18 Comments

Great job Gary

As a 72 year old x 3 years keto carnivore I woke up this morning quietly reflecting on what food was probable today and after a few minutes I noticed that carbs were nowhere in sight and all that I saw was meat

Expand full comment

If you offer enough money to Noberl Laureates they will swear the moon is made of green cheese.

Medicine is just a commercial business racket. If Robert Kennedy controls the money pipelines they will chant his name. Just whack the lot.

Expand full comment

If prospective doctors were taught nutrition and honest health practices, they would have fewer patients, less income and eventually go out of business. It's as simple as that. The medical mafia needs an endless stream of sick and diseased patients in order to survive and thrive. That is why drugs are the main driver of keeping people sick and ill and forever attached to the demons of medicine.

I am not a doctor or a medical anything but I am reading a major bio-chemistry book used in the classroom since the 1970's. One can get a decent picture even without understanding all the jargon that there is little room for healthy living and a lot of room for drugs as the provider of health.

Basically students are taught how the body works (to a point) and how to manage the use of drugs as part of being a doctor. You can see some stuff that has not changed in 50 years like the utter nonsense that cholesterol causes heart disease and diabetes cannot be treated with diet changes.

Expand full comment

You got my attention with high cholesterol doesn’t lead to heart disease? Can you point me to were I can read more about that? I have had high cholesterol for a while and have calcium buildup up in my heart my score showed moderate risk of heart issues in within 5 years. I tried statins I cannot take them. I love sweets. I try to curb my sweets but I have some daily. It seems if it tastes good is bad for you. Anyway heart disease is bad in my family gets us fairly young. Love to read what you have read about what really causes it?

Expand full comment

Melissa, reading this book would be a very good use of your time: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Cholesterol-Myth-Disease-Statin-Free/dp/1592335217

Expand full comment

Drugs are the main driver of keeping people sick and ill and forever attached to the demons of medicine? Actually, this is what makes people sick. "We now know that major changes have taken place in the food supply over the last 100 years, when food technology and modern agriculture led to enormous production of vegetable oils high in ω-6 fatty acids, and changed animal feeds from grass to grains, thus increasing the amount of ω-6 fatty acids at the level of linoleic acid (LA) (from oils) and arachidonic acid (AA) (from meat, eggs, dairy). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5093368/

What this means is the food supply is defective. Both physicians and their patients are in the same boat in terms of health outcomes.

Expand full comment

I agree with you completely that high sugar consumption is at the top of the suspect list for Type2. My father, however, had a legendary sweet tooth, and never developed T2. My mother inherited T3c and passed it to me. I wonder if it would be possible to research the statistics of diabetic autistic children/adults? Many of them have a higher sugar consumption than non-autistic children. Great research, Gary: see you on Uncertainty Principles!

Expand full comment

"Corn Pop was a bad dude."

Expand full comment

The positions taken here are well supported by growing evidence. I would encourage striving for a lower word to idea ratio.

Expand full comment

Nutritional therapist here. There are a couple of points arising from this that are worth exploring.

1. if the fundamental public health message about healthy eating is deeply flawed (as it is in the UK), then it doesn't really matter how sensitively and engagingly that message is delivered, because the actual way of eating recommended won't achieve the desired outcome in the vast majority of people.

2. it took pretty well over half a century for the message that smoking kills to take hold, because a powerful industry with immense lobbying power was not going to give in easily. In fact Philip Morris is still trying to convince LinkedIn users that it is a socially responsible company. The sugar lobby is just as powerful. I suspect the pharma industry has just as much a vested interest in keeping sugar in all its guises on the menu, because drugs for metabolic disease ranging from insulin and metformin, to statins to GL1-Ps for weight loss are among their biggest earners as millions of people are on them for life after diagnosis.

In countries which allow pharmaceutical manufacturers to incentivise doctors to prescribe their products, the chances of getting doctors to focus on diet and lifestyle interventions that will potentially reduce their income seem rather unlikely ....

3. it's pretty much impossible to conduct randomised controlled trials, which are deemed to be the gold standard of scientific research, around sugar or any other single nutrient, because there are too many variables, starting with the fact that you it would be pretty much impossible to blind the cohorts to what they are consuming. In the UK, the standing committee on nutrition SACN has conveniently used the lack of RCT evidence to decline to state that any particular food is bad for you notwithstanding a plethora of observational evidence.

5. education is not sufficient when school meals and workplaces don't implement it by presenting healthy options or indeed sufficient time and space in which to eat - if you know you are going to be eating at your desk, it's easier to grab something that comes in a wrapper and doesn't make your hands or desk messy than to eat a plate of salad with a knife and fork. and don't get me started on hospital food ....

