A call for help II
Usually there is enough stupidity rearing its ugly head in the medical literature to keep me busy full time trying to deal with it, so I don’t ever run out of stuff to blog on. The problem seems to be an overabundance of material, not a lack. It seems that every time I’m getting warmed up to write one of the posts that I’ve been planning on writing, some researcher or drug company comes out with something that demands a post, so I abandon whatever I’m working on to get to the more current issue. I know all the things I would really like to post on, but I don’t know exactly what you readers would like to read about.
Here’s your chance.
Use the comment section to make suggestions for issues you would like to see covered in blog posts over this next year. I can’t promise that I can get to all of them or even most of them, but I would be extremely interested in learning what it is you want to see from me. If you see that someone else has already posted a comment about what you would like to see, go ahead and second it. The more requests I have for a specific topic, the more likely I’ll be to pursue it.
As with the last post, please don’t go off topic on this one. Thanks for your help.
As always, appreciating all the information you provide.
1) yet another vote for women’s hormonal/menopause issues related to weight loss
2) an overview of adipose vs. muscle vs. liver insulin resistance, how they’re related to each other and to body composition and health in general, how they change with diet, weight loss, age, if there are gender differences
3) Since the Obama posed the question to the nation of how health care in the USA could be improved/made less costly, have you given this any thought and if so what changes would you suggest?
Low carb diets preventing cancer, as in sugar “feeding” cancer cells, so by definition wouldn’t LC prevent CA from ever starting or growing. I think you posted something about a German study where they did this with end-stage patients and it seemed to shrink tumors.
Low-calorie low-carb (LC/LC) diets. I have the most success keeping my weight down if I do “LC/LC” several days a week, keeping meat choices lean, with perhaps some higher-fat days interspersed during the week.
Being more carby around intensive workouts. What about marathon or half-marathon training?
Anything you want to write about I will read!
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I would love to see more written about low-carb in relation to pregnancy, breastfeeding, and feeding babies and small children. Additionally, I would be particularly interested to learn more about how low-carb diets affect the incidence of gestational diabetes. There is much controversy over gestational diabetes without low-carb nutrition even entering into the discussion, so I’m very curious to hear your opinion.
Might I slip in one more question regarding hormone balance and menopause? I’ve suffered from severe joint pain (knee) for a couple years now. It started wtih pain in the BACK of my knee when I would try to squat down. Now my knee locks up and then gives out several times a day.
Obviously, there’s a problem with inflammation.
My question is … do you think your regimen of curcumin, etc. (“I take two ProOmega caps made by Nordic Naturals along with two krill oil caps along with a 500 mg curumin capsule”) would help? You wrote about it here: http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/ditch-your-nsaid-meds/
I’m already taking a fistfull of supplements every morning and evening (magnesium, D3, Chromium picolinate, high-potency vitamins, potassium, borage oil, krill oil, acetyl L-carnitine). I’ll take on more, if it will help. I’d only have to add the ProOmega and curcumin.
Thoughts?
THANKS so much for opening up your blog to suggestions. Yours is, by the way, the only blog I read.
If you are following a low-carb diet, I would recommend that you ditch the borage oil from your regimen as it can actually cause some joint pain. I do think adding the ProOmega and curcumin might help. It certainly helped me. Now I’ve been able to cut back just one krill oil softgel per day and one 800 mg curcumin.
One more question regarding the curcumin. In the description for Super Curcumin in your Products section, it says, “Curcumin’s multifaceted effects include protecting against estrogen-mimicking chemicals, protecting against damaging free radicals, and promoting normal cell cycle growth.”
Since I need all the estrogen I can get (and am supplementing with Vivelle-DOT in addition to Prometrium), will the curcumin prevent the supplemental estrogen from being absorbed in any way?
And yes, I’m definitely LC; most days are <20 ECC per day. Here and there are the odd higher-carb days, but RARELY over around 50 per day.
I was taking the borage oil because it’s supposed to be good for my nails and hair. Yes, I’m a wreck,. The menopause has made my nails very brittle so that they split and break all the time, and I seem to be losing a lot of hair in the shower. The borage has GLA, which I thought was supposed to be really good for you. Oh well. Live and learn!
