Comments on: Three steps forward

By: John

John — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 05:28:55 +0000

The recent most studies tells that chocolates are as good as bypass for CVDs. So get them and stay safe.

Hi John–

I would much rather eat chocolate than have a bypass.

Cheers–

MRE

By: Michael R. Eades, MD

Michael R. Eades, MD — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:06:04 +0000

I have read the reports about the Atkins diet causing the problem with ‘ketoacidosis’ in the obese lady. I can assure you that it is all hokum. MD and I are have been at a conference for the past couple of days, so I haven’t had the time to devote to a complete post on this issue, but I will as soon as I get back to my desk. Reading about this situation and the attendant hysteria makes it easy to see how the Salem witch trials could have taken place.

By: David E..

David E.. — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:17:48 +0000

Another vampire example -ketoacidosis. An Atkins dieter in New York has big trouble.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/DietNutrition/tb/2878

By: Michael R. Eades, MD

Michael R. Eades, MD — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:17:00 +0000

To get to the new and new and improved bulletin board go to: http://www.proteinpower.com/forum/

By: Gabriel E. Guzman, Ph.D.

Gabriel E. Guzman, Ph.D. — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 15:50:46 +0000

Regarding how responsive HDL is to exercise, while it does respond in general, there is evidence that the type of exercise plays a role with resistance exercise inducing a higher increase than just plain ‘cardio’. Since HDL is also very sensitive to dietary changes, then combining appropriate nutrition with the right kind of exercise is synergistic and would be, by far, the best thing to do to improve one’s HDL levels.

With respect to Ornish’s studies, it amazes me that none of the reviewers asked ‘why are you changing so many variables at the same time?’ It’s obvious that the confounding wasn’t even addressed and the best way to deal with that is to actually have different ‘intervention’ groups; one addressing the change in diet, one the change in smoking, one addressing exercise and one addressing meditation and stress management. The results would likely show what you say, either of the three interventions that have nothing to do with diet would have improve the participant’s condition and the confounding would have been minimal. Perhaps the old school ‘one question, one variable, one experiment’ still applies to today’s clinical studies.

By: Marjorie

Marjorie — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 13:23:24 +0000

Do you have a link to your reconstituted bulletin board?

By: Audley

Audley — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 12:47:18 +0000

My dad, who has been taking meds for years for high cholesterol, is a fan of Dr Ornish and his magazine. We don’t see eye to eye on this issue. He has a dietitian who also agrees with the low fat/high carb diet. When my tryclycerides went to the 300s years ago, and the HDL was in the 30s, my doctor told me to exercise more. Seeing that I was already exercising 4 to 6 days a week, I sought out other alternatives, and ended up discovering the high protein diet. I dropped the pasta, and brought my triglycerides into the 90s, and HDL went into the 40s within 3 months. Yes the LDL did go up, but I was more concerned with the other numbers. The diet was still not perfect as I was still eating some grains in the form of oatmeal and multi grain bread. The next challenge was diabetes, coming from my mother’s side. I had the symptoms for months, and finally diagnosed as a pre-diabetic last fall. Now after losing the grains altogether, I have brought my hA1C from 6.4 to 6.1 over the past 3 months. My HDL is 60, the highest it has ever been, the LDL is holding around 130. I still exercise nearly every day, either weights or if the weather is good, a mountain bike ride or some sprints, and again with no meds. My body fat has dropped from 15% to 11%, and is still going down. My doctor is amazed. Thanks to Fred Hahn for leading me to your site. I have done the Slow Burn Workouts with success in the past. I still use the workouts, but this past winter I have created my own, using a bodysplit type of routine, so I can do more. I feel better doing something nearly everyday.

By: Michael R. Eades, MD

Michael R. Eades, MD — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 12:39:29 +0000

Although HDL levels are responsive to exercise, in my experience they are much more responsive to diet. Fat in the diet increases HDL levels, while, conversely, removing fat from the diet lowers HDL levels. And lowers them more than adding exercise can bring them back up. Dietary carbohydrates raise triglyceride levels; reducing carbohydrate intake lowers them. So, when you go on a low-carbohydrate diet (which is also a higher-at diet) you virtually always find your triglycerides dropping like a rock while your HDL goes up.

If you go on an extremely low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet such as the one Dr. Ornish recommends you will find just the opposite, as did the subjects on his study.

By: Victoria

Victoria — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 19:59:26 +0000

I’m surprised that HDL went down. I thought exercise raised it. Since I started a low-carb diet and exercise program only 6 weeks apart, I can’t be sure which (or both) effected my HDL. My total cholesterol has actually gone up because my HDL skyrocketed, more than making up for the fall in LDL.

The triglyceride finding doesn’t surprise me since a low-fat diet is high carb and that will raise trigs.

By: Michael R. Eades, MD

Michael R. Eades, MD — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:36:51 +0000

It’s not censorship; it’s sloth. Most of the comments that come in seem to require some kind of response from me. I put off posting them until I have time to respond, because if I go ahead and post them, then I’ll forget about answering them. As time goes on, the comments stack up, making it even more time consuming to answer them, so I put them off even longer.

To top it all off, after moving the blog software to the new server I updated it to the most current version, which has caused problems. I don’t know why but in the newest version the comments have become much more difficult to deal with technically. In the previous version 3.17 there was a button that said ‘Approve,’ which, when selected, published the comment all in one easy step. In version 3.2 it has become a multi-step process that actually took me a little while to figure out as I sat down to deal with all these comments this morning. I still can’t figure out how to get my comment on a specific comment to appear immediately after so that there is continuity.

And as if that’s not bad enough, some of the comments that I have to deal with come filled with symbols instead of punctuation, which I then have to clean up before posting. We still haven’t gotten all the bugs worked out on that one yet.

My apologies if I’ve failed to post some of your comments; I can assure you that it was inadvertent.