4. in my experience as a nutritional therapist, education alone isn't enough - clients do better with coaching alongside education, to enable them to identify what prevents them from implementing the education - that may be anything from supporting them through adjusting to a different taste to enabling them to understand how to work healthier choices into their day, to teaching them how to cook.

In the UK, Dr David Unwin has demonstrated how a combination of education and coaching not only works, but can be delivered within an NHS setting. Education for doctors on how to do this could make a massive change to health outcomes if it were rolled out across the board, but there is no will at national level to do so.

Will increasing the quantity of quality of nutritional education to doctors improve things? I would say that the quantity is just as important as quality if only to ram home the point that nutrition is fundamental. It should also include awareness of the impact of medication on digestive heatlh, for example that if medication is prescribed that inhibits digestion (such as proton pump inhibitors) then monitor your patients for nutrient deficiencies (iron and vitamin B12).

Will either make any difference? probably only if there is a financial incentive or regulatory requirement to put nutrition first

Expand full comment

Brilliant!

Expand full comment

Med schools are too busy forcing DEI curricula down the throats of their students.

Expand full comment

Pick a disease, any disease. What happens when changes in nutrition cure a disease?

It wasn't the disease. The diagnosis was wrong. So it wasn't cured. It was malnutrition.

Most diseases, including and disease that might be cured by nutrition, are considered to be incurable. So if they are cured, it couldn't be "the disease."

We might want to believe that scurvy is cured by Vitamin C. But no. No medical reference text documents Vitamin C as a cure for scurvy. It's a treatment.... A cure? Not.

Expand full comment
Nov 10·edited Nov 10

Comment from a 1996 Symposium on arachidonic acid: "Excessive signaling of arachidonic acid (AA) metabolites has been associated with various chronic degenerative or autoimmune diseases, and intervention with the metabolism of AA is widely employed therapeutically in these afflictions. In essence, AA is the most biologically active unsaturated fatty acid in higher animals. Its concentration in membranes and its magnitude of effects depend on its amount, or that of its precursors and analogues, in the diet. The tendency of the field of nutrition to ignore the role of dietary AA will optimistically be reversed in the future." The article also said, "The underlying rationale for this symposium is that dietary AA is perhaps the single most important nutritional determinant in regulating AA levels in Americans. This may ultimately account in part for the striking differences in chronic diseases between strict vegetarians and the bulk of the omnivorous population." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8642436/

"Endocannabinoids and their G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) are a current research focus in the area of obesity due to the system's role in food intake and glucose and lipid metabolism. Importantly, overweight and obese individuals often have higher circulating levels of the arachidonic acid-derived endocannabinoids anandamide (AEA) and 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG) and an altered pattern of receptor expression. Consequently, this leads to an increase in orexigenic stimuli, changes in fatty acid synthesis, insulin sensitivity, and glucose utilisation, with preferential energy storage in adipose tissue. As endocannabinoids are products of dietary fats, modification of dietary intake may modulate their levels, with eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acid based endocannabinoids being able to displace arachidonic acid from cell membranes, reducing AEA and 2-AG production...Thus, understanding how dietary fats alter endocannabinoid system activity is a pertinent area of research due to public health messages promoting a shift towards plant-derived fats, which are rich sources of AEA and 2-AG precursor fatty acids, possibly encouraging excessive energy intake and weight gain." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3677644/

In 2013, these Australian researchers suspected that excessive linoleic acid intake drives weight gain. They got their facts wrong. Only circulating fatty acids, not endocannabinoids, can displace arachidonic acid from cell membranes as noted by Norwegian animal science researchers back in 2010. "Because arachidonic acid (AA) competes with EPA and DHA as well as with LA, ALA and oleic acid for incorporation in membrane lipids at the same positions, all these fatty acids are important for controlling the AA concentration in membrane lipids, which in turn determines how much AA can be liberated and become available for prostaglandin biosynthesis following phospholipase activation. Thus, the best strategy for dampening prostanoid overproduction in disease situations would be to reduce the intake of AA, or reduce the intake of AA at the same time as the total intake of competing fatty acids (including oleic acid) is enhanced, rather than enhancing intakes of EPA and DHA only." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2875212/

In 2023 Perdue University researchers published a paper that said, “Poultry meats, in particular chicken, have high rates of consumption globally. Poultry is the most consumed type of meat in the United States (US), with chicken being the most common type of poultry consumed. The amounts of chicken and total poultry consumed in the US have more than tripled over the last six decades… Limited evidence from randomized controlled trials indicates the consumption of lean unprocessed chicken as a primary dietary protein source has either beneficial or neutral effects on body weight and body composition and risk factors for CVD and T2DM. Apparently, zero randomized controlled feeding trials have specifically assessed the effects of consuming processed chicken/poultry on these health outcomes.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10459134/

Why be concerned about chicken meat? the Norwegian animal science researchers also noted that "Chicken meat with reduced concentration of arachidonic acid (AA) and reduced ratio between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids has potential health benefits because a reduction in AA intake dampens prostanoid signaling, and the proportion between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids is too high in our diet."