So, it would be better to take 2 ProOmega, 2 krill, and 800 gr of curcuimin and skip the borage oil. Right?
The curcumin protects against estrogen-mimicking chemicals, not against estrogen itself. I think the 2 ProOmega, 2 krill and 800 mg curcumin without the borage oil will help. The borage oil contains GLA, which, in my experience, under the influence of a low-carb diet can convert to pro-inflammatory substances. I’ve had many patients who had been taking borage oil or GLA for back pain or other arthritic pain and had the pain get worse. They would increase their dosage and they pain intensified. Once I had them quit the borage and/or GLA, their pain subsided. Give it a try.
for my own personal benefit, I’d love to hear what you have to say about gout and low carb.
Here’s why: I seem be presenting (as you medicos say it) symptoms of gout. I’m seeing a doctor tomorrow to find out tmore. I googled gout and I was alarmed at what I found – supposedly red meat and booze are big culprits… Lord I hope not! Help! I’ve been low carbing for over 7 years and this is the first sign of trouble.
Typically gout responds extremely well to a low-carb diet. It is my treatment of choice. Sometimes when a person is having an acute attack of gout, you’ve got to give some medications along with the low-carb diet. But once the attack had diminished, the low-carb diet generally keeps the condition at bay. If you don’t have a family history of gout, it’s unlikely that that is what you’re experiencing. And if you’ve been on a good quality low-carb diet, it’s unlikely that it’s gout. Keep me posted.
One more Dr. Eades…
We eat a lot of 100 % grass-fed, hormone/antibiotic free local beef. I have read a lot of positives about CLA. I’ve also read that taking it in supplement form (which I do not take) may actually *worsen* insulin resistance. I haven’t dug into this much yet, but can you shed some light on this topic? I’m assuming the naturally occurring CLA has to be a good thing….feeding cattle grass vs. vegetable oils, soy, etc.
The natural form of CLA (a mixture of isomers of linoleic acid) that comes from grass-fed cattle is good. The kind that comes from manufacturing plants usually contains specific isomers of CLA, some of which are good, some of which aren’t. Problem is the research isn’t clear right now on which is which. So, until it is, I pretty much leave CLA supplements alone.
I would love to hear you take on Acylation Stimulating Protein in regards to fat storage. One of the big advantages that are linked to low carb eating is the low levels of insulin required which is meant to equal to a metabolic advantage but ASP seems to just take over from insulin.
Also i would love to hear about the dangers of polyunsaturated fats.
And if you’ve been on a good quality low-carb diet, it’s unlikely that it’s gout. Keep me posted.
I maintain a very high quality low carb diet! well, cough cough, except for over the holidays… anyway, doc says my symptoms (lumpy finger joints-the ones closest to the fingernail, and a really sore toe joint, which appeared outta nowhere) dont look like gout. He thinks it’s garden variety arthritis. Blood tests and xrays on the way…
thanks for the info on gout/low carb, I think I’ll pass it on to someone I know who really does have gout. Of course he blames high fat foods…
Keep me posted. I didn’t think it was gout.
I add my wish for the post-menopausal details.
And, I have to tell you that I’ve tried your NSAID replacement (2 Pro-Omega, 2 Krill and 1 Curcumin) and have to THANK you. With moderate fibromyalgia, I’ve been off of Tylenol and Ibuprophen for two weeks now using your mix. It gives noticeable relief from the leg and back pain! I only use it once per day – in mid morning usually, but tried it once at night and it helped then, too. Google search didn’t tell me if it would be safe to take two doses of the combination in one day, i.e. 4, 4, 2. Sure would like to know.
Another topic… clarification on percentages of protein, fat, carbs. I’m recording my food consumption (I know I don’t HAVE to, but want to get a sense of things), and it seems I’m ending up every day with under 10% carbs,, 20-30% protein, and 50-60% fat. I know what you say about fat, but want to be reassured that that’s not too high for a post-menopausal gal. I also note that I am fully satisfied and not hungry, (was snarfing down every carb in site this past fall!), and eat well, but calorie intake is only about 900Kcal per day. I’m fine with it (recovering from foot surgery, so not very active right now), but it seems low on paper.
