Mark Sisson's Blog, page 183

I Didn’t Realize I’d Been Getting in Shape for the Fight of My Life

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

At age 52, I went to my doctor because I was having some pain in my back. When the nurse weighed me all she wrote was “400+.”  Even the doctor’s scale couldn’t handle my ever-growing bulk. A local feed store put me at 415 pounds.

Even at six foot six inches that was a scary number to accept. I decided to make changes in my life. First I had to deal with the pain I was experiencing. Turns out it was not my back at all but rather both hips were bone on bone and had been for years. I had trouble walking 10 steps before I had to stop.

They say that in life the master will appear when the student is ready. And that’s exactly what happened to me with Mark Sisson. While trying to figure out how to turn my girth around, I stumbled across Mark and the Primal community.

I embraced the ideas and began to modify my eating. I wish I could tell you I did the sprinting or even the walking around but I was virtually chair bound when I began my journey.  Almost immediately I saw and felt results. After a brief bout of carb withdrawal, I noticed my energy was improving.

In the first month my weight was down, but I didn’t know how much because my home scale still couldn’t handle me. I also noticed my energy was up and my pain had decreased. For years, I had taken what seemed like a handfuls of pain meds just to make it through the day, and I took sleep medicine at night because my hip pain kept me awake. However, as I cleaned up my diet I began to take fewer and fewer drugs.

After 16 months, I had lost 125 pounds and felt years younger. I still needed to replace both hips, but I had managed to build a deck in my back yard. I also hauled in 25 yards of dirt to complete a patio. I mixed all the cement myself by hand; my energy was insanely high.

Eventually, I began to exercise at the gym. I used a high-intensity approach once a week and had a work around for leg press because of my hips. My body composition changed quickly but my weight stayed the same at about 280 pounds. That’s a 135-pound loss, but it was more than that. I began to look differently.

At 55, I began a push-up routine and quickly progressed from a 20-year drought of zero to being able to do 30. I was using intermittent fasting as a tool to stay clean and instill personal discipline in my life. I took to it like a duck to water. Most days I’d fast 16-18 hours and never lose energy or be hungry.

Eventually, I got to 265 pounds. It had been several years and 150 pounds since I stood on that grain scale.

It’s difficult to express how radical the change was in my life. I had my first hip replaced, and after I recovered I was back in the gym. But around Thanksgiving 2015 I began to feel a little less well. I was getting tired quickly. By February, I needed to take two and three breaks just to climb a single flight of stairs.

My doctor sent me for a colonoscopy. I went in feeling a bit run down and came out with a stage four cancer diagnosis. Five months earlier I had been feeling better than at any point for 25 years. Now I had a less than 10 percent chance of living 5 years.

I had colon cancer. It had spread to 6 lymph nodes, and I had four tumors on my liver. I didn’t realize I had been getting in shape for the fight of my life. After several rounds of chemo, I had surgery to remove all the infected areas. Half of my liver was taken, 18 inches of large intestine and the affected nodes were removed. Two of the four liver tumors had disappeared from the chemotherapy, so that half of my liver was excluded from surgery.

I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I had not been living primal. Everyone who met me said I didn’t even look sick. Even during the post-surgical chemo therapy no one commented that I looked anything but a little weak.

I read on MDA that some people used fasting to minimize the impact of side effects during chemo. While this is only personal experience, I did notice a big difference between receiving chemo in a fasting state and not. I found I could easily fast 18 to 20 hours into chemo and another 12 to 16 out, and I felt better.

Except for the complications from using platinum-based drugs in my treatment, I had minimal side effects. Those drugs attack your nervous system and cause severe fatigue and neuropathy—both of which I suffered from terribly.

After the surgery and chemical treatment, I had no evidence of disease. Within ninety days I was back working out again and feeling great. Sixty days after that the two missing spots returned in my liver. We treated this one with surgery but no chemotherapy. I recovered and healed really well and returned to work less than three weeks after surgery.

Today I’m 57 years old. I still need a hip replaced, but I’m eating clean, fasting, and have no evidence of cancer in my system. All of the originally diagnosed tumors were gone, and unless it spread to places unknown, I’m clear.

I know there is evidence that fasting helps cancer risk. I also believe it may have prevented mine from spreading even further before discovery. I fell off the wagon with my diet during chemo and gained some weight back. Today I weigh 290 and have about 60 to lose. But I’m not worried. I know the primal lifestyle will help transform me into the best version of myself.

Primal living helped me not only lose 150 pounds, overcome a total hip replacement, and fight off stage four cancer, but it also made me appreciate my life in ways I never did before. I have the energy I need to accomplish my goals and spend quality time with my family. A Primal lifestyle changed me in profound and unexpected ways.

While in the hospital recovering from the second surgery, my publisher sent me an advanced copy of a book I had written. You see, while engaging in intermittent fasting I didn’t eat lunch, and I had a lot of energy that needed releasing. I teach 8th grade science, so I wrote a book about using primal ideas in the classroom. Now The Primal Teacher is out there in the world, helping teachers have better classrooms.

When I started down this primal journey I could never imagine all the places it would take me. Today I live each day as fully I as can. I strive to be in the moment.

My experience should convince anyone that you are not too old, you are not too sick, and you are not too hurt to get started. Once you begin living primal, amazing things can happen. Thank you, Mark. You are a real life saver.

The post I Didn’t Realize I’d Been Getting in Shape for the Fight of My Life appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

How Should We Harness Behavioral Economics for Better Health?

As much as humans think they’re objective beings whose every decision emerges from cold logical calculation, we’re just irrational, emotional animals. That’s why stories and anecdotes are more convincing than facts, why people fear losing money twice as much as they enjoy making it, and why the guy making $100k per year feels poor if his neighbors make twice that. This kind of phenomenon is best explained by behavioral economics, a method of economic inquiry that uses psychological, emotional, cognitive, and social factors to explain why we make the often-irrational financial choices we do. And it has some interesting applications for health….

In a recent piece in the NY Times, a doctor discussed how health care professionals are beginning to leverage behavioral economics to make their patients healthier. He begins with a few examples of behavioral economics in action.

People are more likely to choose an option if it’s the default position. In one study, countries where people had to opt-out of organ donation had organ donor rates of over 90%, compared to donor rates of 4 to 27% in places where people had to opt-in.

People are more likely to make a decision when given fewer options. Too many options make decision-making harder, as anyone who’s spent two hours reading hand blender reviews on Amazon before giving up and ordering nothing can tell you.

While we wait for the experts and authorities to fine-tune their benevolent social nudges, how can we take advantage of behavioral economics for our own health?

Penalties Work Better Than Rewards

People hate losing money. Future rewards are just that: in the future. They’re abstractions. Forking over money, placing your own hard-earned cash in limbo while you succeed or fail is very real. You had money, then it went away. That’s happening in the present moment, and you feel it—rather poignantly. As behavioral economics pioneers Kahneman and Tversky said in 1979, “losses loom larger than gains.”

Stickk was created by a behavioral economist who knew the power of loss aversion. With StickK, users interested in accomplishing a goal formally make a commitment to reach that goal by a certain date and put some of their own money on the line to be forfeited if the commitment is not fulfilled. You set the goal, lay out the stakes of your commitment (how much money, if any, will you put on the line, and where will the money go if you fail?), choose a “referee” to track your progress, keep you honest and report your progress to StickK, and choose other StickK users as supporters to cheer you on. Choose a goal template or create your own from scratch. Goals can be ongoing commitments requiring constant check-ins, or one-time things where you either succeed or fail.

Another option is Pavlok, a device created by the guy who paid a woman off Craigslist to slap him across the face each time he stopped focusing on his work. You strap the Pavlok onto your wrist—it looks a lot like a FitBit—and decide on a bad habit you’d like to break or a good one you’d like to establish. Each time you fail to hold your side of the bargain, the Pavlok zaps you with a mild but uncomfortable electric shock. (This option might not be for everyone, but I’d love to hear from those who do try it.)

