Michael569

Listen to his debate with Avi Bitterman and then tell me again if you still think that.

@RendHeaven appreciate your response. I'll take some time to ponder this and if I have time look into the literature on LA feeding. It has been on my list for a while. Living in Japan? Niiice !! I loved Japan, best country i've ever visited. Hope you enjoy it.

I just finished listening (and watching) this over the last 48 hours. What started as pretty interesting converation with really enticing ideas being shared turned into a complete clownshow at about the turn of the second hour. Couple comments of observation Robert excellent storyteller, I can understand why people who are not versed in nutrition and the evidence hierarchy would love to listen to him. I liked listening to him. he has a pleasant voice, he looks well for a guy reaching 70, is well articulate and avoids complex terminology most of the time he brings up some interesting points about hepatic diabetes which I'd like to look more into but...he is a master dodger. I mean, holy fuck the amount of twisting, slipping, deviating and mental gymnastics this guy does blew my mind. Simon had a patient of a saint. he constantly hides behind mechanisms whenever Simon challenges his narative. He has managed to pick up mechanisms which are completely unexplored by the evidence which is basically a way to present unchallengeable argument (common tactic in LF communities) Whenever he had no response, he would go back to his fertility clients glycocalyx fibre causing colon cancer through alcohol fermentation hepatic diabetes telling an unrelated story hoping Elyn would change topic or Simon would let go of the bait. I think Robert is doing some wonderful work for his patients (seems to be mostly cases of infertility) but he fails to understand that people he sees (as Simon pointed) are the outliers of the bell curve. Basically people who are unwell and likely benefit from the weight loss associated with canrivore diet and removal of inflammatory foods. He fails to see that his patients are not the average population. I am not convinced Robert is actualy doing any serious research, he is almost like a storywriter, pushing emotional buttons , figuring out what triggers people is probably a savy marketer. At about 02 hour, 05 minutes he has started grasping at straws unable to answer other than running into a fairy-tale land. Simon amazing level of knowledge and familiarity with evidence super clear, relatable, easy to listen to although at time overly technical for an unfamiliar listener too patient & too tolerant with Robert's endless side quests. Would have loved if he would make more attempts to bring him back almost too soft, as if he was afraid to challenge Robert all the way till about 02:00:00 when he finally hammered down on Robert's nonsense can come across a bit too dry in his attempt not to deviate from the evidence, although he got progressively better at it closer to the mid of the second hour Ellen I loved the split screens, professional looking environment and sort of minimalistic settings. Excellent production quality but other than that I felt Ellen was just sitting there, sending out adds and doing extremely poor job as a debate moderator She was not impartial and favoured Simon's side more. She giggled at his comments but made nothing to create some barriers in the conversation. She was terrible at moderating Robert's side quests, I think she is just not well versed into the topic to notice when he was going completely off-tangent. it is almost as if she tried to make sure they both had a good time rather than boil up a little bit of heat which is what would be needed to get to the point more the volume of adds and poor moderation made me never want to watch another of her podcasts again Overall, to me Simon took the upper hand from the beginnig and gradually hammering more nails on the cross while Robert dodged most questions, did not manage to form a coherent argument, presented major inconsistencies (with few interesting points) and basically contributed with almost nothing. His patient stories were interesting as are most anecdotes but in the absence of clinical setting, they are hard to verify. I could equally give 10 random made up cases from my practice to form an argument. I think Simon's winning point was about 02:06:00 when he said (I paraphrase) " I know science does not have it exactly right but it is about reducing the uncertainty not about gaining exact clarity and I don't see the other side (youtubers and influencers) doing that any better. And so in the absence of that, what do people have to hold on to? " to this Robert was unable to reply and said "we are all sharing our stories". At that point it would have been better if Ellen launched another add and closed the conversation, it was painful to watch from about 02:08:00 and no further value was added. At about 02:10: 00 Simon made a second attempt at which point Robert asked: "tell me about glycocalyx". Are you fucking kidding me? And Ellen did nothing to this ridiculous stunt. I would want the judge to moderate heavier and to follow the conversation more actively, Simon to actually hold Robert and stop each elusive attempt. From this point Robert went full on grifter, turned into a random content generator and basically dug up his grave I can't say this was a good conversation, in fact this was an awful demonstration of why these debates are complete waste of everybody's time. If I was a newbie, I would not have learned anything, would have remained more confused, more unclear and quite frankly a bit pissed. For a person wanting to learn about nutrition this is not a good way to go. Find good books on Nutrition 101, start there. Leave these debates and come back later (or don't) , all they do is confused the fuck out of everybody. My only outcome was sub to Simon who seems to be bringing interesting people on podcast.

