30 replies to this topic

[Thingsvarious]

I am a med student in my last year. About to become a functional medicine doctor. In the last few years i tried out literally any type of diet under the sun. I want to share with you some things I learned along the way.

 

There are many diets out there. Nutrition is like religion, people protect their diet with their lives. Different diets work for different people. But there is a diet you can´t go wrong with.

Different diets work for different people. But there is a diet almost everyone does well on (that does NOT mean people don´t do well on other diets as well). This is the diet we evolved with over the last couple hundred thousand years or so.

A few points about a diet literally everyone does well on:

• Your main energy source should be good fats. The rest should come from good fats (almost everyone does well on MUFA; SFAs are ok).

• You need to deserve your carbs. The more insulin sensitive (i.e. lean and active) you are, the more carbs you can tolerate. Keeping carbs between 100–200g carbs works well for most people. The leaner and more active, the more carbs you tolerate and even need.

• Avoid high-glycemic loads. Our ancestors never had the fast-spiking carbs we have now. Intense spikes in insulin are bad. (Whole books can be written -and in fact, are written — about the science).

• Cycling into ketosis occasionally keeps you metabolically flexible. Metabolic flexibility is incredibly important. Just as our ancestors likely were, throwing in the occasional fast (cycling in and out of ketosis) keeps your cells great at oxidizing fats while remaining good at burning glucose.

• Very low crab? A diet very low in carbohydrates is great for becoming metabolically healthy (e.g. fatty liver, insulin resistance, adiposity), but if you are already lean and active, going too low in carbs for too long periods of time can screw with hormonal health.

• Do not only look at macros and micros. Calories are just as important. Perhaps THE most important factor when it comes to diet is simply the number of calories you eat. We are heterotrophic creatures. Energy intake is one of the most important things animals do. For adequate health and function (esp. hormonal health), sufficient caloric intake is required.

• Protein intake. Around 1.5g protein/kg body weight.

• Eat meats. We evolved as meat-eaters. Meats are highly nutritious and contain many nutrients (e.g. minerals, carnitine, carnosine, creatine, choline, CoQ10, etc.). Too bad, meat is bad for the environment.

• Stay away from dairy. Most people think bad reactions to dairy are due to the lactose content. In many cases however, it is not the lactose, but the whey and esp. casein protein fraction of the milk. Both whey and casein evolved to have some hormonal activity. Both are quite bad for metabolic health. Besides, many people´s immune system reacts against certain forms of a1-casein.

• Sugar/fructose in high quantities is bad. Not only does it elevate intrahepatic lipogenesis (fatty liver), but it also raises uric acid, which has a host of adverse effects itself. What is more, sweetness hooks you and you become addicted to it.

• Avoid excessive Omega-6 intake. Stay away from most vegetable oils (esp. soy, corn, sunflower). Not only are they precursors to pro-inflammatory eicosanoids, but they also screw with the different PPARs.

• From a health perspective, not much variety is needed. If vitamins and micronutrient intakes are adequate, we can eat the same foods and meals over and over again (and every other mammal out there animal does this). Do you think our primate ancestors had varied buffets available 24/7, 365 days per year? Hell no, they ate the exact same stuff over and over again. In fact, people in blue zones, in general, eat the same 20 or so ingredients for their whole lives.

Don´t miss the forest for the trees. Following these few points gives you 80% of the benefit for 20% effort. Overfocusing on tiny details is pointless.

I am a med student becoming a functional medicine doctor in a year. I tried out every diet under the sun and found paleo to be best and healthiest (not just based on personal experience). After years of studying, researching, experimenting, testing I did a writeup about some stuff I have learned along the way. 

I wrote a short guide about a diet that literally everyone does well on.

 

Enjoy.

 

https://thingsvariou...ne-8affde01d66c

 

I am open for any criticism, feedback, different opinions. Humanity is all about collective learning

Edited by Thingsvarious, 14 November 2020 - 09:00 PM.

[b0gger]

Did you try carnivore diet?

[Thingsvarious]

Did you try carnivore diet?

I did a ketogenic diet with lots of meat, but haven´t tried out pure carnivore. Lots of people seem to crash on that.

[poonja]

Very intelligent and reasonable approach to a healthy diet.  It is too easy to become fixated on everything we put into our mouth/bodies.  

[Thingsvarious]

Very intelligent and reasonable approach to a healthy diet.  It is too easy to become fixated on everything we put into our mouth/bodies.  

I agree

[Mind]

Very nice summary.

 

I do a paleo-ish diet as well, except that I probably eat too much dairy, however, I wonder if some people are more adapted to dairy - like northern European ancestry.

