I have just released an article titled Those Evil Grains: Gluten Free Versus Grain Free that you really should read. It will shock you to know that eating gluten free can be worse for your health than eating with gluten, provided you are not a Celiac. However, eating grain free can be a life saver! While all gluten containing grains are obviously grains, even those grains that contain no gluten harm you by other things. Rice, for example, has sulfur! How many of you say that you are allergic to or avoid sulfur while munching on rice? How many of you need to take vitamins and mineral supplements because the proteins found in corn prevent absorption of crucial vitamins and minerals?
CONFUSING NAMES
Did you think that buckwheat was wheat or grain? Wrong.. some names simply make no sense. How about seeds, like sunflower seeds that are called “oil grains”? Do you think they are grain? Or is that just a term used to define a commodity on the stock market even if it has nothing to do with grains?
What about quinoa? Do you think it is grain? It is not. It is a super food high in many nutrients but if you watch your waistline, don’t go near it…
Read the article and see how it may change your life!
My latest academic journal article is published (pre-pub status). It defines what prodromes mean to migraines. In general academic literature, prior to my publication, prodromes simply precede migraines but for no apparent reason. The only exception is aura migraine that seems to be better understood. However, other prodromes are not understood and several prodromes are completely unknown by the scientific community.
In my latest academic journal published article Functional Prodrome in MigrainesI redefine prodromes by showing their functions and purpose. My understanding of their functions comes from working with thousands of migraineurs in a Facebook group. While the group’s purpose for the migraineur members is to learn how to become migraine free, their talk with me helped my understanding greatly of the various prodrome types and what those prodromes mean. Many very important prodromes that migraineurs have are completely unknown to the scientific community. I suppose it takes a migraineur to understand what questions to ask and though I am a scientist, I am also a migraineur. That certainly helps!
Understanding what kind of prodromes other migraineurs had in addition to the kinds I had (migraineurs are pretty much alike–all migraineurs seem to be siblings in more ways than one!) in turn helped me identify the best migraine prevention methods without the use of any medicines. A couple of previous academic journal articles I published explain various elements of migraine.
One of my academic journal articles explains Migraine Cause and Treatment with some revolutionary details based on scientific understanding of the cell and what it needs for energy to be able to function in a migraine brain. Migraine brain is anatomically very different from the brain of a non-migraineur.
Another academic journal article of mine is connected to migraines but it is primarily a critique of how statistics is used. Cardiology is its main avenue to bring the problems to the surface. It discusses the problems of statistics used in the connection of increased dietary salt and the “related” blood pressure increase: Are Statistics Misleading Sodium Reduction Benefits? This article is very critical of nearly all research publications associated with salt and its connection to blood pressure. It is amazing to see how many scientists don’t fully understand the statistic results they receive and jump into conclusions that are completely erroneous.
I hope you enjoy reading all three of my academic articles (the language I kept is simpler than typical academic papers full of acronyms and jargon) and learn more about migraines. Then visit my Stanton Migraine Protocol® website and read the many testimonials.
Migraine is not a disease but a condition representing a brain in energy crisis. No amount of medicines will solve the problem of an energy crisis but understanding what energy crisis means will help us knowing how to fix it. Proper energy provided the right way aborts and prevents all migraines without any medicines. The goal is to learn to recognize migraines prior to their start. Few migraineurs know how to recognize functional prodromes before migraine starts without training.
Please read all three articles and contact me with any questions you have.
There is a new fad out there that alternates between fat and carbs burning diets with cheat days. Let me try to post the video here that is trying to do a great explanation about what it is. Below the video I posted a long response but there is no guarantee that such will remain… so I post it in the open as well. In case that does not work, here is the link to the video as well.
There are some major errors in the explanation provided. The explanation certainly sounds good. So let me explain some of the problems:
1) We cannot burn fat for energy unless we are in ketosis. To get into ketosis (the low carbs phase only lower carbs) takes several days to weeks.
2) One of the things that happen while converting into the fat burning mode is that all glucose storage gets emptied. This increases glucose in the blood for a few days until it can leave since insulin at that point is not using glucose but is starting to modulate ketones (it cannot do both). This has been tested by me several times as I was coming in and out of ketosis on purpose to see what happens to glucose. Each time glucose went up (not unreasonably up but out of the normal range). So glucose is floating in your blood, creating the suspicion of insulin resistance in your body, since glucose has not picked it up. This is a bad sign and is best to go through this only very seldom.
3) After your body emptied all glucose, it turns into a fat burning machine. Fat burning is called ketogenic mode of fuel burning (I am not using the diet word since it is really not meant for diet albeit many people use it for that. It coincidentally burns all fat your body does not need–the ones that are around your organs, such as visceral fat–and the fat you eat).
