92 replies to this topic

[hippocampus]

@MR: why are you vegetarian?

[APBT]

Cocoa's dark side just keeps on growing. It's also associated with decreased bone mineral density, presumably due to its oxalate content, and is even associated with an increased risk of testicular cancer and hypospadias. Admittedly, the latter study is only based on per capita data at the national level, but the connection to osteoporosis is stronger. I wish I didn't like cocoa so much...

If oxalates are an issue, peruse the items on this list. I'm at three times the amount considered a "high to very high" oxalate consumption based on my daily nut consumption alone!

[kismet]

a few things jump out:

Salt, why?!
No apples or pears? I'd guess because of the kcal/nutrient ratio?

The data on berries really isn't that bad: apparently there is epidemiological data in favour of berries, which I haven't reviewed (WHS, Iowa WHS, KIHD). Plus, all the other lines of evidence. I assume you simply consider the totality of evidence and kcal/nutrient ratio weaker than for other fruits/veg..?
See: http://www.springerl...1hkr7788423141/

Is the evidence for alcohol consumption all that convincing in the young, esp. vis a vis the cancer risk?

Edited by kismet, 12 October 2011 - 05:11 PM.

[niner]

If oxalates are an issue, peruse the items on this list. I'm at three times the amount considered a "high to very high" oxalate consumption based on my daily nut consumption alone!

Wow. Oxalates are more widespread in the diet than I thought. The association between chocolate consumption and osteoporosis remains, but now I wonder if there isn't something else going on.

[woly]

No apples or pears? I'd guess because of the kcal/nutrient ratio?

Is there something about apples and pears that I dont know about?

[Sillewater]

.....WHS, Iowa WHS, KIHD.....

What study are these?

[Mia K.]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for taking the time to post your Quotidian Diet!

Serendipitously I came across a review you wrote of Bariani Olive Oil when I went to Amazon to reorder. My ensuing search for a replacement house EVOO led me to www.ApolloOliveOil.com (edit: link not working, sorry)

Delicious stuff this (both Sierra and Barouni), with impressive polyphenol count.

I'd love to read/hear a discussion between you and Paul Jaminet of www.perfecthealthdiet.com re: diet and supps for optimal health and longevity.

Best,
Mia

Edited by Mia K., 14 October 2011 - 02:44 PM.

[APBT]

FYI: According to this article, the folks at Veronica Foods have their own olive oil bar. I'd assume they sell their own labeled products, along with others.

They're actually pretty good about supporting their local stores -- and their tasting bar doesn't as yet have web sales, so it's mostly a local retail operation.

UPDATE: After contacting Amphora Nueva, I was told that a Website was in the works, with on-line sales to follow, stay tuned.....http://www.amphoranueva.com/

[Michael]

First: I keep getting questions, here and on the CR Society List, of the "why don't you eat X?" variety, and want to take the opportunity to abrogate the unnecessary ones.

So, again: my diet as outlined should not be taken as exhaustive of foods that I consume. Yes, I eat the same breakfast every day, and the MegaMuffins (and weekly Binging Brownie) are a daily staple which have only undergone 3 major changes in 11 y of CR practice. But while my lunch stews are broadly similar, you can see from the COM recipe files that I attached that there is significant diversity between even just those 2 examples; and again, "{My dinners} var{y} quite a bit: I am blessed that April cooks me dinner >87% of the time, and {...} she's also an inventive and instinctive cook, so I very rarely eat the same thing twice (except when I cook for myself). "

The list of specific foods that I do make a strong effort to include daily are there, again, because they "have been documented in long-term, well-designed prospective epidemiological studies or clinical trials to reduce the risk or improve the outcomes in actual diseases or mortality: short-term results using unvalidated surrogate markers don't count at all, and even results with well-validated disease risk factors (glycemia, blood lipoproteins, etc) must be treated with some caution and do not meet this bar when taken in isolation."

So if your question is, "why don't you eat X?": if it's a fruit or vegetable, the answer is almost certainly, "I DO eat it. But I don't eat it every day because it doesn't meet the criteria laid out above." OK?

Now, on to questions not covered by this:

[quote name='APBT' timestamp='1318275846' post='480417’]
Which came first, the PD or the increased chocolate consumption?

This study hints it may be the latter. "Although reasons for increased chocolate consumption in PD remain elusive, it may hypothetically be a consequence of the high content of various biogenic amines and/or caffeine analogues with potential antiparkinsonian effects." [/quote]
First, note that this study seems to have asked the subjects about their current diets; Goldman asked (retrospectively) "about their dietary habits in the 10 years prior to one of them developing the disease." Presumably (although not certainly -- they could have had a very early, subclinical precursor) they were not medicating a disease they didn't yet have a decade before developing it. And, of course, if you already have a well-established habit of chocolate consumption 10 y before developing PD, there's no reason you would stop.