 

I wonder because in my most recent podcast with Michael Rose, he said to avoid seed oils, because we are not adapted/evolved to consuming those. I brought up the fact that people in the Mediterranean blue zones consume gargantuan amounts of olive oil (essentially a seed oil), yet live very long. He said that they have probably adapted to olive oil because it has been used around that region for several thousands of years.

 

The diet discussion - which is very enlightening - begins at around 30 minutes into the podcast,  and the olive oil question comes in at about the 40 minute mark.

Edited by Mind, 12 December 2020 - 11:26 AM.

[pamojja]

of olive oil (essentially a seed oil),

 

Olive oil is made from the fruit, not the seed. https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Olive_oil

[Mind]

Olive oil is made from the fruit, not the seed. https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Olive_oil

 

I know. The point is that it is a concentrated oil, not available to our evolutionary ancestors.

[pamojja]

Don't underestemate olives, which contain up to 30% fat. Even if some may use gargantuan amounts of olive oil, it still can be easily matched by a lover of whole olives.

[Thingsvarious]

Yeah olives are supposed to contain many other health-promoting compounds far beyond the richness in MUFA

[Thingsvarious]

Yeah olives are supposed to contain many other health-promoting compounds far beyond the richness in MUFA

Yeah, olives and olive oil is certainly one of these foods literally everyone does well on.

[TranscendingSingularity]

Any term for describing this diet? To google for it

[b0gger]

Any term for describing this diet? To google for it

"Sapien" diet perhaps.

[Helios]

Try a carnivore diet

 

[Thingsvarious]

Try a carnivore diet

I do think it is quite unhelathy in terms of long term cardiovascular health

[johnross47]

Sounds wonderful; pity it's wrong.

 

People like the Hadza get around 15% of their calories from honey, and eat as many starchy tubers and as much fruit as they can. The meat they eat is not the hormone pumped corn and soy stuffed crap that fills the supermarkets of the USA. The Hadza suffer from none of the cardiovascular and metabolic problems of the developed world.

 

It's also true that they cover a great deal of ground every day, hunting and gathering, mostly around five hours. They never sit hunched over a keyboard staring at a screenin a horrible office for 8-10 hours a day then sit in a car or a train for another 30-90 minutes at each end of the day.

 

For a revelatory read try Herman Pontzer's recent book, "Burn," or some other genuine study of real hunter gatherers, and proper scientific analysis of scrapings from the teeth of ancient humans and other hominins.

[Thingsvarious]

Sounds wonderful; pity it's wrong.

 

People like the Hadza get around 15% of their calories from honey, and eat as many starchy tubers and as much fruit as they can. The meat they eat is not the hormone pumped corn and soy stuffed crap that fills the supermarkets of the USA. The Hadza suffer from none of the cardiovascular and metabolic problems of the developed world.

 

It's also true that they cover a great deal of ground every day, hunting and gathering, mostly around five hours. They never sit hunched over a keyboard staring at a screenin a horrible office for 8-10 hours a day then sit in a car or a train for another 30-90 minutes at each end of the day.

 

For a revelatory read try Herman Pontzer's recent book, "Burn," or some other genuine study of real hunter gatherers, and proper scientific analysis of scrapings from the teeth of ancient humans and other hominins.

Regarding the Hadza, diet is certainly not the only factor. But you are right regarding current lifestyles!

[johnross47]

The diet is clearly not the only point. Their exercise levels are very high and very extensive. Their regime is not a few thirty second bursts followed by sitting for the rest of their waking hours. The hours spent in the search for food are more like a marathon runner's regime in terms of number of steps per day. They climb a lot, which is very energy intensive, in the hunt for wild honey.Their walking pace is fast and they may return carrying an antelope or some other animal. They don't have days off because they don't have fridges or secure food stores. It probably can't be said too often; humans are opportunistic omnivores. The human digestive and metabolic system is designed to convert all kinds of food into energy. The so called paleolithic diet is just bad science

[pamojja]

They don't have days off because they don't have fridges or secure food stores.

Don't overly idealize gather/hunterer life-styles. For example I stayed with a Bambuti Pygmy tribe in Eastern Zaire for 5 days in 1994. Like the Hadza, only males went on a hunt with bow and arrow, but only once in those 5 days.

Females went for foraging only a few hours a day. The rest they spent mostly with leisurely sozial-interactions, at times also maintaining their camp and few tools. Compared to our life-style, and not considering mainly leisure activities, they do have many more days off then we usually do.

Despite having no food stores or any concept of numbers, except 1 or many.

