Tweets from the Ancestral Health Symposium
The second annual Ancestral Health Symposium wrapped up at Harvard last night.
I really wish I had been there. But, I still learned a lot, thanks to the attendees and presenters who tweeted all weekend. I arranged those fascinating, educational and entertaining tweets by subject or by presenter - below. (I did not
record who sent the tweets - but I am extremely grateful.) Enjoy!
The conference attendance was double that of last year and the society will develop a membership program in September, a peer reviewed journal this year, and it will post videos of this year's presentations in a few months.
Click here to see this year's speakers and program.
PALEO
MOVEMENT
Wolf: I think we can really change all
this. 15 years ago, Paleo didn't
even exist. We've got hope for the future as people change.
Wolf:
"Somebody needs to start this, and it's gotta be us. And we'll drag the
rest of the people along kicking and screaming.
I've
been thinking about this for a while. Might as well say it. The future of paleo isn't in science, it's in neighborhoods!
Wolf: There's a potent desire for people
doing Paleo to say this is it.
That's a flaw in thinking that leads to monolithic living.
Paleo
isn't one size fits all.
There are
so many barriers into getting good food and nutrition into our institutions,
the only easy and real way is grassroots
J
Stanton: the idea of "paleo approved is kinda strange"
Wolf: The
high-carb, low-fat diet (the American Heart Association guidelines) produced
worse results than no change at all.
Lieberman:
There is no one Paleo diet. Not all ancestral adaptations are good for us. There
is no Paleo diet -- there are multiple Paleo diets.
Salatin:
The legacy we are leaving is hope of food choice for our grandchildren. If we
don't preserve this choice there will be none.
Jaminet:
The Paleo community
has a lot of enthusiastic followers but scientists aren't taking these
individuals seriously
Lieberman
- we may not know what we are adapted for, but we know what we're not adapted
for.
Salatin:
We're far more interested in the purity of the gasoline in our car than we are
of the purity of the food we eat.
Salatin:
The best way to preserve food choice is to get in the kitchen. People want to
do everything except participate.
Salatin:
The tragedy of our time is not that we're lazy. The tragedy is that we're
working at the wrong things.
We
have twice as many people incarcerated/in prison than people who grow our food
- Joel Salatin
Salatin:
Buy direct from the farmer & break your addiction to the supermarket. Who
needs one! We need to treat them like drug habit.
SLEEP
Wolf:
Have "serial killer consistency" in the way you get your sleep where
it needs to be. Pitch black room, lower stress & exercise
Wolf:
If people are sleeping well, it's difficult to kill them. If people aren't
sleeping well, it's nearly impossible to keep alive.
Take
home message for me: SLEEP is a critical 'nutrient'. Many of us are deficient.
Carbs
before bed has been shown in small studies to decrease sleep latency"
(less tossing and turning).
Lack
of sleep lowers leptin levels and increases insulin resistance.
MEAT
Grass-fed
cows fix more carbon than they emit; cattle are carbon negative and
environmentally beneficial
You
would have to eat 1,421 lbs of conventional meat to get the same amount of
estrogen as found in 3 oz of soybean oil!
Grass-based
agriculture is the only true sustainable agriculture.
Grass-fed
cows fix more carbon than they emit; cattle are carbon negative and
environmentally beneficial.
In
the U.S.: plenty of calories, not enough nutrition. But Big Ag Keeps pushing
calories without nutrition. Not sustainable!
More
important to replace carb calories w/ calories from commercially produced
animal products than to eat grass fed meat.
70%
of avg American's calories come from refined grains, vegetable oil an added
sugar.
Cooked
bacon has a high nutrient density score but bacon grease should be dumped. It's
no longer liquid gold.
We
have enough grassland to feed the country without a single farm, and that's not
including highway medians.
Anybody
that values their local food system needs to join the Farm To Consumer Legal
Defense Fund. Amen.
Ede:
There are some people who don't do well with vegetables. Many people may need
to eat a more meat-based diet. Experiment!
GRAINS
Phytosterol
(from plants like corn) is actually much more atherogenic than cholesterol
Welbourn:
AJ Roberts cut wheat out of his diet & was able to lift 175 more weight in
his power lifting competition for a world record.
The
notion that grains and legumes are good for you come from their raw nutrient
values...but you can't eat them raw!
