One of my friends has a high blood pressure, which he gets sporadically and has dizzyness as an indication.
High Blood Pressure has a good short term solution, drinking beet root juice. It works by providing a high dose of nitrates. The nitrates convert to Nitric oxide and then to nitrous oxide. Nitrous Oxide dilates the arteries and results in decreased blood pressure. Nitrates are present in large quantities in leafy vegetables including spinach. Some vegetables will have more nitrates and others less. Beetroot is one of the highest in nitrates.
The real problem is the long term one. High Blood pressure generally indicates bad and constricted arteries, which leads to heart trouble.
My friends cholesterol is a bit higher, but that in my opinion is not a problem. In my opinion its not high enough ;-). It should be 200-240 according to this graph.
http://freetheanimal.com/images/2009/09/cholesterol-mortality.gif
His problem is triglycerides, which are very high, more than 200. As soon as these drop the cholesterol level will become normal.
Reducing triglycerides is very easy. They are directly related to carbohydrates. Reduce carbs and trigs will drop. Just for experiment you could eat a very low carb (< 50gm) high fat diet in the night and get your blood tested in the morning, you will find that the trigs have dropped, from your previous reading.
But that is not the real problem. The real problem is the calcification of arteries, which I am suspecting.
To find out how much of your arteries are calcified, you need to take a test called coronary calcium scoring.
It takes a special X ray to determine how much calcium exists in the arteries.
If indeed calcium score is high then you need to take several steps to get rid of it.
If you talk to a doctor they will say that it cannot be reduced. But it indeed can be reduced.
We have to understand first why calcification and coronary plaque happens.
There are several individual problems involved in heart disease.
1) The arteries get damaged. There may be several reasons for it. One is copper deficiency, another is microbial infection. Microbial (Chlamydophila_pneumoniae) infection will cause plaque buildup on its own.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/04/copper-and-cardiovascular-disease.html
The microbial infection is possibly one of the major causes as the anti-bodies to this bacteria are higher in most people with heart disease.
2) If you have lots of small dense LDL, they have a tendency to get oxidized and get stuck into the damaged arteries. Then macrophages (white blood cells) get stuck to it trying to remove them. This causes plaque buildup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-density_lipoprotein
3) Arterial Calcification is highly correlated with Diabetes, so much so that it is listed as the highest risk factor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atherosclerosis
Diabetes is the end stage of Insulin resistance. It is important to reduce insulin resistance to prevent arterial calcification.
4) Normally Calcification and Plaque buildup don't cause any problems if you don't get blood clots also called thrombosis. It is important to prevent clotting of blood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_thrombosis
We have to attack each of the above to cure the heart disease.
1) Checking for Copper deficiency is difficult.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/04/copper-in-food.html
You can see that potatoes are very good source for copper. But liver is the best. Some liver every week could be helpful.
2) To deal with bacterial infection it is important to increase your Vitamin D level to a good level from 40-80ng/ml. Use sun bathing. Use cod liver oil, or use vitamin D supplements but get this done. It is easy to get the Vitamin D test done in India. In Bangalore it costs 900/-. Be careful as some people with calcium regulation problems are not able to have a high vitamin D level. Hyperparathyroid or CKD may be suspected. Levels of upwards to 200ng/ml have been found in healthy individuals. 40ng/ml is the minimum acceptable level, but in lab ranges it may be the max level, because most city dwelling people are highly deficient. The ranges are based on people being tested which are all sick people from metros.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
3) To reduce LDL Oxidation and to prevent calcification you need to reduce carbs in the diet. Reducing carbs reduces small dense LDL which prevents plaque formation.
http://cholesterol.about.com/od/lipoproteins/a/smalldenseldl.htm
Reducing carbs will also keep insulin low which should prevent further calcification.
We need to have energy. There is only so much protein a person can eat. If we reduce carbs, we need to increase fat.
4) The Calcification can be reduced by increasing intake of the Vitamin that is responsible for proper calcium utilization. The Vitamin K2.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-vitamin-k2-reverse-arterial.html
It comes in two forms MK4 and MK7. The MK4 is the most effective vitamin but is very short lived. The MK7 is less effective but remains in the body for a much longer time. It can also get accumulated for later use. Vitamin K2 can also be utilized for other purpose where Vitamin K1 can also be used. Since it is difficult to get lots of K2. It is good to eat more vitamin K1.
Source of Vitamin K1 is Green Leafy vegetables.
Source of MK4 are milk, eggs and meat. Pastured Ghee is the most concentrated source of MK4.
Source of MK7 are fermented and aged cheeses like gouda, parmesan, etc.
5) Very important is to prevent clots in blood. It has been shown that higher Omega3:Omega6 ratio prevents clots in the blood. Inuits and other arctic dwellers who eat a lot of fish have a much higher omega3:omega6 ratio and had bleeding problems due to lack of clotting. They have a lot of coronary plaques and calcification but never get any heart problems because of this issue.
Our own diets are very high in Omega6. This causes the blood to clot sometimes. We need to balance the ratio to make sure that we don't have blood clots. There is a medicine called warfarin that is used to thin blood. But it works by blocking the action of vitamin K2. The K2 paper above used warfarin to induce calcification in rats.
The best option is to increase O3:O6 ratio in your body. You cannot test for it. It also takes a very long time in years to actually overturn the level, as the ratio is at the cellular level. But it must be attempted by reducing all high O6 sources in foods and increasing O3 sources. That is why I recommend to avoid refined oils which have higher than 10% O6. Try to calculate and add enough O3 to get nearer to 1:1. 1:2 would be OK but don't go below.
When increasing fat for reducing carbs this problem becomes much more acute. It is important to eat only fats that are very low in Omega6. The best oils are Ghee (<4%) and coconut oil(<2%), which are very low in Omega6. These have a lot of saturated fat, but contrary to popular belief saturated fats are very healthy. They are the most stable fats. Our body can desaturate them as it needs. They are the forms that our body creates from carbs. So fearing them is pointless. Even after eating lots of fats and meat for more than a year I have not been able to increase my dismal (<150) cholesterol.
