but the same is true of bacteria and mouths. The narrow range of microbes in industrialised gobs are more vulnerable to invasions by species that cause disease, cavities, and other dental problems.  “As an ecosystem, it has lost resilience,” says Cooper. “It basically became a permanent disease state.”

More here

And much more here about your mouth and what we do in there

How to avoid the flu? Bump up your immune system!

You and I have an immune system. If it healthy, then it will defend us from a lot of illness. The future of Health Care will be not a fix after we are ill but taking care so that we have the best immune system possible.

So how best to protect yourself against the flu?  Here is what taking care of your immune system looks like:

Avoiding a serious case of influenza is not about vaccination but more about maintaining a healthy, well functioning immune system. By following these simple guidelines, you can help keep your immune system in optimal working order so that you’re far less likely to acquire the infection to begin with or, if you do get sick with the flu, you are better prepared to move through it without complications and soon return to good health.

• Optimize Your Gut Flora. This may be the single most important strategy you can implement as the bacteria in your gut have enormous control of your immune response. The best way to improve your beneficial bacteria ratio is avoid sugars as they will feed the pathogenic bacteria. Additionally, processed foods and most grains should be limited and replacing with healthy fats like coconut oil, avocados, olives, olive oil, butter, eggs and nuts. Once you change your diet than regular use of fermented foods can radically optimize the function of your immune response.
• Optimize your vitamin D levels. As I’ve previously reported, optimizing your vitamin D levels is one of the absolute best strategies for avoiding infections of ALL kinds, and vitamin D deficiency may actually be the true culprit behind the seasonality of the flu – not the flu virus itself. This is probably the single most important and least expensive action you can take. Regularly monitor your vitamin D levels to confirm your levels are within the therapeutic range of 50-70 ng/ml.

Ideally, you’ll want to get all your vitamin D from sun exposure or a safe tanning bed, but as a last resort you can take an oral vitamin D3 supplement. According to the latest review by Carole Baggerly (Grassrootshealth.org), adults need about 8,000 IU’s a day. Be sure to take vitamin K2 if you are taking high dose oral vitamin D as it has a powerful synergy and will help prevent any D toxicity. But be sure and get your level tested as that is the only way to know for sure.

• Avoid Sugar and Processed Foods. Sugar impairs the quality of your immune response almost immediately, and as you likely know, a healthy immune system is one of the most important keys to fighting off viruses and other illness. It also can decimate your beneficial bacteria and feed the pathogenic yeast and viruses. Be aware that sugar (typically in the form of high fructose corn syrup) is present in foods you may not suspect, like ketchup and fruit juice. If you are healthy then sugar can be consumed but the LAST thing you should be eating when you are sick is sugar. Avoid it like poison while you are sick.
• Get Plenty of Rest. Just like it becomes harder for you to get your daily tasks done if you’re tired, if your body is overly fatigued it will be harder for it to fight the flu. Be sure to check out my article Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep for some great tips to help you get quality rest.
• Have Effective Tools to Address Stress. We all face some stress every day, but if stress becomes overwhelming then your body will be less able to fight off the flu and other illness. If you feel that stress is taking a toll on your health, consider using an energy psychology tool such as the Emotional Freedom Technique, which is remarkably effective in relieving stress associated with all kinds of events, from work to family to trauma.
• Get Regular Exercise. When you exercise, you increase your circulation and your blood flow throughout your body. The components of your immune system are also better circulated, which means your immune system has a better chance of finding an illness before it spreads. Be sure to stay hydrated – drink plenty of fluids, especially water. However, it would be wise to radically reduce the intensity of your workouts while you are sick. No Peak Fitness exercises until you are better.
• Take a High-Quality Source of Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats. Increase your intake of healthy and essential fats like the omega-3 found in krill oil, which is crucial for maintaining health. It is also vitally important to avoid damaged omega-6 oils that are trans fats and in processed foods as it will seriously damage your immune response.
• Wash Your Hands. Washing your hands will decrease your likelihood of spreading a virus to your nose, mouth or other people. Be sure you don’t use antibacterial soap for this – antibacterial soaps are completely unnecessary, and they cause far more harm than good. Instead, identify a simple chemical-free soap that you can switch your family to.
• Tried and True Hygiene Measures. In addition to washing your hands regularly, cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze. If possible, avoid close contact with those, who are sick and, if you are sick, avoid close contact with those who are well.
• Use Natural Remedies. Examples include oil of oregano and garlic. These work against bacteria, viruses, and protozoa in your body. And unlike pharmaceutical antibiotics, they do not appear to lead to resistance.
• Avoid Hospitals. I’d recommend you stay away from hospitals unless you’re having an emergency and need expert medical care, as hospitals are prime breeding grounds for infections of all kinds. The best place to get plenty of rest and recover from illness that is not life-threatening is usually in the comfort of your own home.

Why legumes are not good for us #LeakyGut #GutFlora

Part of the established wisdom is to eat more healthy legumes. If you are a vegetarian, they offer you one of the few protein sources possible. If a vegan then the only source. They are inexpensive and they can be very tasty. Baked beans are a staple of kids food in England where I grew up.

