William Davis's Blog: Dr. Davis Infinite Health Blog, page 50

The fictions of LDL cholesterol

Despite being responsible for sustaining a multi-billion dollar drug franchise, LDL cholesterol is a crude, outdated, unreliable, nearly useless marker for cardiovascular risk.

You can obtain superior results without drugs but will need to know a little something about this thing called LDL cholesterol, as well as advanced lipoprotein analysis to obtain REAL insight into cardiovascular risk.

The post The fictions of LDL cholesterol appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Do you have food intolerances?

There has been a boom in food intolerances that typically result in having to avoid various foods to reduce symptoms of asthma, skin rashes, joint pains, and gastrointestinal upset or diarrhea.

But avoiding various foods does nothing to address the CAUSE of food intolerances. Identify, then manage, the cause and you not only have the freedom to eat a wide variety of foods, but also avoid future health problems.

The post Do you have food intolerances? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Eat more eggs

The headlines are once again filled with advice to reduce egg and cholesterol consumption based on a study that found an association of egg and cholesterol consumption with increased risk for cardiovascular events. Sounds scary and persuasive, doesn’t it? After all, nearly 30,000 people were tracked over 17 years and the authors authoritatively declare that this proves that eggs and cholesterol are risk factors for heart disease.

There are several problems with this assessment. It is emblematic of the studies that confuse people, yield wildly conflicting conclusions, are used to craft absurd and ineffective dietary guidelines, and provide tantalizing headlines for media. And it is virtually all untrue.

Problems:

1) This is an observational study, meaning people are asked a few questions, then followed for many years, i.e., they are observed. Over and over again, observational studies that do not involve any sort of intervention (i.e., people purposefully advised to eat, say, 3 eggs per day vs. people advised to eat no eggs, as would be done in a real clinical study—much more difficult and costly to conduct) cannot be used to generate cause-effect relationships. See this Undoctored Blog post about the fictions generated by such observational studies. 4 times out of 5, the conclusions drawn by observational studies are disproven by prospective randomized clinical trials, i.e., the real way to prove or disprove a cause-effect relationship. Or, stated differently, 80% of the conclusions drawn through observational analyses are false. In other words, the majority of conclusions drawn by observational studies are complete fictions.

If we were to believe observational studies, we would have to believe that Premarin is good for women’s health, since proven to increase endometrial cancer, breast cancer, and cardiovascular death despite the observational evidence suggesting the opposite; red meat causes colon cancer; coffee consumption leads to extended longevity, etc., all the absurd proclamations based on the fictions of observational studies and nutritional epidemiology.

2) Observational studies are unreliable because they are plagued by confounding factors—That is, people who eat eggs also do other things differently than people who don’t eat eggs. Perhaps they eat cured bacon, exposing them to nitrosamines like N-nitrosodimethylamine. Or perhaps they eat at restaurants that use soybean or corn oil to prepare the eggs. In other words, the nature of observational analyses is that you cannot untangle the oodles of other factors that can influence outcome and cannot say that one factor—egg consumption—is the cause. This is the reason why, by the way, the vegetarian community declares that being vegetarian is healthier: Being vegetarian is not healthier; being vegetarian is associated with a constellation of other behaviors such as less cigarette smoking, less alcohol, more exercise, more overall health consciousness, etc. that can improve health, but health has nothing to do with avoiding animal products.

3) That all said, observational studies can occasionally lead to firm conclusions if the association is overwhelming powerful. This happened with cigarette smoking: The increase in heart disease and lung cancer was so large that even the observational data proved conclusive. The very small increment in risk suggested by this study (17% increased cardiovascular disease, 18% increase all-cause mortality) is essentially no difference at all—much too small to be conclusive.

Observational studies have been the basis of all manner of nutritional misinformation. It is the basis for cutting total and saturated fat, increasing consumption of “healthy whole grains,” “move more, eat less,” all the fictions that have created the worst epidemics of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, gastrointestinal and autoimmune diseases ever in the history of humankind. Dietary guidelines have gotten it wrong for 50 years and I am not hopeful that they will ever get it right in our lifetimes.