Low O3:O6 ratio is also very closely related to heart disease.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/05/eicosanoids-and-ischemic-heart-disease.html
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/05/eicosanoids-and-ischemic-heart-diseas.html
6) Avoid wheat. It is very much related to heart disease. It affects in two ways. First it is known to reduce Vitamin D3 levels in the body. Secondly it is also known to increase insulin resistance. Which forces the body to increase insulin levels.
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/09/02/the-china-study-wheat-and-heart-disease-oh-my/
The data from China Study implicates Wheat. More than 60% relation between the two and with a better than 99.9% probability of the relation being true. This is a big deal.
7) Avoid Sugar. It is also very much related. The problem is mostly due to the fructose component of sugar. It affects insulin resistance directly.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090303123802.htm
8) Exercise. HIIT and weight training is known to increase insulin sensitivity. My friend used to be a very active sportsperson in his school and college days but got out of action after starting work, due to an injury. Weight training is very good for strengthening injured bones and joints, because the stress can be varied slowly, and in a very controlled way. This should help him get back to sports.
Saturated fat and K2 will also help in fixing the bone and joint problems, as both help in structural formations.
http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/diabetes.html
9) Fast. Occasional fasting can improve insulin resistance. It also increases the rate of tissue turn around, making a person younger (based on the life of average cells). It also increase growth hormone which also acts to make people feel younger. Higher tissue turnaround in arteries will enable faster repair of arteries. The following is just one of the first search results I got.
http://www.medindia.net/news/healthwatch/benefits-of-fasting-53257-1.htm
To recap.
1) Get a spoon of Cod liver oil every day. It will provide vitamin A, D and omega3s. You may want to get more Vitamin D3 if levels are not reached from Cod Liver oil. You may also need more omega3's from non-cod liver oil supplement if you don't get to a 1:2 O3:O6 ratio.
2) Avoid refined oils, they are the most concentrated source of omega6. Eat ghee or coconut oils as these have very low omega6 fats.
3) Reduce Carbs, wheat and sugar. Wheat should ideally be avoided completely.
4) Eat more greens and vegetables, for K1 and nitrates
5) Increase meat and healthy fat consumption, as it will help reduce carbs. Calories have to come from somewhere.
6) Eat aged cheeses, and ghee to improve K2 levels. There is benefit to supplementing it. Unfortunately due to low awareness the supplements are still too expensive.
7) Weight train to improve insulin sensitivity, and an overall sense of well being.
8) Fast occasionally. A 24 hour fast every week is ideal.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Cancer: some more thoughts
I am trying to help a friend who might have cancer. It is a horrible disease. Hopefully even if it exists it will be in very early stages. It can be controlled when it is in early stages, with proper diet control and supplements.
As I wrote before, cancer feeds on glucose.
The trick to control is to keep the glucose in the system to bare minimum.
Also we want to keep the stress and inflammation to bare minimum. The above requirements mean a very accurate diet. Any diversion will feed the cancer.
First things first
1) Increase vitamin D3 to acceptable levels, ie 60ng/ml
Vitamin D3 and Cholesterol fight cancer cells. Supplement Vitamin D3 to atleast 5000IU, and get your serum level tested for 25OH Vitamin D levels. The best way is to get it partially from Cod Liver oil and partially from gelcaps. Testing is necessary because different people react differently to vitamin D. Some people raise their level very fast, but others don't do so. Some even might get some reaction to it, which would point to some other metabolic defect in the body like kidney problems or parathyroid problems.
Cholesterol will increase with more Coconut oil and ghee.
2) D3 increases blood serum calcium
We want to increase Vitamin K2 to help calcium to go where required, in bones. K2 is available from pastured butter and ghee, and aged cheeses. Luckily my friend likes blue cheese the richest source of vitamin K2, and can get kerrygold butter which is a very good pastured butter. Ghee can be made from the butter. Blue cheese is also very good for immunity as it replenishes gut bacteria. Gut bacteria are a very big factor in immunity.
3) Reduce Inflammation
Improve Omega3:Omega6 ratio. Get rid of all big sources of omega6, and get about 1gm of Omega3 from fish oil. You don't want to overdo omega3 as high PUFA in diet is not very good. Cod Liver oil is a good source, but you need to check the Vitamin D and Vitamin A levels in it. It will be best to get half of the omega3 from CLO and half of it from some other low Vitamin A oil like krill oil. Getting rid of all big sources of omega6 means avoiding all oils that contain higher omega6 content, basically limit yourself to ghee.
Limit carbs.
Humans all have very similar brain and neuron mass. Since brain and neurons are the only cells that need glucose, so we want to limit the glucose consumption to exactly what the brain and neurons require. Glucose requirement is around 100gm. It can be reduced by getting the brain to use more ketones. The method of providing ketones is to use coconut oil and fast. Coconut oil is very very rich in medium chain fatty acids. There is nothing as rich as Coconut oil. The MCFA get converted to ketones.
To reduce carb requirement, it is good to add one tablespoon of coconut oil to both meals of the day.
Use fasting to increase your ketone generation. The best way is to skip breakfast and do a 16 hour fast everyday.
With adequate combination of coconut oil and fasting the carb requirement can be reduced to below 50gms/day.
When counting carbs do not count fibers, because they do not convert into glucose. They are not processed by the liver or intestines enzymes, but by the gut bacteria. Gut bacteria convert them to short chain fatty acids. The SCFA's are anti-inflammatory. So it is good to add some fibers in the diet. Avoid insoluble fibers, as they damage the intestine. Good sources of soluble fibers are vegetables.
The best way to test whether you have enough ketones is to check urine with ketostix. If you have more than required ketones, then the excess will be discarded in the urine and will be detected by ketostix. Later when the body adapts to ketogenic diet, it will start storing the ketones as fat, then it will be difficult to measure ketones.
Divide your carb requirement into the two meals nearly equally to reduce too much glucose availability in the blood. It would not be a problem if sufficiently insulin sensitive.
Moderate proteins.