But they are not good for us. In fact they are amongst the least healthy foods that we can eat. Here is the opening of a comprehensive post that will tell you why.

From Paleo Diet Food List

Agents of gastric turbulence

Known for causing digestive inconsistencies, legumes are storehouses of anti nutrients called lectins. A natural defense mechanism for plants, lectins do wonder to protect plant species. They are low grade toxins that when consumed by humans can cause many inflammatory and gastrointestinal complications. Highly undesirable for our consumption, lectins are hard to break down.

While lectins are present in all plant and animal products, grains and legumes are a more concentrated source than others. Modern cooking methods of soaking, fermenting and sprouting promise to neutralize these toxic substances but their consumption can still lead to direct gastric issues like flatulence, bloating, cramps and other non gastric aggravations like headaches, painful joints and fatigue. Moreover, foods that do not agree with the digestive system compromise the body’s immune system as well.

Leaky gut syndrome

One of the more particular conditions associated with consuming lectins is known as leaky gut syndrome in which intestinal permeability is increased. The damage incurred by the lining of the intestines allows toxins and partially digested food particles to pass through its protective coating and enter the bloodstream. Here the unwanted components wreak havoc and may trigger an autoimmune reaction.

Leaky gut syndrome can be a convenient precursor to food sensitivities, chronic inflammation, asthmaand even rheumatoid arthritis.

More on this long post here

More on Gut Flora here

Had a heart attack? On a low fat diet? Why this is not a good idea

Make Believe? (From Grass Based Health)

Do you have Celiac Disease? Here is a great resource

Many people who have Celiac Disease now eat food that is labelled Gluten Free. I even saw Gluten Free Ham for sale the other day. Most labelled Gluten Free food is just more factory food and will only make you more ill. For Celiac is not just an allergy to Gluten but is a sign of Leaky Gut.

Here is a great resource for all of this.

“The bottom line is: If you have Celiac Disease, you have leaky gut and bad gut flora.

We’ve talked about how prolamines and lectins cause inflammation and leaky gut.  We’ve talked about how SIBO causes inflammation and leaky gut… and all within the confines of a gluten-free diet.

When your gut flora is out of balance and your gut barrier is damaged, your gut is going to be inflamed.  Inflammation triggers leaky gut and leaky gut triggers inflammation^[19].  They all feed on each other in a vicious cycle that looks like this:

The only way to begin treating Celiac Disease is to break this inflammation-leaky gut cycle… and the first step is to recognize that gluten-free isn’t enough.  There’s a better way to eat that can begin to halt this process.

So what can a Celiac eat to feel better?

The answer is: eat easy-to-digest, low-toxin, real foods.  Foods that don’’t feed bad bacteria or promote inflammation… but at the same time provide adequate nutrition and improve intestinal permeability.

In other words the ideal Celiac Disease diet:

• Doesn’t contain processed foods filled with added sugars, vegetable oils, additives, or dyes that damage health
• Eliminates disaccharides and polysaccharides to starve out overgrown bad bacteria (SIBO)
• Eliminates the most toxic food groups: cereal grains and soy
• Encourages consumption of low-toxin whole foods in their natural state
• Encourages plenty of nutrient dense animal products filled with protein and healthy fats
• Encourages plenty of good bugs (probiotics) through fermented foods or supplements

The gluten-free diet doesn’t fit the bill…

Simply eliminating cereal grains that promote inflammation and leaky gut is a step in the right direction.  But if you remove the other 3 toxic foods I mentioned above (soy, industrial seed oils, and sugar) you’ll be one step closer to recovery.  At that point, you’ll be eating a whole food, non-processed diet – which is ideal for optimal health based on what we know.”

Much more on the site itself here

Why the meat industry is so bad for us

Source

The massive use of antibiotics is essential to how meat is produced today. Mass confinement and the feeding of corn to grass eating vows demands the use of antibiotics in massive quantities.

The result is that we will lose antibiotics soon AND that we will be exposed to pathogens that we have no immunity too. The meat business also produce meat that is full of Omega 6’s – from the corn – and that drives more systemic health risks.

And finally, the ethics of treating animals like this!

So what to do? Vote with your wallet. Buy local pasture raised meat. When enough of us do this, the old system will fall over.

The myth of healthy vegetable oils is being busted

A corner stone of the establishment is that saturated animal fat is bad for us and that vegetable oils are good. It is part of the larger fallacy about what is healthy eating and not.

Here are the summary conclusions of a recent study looking at  men in Australia who ate either saturated fats or vegetable oils.

“Conclusions Advice to substitute polyunsaturated fats for saturated fats is a key component of worldwide dietary guidelines for coronary heart disease risk reduction. However, clinical benefits of the most abundant polyunsaturated fatty acid, omega 6 linoleic acid, have not been established.

In this cohort, substituting dietary linoleic acid in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease. An updated meta-analysis of linoleic acid intervention trials showed no evidence of cardiovascular benefit.

These findings could have important implications for worldwide dietary advice to substitute omega 6 linoleic acid, or polyunsaturated fats in general, for saturated fats.”