@Growly not unless doing it helps you feel more in control. Nothing wrong with some processed food. Not all of it is equal.

Depends on the nature of your work. For more uncreative , admin type of work like copying spreadsheets to emails, needing to reply to emails while reading pdfs etc, two screens are better. Also if you spend lot of time of calls where you have no contribution but can't skip then being able to work on the other screen is a benefit. I find for creative efforts or when needing higher focus, single screen works the best.

Thanks for taking time to elaborate. I know I had similar conversation with Jason some time ago. What you guys propose is interesting and speculative and if someone ever does that I would like to see it (or be there if I can qualify! ) The problem I see is that the sort of level of health awareness and fitness (using Jason's terms "Divine Health") is unachievable for many people for practical reasons. Take a single mom of 2, an overloaded husband taking care of family, house , barely paying mortgage, milions of people from afro american and mesoamerican origin living in US, UK and Europe at the edge of poverty. You have to be a bit priviledged to even entertain that sort of idea. You would have to assume higher level of education (probably university degree level), decent income, stable family situation (free from traums, family restraints, cultural pressure and conservative parenting) and you'd need to speak English (but that is easily checked off) I think what you guys are proposing, correct me if I'm wrong, is almost a lifestyle that goes beyond the known risks associated with high saturated fat diet by offsetting that and almost turning it into a net positive? So that you can get the best of both world - keep died filled with antioxidants that protect the lumen of your arteries while channeling the benefits of high protein diet. Or is that off? With regards to the current direction of the evidence, I admit I am not 100% up to speed with the data on cholesterol and saturated fats (slowly clawing my way through) and currently heavily rely on work of other people who have done it so I can't comment about the validity of the data. But when you say "using unhealthy populations" I can't help by wonder, "how do you know that?" I ask because it is an argument you both have used multiple times but that begs the question: what is unhealthy? what would be healthy? and, most importantly, what would be classifying criteria to enter the type of study that you guys would deem appropriate, if we were given a chance to do this again? the sentiment is mutual. Despite our differences in opinions on small volume of topics, I'd love to do one of your workouts with you guys, do some challenges, hand stands, hikes, wrestling or whatever you crazy people do! If we stayed away from a few nutrition topics, I think we would get along pretty well

@Growly mostly not if you're healthy and provided you are getting them from food and not from multinutrient supplements. A balanced diet should sufficiently provide all of them and the body will eliminate what it doesn't need through kidneys and gut or store for later those that are storable. Caveats being: pre-existing health conditions requiring increased or reduced dosage(e.g. kidney disease, osteopenia..) pre-existing need for higher or lower intake due to change of circumstances, environment, preference, optimisation etc. supplementation of other high dose that would disturb a long term homeostatic balance Omega 3 might be one exception where a supplementation of the elongated chain acids mainly docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) may be a cheap precaution policy. You don't have to focus on the 3:1 ratio which is unsupported by the evidence but going on an occasional cycle of clean fish / algal oil can be a good idea. Also good idea to keep an eye on your ALA sources (walnuts, chia etc)

