Well folks, not much exciting happening here except of course that both diets are proving to be useful at dropping glucose levels. Our fasting glucose levels this morning were 80 and 82 mg/dl ? both in the perfect range. My levels are remarkably consistent, having busted out a 79 or 80 for 5 straight days now. We are both feeling pretty good too. My skin is ridiculous, and my teeth feel great despite only brushing twice thus far.
So if these are wondrous diets that reduce fasting glucose, what could be the problem?
Well, as you guys already know, I’ve knocked on both low-carb and vegan diets pretty hard over the course of this journey. I’ve railed them because both seem particularly counterproductive over the long-term despite nothing short of miraculous results in the short-term for a lot of sick people. What gives?
The low-carb diet seems to have many benefits specifically relating to bringing blood sugar levels down. There is less inflammation from reduced glycation. There is less insulin, so hunger often decreases, food is no longer being diverted into fat cells instead of being readily available as energy, and people lose weight and feel much better. The reduction of fiber is often quite soothing to an inflamed digestive tract. Moods from better glucose control often stabilize ? clearing up emotional instability. Muscles can come from out of nowhere as they did in my case. There’s no end to the litany of early-stage benefits of reducing the carbohydrate content of one’s diet.
Yet, the same can be said about doing a very low-fat diet (5-10% of calories or so) that stresses mostly fibrous plant foods. The diet I’m following for this two-week time period is not just devoid of animal products, but is virtually fat-free. There is nothing wrong with animal foods, saturated fat, or dietary cholesterol whatsoever. Anyone who has done honest, unbiased, and intelligent research has also come to this conclusion. It is obvious. But you can see how low-fat nuts (Schulze, Fuhrman, Barnard, Shintani) come to the conclusion that these foods are unhealthy though, when their exclusion leads to instant relief from even such terrible and ?incurable? diseases such as type 2 diabetes. I forgive them for their zealotry, despite how poor their general logic may be.
On the surface it looks like the more well-balanced the diet is between macronutrient groups, the more harmful it is. ?Everything in moderation? looks like it’s the dumbest saying since the beginning of time. It looks more like ?moderation kills,? and ?extreme? heals. This experiment seems to only back up a hypothesis supporting restricted dieting or food-combining (not eating all macronutrients together at the same time).
But our ancestors always combined the three macronutrients whenever they could. It is natural human instinct to combine fats and proteins (always including animal sources) and carbohydrates together. Look at any culture or race on the face of the earth with the exception of the Eskimo and you see that theme repeated. Humans love meat, seafood, and dairy products. They are always held in the highest regard ? but when they have access to carbohydrates, they eat them. Humans naturally like ?em all together. Food tastes better and is more satisfying that way ? and the combination NEVER led to our demise as a species until refined carbohydrates got a foothold (barring a handful of early agriculturalists who were nutrient and/or calorie starved).
Ancestral diets were healthy, and our ancestors, when they had food abundance, were able to obtain excellent health from those diets. Put a person on such a diet today and it often doesn’t perform miracles, because we are not in the same state of physical health as those that came before us. We have a hard time metabolizing the mixture of all foods properly.
This all comes back to the way in which our heredity has been degraded ? through a lull in the activity of mitochondrial DNA (low metabolism = low mitochondrial activity = next generation born more or less in starvation mode with a downgraded set of DNA). This has everything to do with the human metabolism. If it is low, the body cannot burn fatty acids efficiently, fats tend to accumulate intracellularly as well as in the bloodstream, which can cause insulin resistance, and glucose cannot be stored and thus becomes elevated in the blood along with insulin.
The root of the problem, therefore, is not combining foods together in a meal. The root of the problem is a metabolism that doesn’t support proper lipolysis, that triggers insulin resistance, and that doesn’t encourage the use of blood cholesterol to make steroid hormones (one of cholesterol’s primary duties).
Yeah, a type 2 diabetic facing impending loss of eyesight and heart attack needs to take dramatic and aggressive action towards fixing their problems and getting off of medications. A restricted diet will always achieve that faster. But I won’t give up until I find exactly the way in which to reliably stimulate the metabolism, making the ultimate goal within reach:
To be able to eat a healthy, wholesome, hearty, sustainable, and enjoyable diet that combines all the elements the human being seeks without negative consequence.
I still think that Eskimos got carbs from animal flesh. A 150 person can potentially store 500 or more grams of muscle and liver glycogen. Eskimos killed animals far larger. Eating meat fresh, OR freezing it immediately after killing the animal will preserve muscle glycogen. Eskimos did freeze their meat and ate it frozen. Packaged meat contains trace amounts of glycogen because cells can continue to utilize glucose in the absence of oxygen, and they continue to do so until the glycogen is depleted. Modern meat processing techniques do not freeze the meat until late in the process, usually enough time for the cells to deplete any remaining glycogen. Anyone who has tried a zero carb diet knows this, they feel like crap and eating is never really that satisfying.