Second, even if the reason for this finding is that PD patients consume cocoa as a form of self-medication, that doesn't mean that cocoa doesn't also increase the risk for the disease. There could be some phytochemicals that medicate against existing symptoms, and others that cause increased risk for the disease or worsen its course -- and in fact, the same substances could also be responsible for both kinds of effects. Look, for instance, at levodopa:
[quote]Symptoms of PD can be largely alleviated by treatment with the dopamine precursor levodopa. However, chronic treatment is often complicated by the emergence of levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID), which is characterized by involuntary choreiform or dystonic movements of the face, trunk, or limbs. After 1 year of levodopa treatment, more than 60% of PD patients reportedly show signs of LID, and new cases occur at an incidence of 10% per year.(1) [/quote]
Amongst the mechanisms postulated for this are the toxic metabolites of dopamine (which, indeed, was the putative mechanism for the now-disproven neuroprotective effects of MAOIs like deprenyl).

[quote name='niner' timestamp='1318303965' post='480476’]
[quote name='APBT' timestamp='1318275846' post='480417’]
Which came first, the PD or the increased chocolate consumption? [/quote]
Thanks for that, APBT. That also shows up in depression; it looks like people are self-medicating with chocolate. You know, I'd been thinking about revisiting this thread regarding the PD connection. That's a pretty weak paper; there's a reason it's unpublished. [/quote]
The principle weakness of the study is that it was a retrospective, case-control design. The biggest problem with retrospective studies is that they can create recall bias, where a person who has a disease, when thinking back into hir history, is emotionally invested in finding a reason for it, and latches onto some risk factor and unconsciously exaggerates hir exposure to it (or, contrariwise, feels that hir disease is 'unfair,' and downplays hir risk: "I got this terrible disease, even though I did everything right!"). But I don't think that was likely to have been a major factor in this case, simply because cocoa wasn't (and isn't still) a widely-suspected cause of PD. Thus, it seems to me that recall bias is less likely to have happened in Goldman's study than in a retrospective study of, say, sugar and type II diabetes.

Contrariwise, strengths of Goldman's study include that it was in identical twins (genetic confounding minimized) with diverse dietary habits and PD outcomes.IAC, it is, unfortunately, the only human data available on the subject at the moment. The reason he's not followed up in a larger group is lack of funding; the reason you rarely see prospective studies of PD risk is because it's a relatively rare disease.

And there is, again, additional data to suggest that cocoa-derived TIQs might increase vulnerability to PD. TIQs in cocoa and close chemical analogues cause dopaminergic neurotoxicity in vitro, and Parkinsonian motion disorders in experimental animals (eg, (2-5), and cf studies on endogenous TIQ neurotoxins such as 1-Benzyl- 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline (1BnTIQ), and especially of N-methyl-{R}-salsolinol, a metabolite of salsolinol, which is amongst the TIQs in cocoa). And again, there's the consistent finding, in several prospective epidemiological studies, of an increased risk of PD with consumption of high levels of dairy products, which might also be explained by their TIQ content:

[quote]In this large observational study, we found that higher consumption of dairy products was associated with increased risk of Parkinson's disease. The association was stronger in men and was mostly explained by milk consumption. Because this investigation was based on a prospective cohort study with a long follow-up period and validated dietary assessment, recall and selection biases are unlikely to be the explanation for our findings {unlike Goldman's study -- see above -MR}. ... Furthermore, any diagnostic error would probably have attenuated the association between dairy food intake and Parkinson's disease, because case identification was most likely independent of the dietary assessment.

The findings of the present study are consistent with those from two previous prospective investigations. ... A pooled analysis of data from the current study with data from the previous ones confirmed a moderate positive association between dairy food consumption and risk of Parkinson's disease, particularly in men. ... So far, the epidemiologic evidence suggests that the association between dairy products and Parkinson's disease is unlikely to be due to calcium, vitamin D, or fat. All three studies generally found that calcium and vitamin D were positively associated with Parkinson's disease risk only when they were derived from dairy foods, and fat from either dairy foods or other sources was not related to increased Parkinson's disease risk. Furthermore, neither calcium nor vitamin D from supplements was significantly related to increased risk of Parkinson's disease.

The observation of similar findings on dairy products and Parkinson's disease risk in all three of these well-established prospective studies suggests that the association is unlikely to be fortuitous. One possibility is that dairy products in the United States are contaminated with neurotoxic chemicals. Substantial epidemiologic and experimental evidence suggests that exposure to pesticides may increase Parkinson's disease risk ...; some of these compounds are present at low levels in dairy products. Furthermore, chemicals that induce parkinsonism in rodents and primates, such as tetrahydroisoquinolines and precursors of b-carbolines, are present in a variety of dairy foods {my emphasis}. However, the overall contribution of dairy food consumption to exposure to pesticides and other neurotoxins is probably only modest.(6) [/quote]
Certainly TIQs are present at much lower levels in milk per mg than in cocoa-- but of course we consume larger serving sizes of dairy. If the low levels of TIQ in milk are enough to be responsible for the dairy association, then the much higher levels in cocoa would, ceteris paribus, be sufficient to generate a genuinely causal risk.

Again, I am not saying that we know cocoa/chocolate causes PD, or that one should never eat chocolate or cocoa (again, I have a Binging Brownie once a week myself); I am saying that there's enough reason for concern that I do limit my intake, even though the available (and much stronger) epidemiology on its other (cardiovascular) health benefits would otherwise be sufficient for it to be "on the List." Nor do I think it sensible to eat the stuff freely on a regular basis just 'cause one happens to like it. And blowing money on fancy, expensive organic raw or fermented cacao nibs is going beyond the evidence even if one ignores the PD concern, and (and I say this with sincere respect to the many very intelligent people doing this right now) sheer folly in light of it.

