#81

There is no war. Only ignorance. The scientific literature, as well as longest lived communities in blue zones, is solid in favour of plant based.

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#82

I think it is easier to describe what not to eat than it is what to eat. Human beings are good at doing well on a variety of food sources. Getting the last 10% of perfection is hard and might not be worth it vs addressing other health weaknesses.

So, what not to do regularly?

  1. Don’t eat highly processed food (low fiber, low phytonutrients, added sugar, added fat, alcohols)
  2. Don’t eat the same thing all the time (diversity covers all bases and avoids immune issues)
  3. Don’t eat too much (excessive body fat causes many, many problems)
  4. Don’t eat all the time (let the body burn fat)
  5. Don’t eat out of circadian rhythm (don’t mess with sleep)

What did I miss?

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#83

It is a little presumptuous of you to label all of the MDs, PhDs, and studies that disagree with your viewpoint as ignorant.

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#84

I am right :slight_smile: and I trust my judgment, having a degree in biochem, more than random medical doctors with zero training in metabolism or nutrition.

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#85

Jesus, you just can’t stop being autistic, can you? :roll_eyes:

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#86

If you regard mouse studies and “one human study” as definitive… OK then, carry on. But as I said, most people here are not taking rapa based on any kind of definitive science.

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#87

I have a graduate degree in chemistry with six years laboratory research including a competitive fellowship in biochem (polymerases) among other scientific awards and fellowships, and have worked substantially with biotech companies (and just recently in spectroscopy); I’ve run gels 3x per day for years, built and used specialized NMRs, mass specs, and laser fluorescence/detection/excitation. I can read the literature as well and I feel like I know very very little: we are at the very beginning of discerning longevity drivers and markers, relying on studies which at best aren’t human-based, and at worst (aside from falsified and massively tainted by commercial interests) are poorly designed or statistical reviews over data which insufficiently account for confounding factors (regardless what the authors argue). (This is why the ITP is so valuable because it is the same experiment run against a multitude of interventions.) We’re at the very beginning of this scientific journey; history suggests such journeys rarely begin in a straight path and being open minded is useful. I’m separately doing my best to discern what works for me (which, incidentally, is not “carnivore” for me but is heavily meat/protein in a low carb diet with no seed oils and no junk). I was a vegetarian for two years and a vegan for three months to try them, and personally felt terrible; I know others who have tried it with similar result. I’m glad it works for you.

Personally for me, I’ve found that four-day fasts and lifting heavy weights and doing many flights of stairs have had the largest positive impact on my health than any diet or other intervention. I’m guessing that “Keto” and intermittent fasting just keeps my calorie count down. I’m also guessing there are many ways to get to strong healthspan with different diets, and it’s not my place (nor do I really care) to concern myself with what anyone else does as long as I can do what works for me.

I definitely don’t “know” a carnivore diet is optimum OR suboptimal, and neither should anyone else given the lack of research here. If there is a research clinical showing that the carnivore diet is either good or bad for longevity, this would be news to me. Not “meat as a portion of the SAD diet” and not “the Mediterranean diet or a vegan diet is better than the SAD diet””. Is there a carnivore-specific paper you’ve read that I missed?

As an aside, i’m sure you see that Dom D’Agastino I at the Unv Central Florida is doing some interesting “keto” work on human performance which appears to have some benefits, and his “optimum” diet seems to be high protein keto (the US military definitely thinks so, and I’d assume they check metrics). There are others, of course, but nothing conclusive. Like I said, I’m only an n=1 who biohacks based on research I find convincing and what I’ve found I can maintain and works in my blood work (which is excellent, a great win after having cancer and being overweight).

I generally dismiss the doctors as they don’t understand research (you apparently have some research experience). However, doctors who have used diet or other techniques to treat hundreds/thousands of people have research value (Dr Green is why many of us are here discussing Rapamycin). Dr Tung’s fasting techniques for diabetes and renal issues come to mind. There are others, of course.

I’m not sure why I’m bothering because it seems you’re not interested in discussion. So can the rest of us (carnivore or not) move on and have a productive conversation without asking @RapAdmin to intervene?

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#88

Whatever you say, I don’t care about that ‘meme’ anymore.
I wanted to make my point about atherosclerosis and erectile dysfunction.

There’s a difference between mouse studies and “one human study” vs zero studies.
I was remarking on the fact that there has been no studies posted in this thread about the carnivore diet.

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#89

For me, when I started low-carb (or “keto”), after not so long my “aches” went away and I didn’t feel old injuries such as a torn shoulder or knee any more, and general aches/pains that my friend/family describe. Same with carnivore. I don’t know if there is a clinical trial proving this, but loads of people have expressed this. I’m not yet on Rapamycin but working toward it, and many of you have expressed a similar feeling of “losing aches and pains”. But when I “relapse” from my low-carb (for instance, I went a week eating ice cream on most of the days after being mostly low-carb for 2.5 years) I suddenly felt the aches and pains again until I was low-carb again for 5+ days. This is thought to be having reduced inflammation. It’s one of the reasons I’d prefer to stay on this diet. I’m betting this isn’t placebo but I’m sure someone will pop up and tell me how powerful placebo can be, but for the sake of this question, can we please suspend disbelief for a minute:

I’m betting that any diet that veers away from SAD towards whole foods will be a positive benefit toward health. So it is possible this “reduced inflammation” is simply a move away from processed food. But I haven’t heard non-low-carb dieters express that their “aches and pains” disappear when switching from SAD. Is this something that commonly happens with other diets (Mediterranean? Vegetarian? Okinawan?) and I haven’t heard it? To be honest, I didn’t experience it myself when I was both vegetarian and vegan, but everyone is different.

