28 replies to this topic

[kclo4x]

I have searched the forum and have read a decent amount of talk about the amount of nutrition needed, some in just protein, carbohydrates, etc. So I felt I would make a thread for it all, so we can perhaps get more critical about it.
I found this site, it seems fairly decent, or at least average, for figuring how many calories you need, although I’d bet its not ideal.
http://www.freedieti..._calculator.htm The site also gives a link to a nutrient calculator, to get an estimated percent of protein, fats and carbohydrates. http://www.freedieti..._calculator.htm however if you guys have a better source or way of figuring out the optimal amounts of such nutrients it would be greatly appreciated. Also, what type of foods have the least oxidative qualities, I know protein causes higher oxidation then a lot of other nutrients.

The nutrient calculator recommended that I have 217g carbohydrates 145g proteins 53g fats. I weigh 127lbs, I’m 5’10” and 16 years of age. Do these percents seem to promise longevity or do they need to be adjusted?

Another thing that I would like to talk about are the bad foods, and good foods. Personally I believe breads, and milk are bad for a lot of reasons. This makes sense to me for what I can see about the chemicals they contain, how they effect your body, and also what the Paleolithic diet suggests. However the crazy FDA food pyramid disagrees with me. So some input on these and other substances would be good also.

I will add some articles to this thread later on some of the bad foods I am aware of, and whatever may also fall under the thread‘s title.

[shuffleup]

However the crazy FDA food pyramid disagrees with me.

The food pyramid is of the US Dept of AGRICULTURE. What types of foods do you think they would suggest?

[MP11]

The food pyramid is of the US Dept of AGRICULTURE. What types of foods do you think they would suggest?

Thank you

[kclo4x]

Personally I believe breads, and milk are bad for a lot of reasons.

I heard about bread being bad, but what's wrong with milk?

• Does Milk Cause Prostrate Cancer? is a provocative study from Harvard Medical School shows that men who eat diary products regularly have a 30 percent greater chance of suffering prostate cancer than those who eat less than half a serving per day.
  
• Cow's Milk Protein Antibodies, Risk of Diabetes is a recent paper from Finland showing that drinking cow's milk is associated with getting juvenile diabetes.
  
• Cow's Milk May Raise Diabetes Risk In Some Children by Chris Marsden and David North is a news release on a study published in Diabetes.

Also http://news.bbc.co.u...lth/1268481.stm

"molecular mimicry (similarity of structure shared by products of dissimilar genes).^[53][54][55]

• Dairy products, especially those derived from cow's milk, are more or less correlated with a variety of health issues, including type 1 diabetes,^[56] prostate cancer,^[57] multiple sclerosis,^[58] and crohn’s disease.^[59] They also don't always make life any easier for people suffering from type 2 diabetes: milk, yoghurt, and cottage cheese have low glycemic indexes but are highly insulinotropic, with an insulin index similar to that of white bread.^{[60][61]" - wikipedia}

Also, it effects some receptor in the stomach 100 times more then saliva does, or at least something like that. I cannot find the link, but i will look later.

From what i have read, milk is really bad for you.

Also, in my school, ALL my health classes recommend we try to eat long the food pyramid, so i thought it might be slightly useful?
eh...guess not?

Anyways, diary and grains are seemingly bad for you, the more i research on them, the less i want to eat them. but do you guys know any other types of foods that are bad for you as well, but isn't so obvious?

[niner]

Anyways, diary and grains are seemingly bad for you, the more i research on them, the less i want to eat them. but do you guys know any other types of foods that are bad for you as well, but isn't so obvious?

Very high on my list of bad actors are foods that dump a lot of sugar into your system resulting in enhanced glycation of your proteins. High Fructose Corn Syrup, sugar, and white food: White flour, white rice, white potato... things with a high Glycemic Load. Note, not all grains are bad.

Protein glycation might be the number one thing that makes people look old. It causes you to have saggy shrivelled skin, to need bifocals, to get tendon injuries, have high blood pressure, all manner of badness. To avoid it, keep your blood sugar stable and low, and use anti-glycation compounds like carnosine, benfotiamine, pyridoxamine, aminoguanidine. While on the topic of things that make you look old, UVA radiation is the other major thing, also very avoidable. Use a good UVA sunscreen every day.