[quote name='APBT' timestamp='1318277426' post='480419’]
Regarding your consumption of 2L of green tea ... In ebb and flow, there is chatter on these forums regarding fluoride (dangers) in tea and the water used to brew it. What are your thoughts on this? Concerned? Worried? Do you think fluoride, in general, is a health hazard? Bad for bone health? [/quote]
These are legitimate concerns, as is now widely accepted by scientists and the public health institutions: I would refer you to the 2006 National Academy of Sciences report on fluoride standards set by EPA, the new U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services guidance on fluoridation, and the move by EPA to remove sulfuryl fluoride fumigants from the market because of their contribution to total F exposure in the population. And there's probably further regulatory action to lower public F exposure in the pipes: note the HHS press release's statement that "EPA is initiating review of the maximum amount of fluoride allowed in drinking water."

On the other hand, the worst fears once raised by many legitimate toxicologists (and a few half-baked nutbars) in the past (notably, the worries about AD and other neurotoxicity), based on animal evidence and preliminary epidemiology, seem to have evaporated, and the issues narrowed down mostly to bone health.

On tea specifically, epidemiology seems to suggest that consumption of tea (with its attendant F) seems to reduce fracture risk, though I am concerned that over a course of a very long lifetime it might weaken them somewhat, by leading to more dense but biologically older bone by reducing turnover (as is now emerging for some rare fracture types with bisphosphonates). And, of course, tea is a complex food, whose health effects can't be reduced to those of a single nutrient.

So, I think one should first find out how much F is in your water supply, and govern oneself accordingly. I'm lucky that my local water supply is not fluoridated; the last two annual water surveys from my local utility (which you can get on request, and often on the utility website) indicated ND (Not Detected) on average, with a range of ND - 1.2 ppm in 2009 (annoyingly, they don't seem to indicate how many samples they drew). If you have high natural and/or supplemental F, I would recommend installing a reverse osmosis system for your drinking (including tea-brewing) and cooking water.

[quote name='hippocampus' timestamp='1318347005' post='480530’]
why are you vegetarian? [/quote]
Originally, and still very largely, for sustainability reasons. With all the reasons why vegetarians "ought" to live longer, it's surprising how marginal the benefits (largely CVD) are in the available epidemiology: a meta-analysis of the available prospective studies (9) found that

[quote]Mortality from ischemic heart disease was 24% lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians (death rate ratio: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.62, 0.94; P < 0.01)... was greater at younger ages and was restricted to those who had followed their current diet for >5 y. Further categorization of diets showed that, in comparison with regular meat eaters, mortality from ischemic heart disease was 20% lower in occasional meat eaters {"ate meat occasionally but <1 time/wk"}, 34% lower in people who ate fish but not meat, 34% lower in lactoovovegetarians, and 26% lower in vegans. There were no significant differences between vegetarians and nonvegetarians in mortality from cerebrovascular disease, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, or all other causes combined.(9) [/quote]
I would also point to the data on the Mediterranean diet in EPIC-Greece,(8) in which low meat intake (less than the median of 121.11 g (males), 89.88 g (females), as vs. high (≥median) intake, was teh second-most powerful statistical contributor to reduced mortality intake, after moderate alcohol intake.

I suspect that the relatively modest effects of vegetarianism, compared to what one might expect, may largely be due to multiple nutrient deficiencies and inadequacies of self-selected vegetarian diets (including B12, n3, Zn, protein (in ALers), and the nonessential taurine), but certainly I have no hard data to support this hypothesis at this time.

That said, granted the specific nutrients I've chosen to limit for other reasons -- Met+Cys, protein, EPA/DHA, SaFA -- it'd be rather hard to eat much meat anyway -- although I used to get an awful lot of Met+Cys from egg whites and rice protein powder ...

[quote name='kismet' timestamp='1318438505' post='480699’]
a few things jump out: [/quote]
Kismet!! You're alive and posting! Please, please, please, return to fighting the Good Fight against quackery on these Forums, sir!

[quote name='kismet' timestamp='1318438505' post='480699’]Salt, why?! [/quote]
Heh. If you look at my COM output, even with that salt, I don't always make the Adequate Intake of 1500 mg/d Na (tho' here, even more than usual, the AI is rather weakly set). Back when I was consuming a lot of egg whites, my Na was too high for my taste (~2100-2200 mg/d), and I went on an aggressive campaign of purging it (April gave me a Christmas card good for a year's worth of her homemade, unsalted salsa; cut back substantially on use of Walden Farms dressings, bought unsalted canned tomato products and olives, etc), and brought it down to a good level -- just in time to drop eggwhites. But then I took up pea protein, which added in enought that I didn't revise my habits; and then I cut out the pea protein ... and suddenly I noticed I was down to 800 mg/d, which is pretty damned low -- AND, I was putting NoSalt (KCl) in my stews ...