Proteins in excess convert to glucose. We do not want excess protein in the body. Still we need enough to prevent catabolization of muscles. We need enough for body's need. Calculate protein needs by finding out your lean body mass. The lean body mass is calculated by first finding out the body fat percentage, and then substracting the body fat weight from the body weight. A good way is to use those weighing machines with metal strip that calculate body fat percentage using the impedence method. Impedence method can be fairly accurate. Another way to calculate is to find your minimum weight at your maximum height. If you were very thin then assume 15% for men and 20% for women. If not thin enough then it will be difficult to estimate this way.
LBM is calculated in the following way.
LBM = WT(1-BF/100)
Once you have your LBM then calculate your protein requirement as 1.4gm/kg/day. The protein is best if it comes from animal sources. Fish/Meat/Eggs/Cheese are the best sources.
Fish will also provide vitamin D and Omega3s. So they will reduce the need for supplementation.
Whey powder should be added to the daily diet as it helps in producing more ketones. (Thanks Paul)
Fat requirements
To calculate fat requirements. Find your calorie requirements. Use this
calculator. Body fat % calculated above will be useful here.
Calculate your calorie consumption from Protein and Carbs calculated above using 4kcal/gm. Then add enough fat at 9kcal/gm to achieve the calorie requirement. You must also include the around 30-40gms of coconut oil that you are required to have in this requirement.
If you think you have excess fat on your body then reduce your calorie requirement by max 500kcal or 20% of your calorie requirement, whichever is lower. The reason is that with this diet the body will start using your own body fat also, reducing your caloric needs. Depending on the excess weight you can lose the weight at a rapid rate.
Other supplement requirements.
Very low carb increases requirement for electrolytes. The best electrolyte for the body is potassium. Make sure that you are getting more potassium than sodium intake from salts. Higher potassium requirement makes it necessary that you get all carbs from vegetables, because they are rich in potassium. Higher potassium from foods will reduce the need for supplementation. Avoid grains/legumes/milk as they will reduce your daily quota of carbs. Yogurt might be OK if sufficiently fermented. Fruits with higher carb content should be kept low.
Actually Potassium requirements are 4 times that of sodium. Try to mix potassium chloride in your salt. If you are falling short then supplement with potassium chloride or potassium gluconate. (Note: Need to determine daily potassium and sodium requirement, I know only the ratio).
Magnesium is also a very important requirement. Supplement about 400mg per day in two parts with meals.
Drink a lot of water 4-5 litres, as you want to get rid of the oxalates generated due to protein to glucose conversion.
Take 100-200gms of kidneys per week to provide selenium. Also add some more selenium as supplement.
Get Lugol's solution. Add it to your daily routine. Increase slowly doubling weekly, starting from 150mcg, reaching 12.5mg. If any problems are seen stop. It sometimes causes problems to people. My brother found that he had Hashimoto's due to the reaction he got from iodine supplementation.
Exercising.
You want to do some weight lifting or body weight exercises to prevent muscle catabolism. Consult the exercising article I wrote. This will also help in reducing any excess glycogen stores.
Extended fasting.
For dealing with cancer extended fasting is very important. Extended fasting gets the body into a state where it will try to utilize its proteins for fuel. In this case it attempts to use malfunctioning proteins over the well functioning ones.
Extended fasting has been known to help the body prepare for chemo therapy. It is also known to help kill cancers.
16hours daily fasting will prepare your body for extended fasting in addition to providing you with ketones. When you are comfortable with 16hour fasting then introduce extended fasting into your routine. It will be best to add one extended fast every week. Start with a 24 hour fast every week. Then introduce a 48 hour fast alternate weeks. Once you are comfortable with the 48 hour fast extend one of them every month to 72 hour or 3 day. Once you are comfortable with 3 day fast add one 7 day fast in 6 months. If you have to go in for chemo, plan it before the chemo.
In these fasts you are not trying to get any calories. But add salt preferably with potassium chloride, and lemon juice for vitamin C and some more nutrients. You wouldn't need any Omega3 or Vitamin D supplements. Make sure to get enough food and supplements to compensate when the fast is over.
Continue doing your exercises during the fasting. That will reduce the harmful effects of the fast.
Bottomline
Ultimately you are the best judge of everything. You live in your body and know best how your body is reacting to the diet plan. No doctor can understand your body better than you. If an advice does not feel good to your body it will not be good.
Caveat is that sometimes you do need about 2-3 weeks for a dietary change to become acceptable to the body. This change has everything to do with gut bacteria adaptation. So wait for 2-3 weeks before passing judgement on a dietary change.
You cannot rely on anybody to provide you with all the answers. This job rests on doctors, but unfortunately the doctors are too busy to care about their patients. You might have better luck with naturopaths and other alternative medicine practitioners, that use a holistic approach and are aware of the recent advances in biochemistry. These doctors/holistic practitioners are rare, and may require several attempts or luck to find one. It is well worth the effort to find one.
As I wrote before, cancer feeds on glucose.
The trick to control is to keep the glucose in the system to bare minimum.
Also we want to keep the stress and inflammation to bare minimum. The above requirements mean a very accurate diet. Any diversion will feed the cancer.
First things first
1) Increase vitamin D3 to acceptable levels, ie 60ng/ml
Vitamin D3 and Cholesterol fight cancer cells. Supplement Vitamin D3 to atleast 5000IU, and get your serum level tested for 25OH Vitamin D levels. The best way is to get it partially from Cod Liver oil and partially from gelcaps. Testing is necessary because different people react differently to vitamin D. Some people raise their level very fast, but others don't do so. Some even might get some reaction to it, which would point to some other metabolic defect in the body like kidney problems or parathyroid problems.
Cholesterol will increase with more Coconut oil and ghee.
2) D3 increases blood serum calcium
We want to increase Vitamin K2 to help calcium to go where required, in bones. K2 is available from pastured butter and ghee, and aged cheeses. Luckily my friend likes blue cheese the richest source of vitamin K2, and can get kerrygold butter which is a very good pastured butter. Ghee can be made from the butter. Blue cheese is also very good for immunity as it replenishes gut bacteria. Gut bacteria are a very big factor in immunity.