[kclo4x]

Protein glycation might be the number one thing that makes people look old. It causes you to have saggy shrivelled skin, to need bifocals, to get tendon injuries, have high blood pressure, all manner of badness. To avoid it, keep your blood sugar stable and low, and use anti-glycation compounds like carnosine, benfotiamine, pyridoxamine, aminoguanidine. While on the topic of things that make you look old, UVA radiation is the other major thing, also very avoidable. Use a good UVA sunscreen every day.

What are the best and safest AGE inhibitor chemicals? i've study a bit on AGE looks pretty scary, i want some Alegrabrium, but i cannot find a source for it at all!
i have even been thinking about synthesizing Aminoguanidine, Im pretty sure i could get it pure and safe enough to take

What grains are the best for you?
Low gluten, high fiber im guessing? so maybe oats?

[niner]

Protein glycation might be the number one thing that makes people look old. It causes you to have saggy shrivelled skin, to need bifocals, to get tendon injuries, have high blood pressure, all manner of badness. To avoid it, keep your blood sugar stable and low, and use anti-glycation compounds like carnosine, benfotiamine, pyridoxamine, aminoguanidine. While on the topic of things that make you look old, UVA radiation is the other major thing, also very avoidable. Use a good UVA sunscreen every day.

What are the best and safest AGE inhibitor chemicals? i've study a bit on AGE looks pretty scary, i want some Alegrabrium, but i cannot find a source for it at all!
i have even been thinking about synthesizing Aminoguanidine, Im pretty sure i could get it pure and safe enough to take

At your age, you probably don't have enough crosslinks to notice a difference from alagebrium. If you do the right things, by the time you actually need an AGE breaker, there will probably be something much better available. My strategy for avoiding further AGE formation is to take 500mg Carnosine and an AOR AGE Amadori (contains pyridoxamin and benfotiamine, among other things) when I first get up, then again in the late afternoon. What I'm attempting to do is take them about 45 minutes before breakfast and dinner, so that I'm covered during the post-prandial glucose spikes. I'll be evaluating the success of this plan with an HbA1C test in the next few months.

[ilanso]

niner: Protein glycation might be the number one thing that makes people look old. It causes you to have saggy shrivelled skin, to need bifocals, to get tendon injuries, have high blood pressure, all manner of badness. To avoid it, keep your blood sugar stable and low, and use anti-glycation compounds
...
What I'm attempting to do is take them about 45 minutes before breakfast and dinner, so that I'm covered during the post-prandial glucose spikes. I'll be evaluating the success of this plan with an HbA1C test in the next few months.

Using A1C to test the effectiveness of anti-AGE intervention is interesting. Are you saying that (at least in theory) one could be reckless with one's glucose intake provided it is properly counteracted by AGE-retardants? IOW a diabetic could beat the test and fool his doctor about his long-term compliance by preventing the glycosylation of hemoglobin (eg by chain-eating tiramisus laced with benfotiamine)?

[HighDesertWizard]

For what it's worth, the most radical of the "fat is good" proponents that I've come across is "Peter", a veterinarian, at the "Hyperlipid" blog.

Here is just one blog post he's made in an attempt to make the case for fat.

I'm no scientist but many of Peter's arguments and literature analyses sure make sense to me.

I'd love to see someone take on his argument from the second link above.

Mostly, the more I read about diet the more confused I get. Seems to me that the state of diet science is incredibly unsettled.

Edited by wccaguy, 14 January 2008 - 10:51 AM.

[HighDesertWizard]

I thought it would be useful to include a couple paragraphs from the second link in my post immediately above...

Human beings are adapted to live on fat. This is self evident from the way we store energy. Any average human is probably carrying around 100-200g of glucose as glycogen, stored in their liver, plus a bit more in their muscles. Let's be over generous and say 400g of glucose in all, about 1600kcal. That's enough energy to last about a day if you sit still. Assuming that same person weighs 80kg and has a body composition including 25% fat, this spare energy store of adipose tissue weighs 20kg. Containing 20,000 X 9 kcal giving 180,000kcal. At 2000kcal per day this looks like a 90 day supply to me, and allows spare energy to run around after some food.