This really probably is too low. While the Salt Institute's arguments against progressively lowering the salt content of processed foods are laughable (almost everyone is consuming too damned much Na, mostly from processed foods (including sauces and canned tomatoes) and restaurant meals (and if you think this doesn't mean YOU, O reader, please crunch your COM, and tell me if you've been to a restaurant this week ) -- still, it is true, as they are fond of reminding us, that several (but not all) studies find that substantially low-sodium diets can impair the action of insulin, leading to IGT (in case you've not memorized it from the periodic table , to convert mmol or meq of sodium to mg, multiply by 23; so eg. 80 mmol Na is 1840 mg):
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/12691602
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/10371376
http://jcem.endojour...5/1552.abstract
http://hyper.ahajour.../full/33/4/1008
http://ajpendo.physi...5/E730.abstract
http://hyper.ahajour...stract/35/3/827

(Contrast:)
http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/8722434

With the problem of protein moderation in CR apparently leading to IGT for other, non-insulin-sensitivity reasons,(7) I don't want to risk adding this on top. So, back came the commercial salsa, salt in the stews, and a couple of other things (tho' I'm still laying off the Walden Farms, and haven't had any fish sauce in quite a while just out of habit). In fact, maybe I should get in a little more ...

[quote name='kismet' timestamp='1318438505' post='480699’]
The data on berries really isn't that bad: apparently there is epidemiological data in favour of berries, which I haven't reviewed (WHS {Women's Health Study, Silewater }, Iowa WHS {Women's Health Study}, KIHD {Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease}). Plus, all the other lines of evidence. I assume you simply consider the totality of evidence and kcal/nutrient ratio weaker than for other fruits/veg..?
See: http://www.springerl...1hkr7788423141/ [/quote]
I can't actually find any epidemiological data on berries per se. I can find berries as a part of total fruit & veg intake, but that's not terribly cogent. I've attached the revieiw you cite: nothing compelling there, as you can see. They in turn repeatedly cite this review, giving it two little bullet points in their reference list as "Of major importance," and it claims that epidemiology supports the benefits of berry constituents -- but it turns out that that includes a lot of constituents shared across fruit & veg, and has very little in support of berries per se. The review cites the KIHD study "Low Intake of Fruits, Berries and Vegetables Is Associated with Excess Mortality in Men" and claim that it "showed a significantly lower risk of CVD-related deaths among 1,950 men in the highest quartile of berry intake (>408 g/day) versus men with the lowest intake (133 g/day) during a mean follow-up of 12.8 years," which is just not true: as in many similar reports, it found protective effects for these amounts of the sum of fruits, berries and vegetables, not each category individually.

Again, the authors of the review claim that the Iowa WHS "showed a significant reduction in CVD mortality associated with strawberry intake during a 16-year follow-up period", which is true, albeit barely (RR was 0.91 (0.82, 1.00)). They then go on to say, "In the case of blueberries, an age- and energy-adjusted model showed a significant decrease in coronary heart disease mortality, though the significance did not persist following adjustment for other confounding variables. For both strawberries and blueberries, the significant reduction in relative risk was associated with at least once per week consumption" -- but in fact, there was no significant reduction in relative risk on multivariate analysis for any outcome (total, stroke, CVD, or CHD mortality) for blueberries or for strawberries, except (again) for the effect of strawberries vs CVD mortality. To be fair, few individual foods had terribly striking RRs, but strawberries' RR reduction was similar to apples & pears, celery, and grapefruit, and not as good as red wine. This doesn't, AFAICS, lay out a compelling case for berries per se.

And then they cite the Women’s Health Study itself, which they summarize as finding that "During a follow-up period of approximately 11 years, a decreasing trend for CVD was observed for subjects consuming higher amounts of strawberries (P = 0.06) my emphasis>." In fact, they are again making the findings sound more impressive than they were: while they emphasize how few people were consuming relatively large amounts of strawberries (including fresh, frozen, and even canned), still the study itself reported that "For total CVD, the multivariate RRs (95% confidence intervals) for increasing categories of strawberry intake were 1.00 (ref), 1.01 (0.85-1.19), 0.95 (0.77-1.17), and 1.27 (0.94-1.72) (P, trend = 0.06)" -- not a very convincing dose-response, to say the least.

And even the most promising-looking short-term study cited in the Ros et al review (lower BP, higher HDL, eg) is not controlled against other fruit intake, and indeed they rely significantly on this study, in which the control foods were "2 dL sugar-water, 100 g sweet semolina porridge, 100 g sweet rice porridge, and 40 g marmalade sweets." (Similar tricks are often used in short-term (and especially industry-sponsored) studies on other high-poly-foods like pomegranate, blueberries, walnuts, and cocoa, BTW, including unfortunately even many of the ones on high-poly olive oil -- but again, for olive oil (and chocolate) per se we have actual, prospective data on mortality and disease)).

Again: berries are healthy foods, I consume them, and I'm not pooh-poohing their inclusion as part of a diet high in fruits and vegetables. I'm just saying there's nothing particularly compelling about the evidence on berries per se that would put them on an evidence-based list of "must consume" food items.

[quote name='kismet' timestamp='1318438505' post='480699’]
Is the evidence for alcohol consumption all that convincing in the young, esp. vis a vis the cancer risk? [/quote]
That is a good question. The problem, of course, is that we don't have really long-term data here: most studies are in studies that only begin late middle age and beyond, and studies in the young show very small benefits -- but then, those studies have only so far follwed these cohorts up until early to late middle age, when absolute risk of death from anything age-related is very low anyway. We just don't know what the cumulative effect of taking it from age 30-90 are.

