I am reading research studies all the time. Sometimes they are the latest and sometimes they are papers I will uncover while researching a particular topic. Rather then relegate them all to twitter I felt I should collect them and post them once a month or so. So we’ll see how this goes.
Experimenting with Organic Cotton Clothing
I’ve decided to buy some organic cotton (OC) clothing and try it out. I placed an order with Rawganique.com because they had OC boxers, t-shirts, and socks. I bought a few of each to test how they feel in daily life. The prices were fairly consistent with department store prices. T-shirts were $15, boxers were $28 (a little pricey), and socks were $8 per pair. I’ve heard of a number of online stores but I didn’t find many who weren’t specializing in women’s and/or children’s clothing or just t-shirts. Here are some other stores I came across:
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Mark Sisson’s fictional dialogue about macronutrients
I think writing a fictional dialogue can be a useful exercise to explore ways of better presenting information. There were 2 passages in Sisson’s piece that stood out to me as being similar to conversations I’ve had as of late and thus worth quoting:
Actually, you know how you asked how I never quite need coffee? It’s because I’m fat-adapted. Thanks to my high-fat diet, I have the metabolic flexibility to tap into my stored body fat whenever I need to. See, we store body fat because it’s a fantastic energy source. It burns clean and we can store upwards of tens of thousands of calories worth. I’m reasonably lean with fairly low body fat and I still have over 50,000 calories worth on my body. Meanwhile, I can only store about 500 grams of sugar in the form of liver and muscle glycogen. It serves its purpose to be sure, but you can’t rely on glycogen indefinitely without constant refills. That’s where your need to snack comes from. It also explains why your energy levels dip an hour or two after eating.
It’s more that I’m against unnecessary carbs in sedentary people. When you’re sedentary, you’re usually insulin resistant with higher baseline levels of insulin. This is bad because insulin inhibits the release of fat from body fat stores. When an insulin resistant person consumes carbs, they secrete more insulin than normal, which causes greater retention and storage of fat. Athletes need more carbs because they’re burning through their glycogen stores. Plus, they can handle more because their insulin resistance is so low. I’m a fairly active guy myself, but I’m not an elite athlete or exercise addict. I find I just don’t need much more than 150 grams of carbs. Maybe a bit more on really heavy workout days. Often far less.
Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-primal-blueprint-refresher-a-dramatic-reading/
Chemical composition of the human body and the universe
The similarity of the chemical composition of the universe to that of the human body has been remarked upon before. Since I am studying more chemistry as of late I thought writing these out would help cement the knowledge and might be of interest to others. Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Carbon are 3 of the 4 most common elements in the universe and in the human body.
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Berberine as an alternative to Metformin
Metformin (Glucophage) is currently a popular drug prescription for treating Type 2 Diabetes and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. However 3 clinical trials from Chinese researchers suggest that Berberine, a substance found in several plants and historically used medicinally, is as good or better than Metformin. Summaries of the 3 studies and their references are listed below.
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Reports that “fish oil” might “cause” cancer
A couple of clients have asked about the media reports which have suggested a causal link between fish oil supplementation and prostate cancer. I do not want to spend a lot of time on this so here are the major problems with the reporting:
- No participant in this study was tracked on their use of fish oil or consumption of fish. For all anyone knows, none of the participants consumed any fish or fish oil at all.
- The participants in this study were men over 55, more than 70% of whom were overweight or obese and more than 65% were current or former smokers.
- No causal link can be established from this methodology.
Yet despite these issues people were subjected to headlines such as:
- “Those Fish Oil Supplements Might Cause Cancer” (Forbes)
- “Omega-3 supplements linked to prostate cancer” (Fox News)
- “Hold the salmon: omega-3 fatty acids linked to higher risk of cancer” (Time)
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Research on polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
I came across this set of research articles investigating PCOS and thought it offered insight into the history of the research and some of the important findings. These articles are all freely available.
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Research suggests benefits of whey protein for handling obesity and type 2 diabetes
I came across this free full text article which concludes:
Whey protein… enhances the release of several hormones… that lead to reduced food intake and increased satiety… The ability to amplify insulin secretion by whey protein may be safer than the commonly used therapeutic agents. The induced satiety, increased thermogenesis and comparable magnitude of blood glucose reduction to pharmaceutical treatment support the application of whey protein in the therapeutic treatment for the management of Type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Building better models of health function
I’ve been frustrated as of late by the strong urge of people, especially health and nutrition researchers and practitioners, to classify everything health related into 2 categories:
- things which are good for everyone
- things which are bad for everyone
In my opinion the sum of all things that fit into both of those 2 categories is dwarfed many-fold by the things that fall into this category:
- things which may be good for some people some in some circumstances and also bad for some people in some circumstances
Almost everything health related has important context and without that context people cannot make optimal decisions.
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Important enzymes for reducing homocysteine
I’m reading Kilmer McCully’s book, “The Homoocysteine Revolution” and I’m enjoying it so far. It overlaps nicely with a lot of other material I’ve read and studied. I wanted to list the 3 enzymes he identifies as being linked to homocystinuria and 3 others that may be implicated. The goal is not to get hung up on the generic variants that cause problems for some people but to better understand the pathways from a nutritional perspective. This should help answer the question: how to people without problematic genetic variants avoid problems associated with elevated homocysteine levels (most notably arteriosclerosis)?
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