There is a reason that meat has been historically combined with starch at meals, it allows a greater amount of humans to thrive with a fixed amount of animal flesh. There are not enough organs to feed everyone and in most places meat could not be frozen, so the advent of agriculture filled the gap for the carbs that were previously consumed from fresh meat. That's my theory.
Well Matt, it sounds like you are about to suggest food combining ? la Montignac or something like that. :-)
Patrick
My theory on low-carb is the human body's ability over the long term to become incredibly proficient at gluconeogenesis. Eskimos were running off of glucose just like everyone else. Cats and canines are the same. On a zero carb diet they still have glucose metabolism just like every other mammal species. Since carbohydrates are more efficient than breaking down protein, humans, as omnivores, tend to prefer it as a glucose source over protein.
Hey Patrick…
Yesterday you mentioned quitting dietary escapades in favor of Cytomel and Metformin. Could you elaborate on what you've tried, the ways in which your attempts failed, etc. for the rest of us to capitalize on? I'm very interested, and I'm sure many others are as well.
I'm perplexed by the importance of the fasting glucose score as a health indicator. My health sucks. I have terrible hypoglycemia (in a three hour glucose tolerance tests my levels fell below 30). I have cravings, fatigue, muscle tremors and weakness, depression, hypothyroid (I'm on armour), alcoholism, MVP -i could go on. I also have frequent binges on sugar even though it makes my brain crazy. HOWEVER, every goddamn morning my blood sugar is 80-85. I checked it for over a year. I am not overweight, but there is no way I believe my glucose regulation is normal. I love it when the doc takes my reading and goes…perfect! Yeah, woo hoo!
Anon,
What's your Armour dosage? Maybe it's the thing keeping your BG normal?
"2. The fasting glucose was close to 85 mg/dl in the bloodstream."
Do you have a firsthand reference of the holy 85?
On page 31 in "Your Body is Your Best Doctor" Melvin Page writes "The ideal toward which the method of regulation is directed is to maintain the blood sugar level at 100 milligrams,…"
I always wondered about that high figure but it’s in his book.
"From what I understand, having high fasting blood sugar ain't a real good sign."
It’s not as simple as low FBG = goood, high FBG = baaaad. While eating a SAD-like diet that might be true. A HF/LC-diet will often result in high FBG. It’s just a physiological necessity getting insulin resistant when carb intake is low. Glucose is in short supply so only the king (=brain) is allowed to get some.
"Traditional Eskimos were also found to have perfect glucose metabolism as compared to others who were fasted into a ketogenic state prior to Glucose tolerance testing."
Do you have a reference for that?
You say postprandial glucose levels are irrelevant. I would say it’s rather the other way around. How the body can handle a glucose surge, shows does show good or bad insulin sensitivity.
Someone eating a HF/LC-diet will most likely score in the diabetic range after a carb heavy fat free meal. Your blood glucose spike should be well contained and reverted back to normal quite quickly.
Regarding my Thyroid dose: My normal dose is .5 grain (30 mg) which is not a high dose but i was 'subclinically' low. I hate taking it and never noticed any real benefit, so over the past year i tried very slowly titrating off of it. I was off for 2 months then started having symptoms of low body temp, hoarseness, etc. so went back on it. Which is all to say my dose was all over the map the last year, so i doubt it was keeping my blood sugar stable…
Ok,
I was at 337lb 5 years ago. I lost my first 40 pounds just by cutting desserts, chips, fries and soft drinks. I just thought that I was cutting on calories at the time, I was still eating lots of carbs. That was the easy part, because after that I hit a big plateau that I broke (barely) with intensive gym workout (supersets and dropsets) 5 hours a week for 6 months. I lost a big 5 pounds on the scale, but at least some fat was replaced by muscles.
While I was doing all this, my experiences did not seem to work the way the caloric balance hypothesis should have worked. So I became interested in how exactly our metabolism works and I was astounded that not everyone agreed that it was all about calories. Then I discovered low-carb and I realized that this is what I had been doing that worked at first for me and not the calories that I had cut by themselves.
Of course along the way I stumbled upon Taubes' GCBC that made me understand why excess calories has no arrow of causality with obesity and just how much misinformation is taken for granted by the mainstream (I'm still amazed by that).