4) Your body actually does not need carbs–look into the diets of those aboriginals living in Nordic locations living off fatty sea food such as whales and walrus blubber. Once the body is a fat burning body, it burns only fat.
5) Low carbs diets (under 50 grams but over some “magic gram” to be calculated based on body mass and caloric goal) the body goes into starvation mode and hence leptin ( hormone) slows the metabolic process so that your body can get through the starving period and survive on less food. If you are only reducing carbs and do nothing else, indeed, you will start gaining weight from a single grape. Your metabolism is tinkered with the wrong way. Watch this video by Dr. Lustig to understand the role of leptin and what it does as it reduces your metabolism and why.
6) If you have your body calibrated (by a specialist) to ideal carbs intake such that you remain in ketosis (fat burning) your metabolism does not slow down. It becomes a different metabolism. Ask an Inuit how often they go the gym to work out and when they had their last Starbucks latte… They may have them now but they sure did not 50 years ago. At that time they were healthy.. not so much today with the arrival of carbs! The Inuit only ate fatty meat and nothing else. They used salty water to cook soups and gave the lean meats to their dogs…
7) Because it is such an incredibly difficult task for the body to get into the state of ketosis where you burn fat instead of sugar, and because it alters what your insulin does, a so-called “cheat day” knocks you out of ketosis completely–recall it takes several days to weeks of getting back into ketosis… so a single cheat day means several days to several weeks of getting back!
8) On a cheat day, insulin has to change over and start recepting glucose instead of fat… great! It takes 2-3 days to several weeks for it to be able to do that. So now your body is getting the message that you have insulin resistance; again! So when is your next cheat day? If the following week or month, you are teetering between two metabolic processes with neither getting a chance of working–now we are talking metabolic problems!
9) If you keep on repeating this regularly, you may just end up with insulin resistance! For those who don’t realize, that is called type 2 diabetes.
In conclusion, if you want a weight loss diet, go for a weight loss diet. If you want to change how your body functions and how your body uses energy, get on the ketogenic diet and STAY there for a longer period of time. Do not go in and out. That will land you in the world of diabetes even if you ate no sugar in your entire life.
My Experience
I have been doing a lot of studying up on these various diets, not for the sake of losing weight but for their therapeutic purposes. Ketogenic diet is tested now for seizures, MS, Parkinson’s, autism, and a lot of brain damage conditions because glucose damages neuron’s myelin (insulation) and fat is needed to repair it.
However, fat can not be used in our metabolic processes unless we get into ketosis… so ketogenic diets, while they are low carbs diets, they are used as medicinal options for treating diseases and is not primarily used for diets albeit if done right you will lose weight. However, unless you are calibrated by a professional to know how much carbs and protein and fat you should consume, you may indeed mess up your metabolism. So don’t do it alone! Talk to an expert.
Protein
One additional important thing the author of the video is not talking about: protein. If you increase your protein, you are doing a tremendous disservice to your ambition in both endurance sports and in diet. That is because the body converts proteins to glucose via a process called gluconeogenesis. This is a very difficult process and causes what is called the “stinky diet” because of the enzyme the liver creates in processing all that protein.
So going low carbs will not get you anywhere healthy or thin unless you also lower your protein and increase your fat intake. If you increase your protein while lowering your carbs, your body will convert protein to carbs and then later your muscles are the next food item–self cannibalism. That is the nature of gluconeogenesis.
So if you want to lose fat, lose fat the right way and talk to an expert to find out what is YOUR best way of losing fat. Everybody is different, plus you may have health conditions that reduce your options.
And lastly and most importantly, if you have diabetes 2 or 1 or 1.5, do not attempt low carbs diets without the aid of a doctor who monitors your health and insulin levels. Both carbs and fat digestion needs insulin. Thus having limited (type 2) or not having any (types 1 and 1.5) and stopping carbs does not mean you can live without insulin in the fat burning world and you may get hurt! You still need insulin only different amount. So before you jump, discuss with your healthcare provider and don’t be surprised if they have no idea what you are talking about.
Although ketogenic diet is over 2000 years old, modern medicines kicked it out-of-the-way (no pharma money in eating fat) so they replaced it with voltage gated calcium blocking medicines, that kill children… one just died last week, a daughter of a friend of a friend.
This is serious stuff and not for “everyday” challenge of your body.
Finally, it is officially published today. The html link is now working to my latest academic published article. It debunks all (I mean ALL) research of the past that “proved” that increased salt in diet increases blood pressure and that reduced salt diets provide any benefit.
