Calcium shift: An interesting hypothesis.

More serendipity! Billy the k left a comment that piqued my curiosity.

From http://www.health-heart.org/acceuil.htm The atheroma 'junk' in the media is cholesterol + calcium in older people.

From Aging and calcium as an environmental factor. (emphasis mine)
"The consequences of calcium deficiency might thus include not only osteoporosis, but also arteriosclerosis and hypertension due to the increase of calcium in the vascular wall, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and senile dementia due to calcium deposition in the central nervous system, and a decrease in cellular function, because of blunting of the difference in extracellular-intracellular calcium, leading to diabetes mellitus, immune deficiency and others.

I highlighted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in red, as many Facebook friends have been having buckets of water & ice cubes tipped over themselves to raise money for research into this horrible & ultimately fatal condition.

So, what prevents & reverses migration of calcium from hard tissues to soft tissues?
Clue: It carboxylates osteocalcin in bone matrix Gla proteins. Yes, it's Vitamin K2.

See also Calcium, parathyroids and aging. N.B. 50iu/kg bodyweight/day of Vitamin D3 significantly lowers parathyroid hormone.

ItsTheWoo, Me, and Sheeple.

This post is about http://itsthewooo.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/so-i-had-to-ban-nigel.html

From http://campvolant.com/2013/11/11/be-that-man-travail-en-cours/ I am "That man", where diet & nutrition is concerned.

My cunning plan worked! I needed an excuse to never have to visit that cluster-f*ck of a blog ever again, so I gradually increased the level of (well-deserved, may I add) snark & insults, in response to ItsTheWoo's insults to me, and misrepresentations about me, until she did what I wanted - i.e. banned me forever. Thank you!

In http://nigeepoo.blogspot.com/2014/08/dear-itsthewoo-how-do-you-do.html, I rebutted & debunked ItsTheWoo's strawman fallacies about me. I thought that she was merely ignorant of me, so I sent her a Friend Request on Facebook, which she accepted. I thought that if she knew more about me, she wouldn't use so many strawman fallacies.

Well, that was a complete waste of time! I took the opportunity to get to know her better, and what did I learn? She appears to be completely self-obsessed, and is mainly concerned with being as popular as possible, with as many followers as possible. To achieve this requires her to be constantly zany & "off the wall", with regular melt-downs to keep the troops entertained. She also likes nail varnish!

I don't actually have anything against her, other than her constant misrepresentations about me, which she's taken to an entirely new level in her latest melt-down.

After asking her pertinent questions in a friendly way, I ascertained that she was probably urinating excessive amounts of magnesium. See Magnesium and the Brain: The Original Chill Pill.
"Finally, magnesium is sequestered and wasted via the urine in times of stress."
This can create a vicious circle, whereby magnesium deficiency increases anxiety, which further increases stress. ItsTheWoo was complaining that dietary protein was making her too "wired", so I suggested that she increase her magnesium intake, and collect 24 hours of urine for analysis. I didn't even ask her to stick a needle in her arm for a blood test (as serum magnesium means nothing).

You'd think that I'd asked her to sell her mother from the way she carried on, making excuse after excuse to not wee into a 5 Litre container. I'm done with her, now. She obviously isn't interested in finding out the underlying reason why she has to eat a ketogenic diet all the time. She admitted that she's spent 12 years on a ketogenic diet, going from one supplement to the next, when tolerance develops. She's even tried Lithium. She's currently faffing about with a supplement called Kratom.

I'm sticking to Epsom Salts. It's cheap, it works and if you do overdose on it, you get a good run for your money! :-D As magnesium is a substance found naturally in the body, tolerance never develops.

The "Sheeple" part of the title is referring to ItsTheWoo's followers, who are no doubt slagging me off. Number of f*cks given = 0. It's interesting how she's built up a large following of mostly feeble-minded people who can't think for themselves, and who praise her for every post she writes, no matter how incorrect it might be.

I don't blog to be popular. I blog to help people, with accurate & up-to-date information about ways to treat nasty medical conditions that impair people's lives.

Hopefully, my next post will be back to business as usual. There's something big coming, and this time it's got nothing to do with Gluten or A1 Casein!

EDIT: As a result of the 191(!) comments to this post, here are some thought experiments in logic:-

Q1. If Woo's followers don't give a f*ck about me, why post about banning me?
A1. Because Woo is an attention-whore.

Q2. Woo could have shut me up by saying that she'd already had a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion. She didn't. Why?
A2. Because in 12 years of suffering mental issues, she's never had a had a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion.

Q3. Woo could have shut me up and shown that she's right and I'm wrong, by taking a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion. She didn't. Why?
A3. Because she knows that she's wrong and I'm right, because a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion would show excessive Mg excretion.