MENTAL -BEHAVIOURAL
All
the diet and exercise in the world won't cure social isolation - talking about this
a lot lately. Disconnect in a connected world
The
first 20 minutes of exercise is when you get most benefits. Are you reading
this, my chronic cardio mother?
Social
dysfunction, not obesity, biggest threat of sedentary living.
Exercise
is optional. Movement is essential.
Your
perception of your social rank effects your health
Exercise
more and eat less is like telling someone who is constipated to eat less and
defecate more
Workplace
str Reduce Metabolic Syndrome: maintain healthy weight, exercise, eat a variety
of whole plant foods, manage stress ess predicts metabolic syndrome.
rnikoley - nurture
social circles, trade locally, don't watch news, no politics, do what you love,
avoid what you hate.
Ppl
w/ lower cognitive score have more transfats in the body. Talk about eating
yourself stupid!
Wahls:
We're setting our brains up to be more stupid and smaller. And we're speeding
that up with our kids because of our poor diet.
Those
who are insulin and leptin resistant are not able to receive signal to stop
eating.
Stanton:
the more empty calories you eat, the more you'll crave. Junk food is
self-reinforcing.
Deans:
Whether you go crazy from marshmallows or not depends on a lot of factors. But
don't eat marshmallows at all.
Wolf:
If you have a stressful lifestyle, then be REALLY careful with doing
intermittent fasting
Carbs
affecting your mood depends on a lot. Activity, genes, other foods consumed,
and gender.
Mental
health studies consistently find links between hypoglycemia and irritability
and violence. Stress hormones surge w/carb crash.
Pendergrass:
tasty sweets stimulate the ventral tegmental area which causes a dopamine spike
(pleasure response).
Hunger
does not exist to make us fat. It exist to keep us alive.
Industrial
trans fats displace omega-3s, jackin' up yo brain. Don't eat processed food,
y'all.
Eating
something sweet activates the orexogenic pathway. Translation: sugar is un petit peu addictive
PLAY
Peter
Gray:Play, not directed by adults, is essential for children's growth.
Child
psychopathology increases linearly as play decreases linearly.
FATS
Miki
Ben-Dor: Archeology proves we have evolved to eat animal fat...without it we
would still be dragging our knuckles!
Fat
intake can tigger powerful mechanism of CCK release, reducing hunger and
slowing gastric emptying.
Breast
milk 50-60% fat, 30-39% Carbs and 19-20% protein - the natural diet.
Natural
ruminant trans fats are thought to be safe. Found in breastmilk, dairy,
grassfed meat. shown some anti cancer benefits
Heart
deaths decreased in Denmark where trans fatty acids have been banned since 2003.
Lieberman:
Many diseases treated with medications are actually adaptations. The drugs are
doing more harm than good.
CHOLESTEROL
85% of the
cholesterol in the gut is endogenous (made in the body).
Attia: Cholesterol
vital for life. Dietary cholesterol has very little to do with what's in our
body. An LDL particle is a particle.
Nearly
50% of over 130,000 people in a study who were suffering a cardiac event had
LDL numbers under 100.
Wolf: The main
benefits of taking statins come from the anti-inflammatory effects they carry
and not the cholesterol-lowing effects.
Holy
what? 40% of males aged 60-70 are on statins. Quick I need something to throw
across the room
SAFE STARCHES – LOW CARBS
Seyfried:
Ketone bodies put cancer on the run.
Wolf:
I ate a bunch more "safe starches" and my LDL-P went WAY up. My
triglycerides are higher. I'm going ketogenic again. Tinker!
Glucose
is not a toxin for healthy people.
Your
health and longevity will be dependent on the ratios of fat and sugar you eat
over your lifetime.
Ketones
will help resolve insulin resistance—Pendergrass.
Dr.
Wahls eats two servings of starch per WEEK - take that as you will Safe starch
is NOT an excuse to eat unlimited sweet potatoes and potatoes. Is a little ok?
Probably.
I don't
understand the obsession with the Kitavans. Who says they wouldn't have lived
longer on a low carb diet.
Rosedale:
Fat is a free fuel; protein and carbohydrate stimulate regulatory hormones.
Restricting protein and carb is beneficial.
Rosedale:
Meals regulate your genes. What you eat for breakfast changes activity of 8000
genes that same day
Not
all low carb diets are equal - high protein not the answer
If
its carbohydrate; its fiber or it's not, if it's not fiber it turns to sugar in
your body & does damage.-paraphrase dr. Rosedale
Not
everyone thrives on very low carb diet & needs some starches.
