@Leo: About the carnivore diet

[Joshe]

22 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

This was me 3 years ago when I was eating salads and tofu and fish every day like a good boy

😂😂😂 Shit... I'm exorcising these demons! You gotta keep them around though. Give them just enough sustenance for survival and terrorize them from time to time... show them who's boss. 

[Joshe]

Carnivores, can you share your cholesterol numbers?

Is it not scientifically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that prolonged elevated cholesterol levels causes atherosclerosis? This being the case, and since I saw my levels skyrocket after a month on carnivore, I don't give a shit how good it makes me feel. It's just not smart. I guess if your cholesterol is in healthy range, maybe it's not bad, but if it isn't, I wouldn't be risking it. 

I remember a while back a bunch of youtube "doctors" doing videos about how the medical industry has lied to you and diet cholesterol does not equal serum cholesterol and they're all feeding you lies. Then, I remember an actual doctor coming out and dismantling them.

Maybe he was just a big pharma shill. 

Or maybe big meat wants a piece of the action. Or maybe it's a Russian psyop with Jordan Peterson heading up the project.

Edited September 19 by Joshe

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, Joshe said:

Carnivores, can you share your cholesterol numbers?

They are definitely bad, bad, bad in all possible ways.

Carnivore is not a healthy diet. Don't bullshit yourselves about this.

The only reason I do it is because I have no other choice. You should not do carnivore if you have other options.

Edited September 19 by Leo Gura

[RendHeaven]

6 hours ago, Joshe said:

Carnivores, can you share your cholesterol numbers?

I am omnivore, but I've been eating grass fed beef and whole eggs every day for the last 3 years

Last I checked:

LDL = 160

HDL = 60

Tris = 60

6 hours ago, Joshe said:

Is it not scientifically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that prolonged elevated cholesterol levels causes atherosclerosis?

There are strong correlations but absolutely NOT causal.

The phenomenon of Lean Mass Hyper Responders throws a big wrench in the paradigm of "LDL = BAD" and this is often simply brushed to the side instead of tackled head-on (i.e. LMHRs are relegated to the sidelines as an outlier rather than seen as a core dysfunction in the causation model)

[Schizophonia]

@RendHeaven What do you think of Markus Rothkranz ?

He looks very well for his age and has a relatively LCHF vegan diet, with plenty of PUFAs. 

[RendHeaven]

16 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

@RendHeaven What do you think of Markus Rothkranz ?

He looks very well for his age and has a relatively LCHF vegan diet, with plenty of PUFAs. 

I've heard of this guy before, but I don't know enough to make real judgements

My first impressions are as follows:

Indeed impressive-looking for his (public) age, but smells fishy

When I searched his name on duckduckgo (cuz fuck google lol), this is the first video that popped up:

So even IF his information sharing was accurate and true, his optics and antics are WILDLY sleazy.

And this low-integrity immediately makes me question if anything else he says is actually real.

For example how can we be sure he's not secretly eating meat on the side while promoting veganism? Is he really even 62? (doing one thing, saying another is highly probable)

And I'm also aware that one "exposed" video doesn't have absolute credibility either. After all, Leo has the same kind of character-take-down videos made on him by unqualified people calling him "cult leader."

But certainly the green screen fakery is self evident, and markus has a lot of explaining to do.

If he indeed eats exactly as he reports, then his sky high antioxidant status protects him considerably from the downsides of high PUFA. But that doesn't mean high PUFA is necessarily the optimal play, because low PUFA + antioxidants accomplishes the same thing and more

[Schizophonia]

15 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

I've heard of this guy before, but I don't know enough to make real judgements

My first impressions are as follows:

Indeed impressive-looking for his (public) age, but smells fishy

When I searched his name on duckduckgo (cuz fuck google lol), this is the first video that popped up:

So even IF his information sharing was accurate and true, his optics and antics are WILDLY sleazy.

This video is very mediocre. It's basically grotesque ad personams when he says something that seems outlandish to the person who made this video.

Quote

And this low-integrity immediately makes me question if anything else he says is actually real.

For example how can we be sure he's not secretly eating meat on the side while promoting veganism? Is he really even 62? (doing one thing, saying another is highly probable)

Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Quote

And I'm also aware that one "exposed" video doesn't have absolute credibility either. After all, Leo has the same kind of character-take-down videos made on him by unqualified people calling him "cult leader."

Yes, precisely 

Quote

But certainly the green screen fakery is self evident, and markus has a lot of explaining to do.