Q4. Why does Woo insist that a 24-hour urine test for excessive Mg excretion is worthless (it isn't)?
A4. Because EITHER she's worried that she'll lose her "shtick" of nuttiness and will lose followers (in which case, she's playing you all for fools and should be avoided), OR she's scared of change, due to mental illness (in which case, she's to be pitied and should be avoided).

Please discuss the above statements without deflecting onto irrelevancies e.g. my Aspergic tendencies. Yes, I admit that I have Aspergic tendencies. I've also admitted to being a nerd (click Nerds). So shoot me ;-)

Blindly following someone & believing everything that they say without ever verifying facts is dangerous, and can lead to the situation depicted in the picture at the top of this post (Godwin's Law alert). The opposite (total cynicism) is also unhealthy.

People need to do research of their own, or just read my blog, as I've already done loads of research. If your health problem isn't mentioned anywhere in my blog (check the labels first), please email me (there's a disguised email link in my "About me" section) and ask. I love doing research, as I never know what I'm going to discover, and I occasionally stumble across something really important by accident, as my recent posts on Constipation/IHD/Type 1 Diabetes/Schizophrenia/Autism, Hyperinsulinaemia, Age-related Macular Degeneration, Rheumatoid Arthritis & Calcium Shift have shown.

If I've been of help to you, please tell any family members or friends who are suffering from any conditions that are impairing their life. My suggestions must always be checked by someone's GP first, in case of contraindications with other medical conditions or medications that I don't know about. My suggestions must always be used as adjuncts to, NOT replacements for, someone's existing medication(s).

If symptoms improve, people should negotiate with their GP for a reduction in the dose of their medication(s), if their medication(s) has/have undesirable effects (e.g. bad side-effects, or a need for further medications such as PPI's like Omeprazole to reduce stomach acidity when taking NSAID's like Aspirin or Naproxen).

A "discussion" with Dr. Garth Davis M.D.

I put "discussion" in quotes, for reasons which will become obvious.

The Pyramid of Disagreement. You should be using the top 3 levels at all times.

I've written this because Dr. Davis has blocked me from leaving comments on his Facebook page, and I really need to reply to his last reply to me.

See https://www.facebook.com/drgarth/posts/834305339923709
I was acutely aware as an omnivore, of "walking into the lion's den", by posting a dissenting comment on a vegan's thread, but it was necessary as I had evidence of harm of vegan diets. The evidence on Denise Minger's teeth is supported by her own blog. The evidence on Jay Dinshah's fatal heart attack at the age of 66 is supported by a YouTube video by Dr Michael Greger, the vegan M.D. Dr Greger's video showed evidence of other harms caused by vegan diets that were lacking in vegan DHA & Vitamin B12.

EDIT: Dr. Davis has deleted all of my comments. However, he hasn't deleted his replies to them.

It's impossible to prove a hypothesis, even with n=1,000,000, as the 1,000,001th subject could be the "Black Swan" that disproves it. On the other hand, it only takes 1 "Black Swan" to disprove it. Therefore, n=1 evidence of harm is sufficient to disprove a hypothesis that something is harmless. See Falsifiability.

I provided n=2 evidence of harm.

Dr Davis' last comment to me:-
" Nigel Kinbrum really? You are giving me a n of 2. There is no data that vegans teeth fall out. If she was vitamin K deficient then she was eating a crappy diet lacking greens. It so stupid it's just silly. I also laugh at the idea that authority is some how bad. I have written a book with thousands of references. I give lectures on the topic and have treated thousands of patients yet Denise knows more than me. Silly."

My reply:-
1. As stated above, an n of 2 is double the n needed to disprove your hypothesis that there is no evidence of harm for vegan diets. I'd already pointed that out to you in a previous comment that you've since deleted.

2. I said that Denise's teeth were disintegrating. I didn't say that they fell out. That's a strawman fallacy.

3. Greens contain phylloquinone (Vitamin K1), not menatetrenone (Vitamin K2). Only Vitamin K2 carboxylates osteocalcin in MGP's. The only vegan source of Vitamin K2 is Nattō, a.k.a. pungent beans in a snot sauce.

4. See 3. Denise Minger was not eating a "crappy diet". That's an extremely insulting & uninformed comment for a medical professional to make about someone.

5. I never claimed that authority is bad. When you say "I am an expert in "X", therefore I am never wrong about "X".", that's an "Appeal to authority" fallacy. Jeez!

6. See 5. I never claimed that Denise Minger knows more than you. That's another strawman fallacy.


So, there you have it. Comments will only be approved if they meet my Moderation Policy. As long as I am blocked from commenting on Dr. Davis' Facebook page, Dr. Davis is blocked from commenting on my blog.

Rheumatoid Arthritis: It's the food!

I had an email query about Rheumatoid Arthritis, so off to PubMed I went.