What I find most shocking is that most of us in healthcare know that observational studies are virtually worthless and cannot be used to generate cause-effect conclusions, yet the authors of this study state authoritatively that their study should be used to resurrect the advice to limit dietary cholesterol. I cannot decipher their motivations beyond garnering attention and headlines. But don’t fall for it: This is yet another example of how far wrong dietary conclusions can be when drawn from the fictions of nutritional epidemiology.

 

 

The post Eat more eggs appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Rice: Healthy or toxic?

In the Wheat Belly lifestyle, we avoid all wheat and grains.

But the hazards of grain consumption lie on a spectrum. Products made from modern high-yield semi-dwarf wheat are at the worst end of the spectrum, while rice is at the least harmful end.

But should we interpret this to mean that rice is benign and healthy?

The post Rice: Healthy or toxic? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

The Statin Drug Tragedy

The biggest problem with statin cholesterol drugs is not that they hardly do anything, but that doctors think that efforts to prevent heart disease can end at a statin drug and low-fat diet.

It means they ignore or neglect the DOZENS of other powerful strategies that you could adopt that dramatically reduce, even eliminate, risk for heart disease.

The post The Statin Drug Tragedy appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

I don’t have a gallbladder–Can I still follow the Wheat Belly high-fat lifestyle?

People often misinterpret difficulty ingesting fats after gallbladder surgery as a lack of bile, but that is usually not the case: You have the same quantity of bile after as you did before.

The real problem is SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, that causes bile and fat malabsorption. The solution is to address the SIBO, not to reduce fat.

The post I don’t have a gallbladder–Can I still follow the Wheat Belly high-fat lifestyle? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Is the ketogenic diet dangerous?

 

Answer: No—unless you do it for more than a few months. After a few months, the upfront metabolic and weight benefits will begin to reverse and new health problems arise. We know this with confidence. I raise this question once again because more and more people are coming to me reporting problems. It may take months, even years, but the long-term consequences can be quite serious.

Achieving ketosis by engaging in a very low-carbohydrate, high-fat lifestyle is—without a doubt—an effective means of losing weight, breaking insulin and leptin resistance, reversing type 2 diabetes and fatty liver, reducing blood pressure, reversing the inflammation of visceral fat, and may even cause partial or total remission of selected cancers. It means taking advantage of a natural physiological response to accelerate benefits.

So what’s the problem?

The problem comes when people remain ketotic for extended periods. We know with confidence that long-term ketosis poses substantial risk for health complications because thousands of children have followed ketogenic diets over the years as a means of suppressing intractable grand mal seizures unresponsive to drugs, seizures that can lead to irreversible brain damage if not stopped. A ketogenic diet reduces seizures by approximately 55%. Because seizures are a chronic problem, these kids maintain ketosis for months to years.

The health of these kids have been formally tracked. What happens to them beyond the reduction in seizures? A number of phenomena emerge:

They have high likelihood of calcium oxalate and uric acid kidney stones–Kidney stones are uncommon in childhood, yet these kids commonly have kidney stones. The risk in an adult on a prolonged ketogenic effort is therefore high, also. Kidney stones are not benign–they are painful and can occasionally result in kidney damage (increased creatinine, urinary tract infections, etc.)
Growth is stunted–Most of these kids fail to grow normally and fall into the 10th percentile for growth or less. Adults on a ketogenic diet are no longer growing, of course, but the growth impairment observed in children suggests that there is something fundamentally wrong with prolonged ketosis sufficient to impair normal growth.
There are occasional instances of cardiomyopathies (heart muscle diseases, heart failure) and sudden cardiac death –The immediate causes are unclear, though at least some cases are due to severe selenium deficiency. The picture is muddied by the fact that some kids were fed large quantities of corn oil in past as a means of maintaining ketosis. Nonetheless, it suggests further uncertainties with prolonged ketosis.
Constipation is the rule–as virtual elimination of dietary carbohydrates also means virtual elimination of prebiotic fibers that nourish bowel flora. Over time, this leads to metabolic distortions including a drop in HDL cholesterol, rise in triglycerides, rise in small LDL particles that lead to heart disease, rise in insulin resistance and blood sugar, rise in blood pressure, even if these parameters initially improved on the diet. This is also due to dysbiosis and lack of prebiotic fibers. While this has not yet been tracked in children, in adults we can expect that these distortions in bowel flora will, over time, also lead to heightened inflammation (bowel and elsewhere), diverticular disease (.e.g., diverticulitis), and colorectal cancer. Yes: prolonged ketosis can add substantially to risk for colon cancer. Other peculiar gastrointestinal complications of prolonged ketosis have also been observed, such as protein-losing enteropathies.
Diminished bacterial species diversity—Not unexpectedly, deprivation of prebiotic fibers leads to a reduction in bacterial species diversity, especially beneficial Bifidobacteria, while E. coli proliferates. Recall that increased species diversity is a consistent marker for health.