3) Reduce Inflammation
Improve Omega3:Omega6 ratio. Get rid of all big sources of omega6, and get about 1gm of Omega3 from fish oil. You don't want to overdo omega3 as high PUFA in diet is not very good. Cod Liver oil is a good source, but you need to check the Vitamin D and Vitamin A levels in it. It will be best to get half of the omega3 from CLO and half of it from some other low Vitamin A oil like krill oil. Getting rid of all big sources of omega6 means avoiding all oils that contain higher omega6 content, basically limit yourself to ghee.
Limit carbs.
Humans all have very similar brain and neuron mass. Since brain and neurons are the only cells that need glucose, so we want to limit the glucose consumption to exactly what the brain and neurons require. Glucose requirement is around 100gm. It can be reduced by getting the brain to use more ketones. The method of providing ketones is to use coconut oil and fast. Coconut oil is very very rich in medium chain fatty acids. There is nothing as rich as Coconut oil. The MCFA get converted to ketones.
To reduce carb requirement, it is good to add one tablespoon of coconut oil to both meals of the day.
Use fasting to increase your ketone generation. The best way is to skip breakfast and do a 16 hour fast everyday.
With adequate combination of coconut oil and fasting the carb requirement can be reduced to below 50gms/day.
When counting carbs do not count fibers, because they do not convert into glucose. They are not processed by the liver or intestines enzymes, but by the gut bacteria. Gut bacteria convert them to short chain fatty acids. The SCFA's are anti-inflammatory. So it is good to add some fibers in the diet. Avoid insoluble fibers, as they damage the intestine. Good sources of soluble fibers are vegetables.
The best way to test whether you have enough ketones is to check urine with ketostix. If you have more than required ketones, then the excess will be discarded in the urine and will be detected by ketostix. Later when the body adapts to ketogenic diet, it will start storing the ketones as fat, then it will be difficult to measure ketones.
Divide your carb requirement into the two meals nearly equally to reduce too much glucose availability in the blood. It would not be a problem if sufficiently insulin sensitive.
Moderate proteins.
Proteins in excess convert to glucose. We do not want excess protein in the body. Still we need enough to prevent catabolization of muscles. We need enough for body's need. Calculate protein needs by finding out your lean body mass. The lean body mass is calculated by first finding out the body fat percentage, and then substracting the body fat weight from the body weight. A good way is to use those weighing machines with metal strip that calculate body fat percentage using the impedence method. Impedence method can be fairly accurate. Another way to calculate is to find your minimum weight at your maximum height. If you were very thin then assume 15% for men and 20% for women. If not thin enough then it will be difficult to estimate this way.
LBM is calculated in the following way.
LBM = WT(1-BF/100)
Once you have your LBM then calculate your protein requirement as 1.4gm/kg/day. The protein is best if it comes from animal sources. Fish/Meat/Eggs/Cheese are the best sources.
Fish will also provide vitamin D and Omega3s. So they will reduce the need for supplementation.
Whey powder should be added to the daily diet as it helps in producing more ketones. (Thanks Paul)
Fat requirements
To calculate fat requirements. Find your calorie requirements. Use this
calculator. Body fat % calculated above will be useful here.
Calculate your calorie consumption from Protein and Carbs calculated above using 4kcal/gm. Then add enough fat at 9kcal/gm to achieve the calorie requirement. You must also include the around 30-40gms of coconut oil that you are required to have in this requirement.
If you think you have excess fat on your body then reduce your calorie requirement by max 500kcal or 20% of your calorie requirement, whichever is lower. The reason is that with this diet the body will start using your own body fat also, reducing your caloric needs. Depending on the excess weight you can lose the weight at a rapid rate.
Other supplement requirements.
Very low carb increases requirement for electrolytes. The best electrolyte for the body is potassium. Make sure that you are getting more potassium than sodium intake from salts. Higher potassium requirement makes it necessary that you get all carbs from vegetables, because they are rich in potassium. Higher potassium from foods will reduce the need for supplementation. Avoid grains/legumes/milk as they will reduce your daily quota of carbs. Yogurt might be OK if sufficiently fermented. Fruits with higher carb content should be kept low.
Actually Potassium requirements are 4 times that of sodium. Try to mix potassium chloride in your salt. If you are falling short then supplement with potassium chloride or potassium gluconate. (Note: Need to determine daily potassium and sodium requirement, I know only the ratio).
Magnesium is also a very important requirement. Supplement about 400mg per day in two parts with meals.
Drink a lot of water 4-5 litres, as you want to get rid of the oxalates generated due to protein to glucose conversion.
Take 100-200gms of kidneys per week to provide selenium. Also add some more selenium as supplement.
Get Lugol's solution. Add it to your daily routine. Increase slowly doubling weekly, starting from 150mcg, reaching 12.5mg. If any problems are seen stop. It sometimes causes problems to people. My brother found that he had Hashimoto's due to the reaction he got from iodine supplementation.
Exercising.
You want to do some weight lifting or body weight exercises to prevent muscle catabolism. Consult the exercising article I wrote. This will also help in reducing any excess glycogen stores.
Extended fasting.
For dealing with cancer extended fasting is very important. Extended fasting gets the body into a state where it will try to utilize its proteins for fuel. In this case it attempts to use malfunctioning proteins over the well functioning ones.
Extended fasting has been known to help the body prepare for chemo therapy. It is also known to help kill cancers.
16hours daily fasting will prepare your body for extended fasting in addition to providing you with ketones. When you are comfortable with 16hour fasting then introduce extended fasting into your routine. It will be best to add one extended fast every week. Start with a 24 hour fast every week. Then introduce a 48 hour fast alternate weeks. Once you are comfortable with the 48 hour fast extend one of them every month to 72 hour or 3 day. Once you are comfortable with 3 day fast add one 7 day fast in 6 months. If you have to go in for chemo, plan it before the chemo.
In these fasts you are not trying to get any calories. But add salt preferably with potassium chloride, and lemon juice for vitamin C and some more nutrients. You wouldn't need any Omega3 or Vitamin D supplements. Make sure to get enough food and supplements to compensate when the fast is over.