My son would like to see information on low-carbing for men who recreationally body build. So many of the bodybuilding sites promote very high carb, and say that he’ll burn muscle without high carbs, and develop kidney problems, so he’d like the Dr. Eade’s opinion on this. How does the protein, fat and carb balance work with this???
Finally, could you discuss any updated information that has come out after your Low-Carb Comfort Cookbook re: Soy protein. I have a Soy protein shake 3-4 times per week because I don’t prefer whey; however, you mentioned in the preface to the cookbook that some research was suggesting that the manufacturing process for soy protein isolates might make it harmful.
It appears from all of these comments that you may have several years’ worth of bloggin to do! See how needed and appreciated you are!
Thanks so much
Thanks, Dr. Eades.
Just finished your New Year gift, Protein Power Lifeplan, cover to cover. It was helpful because it allowed me to rededicate myself to the PP plan. (Once again, thanks for your generosity!)
What has changed in your thinking since the book was released (in addition to exercise)?
On another topic……Like all organisms, the human body’s biggest concern is survival. It adapts itself to great changes from our Paleolithic wiring. The setpoint point theory is quite interesting to me. One of your past blogs dealt with fasting and timing of meals to try to “fool” the body into positive changes. Your conclusion was that the effort was just not worth it. Would the PP diet, if rotated or modified every once in a while (i.e. 1X per week/month/etc.), ensure that the body’s systems never becomes complacent. For instance, what would happen if we stayed strict to the PP plan but purposely pigged out on a boatload of carbs every 10 days (as an example) and then returned to a strict PP protocol the day after?
Have you looking at this and other food intake variations (i.e. new ketogenic diets) for weight loss or muscle development? Anything look promising?
Again thanks for all of your selfless health information!
I would welcome your judgment of comparative significance of different food features and factors in our lifestile that influence our health. You usually write when some food or feature has positive impact, or negative impact and why. I understand that there is usually no scale, but I would still like to know the magnitude/significance of each impact.
E.g. we know that high heat will turn vegetable oil into trans-fat. So food fried in a bath of cooking oil hot or repeatedly heated many times will have plenty of trans-fats, which are unhealthy. That’s primarily why we consider KFC, donuts and French fries as junk-food/unhealthy choices. But what about frying food with vegetable oil at home in a frying pan? Will it have comparable negative impact? Probably not. What about using butter instead of cooking oil for frying? Would it be significantly better? I would like to compare these things.
Another example from PPLS: scrambled eggs vs. boiled eggs or sunny side up. When we break the yolk while cooking, we expose the heated yolk cholesterol to air, converting cholesterol to harmful peroxides. How bad is their impact? I suspect that is a subtlety. But can I ignore it? I don’t know for sure.
Thanks for your work.
Actually, it’s been shown that repeated frying at high temperatures doesn’t create trans fats. Trans fat creation requires heat, pressure and a nickel catalyst. What repeated frying does is oxidizes the oils, if they are unsaturated oils to begin with, which most are now days.
I wouldn’t worry too much about breaking a yolk every now and then. I don’t think the occasional dose of oxidized cholesterol is all that harmful.
Hope I’m not too late with this suggestion – it is the result of a recent conversation with my husband.
My GP retired last year (he wasn’t pro-low-carb but I did have a long history with him). I am yet to find a new one that I feel comfortable with. I went to a new doctor for a check up and part of that was the usual cholesterol test. My LDL came in high (175) but my trigs (53) and HDL (117) were fantastic (as were all the other standard test results). The doctor was fixated on the LDL and not at all interested in the other values. I was quite upset when I left her office after being told to go “low-fat” and decided not to return.
This is my question: “should I lie to my doctor about the way I eat?”
If I have any health issues in the future (last time I was sick was 2001 with the flu), I’m worried that based on the doctor’s knowledge of my LC diet, they’ll fixate on IT rather than look at the real problem.
……also what happens in the event that someone who is well adapted to a VLC diet (6 years for me) ends up in hospital on a drip? Aren’t those things glucose? Could it be dangerous?
You should definitely be straight with your doctor about your diet – if you can’t without a lot of hassle, then you need to find another doctor. Any doctor fixated on an elevated LDL level in the face of a 117 HDL level should have his/her lipid treatment privileges suspended.
