One of my favorite quotes of all time happens to be from Mahatma Ghandi:
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
I’ve certainly felt the first and second of these stages, and I now believe I’m entering into the third. But don’t confuse my motivation from the above quotes as originating from hate or anger — I genuinely want to change the minds of even my biggest detractors.
No matter how strong or compelling my data is, it will take much more to open minds to it. I need to put in the effort to communicate to the biggest doubters out there. And yes, I know the vast majority won’t change their minds. But a few will, and in the end, I believe it will be worth it.
And with that, I’ll close with another favorite from Ghandi:
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.
Dave:
Here is what it looks like when they fight you:
http://www.apta.org/PTinMotion/News/2017/6/9/NutritionWebpage/
And follow the link in that article to this:
http://www.apta.org/PatientCare/Nutrition/
This is meant to severely curtail PTs from talking
about a LCHF/Keto way of eating. Even if the
information comes from published studies and
the PT uses documented evidence, the APTA
will take that PT to task a la Noakes, Fettke and
such. Even if you could fight the “trial” without
the support Noakes and Fettke have, it would be
a hollow victory as APTA and such organizations
have unlimited ability/budgets to take on anyone
who dares counter their dogma.
Other organizations will follow suit in due time.
Sad.
That’s unfortunate, Bill. I’m sure this road was paved with good intentions, but it can have the net effect of entrenching the status quo. 🙁
I meant to say a “pyrrhic victory”
Welcome to my world Dave….at least on the first three (ignore, laugh & fight)…..I think though on the last, in today’s world, winning is a potential outcome but I also see that they co-opt and steal and then try to emulate your work as if it is their idea…..witness how many internet Paleo gurus are now Keto gurus….keep up the great work!
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if they “stole” my idea so long as it propagated the knowledge. My greatest challenge right now is getting everyone to understand how dynamic the lipid system is, and thus how fluid cholesterol numbers are as well. *How* that happens is less relevant to me.
I go through the same nonsense as everyone else. I feel it’s my duty morally to alert people of the danger in the low fat diet. We must persevere, it’s our American way of life at stake. There is no bigger threat from our out of whack health care system. We must right the ship. Keep on hanging in there. Visit my website http://www.carbwatchersutah.com
Thanks, Donald!
I think Dave has the psycho militant vegans after him now. Some of the current questioners are known vegan trolls who are not pleased with any possible benefits of eating meat.
I back you up Dave Feldman!! Keep it up!!! You inspire me to learn more, grow deeper knowledge and take charge of my health. To ask ” why” to so many misinformed doctors. Your encouraging words have inspired me to want to help others . THANK YOU!!! Kimberly:)
Awesome, Kim! You are hands-down one of the fastest learning hyper-responders I’ve known since starting this. Keep up the good work!
Tim Noakes has a great talk on YouTube where he speaks about when an observation rises to the level where you can talk about causation instead of correlation. One case described was scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps, where the appearance was so tightly correlated you basically could not explain it in anyway except as causal. [paraphrasing]. He also mentioned black swans; if they appear you also are able to change the way you analyze what just happened.
It seems to me you have produced black swans, by showing that all the cholesterol values are basically just a reflection of one part individual variation and one part what you ate recently. As such the only correlation cholesterol and health should have is the same as dietary correlation. If they are just a reflection of diet, we don’t need to worry about them; we can just focus on diet.
Yes, while I’m shy to call something causative, I’m not shy about pointing to a clearly strong association. This most recent experiment with Ketofest was certainly an eye-opener. http://cholesterolcode.com/ketofest-cholesterol-experiment-preliminary-results/
Hi Dave.
Have a piece of data you may find interesting (or not).
I have been tracking FBG (fasting blood glucose) for about 4 years now on LCHF with occasional carb vacations.
I find insulin load (IL = Carbs – Fiber +.56 * Protein, all in grams) is my best gauge of FBG, ie it predicts it best and correlates best with it. I am a numbers geek and I track everything I eat. I use the FBG to see if it is deteriorating (I generate blocks of regression equations so I can feed in the exact same IL to see if FBG is changing or not for the same load – however this is beside the point I want to make).
Now for the data.
I have a lot of data points so I have started to smooth it by doing geometric means and plotting the mean rather than the data for a closer fit (I use geomeans as they get closer to the central tendency of the data than an average does), as it compresses the spread it gives me a very high R^2.
As an example I will use a 25 point geometric mean so that each point on my graph is a geomean of 25 normal data points. The way I construct it is to sort on insulin load from low to high then construct these geomeans.