@Schizophonia the comments about ancestral diet was spot on tho, sorry i ignored it. I think you are right that with cooked diet richer in animal protein the development of human brain was accelerated to some degree although I'm not sure whether it was just the diet or also needing to build shelter, changes in the environment , new complicated logistics (food storage, material transport etx) migration of populations into new regions , expansion, , having to figure out new ways to live alongside changing climate etc. I don't think we actually know the answer to that yet and whether it was the diet or the settled lifestyle that lead to farming and agriculture. The last book I read on ancient ancestry (Britain BC by Francis Pryor) seems to suggest that hunting gave way to farming after the end of the last ice age as more surface area became available and from that new step of human evolution slowly happened...at least in northern Europe. It was probably different elsewhere. What i really hate are blank statements like "we evolved to eat meat" and "humans are natural carnivores" the ones all over social media. They are missing the fine details and demonstrating ignorance

Absolutely

@Sugarcoat i know, nothing bad with joking but it brings down the quality of the entire thread. Keep it to WhatsApp maybe? 🙂

Also @Sugarcoat @Schizophonia please can you take this to private chat? You're detailing the conversation

@Schizophonia good response albeit largely generated by AI. It would take too much time for me to research each of your claims in depth as I'm not familiar with this population data. Anyways i was arguing about the macro position of this. If we can't rely on the evidence because it is echo chamber, what do we have to inform public? How do we make public health recommendations?

Assuming that's the case, I honestly see nothing else out there that would be any different. There is very little I see in the low carb or carnivore communities that is separable from fairy tales, group hive mind thinking and almost a stage purple superstition with an appeal to palaeolithic ancestry, (usually disconnected from the actual evidence in anthropology, archaeology and palaeontology because most people don't bother to read books anymore ). All I see is an army of stage orange gym rats marching of a cliff singing "24 eggs and 2 pounds a beef a day makes being a pussy go away" and I'm not sure I buy into that. Maybe if I was 20 again, I would have. But this extends to vegan groups, the vegetarian groups, raw foodies, keto people and all of them pretty much. All of them have their own fairy tales and biases, some more than other. But my point is, presuming we can't trust science and evidence to form our conclusions and have some sense of direction for ourselves and those who depend on us for guidance (parents, kids, spouses) , what else do we have to rely on? I am all for "common sense" and "see how it makes you feel" but then frankly eating Kinder Bueno, Nesquik and McChicken makes me feel pretty darn good in the moment but I have no illusion that they are particularly good for me in the long run. And common sense is a variable that's pretty sneaky and elusive. Genghis Khan thought it was a common sense to try and genocide the poor farmers of of norther & north eastern China (Xin & Song back then) because farm lands were in the way of free pastures favoured by the Mongolian pony. How do we even know most of the things we know? Somebody had to go form an argument that eating junk food isnt great for you? And most of us made a decision to trust into that echo chamber and agree. Maybe a degree of that is necessary to have some form of footing under your feet in a world already pretty complex and tantalising. Because without trusting into some sort of echo chamber, what else do you have? Its like being lost on a raft in the middle of pacific ocean, you can't help but follow the strongest current...in our case the loudest influencer or the one with the most cash to put behind advertising. Not looking for a fight just tossing the ball back to your court

Forget videos and debates. Gotta go back to the basics if you want to build solid foundations. Makes one immune to quackery. See if you can find these in second hand or similar alternatives. Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism 8e + MindTap for Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism Organic Chemistry Paperback – 20 July 2001 by Jonathan Clayden , Nick Greeves, Stuart Warren, Peter Wothers Ross & Wilson Anatomy and Physiology in Health and Illness Paperback

I kinda agree with @puporing that a lot of these things are just a waste of time , at least the ones we could categorise as "healing objects. "I'm thinking all sorts of red lights, tera guns, crystals, blue light blocking glasses, weird noise emitting devices. I've gone in and out on many of these, thinking they do something and then realising they mostly don't. Most of it seems to me to be a complete junk these days. The only thing I found extremely useful is HEPA filter because I have a huge issue with mould and all British houses have it whether you like it or not. Since I've purchased it, its been a game changer and it fixed what not amount of powders and capsules could. . Other than that there is tons of cool fitness tools and gadgets like weighted vest, med balls, fit bals the abs wheel, TRX, skipping rope etc. but those probably don't qualify under this thread, do they?