Here a 2 part-potcast about the experience of Paul Saladino also for 5 days with a Hadza tribe: https://heartandsoil.co/pages/podcasts

Also describing exactly only one hunt of a bamboo in those 5 days. And only one elderly men climbing a huge boabab tree once. They all share, so workload is greatly reduced for individuals.

All the strengous exercise described in your post is by only some males some days during the week. All Hadza females would be in really bad shape on account of such assumptions. But they aren't.

Edited by pamojja, 28 March 2021 - 05:12 PM.

[Hip]

The Hadza suffer from none of the cardiovascular and metabolic problems of the developed world.

 

The good health of the Hadza likely has nothing to do with their diet, but relates to the fact that being isolated, they will not have caught all the usual viruses and pathogens in common circulation which linked to many cancers and chronic diseases. The Hadza are so isolated that they were untouched by HIV, so presumably they are also untouched many other nasty human pathogens that most of us who live in the modern world have in our bodies and organs.

 

The scientifically initiated understand that the likely cause of most human chronic disease is the infectious pathogens we pass to each other. Medical science has been slow to grasp this point, but it is getting there. In the future, I believe we will treat most chronic diseases by targeting the pathogens that cause them.

 

The increase prevalence in chronic diseases that we are seeing around the world is likely due to humans living in ever more crowded cities, which allow pathogens to spread person to person more easily. There are literally hundreds of viruses and hundreds of bacteria which routinely infect humans. Some of these microorganisms are relatively benign, but others are not and many linger in the body where they may cause chronic diseases like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, heart diseases, atherosclerosis, cancers, etc, etc.

 

The 1960s sexual revolution may have played a role in the increase incidence of chronic disease, since the more amorous partners you have, the more viruses you are likely to acquire, since most viruses are transmitted by the respiratory route (by saliva and mucous), and French kissing is an efficient way of spreading viruses person to person via saliva.

 

If you want to try to avoid chronic disease, you need to avoid excessive promiscuity. 

 

 

If you look at any chronic disease, including heart diseases, they are all linked to common everyday infectious pathogens in human circulation. See: 

 

List of chronic diseases linked to infectious pathogens

Edited by Hip, 29 March 2021 - 01:17 AM.

[pamojja]

You attribute the statement at the beginning of your post wrongly to me.
 

If you want to try to avoid chronic disease, you need to avoid excessive promiscuity.

 

I suffered atherosclerotic blockage at my aorta-bifurcation dispite living monogamous.

 

Pneumonia at birth, fever-fits at 2 years, mumps, measels and meningitis at 7, tuberculosis at 20, 4 times plasmodium falciparum malaria age 27 to 28, an other 3 of the vivax malaria kind up to age 31, a spinal cord infection and NAFLD age 32. Schistosomiasis and myopericarditis age 39. COPD age 43. And interestingly only suffered the atherosclersis at the spot of the former spinal-cord infection, which arose right after the sequel of serious malarias.

 

Similiar child-hood infections especially malarias are equally rampant in the Hadza, and do contribute to their high child-hood mortality. And its very likely if they only survived the childhood-infections like I did with antibiotics and anti-malarials, Hadza could also have chronic diseases from any of the other very prevalent and nasty infections there.

 

Therefore I think it much more likely that natural selection of the fittest still at work with the Hadza. Along with an uncrowded lifestyle including diet, with nature. For the price of much higher childhood mortality.

 

Edited by pamojja, 29 March 2021 - 09:26 AM.

[Hip]

You attribute the statement at the beginning of your post wrongly to me.

Oops, not sure how that error happened.
 

 

 

I suffered atherosclerotic blockage at my aorta-bifurcation dispite living monogamous.

Amorous kissing is not the only means of spreading respiratory viruses. The can also spread (although not so quickly) by normal social contact, especially among people who live together, or work together in the same office or building, where there are numerous opportunities for the virus to jump from one person to another.

 

 
 

Therefore I think it much more likely that natural selection of the fittest still at work with the Hadza. Along with an uncrowded lifestyle including diet, with nature. For the price of much higher childhood mortality.

 

Natural selection is constantly at work in all of us, perfecting the design of our bodies. Even in the modern world, evolution operates just as fiercely: if you are like me and for whatever reason were not successful in having children (which as far as nature is concerned is the ultimate goal of all animals), then your genes will not be propagated into the future. That's nature's punishment for not reproducing. If your genes have not facilitated reproduction, they get eliminated.

 

Prof Paul Ewald argues natural selection (survival of the fittest) is such a fierce competition against the elements/environment, that any gene which leads to a chronic disease that reduces survivability would be rapidly eliminated. So chronic diseases must, he argues, arise from exogenous agents such as infections, not from genetics.