Don’t Shop When You’re Hungry

Shopping for anything when hungry is a bad idea. Studies show that hunger increases the amount we spend, even if we’re shopping for something totally unrelated to food. When you’re hungry, you desire more of everything.

Hungry grocery shoppers make worse choices, too, choosing unhealthier, higher-calorie junk food over healthier, lower-calorie real food.

To this, I’d also add the tangentially related “Don’t go out to eat at an expensive sushi restaurant if you’re starving.” There’s no quicker way to run up a bill.

If you must go shopping while hungry, prepare a list beforehand. That list will be your life vest of rationality in the stormy, boiling sea of gurgling stomach juices drifting you toward the snack aisle.

Sink Your Costs in Health

You may have heard of the “sunk cost fallacy”—which describes how people feel compelled to stick with something they’ve already paid for, even if it’s horrible, just to “get their money’s worth.” It usually refers to a negative, harmful behavior.

Sometimes the sunk cost mentality is helpful, though. Wasting 3 hours of your life on an awful movie just bcause you paid $12 is bad. Going to the gym three times a week for a full year because you paid $1000 for the year membership up front is good. Both are sunk costs, but one has a good result. Other examples of positive sunk costs include personal training sessions, massage sessions, expensive exercise equipment (barbells, stationary bikes, kettlebells, etc).

Price matters here. The sunk cost effect will be greater the higher your initial investment. It’s harder to ignore a $1000-a-year membership at the local powerlifting gym than it is to ignore the Planet Fitness package you got for less than $100.

Surround Yourself with People Making the Choices You Want to Make

According to a 2013 study, people tend to converge to the lowest common denominator. Office workers were all given access to treadmill desks, then followed for six months. When people got regular updates about everyone else’s treadmill usage, they used them less, regressed to the lowest common denominator. When people didn’t know how often the others were using the treadmills, usage went up.

Since social media and basic physical proximity make it nearly impossible ot avoid knowing what everyone else is doing, your best bet is to surround yourself with people doing awesome, healthy things on a regular basis. Follow Facebook and Instagram friends with healthy habits. Train at a gym where the other people’s feats inspire you. Make sure the lowest common denominator is higher than most.

Order Groceries

When you’re at the grocery store, even a healthy one like Whole Foods, they’re tugging on your emotions and base desires at every turn. I don’t fault them for it. It’s how merchandising works. Just know that’s what you’re walking into, unless you decide not to walk into the store at all.

These days, that’s actually possible. You can order groceries from a place like Thrive (my favorite) or Instacart. Instead of idly browsing through the entire store’s inventory, where you might run into something junky, you search for the exact categories you want, and then you browse. If you don’t want the gluten-free almond flour macaroons you can’t ever walk past, you simply don’t search for them.

Don’t Just Imagine the Worst Possible Scenario—Feel It

In an effort to dissuade cigarette usage, many countries have established laws requiring the use of graphic warning labels that depict potential consequences of long-term smoking, in lurid detail. Does the sight of a cancerous orifice, tracheotomy hole, or dead body make people more likely to try quitting? It appears so. Graphic warning labels correlate with both more attempts to quit and reduced rates of smoking. 

This can work for everyday health practices, too. Immerse yourself in graphic, visceral evidence of the worst thing than can happen to you if you don’t lose weight/exercise/do what you need to do.

Prediabetic? Rev up the images of diabetic foot amputations and festering sores.

Stiff and inactive? Look up knee replacements, watch arthroscopic surgery videos.

Make Healthy Food and Exercise the Default

We stick with the default option more often than not. It’s harder to opt-out than opt-in. Make it so that you have to opt-out of eating right and exercising.

Every Sunday, do meal prep for the rest of the week. Cook up a big batch of something. That way, if you want something unhealthy, you have to “opt-out” of eating the healthy food you already have prepared and ready to go. This also works on smaller scales, such as keeping hard-boiled eggs on hand or chopping veggies and prepping salad makings days in advance.

A few ideas for making exercise and movement the default position:

Start active commuting to work.

Eliminate your office chair. Force yourself to stand (or walk).

Keep a kettlebell (or barbell, or dumbbell, or weight vest, or any piece of equipment) right outside your bedroom door. Whenever you wake up, there it is waiting for you.

Behavioral economics is powerful and, in my opinion, quite accurate. Most of us “use” it every day without even realizing it. How else can you leverage behavioral economics to make it easier to eat, move, and live Primally?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.

The post How Should We Harness Behavioral Economics for Better Health? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

What’s the Difference Between Primal and Paleo?

The paleo diet and Primal Blueprint way of eating (a.k.a. Primal) are both based on similar evolutionary science. The story goes something like this. Our modern Western diet bears little resemblance to the eating habits of early humans throughout several 100,000 years of evolutionary history. Instead, since the Agricultural Revolution some mere 10,000 years ago, we’ve adopted a nutritional regime to which our physiology is poorly adapted. When the basics of our diet return to the patterns of our pre-agricultural ancestors, we work with, instead of against, our physiology. More simply: eat as our ancestors ate, and we’ll be healthier for it.

The paleo diet and Primal Blueprint both recommend limiting carb intake (especially grains) to only as many as you require for performance, eating more protein and fat, and including lots of veggies as a base. But in the midst of this common ground are some key differences.

Back when Primal was just getting started (around the time I was writing the first edition of The Primal Blueprint—the evolving template of my vision for the Primal Blueprint way of eating and living), a fundamental difference of opinion between paleo and Primal centered on the role of saturated fats in the diet.

Loren Cordain and many within the paleo community toed the conventional line on saturated fats as the bogey that raises cholesterol and instigates heart disease, while the Primal Blueprint as I envisioned it was quick to recognize it as a neutral, stable source of fat important for energy, neurological function, hormone manufacture, and cellular structure. Paleo supporters recommended focusing on lean meats, avoiding butter, and limiting coconut oil. The Primal community did not, pointing to the many examples of hunter-gatherers who preferred higher-fat portions of animals, the extensive evidence of bone marrow consumption by paleolithic humans, and the trove of modern research exonerating saturated fat. The paleo stance has since changed, so there’s not a significant distinction in that regard anymore.

Another big difference is our treatment of dairy. Paleo restricts dairy, considering it maladaptive, if not downright toxic. They home in on the dairy proteins, specifically casein, as allergens and primary troublemakers. Primal takes a different view. While we grant that dairy can be problematic for people intolerant of its lactose or its protein, we maintain that full-fat dairy, preferably raw, fermented, and/or from pastured-raised animals, is a fantastic source of healthy fat, immune-boosting and muscle-building protein, and bioavailable calcium.

Another difference is how we approach the nightshade family of vegetables, which includes potatoes, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes. I love them all. I don’t eat a lot of potatoes, but if I’m going for a dense source of starch and the purple sweet potatoes aren’t in season, I’m grabbing a basic white potato. And don’t get me started on the joy and ease of turning cooked and cooled Russets into french fries in under five minutes. But chili peppers and tomatoes are staples in my diet. Paleo takes a more cautious stance on nightshades, fingering them as a potential initiator of leaky gut and low-grade inflammation. They’re especially hostile to the white potato.

Primal is huge on coffee, and paleo isn’t.

Legumes are less problematic than I’d originally assumed, while paleo still restricts them. I say eat them if you like and tolerate them. Paleo does not.

When you get past the contrary position on coffee, the legume agnosticism, and the stances on potatoes and nightshades and dairy, there aren’t a lot of differences between paleo eating and Primal eating itself. The biggest difference is in the name: the paleo diet is a diet, while the Primal Blueprint is a lifestyle. You’ll often hear “make it a lifestyle shift, not a diet,” and it’s great advice. Diets don’t work. They come with built-in endpoints, “goal weights” that, once reached, people use to justify quitting.