But atherosclerosis is a lifelong, progressive disease. The effect of wine on total mortality is there strongly in the Mediterranean diet data, and in EPIC-Greece where the pattern and its benefits are most pronounced, "alcohol" (let alone wine per se) was the strongest single statistical contributor to the reduction to total mortality ((7); I can't find it, but another report similarly has alcohol, along with olive oil, as the strongest component). The cancer risk for wine seems to me to be pretty minimal except for liver cancer at high doses and for breast cancer in women at intermittent to high dose; and dementia is just scary ...

I agree with your caveat, then, but from available evidence 3 oz wine/d (or even 5 oz/d) is, in my view, a very good bet.

[quote name='Mia K.' timestamp='1318601949' post='480923’]
Serendipitously I came across a review you wrote of Bariani Olive Oil when I went to Amazon to reorder. My ensuing search for a replacement house EVOO led me to www.ApolloOliveOil.com (edit: link not working, sorry)

Delicious stuff this (both Sierra and Barouni), with impressive polyphenol count. [/quote]
Yes, Apollo makes excellent oil, and they're quite transparent (tho' note that when they claim "Total anti-oxidants," they're including vitamin E and everything else -- ask them for poly count). They have very cutting-edge milling equipment, including doing almost the entire milling process under vacuum, which maximizes polyphenols and minimizes early oxidation (albeit at a modest cost on aromatic volatiles).

The only problem is that when you buy from them now, you're getting oil that's already ~10 months old. Veronica Foods' interhemispheric producer network and purchasing power means that they have oils from Australia, Chile, and Argentina available now that are just a couple of months out of the mill. That lets you buy fresh oil twice a year and only ever have oil that's 6-8 mo old. Alternatively, it's fine to buy oil once a year, if you buy when it's fresh -- but then keep the bottles frozen until they're ready to be used. (Yes, I know there's tons on the internet advising not to do this. Trust me. I have done exhaustive research on the subject).

[quote name='Mia K.' timestamp='1318601949' post='480923’]
I'd love to read/hear a discussion between you and Paul Jaminet of www.perfecthealthdiet.com re: diet and supps for optimal health and longevity. [/quote]
[quote]Daily carbohydrate intake should be 400-600 calories, primarily from starches (e.g., rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro), fruits, and berries, except on therapeutic ketogenic diets (which should have ~200 carb calories). Eat a variety of vegetables as well, but don’t count them as calorie sources. ...

Do not eat calorie-rich legumes. Peas and green beans are fine. Soy and peanuts should be absolutely excluded. Beans might be acceptable with suitable preparation, but we recommend avoiding them....

The best cooking oils are coconut oil, clarified butter, and beef tallow; palm oil, lard, olive oil, and avocado oil are next best. ...

Eat nourishing foods: liver, egg yolks, seaweeds, shellfish, vegetable and bone broths. [/quote]
I wish I could say I thought this was some kind of joke ... And their blanket supplement recommendations are obscene ...

APBT wrote:
UPDATE: After contacting Amphora Nueva, I was told that a Website was in the works, with on-line sales to follow, stay tuned.....http://www.amphoranueva.com/

Yup, they've been saying that for ~8 months now . IAC, as I said, if you call or contact them on FB, VF will give you client stores in your area, most of which are already set up for online sales.

References
1: Putterman DB, Munhall AC, Kozell LB, Belknap JK, Johnson SW.
Evaluation of levodopa dose and magnitude of dopamine depletion as risk factors for levodopa-induced dyskinesia in a rat model of Parkinson's disease.
J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2007 Oct;323(1):277-84. Epub 2007 Jul 27. PubMed PMID: 17660384.

2: Yoshida M, Niwa T, Nagatsu T. Parkinsonism in monkeys produced by chronic administration of an endogenous substance of the brain, tetrahydroisoquinoline: the behavioral and biochemical changes. Neurosci Lett. 1990 Oct 30;119(1):109-13. PubMed PMID: 1982957.

3: Nagatsu T. Isoquinoline neurotoxins in the brain and Parkinson's disease. Neurosci Res. 1997 Oct;29(2):99-111. Review. PubMed PMID: 9359458.

4: Kotake Y. {Tetrahydroisoquinoline derivatives as possible Parkinson's disease-inducing substances}. Yakugaku Zasshi. 2002 Nov;122(11):975-82. Review. Japanese. PubMed PMID: 12440154.

5: Melzig MF, Putscher I, Henklein P, Haber H. In vitro pharmacological activity of the tetrahydroisoquinoline salsolinol present in products from Theobroma cacao L. like cocoa and chocolate. J Ethnopharmacol. 2000 Nov;73(1-2):153-9. PubMed PMID: 11025151.

6: Chen H, O'Reilly E, McCullough ML, Rodriguez C, Schwarzschild MA, Calle EE, Thun MJ, Ascherio A. Consumption of dairy products and risk of Parkinson's disease. Am J Epidemiol. 2007 May 1;165(9):998-1006. Epub 2007 Jan 31. PubMed PMID: 17272289; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2232901.

7. Fontana L, Klein S, Holloszy JO. Effects of long-term calorie restriction and endurance exercise on glucose tolerance, insulin action, and adipokine production. Age (Dordr). 2009 Nov 11. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 19904628.

