Spiral's Plant Positive Journal

[Spiral]

Thanks, Spiral, for discussing these wonderful videos here. A few months ago, I watched them up to the 9th video that you talk about at the top of this page. You summarize them very well. I need to go back and start watching with the 10th in the series and continue.

The main thing I learned from PP was that there is so much misinformation out there in the popular diet press. PP was ruthless in tracking down references and checking facts. Which is what we should all be.

This week, I got out a new book by John Ratey called Go Wild. As I had loved Dr. Ratey's previous book Spark, I had high hopes for this one. I started getting a sinking feeling when I saw that the Forward was written by Dr. Perlmutter. Then I scanned the chapter on food and it would appear it's a retread of Good Calories Bad Calories, quoting Gary Taubes by name. Very, very disappointed in Dr. Ratey. He really should fact-check at least as well as Plant Positive, a blogger on the internet.

Cupcake,

Thanks for the accolade. I had intended to review each of the videos in that video series. But I got bogged down with other things and never finished it.

It really is mind-boggling when you consider how much information this Plant Positive guy had to wade through in order to track down all of the distortions that Gary Taubes, Robert Lustig and others have made over the years. I've wondered if Plant Positive is just one guy or a team of people who like to do research on nutrition controversies. We might never know, as long as Plant Positive keeps his identity secret.

[Spiral]

After a nearly year and one half break from reviewing the Plant Positive Nutrition Past and Future video series, I am going to review the next video in the series.

I just finished watching the 21st video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 21 Cholesterol Confusion 4 The Map Is Not the Territory.

This video discusses the AIM HIGH clinical trial, which tried to determine if cardiovascular patients would benefit from taking Niacin in addition to a Statin. The Niacin would increase the blood levels of HDL, the fraction of HDL of cholesterol is believed to be protective against cardiac events. It's "the good cholesterol." However, in the AIM-HIGH trial, those who took Niacin in addition to a Statin had worse outcomes than those who only took the Statin, this despite the high HDL levels in the Niacin group.

Bio-markers are not endpoints. Not everything that raises HDL is good and not everything that lowers HDL is bad.

This video also discusses the confusion people have when discussing sugar, carbohydrates within the context of a population that consumes lots of meat and fat.

Triglycerides are discussed. For example, in Dr. Ornish's Lifestyle heart trial, the intervention group had their triglycerides raised, even as they suffered fewer clinical events during the trial.

LDL is mentioned as the best bio-marker to concern oneself with when studying cardiovascular disease. There is also discussion of Dr. Richard Kones, an advocate of low-carb diets. Dr. Kones concedes that there are severe problems with low-carb diets, yet he is unwilling to conclude that they should be avoided because the bio-marker of body weight can occasionally be improved.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 22nd video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 22 Cholesterol Confusion 5 Cholesterol Is Necessary for Life.

This video discusses an interview featuring Chris Masterjohn and Chris Kresser, two people who seem to believe that high levels of serum (blood) cholesterol does not put one at higher risk of a heart attack.

The first clip of the interview that is shared with us in the video is a discussion of the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome or SLOS, a genetic deficiency in cholesterol production.

Chris Masterjohn is essentially saying the following: Make sure you get enough cholesterol in your diet. If you don't, you might end up with SLOS, a cholesterol deficiency that will result in ill health. When your doctor tells you to take statins to lower your serum (blood) cholesterol, your doctor might be putting you at risk for SLOS.

Here's the problem. For over 99 percent of the human population, ones body makes all the cholesterol the body needs. Any cholesterol consumed in ones diet is unnecessary and often harmful.

At about 6:20 into the video, Plant Positive decides to take up Masterjohn's argument regarding cholesterol deficiency and the idea that dietary cholesterol should be seen as a nutrient, not something that should be avoided or minimized in ones diet. He introduces us to Dr. John M. Opitz, one of the people SLOS is named after.

Not mentioned on Dr. Johm M. Opitz's web site, where he briefly discusses SLOS, is an enzyme is called 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase. 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase is needed to breakdown a sterol called 7DHC. SLOS is diagnosed not by simply noticing that ones serum (blood) cholesterol levels are very low. In fact, it's possible to have SLOS even with normal serum (blood) cholesterol levels. SLOS is diagnosed by noticing a very high level of 7DHC.

At the 12:00 mark, the discussion turns to a case study of a 67 year old man with a measured LDL of 4 to 8 mg/dL and a total cholesterol level of 45 mg/dL due to a genetic condition called familial hypobetalipoproteinemia. How healthy was this 67 year old? Was he suffering terribly form a cholesterol deficiency? How about his relatives? One of his relatives had a measured LDL of 1 mg/dL. But neither the 67 year old nor his relatives suffered from any major health problems related to their very low serum (blood) cholesterol levels.