Meanwhile, the Primal Blueprint works as a broad, holistic approach to living, not just eating. While I’m on board with the majority of the underlying assumptions and suggestions of paleo eating, diet is only one cog in the machine. Health, happiness, and wellness depend on many other factors like sleep, exercise, social contact, mental stimulation, nature immersion, life fulfillment, and light exposure. It’s rare to find people who understand and attempt to embody all these essential aspects of the human experience—who can put it all together and trace the lines running between each seemingly disparate piece. The Primal Blueprint does that far better than most other “diets.”

Still, there are other important distinctions between Primal and paleo as approaches to health.

Skepticism, Not Dismissal

Cordain is a resolute and honest man of science, couching his recommendations in his perusal of the literature. Even if I don’t agree with everything he says (and I agree with most of it), he’s not just throwing stuff out there. He’s not a paleo re-enactor. But some of the stricter adherents to paleo do practice a priori dismissal of anything that even sniffs of the neolithic. That’s dishonest, and it means you’ll miss out on great things.

Primal is a great starting point, a generator of hypotheses and experimentation and questions. Modern things with limited evolutionary precedent get a skeptical eye in the Primal Blueprint, not a priori dismissal (well, maybe not everything).

Pragmatism, Not Absolutism

Primal folks are not primitive literalists. We are pragmatists. If it works, it works—even if it’s modern.

For example, the Primal Blueprint recommends wise supplementation appropriate to counter the stressors and toxins unique to our life today. Grok dealt with acute stressors—like an intense hunt, an encounter with a venomous snake or big cat, or a battle over resources (or mates). Grok didn’t deal with the kind of chronic stress that modern folks must contend with—the long commutes, the bills piling up, the mortgage, the stress of a sensationalist 24-hour news cycle. Grok’s world was relatively pure, free of industrial contaminants, pollution, heavy metals, and xenoestrogens. Ours is rife with it. Supplementation can help mitigate some of these unavoidable, modern stressors.

Grok didn’t eat whey protein powder, but it sure is helpful and convenient if you want to increase muscle protein synthesis after a workout or boost glutathione status. Additionally, own experience with collagen supplementation has resulted in noticeable improvements in mobility and tendon strength, suggesting that, unless I start doing bone broth or copious amounts of offal almost daily, I’m probably better served taking a collagen supplement.

Primal folks recognize the danger of spending too much time in the digital realm to the exclusion of the physical one. But they’re going to use modern technology to enhance health, not hamper it. These technologies are all just tools, and you are a tool-making ape reading this on a device connected to a global network.

Everyone Can “Join”

Tons of people love the great outdoors but eat terrible food. Millions are exercise fanatics who genuinely enjoy hoisting barbells and running sprints but spend all their free time staring into their phones. Practically anyone you ask will admit that “real food” is better than “processed food.” For as many people who say “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” there are more who love and treasure a good night’s sleep. Meditation and other stress relief modalities are exploding all over the place. Almost everyone likes socializing with people they love and like. A good portion of people prefer going barefoot, at least around the house.

Primal has the tendency to ensnare people who’d otherwise turn up their noses at the thought of doing “that paleo diet thing.” Maybe it attracts the hiking vegetarian, and maybe that person will learn about the importance of lifting heavy things, eating unprocessed foods, and ditching gluten. Maybe they’ll eat a steak now and then (no pressure).

Primal Is Fluid, Not Rigid Ideology

No one’s perfect. We make mistakes. And sometimes the “mistake” isn’t a mistake. Sometimes we just want to eat that slice of pizza and have the beer and stay up late watching the game. That’s fine. You may not feel great the next morning, but you prepare for and accept that. Informed consent is everything.

Fluidity also allows the Primal Blueprint to account for the progression of science. Not that we have a choice here. Science unfolds. It doesn’t stop or stand still. It doesn’t slow down for your preconceived biases. It moves, man. And Primal moves with it. For instance, I’ve adapted my stance on protein intake throughout the years, suggesting that we may not need as much as I once thought or advocated, based on the research available at the time. 

Another good example is how the growing science of population genetics is quickly revealing that human evolution didn’t stop 10,000 years ago, nor are humans from one part of the world genetically identical to humans from another part. From nutrient requirements to macronutrient metabolism to muscle fiber composition, your personal genetic variation may partially determine the best health, diet, and exercise practices. Now, this field is still in its infancy and we don’t have good answers yet. But I’m watching with bated breath. 

I designed The Primal Blueprint for the purpose of offering a guide for all elements of healthy living, and with the help and input of the Primal community over the last decade, it accomplishes that better than ever. Let’s face it, some days life makes it particularly difficult to have the perfect diet. Some people might not even want to worry about their food at all. We like to think of the Primal Blueprint design as a comprehensive cover, so to speak. The knowledge and efforts you exert in each area (diet, fitness, supplementation, stress management, sleep, etc.) can make a difference when the realities of day to day life keep you from doing a 100% in a given area.

Paleo is a good prescription for how to eat. It works. Don’t get me wrong.

It’s just not enough.

Primal is on one level a guideline for how to eat, live, and move in congruence with your physiology. On another level, it’s an operating system for asking questions about health, making good choices, and discovering best practices for enriching one’s existence.

I know which one I prefer.

So, now we’ll ask you about your experiences with the Primal Blueprint and how you came to it? Did you come to the PB from a paleo perspective? What are your thoughts on the differences and the added dimensions of the Primal Blueprint? Thanks for reading today.

This post was originally published in 2008. I’ve revised it substantially to reflect the evolution of both the paleo movement and the Primal Blueprint philosophy in the last several years.

The post What’s the Difference Between Primal and Paleo? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

What’s the Difference between Primal and Paleo?

The paleo diet and Primal Blueprint way of eating (a.k.a. Primal) are both based on similar evolutionary science. The story goes something like this. Our modern Western diet bears little resemblance to the eating habits of early humans throughout several 100,000 years of evolutionary history. Instead, since the Agricultural Revolution some mere 10,000 years ago, we’ve adopted a nutritional regime to which our physiology is poorly adapted. When the basics of our diet return to the patterns of our pre-agricultural ancestors, we work with, instead of against, our physiology. More simply: eat as our ancestors ate, and we’ll be healthier for it.

The paleo diet and Primal Blueprint both recommend limiting carb intake (especially grains) to only as many as you require for performance, eating more protein and fat, and including lots of veggies as a base. But in the midst of this common ground are some key differences.

Back when Primal was just getting started (around the time I was writing the first edition of The Primal Blueprint—the evolving template of my vision for the Primal Blueprint way of eating and living), a fundamental difference of opinion between paleo and Primal centered on the role of saturated fats in the diet.

Loren Cordain and many within the paleo community toed the conventional line on saturated fats as the bogey that raises cholesterol and instigates heart disease, while the Primal Blueprint as I envisioned it was quick to recognize it as a neutral, stable source of fat important for energy, neurological function, hormone manufacture, and cellular structure. Paleo supporters recommended focusing on lean meats, avoiding butter, and limiting coconut oil. The Primal community did not, pointing to the many examples of hunter-gatherers who preferred higher-fat portions of animals, the extensive evidence of bone marrow consumption by paleolithic humans, and the trove of modern research exonerating saturated fat. The paleo stance has since changed, so there’s not a significant distinction in that regard anymore.

Another big difference is our treatment of dairy. Paleo restricts dairy, considering it maladaptive, if not downright toxic. They home in on the dairy proteins, specifically casein, as allergens and primary troublemakers. Primal takes a different view. While we grant that dairy can be problematic for people intolerant of its lactose or its protein, we maintain that full-fat dairy, preferably raw, fermented, and/or from pastured-raised animals, is a fantastic source of healthy fat, immune-boosting and muscle-building protein, and bioavailable calcium.