8. Trichopoulou A, Bamia C, Trichopoulos D. Anatomy of health effects of Mediterranean diet: Greek EPIC prospective cohort study. BMJ. 2009 Jun 23;338:b2337. doi: 10.1136/bmj.b2337. PubMed PMID: 19549997.

9: Key TJ, Fraser GE, Thorogood M, Appleby PN, Beral V, Reeves G, Burr ML, Chang-Claude J, Frentzel-Beyme R, Kuzma JW, Mann J, McPherson K. Mortality in vegetarians and nonvegetarians: detailed findings from a collaborative analysis of 5 prospective studies. Am J Clin Nutr. 1999 Sep;70(3 Suppl):516S-524S. PubMed PMID: 10479225.

Edited by Michael, 16 April 2013 - 12:08 PM.

[Donnie]

Sorry to add on the loads of questions.

Do you put much thought into your choice of red wine as well?

From what I can gather the Mendoza region in Argentina has the highest located vineyards and the grapes Malbec & Cabernet Sauvignon generally yield the highest polyphenol level. I imagine the processing has great importance as well. Do you have any references to spare on this matter?

[APBT]

Certainly TIQs are present at much lower levels in milk per mg than in cocoa-- but of course we consume larger serving sizes of dairy. If the low levels of TIQ in milk are enough to be responsible for the dairy association, then the much higher levels in cocoa would, ceteris paribus, be sufficient to generate a genuinely causal risk.

According to table 9.1 on page 85 [of] the book titled, "Parkinson's Disease" By Manuchair S. Ebadi, milk has ~3 times the TIQ content of cocoa.

Edited by Michael, 09 January 2012 - 01:19 AM.

[albedo]

.... While it's not food, here is my 2009 supplement regimen. I've changed quite a few things even beyond the stuff already crossed off (dropped R-lipoic acid for lack of benefit in normal, healthy mice or men, at least starting in youth; added low-dose iodine; switched from free choline to phosphatidylcholine due to potential free choline supplement cardiovascular risk; etc), but the strategy still applies....

R-lipoic is still one of my favorites. As probably many I am going to enthusiasm to deception on several supplements but found ALA still interesting hence my disappointment reading you on this. Are you sure? No (much) higher benefit in the risks/benefit balance?

I found a number of interesting references e.g. on a serious site: http://www.mskcc.org....cfm#References

" .... alpha-lipoic acid is an essential cofactor in the production of energy and acts as a potent antioxidant and exerts apoptotic effects on tumor cell lines ^{(1) (2) (3)}. In human studies, alpha-lipoic acid improved insulin sensitivity, vasodilation, and polyneuropathy in patients with diabetes mellitus ^{(5) (6)}. A meta-analysis of clinical trials of alpha-lipoic acid in diabetic patients showed a significant reduction in neuropathic symptoms ⁽⁷⁾. Studies have also been conducted to determine its role in reversing neuropathies ^{(8) (9)} and liver disease ^{(10) (11)}. Topical application of creams containing alpha-lipoic acid may help prevent photoaging of facial skin ⁽¹²⁾....

[nameless]

Question for Michael --

I see WineRx is still listed on your supplement list, yet in the vimmortal update post you stated that you no longer recommend it. Did you forget to mark it off? Are you taking a different red wine supplement in its place?

[Orthorexic]

Michael, I see you're taking quite a lot brewer's yeast. Are you not slightly worried about the extremely high chromium content of it? Two tablespoons brewer's yeast, together with all the other food you're taking, will easily result in an intake of 300 µg chromium a day, which is almost ten times the daily adequate intake. I don't know if that's a problem, since due to limited data on chromium safety the Food and Nutrition Board didn't set a tolerable upper intake level for chromium, but I did see some researchers being concerned about high chromium supplementation[1]. They say trivalent chromium could be converted into hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen. Furthermore, there are reports of chromium picolinate causing DNA damage[2][3]. Since data on the safety of long-term high chromium intake is scarce, don't you think it's a gamble, especially for someone as conservative as you, to take such a high dose on a daily basis? Your chromium intake is 6-7 times that of the average person.

Also, what's your take on the high content of free glutamic acid in brewer's yeast? Reports of these being neurotoxic in high amounts, hogwash?

[woly]

Michael, are you concerned about the large caffeine content in drinking so much green tea? I have been reading studies showing that caffeine seems to impact on insulin sensitivity and have therefore been a bit wary of it.

[1kgcoffee]

Another question. In your supplements thread, you posted that you supplement. L-lysine and L-arginine in equal ratio.
From Michael Colgan's "Sports Nutrition"

All the usual meats we eat contain high levels of the amino acid L-lysine but only moderate levels of L-arginine. L-lysine strongly opposes the growth-hormone releasing, muscle-building, fat-reducing effects of L-arginine. In fact L-lysine acts on your hormones much like a high-fat diet. In increases insulin production and reduces glucagon production by the pancreas.(I've also read that lysine increases glucagon) This change in the ration in insulin to glucagon, signals your liver to make fat and cholesterol like crazy. If you add L-lysine to animal diets, their cholesterol levels increase by over 50%, and they plump up like Pooh Bear.

Could you go into more detail on why you take both in equal ratio? Wouldn't it be better for someone on CR to supplement just a little L-lysine and no L-arginine?