Sisson:
Endurance athletes have thickening of heart arteries from chronic cardio.
Taking sugars and carbohydrates makes this worse.
Rosedale:
"There is no such thing as a glucose deficiency" Amen!
Glucose
is also a nutrient not just a toxin.
chriskresser
joining pauljaminet
on siding w glucose being ok for some people.
Population
studies: The higher the carb intake, the lower the lifespan.
Rosedale:
Fat is a free fuel; protein and carbohydrate stimulate regulatory hormones.
Restricting protein and carb is beneficial.
INSULIN~ LEPTIN
Energy
input vs capacity to burn or store energy could b part of the problem. When
balance goes out insulin resistance may happen
Can we
increase energy in and still induce weight loss? Simple answer: lower insulin,
lower fat accumulation
Insulin
resistance is an adaptation to energy overload. –Masterjohn
Humans
can thrive on a wide variety of diets & those diets shd be able to contain
carbohydrates Except modern Americans. –Masterjohn
42%
of our population has some form of hyperglycemia says Masterjohn
Rosedale:
When insulin, leptin are low, fools body into thinking there is famine, body
shifts into repair mode.
Rosedale:
Leptin levels double within 12 hrs of a high-carb meal.
Folks
whose BP increases when they eat a lot of salt will also secrete more insulin.
Paleo could improve insulin sensitivity in
those insulin resistant and salt sensitive.
Sisson:
"The less glucose you burn in a lifetime, the better off you are."
Eenfeldt:
What about high-carb Asians? But can YOU tolerate the carbs? But most Americans
look like Homer Simpson.
Eenfeldt:
I don't think we need to choose between insulin and food reward.
Eenfeldt:
What about leptin? High-insulin can override leptin. Insulin must be the real
master hormone
Eenfeldt:
The easiest way to raise your insulin levels is to eat high-carb junk food
In
a healthy metabolism some insulin stimulation is not necessarily a bad thing.
NUTRIENTS - HEALTH
Wheatley:
Don't expect your physician to "get it" immediately. Provide relevant
resources, preferably peer-reviewed
Keller:
Diabetics do this well with an iPhone app for
tracking blood sugars. Diet recommendations could be customized to numbers
Pardi:
Using tracking devices for measuring health markers to gather info for use in
improving health.
Trust
yourself & what you know about your body. Too many abdicate their
responsibility to take care of health
The reason
MDs don't know what to do with patient lab test results is they get less than 2
weeks education on nutrition.
Americans
are starving on a cellular level. Deficient in many essential Vitamins and
minerals
Doctors
know far less about nutrition than indigenous people.
The
first thing you need to do is fix your diet to get rid of the problematic
items." -Mark Sisson
Nutritionally,
egg yolk crushes egg whites." -Mat Lalonde
Flavonoids
are not all good, they can inhibit key enzymes in metabolism.
ChrisMasterjohn:
Inflammation and toxins can contribute to oxidative stress even w/o energy
imbalance
One
takeaway from the conference so far: antioxidants are not the big deal everyone
makes them out to be, could be harmful.
Peel
your potatoes and your peel away all your troubles...sorry, I meant all the
toxins
Ede:
Researchers like to break down food like it's all the sum of the parts rather
than the food that it is.
Is
fiber bad for us? hard to say, but bacterial fermentation may make fiber intake
bad for social life
The
"vegans are healthier" is due to elimination of processed foods
rather than intake of veg.
Seyfried:
60-90% reduction in brain tumors by restricting calories to 40%. It's a
powerful modality for treating brain cancer.
cancer is a metabolic/mitochondrial disease.
Genetic damage is an effect, not cause
DENTAL ~CRANIAL
Mew:
estimates only 5% of effort to chew is used compared to paleo times
Mew:
likely causes of CD: improper muscle function/us
Vit
D & A deficiency suspected as reason for Craniofacial dystrophy. No hard
evidence for this.
Mew:
Orthodontists don't know cause of melting faces, so they use excuse of
'multifactorial'. He suggests Vit A&D deficiencies
Mike
Mew giving a talk on how suboptimal nutrition leads to crandiofacial dystrophy.
Similar to findings of Weston A Price.
"Adenoid
face”, patients w ENT problems, patients w TMD, & patients who require
orthodontics ALL share similar cranial structural prob
ENT
and orthodontic waiting rooms are full of the same patients.