The findings are all based on several major statistical oops and total cluelessness.
So if you were put on low salt diet or have always believed that salt is bad for you, read the article and show it to your doctor. Then switch doctors! Look for one who knows what she/he is doing.
Salt Increases BP? Really? So does when I am hungry, or angry, or forgot to take a deep breath!
My article (only a one-pager) on blood pressure and salt is finally out in print in a medical academic journal (abstract, entire paper). Why do we believe that salt has any significant influence on our blood pressure? This article debunks the myth and shows how easy it is to misunderstand (and misuse) statistics! I did not attack any single paper but I attacked all papers that in any way claim any significance.
Wrong Research Hurts People!
The paper is short but you will finally understand why research so far has been conducted wrong. The problem of misused and misunderstood statistics like this has misled entire nations! Now millions (billions perhaps) of people are placed on reduced salt diet with possible dire consequences because of the improper experimental and statistical methods.
However, I was able to show that the finding are not only wrong but even if they are right they are inconsequential and insignificant. We get a bigger blood pressure change when we take a deep breath or when we think of our next meal or are hungry. The findings are ridiculous.
Enjoy the fun I had with criticizing all research on the connection of sodium and blood pressure!
Nope, not a typo. Although Flint, Michigan has absolutely nothing to do with Himalayan salt, they suffer from lead poisoning from the water that is contaminated. I wrote this short article to bring a parallel between what is happening in Flint, primarily because of what Dr. Sanjay Gupta said on CNN: 5 ppb (parts per billion) lead is hazardous for your health, and what is in Himalayan salt that many people take pride in eating because of the so-called “minerals” that are good for you. I did a bit of calculation based on information readily available on the web about the lead content of Himalayan salt: 100 ppb. As you can imagine, if 5 ppb is dangerous, imagine 100 ppb.
Himalayan salt also contains mercury and about 50% of those amazing “minerals” are uranium, plutonium, and other heavily radioactive materials. Heavy metals, such as lead, cannot ever be removed from your body and they build up over time, slowly poisoning you.
You can always chose to keep on eating Himalayan salt; be my guest. But now you can make an educated decision! Now you cannot say “I didn’t know” because now you do know!
In 2015 the government permitted what is called “Open Database” to be public without any limits for 2014 and now 2013 is also visible. One was able to search for specific doctors to see how much money they have accepted and for what services and from which pharmaceutical companies – of course in addition to their annual salaries. Searching this way, the most outrageous doctor we so far found was one who cashed in a whopping $300,000 dollars over his salary. At that time I thought “wow what a big fish in the net!”
Wrong!
There are bigger fishes by several magnitudes only last year’s search method was hard to do see since you had to search per doctor. Now the government changed all that.
First, it made it more difficult since now you have to sign in by creating an account. No problem; it takes a minute and they have your name and email in exchange. No problem with that–small price to pay.
Next they now have separate data-sets to look at. Online search yielded some amazing enough results that I felt the urge to download all tables. This is only visible to you once you log in. I saved all data in excel on my computer and here is one sample for you. Click on it to see the full size so you can read it and pay particular attention to the red column and the orange one!
Physician payoffs from Pharmaceuticals-2014
Here is a screen capture of my a little part of the excel sheet (I hid many of the unimportant columns to be able to show you the columns of importance). I highlighted certain columns. The amount accepted is red and in bold. Theses amount are all from 2014–note these are millions of dollars. Note also that over 99% of the doctors who accepted money are by Allopathic and Osteopathic doctors and not by MDs. There are MDs as well of course and many accepted in hundreds of thousands dollars but it appears that this group (General Payment Data – Detailed Dataset 2014 Reporting Year) mostly contains Allopathic and Osteopathic doctors, a few dentists and some others. Even PAs (Physician Assistants) are paid off by Pharmaceuticals to make sure they will use all services and medicines the particular pharmaceutical company provides.
Some of this money is used to offset the costs of insurance non-covered medicine to be sure that although alternate medicines exist, the doctor will still prescribe the brand not covered!
How is this sitting with your healthcare?
If I may recommend one thing let it be this:
Before you visit your doctor next time, do yourself a favor and run this search! See if your medical provider is selling you out for a bribe of money like a crook! Because what I see are bribes!
What happened to the oath of Do No Harm?
Good question! No idea!
Your best bet is to put your healthcare into your self-education as is done by hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of others! Do your research on each of your doctors; do your research on the possible causes of your problem before you visit a doctor as well! Do your research on the medicines you receive and most importantly, check in any online drug interaction checker (my favorite). Add all medicines AND vitamins AND supplements AND herbs you are taking and hit “check for interactions” and then faint.