[spirilla01]

Michael,
thanks for posting your diet, it gives all of us so much valuable information. My question is, if you had 300 more calories to add
and not being a vegan, which and how much meat and fish would you include in your diet ?
Thanks in advance

[1kgcoffee]

Also, since the main AGE in humans, glucosepane, is made up of lysine and arginine, would restricting those amino acids be an ever better strategy? I was just about to add lysine to my regimen before discovering that.

[Sillewater]

Just because you restrict them doesn't mean proteins like collagen contain less of it. You supplement it so that it'll scavenge the carbonyls BEFORE they create AGE products with your proteins.

[1kgcoffee]

thank you, that makes sense.

[pigfishl]

What about making our own fresh EVOO? I'd imagine it'd be even better than Apollo's variant?

http://www.metacafe....rgin_olive_oil/

[Sillewater]

I'm curious to know if you are using the Lewis Lab's Brewer's Yeast food item in Cron-O-Meter. If so, have you changed it in your own personal COM because the nutrients don't exactly match the nutrient fact sheet on their website. For example 2 Tbsp has 80% DV phosphorus content yet in COM it is placed at 0, there are other minor differences too. That is quite a high phosphorus content IMHO.

[Donnie]

I'd like to hear a more detailed description of your tea habits if possible. How many grams do you use, spread across those two liters? Do you make second or even third infusions of the same portion?

[albedo]

MR, what do you think about milk thistle?

I think there is some mediocre-quality evidence that it might be helpful for some kinds of liver disease, which merits following up in further trials -- and that in the meantime, it's unfortunate that thousands of healthy people have been hornswoggled by unscrupulous or ignorant supplement hawkers into paying money for the 'privilege' of conducting an uncontrolled experiment on its effects on their long-term health.

There is some interesting evidence of benefits also for other (than liver disease) conditions, e.g. PCA:
"Isosilybin A induces apoptosis in human prostate cancer cells via targeting Akt, NF-κB, and androgen receptor signaling"
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/20721970
"Targeting silibinin in the antiproliferative pathway"
http://www.ncbi.nlm....0%20%2020047507

Btw, I fully agree with the general comment here: I hate the marketing hype of supplement companies and the sadly often biased information they provide. I am making huge efforts to clean this up for me and cannot encourage more MR to continue writing on this and extending/updating his CRON-WEB lecture and several other interesting posts on the subject.

Edited by albedo, 08 January 2012 - 02:29 PM.

[Michael]

I think there is some mediocre-quality evidence that [milk thistle] might be helpful for some kinds of liver disease, which merits following up in further trials -- and that in the meantime, it's unfortunate that thousands of healthy people have been hornswoggled by unscrupulous or ignorant supplement hawkers into paying money for the 'privilege' of conducting an uncontrolled experiment on its effects on their long-term health.

There is some interesting evidence of benefits also for other (than liver disease) conditions, e.g. PCA

That isn't evidence of its efficacy against prostate cancer, but against prostate cancer cells, isolated and cultured in Petri dishes and then soaked with absurd concentrations of the unmetabolized raw ingredeints and with no competing health or mortality risks . I don't even know of a convincing animal study on this, let alone one that shows it to be useful for preventing cancer in any normal, healthy mammal, after oral administration, and without shooting the animals up with ridiculous doses of nasty carcinogens you never encounter outside of a lab.

[albedo]

Thank you for your reply, much as expected, agree with it. Something else I will remove till more substantiated evidence.

[Michael]

[quote name='Sillewater' timestamp='1324936556' post='492910']I'm curious to know if you are using the Lewis Lab's Brewer's Yeast food item in Cron-O-Meter. [...] the nutrients don't exactly match the nutrient fact sheet on their website.[/quote]
No, I hadn't noticed -- thanks! And my P is already arguably too high ... good catch, thanks. I shall alert Aaron. Are there any other examples?

[quote name='pigfishl' timestamp='1323321487' post='490024']What about making our own fresh EVOO? I'd imagine it'd be even better than Apollo's variant?[/quote]
You're almost certainly getting garbage, because to make high-poly, low-oxidation-product EVOO you need olives fresh off of the tree (within 24 h of harvest), and because table olives are too ripe and usually not very good varieties for high-poly olive oil making in the first place, and other more arcane reasons.

[quote name='spirilla01' timestamp='1321175841' post='485506']if you had 300 more calories to add and not being a vegan, which and how much meat and fish would you include in your diet ? [/quote]
I'm not vegan: I'm lacto-ovo vegetarian, and I eat meat at Christmas, Thanksgiving, and maybe a bit less than once a month when on the road. I have no reason to want to put meat in my diet, and multiple reasons not to. If someone had a gun to my head and forced me to choose, I'd have US farmed tilapia: it's far more resource-efficient than other meats, doesn't have much in the way of long-chain PUFA (see link in opening post on why people on CR should avoid these), is low on the food chain (less mercury and bioaccumulating toxins), and can be satisfactorily poached (fewer food AGE), which I instinctively doubt works aesthetically for steak.