I lose 12 data points on either end and the points do represent an overlap but thats not important as I have so many to start with. The R^2 is about .92 and has been stable for a long time now.
So I am plotting the geomean insulin load against the geomean FBG.
What I am finding is that if I am looking at FBG on the vertical there is a ramp up to a high, but as insulin load continues to climb, glucose starts to come down. It peaks at about 175-190 grams IL, on pure carbs it peaks at about 160 grams.
What I think I am seeing is the Randle Cycle switch from fat to carbs. At lower FBG the reading climbs with increasing IL but this REVERSES then starts to decline, so at low IL I am burning fat at high IL I am burning carbs.
The Randle Cycle is the explanation for the switch from carb burning to fat burning and vice versa. At low carbs you burn fat and the glucose switch is turned down, at high carbs the opposite happens and you burn glucose and turn fat oxidation off. I think the switch is epinephrine which is highly elevated on low carb but moves from high to low values quickly. Glucose starts to come down because I am now opening the lines to glucose oxidation my tissues, particularly muscle start to import more of it as fat oxidation gets turned off.
The reason it may be of interest to you is it happens in the same general area as your sweet spot for hyperresponders, so I think the Randle Cycle may have something to do with your results. Maybe worth looking at.
Cheers.
Tim.
Thanks, Tim. I’m definitely going to be checking into the Randle Cycle.
I really appreciate your valuable contributions, keep it up! 🙂
Hi Dave.
Sorry there is a typo in my previous comment.
I typed epinephrine when I meant norepinephrine.
Up to you but you don’t need to publish this comment.
Cheers.
Tim.
Hi Dave
FANTASTIC RESULTS, I suggest this for 2 reasons.
Firstly they demonstrate how dramatic the changes in cholesterol CAN BE for a 3 day change in diet (9 people had 20% plus reduction in LDL).
Secondly it clearly demonstrates that PATIENTS ARE INDIVIDUALS and have INDIVIDUAL REACTIONS to diet (obviously including CHOLESTEROL LEVELS).
Your results make a mockery of the so called ‘Healthy Eating Guidelines’ in both US and UK which suggests that a ‘LOW FAT DIET’ is best for EVERYONE, and IMPROVES CHOLESTEROL LEVELS.
I have to admit that the US LOW FAT dietary guidelines has also produced some amazing results, with 2/3 of US population now overweight and diabetes increasing to epidemic levels, WOW!
The current 10 year Heart Attack Risk Scores are heavily dependent on TC/HDL ratios.
Mine were a very high 9.3 after a Keto diet and fasting but reduced to only 5 after 3 days of following your protocol. So how accurate and useful are a 10 year heart attack prediction which can change so dramatically in only 3 days?
The down side of eating so much food was the rise in FPG (as you suggested), mine was very pronounced up from 4.4mmol/l to 7.3mmol/l.
Longer periods of fasting are likely to produce even higher LDL and lower FPG, perhaps even change in the results for some people who didn’t experience a significant changes in LDL, in Keto Fest Exp.
A 7 day full fasting experiment in 10 people produced an average 66% increase in LDL and substantially reduced FPG. (See Link)
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/129/11/2005.full
As other comments above suggest, we ALL need to be investigating our own health metrics, then experimenting with diet for improved health and reduction of long term conditions.
I hope the Health Care Professional reading this site will reach the same conclusion, then inform and educate their patients to find the best diet solutions rather than prescribe a cocktail of drugs.
Cheers
Keith
Great comments, Keith! Well said!
Hi Dave. I just found your website and am very interested. Where do you talk about your actual daily eating habits, besides just the ratio of fats, carbs, and proteins? You are such a dedicated researcher that I would guess that you have done some specific study on the specifics of an optimally healthy diet. Thank you! Joy
I don’t have anywhere I talk about that yet, but I may do a post on it soon. In the near future, I hope to be doing some short videos to add to the blog and that would be one of them.
Hey Dave & team, I’ve been testing the results of diets by using bloodwork and am happy to share if you find it useful. Most interesting for me is that in my most recent draw I’m showing LDL (P, small, and medium), large HDL, and oxLDL (plus other inflammation markers) of a lean mass hyper responder yet I’m at about 30-40% between carbs and fat with steadily 30% protein. What I believe is driving the low inflammation is my time restricted eating (16 hour daily fast). I’m at about 13% bodyfat (DEXA) and do HIIT for metabolic conditioning so consider the mechanism of global vs local use of bodyfat to still apply to my situation. My bodyfat has been steadily dropping for months but at time of the draw it had been stable for about 6 weeks.
Sure, if you’d like to post it 🙂
We have a specific post about it, but it can go pretty much anywhere