Anyway then I lost the rest of my weight doing standard low-carbing. I lost 85lb and I still have 40 to go. I'm scheduled for a tummy tuck in January 2010 and I would have liked to lose this 40 lb before the surgery, but that's not going to happen. I tried the High-Everything diet, I even tried a diet of only "beef and water" for 2 weeks. After 7 days on that I developed a cold that would just not go away and I was going toward a pharyngitis. So my doc told me that zero-carbing was not working for me and that I would have to start eating carbs again. I did and I was completely cured within 2 days. I don't know why I get sick on ZC. But it was not the first time. It happened 2 years ago when I tried ZC with only protein and no fat, but I thought a ZC high-fat diet would be fine.
So no matter what I try (short of starving myself but I won't do that anymore), I can't lose the last 40 pounds. I tried so much different ways of losing weight that I'm not really surprised that I have a metabolic problem. I must have had a metabolic problem to start with, since I got to 337lb. Anyway, with some luck the tummy tuck will remove some of the inflammation caused by the presence of excess adipose tissue and some weight loss might occur after that.
Since about 6 months ago, I became even more convinced that my metabolism was not normal (very easy weight gain and hard to lose). My doc says that my metabolism is normal since my TSH is 0.95 and I was able to lose weight on diets. But then, there is also the fact that my temperature in the morning is too low. Like this morning it was 95.6 and last night before sleeping it was 97.1. It's always in the range 95.3 to 96.5 in the morning. My doc says that since my TSH is ok my temperature does not mater and that body temp is different for all people. I disagree, there is some difference yes, but my temps are not normal.
I tried desiccated thyroid and that did not help with my temps, I tried adrenals too. I've been caffeine free for 6 months and I tried all sorts of things to help my adrenals, but now I don't think it's adrenals related. Doc won't help me, so I ordered some Metformin (going to take it with a B Complex and 3000 mcg of B12) and some Cytomel. I will try to apply the Wilson's WT3 protocol to correct a possible Reversed T3 problem.
Well, that's my story so far. :)
Patrick
Matt,
My guess is that what is happening to you is that you are putting your body into a state of emergency. Any extreme diet will do this, as does fasting. When you are in a state of emergency your body becomes hyper efficient and goes around fixing everything. The problem is that your body can't sustain it. Like Schwarzbein says about balancing using up with restoring. You can use up your resources for a while but then you will damage your body if you don't restore the reserves. Which is why veganism(and raw food) and other extreme diets seem like a miracle at first and then eventually you feel like crap.
I read this with interest while snacking on some sourdough whole-grain bread with pastured butter and a hunk of raw-milk cheddar. I don't have any glucose test strips left from my gestational diabetes days (those little dogies are expensive), or I'd check to see if my metabolism is healed enough to handle this. I certainly hope so. This food is delicious and I do like to eat it all at once.
Totally agree about low-carb and gluconeogenesis, Matt. That is definitely my experience. In fact, my body is still really good at GNG, even after giving up VLC. I think it takes a while of eating a balanced diet before your body catches up. That's why the extremes can be dangerous, IMO.
…Just like your body, if you stayed on this vegan diet for any length of time, would probably get really good at producing saturated fat from the carbs you're eating. And might still be good at it after you go back to a mixed diet.
I'm watching this experiment with interest and amusement. I shouldn't be complaining about a lil ol sugar craving now and again when you are being forced to eat veggies while making steak for your girlfriend. That said, I've embarked on my own mini experiment of dropping my carbs way down till Thanksgiving to see if that helps with my inability to kick booze, sugar, veggie oil and caffeine for good as willpower alone is not cutting it.
Hey Patrick,
Thanks for sharing your experiences and PLEASE keep us posted. If you did a Reverse T3 blood test, what were your #'s?
Matt,
Gettin any cravings for fats or anything else? I'm just bein curious here.
Damn, Patrick, sounds like you've been through hell. I was like WHAT THE FUCK when I saw your temperature readings..that's like, seriously, you got to find a new damn doctor. Try to get your reflexes tested (like the achilles tendon or pupils)- those are another good indicator of a sluggish thyroid, if they're slow to respond. Someone should really be paying attention to your symptoms rather than a stupid blood test. Do you ever use coconut oil or see if it makes a difference in your body temperature? Like, a loooot of it? There's also the whole theory that unsaturated fats stored in the body will take a while to clear because they have such a long half-life. I would imagine that if you remain persistent with eating saturated fats and perhaps get your thyroid support, or focus on increasing metabolism, that you would loose weight slowly. There's a host of things that stored unsaturated fats can do to disrupt hormones because of the oxidation and inflammation they cause. It's hard to break out of cycles, though, and I know how you feel there.
Also, for anyone taking or who has taken Armour..I hope you know it's been reformulated; and a lot of people who were on it said that it had stopped working for them. They switched to Westhyroid or Nature-Thyroid..but there's always foreign ones, too.