Another difference is how we approach the nightshade family of vegetables, which includes potatoes, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes. I love them all. I don’t eat a lot of potatoes, but if I’m going for a dense source of starch and the purple sweet potatoes aren’t in season, I’m grabbing a basic white potato. And don’t get me started on the joy and ease of turning cooked and cooled Russets into french fries in under five minutes. But chili peppers and tomatoes are staples in my diet. Paleo takes a more cautious stance on nightshades, fingering them as a potential initiator of leaky gut and low-grade inflammation. They’re especially hostile to the white potato.

Primal is huge on coffee, and paleo isn’t.

Legumes are less problematic than I’d originally assumed, while paleo still restricts them. I say eat them if you like and tolerate them. Paleo does not.

When you get past the contrary position on coffee, the legume agnosticism, and the stances on potatoes and nightshades and dairy, there aren’t a lot of differences between paleo eating and Primal eating itself. The biggest difference is in the name: the paleo diet is a diet, while the Primal Blueprint is a lifestyle. You’ll often hear “make it a lifestyle shift, not a diet,” and it’s great advice. Diets don’t work. They come with built-in endpoints, “goal weights” that, once reached, people use to justify quitting.

Meanwhile, the Primal Blueprint works as a broad, holistic approach to living, not just eating. While I’m on board with the majority of the underlying assumptions and suggestions of paleo eating, diet is only one cog in the machine. Health, happiness, and wellness depend on many other factors like sleep, exercise, social contact, mental stimulation, nature immersion, life fulfillment, and light exposure. It’s rare to find people who understand and attempt to embody all these essential aspects of the human experience—who can put it all together and trace the lines running between each seemingly disparate piece. The Primal Blueprint does that far better than most other “diets.”

Still, there are other important distinctions between Primal and paleo as approaches to health.

Skepticism, Not Dismissal

Cordain is a resolute and honest man of science, couching his recommendations in his perusal of the literature. Even if I don’t agree with everything he says (and I agree with most of it), he’s not just throwing stuff out there. He’s not a paleo re-enactor. But some of the stricter adherents to paleo do practice a priori dismissal of anything that even sniffs of the neolithic. That’s dishonest, and it means you’ll miss out on great things.

Primal is a great starting point, a generator of hypotheses and experimentation and questions. Modern things with limited evolutionary precedent get a skeptical eye in the Primal Blueprint, not a priori dismissal (well, maybe not everything).

Pragmatism, Not Absolutism

Primal folks are not primitive literalists. We are pragmatists. If it works, it works—even if it’s modern.

For example, the Primal Blueprint recommends wise supplementation appropriate to counter the stressors and toxins unique to our life today. Grok dealt with acute stressors—like an intense hunt, an encounter with a venomous snake or big cat, or a battle over resources (or mates). Grok didn’t deal with the kind of chronic stress that modern folks must contend with—the long commutes, the bills piling up, the mortgage, the stress of a sensationalist 24-hour news cycle. Grok’s world was relatively pure, free of industrial contaminants, pollution, heavy metals, and xenoestrogens. Ours is rife with it. Supplementation can help mitigate some of these unavoidable, modern stressors.

Grok didn’t eat whey protein powder, but it sure is helpful and convenient if you want to increase muscle protein synthesis after a workout or boost glutathione status. Additionally, own experience with collagen supplementation has resulted in noticeable improvements in mobility and tendon strength, suggesting that, unless I start doing bone broth or copious amounts of offal almost daily, I’m probably better served taking a collagen supplement.

Primal folks recognize the danger of spending too much time in the digital realm to the exclusion of the physical one. But they’re going to use modern technology to enhance health, not hamper it. These technologies are all just tools, and you are a tool-making ape reading this on a device connected to a global network.

Everyone Can “Join”

Tons of people love the great outdoors but eat terrible food. Millions are exercise fanatics who genuinely enjoy hoisting barbells and running sprints but spend all their free time staring into their phones. Practically anyone you ask will admit that “real food” is better than “processed food.” For as many people who say “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” there are more who love and treasure a good night’s sleep. Meditation and other stress relief modalities are exploding all over the place. Almost everyone likes socializing with people they love and like. A good portion of people prefer going barefoot, at least around the house.

Primal has the tendency to ensnare people who’d otherwise turn up their noses at the thought of doing “that paleo diet thing.” Maybe it attracts the hiking vegetarian, and maybe that person will learn about the importance of lifting heavy things, eating unprocessed foods, and ditching gluten. Maybe they’ll eat a steak now and then (no pressure).

Primal Is Fluid, Not Rigid Ideology

No one’s perfect. We make mistakes. And sometimes the “mistake” isn’t a mistake. Sometimes we just want to eat that slice of pizza and have the beer and stay up late watching the game. That’s fine. You may not feel great the next morning, but you prepare for and accept that. Informed consent is everything.

Fluidity also allows the Primal Blueprint to account for the progression of science. Not that we have a choice here. Science unfolds. It doesn’t stop or stand still. It doesn’t slow down for your preconceived biases. It moves, man. And Primal moves with it. For instance, I’ve adapted my stance on protein intake throughout the years, suggesting that we may not need as much as I once thought or advocated, based on the research available at the time. 

Another good example is how the growing science of population genetics is quickly revealing that human evolution didn’t stop 10,000 years ago, nor are humans from one part of the world genetically identical to humans from another part. From nutrient requirements to macronutrient metabolism to muscle fiber composition, your personal genetic variation may partially determine the best health, diet, and exercise practices. Now, this field is still in its infancy and we don’t have good answers yet. But I’m watching with bated breath. 

I designed The Primal Blueprint for the purpose of offering a guide for all elements of healthy living, and with the help and input of the Primal community over the last decade, it accomplishes that better than ever. Let’s face it, some days life makes it particularly difficult to have the perfect diet. Some people might not even want to worry about their food at all. We like to think of the Primal Blueprint design as a comprehensive cover, so to speak. The knowledge and efforts you exert in each area (diet, fitness, supplementation, stress management, sleep, etc.) can make a difference when the realities of day to day life keep you from doing a 100% in a given area.

Paleo is a good prescription for how to eat. It works. Don’t get me wrong.

It’s just not enough.

Primal is on one level a guideline for how to eat, live, and move in congruence with your physiology. On another level, it’s an operating system for asking questions about health, making good choices, and discovering best practices for enriching one’s existence.

I know which one I prefer.

So, now we’ll ask you about your experiences with the Primal Blueprint and how you came to it? Did you come to the PB from a paleo perspective? What are your thoughts on the differences and the added dimensions of the Primal Blueprint? Thanks for reading today.

The post What’s the Difference between Primal and Paleo? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

10 Actions for an Anti-Stress Protocol

It almost goes without saying: Stress is at an all-time high. Not the kind of major traumatic stress we see elsewhere, sure. At least in the Western world, there aren’t any horrific sectarian conflicts scouring the landscape and generations to come. Our infrastructure is built to withstand most natural disasters. Our world is safe and predictable and sterile. But we’re stressed out just the same, afflicted with the kind of pernicious, low-level, unending stress that drives people into substance abuse, that promotes depression and suicide and broken relationships. The type that never quits. The kind you just want to drown out with Netflix and Facebook and anything at all to take your mind off the churning within.

Most people address stress in one of two ways. Either you build up your resistance to stress, so that it doesn’t hurt you so much, or you play triage, developing tools, tricks, and strategies for countering stress and dealing with it when it occurs. This assumes that stress is a given. I tend to agree. Stressors arise; it’s what they do. The most effective way to minimize the impact of stress on our health and wellness is to engage both perspectives—to establish baseline health practices and life management that build resilience and to equip oneself with tools to fight stress when it strikes.

Before anything, get the basics down. Good sleep, good food, regular exercise, and steady exposure to nature are all prerequisites for healthy relationships to stress. They’re necessary, but rarely sufficient.

What, for instance, can we do to pause and hit reset when under duress, when the furnace just conked out, the oldest child barfed at breakfast, and a looming work project is suddenly due today? And what can we do so those crises either don’t happen as often or hit us quite as hard?