The glucose drip – should you ever need one – shouldn’t cause a problem. I doubt that you would get one, however, unless you were unable to eat. Typically doctors put patients on a normal saline drip (a salt solution that is similar to the salt level in blood0.
In your most recent book you discuss the desirability of increasing one’s intake of omega-3.
Could you discuss meeting this increased need through non-traditional food sources such as Omega-3 enriched eggs? As an example, we have eggs available which claim to contain 660 mg of Omega-3 per egg.
The cost premium over regular eggs is minimal and intuitively, the bioavailibility seems like it would be good.
Thanks
Jim Gray
Michigan
I keep coming back with more questions LOL.
-Flax? Are the phytoestrogens a concern? I avoid soy but do use flax sometimes for LC baked goods. But then I cringe about whether this is a good idea. Perhaps you could address soy isoflavones, etc. as well for those who do use soy.
-More on PCOS…d-chiro-inositol? Interplay of vitamin D (there have been some studies showing upping vitamin D helped restore cycles), calcium and magnesium? A cluster of different “syndromes” related to fertility but all under the blanket of PCOS? I’m not overweight, not too many external pcos symptoms. Acquired genetically in utero? My parents do have symptoms of IR (are now LCing though). Xenobiotics exposure in utero? What supplements for PCOS? I’m thinking of adding bioidentical progesterone for half my cycle. I’m on metformin currently (2000mg). I low carb but don’t really need to lose weight, but obviously believe it is important for my health. I”m working on upping my vitamin D intake (have done CLO in the past but am now wondering about some stuff I’ve read about vitamin A competing for binding sites? I use a CLO that isn’t super high in A though). ALA? D-chiro-inositol?
I have two children, one conceived through infertility treatments, one “surprise” while on metformin. I still don’t have regular cycles and am stumped on what else I can do (besides metformin + diet + maybe upping D…maybe adding d-chiro and magnesium?)
-cut out dairy for PCOS?
-My mom has been LCing for a year. Tris have dropped to well under 100. She went off her statins about the same time. Her total cholesterol is still hovering close to 300. Her HDL isn’t super high but I think around 60ish. Just genetic predisposition? SHe was using south beach initially (despite my urging to not go low fat) and her cholesterol was lower during that time…but she had only recently come off her statins at that point. She switched over to a more high fat way of eating, and added in coconut oil. Her cholesterol went up. We thought maybe it was the coconut oil but even w/ cutting that out, it has still been high, and she’s now been LCing for a year or so. SHe is down about 30 lbs though to about 140ish at 5’3″ and maintaining okay.
Well, I see quite a few posts here, but one problem that I can’t seem to shake is Night Eating. This is an enormous problem for me in terms of losing weight. 99.9% of the time it has nothing to do with hunger. It’s purely emotional.
If you could address this issue that would be great.
Effects of having a carb blow-out say once a week (I have to get my fish & chips fix at the weekend (UK))
Slow Burn – Is there any benefit from the return stroke being slow as well? (hoping to reduce the amount of time even more!)
I think I’m correct in saying that High Carb + High Sat Fat is bad – Above what level of carbs does this apply?
It’s better to have a blow out once per week than to have one daily. Better yet to have one every two weeks. But, better to not have one at all.
The return stroke is supposed to be slow in Slow Burn. It should take as much time coming back as it did going out. With no stopping and no resting.
The high-carb + high-sat fat diet is bad, but only because of the carbs. I would suspect that the sat fats are actually somewhat protective. It’s the carbs that do the damage, not the fat.
Can you cover Dr. Weil’s new diet.
http://www.threebrothershealth.com/2009/07/006-health-food-diet-dr-weil.html
the site has some interesting articles that you could spin ideas off of…
What can I say? He has simply moved the grains up a notch in the pyramid. Still not what I would condider a great diet even with the fruits and vegetables on the bottom.
I’ve read through from August to January 2009, so far. My areas of special interest are:
THYROID (low with incapacitating chills – related to low carb? – how to get medical treatment with normal TSH and how to get natural desiccated prescribed) Does low thyroid relates to Diabetes type 2?
HORMONES, MIGRAINES (especially hormonal migraines, even with bioidentical)
DEPRESSION, RAGE (serotonin sources? what do you recommend when antidepressants don’t work?)