Continue doing your exercises during the fasting. That will reduce the harmful effects of the fast.
Bottomline
Ultimately you are the best judge of everything. You live in your body and know best how your body is reacting to the diet plan. No doctor can understand your body better than you. If an advice does not feel good to your body it will not be good.
Caveat is that sometimes you do need about 2-3 weeks for a dietary change to become acceptable to the body. This change has everything to do with gut bacteria adaptation. So wait for 2-3 weeks before passing judgement on a dietary change.
You cannot rely on anybody to provide you with all the answers. This job rests on doctors, but unfortunately the doctors are too busy to care about their patients. You might have better luck with naturopaths and other alternative medicine practitioners, that use a holistic approach and are aware of the recent advances in biochemistry. These doctors/holistic practitioners are rare, and may require several attempts or luck to find one. It is well worth the effort to find one.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Anacetrapib: The drug trial results
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1009744
A recent trial of an LDL lowering and HDL increasing drug, ie a perfect lipid profile.
Unfortunately 4 times more people died on the drug rather than the placebo.
Interesting parts in the document is the table 4 on page 9
Number of deaths on drug = 4, placebo = 1.
There were many more hospitalizations for the placebo group. Possibly because their lipid profile were not good, so doctors were checking other markers. For the drug lipid profile was perfect so doctors would not have cared checking for the other markers.
The adverse result of the drug could be because of the effect of the lipid profile on Doctors psyche.
Another interesting thing was that Drug related adverse events was nearly same for placebo as well. I don't know what kind of placebo they were using, that would cause an adverse effect.
Apparently the results were considered inconclusive and they are planning to have a bigger study. People are lining up to die on the drug.
The take back from this. A good lipid profile does not mean that you don't have heart problems. A bad lipid profile does not mean you have a heart problem. Essentially lipid profile does not matter for heart disease.
If you do have a good lipid profile your doctor might ignore your heart problems. If you have a bad lipid profile your doctor might prescribe preventive medicines with significant side effects (called statins), even though you have no heart problems.
If you suspect of heart problems get a calcium score, and try to fix that. Don't put too much faith into lipid profile. And diet that changes lipid profile also doesn't matter, essentially it is good to eat butter, even though it might raise your LDL.
Personally it did not happen to me. Mine went down 20 points when I started eating lots of ghee/butter.
Aged Cheeses are known to help in reducing coronary plaque, via a little known vitamin K2, which is also found in ghee/butter.
A recent trial of an LDL lowering and HDL increasing drug, ie a perfect lipid profile.
Unfortunately 4 times more people died on the drug rather than the placebo.
Interesting parts in the document is the table 4 on page 9
Number of deaths on drug = 4, placebo = 1.
There were many more hospitalizations for the placebo group. Possibly because their lipid profile were not good, so doctors were checking other markers. For the drug lipid profile was perfect so doctors would not have cared checking for the other markers.
The adverse result of the drug could be because of the effect of the lipid profile on Doctors psyche.
Another interesting thing was that Drug related adverse events was nearly same for placebo as well. I don't know what kind of placebo they were using, that would cause an adverse effect.
Apparently the results were considered inconclusive and they are planning to have a bigger study. People are lining up to die on the drug.
The take back from this. A good lipid profile does not mean that you don't have heart problems. A bad lipid profile does not mean you have a heart problem. Essentially lipid profile does not matter for heart disease.
If you do have a good lipid profile your doctor might ignore your heart problems. If you have a bad lipid profile your doctor might prescribe preventive medicines with significant side effects (called statins), even though you have no heart problems.
If you suspect of heart problems get a calcium score, and try to fix that. Don't put too much faith into lipid profile. And diet that changes lipid profile also doesn't matter, essentially it is good to eat butter, even though it might raise your LDL.
Personally it did not happen to me. Mine went down 20 points when I started eating lots of ghee/butter.
Aged Cheeses are known to help in reducing coronary plaque, via a little known vitamin K2, which is also found in ghee/butter.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Apocalypse: My theory and delaying it
Human population is much bigger than what the earth can support sustainably.
The current farm practices are incredibly wasteful. We eat so much grains. The grains do not grow in a void. They grow on a stalk. This stalk is thrown away. We are not utilizing this stalk as much as we should. This stalk can be used to grow animals, which provide more food. Another problem with grains is that the stalk can only be used when it is dried and literally dead. A better solution would be to use vegetables, where the leaves can be used for animals while the plant is still living. This will provide better nutrients to animals. And in turn will provide better nutrients to us.
We are taking out micro-nutrients from the soil at an incredibly faster rate.
Add to the fact that we do not send back the human waste into the same soil where the food came from. The result is micro-nutrient depletion. It would be better to eat local. And fix the human waste distribution system to convert it into fertilizers and send it back to the land where the food came from. We will need to avoid chemicals that can be harmful for cleaning the toilets, so that the human waste can be used without trouble for fertilizing the land.
We are growing food by using artificial fertilizers. This does not seem to be very sustainable. We do not know what nutrients the fertilizers are missing that might be critical. The plant researchers are not omniscient. The micro-nutrients may not be fixable by just adding the constituent minerals.
I suspect that in a not so distant future, much of the land will start becoming barren. It will not grow anything. This will be the age of enormous deserts.
What will humans do?
I believe there will be a food shortage of a magnitude never seen before. I hope we don't reach this stage in my life time. It will be a living hell. I believe most of the technology will be lost, except for some technical people living from land away from population.
I hope people will understand and start to implement better practices to delay this horrific possibility till we find a way to control population. I believe the population will start to reduce once most of the women population is educated.
The current farm practices are incredibly wasteful. We eat so much grains. The grains do not grow in a void. They grow on a stalk. This stalk is thrown away. We are not utilizing this stalk as much as we should. This stalk can be used to grow animals, which provide more food. Another problem with grains is that the stalk can only be used when it is dried and literally dead. A better solution would be to use vegetables, where the leaves can be used for animals while the plant is still living. This will provide better nutrients to animals. And in turn will provide better nutrients to us.