 

 

Edited by Hip, 29 March 2021 - 01:55 PM.

[johnross47]

Don't overly idealize gather/hunterer life-styles. For example I stayed with a Bambuti Pygmy tribe in Eastern Zaire for 5 days in 1994. Like the Hadza, only males went on a hunt with bow and arrow, but only once in those 5 days.

 

 

I have no intention of idealising the lifestyle of any remnant hunter gatherer group. They usually have a huge burden of parasites and inflammatory conditions and are at risk of dying from snake bites, or being hunted by wild dogs or, indeed, of falling from the baobab trees where the honey is found. There is a very high level of infant and childhood mortality. When the rains fail the food supply is endangered. etc.

 

But, there are issues raised by their lifestyle and freedom from cardiac and metabolic diseases. The same pattern of good health is found in some of the more remote communities in Europe, (unfortunately now dying out,)  where people walk out to patches of fields to grow their own food on the scale of gardeners rather than modern agriculturalists. The gardener/gatherer/hunter lifestyle is common in pre agricultural communities. What is very uncommon is purely carnivorous lifestyles and they do seem to be at odds with our evolved physiology.

[Hip]

there are issues raised by their lifestyle and freedom from cardiac and metabolic diseases

 

Many myths, traditions, and religions have a concept of the fall of man. The fall is where humanity was living in a golden age of health and earthly paradise, but then made a mistake which resulted in their fall from grace and loss of paradise.

 

The switch that occurred during the agricultural revolution, from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the farming lifestyle, is a good candidate for the fall. This is because farming puts human beings into close and constant contact with a range of animals, which it is believed results in a tsunami of pathogens crossing into human populations.

 

It is generally assumed by scientists that hundreds of animal pathogens passed into the human population during the agricultural revolution, and once they had made the jump to humans, these pathogens evolved to become human-adapted, which then spread among the humans living in close proximity in villages and settlements.

 

This large increase in pathogenic load that humans were hit by soon after the agricultural revolution would have greatly degraded their health, and led to suffering and misery. That certainly sounds like a fall from earthly paradise.

 

 

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is just another example of how viruses can pass into human populations when people have too much contact with animals. Coronavirus will be with us forevermore, causing increased human misery. HIV is another virus which passed from animals (chimps) to humans, in around 1920 it is estimated. And there will be other viruses jumping from animals into humans in the future.

 

See this article about the neolithic revolution for more details about pathogens jumping from animals to humans once we became farmers.

 

 

In order to reattain earthly paradise, human beings must master science in order to completely eradicate the thousands of disease-causing pathogens that are found in current human populations.

Edited by Hip, 29 March 2021 - 11:02 PM.

[johnross47]

I suspect that this theory depends on the changes happening very fast so that experience and memory of the old system remains long enough for the comparison to be made into a persistent story. I don't think that is actually happened. Many societies took up agriculture in a very light way, as gardeners, and that has persisted in remote places until the present day. Not all territories are suitable for agriculture.

 

Personally I have always suspected the power hungry and controlling behaviours of priests and kings as a major driver for repressive moralities.

[Helios]

I do think it is quite unhelathy in terms of long term cardiovascular health

 

Try it and see how you feel and perform. Many seem to feel amazing on it. maybe some of our assumptions on diet are wrong/flawed. Nutrition science as a field is quite terrible. 

Edited by Helios, 06 April 2021 - 09:13 AM.

[Thingsvarious]

Update: I now have a website. I frequently update my articles as I learn more about the topic. I will not be posting any updates to medium anymore, but only to my website: Hormetheus.com   

[Thingsvarious]

Try it and see how you feel and perform. Many seem to feel amazing on it. maybe some of our assumptions on diet are wrong/flawed. Nutrition science as a field is quite terrible. 

I agree. Almost impossible to rule out any confounders and third variables (let alone reporting biases)

[Phoebus]

 

 

• Stay away from dairy. Most people think bad reactions to dairy are due to the lactose content. In many cases however, it is not the lactose, but the whey and esp. casein protein fraction of the milk. Both whey and casein evolved to have some hormonal activity. Both are quite bad for metabolic health. Besides, many people´s immune system reacts against certain forms of a1-casein.

 

 

Greek yogurt strains out the whey so that is not an issue there 

 

High quality ghee strains out all the proteins, I am SUPER sensitive to whey and casein but I can eat plenty of ghee. 

[Thingsvarious]

Greek yogurt strains out the whey so that is not an issue there 

 

High quality ghee strains out all the proteins, I am SUPER sensitive to whey and casein but I can eat plenty of ghee. 

Quite a lot of people have immunological reactions towards the casein fraction