Faces
that are not the correct shape do not function properly. Breathing hearing
speaking chewing appearance and recognition.
Now
we got an orthodontist talking about why our teeth are so jacked up. Hint: it
ain't normal.
Modern
diets are causing facial/orthodontic deformities. "It's as if our faces
are melting down." - Mike Mew
This
guy gets it! Posture and facial growth relate! Posture is changeable and facial
structure can change even later in life.
Mew
recommends "lips together, teeth together, tongue on the roof of your
mouth" for best craniofacial posture.
One
factor: muscle usage changes. We are now eating softer foods & getting
calories from beverages rather than hard-to-chew foods.
DR TERRY WAHLS
Wahls:
Ancestral diets have more healthy nutrition than any of the
government-recommended diets, including MyPlate & all USDA diets
Wahls:
Start with greens and berries as the foundation of your Paleo diet. Vitamin K2 and K7 are incredible
ingredients in them Beets, greens and berries protect blood vessels.
Modifiable
behavioral factors account for over 70% of stroke, colon ca, cardiac
disease--Wahls
No
color in fruit (apple, banana)= not in Wahls diet.
Wahls
reinforces that paleo is the baseline and
from there it's n=1
Wahls:
A third of the ancestral diet was comprised of organ meats ~ Imagine the
percentage today is well less than 1%
Wahls:
Seaweed is a great source of iodine. Billions are iodine deficient and our IQ
has dropped by 15 points on average as a result.
In
my world colored means colored all the way through - Terry Wahls
Wahls:
Conducting a clinical trial to show positive effects of Wahls Diet in MS.
Preliminary results very promising
Dr.
Wahls: Deep freeze meat for 14 days to decrease risk from parasites. Buy from a
trusted farmer.
Subjects
in Wahls clinical trials going from needing walkers to jogging!!!
Wahls:
You guys in the Paleo community are the
doctors of the future. I salute you!
LUSTIG
"Sugar
is a toxin. Slam dunk. In your face. Deal with it." Robert Lustig
I'm
for getting insulin down any way you can... Insulin is the ultimate problem.
Causes fat accumulation&cell proliferation" lustig
Lustig:
Cigarettes went from fashion to filthy habit quickly because governmental
intervention at FDA. Same could happen for sugar
Lustig: With over
50 percent of Americans suffering from MetSyn, this should be treated as a
public health crisis
Lustig: Your
liver gets stick when you consume sugar. Everybody seems to know that sugar is
addictive...except scientists
Lustig: 80% of
packaged food on shelves is laced with added sugar. We've had our entire food
supply adulterated by food industry.
IRON
Kresser:
20% of iron overload is diagnosed as a mental disorder and some are even given
MORE iron to treat it.
Kresser:
Once you get high iron levels, the only way to remove it are a phlebotomy or
chelation therapy
Avoid
alcohol, vitamin C, betaine HCL, iron pans. Kresser (if you have iron overload)
Skip
the iron supplements. - chriskresser
TAUBES
Taubes: yes, the
1st law of therm works in bio, but we're not concerned about whole-body energy
balance, but fat cell energy balance
Taubes:
Obesity is not a behavioral defect
Taubes:
You'd think overfeeding studies would lead to weight gain. But if the study
subjects eat lowcarb then it
does not
Taubes:
Researchers don't think you can get people to lose weight without reducing
their energy intake from calories consumed.
Taubes:
Researchers don't think you can get people to lose weight without reducing
their energy intake from calories consumed
Taubes: The
greater the carb restriction, the lower the energy balance, the greater the
weight loss.
Taubes:
Hasn't carbs vs. calories debate been settled? No. Because total calories
always include 55-60% of carbohydrates
Taubes:
Insulin regulates fat metabolism. It's about a hormonal defect in the energy
balance equation
ATTIA
Attia: A lowcarb diet is a
powerful modality for reducing triglycerides naturally despite having the
highest fat intake.
Attia: Half
of patients admitted to hospital for chest pains or heart attack have NORMAL
LDL cholesterol numbers below 100
Attia:
Ultimately it's the total LDL particles that tend to be more problematic than
the LDL particle size percentage
Attia:
Atherosclerosis is not a disease of cholesterol, LDL or otherwise. It's a
disease of lipoproteins
Attia: We
consume 300-500mg cholesterol daily. The cells of our body produce 800-1200mg
daily. Almost every cell makes cholesterol
MASTERJOHN
But all
humans should be able to tolerate some starches. So why is carb intolerance so
common in our population?