Seek Meaning, Not Happiness

Happiness is a real thing, but it’s fleeting. You can’t grab it for long—it’ll just flit away. It’s part of the journey. If your goal is to get back in shape, happiness happens along the way—when you hit a squat PR, when you plop down on the couch with a good book and a bowl of meat and sweet potatoes after a tough sprint workout. You don’t hit a specific point of fitness, attain happiness, and remain there in a state of bliss. Happiness emerges from the pursuit of meaning. Think ongoing instead of endpoint.

What does this have to do with stress? Chasing something that’s impossible to catch is inherently stressful, if not defeating. You’ll be wondering why “you’re not happy.” Find meaning, find purpose, and that existential stress will melt away. You’ll know what to do and, most importantly, why to do it.

It seems to work for residents in Tamil Nadu, where having a well-defined purpose to life reduces psychosocial stress.

Stay Uninformed

Being informed about the world at large is overrated. And impossible. I’m not advocating putting your head in the sand, but there’s only so much a person can effectively absorb (let alone process and act on). The 24/7 news cycle means the news (bad or good) never stops. It’s always plowing ahead, and if you want to stay apprised, you can’t ever stop checking the updates. Being informed is a full-time job. What good does it do to know the nuances of every mishap, outrage, and tragedy that plays out in the world? A politician’s every social media post? Every dismal statistic? Every horrifying image of war and calamity?

That sounds cold and callous. But it’s just reality: We’re not built to worry about billions of people, or even the tens and hundreds of thousands of strangers living nearby. And we stress (and often suffer) as a result.

In a recent survey of people who reported feeling stressed out on a regular basis, one of the most common triggers for their stress was consuming the news.

If this is anathema to you and you honestly enjoy reading about current events, pick up some history books. Instead of obsessing over the 24-hour news cycle, read up on the history of Syria, the Sudan, and the American Civil War. Read a biography of Lincoln. Study Venezuelan history. The lesson may be more than informative. It may give your nerves a break.

Rethink Stress

The stress response isn’t trying to kill you. It’s not trying to make you miserable and unable to function. The stress response is preparing you to do battle, to act, to perform. Those nerves? The flutter in your stomach? That’s your nervous system impressing upon you the monumental nature of the task at hand. It wants you to step up, and it’s increasing the heart rate to promote better blood flow so your tissues can perform.

Understand that and the stress becomes an ally, not a hindrance. One recent study suggests this, finding that although high amounts of stress increase the risk of dying, it does so only in individuals who perceive stress to be harmful. In people who don’t see stress as a health threat, stress does not appear to increase mortality.

Take a Relaxing Lunch

Lunch is rarely lunch anymore. At lunchtime in offices around the world, people scuttle off to procure/heat their food, rush back to the desk, and wolf it down while continuing to work. What if you did things differently?

According to a new study, taking an actual lunch break outdoors that includes a short walk or a 15-minute relaxation exercise session reduces workplace stress, improves fatigue, and increases well-being. Consider it a wise buffer for every work day.

Stop Taking Everything for Granted

We ignore the predictable. We don’t appreciate the dependable. On paper, things are great these days. The lights work, we have hot water, the streets are mostly safe. We can communicate instantly with people halfway across the world. Access to all the world’s knowledge rests in our pockets. Everything is amazing. Yet, we don’t notice it.

Instead, we focus on everything that’s going wrong. It’s understandable. That’s how we’re built—to detect novelty. But it makes the world a very stressful place.

Force yourself to take in the good. You can call this showing gratitude. Or being thankful. Or maybe just opening your eyes and taking stock of your life as objectively as possible. Life isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s great in many respects. Start acknowledging that!

Live a Life That Embodies Your Full Personality (as well as Potential)

I’ve written before about the value of knowing yourself and the sabotage  inherent to comparison. Whether it’s following your passion, your introversion/extroversion, your personal values, or other identity-based facets, living who you are fully and authentically matters in the grand scheme. Feeling like you have to “stuff” or shrink your individuality throughout your day may be more than just a drag on joy—but a genuine threat to health.

What matters is what’s natural to you—in your work, your relationships, your daily routine. Be honest with yourself about what you really need from life, or risk fragmentation. There’s nothing more stressful than a civil war inside one’s identity each day.

You have to dig down deep, sift through the layers of conditioning, and  build a life that’s congruent with what matters to you. Discover what that is. Then go be that.

Drop Everything and Get out into Nature

We need to get out of the habit of white-knuckling life and calling it discipline. If the proverbial stress typhoon has touched down—the kids are screaming, the pressure of a deadline is mounting, your brain is churning with indecision and confusion—drop everything, grab what/whom you need, and get the hell out of there. Go to the nearest green/blue space: a park, a forest, the beach, the desert, the meadow.

You can take your work with you. Bring your laptop, turn a rock or tree stump into a standup workstation, and finish the work. If it’s dinnertime, have a picnic; let the kids run around and tire themselves out. Just go!

Work It out on Paper (or Keyboard)

A lot of stress is ridiculous and unfounded. We often don’t even know why we’re stressed out. If that’s the case—if your stress takes the form of a swirling amorphous cloud of racing thoughts you can’t parse—sit down with a pad of paper or other writing tool and figure out what’s vexing you. Ask yourself: “Why the hell are you so stressed out?” Get specific. Once you discover the culprit or culprits, determine why those stressors are affecting you.

Talking yourself through the timeline can help you discover if it’s worth stressing over. It may just melt away with exposure.

Introduce an Acute Stressor

Step outside into the bracing cold. Splash cold water on your face or hop in the cold shower. Do as many bodyweight squats and pushups as you can manage. Drop and give me 20 burpees.

These acts shock you into focusing on the present moment. They take you out of your mind and away from whatever swill might be currently occupying it. You can’t ignore cold water on your skin.

The stress may still be there after the shock, but having that break can give you a foothold back in reality.

Take an Anti-Stress Supplement or Herb

I honestly created Primal Calm for those times I just needed a fast-acting damper on the rising stress that was getting to me. I wanted an easy to swallow capsule of all the best stuff out there, so I made it. It’s got L-theanine, magnolia bark, phosphatadylserine, rhodiola rosea, and beta sitosterol. The L-theanine reduces anxiety and attenuates the rise in blood pressure in adults subjected to psychological and physical stress. The magnolia bark enhances the activity of soothing GABA receptors in the brain. The phosphatadylserine works on both mental and physical stress, improving mood and blunting cortisol after physical exercise. The rhodiola rosea lowers cortisol, increases mental performance, and lowers fatigue in stress-related fatigue. And when it’s incorporated into cellular membranes, beta sitosterol protects against oxidative stress.

It’s certainly not the only option. You can find any of the constituent ingredients as separate supplements, or you can check out the various pieces I’ve done on other anti-stress supplements and herbs. My point? Keep something on hand you can immediately administer.

Stress is a many-headed beast. You can’t beat or eliminate it, nor would you want to, as it’s through overcoming stress that we improve and get stronger. We can’t let it beat us either, or walk all over us. After reading today’s post, you should have at least a few more strategies for devising your own potent anti-stress protocol.

How do you handle stress or cultivate resiliency? If you could add to this post, what would you contribute?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.

The post 10 Actions for an Anti-Stress Protocol appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Dear Mark: Testosterone and Marriage, Dangerous Gluten-Free Diets

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering two questions from readers. The first one concerns the reduction in testosterone men experience with marriage. Is it a feature? A flaw? Is it inevitable? After that, I get into a pair of new studies that question the safety of gluten-free diets in the absence of celiac disease. Is your gluten-free diet going to kill you?

Let’s go:

Mark,

What are your thoughts on the “marriage tanks testosterone” study you linked to today? Is it something we just have to accept?

I question the premise of the ScienceNordic piece: that even though married men see declines in testosterone, it’s totally normal, unlikely to have negative consequences, and likely to improve their ability to be good husbands.