Just curious.

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#90

You can measure your inflammation levels before and after ice cream if you think that is it.

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#91

Regardless of any science, I have always felt better on a low-carb diet, and my stomach and gut really appreciate it.

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#92

This just in… why some people are getting so fat. Not enough protein. So they keep eating to fill the void. Too much food.

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#93

I’ve heard enough anecdotes about carnivore diets producing miraculous therapeutic benefits to the point where I believe it is worth trying if one were afflicted by a serious malady (such as extreme GI distress) that is responsive to the diet.

I think it’s noteworthy that the strongest anecdotes I’ve heard on therapeutic benefits of the carnivore diet have all come from people with light skin tones (i.e. suggesting a genetic background in the northern latitudes). I suspect this may be due to some sort of genetic bottlenecking event brought about by the last Ice Age, in which human societies living in the northern latitudes suffered a sudden loss of our ancestral food source (fruit/vegetables) due to the extreme frost.

Most primates (including many humans) facing such an extreme ecological change would have engaged in the natural response, which is to starve to death. The few humans who survived would have done so by the only means possible to extract enough calories to sustain human life in such an extreme barren landscape: by hunting big game such as woolly mammoths and shifting to a carnivore diet (in this light woolly mammoth hunting by man would be an extreme act of desperation rather than some triumph of human prowess). In line with this idea, modern non-human primates are all concentrated along the equatorial regions (i.e. you don’t naturally find monkies in Canada or Russia), meanwhile traditional human societies native to northern latitudes such as the Inuit have predominantly meat based diets.

This is all to say that I believe the carnivore diet may be more likely to be therapeutic for those who have a genetic background based in northern latitudes (basically, cold places such as modern England, Russia, Korea that were most strongly affected by the Ice Age). Meanwhile, I’ve yet to hear from a carnivore diet evangelist with a genetic background in the equatorial regions (such as modern Mexico, Africa, India, Southern China). I think this would also explain why the carnivore diet is currently so controversial, as an extreme case of YMMV according to your genetic background.

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#94

I don’t think anyone lived in areas which were under ice coverage.
And Europe has been a genetic soup. First there was admixture of Anatolian farmers that entered Northern/Central Europe with hunter gatherers.

Then around 5000 years ago the Yamnaya culture entered Europe from the East European forest steppe after plague had swept the lands in Europe. It was almost only male warriors, and they probably slaughtered all the males that were in Northern/Central Europe at the time. So most of any Ice Age DNA just got diluted and wiped out. They mostly lived off dairy and meat.

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#95

Ppl are fat imo bc from the very childhood they are groomed to consume too much sugar, which leads to metabolic syndrome with all the consequences. Their unhealthy gut bacteria demand more processed carbs and plain sugar instead of protein. All roots come from childhood.

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#96

I honestly believe we really do generally eat too much in the West from childhood on. The whole nutritional labeling based on a 2000 calorie diet has taken on a life of its own and done more harm than good as well. Macro and micro nutrients, satiety and not going way above or below our body’s requirements long term seems important but difficult to to dial in for many without some thoughtful effort.

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#97

It might not be just protein, but the shortage of any micronutrient that sees the body just wanting to keep (over) eating in order to make up the deficit.
Soils appear so deficient in nutrients these days due to industrial farming practices little wonder if we are short of something…,which could lead to continual eating to try to make up the shortfall.

As others have alluded potentially genetics will allow some people to thrive as vegans whilst other people will thrive as carnivores.
Live and let live - people waste far too much time trying to justify either extreme.

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#98

Excellent point.

There are many cases of pregnant women or anemics having the urge to eat dirt… geophagia… their body is craving the missing minerals in their diet… particularly iron (red dirt) and such… required for a developing fetus.

In South Africa it happens due to famine and poverty.

When deficient in general the body goes into survival mode. Anorexics hair can thin, nails get brittle, skin dries, menstruation can stop… all kinds of physical changes…

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#99

I agree with @RapAdmin that Diet conversations are dangerous and for whatever reason become dogmatic quickly.

I tried keto/carnivore and my LDL skyrocketed to above 300. For me personally, I seem to run better on a lower fat//meat diet. I have no dog in the fight here, just focusing on what works empirically.

A low carb makes sense in theory, one of the mechanisms of acarbose seems to be smoothing out glucose spikes, I’d imagine a carnivore diet has low blood sugar variance.

However something seems to happen with extended keto where fasting blood sugar actually rises significantly. I think Shawn Baker posted on twitter that he was running like 96 fasted. The mechanism here confuses me.

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#101

You cannot stop contrarians from harming themselves.

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