[quote name='1kgcoffee' timestamp='1320871525' post='484896']Another question. In your supplements thread, you posted that you supplement. L-lysine and L-arginine in equal ratio.
From Michael Colgan's "Sports Nutrition"
[quote]L-lysine strongly opposes the growth-hormone releasing [...] effects of L-arginine. In fact L-lysine acts on your hormones much like a high-fat diet. In increases insulin production and reduces glucagon ... If you add L-lysine to animal diets, their cholesterol levels increase by over 50%, and they plump up like Pooh Bear.[/quote]
Could you go into more detail on why you take both in equal ratio? Wouldn't it be better for someone on CR to supplement just a little L-lysine and no L-arginine?[/quote]
I take both to hedge my bets, because both have different targets, and because I am too ignorant of the microbiology to know if CMV replicates by the same arginine-dependent mechanism as HSV (see my book on why CMV is bad). The animal evidence for lysine is also superior to that for arginine, as I document. I would be pleased, in general, if lysine were keeping my GH release low; as to the glycemia claim:
[quote]Thirteen healthy subjects were studied on 4 occasions. Water, 25 g glucose, 1 mmol lysine/kg lean body mass [10 200 mg in a 70 kg adult!] ... equivalent to that present in a 672-g (24-oz) steak[!] ... , or lysine plus glucose was given on separate occasions at 0800 after a 12-h fast. ...

Lysine ingestion resulted in an approximately 3-fold increase in lysine concentration and in a small decrease in glucose concentration. When lysine was ingested with glucose, the 2.5-h glucose area response decreased by 44% (P < 0.02). Lysine alone increased the insulin area response modestly; the insulin increase when lysine was ingested with glucose was similar to that when only glucose was ingested.


Lysine stimulated an increase in glucagon (P < 0.02), whereas glucose decreased glucagon.(1)[/quote]
That's an order of magnitude more lysine than I'm taking, and the effects were very modest.

One thing I am really not worried about, is being too fat .

[quote name='woly' timestamp='1320530075' post='484109']Michael, are you concerned about the large caffeine content in drinking so much green tea? I have been reading studies showing that caffeine seems to impact on insulin sensitivity and have therefore been a bit wary of it.[/quote]
There's on average only a tenth as much caffeine in a cup of green tea as in a cup of coffee. And, in fact, coffee pretty clearly reduces the risk of diabetes, and decaf generally has not been found to do so.

[quote name='Orthorexic' timestamp='1319902335' post='483113']Michael, I see you're taking quite a lot brewer's yeast. Are you not slightly worried about the extremely high chromium content of it? Two tablespoons brewer's yeast, together with all the other food you're taking, will easily result in an intake of 300 µg chromium a day, which is almost ten times the daily adequate intake. [...]Furthermore, there are reports of chromium picolinate causing DNA damage[2][3]. Since data on the safety of long-term high chromium intake is scarce, don't you think it's a gamble, especially for someone as conservative as you, to take such a high dose on a daily basis? Your chromium intake is 6-7 times that of the average person.[/quote]
First, the brewer's yeast I useis reported at 190 µg/2 T; second, again, that's 2 T in a recipe that makes six servings, so 190/6= 31 mcg. Third, the chromium picolinate-DNA damage thing is bunk.

[quote name='Orthorexic' timestamp='1319902335' post='483113']Also, what's your take on the high content of free glutamic acid in brewer's yeast? Reports of these being neurotoxic in high amounts, hogwash?[/quote]
Yup.

[quote name='nameless' timestamp='1319227653' post='482040']I see WineRx is still listed on your supplement list, yet in the vimmortal update post you stated that you no longer recommend it. Did you forget to mark it off? Are you taking a different red wine supplement in its place?[/quote]
Yes, and no, respectively -- unfortunately, in both cases.

[quote name='albedo' timestamp='1319214629' post='481984'][quote name='Michael' timestamp='1317061135' post='478528'].... While it's not food, here is my 2009 supplement regimen. I've changed quite a few things even beyond the stuff already crossed off (dropped R-lipoic acid ...[/quote]
R-lipoic is still one of my favorites. [...] Are you sure? No (much) higher benefit in the risks/benefit balance?

I found a number of interesting references e.g. on a serious site: http://www.mskcc.org....cfm#References[/quote]
I'm sorry to hear that you have diabetic neuropathy . I don't.

[quote name='Donnie' timestamp='1319045732' post='481603']Do you put much thought into your choice of red wine as well?[/quote]
No: we don't know the right bioactives, the literature I've looked at on varietal and terroir is all over the map, you can't get good comparitive data on individual conventionally-produced wines (vs those specially spiked with polys or made from muscadines, etc). The data aren't actually even there to support the superiority of red wine over white, tho' almost everyone assumes that it is because there's more polyphenols and everyone can do wonderful things with polyphenols in test tubes .

References
1: Kalogeropoulou D, LaFave L, Schweim K, Gannon MC, Nuttall FQ. Lysine ingestion markedly attenuates the glucose response to ingested glucose without a change in insulin response. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Aug;90(2):314-20. Epub 2009 Jun 24. PubMed PMID: 19553295.

Edited by Michael, 21 February 2012 - 08:28 PM.

[hippocampus]

MR, what kinds of nuts do you prefer?

[Michael]

MR, what kinds of nuts do you prefer?

Hazelnuts: they've got, AFAICS, the best combination of high-MUFA, low-n6, low-SaFA.

They also complement red wine very nicely ...

[hippocampus]

aren't macadamia nuts better source of MUFA, with almost zero n-6 (but also more saturated fats)?