Why didn't Chris Masterjohn and Chris Kresser mention that in their interview/discussion of SLOS?

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 23rd video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 23 Cholesterol Confusion 6 Dietary Cholesterol (And the Magic Egg).

This video discusses an egg study by Doctors Spence, Jenkins and Davignon. The egg study showed a relationship between the number of eggs eaten (measured in egg yolk years) and plaque in their carotid arteries. The more eggs eaten over the years, the more plaque in their carotid arteries.

Steven Novella wrote about this on a web-site titled Science Based Medicine and dismissed the conclusions of the study because those with more plaque consumed more egg yolks but did not have higher blood cholesterol numbers. This was likely due to the homogenous nature of the sample, since most of the people in the study ate eggs. The reason why blood cholesterol did not go up with higher egg yolk years was due to higher statin use and the fact that blood cholesterol can decline when someone is advanced in age and ill health.

Dr. David M. Katz also has researched dietary cholesterol and heart disease. Katz thinks that eggs are healthy, but sausage and bacon are unhealthy. Dr. Katz accuses Dr. David Jenkins of being biased against eggs because Dr. Jenkins is a vegan. Plant Positive also challenges Dr. Katz to find that raw fruit consumption is associated with plaque in carotid arteries in a way similar to the association between egg yolk consumption and plaque in carotid arteries.

At 21:00 Plant Positive shows how Dr. Katz misinterpreted his own research. He studied people with very high blood cholesterol and fed them foods high in dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. Then he put some of them on a diet containing less dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. Their blood cholesterol and LDL went down. But those others who continued with the high dietary cholesterol and saturated fat diet had their blood cholesterol stay the same. His conclusion was that this showed that the eggs and sausage do not harm ones lipid profile.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 24th video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 24 Cholesterol Confusion 7 The Measurement Problem.

This video discusses how intra-individual variation and regression dilution bias can distort the results of scientific studies which attempt to investigate relationships between serum (blood) cholesterol levels and chronic disease.

If you get your cholesterol checked several times during a year, you will see fluctuations in your blood cholesterol level, even if your diet and your exercise routine is consistent during that year. So, when a scientific study relies on a single blood draw for a measurement of a study participant's cholesterol level, there will be distortion in the results. Most often, the result will be a dilution in the reported impact of having high cholesterol.

During the video, a clip from a Gary Taubes appearance on the Dr. Oz show demonstrated that Gary Taubes was not enthusiastic about getting his cholesterol checked.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

A bit of a side step here.

I am going to link to a Podcast critiquing a DvD titled "Fathead." Fathead is a movie trying to convince people that meat is good and vegetarians are nuts. It's a bit more complicated than that.

Listen to it if you'd like. I have a copy of the movie because a relative of mine, who consumes a diet of grass fed beef and locally grown eggs and bacon, sent me a copy. It's junk science at its worst.

This is the web page from where I found that Podcast

The Science of Nutrition Blog. It's a good blog, with some critical reviews of books like Good Calores, Bad Calories and The Bit Fat Surprise.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 25th video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 25 Cholesterol Confusion 8 A Large and Fluffy Distraction.

This video begins with an analysis of Dr. Robert Lustig's comments regarding sugar, fat and saturated fat. Lustig argues that sugar is the cause of all of the major chronic diseases afflicting Americans today. Lustig argues that fat and saturated fat are "neutral" in terms of their impact on human health.

At the 3:00 minute mark, excerpts are shown of Dr. Lustig arguing that no foodstuff has both fat and carbohydrate at the same time. He specifically says that "fruits, coconut, olive, avocado have no carbohydrate." But with a few keystrokes one can learn that coconut, olive and avocado do have carbohydrate. Unfortunately, Dr. Lustig says many things and many of the things he says are completely untrue. Lots of foods have both fat and carbohydrate at the same time.

I wanted to find that original interview in which Dr. Lustig said those very inaccurate statements. It wasn't because I thought that Plant Positive falsely accused Dr. Lustig of making those ridiculous statements. But I wanted to learn if there was some context that was missing in the excerpts presented in Plant Postive's video.

Well, over at The Carb-Sane Asylum, there is a 9 minute video clip of Dr. Robert Lustig.

But here is the original video titled, The Skinny on Obesity (Ep. 2): Sickeningly Sweet

Here's an excerpt of Dr. Lustig.

It's when you put fat and carbohydrate together that they don't work. And sugar because of its unique composition is the only food on the planet that is both fat and carbohydrate at the same time. Even fatty fruits, coconut, olive, avocado, have no carbohydrate. There is no food stuff on this planet that has both fat and carbohydrate at the same time. It's one or the other. Because that's evolution. That's nature. That's what God did. Except for sugar.