Excerpt from Page 56 of Omega Balance by Australian zoologist Anthony Hulbert, PhD (2023) The contribution of “pork and poultry” to animal-sourced foods was 20 percent in 1961 and 41 percent in 2018…Between 1961 and 2018 there was a dramatic worldwide increase in the supply of fats from sources that have very low omega balances. Fat from “pork and poultry” was greatest in North America for the entire 1961-2018 period, while for Australia and South America, the contribution from “pork and poultry” was the World average level in 1961 and showed the greatest absolute increases (about 16 g) over this period to be similar to North America and Europe in 2018. There was negligible change in Africa over this period." https://www.amazon.com/Omega-Balance-Nutritional-Happier-Healthier/dp/1421445778

Excerpt from a 2021 article by Hulbert: "As a final comment, I note that we are only beginning to understand the implications of the balance between omega-3 and omega-6 fats in the human diet. Although most animals have a relatively constant diet, we humans are especially diverse (both between individuals and over time) in the types of food we consume. Over the last half-century, the modern human food chain has emphasised omega-6 and diminished omega-3 intake, largely because of: (i) a shift from animal fats to vegetable oils, (ii) an increase in grain-fed meat and dairy, and (iii) a decline in full-fat dairy products from grass-fed livestock (an important source of omega-3). In the opinion of the current author and others, these diet trends are likely to be responsible for the increased incidence of obesity and other modern epidemics of chronic disease, but that is a story for another time." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33914036/

Chinese researchers have connected some of the dots. Abstract from a 2024 article. "Cardiometabolic disease has become a major health burden worldwide, with sharply increasing prevalence but highly limited therapeutic interventions. Emerging evidence has revealed that arachidonic acid derivatives and pathway factors link metabolic disorders to cardiovascular risks and intimately participate in the progression and severity of cardiometabolic diseases. In this review, we systemically summarized and updated the biological functions of arachidonic acid pathways in cardiometabolic diseases, mainly focusing on heart failure, hypertension, atherosclerosis, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, obesity, and diabetes. We further discussed the cellular and molecular mechanisms of arachidonic acid pathway–mediated regulation of cardiometabolic diseases and highlighted the emerging clinical advances to improve these pathological conditions by targeting arachidonic acid metabolites and pathway factors." https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.124.324383

If you require bedrock evidence that excessive arachidonic acid intake deranges the appetite and promotes insulin resistance, check these out: "The cannabinoid 1 receptor (CB1) is an important regulator of energy metabolism." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4752920/

"The mechanisms regulating incretin secretion are not fully known. Human obesity is associated with altered incretin secretion and elevated endocannabinoid levels." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5625085/

"GLP-1 RAs are currently used in treating patients with T2D and consistently result in weight loss, in addition to lowering blood glucose levels. The combined central and peripheral actions of GLP-1 RA promote satiety, decrease hunger, and ultimately reduce food intake." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10341852/

Clearly, in this era of hyper-specialized research activity, the cause of the global obesity/diabetes epidemic remains a mystery because top obesity experts don't pay attention to endocannabinoid system and arachidonic acid research.

Expand full comment

One thing that still remains to be done is to start treating food as the addiction that it is:

https://open.substack.com/pub/alexaudette/p/the-intelligent-self-abuse-manual-257?r=1z6cwm&utm_medium=ios

Expand full comment

“Step one…” nailed it , once again. You’re showing “the way.” Truly, very well expressed. Your next book?

The “what,” to Make America Healthy Again movement, may be the means. I’m more hopeful than you, apparently.

The “Science” study on sugar, if it stands scrutiny, was a truly unique and revelatory piece. Similar to the Dutch starvation studies also during WWII. And, given the risk profile, a permissible comparison to smoking wrt “causation.”

Expand full comment

STOP playing with food. So tacky. ONe billion are starving!!! What if one dying child eats a CARB!! Kale salad. or Apple. Or who the hell cares. If you had a palate you would know that our food has no taste and NO nutrition. Eat a Mars bar and enjoy.

Expand full comment
deletedNov 10
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Nov 11·edited Nov 11

It looks like the typo has been fixed. Also, how do we know that Theme's preferred pronouns aren't "they/them?"

Expand full comment