We are taking out micro-nutrients from the soil at an incredibly faster rate.
Add to the fact that we do not send back the human waste into the same soil where the food came from. The result is micro-nutrient depletion. It would be better to eat local. And fix the human waste distribution system to convert it into fertilizers and send it back to the land where the food came from. We will need to avoid chemicals that can be harmful for cleaning the toilets, so that the human waste can be used without trouble for fertilizing the land.
We are growing food by using artificial fertilizers. This does not seem to be very sustainable. We do not know what nutrients the fertilizers are missing that might be critical. The plant researchers are not omniscient. The micro-nutrients may not be fixable by just adding the constituent minerals.
I suspect that in a not so distant future, much of the land will start becoming barren. It will not grow anything. This will be the age of enormous deserts.
What will humans do?
I believe there will be a food shortage of a magnitude never seen before. I hope we don't reach this stage in my life time. It will be a living hell. I believe most of the technology will be lost, except for some technical people living from land away from population.
I hope people will understand and start to implement better practices to delay this horrific possibility till we find a way to control population. I believe the population will start to reduce once most of the women population is educated.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
today's reading list.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/2
It is an excellent paper, giving the rise and fall of ketogenic diets. It also shows that 2-3 weeks are required to get adapted to ketogenic diets. Also the good range of protein is 1.2gm/kg to 1.7gm/kg for ketogenic diets. Lower levels tend to lose muscle mass and higher tend to cause problems. Also it shows that sodium potassium intake is of paramount importance in ketogenic diets.
http://ramblingsofacarnivore.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-if.html
Very important article showing that good diets can fail because of minor elements.
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?p=1139
The third in a series on pitfalls of low carb diets.
http://adipo-insights.blogspot.com/2010/09/some-thoughts-on-vldl-carbs-insulin.html
A description of how VLDL and LDL are related and how they relate to carbs.
http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-discuss-mothers-milk-on.html
http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/2010/06/infant-milk-allergy-colic-and-sialic.html
http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/2010/05/necrotising-enterocolitis-low-birth.html
One reason why children should be fed exclusively with mothers milk till supplementary solid foods are required. Feeding the formula may insert adult bacteria in the gut of the child which will rob important nutrients. Interestingly complex sugar molecules in human milk are different compared to other animals and support only a very specific type of bacteria. The human milk will not support other bacteria and will help them die out.
http://lowcarb4u.blogspot.com/2010/10/insulin-sensitivity-affects-weight-loss.html
It seems high carb/low fat diet can be better for weight loss than low carb/high fat diets. It depends on insulin resistance. This is true only when you restrict calories to equal amounts. In real life it is easier to restrict calories on low carb diets.
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/insulin-is-anti-inflammatory-and-anti.html
This is good. It shows that insulin is non-inflammatory, while all the time I had been assuming that insulin is problematic.
It is an excellent paper, giving the rise and fall of ketogenic diets. It also shows that 2-3 weeks are required to get adapted to ketogenic diets. Also the good range of protein is 1.2gm/kg to 1.7gm/kg for ketogenic diets. Lower levels tend to lose muscle mass and higher tend to cause problems. Also it shows that sodium potassium intake is of paramount importance in ketogenic diets.
http://ramblingsofacarnivore.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-if.html
Very important article showing that good diets can fail because of minor elements.
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?p=1139
The third in a series on pitfalls of low carb diets.
http://adipo-insights.blogspot.com/2010/09/some-thoughts-on-vldl-carbs-insulin.html
A description of how VLDL and LDL are related and how they relate to carbs.
http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-discuss-mothers-milk-on.html
http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/2010/06/infant-milk-allergy-colic-and-sialic.html
http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/2010/05/necrotising-enterocolitis-low-birth.html
One reason why children should be fed exclusively with mothers milk till supplementary solid foods are required. Feeding the formula may insert adult bacteria in the gut of the child which will rob important nutrients. Interestingly complex sugar molecules in human milk are different compared to other animals and support only a very specific type of bacteria. The human milk will not support other bacteria and will help them die out.
http://lowcarb4u.blogspot.com/2010/10/insulin-sensitivity-affects-weight-loss.html
It seems high carb/low fat diet can be better for weight loss than low carb/high fat diets. It depends on insulin resistance. This is true only when you restrict calories to equal amounts. In real life it is easier to restrict calories on low carb diets.
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/insulin-is-anti-inflammatory-and-anti.html
This is good. It shows that insulin is non-inflammatory, while all the time I had been assuming that insulin is problematic.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Epilepsy and Ketogenic diet
New York Times has a very good article on Ketogenic diet helping Epilepsy patients. The Author has a son who suffers from Epileptic seizures.
If you want to know how to control Epilepsy, you must read this article.
It is funny that the author thinks that he is slowly killing his son by feeding him bad fat and cholesterol, but it is the only diet which will let him have some life. The seizures are reduced to a very small frequency with a ketogenic diet.
A ketogenic diet is where the body does not have enough glucose, and must convert fat to create ketones for feeding the brain. It is a very high fat diet. 80-90% of calories come from fat, rest from protein. There is only trace amounts of carbs.
Unfortunately, the mainstream medicine has no intention of coming to grips with fat and cholesterol are good logic. It will be a very bad year for them, if they are forced to change. People will finally stop feeling sick, and doctors will be without job.
The Keto diet they are following is very restrictive. They have to use exactly the same percentage of fat and protein and carb. The doctors have prescribed fruits instead of vegetables for the carb source.
Somehow they don't distinguish between fats, but they are using mostly good fats.
The author says that the body prefers running on glucose, when in reality it does not. Glucose is like oxygen, it is required for various functions of the body, and needs to be there. But just like oxygen needs to be at a level of 21% to be good for us, glucose also has a specific level that is good in our diet. Its not like you can have as much as you want and will not feel any trouble.
The acceptable glucose level is determined by the health of the body. Anything goes wrong and the ability to use glucose goes down. An obese person has compromised their ability to use glucose.