Sugar does not contain any fat. But Lustig argues that since sugar contains fructose, sugar contains fat in terms of how it impacts the human body. If this is confusing to you, it's because Dr. Lustig is talking more nonsense.

This video also discusses the issue various cholesterol sub fractions, such as small dense Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL), large fluffy LDL and others. Dr. Lustig and others advocating a diet high in fact and low in carbohydrate say that the blood cholesterol number you receive when you get your blood drawn is meaningless and even the LDL number is meaningless. What is truly important, Dr. Lustig argues, is whether your LDL particles are the small and dense kind or the large and fluffy kind.

This video explains why that argument is false. Both the small dense LDL and the large fluffy LDL damage the artery walls.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 26th video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 26 Cholesterol Confusion 9 "Brown and Goldstein Were Wrong".

This video discusses the groundbreaking work on cholesterol metabolism performed by Michael Brown and Joe Goldstein, work that led to their being awarded the Nobel Prize. Advocates of high fat diets do not mention Brown and Goldstein very much. In Gary Taubes' book "Good Calories, Bad Calories," the work of Brown and Goldstein was only mentioned briefly.

But a few advocates of high fat diets have argued that Brown and Goldstein were wrong in their conclusion that high levels of blood cholesterol is implicated in the causation of cardiovascular disease. This video explains why these criticisms can not be taken seriously.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 27th video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 27 Ancestral Cholesterol 1.

This video discusses the fact that our ancestors had very low cholesterol levels. Often this was because our ancestors rarely had an opportunity to consume meat, milk or eggs. Also, when our ancestors did eat meat, it was often raw meat infested with parasites. These parasites have the effect of lowering human cholesterol levels.

Contrast this with the extremely high LDL levels that many paleo dieters have. The reason why paleo dieters have high LDL levels is because they eat foods containing large amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol and they do not consume parasites the way our ancestors did.

At the 7:10 point in this video, an excerpt from a speech made by Nobel prize winner Michael Brown is presented. He says the following:

The real news is that we shouldn’t really need these drugs, that for those of us who have normal genes, the reason why our blood is being filled up with cholesterol is because we are basically eating too much cholesterol and too much animal fat. And if you look at populations where the diet is lower in cholesterol and fat, they don’t need these statin drugs. They have low cholesterols in their blood and they have twenty times lower rate of heart attacks than we do in the United States.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 28th video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 28 Ancestral Cholesterol 2.

This video is the second of two videos discussing the low cholesterol levels of hunter gatherer populations. Many of these populations were not consuming enough calories to obtain optimal health. Thus, the argument made by advocates of high fat diets that having low cholesterol is a the cause of low life expectancy is incorrect because it is the insufficient food and other issues (civil war, infectious diseases, lack of adequate health care) that cause the low life expectancy, not the low cholesterol levels.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 29th video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 29 Point of Origin.

This video discusses how and where human beings lived during the 200,000 thousand years prior to the emergence of agriculture. Most of the human beings who lived during most of those years lived in Africa. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that even modern day humans are genetically similar to those who lived during that time and place.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

I just finished watching the 30th video in the Nutrition: Past and Future video series created by Plant Positive titled 30 Meat, Brains, and Bugs.

This video discusses whether there is a relationship between brain size and intelligence, whether meat eating allowed humans to expand the brain size of humans, whether this expanded brain size was due to eating meat or the ability to cook food and/or the increased ability to consume more calories. Also discussed was the question of whether preformed EPA and DHA must be consumed in the diet or the human body is capable of forming EPA and DHA from the precursors of EPA an DHA. Also, the question of whether pre-modern humans ate bugs is discussed.

You can watch this video here.

[Spiral]

Unrelated to the Plant Positive video series.

Here is a video I found on Dr. Esselstyn's web page today titled Reversed Heart Disease through Diet - Jim Conway MD.

This is really good. Now we have a physician in Oklahoma that is spreading the message of the plant based diet.

[c107]

Ah, but who isn't being honest here. It turns out Dr. Atkins' book did recommend fried pork rinds.

I can't believe Atkins would make matzo ball soup with pork rinds!

[Spiral]

Thanks for starting this journal, Spiral. It's a great way of discussing these videos on the forum. I've just started working my way through PlantPositive's website (not in any particular order) and I'm finding it really fascinating. There's lots of extremely useful info on there.

Terri,

I just found this post on my Journal today. Better late then never I guess. LOL!! I guess I noticed Cup Cakes's post, but missed yours.

I am thinking of getting back into this and finishing the series. I've been re-watching them and am still amazed at the level of detail.