When you look at other demographics, for example, the relationship between marriage and testosterone levels changes. A 2003 study looked at testosterone levels among monogamously married, polygynously married, and unmarried Kenyan Swahili men. Drawing on past research in other populations, the authors predicted that unmarried men would have the highest testosterone, since they were still in “the game” and needed higher T levels to successfully compete for mates. They guessed the men with two wives would have the lowest T of all, since they had the most kids and fatherhood usually lowers T. They were completely wrong.

The guys with two wives had the highest T levels, while the men with one wife had the same T as the unmarried men.

But doesn’t testosterone promote aggression? Above all else, men with a healthy testosterone level enjoy increased self-confidence and drive. This can manifest as “aggression” in the sense that they stand up for themselves and pursue their goals. In other words, it’s workable and even productive. When most people hear “aggression,” they’re imagining “roid rage” and domestic violence and fist fights because someone bumped into you. That’s thankfully not how it works in most people.

In fact, low testosterone, especially coupled with high cortisol, makes men more irritable. Irritability, in its rampant commonality and relative acceptability, is arguably a more corrosive social ill than aggression. We catch onto aggression pretty quickly, and those who are truly overtaken by it usually don’t last long in any partnership.

Irritability, however, is why people flip each other off on the highway, lose their temper in line at the grocery store, or engage in passive aggressive behavior. Irritability can destroy civility, and it’s a slow burn destruction of any marriage. You can’t snap over every little thing and hope to survive as a couple. This isn’t a sitcom where married people snipe each other with witty, cruel comments to canned laughter. Are we justifying irritability because it doesn’t escalate to the level of aggression? What are we tolerating in our personal behavior and in our physical well-being? It’s worth considering—as well as connecting. Balance at home is served by balanced health, hormonal and otherwise.

Mark, looks like they’re attacking gluten-free diets again as unsafe. Any comments?

There was the Harvard study released last week that plotted gluten intake against cardiovascular disease, finding no relationship between the two. When they controlled for refined grain consumption, thus turning gluten into a proxy for whole grains, the relationship became slightly protective at the highest levels of gluten consumption. And I do mean slightly.

I can actually buy this. A 2010 study found that gluten-free diets as commonly practiced rob the gut of fermentable fiber and cause imbalanced gut biomes. Most people get their fermentable fiber through whole grains. They don’t get much, but that’s where they get it.

Don’t just eat junk food, yet gluten-free versions of your favorite foods. At least stoneground whole wheat bread incorporates the entire wheat berry. It’s not hard to beat the nutrient content found in the baked and sliced concoction of potato starch, rice flour, and xanthan gum you just paid $6 for.

Then there was another recent study showing that people with non-celiac gluten sensitivity harbor other evil thoughts about health, like the FDA being untrustworthy. While I know everyone reading this has nothing but the utmost love, respect, and admiration for the Food and Drug Administration, there apparently exist some Udi’s-munching FDA skeptics. How can this be?

Imagine you’ve suffered from unexplained gastric distress most of your remembered life. You’ve eaten all the “heart-healthy” whole grains the experts recommend. You’ve avoided the artery-clogging saturated fat. Still, the pain persists. You finally try giving up grains after stumbling across some nonsensical fad diet website—and you feel better for the first time in many, many years. On those rare occasions when you do eat wheat—your kid’s birthday party, the company potluck—the symptoms return. You’re not celiac, so you figure you’re gluten-sensitive.

You’ll start to wonder about all the other bits of conventional wisdom the experts foist on us. Maybe fat isn’t making us fat. Maybe butter isn’t lethal. Maybe elevated cholesterol isn’t the whole story. Maybe organic food actually is higher in many micronutrients and far lower in pesticide residue. And, yeah, you’ll get some misses. Vaccines can absolutely save lives. Genetically modified food as a concept probably isn’t a priori bad for you (although the pesticides involved almost certainly are). Skepticism is entirely rational.

That’s it for today, folks. I hope I helped you realize that gluten-free diets aren’t killing you, you’re not a monster for questioning the conventional wisdom, and we shouldn’t always expect lower testosterone just because we got hitched.

The post Dear Mark: Testosterone and Marriage, Dangerous Gluten-Free Diets appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Weekend Link Love – Edition 451

RESEARCH OF THE WEEK

Sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome are likely to have imbalanced gut bacteria.

CRISPR was just used to kill HIV in live animals.

The pill that increases endurance capacity (in mice).

We’re using too much sunscreen.

Marriage tanks testosterone.

College dorms are full of toxic flame retardants.

Cleaning out old cells can revive ailing joints.

NEW PRIMAL BLUEPRINT PODCASTS

Episode 167: Dr. Gary Foresman: Host Elle Russ chats with Dr. Foresman about a very controversial topic—vaccines. Buckle up.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

INTERESTING BLOG POSTS

Great tips on boosting energy.

When to do a floating snatch deadlift.

MEDIA, SCHMEDIA

Better take your cholesterol-busters!

Humans weren’t the only species to follow the Out-of-Africa model.

Scottish surfer survives 32 hours at sea.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Will these guys break the 2-hour mark?

Impressive.

“The discovery of a “functional food” role for CLA occurred over a decade ago when Pariza and coworkers found that ground beef contained an anticarcinogen factor that consisted of a series of conjugated dienoic isomers of linoleic acid.” (PDF)

Now this is a cool life hack.

Nature’s trying to kill you, edition 77.

Man brings in about 5 grand a month farming other people’s yards.

That’s not confusing at all.

THINGS I’M UP TO AND INTERESTED IN

Event you don’t want to miss: Chris Kresser is coming back to London for the Health Icons Lecture Series on July 8 and 9. One day is geared toward the lay public, the other toward health professionals.

Study result that disappointed me: Fecal transplant had no significant effect on IBS.

Article I’m loving: Lifestyle changes, not a magic pill, can reverse Alzheimer’s.

Important update: Remember Faye Geiss, the 87 year-old Primal powerhouse? She’s 90 now and still beating doctors’ expectations. Scroll down for the update.

More and more I’m convinced time is fluid and subjective (but no less real): The language we speak changes how we perceive time.

RECIPE CORNER

Grain-free meatball casserole.
Make this West African chicken stew.

TIME CAPSULE

One year ago (May 7 – May 13)

Did Grok Suffer From Seasonal Allergies? – And what does it mean for you?
10 Ways to Treat Burnout (and How to Avoid It Altogether) – For when you just can’t.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

“I just ate some liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti…”

– Sounds great, Barbarian. Beef, chicken, or…?

The post Weekend Link Love – Edition 451 appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Smoked Salmon and Avocado Caesar Salad

PRIMAL KITCHEN® Caesar Dressing is everything you want in Caesar salad dressing—creamy and garlicky with a punch of lemon and pepper. It’s the perfect dressing for a simple bowl of crisp romaine lettuce, but if you want to take your Caesar salad to the next level, you’ll toss in more flavor and nutrients with smoked salmon, avocado, and kale.

This salad can be plated at home like a regular salad, or cleverly brought to work in a glass jar. Layering the dressing and ingredients in a jar stores everything neatly (no salad dressing leaks!) and keeps the salad crisp and fresh. When it’s lunchtime, just shake the salad into a bowl. The dressing will pour out on top of the greens, avocado and salmon, instantly making a Caesar salad your coworkers will envy.

Time in the Kitchen: 10 minutes

Servings: 2

Ingredients

¼ cup PRIMAL KITCHEN® Caesar Dressing, or more to taste (60 ml)
6 ounces smoked salmon, flaked (170 g)
1 avocado, chopped
2 handfuls baby kale leaves or chopped kale (stem removed) (56 g)
2 handfuls chopped romaine lettuce hearts (56 g)

Instructions

If making this salad in a bowl, simply toss the ingredients together and pour PRIMAL KITCHEN® Caesar Dressing on top.

If making this salad in a glass jar, pour the salad dressing in the bottom of a canning jar. (Use one large jar, or split the ingredients between two smaller jars)

Layer kale, romaine, avocado and smoked salmon in the jar, on top of the dressing.