I'm similar to you that I'll read a book and something is mentioned that the author just skimmed over and it sparks my curiosity and then 2 hours later I end up in a rabbit hole super deep on that one topic while loosing the main plot. I don't think its a bad thing. If you're naturally curious abut a wide variety of tipics and your memory works better on hooking itself to multiple entry points rather than remembering a single storyline, then maybe you have to do that. At the same time some of it is almost the Reels/Shorts mindset, isn't it? Its almost like the question "why did Hitler kill himself & Eva Braun" begs for a gory picture of the two of them with bulletholes in their heads just before they (or their doppelgangers ) were burned by Wehrmacht soldiers outside of their Berlin bunker to prevent them being hanged of Reichstag by the soldiers of the Red Army. That's the sort of journalist mindset. But you probably want to go deeper and so the question can't be answered without asking: Why did Nazism rise in Germany and what were the consequences that lead to the consolidation of power of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and their rise to absolute power. But that question is so incredibly complex to answer that it just opens 50 new rabbit holes for you to explore, all the way from unfair treatment of Germany at the end of WW1 and the Versailles Treaty, to unequal distribution of resources in Europe, the hyperinflation and the annex of German colonies, to the rise in industrialisation of Britain & France, and the shadow of communism rise in the east.....you get the idea. I think its just that your mind is so curious about so many things that it can at the same time become almost overwhelmed by the magnitude of information and just skips to the next topic to get a fresh start. That's how you end up on Washington. Or maybe it just likes to ride those highs: the corpse of hitler, the American Revolutionary War, the deformed casualties of Chernobyl ... but exploring the causes and impact of each is for another lifetime after you realise that each of those topics could take a lifetime to explore. Maybe I'm wrong. My mind is similar and I actively have to restrain it Dunno, tell me if I'm telling nonsense. I still think its brilliant to be curious about many things but its important you don't just become a davourer of flashy bits but take time to explore things in more detail because there is nuances in details and it is knowing the full story and beign able to make connections elsewhere , for example to the political development of today, is where growth happens.

.. okay horrible ! the most terrifying experiences of my life

@Schizophonia haha no worries its a fair question. Not really no. At least not with psychiatric meds. To he honest i have so little experience with medicine from a perspective of a patient that maybe that's a major limitation of mine. Maybe i was lucky to have been born with good genetics. I do have quite bit of experience with anxieties, panic attacks and dissasociation tho, I've had quite a few episodes over my life which I've always managed to get on top of without pharmacology and knowing the risk factors like alcohol and sleep deprivation helps me avoid them now. But I'm not qualified to talk about what it actually feels like to be on meds i guess