Chances are you will have several major to moderate interactions, at which point print that result out and head back to your doctor and demand a change!
Hope you find this short article of my utmost disgust useful and that you will put its wisdom to good use!
The statistics of diseases caused by the American diet (or Western in general) are really scary. So I will not give you numbers but understand this much: a very large percent of our population suffers from metabolic syndrome, which consists of several diseases such as: obesity, diabetes 2, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, various immune disease (yes, many!), and I even want to add some other disease here that are not considered to be “metabolic disorders” but they are: heart disease, hypertension, seizures, migraines, some types of MS, some types of Parkinson’s, depression, anxiety, IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and many more. I will not explain the connection of disease to food here since that is a book on its own but I want to brush by you some facts of importance that participate in these diseases.
The pH of your body
Whether a diet in high pH (alkaline) or low pH (acidic) is good for us, is debatable since each of our body-type cells has a different function. As a result, each has a different ideal pH level. For example, skin is more acidic (low pH) to ward off invaders. The vagina is extremely acidic to kill of invading organism (including sperms!). The saliva is a tad acidic (6.5 – 6.8 on the pH strip where 7 is neutral) for the same reason: kill off bugs and also to help digestion. Our cerebral fluid (brain) is neutral (7) and our intracellular and blood fluids are alkaline at 7.3 or so.
There are many companies selling water alkalizing equipment or alkaline water… don’t fall for the scam! Also many companies selling Himalayan salt or unpurified Sea salt will try to convince you about the alkalinity or acidity. Scam alert! Salt becomes sodium chloride in the body. Sodium chloride, as pure salt, is pH7 (neutral) but when you break salt (sodium chloride) up into parts, the parts are not neutral: sodium is alkaline and chloride is acidic. The minerals in salt are not important for the body–particularly not when they come from lead, mercury, radioactive materials (Himalayan salt) or fish poop and dead organic materials mixed with mud for taste (Celtic and others). Why so much discussion on salt? Because it is one of the most important minerals for our body.
Most animal meats and seafood are acidic and most citrus fruits (even though they taste acidic and measure acidic in pH) and a host of other fruits, become alkaline in the body (not all so read a cool list I found online that categorizes many foods). Also many nuts (like peanuts) are acidic and others (like almond) are alkaline! So there is no “in general nuts…” They differ! Also oils: avocado oil is acidic even though avocado is alkaline (I have not yet figured that one out… must be in the processing) but some other oils may be alkaline. Raw milk is neutral but processed (even organic) moves back and forth on the chart between acidic or neutral; I suppose based on brand.
Why do you need to know this?
A highly acidic diet not only calls for an antacid time to time or every day; that is the least of your concern. The bigger concern is how it damages the body. Scientific literature on this is a bit confusing so I am not citing any until I read enough to fully understand the consequences but all are in agreement in one thing: acidic environment supports cancer cell growth. Acidic environments are very common in Western diet full of processed food, meat, fish, sugar, and most importantly: grain!
If you are a vegetarian or vegan, do not smile! You are not any better off! An alkaline environment is not protecting you from invaders and you may sacrifice your immune system! There are a host of other issues also with a vegan/vegetarian diet.
In general a balanced diet is the best (I know you heard that before). However, the balance does not come from the current USDA pyramid of balance becuase it is grain and sugar heavy and that is acidic! So evaluate your diet! Stop all sugars and sugar substitutes, reduce your grains (or stop them all, like I did) and balance your diet around a healthy pH. Eat both meats and vegetables since eating only one or only the other will get you into trouble and cause disease!
Increase your dietary intake of fats if you have medical conditions that affect the nerves–seizures, migraines, anxiety, depression, etc! Fats help the recovery of your axons. Axons carry voltage in your brain and their insulation, myelin, is dependent on fats! So have some! Eating fat will only make you fat if you also eat sugar or high carbs–so don’t!
If you decide to embark on a special diet like Ketogenic or MAD (modified Atkins diet) and are on the high fat low protein and low carbs diet, in addition to having a visit with your doctor for proper dietary guidance, please read the above website link that explains what foods cause our bodies to be acidic and which ones to be alkaline. If you need to correct any food for proper pH, you have help there.
Most importantly: do not make major dietary changes without discussing it with your doctor first. This includes stopping all sugars and reduce carbs since this can hurt you if you are a diabetic or have hypoglycemia. Not eating enough carbs to fuel your brain and body can cause a serious sugar crash that can be fatal so talk to your healthcare provider.
Special Note
Eating a healthy diet means different diet for different people so do not jump into conclusions without talking to your doctor who can evaluate what diet is good for you.
Clueless Doctors & Scientists 