Put the lid on the jar and store in the refrigerator. When ready to eat, take off the lid and shake the salad into a bowl.

The post Smoked Salmon and Avocado Caesar Salad appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Oral Health: What You Eat (and Don’t Eat) Counts

With conventional wisdom’s take on oral care, we’re left with a pretty superficial understanding of oral health. What if, for instance, cavities imply more than bad brushing habits? What if we changed the entire template from one focused on cosmetic and sensory criteria to an understanding founded on whole health principles? Answer: we’d be much closer to the truth.

Consider this. A recent study involving over 37,000 dental patients found that “patient-reported general health and risk factors were negatively associated with an overall composite oral health score,” with study authors noting their results supporting a “growing body of evidence linking oral and systemic health.” As for the particular health connections, you’d be surprised at the span of influence: cardiovascular disease, pneumonia, diabetes, even pregnancy issues.

As we speak, diagnostic tests are even being developed using oral cells and saliva to detect anything from hormonal imbalances to specific diseases. Clearly, the mouth is where it’s at in more ways than one. Maybe that manic focus on brushing and mouthwash really does fall a little short, no? As usual, there’s more to the picture than we’re led to believe.

Common Oral Health Issues and Their Roots in Modern Eating

As a nation convinced that it has health at the forefront, our dental stats are pretty shabby. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 91% of adults had cavities. What’s more, almost a third of all adult Americans have teeth issues that are going untreated. Some 64.7 million American adults are contending with periodontal disease, an inflammatory bacterial disease of the gums. For those 65 and up, the percentage is a jaw-dropping 64%.

As far as culprits go, let’s kick things off with one that’s easy to swallow: sugar. Dentists the world over would have you thinking that it’s public enemy number one, and research certainly seems to back this one up. Just as it does in your gut, sugar provides food for deleterious bacteria lurking in the recesses of your mouth. Frequently infusing your oral biosphere with sugar acidifies your mouth, whittling away at your tooth enamel. Less tooth enamel means greater risk of infection.

Which brings us around to acid. Might that be the real public (oral) enemy number one? Denise Minger certainly thinks it’s worth considering, as as she shared a few years ago in her story of dental rehabilitation. She found that a diet rich in fruit (what many consider to be a “healthy” diet) was dramatically increasing the acidity in her mouth. By carefully selecting those fruits with a high pH, and shunning those with a low pH (among other changes), Denise was able to see dramatic reductions in her tooth damage and a literal rebuilding of her enamel.

Fermented foods, as Denise highlighted, can be another factor. While they certainly provide our gastrointestinal system with a much-needed boost, fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi are actually quite acidic. If your oral health is already hurting, it might be wise to opt for a quality probiotic supplement instead.

The erosive effects of both acid and sugar can be seen in raw vegans. A study of 130 raw foodies found “median daily frequency of ingesting citrus fruit to be 4.8” and average consumption of fruit amounted to a hefty 9.5 kg of fruit. That’s a lot of fructose, and a truckload of acid. Chances are, there was also plenty of phytic acid from nuts, grains and legumes in the mix. The authors concluded that “a raw food diet bears an increased risk of dental erosion compared to conventional nutrition.” And that’s compared to conventional nutrition. It would be interesting to see how Primal eaters throw off that curve.

The Connection between Inflammatory Disease and Oral Health

And then there’s the feedback between certain inflammatory diseases and poor oral health. Gluten sensitivity/intolerance has been shown to cause serious oral damage. One study demonstrated direct correlations between celiac disease in children and enamel degradation, along with increased incidence of cavities. It’s hard to say whether this is due to the inevitable malabsorption side effects for celiacs, or the inflammation. Probably both. Likewise, a similar effect can be expected for those suffering from other gut diseases and disorders, especially Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis.

Then there’s diabetes…. The association between poor oral health and diabetes is well documented, with patients showing greater risk for tooth loss, far greater risk of developing periodontal disease, and an increase in cavities. The previous study indicates a greater incidence of bacterial strains that are linked to cavities and periodontitis. But it’s a bit of a chicken or egg scenario: is it the poor oral health contributing to diabetes (via less efficient sugar breakdown and therefore glycemic spikes), or is the inflammation brought on by diabetes to blame? Or perhaps (quite likely), they work together to create a vicious feedback loop.

Primal Resolutions for Common Oral Health Problems

There’s one thing all of these scenarios have in common: a poor nutritional foundation. Our teeth rely on a steady ingress of certain vital nutrients. Simplifying your diet and getting plenty of nutrient-dense foods like leafy greens, quality meats and organs, grass-fed butter, and lots of colorful produce should ensure a well-rounded edible spectrum that encourages healthy oral maintenance.

But what if we’re already working with compromised oral health? Solid Primal nutrition is the base, but some of us need a little more strategizing.

Which brings us to vitamins A, D, and K2. Weston A. Price wrote at length about the powerful role these nutrients play in oral health (along with overall health, of course). Unfortunately, Price appears to have been way ahead of his time, and the world is still chewing on his data (and in most cases, unfortunately spitting it back out). But the anecdotal evidence (Denise Minger being one of the more notables) continues to accumulate, and there are a few studies that verify Price’s astute observations. Both pregnant women and children, for instance, have shown a greater tendency towards periodontal disease when vitamin D deficiency is present. Vitamin A intake has been associated with lower incidence of cavities. As for vitamin K2, several studies suggest it may be one of the most pivotal of nutrients. The catch is that these nutrients work synergistically to be fully beneficial, meaning you’re far more likely to see oral results when you consume them simultaneously.

Next, there’s acidic foods. Limit acidic produce, a handy list of which you can find in Denise’s post. Admittedly, the list is long, but most Primal types favor vegetables over fruit anyway. Consider the list more of a guide.

As for acidic ferments, if your dental health is good, don’t sweat it. If you have concerns about enamel density and cavities, cut back and rinse your teeth with water or an alkaline drink as you eat them.

As for sugar and gluten, well, there’s already plenty of reason to kick those to the curb. If you need yet another, there you go.

To Brush or Not to Brush…and How?

This brings us full circle. When we dial in the nutrition, what should a Primal-style dental routine look like? First, there’s the modern toothbrush and all of it’s flaws. Many people are making a shift back towards chewing sticks, as preliminary evidence suggests that these may remove more plaque and promote better gingival health than the average toothbrush. While the appeal of getting back to ancestral basics has a certain appeal, apparently you need some pretty in-depth training to get the technique right. And while it has it’s flaws, I know my toothbrush, and I know how to wield it without slicing off a chunk of gum every time. Sometimes it comes down to convenience.

But there may be a happy common ground for those who seek it. A company called OraWellness has developed oral care products (and techniques) that offer an alternative—especially for those with sensitivities. Check them out if this appeals.

And as for toothpaste, you can either go with a tried-and-true natural formula like Squigle Tooth Builder or Claybrite. Squigle uses xylitol to discourage pathogens from setting up shop and adds minerals that presumably aid in re-mineralization. Claybrite also uses xylitol but throws in mineral-rich clay. As I shared a few weeks ago when I talked about my own personal care routine, I use these on occasion and offer them to guests.

Alternatively, you could make your own tooth powder recipe. Do your own research on this one and consider your personal needs, but you’ll find everything from baking soda to hydrogen peroxide (what I often use). As an aside, I know a lot of people who’ve had luck with activated charcoal for whitening. (A fun way to freak out the kids, too.) As always, share your own favorite brands and recipes on the comment board.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Have you struggled with oral health? Found anything within the Primal sphere that’s helped you on the road to recovery? Share your thoughts, and have a great end to the week.

The post Oral Health: What You Eat (and Don’t Eat) Counts appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Popular Blood Tests—the Facts, Ranges, and Alternatives You Should Know

I’m of two minds when it comes to blood testing. For myself, I’m not a huge fan of obsessive, frequent testing and optimization. I have a good idea about how to optimize my health through the actions I take and the foods I eat, and by monitoring how I’m feeling, looking, and performing in response. It’s worked well for me. Whenever I do get a checkup or have blood drawn, my numbers are great.