He's probably neuroatypical and has some crazy ideas here and there.
It doesn't matter.

Quote

If he indeed eats exactly as he reports, then his sky high antioxidant status protects him considerably from the downsides of high PUFA. But that doesn't mean high PUFA is necessarily the optimal play, because low PUFA + antioxidants accomplishes the same thing and more

You certainly right on this one 👍

Edited September 20 by Schizophonia

[Michael569]

15 hours ago, Joshe said:

Is it not scientifically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that prolonged elevated cholesterol levels causes atherosclerosis?

The word "causes" is one we need to dance carefully around but basically you could say that a combination of: 

1. high ApoB 100   
   1. includes a combination of LDL, LP(a), VLDL
2. low HDL (although pharmacological interventions aimed at reducing secondary event through HDL elevation are much much less effective than those aimed at reducing LDL, hence why the whole "targed LDL, maintain HDL strategy") . So you could say, optimal HDL & LDL helps protect you from the first event but reducing LDL post primary event will basically save your life where increasing HDL at that point does little. 
3. elevated blood pressure (potentially anything above 115-120 / 70-80 - depending how much scrutiny you apply to the evidence) 
4. high triglycerides  
5. high blood sugar (as measured by combination HbA1C, fasted glucose and post prandial glucose & HOMA-IR),
6. high level of central obesity (as measured by a combination of BMI, waist:hip ratio, waist circumference and reliable body fat measurement) 
7. smoking
8. alcohol 

...are all major contributors to atherosclerosis.

And the longer your vascular sytem is exposed to one or more, the higher your risk - you could even say , the more coronary heart disease you get, much earlier in life because in the end atherosclerosis is unavoidable. Its one of the greatest faults of the design of the human cardiovascular system and why treatments aimed at being able to disengage oxidised ApoB from inside the arterial lumen is basically what will make us heart attack-proof. We're not there yet, although some current drugs like PCK-9 inhibitors seem to do that a bit at a cost of side effects and very high price tag but maybe this is where the future of medicine will be. The closes we have to it (naturally)  seems to be concentrated punicalagin extract (pomegrenade juice - kuddos to RendHeaven & Jason for bringing this to my attention) and maybe red grapefruit juice). Maybe there are other components but I have not reviewed the data myself yet. 

What we are at this stage pretty clear on is the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis. The mechanism itself has been explained to the most miniature details and so we can derive a lot of information from that ...and from there we need to make the next step: "what is the best & safest nutritional composition of a person's diet so that the first onset of cardiovascular disease is delayed for as long as possible by minimising the migration of ApoB containing lipoproteins inside the arterial lumen and their binding to proteoglycan structures?."

Second question you could ask is: "what is the best & safest nutritional composition of a person's diet so that a healthy blood pressure of 115-120/ 70-80 is maintained and any increments are only result of natural ageing rather than dietary influence" 

 And that is basically what this entire thread is about because we are all coming at this from different ends, with heavier focus on blood lipids than blood pressure but basically it all boils down to the "how" 

 

 

Edited September 20 by Michael569

[RendHeaven]

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

The word "causes" is one we need to dance carefully around but basically you could say that a combination of: 

1. high ApoB 100   
   1. includes a combination of LDL, LP(a), VLDL
2. low HDL (although pharmacological interventions aimed at reducing secondary event through HDL elevation are much much less effective than those aimed at reducing LDL, hence why the whole "targed LDL, maintain HDL strategy") . So you could say, optimal HDL & LDL helps protect you from the first event but reducing LDL post primary event will basically save your life where increasing HDL at that point does little. 
3. elevated blood pressure (potentially anything above 115-120 / 70-80 - depending how much scrutiny you apply to the evidence) 
4. high triglycerides  
5. high blood sugar (as measured by combination HbA1C, fasted glucose and post prandial glucose & HOMA-IR),
6. high level of central obesity (as measured by a combination of BMI, waist:hip ratio, waist circumference and reliable body fat measurement) 
7. smoking
8. alcohol 

...are all major contributors to atherosclerosis.

Excellent wording, very intelligent take.

[Joshe]

Thanks for the info @Michael569

Sorry, when I said "cause"  what I meant was "largely contributes to". I'm known to not be precise with my words... I'm working on it. 

So, if one spent their 20s drinking and smoking and stopped at 30, and from 20 to 35 ate a standard American diet, and are 15 to 20 pounds overweight, mostly sedentary lifestyle, pre-diabetic with slightly elevated blood pressure, it's probably best if they approach the Carnivore diet with extreme caution and make sure to keep a check on their cholesterol numbers, right? 

