Tag: GI

Iodine and Thyroid Function Tests

Iodine is a major component of the thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4), and triiodothyronine (T3). They are based on the amino acid tyrosine. T4 contains four iodine atoms and T3 three iodine atoms. The only known function of iodine is for the production of the thyroid hormones. Excess iodine is secreted in the urine.

Thyroid hormones are required for normal growth and development of the brain and central nervous system. It is required for energy production and oxygen consumption in cells and the maintenance of the metabolic rate.

The regulation of thyroid hormone synthesis, release, and action is a complex process involving the thyroid, the pituitary, the brain, and peripheral tissues.

Sea foods and iodine added to table salt are the highest contributors of iodine to our diet which is why vegans often resort to supplementation which can have unintended consquences.
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23 March 2018
Bats, Fish and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a type of motor neuron disease, a group of rare neurological diseases that mainly involve the nerve cells (neurons) responsible for controlling voluntary muscle movement. Voluntary muscles produce movements like chewing, walking, and talking.

Despite dozens of studies being published linking ALS with neurotoxins that can be found in fish, it is unlikely that you will hear this information from a doctor or motor neuron disease support groups.
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6 March 2018
Robert Lustig and The Men Who Made Us Fat

Robert Lustig is a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease. He specializes in childhood obesity and studying the effects of sugar in the diet. He is the director of the UCSF Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health Program and a member of the Obesity Task Force of the Endocrine Society.

Unfortunately, much of what he says is simply wrong, which given the amount of media exposure that he receives, is deeply worrying.
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26 February 2018
The A2 Milk Story

The hypothesis that A2 milk was protective of type 1 diabetes originated with a paper published in 1992. Robert Elliott observed much lower rates of type 1 diabetes amongst Polynesian children that were raised on the Polynesian islands compared with those raised in Auckland. This was attributed to the differences in the β-casein profile.

Elliott was the lead author of a conference paper that examined the effects of feeding casein to non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. The conclusion was that “the induction of diabetes by casein in the NOD mouse appears to be restricted to casein containing the A1 variant of beta-casein”.

The marketing potential of such a discovery could be enormous.
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27 December 2017
The Nature of Food Allergies

Food allergies have become a major concern with parents, health practitioners and school administrators. However, the estimates of prevalence of allergies varies widely.

A commonly accepted definition is an “adverse immune response that occurs reproducibly on exposure to a given food and is distinct from other adverse responses to food, such as food intolerance, pharmacologic reactions, and toxin-mediated reactions.”

However, most people are not going to make such a fine distinction between food allergy and food intolerance. Non-celiac gluten-sensitivity (NCGS) does not cause an IgE response so with this definition it not classed as a food allergy.

Dairy, in particular, cow’s milk and gluten, wheat and grains are commonly avoided as a result of concerns about food allergies.
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15 December 2017
Misconceptions of Denis Stewart

Denis Stewart is a herbalist from the Hunter Valley (NSW, Australia). He is an associate professor at University of Newcastle since 2002. He founded the Southern Cross Herbal School in the late 1970s.

He presents a weekly radio show on 2NUR FM, a Newcastle-based radio station, on health topics.

I am concerned about some of his material. I posted Denis a (real) letter and sent an email without receiving a response. I also sent an email to 2NUR FM listing some concerns.

Below is a list of some of the concerns that have not been addressed.
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14 November 2017
The Pioppi Diet

The Pioppi Diet movie and book by Aseem Malhotra, a London cardiologist and Donal O’Neill, an Irish film-maker that receives a great deal of publicity. A review in the British Journal of General Practice quotes Professor Dame Sue Bailey, the Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, who describes the book as a “must have for every household and a must read for every medical student and doctor”.

Andy Burnham, current (2021) mayor of Greater Manchester and former UK Secretary of State for Health writes,

This book has the power to make millions of people healthier and happier.

Pioppi is a small village on the Tyrrhenian Sea which is located on the west coast of Italy. It is approximately 150 km (90 miles) south of Naples. Ancel and Margaret Keys resided here for over 25 years. Martii Karvonen of Finland and Jerimiah Stamler of the USA are other well-known medical researchers who resided in the village.

Malhotra is a keen high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet advocate and is desperately trying (unsuccessfully) to merge his opinion into a distorted view of the Mediterranean diet.
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3 October 2017
BMJ Editorial – Are Some Diets “Mass Murder”?

Richard Smith’s wrote an article Are some diets “mass murder”? in The BMJ on 15 December 2014. He uses a work of a popular commentator to reach his conclusions in this article. Smith's claim that Nina Teicholz’s The Big Fat Surprise, demolishes the hypothesis that saturated fat is the cause of cardiovascular disease fails with just a little scrutiny.

Richard Smith is a British medical doctor and a previous editor of the BMJ (previously the British Medical Journal). He worked for the BMJ for twenty-five years (from 1979 to 2004) and was editor from 1991 to 2004.
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8 July 2017
Deception from The BMJ

On 24th September 2015, BMJ issued a press release titled BMJ investigation questions expert advice underpinning new US dietary guidelines. The press release stated:

The expert report underpinning the latest dietary guidelines for Americans fails to reflect much relevant scientific literature in its reviews of crucial topics and therefore risks giving a misleading picture, an investigation by The BMJ has found.

The BMJ Investigation was an article written by Nina Teicholz in response to the above report. It was not a BMJ investigation. Why is The BMJ press release stating that they, The BMJ, performed an investigation when it is clear that this is not the case.

This article was fully funded with a grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (www.arnoldfoundation.org).

The Laura and John Arnold Foundation provided the seed funding for NuSI, the organisation founded by Gary Taubes and Peter Attia to promote low-carbohydrate nutritional science.
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27 June 2017
What is the natural diet for humans?

What is the natural diet for humans? This is a common question but — we evolve based on behaviour and our behaviour may have a number of consequences, some beneficial and others not so much.

Giraffes have long necks, not to enable them to reach leaves high in a tree, but because males fight using the necks. Males with the longest, strongest neck wins. It does make life more awkward when eating grass or drinking from a water-hole in the evening.

Evolution is based on changes that enable us to pass on genes for future generations. If a genetic change affects cholesterol metabolism and causes an increase in heart disease this may not be relevant in evolutionary terms because heart disease usually affects people later in life.

It still may have an impact on human society because of the important influence of grandparents involved in child-minding and their importance as a repository of knowledge.
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16 November 2016