There are two types of tissues in the body, neurons and other cells. Neurons can only use glucose and Ketones as fuels. While other cells can use glucose and fat for fuel. In diabetics the ability to burn glucose is lost by the cells of the body.
In some neurological disorders the ability to burn glucose is lost by the neurons.
Alzheimer's is like a diabetes of the brain. The brain is no longer able to use glucose and if the body does not have enough ketones it starves and dies.
Epilepsy is a different type of disease. Some neurons are not burning glucose properly. It is possibly causing its electrical circuitry to get affected. The only option is to avoid letting glucose get to the brain cells. This is only possible by reducing the supply of glucose to the brain as much as possible and supplement it with Ketones. It is important to keep the proteins also at minimum, because in excess they will convert to glucose providing excess glucose.
A ketogenic diet does just that. It will be helpful to use a more paleo friendly ketogenic diet, because I believe that there are some other factors from the diet that are affecting the patient. It could be wheat, it could be milk also.
I believe the authors son is not getting rid of it fast enough because he is still getting milk/cream. They should try getting rid of it. But they are following doctors advice instead of experimenting on their own. Their child is unique, they need to tailor the diet for him specifically. They need to find the problems in the diet.
Unfortunately doctors have a very reductionist attitude towards diet. So for them ketogenic diet just means a specific ratio of nutrients. They don't care which foods are giving those nutrients. Are there any anti-nutrients.
If you want to know how to control Epilepsy, you must read this article.
It is funny that the author thinks that he is slowly killing his son by feeding him bad fat and cholesterol, but it is the only diet which will let him have some life. The seizures are reduced to a very small frequency with a ketogenic diet.
A ketogenic diet is where the body does not have enough glucose, and must convert fat to create ketones for feeding the brain. It is a very high fat diet. 80-90% of calories come from fat, rest from protein. There is only trace amounts of carbs.
Unfortunately, the mainstream medicine has no intention of coming to grips with fat and cholesterol are good logic. It will be a very bad year for them, if they are forced to change. People will finally stop feeling sick, and doctors will be without job.
The Keto diet they are following is very restrictive. They have to use exactly the same percentage of fat and protein and carb. The doctors have prescribed fruits instead of vegetables for the carb source.
Somehow they don't distinguish between fats, but they are using mostly good fats.
The author says that the body prefers running on glucose, when in reality it does not. Glucose is like oxygen, it is required for various functions of the body, and needs to be there. But just like oxygen needs to be at a level of 21% to be good for us, glucose also has a specific level that is good in our diet. Its not like you can have as much as you want and will not feel any trouble.
The acceptable glucose level is determined by the health of the body. Anything goes wrong and the ability to use glucose goes down. An obese person has compromised their ability to use glucose.
There are two types of tissues in the body, neurons and other cells. Neurons can only use glucose and Ketones as fuels. While other cells can use glucose and fat for fuel. In diabetics the ability to burn glucose is lost by the cells of the body.
In some neurological disorders the ability to burn glucose is lost by the neurons.
Alzheimer's is like a diabetes of the brain. The brain is no longer able to use glucose and if the body does not have enough ketones it starves and dies.
Epilepsy is a different type of disease. Some neurons are not burning glucose properly. It is possibly causing its electrical circuitry to get affected. The only option is to avoid letting glucose get to the brain cells. This is only possible by reducing the supply of glucose to the brain as much as possible and supplement it with Ketones. It is important to keep the proteins also at minimum, because in excess they will convert to glucose providing excess glucose.
A ketogenic diet does just that. It will be helpful to use a more paleo friendly ketogenic diet, because I believe that there are some other factors from the diet that are affecting the patient. It could be wheat, it could be milk also.
I believe the authors son is not getting rid of it fast enough because he is still getting milk/cream. They should try getting rid of it. But they are following doctors advice instead of experimenting on their own. Their child is unique, they need to tailor the diet for him specifically. They need to find the problems in the diet.
Unfortunately doctors have a very reductionist attitude towards diet. So for them ketogenic diet just means a specific ratio of nutrients. They don't care which foods are giving those nutrients. Are there any anti-nutrients.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Cancer: A plague caused by modern lifestyle.
Otto Warburg was given a Nobel Prize for his research on Cancer in 1931. He discovered that cells become cancerous when their mitochondria are destroyed. This results in the cells not able to do aerobic energy production. The only option left to them is anaerobic one. This is very inefficient, and works only on glucose. It results in them requiring a whole lot of glucose.
One way to control cancer is to reduce glucose in the diet. This will prevent the cancer cells from getting glucose from the body as easily, but they will still get some. The body will be converting a lot of protein into glucose to provide the required glucose, so the diet must be quite high in protein, even for a non-vegetarian. This strategy works when the cancer is still very small. When it is big, this strategy may be of only marginal help.
One problem with this strategy is that not all people are able to live well on a very low carb diet. In this diet you would have to be below 50gms of carb, and protein above 2.5gm/Kg lean body weight. This is hard for many people. You will require some supplementation to handle the lack of specific nutrients because of too few vegetables in the diet. Some people have been able to control their cancer this way. The good thing is that it has no adverse effects, and you can live your life to the fullest.
Chemotherapy is known to help some people and is generally bad for most. It could be used as a last resort. I have heard that very long water fasting (more than 3 days) before the therapy helps in dealing with the effects of chemotherapy. The fasting prepares the body for very adverse situation, and when the body is ready it is able to handle the damage caused by chemotherapy much better.
This is all that I know of handling cancer.
Now for the causes of cancer.
Cancer is caused by any number of situations. From the environmental radiation, carcinogens, etc. The body has mechanisms to deal with cancerous cells. It will kill cancerous cells, before they can cause damage. It requires vitamin D3 to fight the cancer cells, or any other infection for that matter, and even to fight bad agents in the food like Wheat Germ. Wheat germ is known to reduce vitamin D3 levels in the blood.
Unfortunately with current lifestyle of working during the day covered under a roof has made it difficult to get enough vitamin D3. Fortunately, you can buy Vitamin D3 capsules or eat enough wild fish.