DIGESTION: does systemic Candida cause permanent digestive damage?
SUPPLEMENTS: what’s the best plan and testing for levels vitamins, minerals, iodine, iron/anemia?
PROTEIN/FAT Is a diet of all fullfat cheese ok if that’s all you can digest?
HYPERSENSITIVIES to almost everything, unable to digest most foods, supplements
CHANGING CIRCADIAN after quitting smoking: from nightowl to morning lark
INFLAMMATION, MERCURY POISONING, HYPERHISTAMINE (niacin, hives), EXCITOTOXINS/msg etc.
HOW CAN WE FIND A DOCTOR LIKE YOU (even a weak facsimile)? I’ve had a lot of “medical care” that keeps me getting sicker and sicker, and wonder if it’s possible to reverse. Lowcarb keeps blood glucose in check.
Thank you very much for all the information based on your take on medical science.
3 wise men bearing gifts of knowledge: Gary Taubes, Richard Bernstein, Michael Eades.
To answer the previous comment, you might want to consider Vitamin D. Here is my own personal experience with thyroid related problems:
I had an unnecessary hemithyroidectomy (despite having no symptoms) about 5 years ago for a benign goiter after my second pregnancy and have felt unwell ever since. I could never find a dose of synthroid that would work well. I would need a dosage adjustment upwards in the late fall and then in the spring I would feel hyper and need to lower the dose. This went on for 3 years in a row and I finally asked my Dr. if this could be due to Vitamin D since it’s the only seasonal variation that made sense to me. She of course said that was unlikely.
I did lots of reading on the topic and found that many people that have half a thyroid don’t need supplementation, so I asked her if I could try going off the meds to see if my thyroid could make enough hormone on it’s own. Other than being tired and having heavy periods I felt not too bad. At 3 months I was iron deficient so I started consuming liver once or twice per month, and after about 3 months started feeling ill with joint pain, digestive problems, fatigue, insomnia. It took me another 6 months to figure out that people who have familial hyperlipidemia have a tendency to overdose on levels of vit A that would be fine for most people. Too much vit A leads to a relative deficiency in vit D. Here are a few of the papers that finally gave me some answers:
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/105/6/877
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/71/4/878#R25
And again the symptoms worsened in the fall. I developed a cold that lasted 4 months! Finally I insisted my DR. check my vitamin D level and in September it was 72 nmol/L. She was surprised and put me on 1000 IU of vit D3. Over the next year I waffled between taking synthroid or Armour and going off it because I felt so awful and didn’t know what was wrong. I think the Vitamin A was confounding the recovery process. A major breakthrough came a couple of months ago. I was on the lowest dose of synthroid (in the fall of course), my thyroid function had improved enough over the past 2 years that the lowest dose was enough, and I started taking 5000 IU of vitamin D. Within 2 weeks, I started having severe hyperthyroid symptoms. I told my Dr. that I thought the vit D was improving thyroid function and that I wanted to go off the synthroid yet again. Within 2 weeks the hyper feeling slowly subsided. I’ve upped my dose of D to 10 000 IU and I am feeling better daily. I am waiting 3 months before having my thyroid levels and vit D checked again by my Doctor. My only remaining symptoms are joint pain (less now than a year ago), and mild fatigue, even the constant hunger, despite being on a low carb diet, (which made me feel great before the surgery) has resolved. My mood is much better and my mental clarity has improved dramatically. Over the past year my TSH off medication has dropped from 12 to 4. I am hoping that in 3 months or so it will be almost normal.
Here is one of a few papers I found about low levels of Vitamin D following a hemithyroidectomy:
http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=182696
I had my iodine level tested (24 hr.urinary iodine loading test) and it was found to be normal. I wonder now if the nodule was cause by low levels of vit D during two winter pregnancies along with a prenatal supplement which was high in Vitamin A relative to Vitamin D in a Vitamin A toxicity susceptible person. I found a few papers on-line which suggest vit A can be a cause of thyroid goiter.
Bottom line, all the symptoms you mentioned can be caused by low vitamin D levels. A very simple solution to a complicated problem. So get your levels tested. Here is a link to the vitamin D council’s web site. http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/