See, this is the problem. Medical science is too large and complex of a topic for normal people to dive into and so they have to rely on authorities and anecdotal evidence to know what to do. So, I do appreciate the information but if we're to dance around anything, it seems we should dance around advocating for a diet that the best science we currently have, says is likely dangerous for many people. But anyway, no need to argue about that.

It seems like you know your medical stuff. Do you mind if I ask what you do? Also, what resources would you recommend if someone were interested in optimizing their health for longevity? 

Edited September 20 by Joshe

[Michael569]

8 hours ago, Joshe said:

if one spent their 20s drinking and smoking and stopped at 30, and from 20 to 35 ate a standard American diet, and are 15 to 20 pounds overweight, mostly sedentary lifestyle, pre-diabetic with slightly elevated blood pressure, it's probably best if they approach the Carnivore diet with extreme caution and make sure to keep a check on their cholesterol numbers, right? 

You know counterintuitively, you see anecdotes from overweight people who went on low carb diets and their cholesterol improved, even their blood sugar went from prediabetes to normal.

It is a high protein diet which is excellent for rapid weight loss. And when you lose weight, your cardiometabolic markers generally tend to improve across the board because obesity makes you sick, regardless of what diet got you to it.

But then what happens is, say someone followed Keto or Atkins (somewhat similar to carnivore but includes lot of processed meat) they lost 30 pounds, cholesterol got better and at some point they achieve their normal weight and stop losing any further. From that point some evidence shows that people's cardiometabolic markers start rising up again as a result of the diet that originally helped them lose weight because of their dietary consistency - too much saturated fat, too little fibre, too little carbohydrates, insufficient unsaturated fat intake

So we're always looking both long term and short term..sometimes people really need to lose weight quickly (for example when a patient is denied cardiac surgery because he is too fat and could die on the table. He gets put on Oezempic (or something similar) , bunch of other cardiac meds and probably a variation of aggressive low carb diet with tons of shakes and meal replacements. He gets the surgery, survives , but the question then is , which way next? We don't want him getting fat again. He had a primary event so he also needs to make sure his LDL is as low as possible (ofcours he'll now be put on statins for life) 

When looking long term (up to 36 months) the weight loss trials show the following: 

* 1-12 months -  In the short run, low carb diets dominate weight loss studies. Fastest by far. I think on average participants in low carb compared to moderate and high carb are like 4 + kilos ahead on average? (I might be remembering it wrong) I think the most successful one  of all is Jenny Craig although its very expensive and ineffective long term.

* 12 - 18 months - low carb diets lose effectiveness, lose their lead and moderate carb diets like Mediterranean, Ornish or Vegetarian start catching up (there are nuances to each but that's beyond the point)

Also there is a significant attrition in low carb studies at this point, some people start giving up despite losing weight because they are hard to sustain - this was nicely demonstrated by a 2022 Cochrane trial , i can get you the link you like. Having said that, all diets experience attrition but they seem to be heavier in low carb diets for some reason. 

* 18-36 months - , Results from all studies seem to be matched, meaning none does better or worse for weigh loss. But what happens is some diets also achieved improvements in LDL, HDL and HbA1C (blood sugar) while other diets didn't or some (in ultra low carb groups) even see a rise in LDL despite weight loss. 

For example we consistently see Mediterranean diet leading to more favourable cholesterol outcomes while we see low carb diets often leading the opposite way in the long term (24-36 mo) 

That's a very long response to a simple question that has no simple answer 😄 Also it was about a year and half since i did this deep dive so more stuff might have been published with more rigorous controls and new populations.

_ 

Regarding your question about best resources for health optimisation and longevity - 

I've stopped consuming most nutritional resources at this point because you can just see all that fuckery, marketing and backwards pretzel mental gymnastics people do with studies.

But...

I'd love if Avi Bitterman published more content but if you want something of ridiculously high quality amd reliability, he is the man. There are some good podcasts and interviews with him on some barbed wire topics like saturated fats and cholesterol but these videos are complex and last for hours and hours.

I like Lane Norton although not fan of the drama on Instagram.

NutritionMadeSimple is amazing as well. 

Red Pen Review team is amazing, some of those guys have their own channels, check out their book reviews as well on some of the most popular books in nutrition which are just gold standard of quackery and bullshit 

https://www.redpenreviews.org/reviews/

Edited September 21 by Michael569

[Joshe]

@Michael569 Thanks for the info!