But many people are the opposite. They like to quantify what’s happening under the hood. That’s great, and often necessary. The problem is that there are big problems with many of the most common blood tests.

A glaring problem for almost every blood test are the reference ranges used. What’s wrong with those?

Reference ranges reflect what’s common, not normal. A reference range for a blood test refers to the values possessed by 95% of the normal population.

Reference ranges for blood tests are based on the people who get lab tests. Who gets lab tests? People who go to the doctor, often because there’s something wrong with them. They may not reflect normal ranges for truly healthy people.

Reference ranges are extremely broad, which may give a false sense of security. Having blood sugar on the high end of “normal” isn’t healthy. It actually presages type 2 diabetes.

Another problem inherent to almost every blood test you’ll take is that the result represents a snapshot in time, a brief glimpse at a situation in constant flux. Your cholesterol was elevated today at 12 noon. What does that say about your levels tomorrow at six in the evening? Next week? Nothing. To account for natural fluctuations, get tested at regular intervals and observe the trends.

Let’s get more specific.

Cholesterol

“Oh, gee, Tom, steak and eggs for lunch again? You ever get your cholesterol checked?” We hear this all the time, the chorus of pleas that we please go get a “cholesterol test” before we keel over. Say you decide to humor the skeptics. You go get a cholesterol test. What should you watch for?

Most of the time, LDL is calculated, not directly measured. If you have low triglycerides, as is common on low-carb diets, your calculated LDL will be higher than the reality.

LDL-C refers to the passengers in the cars, not the number of cars on the highway. Most basic tests don’t measure LDL particle number. All evidence points to the number of LDL particles being far more predictive of heart disease risk than the more common LDL-C. More LDL particles means LDL is hanging around in the blood, increasing the chance they’ll become oxidized and atherogenic.

The guidelines aren’t supported in the literature. Many studies have shown a disconnect between supposedly dangerous cholesterol levels and actual heart attacks. In a 2009 study, 75% of people hospitalized for a heart attack had “healthy” cholesterol numbers. A 2016 review found that lower LDL is associated with lower mortality in the elderly—you know, some of most vulnerable among us.

What can you do?

Request an advanced lipid test. Tests like VAP, NMR, ApoB, and LDL particle number testing all provide deeper insights into the state of your blood lipids.

If you’re stuck with the basic test, take a look at ratios. Total cholesterol/HDL ratio is a good indicator of how long LDL is hanging around in the blood and remains the best standard assessment of heart disease risk. Another good one is triglyceride/HDL ratio, which is a strong surrogate marker for insulin resistance. In both cases, lower is better. An ideal T/HDL ratio is 1:1; 2:1 is about as high as you want to go. An ideal TC/HDL ratio is 3.5:1 or lower.

Blood Sugar

There are three primary types of blood sugar tests: fasting, postprandial, and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). Postprandial blood sugar measures your blood sugar response to eating at various intervals after meal. Fasting blood sugar measures your blood sugar levels at rest, when no food is coming in. HbA1c measures your average blood glucose across the previous three months. They’re all important, but the tests all have issues.

“Normal” might not be normal. According to the American Diabetes Association, a fasting blood sugar (FBG) under 100 is completely normal. It’s safe. It’s fine. Don’t worry, just keep eating your regular diet, and did you get a chance to try the donuts in the waiting room? They only start to worry at 110-125 (pre-diabetic) and above 125 (diabetic).

This may be unwise. Healthy people subjected to continuous glucose monitoring have much lower average blood glucose—89 mg/dl. A 2008 study found that people with a FBG of 95-99 were 2.33 times more likely to develop diabetes in the future than people on the low-normal end of the scale.

How about HbA1c? A “normal” HbA1c is anything under 5.7. And 6.0 is diabetic. That’s what the reference ranges, which mostly focuses on diabetes. What does the research say? In this study, under 5 was best for heart disease. In this study, anything over 4.6 was associated with an increased risk of heart disease.

That 5.7 HbA1c isn’t looking so great.

Healthy FBG depends on your BMI. At higher FBG levels, higher BMIs are protective. You read that right. A recent study showed that optimal fasting blood glucose for mortality gradually increased with bodyweight. Low-normal BMIs had the lowest mortality at normal FBG (under 100), moderately overweight BMIs had the lowest mortality at somewhat impaired FBG (100-125), and the highest BMIs had the lowest mortality at diabetic FBG levels (over 125).

The oral glucose tolerance test is unrealistic. The standard way to test postprandial blood sugar is the oral glucose tolerance test: 75 grams of pure glucose in liquid form. Unless you’re downing jumbo Slurpees, you’re not consuming that much pure glucose in a single sitting, so the results may not be relevant.

HbA1c depends on a static red blood cell lifespan. A1c seeks to establish the average level of blood sugar circulating through your body over the red blood cell’s life cycle, rather than track blood sugar numbers that rapidly fluctuate through the day, week, and month. If we know how long a red blood cell lives, we have an accurate measurement of chronic blood sugar levels. The clinical consensus assumes the lifespan is three months. Is it?

Not always. The life cycle of an actual red blood cell differs between and even within individuals, and it’s enough to throw off the results by as much as 15 mg/dl.

Ironically, people with healthy blood sugar levels might have inflated HbA1c levels. One study found that folks with normal blood sugar had red blood cells that lived up to 146 days, and RBCs in folks with high blood sugar had life cycles as low as 81 days. For every 1% rise in blood sugar, red blood cell lifespan fell by 6.9 days. In those with better blood sugar control, RBCs lived longer and thus had more time to accumulate sugar and give a bad HbA1c reading. In people with poorer blood sugar control, red blood cells live shorter lives and have less time to accumulate sugar, potentially giving them “better” HbA1c numbers.

Anemia can inflate HbA1c. Anemia depresses the production of red blood cells. If you have fewer red blood cells in circulation, the ones you do have accumulate more sugar since there are fewer cells “competing” for it.

If you’re very low-carb, postprandial blood glucose will be elevated. This is because very low-carb, high-fat diets produce physiological insulin resistance to preserve what little glucose you have for the tissues that depend on it, like certain parts of the brain. The more resistant you are to insulin, the higher your blood glucose.

What can you do?

If you need to pass a test, 150 grams of carbs a day will do it. Eat that way for three days to a week before your OGGT.

Try meals, not sugar solutions. Mixed meals of fat, protein, and carbs are better candidates for testing one’s real-world glucose response.

Take all three measurements into account. If your HbA1c is higher than you’d like but you ace all the postprandial tests, you’re probably fine.

Follow trends. Even if your red blood cells are centenarians, you can track the trend of HbA1c with multiple readings.

Liver Enzymes

The most common liver enzymes you’ll test are alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST). Another one is gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, or GGT.  When the liver is damaged or inflamed, liver enzymes generally go up. They’re usually pretty straightforward—more straightforward than the cholesterol and blood sugar tests—but not completely.

Weight loss can change them. Weight loss transiently increases ALT and AST in women and decreases them in men. If you’re in the process of losing weight, you can safely ignore small improvements or increases in liver enzymes.

Normal isn’t healthy. The normal range for GGT is 8 to 65 U/L, yet men under 70 years of age with GGT levels over 38—right smack in the middle of “normal”—have an increased risk of heart failure. Another study found that even low-normal levels of GGT were associated with an increased incidence of atrial fibrillation, a harbinger of more serious cardiovascular conditions.

What can you do?

Just be aware. Don’t fear weight loss for transient changes to your ALT/AST, and don’t rest on your laurels if your GGT looks “normal.”

Testing your cholesterol, blood sugar, and liver enzymes is helpful, informative, and often necessary—but only if you’re aware of the limitations and you know how to account for context.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

The post Popular Blood Tests—the Facts, Ranges, and Alternatives You Should Know appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.