Pursuit Happyness

A new study was recently published exploring the effect of diet composition on insulin sensitivity and other factors in humans (1). 29 men with metabolic syndrome– including abdominal obesity, low HDL, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and high fasting glucose– were fed one of four diets for 12 weeks: A diet containing 38% fat: 16% saturated (SFA), 12% monounsaturated (MUFA) and 6% polyunsaturated (PUFA) A diet containing 38% fat: 8% SFA, 20% MUFA and 6% PUFA A diet high in unrefined Read more [...]

Soaking or Germinating Grains The most basic method of preparing grains is prolonged soaking in water, followed by cooking. This combination reduces the level of water-soluble and heat-sensitive toxins and anti-nutrients such as tannins, saponins, digestive enzyme inhibitors and lectins, as well as flatulence factors. It also partially degrades phytic acid, which is a potent inhibitor of mineral absorption, an inhibitor of the digestive enzyme trypsin and an enemy of dental health (1). This Read more [...]

Improperly Prepared Grain Fiber can be Harmful Last year, I published a post on the Diet and Reinfarction trial (DART), a controlled trial that increased grain fiber intake using whole wheat bread and wheat bran supplements, and reported long-term health outcomes in people who had previously suffered a heart attack (1). The initial paper found a trend toward increased heart attacks and deaths in the grain fiber-supplemented group at two years, which was not statistically significant. What Read more [...]

In 2006, Drs. Gerard Ailhaud and Philippe Guesnet hypothesized that industrial seed oils such as corn, soybean, safflower, sunflower and cottonseed oil are at least partially responsible for the current obesity epidemic (1). These oils were not a significant part of the human diet until very recently, yet they have been promoted due to their supposed ability to prevent cardiovascular disease. The Western world has been living a massive uncontrolled experiment ever since. Linoleic acid is an Read more [...]

Sources of Copper It isn’t hard to get enough copper– unless you live in an industrial nation. I’ve compiled a chart showing the copper content of various refined and unrefined foods to illustrate the point. The left side shows industrial staple foods, while the right side shows whole foods. I’ve incorporated a few that would have been typical of Polynesian and Melanesian cultures apparently free of cardiovascular disease. The serving sizes are what one might reasonably eat at a meal: roughly Read more [...]

I just saw a paper in the AJCN titled “Dairy consumption and patterns of mortality of Australian adults”. It’s a prospective study with a 15-year follow-up period. Here’s a quote from the abstract: There was no consistent and significant association between total dairy intake and total or cause-specific mortality. However, compared with those with the lowest intake of full-fat dairy, participants with the highest intake (median intake 339 g/day) had reduced death due to CVD (HR: 0.31; 95% confidence Read more [...]

In 1942, Dr. H. W. Bennetts dissected 21 cattle known to have died of “falling disease”. This was the name given to the sudden, inexplicable death that struck herds of cattle in certain regions of Australia. Dr. Bennett believed the disease was linked to copper deficiency. He found that 19 of the 21 cattle had abnormal hearts, showing atrophy and abnormal connective tissue infiltration (fibrosis) of the heart muscle (1). In 1963, Dr. W. F. Coulson and colleagues found that 22 of 33 experimental Read more [...]

Readers Stanley and JBG just informed me of a new review paper by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian and colleagues. Dr. Mozaffarian is one of the Harvard epidemiologists responsible for the Nurse’s Health study. The authors claim that overall, the controlled trials show that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat from industrial seed oils, but not carbohydrate or monounsaturated fat (as in olive oil), slightly reduces the risk of having a heart attack: These findings provide evidence that consuming Read more [...]

The epidemic of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of my favorite topics on this blog, due to the liver’s role as the body’s metabolic “grand central station”, as Dr. Philip Wood puts it. The liver plays a critical part in the regulation of sugar, insulin, and lipid levels in the blood. Many of the routine blood tests administered in the doctor’s office (blood glucose, cholesterol, etc.) partially reflect liver function. NAFLD is an excessive accumulation of fat in the liver that Read more [...]