From http://www.webmd.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/ss/slideshow-ra-overview

I found Controlled trial of fasting and one-year vegetarian diet in rheumatoid arthritis.

"Fasting is an effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, but most patients relapse on reintroduction of food."
This suggests that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an ongoing process, triggered by something that's consumed.

"After an initial 7-10 day subtotal fast, they were put on an individually adjusted gluten-free vegan diet for 3.5 months. The food was then gradually changed to a lactovegetarian diet for the remainder of the study."
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I'm thinking Gliadorphin-7, as per Wheat, Constipation, Ischaemic Heart Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, Schizophrenia and Autism.

This suggests that RA is caused by peptide chains passing through loose "tight junctions" in the gut, triggering an (inappropriate) autoimmune response. For ways to improve gut integrity, see Cow's milk, Schizophrenia and Autism.

BCM-7 can be avoided by drinking A2 milk. Most cheeses are made from A1 milk, so should be avoided. Swiss cheeses like Gruyère and Emmental are probably made from A2 milk, so suck 'em and see.

To reduce inflammation in joints, consuming oily fish may help, as an adjunct to prescribed anti-inflammatory medications.

Continued on Fibromyalgia: It's the food, again! (probably).

Why (LDL particle) size matters.

Having gone through the math(s) with several people, I thought I'd stick it in a blog post for posterity.

I know that this is a diagram of a chylomicron, but bear with me!

Cholesterol synthesised in the liver is exported in LDL particles. The more cholesterol that's synthesised, the more particles there need to be to carry it.

∴ LDL-P (particle number) ∝ LDL-C (total amount of cholesterol)

The particles are roughly spherical with a very thin wall (consisting of a phospholipid mono-layer, the yellow wiggly lines with a green end bit in the above diagram).

Volume of a sphere = 4/3 * π * r³, where r = half the diameter.

If there's a 10% reduction in LDL particle size, the volume reduces to 0.729, relative to the original size. Therefore, to carry the same amount of cholesterol requires 1/0.729 = 1.37 times more particles, which is a 37% increase in the number of LDL particles, relative to the original size.

∴ LDL-P (particle number) ∝ 1/LDLsize³

As it's LDL particle number that determines the infiltration of LDL cholesterol into the media of artery walls, it's advisable to keep cholesterol synthesis to a minimum by keeping fat intake to a reasonable level * (i.e. not Nutritional Ketosis level) and keeping LDL particle size to a maximum by keeping sugars & fast starches intake to a reasonable level*.

Before someone asks, what I mean by a reasonable level is a level that is burned by the body without having a chronic excess. An acute excess can be stored, provided that mean intake is less than mean burning.

How COULD I write a post about LDL-P and forget to include THIS?

Neovascularization/Neovascularisation: It doesn't ONLY cause CHD.

Another serendipitous moment.

From http://www.aao.org/theeyeshaveit/optic-fundus/retinal-neovascularization.cfm

After talking to someone with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), I Googled the condition and spotted the word neovascularisation. This reminded me of Neovascularization of coronary tunica intima (DIT) is the cause of coronary atherosclerosis. Lipoproteins invade coronary intima via neovascularization from adventitial vasa vasorum, but not from the arterial lumen: a hypothesis.

So I did a search on PubMed for Neovascularization/Neovascularisation. This is what I got:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28%28%22neovascularization,%20pathologic%22[MeSH%20Terms]%20OR%20%28%22neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%20AND%20%22pathologic%22[All%20Fields]%29%20OR%20%22pathologic%20neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%20OR%20%22neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%29%20OR%20%28%22neovascularization,%20pathologic%22[MeSH%20Terms]%20OR%20%28%22neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%20AND%20%22pathologic%22[All%20Fields]%29%20OR%20%22pathologic%20neovascularization%22[All%20Fields]%20OR%20%22neovascularisation%22[All%20Fields]%29%29%20AND%20%28%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDAT]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDAT]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29%20AND%20%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDAT]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDAT]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%20AND%20%28%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDAT]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDAT]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29%20AND%20%28%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDAT]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDAT]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29%20AND%20%28%28hasabstract[text]%20AND%20%22loattrfree%20full%20text%22[sb]%29%20AND%20%222009/09/14%22[PDat]%20:%20%222014/09/12%22[PDat]%20AND%20%22humans%22[MeSH%20Terms]%29

Even after restricting results, there were 5253 results. Wow!

It would appear that AMD has a lot in common with CHD. Ischaemia/Ischemia (lack of oxygen) to tissues causes the body to produce an adaptive response by growing new blood vessels (neovascularization/neovascularisation). Unfortunately, the new blood vessels are a bit crap, and cause other problems to develop e.g. CHD & AMD.

Therefore, prevention is better than cure. The things that lower the RR for CHD may also lower the RR for AMD. See Cholesterol And Coronary Heart Disease.