There is something to be said for distributing across as many markets as possible, ofcourse within the limits of safety. You don't want to buy bunch of Venezuelan bonds at 80% marginal value just to see them shrink over next 10 years to 10%. At the same time, if you are, for example, German, you don't want to invest only in German or European bond & stocks because your salary and your pension is already tied to the European economy so you would want to explore APAC, US, UK opportunities. But these days, most of the investment funds have a fair distribution among US, UK, Europe and APAC. I've not seen India markets specifically so can't comment on that. don't we all Read the Intelligent Investor, that gave me very good start into understanding the investment world. Actually read it, don't just skim over it. Highlight chapters and then return to them over and over. Its a book to be studied./ Overall, there are no shortcuts. Longitudinal research shows that methodical slow investing over decades where you take advantage of compound interest is the safest and most reliable way for most people to make decent money. This means sending a little bit of money each month and having multiple of such funds to diversify your risk. There are also a variety of pot options where you put money away for a year into a fund or a product and in 12 months you get them back with a compound interest. Your bank might have some of these available. You have to be a bit lucky to catch a nice AER (annual % return). I caught 5.6% last year and invested which brought me some nice revenue few weeks ago. This year it sank to 3.5% so I reinvested that money into something else. You can subscribe to European bank's newsletter (if you live in EU) to stay up to date with the current interest rates and evolution in the EU economy. Hopping from one fund to another, selling and buying couple times a day is only an option if you have extremely deep knowledge of the markets and if you can do this full time. It is incredibly dangerous too. You are competing with traders and banks across the world and it is such a thin ice to walk on. But many have made money this way so it could work. You also have to account for your age, your situation in life , your current wealth and how much of that you can spend etc,. For example spending half your salary each month on speculative investment is potentially a disastrous thing to do where investing methodically 10% of it into 10 different funds with distributed locations and distributed risk leaving them like that for 5-20 years is potentially a brilliant idea. I don't know how old you are but you're potentially committing a financial suicide. Do you not have to pay your rent / bills / food / travel and other expenses? Or if not at the moment, will you not in the future perhaps when you live alone or with a partner? Keeping some cash in reserve is a good idea. A good way to calculate that is, if you lost your job tomorrow and couldn't find another one, could you last 9-12 months at the current expense rate? That's how much cash you should hold. ( amount needed per month) * 12. Maybe multiple the whole thing by 0.9 if you think you could tighten your belt a little bit. You are a candidate for reading the Intelligent Investor indeed You can't if you do speculative investing like that. Committing 80% of your income into investing is almost like trying to be healthy on 2 hours of sleep. It will devastate your mental health because stakes are way too high and if you loose it all, if the market crashes you're left broke. Its basically gambling with your own sanity and self preservation mechanism. That's why you worry. Consider leaning more into slow sustainable investing that doesn't force you to check all the time and react emotionally to each small fluctuation. Ideally you would be checking maybe once a week or even once a month.

I've worked with lots of people taking some form of SSRI/SNRI, MOAI even TCA antidepressants, often combined with antipsychotics, beta blockers, benzos or occasionally even stimulants. What I've gathered so far is literally every single person has a completely different experience. Some tolerate them well but it dulls them a bit and to some they completely overwhelm their system. I don't love psychiatric meds because they can be hard to work around and prevent contraindications with food and supplements, especially when combined. At the same time I'm glad they exist, they save lifes and keep many people "further from the abyss". hope you'll find the answers to the underlining issue eventually

Sorry to hear that. In such case you probably benefit from not using it. Still, doesn't mean others wouldn't. I assume they control for the usage of antidepressants in those studies but I wasn't able to find it specifically being mentioned. Lot of people choose not to take antidepressants due to their side effects or for other reasons. Nothing wrong with taking meds tho if that's what helps you.

^ great post! There is so much more that could be said about coffee. You'll know almost immediately if it is bad for you by experiencing symptoms of rapid heart rate or jitteriness. Its fine for most people and long term benefits are well documented. Whether you get addicted to it to a point that you can't switch on your work laptop nor get yourself to the gym without being caffeinated is a completely different story. Unfortunately some people don't tolerate it well. It usually comes down to genetic mutation on certain hepatic enzymes or there is something else going on. People may have all sorts of inborn snips on key metabolic enzymes making them unable to digest certain food ingredients or particular amino acids such as phenylketonuria or different snips of P450 enzyme family. But that doesn't mean all those foods are automatically bad for everyone else. Knowing the nuances is important before bulk-rejecting entire foods or even food categories , e.g "carbs are bad because I get bloated from bread" or " coffee is bad because it gives me diarrhoea". Prospective evidence shows coffee improves the progression of depression and reduces the odds of suicide in people with mild to moderate depression. Would you take it away from them saying "coffee is bad for you"? ... I'd rather not. Sure, it doesn't solve the underlining issue of their depression but as long as it helps...

did you have to dig up a 5 year old post just to add that?

forgot about this gem !