Something
is broken between what we're eating and our ability to deal with it.
Humans
/can/ tolerate starch, it may have some differences due to salivary amylase
genetic variability
42% of our
population has some form of hyperglycemia
Wide range
of salivary amylase activity among populations.
Some
(Japanese, etc.) tolerate starches
salivary
amylase improves plasma glucose response to starch by stimulating
pre-absorptive insulin release
Some people
handle starch better than others
Attia is
challenging Chris Masterjohn. Is LDL-Particles more important then actual
particle size? Both important
KEY point:
We know LDL particle count of 2000 in SAD is BAD. We don't know what it means
with low carbers or other diets. Attia
GUT
There
are more neurons in your GI tract than in your spinal cord. Holy shit.
There
is no evidence to support the recommendation to drink 8 glasses of water a day.
Via ChrisKresser
Guyenet:
Perhaps gut flora need good food in the form of fermentable fiber because it
increases insulin sensitivity in humans.
Psychological
stress can increase gut permeability.
Obesity
associated with certain gut bacteria populations
Metabolic
syndrome is caused by excess visceral fat and exacerbated by other factors
Guyenet:
Digestive system absorbs nutrients, prevents losing healthy nutrients &
prevents things getting in we don't want to.
In
animal models, removing visceral fat reverses metabolic syndrome.
Guyenet:
Visceral fat does seem to play a causal role in insulin resistance which is at
the heart of metabolic syndrome
Antibiotic
use increases risk of IBD and weight gain
The
number of times a child has received antibiotics is directly related to their
risk of developing IBD
Guyenet:
Babies born by C-section lacking the bacteria because they didn't go through
the vaginal canal. 3X more likely to get obese.
Fancy
that: antibiotics fatten livestock too
GEGAUDAS
Gedgaudas:
Keep your carb intake to lower than 50-60g daily. Keep protein reduced to about
25g per meal
Gedgaudas:
Carbs are like kindling. You constantly need to stoke fire. Fat is like big
logs that don't make you slave to burning
Gedgaudas:
Glucose should be used as rocket fuel in emergency situations. We can get all
we need from gluconeogenesis.
Gedgaudas:
Ketones improve insulin resistance, free radical damage and hypoxia. That's a
lot of conditions, so why wait?
Gedgaudas:
Getting our energy from traditional starch and tubers would have been
impossible because they were inedible
Gedgaudas:
25% of your body's cholesterol is used by your brain. Ketones prevent and
reverse Alzheimer's disease
Gedgaudas:
Your brain actually runs better on fat. We were literally born to rely on
dietary fat for fuel. Ketones baby!
MINGER
Minger:
Get in the practice of making bone broths. There are cultures that still use
organ meats extensively.
There's
no substitute for eating the whole animal. Relying only on muscle meat will
cause aminoacid imbalances—Minger
Minger:
Muscle vs. organ meats is no content regarding nutritional content. Organ meats
give you all the real micronutrients.
But
certain marinades (including red wine) can reduce those high-heat-generated
compounds. Yay! Beware high-heat cooking/charring. Creates heterocyclic amines
& PAHs - can trigger DNA mutations/cancers
Minger: Marinade in red wine and only heat on
grill for very short time for flavor.
Minger:
Use gentle cooking like stewing & steaming instead of grilling & frying.
Don't eat charred or smoked food. Avoid open flame.
Minger:
Grilled meats problematic because the "charred" part of the food can
change your DNA. Animal models show it leads to cancer.
Minger:
You shouldn't be limited to only certain animal parts. We should have access to
everything and buying it al
When
I get home, I'm gonna simmer a pot of bone broth and broil bacon-wrapped liver
Olive
oil/lemon juice/garlic marinade or red wine marinade decrease high heat bad
stuff 90%
Minger:
Grain-fed vs. grass-fed liver probably doesn't have much of a micronutrient
difference between the two
IN SUM
Main
take away from ancestral health symposium (AHS)“ play more, chew hard, cook
more offal in ur kitchen slow & low, n=1, give blood, cycle nutrients,
relationships take priority”
David
Sloan Wilson: We are in a dysfunctional state of "evolutionary
mismatch" with our environment.
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