Another penny drops: Why severe hyperinsulinamia can occur with a small increase in exogenous carbohydrate intake.

This blog post is a result of Vim's comments in the previous blog post. A penny suddenly dropped!

From http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/85/1/69.full

Insulin has a Chalonic (inhibitory) action on blood glucose level (via the liver, muscle mass & fat mass), blood FFA level (via fat mass) and blood ketone body level (via the liver).

As mentioned in the comments, GHB has a stimulant effect - up to a certain level of blood GHB. Beyond that level, there's a powerful sedative effect. This is because at low levels of exogenous ketone body input, insulin secretion increases slightly to reduce hepatic ketogenesis.

At a certain level of exogenous ketone body input, hepatic ketogenesis falls to zero and cannot be reduced any further. Any slight increase beyond this point in exogenous ketone body input, results in a large increase in insulin secretion, as the pancreas increases Ketone body-Stimulated Insulin Secretion to maximum in a (failed) attempt to reduce blood ketone body level.

Exactly the same thing happens with exogenous carbohydrate or BHB input.

At a certain level of exogenous carbohydrate input, hepatic glucogenesis falls to zero and cannot be reduced any further. Any slight increase beyond this point in exogenous carbohydrate input, results in a large increase in insulin secretion, as the pancreas increases Glucose-Stimulated Insulin Secretion to maximum in a (failed) attempt to reduce blood glucose level.

Fun with maths: How many grams of "X" does it take to achieve "Y" mmol/L of "X" in the blood?

There are ≤3 fuels in blood - Glucose, Palmitic acid (FFA) & Beta-HydroxyButyric acid (Ketone body).

From http://www.medbio.info/horn/time%203-4/homeostasis1.htm#Sources%20of%20blood%20glucose:

Taking blood volume as 5L (a petite woman has less):-

5mmol/L of Glucose ≡ 4.5g of Glucose.

1mmol/L of Palmitic acid ≡ 1.28g of Palmitic acid.

6mmol/L of Beta-HydroxyButyric acid ≡ 3.12g of Beta-HydroxyButyric acid.

Instead of going on a ketogenic diet (with all of the health hazards associated with it), why not just add Beta-HydroxyButyric acid to your drinks?

There's a problem. All metabolic fuels produce an insulin response (from functioning pancreatic beta cells) - this is one of the ways the level of each fuel is regulated in a NFB loop. Therefore, drinking more than 3.12g of BHB (more than 2.76mL) produces a large insulin response, which results in sleepiness. Ditto for GHB.

When bad science goes...pretty much the same!

After the previous post, you may have got the impression that things are getting worse. Hmmm!

From http://covermyfb.com/covers/27316/say%2Csee+and+hear+no+evil

Hat-tip to James Beckerman, MD for https://twitter.com/jamesbeckerman/status/507544419847786496, which refers to Comparison of Named Diet Programs Finds Little Difference in Weight Loss Outcomes.

This study comes to the opposite conclusion of the study in my previous blog post. As that study was a pile of poo, that must mean that this study is 100% correct, right? Hmmm!

Your enemy's enemy is not necessarily your friend. See What about the Other Weight Loss Diet Study??
"Previous meta-analyses, such as Hession et al, had balanced inclusion criteria that allow us to directly compare low-fat to low-carb diets.  They reported exactly what anyone would expect who is familiar with the weight loss diet literature:

1. At 6 months, low-carb diets consistently lead to greater weight loss than low-fat diets. 
2. At one year, the difference has all but disappeared. 
3. Neither diet produces particularly impressive weight loss at one year or more.
4. The weight loss effectiveness of typical low-fat diets tends to be modest at all time points.

Oh, well. It could have been a lot worse!
 

When good science goes bad, part n+1.

In When good science goes bad , I looked at the effect of funding bias on research.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ5jbxMjexo

Effects of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets: A Randomized Trial has just been published. As expected, low-carbers are positively creaming themselves over it. I instantly smelled a rat, as the full study was behind a pay-wall.

Remembering Krauss' shenanigans with "carbohydrate", consisting of 50% sugars + 50% "complex" carbs (maltodextrin & amylopectin are complex carbs that hydrolyse into glucose so rapidly that they have a GI of 100 on the "Glucose=100" scale.), I suspected dodgy carbs in the "Low-fat" group.

Luckily, David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP had read the full study, and wrote about it in Diet Research, Stuck in the Stone Age.

As I suspected, it was another "fix-up" job, rigged to make low-carb diets look good, and low-fat diets look bad.

See also:-
Low-carbohydrate vs. Low-fat diets for Weight Loss: New Evidence,
What I Learned By Actually Reading That Low-Carb Is Best Study,
Is low-carb really the best weight loss diet? and
A Question about the latest diet study ...