I also liked PaleoRD's theory about the Inuit..and I agree that the perfect blood glucose reading does not exactly mean everything else health-wise is going to be awesome, or is awesome. But maybe that's just not discussed and is assumed, here, I have no idea.
So Chloe, do you stay away from nuts and olive oil and avocados, or just refined high polyunsaturated oils?
Personally I dont find it surprising that some folk discover that – despite not ingesting much carb, or even none in some instances – significant levels of glucose can still appear in blood.
Despite what sugar quantities for various foods indicate on nutrient data tables, I find the sense of taste is by far the most accurate tool.
Like the body itself, taste is not static. What appears sweet one day, may not appear as sweet a month later. Likewise bitter, sour, hot, etc.
For example, there is 'sweetness' in beef, chicken, pork, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, lemons and many, many other foodstuffs not generally associated as such.
I am not suggesing eliminating any of these, but rather that the sense of taste does not necessarily correlate with accepted dietary lore.
In these high-tech research orientated days, I think it is so easy to be influenced by any number of scientific arguments, often when direct physiological response contradicts
Yeah right now I'm sticking with dairy, tallow and coconut oil as fats. Only other fat would be egg yolk. YYyeep..
Hey Annabelle-
Why do you think that a vegan diet would make someone's body really efficient at producing saturated fat?
Anonymous from Oct. 19 @ 9:26 AM-
I'm so sorry to hear about your experience with Armour, but I have a few things to suggest that might be helpful…
I don't think that half a grain is enough for any hypothyroid person to feel well; Plus the fact that Armour has been reformulated this Spring and is now pretty ineffective, anyone would still feel ill taking it. Don't let doctors classify you as "subclinical," because usually they diagnose hypothyroidism with a RIDICULOUS blood test called the TSH. Of course you never saw any real benefit, because doctors are just completely brain-dead about this.
Thyroid blood test results have VERY little to do with how your thyroid is actually functioning, because they measure the amount of hormones floating around in your blood, not how it's being USED in your body. Broda Barnes and Mark Starr both say that the best indicator of whether someone needs thyroid hormone or not is how they FEEL while on it. Like Chloe said, you need someone who will treat you based on your symptoms and not by what some blood test says. You can go to stopthethyroidmadness.com for a bunch of information on that; it's where I got my start in studying the thyroid gland.
I wish you luck!!
Sorry everyone, I'm overposting here. But, Patrick, the weight that you've lost so far is a HUGE accomplishment!!!! I'm amazed at your strength and willpower. Hugs to you! That doctor sounds like a complete dipshit.
From what I've heard/read, the Wilson's protocol is a little problematic because he ramps up the T3 way too quickly on his program. Take it slow!
Amen Harper… Patrick's loss of weight without starving himself is a huge accomplishment. If he had gone up to 400 with all of those efforts, that might be a good time to throw in the towel. But to get frustrated 2/3 of the way to the promised land and start choking down meds don't sound too good.
Besides, even if the temps are low, if you are feeling and looking better, you can assume you're headed in the right direction.
Dude, I know that restricted diets have good initial results, and I'm fully aware that vegan diets have negative long-term consequences. I also think my body's ability to handle fats and protein – that which I've exluded, will go from great to mediocre after following this diet. But I've answered question #1 – yes, Fuhrman's diet can lower fasting glucose levels and help a diabetic facing urgent consequences.
Question #2 is does actual healing take place, meaning that it has a therapeutic benefit and can be used in short bursts without causing long-term problems? That's a much tougher question to answer, but I'd like to think I've got the intelligence not to get lured in by some short-term perks.
And don't worry, I'll be doing some postprandial tests at the end, and many in the future. My response about postprandials being irrelevant was overstated, and in response to someone seeking to discredit a diet containing carbs.
No cravings Chloe, except when I look directly into a big pile of meat. The diet really hasn't been that tough, especially when I emphasize my proteinous beans, greens, grains, and tubers.
Anonymous
1/2 grain will do nothing and not make you feel any better because it is a starting dose only. If you were told you were borderline that would have been as a result of the TSH test I am sure. The TSH test is a measure of a pituitary hormone and is not a direct measurement of thyroid hormones.
Most patients who become optimised and feel well take 3-5 grains. I am on 4 grains and did not notice any difference till I got to 3. I have a friend who did not notice any symptom improvement until she got to 4. She is now on 5 and that is her dose.
Armour can no longer be recommend so people are using Natur-throid, Efra thyroid, Thyroid-S and Thiroyd.
As Harper said please go to http://www.sopthethyroidmadness.com/site-map/. http://forums.realthyroidhelp.com is amazing also.