While many of the problems that develop with prolonged ketosis may be addressed simply by minding intake of prebiotic fibers, not all are, such as selenium deficiency and stunted growth. (Note that the ideal intake of prebiotic fibers, the level we aim for in Wheat Belly and Undoctored programs, is 20 or more grams per day.) Some have argued that higher beta-hydroxybutyrate ketone levels that develop with a ketogenic diet is all you need to do to maintain healthy bowel flora, but this is a huge extrapolation that does not make sense in light of the newest insights into the microbiome and its metabolites. It ignores the role of hundreds of other microbial metabolites that are required and/or produced that are changed with prolonged deprivation of prebiotic fibers. Also, some have blamed the adverse long-term effects in kids on the seizure medications they take, but the side-effects of, say, drugs such as tegretol, valproic acid, or topiramate do not include the above phenomena.

If you want to use a ketogenic diet as a health tool, it would be wise to do so for no more than a few weeks at a time, as nobody knows how long is too long. And, of course, the period of time during which ketosis is safe can vary from individual to individual. Breaking ketosis is as easy as upping protein intake or having a glass of wine or whole piece of fruit.

Like the stress response, ketosis is a natural, physiological adaptation designed for short-term responses. In other words, an acute stress response to some danger or threat that involves increased adrenaline and cortisol release, increased heart rate and blood pressure, and heightened alertness is normal and can even save your life. But, if the stress response becomes chronic, as it may with divorce, prolonged caretaking of an impaired child or demented adult, PTSD, financial struggles, etc., then the stress response can have terrible health implications that include increased risk for Alzheimer’s dementia, heart disease, dysbiosis, inflammation, diabetes, and cancer. The same applies to ketosis: Acutely, ketosis is a normal physiological adaptation that serves us during periods of carbohydrate or calorie deprivation. Chronically, however, peculiar things happen with consequences that range from constipation, to selenium deficiency and cardiomyopathies, to colon cancer.

Another one of my concerns long-term is that many people are being persuaded to remain on a ketogenic diet over a long period. In 3, 5, or 10 years, we are going to see a sharp rise in colon cancer cases. People in conventional dietary circles will then point fingers at all of us engaged in unconventional dietary advice and we will be lumped together and labeled as dangerous fads. The key is to be smarter and to view ketogenic dieting as the short-term tool/response it is, not as a solution to all health struggles.

Also, be aware that, while diet can be an extremely powerful tool to regain control over many aspects of health, diet by itself remains insufficient for full health. Just as filling up the gas tank of your car with quality gasoline helps your car run well, but other aspects of your car need attention over time (change the oil, tune-ups, new tires on occasion, etc.), so it goes with diet. We must also pay attention to vitamin D and iodine status, the potential for common endocrine disruptions such as thyroid dysfunction, efforts to cultivate bowel flora, and other issues. Focus on diet as a start, not as an end.

So be ketotic—but just don’t stay ketotic for too long. Like an acute stress response, use it to your advantage but don’t allow it to become a chronic impairment of health.