Cancer is know to occur more frequently in the Cities than the villages. It also becomes more common as you go away from the equator.
Vitamin D3 is very very critical. Not just for cancer. If you don't want to get it artificially, eat enough fish, and get some noon sun (around an hour in India) lying in the sun. It will be difficult in the beginning, increase it slowly. Vitamin D3 is the reason why sun bathing is so popular in Western countries, they get so little sun.
Another factor is cholesterol. It is known to be inversely related to cancer. Cancer normally happens to people below 180mg/dl of total cholesterol. Cholesterol like Vitamin D3 is required for fighting cancer and external agents. Low cholesterol also makes you more vulnerable to diseases. I know 180mg/dl is now considered to be too high for heart disease. But this is a myth.
Insoluble fiber is known to cause cancer in the Colon, due to the constant abrasion, same process that causes lung cancer due to smoking.
High Omega6 to Omega3 ratio is known to be associated with cancer. That ratio also tends to reduce cholesterol so it may be that refined oil consumption is related to cancer because of its effect on Cholesterol. It can be directly responsible as the high ratio is highly inflammatory. The inflammation may also cause cancer. We don't know the mechanism behind it, only the association. The high ratio is also known to be associated very closely with heart disease, but there also we don't know the actual mechanism.
Some resources for finding information on Cancer.
Dr. David Servan-Schreiber
Anticancer: A New Way Of Life - David Servan-Schreiber
Some of his lectures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lwiQm5QaTs
http://www.dailymotion....com/guerir/video/x7lzzp_david-servanschreiber-on-cbc
His blog
http://www.anticancerbook.com/
Articles
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-servanschreiber-md-phd/we-can-all-fight-cancer-b_b_469718.html
Interesting article. It asks the same things, low carb, low omega6, high omega3.The only thing missing is Vitamin D3 and cholesterol. The last I think are the most important.
There are other articles at
http://www.anticancerbook.com/research.html
Dr.Thomas Seyfried
http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/1172/dr-thomas-seyfried-on-killer-carbs-ketosis-as-a-cancer-cure-episode-302/
Paper on Brain Tumors and cure.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/30
Paper on cure of glioblastoma multiforme. It is the most common and most aggressive type of primary brain tumor in humans.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/7/1/33
One way to control cancer is to reduce glucose in the diet. This will prevent the cancer cells from getting glucose from the body as easily, but they will still get some. The body will be converting a lot of protein into glucose to provide the required glucose, so the diet must be quite high in protein, even for a non-vegetarian. This strategy works when the cancer is still very small. When it is big, this strategy may be of only marginal help.
One problem with this strategy is that not all people are able to live well on a very low carb diet. In this diet you would have to be below 50gms of carb, and protein above 2.5gm/Kg lean body weight. This is hard for many people. You will require some supplementation to handle the lack of specific nutrients because of too few vegetables in the diet. Some people have been able to control their cancer this way. The good thing is that it has no adverse effects, and you can live your life to the fullest.
Chemotherapy is known to help some people and is generally bad for most. It could be used as a last resort. I have heard that very long water fasting (more than 3 days) before the therapy helps in dealing with the effects of chemotherapy. The fasting prepares the body for very adverse situation, and when the body is ready it is able to handle the damage caused by chemotherapy much better.
This is all that I know of handling cancer.
Now for the causes of cancer.
Cancer is caused by any number of situations. From the environmental radiation, carcinogens, etc. The body has mechanisms to deal with cancerous cells. It will kill cancerous cells, before they can cause damage. It requires vitamin D3 to fight the cancer cells, or any other infection for that matter, and even to fight bad agents in the food like Wheat Germ. Wheat germ is known to reduce vitamin D3 levels in the blood.
Unfortunately with current lifestyle of working during the day covered under a roof has made it difficult to get enough vitamin D3. Fortunately, you can buy Vitamin D3 capsules or eat enough wild fish.
Cancer is know to occur more frequently in the Cities than the villages. It also becomes more common as you go away from the equator.
Vitamin D3 is very very critical. Not just for cancer. If you don't want to get it artificially, eat enough fish, and get some noon sun (around an hour in India) lying in the sun. It will be difficult in the beginning, increase it slowly. Vitamin D3 is the reason why sun bathing is so popular in Western countries, they get so little sun.
Another factor is cholesterol. It is known to be inversely related to cancer. Cancer normally happens to people below 180mg/dl of total cholesterol. Cholesterol like Vitamin D3 is required for fighting cancer and external agents. Low cholesterol also makes you more vulnerable to diseases. I know 180mg/dl is now considered to be too high for heart disease. But this is a myth.
Insoluble fiber is known to cause cancer in the Colon, due to the constant abrasion, same process that causes lung cancer due to smoking.
High Omega6 to Omega3 ratio is known to be associated with cancer. That ratio also tends to reduce cholesterol so it may be that refined oil consumption is related to cancer because of its effect on Cholesterol. It can be directly responsible as the high ratio is highly inflammatory. The inflammation may also cause cancer. We don't know the mechanism behind it, only the association. The high ratio is also known to be associated very closely with heart disease, but there also we don't know the actual mechanism.
Some resources for finding information on Cancer.
Dr. David Servan-Schreiber
Anticancer: A New Way Of Life - David Servan-Schreiber
Some of his lectures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lwiQm5QaTs
http://www.dailymotion....com/guerir/video/x7lzzp_david-servanschreiber-on-cbc
His blog
http://www.anticancerbook.com/
Articles
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-servanschreiber-md-phd/we-can-all-fight-cancer-b_b_469718.html
Interesting article. It asks the same things, low carb, low omega6, high omega3.The only thing missing is Vitamin D3 and cholesterol. The last I think are the most important.
There are other articles at
http://www.anticancerbook.com/research.html
Dr.Thomas Seyfried
http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/1172/dr-thomas-seyfried-on-killer-carbs-ketosis-as-a-cancer-cure-episode-302/
Paper on Brain Tumors and cure.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/30
Paper on cure of glioblastoma multiforme. It is the most common and most aggressive type of primary brain tumor in humans.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/7/1/33
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