 

The post Is the ketogenic diet dangerous? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Are you still eating the seeds of grasses?

All wheat and grains are the seeds of grass plants and humans are not equipped to digest them. This is why consumption of grains is associated with so many health problems from rheumatoid arthritis to cerebellar ataxia.

The solution: Eat no wheat or grains, just as we do in the Wheat Belly lifestyle, and watch hundreds of health conditions reverse.

The post Are you still eating the seeds of grasses? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Can Wheat Belly save you money?

Followers of the Wheat Belly lifestyle often ask: “If I need to buy higher quality food—organic, grass-fed, minimally processed—won’t my grocery budget explode? I can’t afford that on my limited food budget.”

We do indeed seek out higher quality foods on the Wheat Belly lifestyle, foods that recreate the high nutrient density of foods that our ancestors consumed as they hunted and foraged in the wild—higher folate, magnesium, phytonutrient, fat content. But, more than likely, you don’t have the time, inclination, or knowledge that would allow you to go out and kill or forage your next meal. So we seek out second best and search for the highest quality foods that we can obtain in an industrialized food setting.

Admittedly, such foods cost more. Raising food that is pasture-fed, organic, without the expedients of toxic herbicides/pesticides but rely instead on human love and caring, costs more. So why doesn’t living on the Wheat Belly lifestyle, in which we reject the high-yield, commercialized garbage products of agribusiness, cost us more?

Simple: Eliminate gliadin-derived opioid peptides that are potent appetite stimulants and food consumption drops, even though we purposefully do not reduce calories.

The gliadin protein of wheat and related grains stimulate appetite, such that people who consume wheat and grains take in 400-800 more calories per day, every day. This is the effect that causes people with a belly-full of pasta, filled to bursting, to still feel hungry. Gliadin-derived opioid peptides drive appetite hugely, abnormally, unnaturally.

Remove gliadin-derived opioid peptides of wheat and related grains and abnormal appetite-stimulation is removed. You are content with, say, 3 eggs, bacon, and avocado slices at 7 am and do not re-experience hunger until 4 or 5 pm–a very different experience from wheat- and grain-consuming people. It is certainly different than the extreme perversion of appetite that causes dietitians to say outrageously silly things like “eat many small meals every 2 hours throughout the day.”

So calorie intake is lower, even though you will NEVER hear me say “cut your calories,” “push the plate away,” “smaller portions,” etc.—by 400-800 calories per person, per day.

If there are, say, 5 people in your home, 3 teenagers and 2 adults. You all go wheat- and grain-free, all experiencing a dramatic downturn in appetite as a result. Let’s be conservative and assume that all 5 experience a decrease in calorie intake of 400 calories per day. 5 x 400 = 2000 calories per day that you don’t have to shop for or cook. Multiply by 30 days per month and that equates to 60,000 calories per month that you do not need to purchase or cook—and that’s a conservative estimate. That’s huge. That’s the equivalent of 30 meals at restaurants—30 meals, or one per day.  Yes: We are consuming higher-quality, nutrient-dense foods, but we are also freed from then abnormal appetite-stimulation of grain-derived opioid peptides. Most people following the Wheat Belly lifestyle therefore report no change in their monthly grocery budget or even a modest cost savings. Even better, make some modest efforts that take you closer to the source of your food and you can thereby reduce costs even further: have a garden to grow vegetables, start some berry bushes and fruit trees, shop at farmers’ markets, grow herbs on your kitchen shelves.

This means that you are eating healthier foods with more phytonutrients and fewer contaminants and experience less of the health downturns that most Americans experience following absurd conventional dietary advice while not spending more.

The post Can Wheat Belly save you money? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.

Why can’t I lose weight?

Let’s cut through the garbage advice on weight loss: cutting fat does not work, limiting calories ensures long-term failure.

The Wheat Belly and Undoctored lifestyles get you off to a powerful start, but you can take it further. Here, I discuss seven additional strategies.

The post Why can’t I lose weight? appeared first on Dr. William Davis.