Does any one ever use this energy? Well anyone who has ever fasted will know that energy from fat is freely available. This is completely logical. When humans were hunting and gathering, living through hard times on the fat of your bum was essential for survival. Being rendered dysfunctional by 24 hours food deprivation was non survival. Maybe 90 days without food is a bit extreme, but functioning for a week or two without food seems quite safe and is a very useful attribute.

Given your fat and some oxygen, is much else needed to extract this stored energy? Well, probably not a lot. If you are a hunter in a bad patch you don't want to be having to stop to eat a few leaves to get vitamins in order to burn your body fat. The leaves, fruits and nuts may not be that available when they buried under 6 feet of snow, while you and your mates drive some poor herbivore over a cliff to extract its stored fat from last summer's grazing.

Logically fat as an energy store is designed to be oxidised with a minimum of input, using vitamins and minerals that are available from body reserves plus a little help from muscle breakdown (which is inevitable during full fasting). Being hungry should NEVER jeopardise your ability to catch your next meal.

If you live on sugar your need for vitamins becomes crucial.

And then he goes on to explain a bit about why he thinks sugar doesn't make sense in terms of evolution. And he has a great many other posts that attempt to make the case that fat consumption is a good thing.

http://high-fat-nutr.....and retrieval

[krillin]

Humans evolved in the plains of Africa and survived by chasing down game over long distances. A trained human can outrun a horse in an ultra-marathon. Time to exhaustion depends on glycogen stores, since fat is best burned in a carbohydrate flame. By itself, fat is a substandard fuel, as anyone who has hit the wall in a race can attest. Glycogen storage is heavily influenced by diet composition. See the graphs in this blog.

It's generally accepted that distance runners should consume in the ballpark of 60% carb, 25% fat, and 15% protein.

[rabagley]

Humans evolved in the plains of Africa and survived by chasing down game over long distances. A trained human can outrun a horse in an ultra-marathon. Time to exhaustion depends on glycogen stores, since fat is best burned in a carbohydrate flame. By itself, fat is a substandard fuel, as anyone who has hit the wall in a race can attest. Glycogen storage is heavily influenced by diet composition. See the graphs in this blog.

It's generally accepted that distance runners should consume in the ballpark of 60% carb, 25% fat, and 15% protein.

You're not going to like my post, but then again, I'm not trying to convince you. Those paleolithic hunters could run down deer, gazelle, antelope and horses with almost no carbs in their diet. You and I have the same genetics as they did, and similar feats are not out of reach or even unlikely. Modern humans are already doing extreme endurance feats using fat as the primary energy source. Stuart Trager (Ironman, Ultraman) and Stuart Mittleman (Ultra Long Distance) quickly come to mind. Much of the inquiry into the success of East African marathon runners frequently dismisses their high protein, high fat, moderate carb diet as an abberation. A contradiction that couldn't possibly help them in their distance running...

That "race prep" advice you're repeating is derivative of the same group that puts the AHA "heart safe" label on Count Chocula breakfast cereal (it's fat-free, right?) based on "science" sponsored by ADM and Cargill. People trying hard to make a case for grain sales are not really a credible source of dietary advice, IMNSHO.

I used to be a distance runner, and after getting back into running during my current weight loss, my 10k and 15k performance have already improved over my previous best times. Type I muscle fibers do not require substantial glycogen and can function even more efficiently if ketones are available. My splits have improved after an initial three-week dip in performance (according to my trainer, an effect from my body getting more efficient at converting fat on demand). In my experience: if you're functioning on ketones from the beginning of the run, there isn't a "wall". The "wall" is the effect of your body shifting from glucose to ketone metabolism while you're under load. If your body is already converting fat to ketones for energy, there's no switchover, so no wall. Healthy human fat reserves are MUCH deeper than healthy human glycogen reserves (two orders of magnitude more available calories, even for slender people).

On a few occasions, I haven't been in ketosis before a distance run, and I can feel the conversion as I quickly use up the last of my limited glycogen stores and change over to ketones. Not particularly fun, especially right at the beginning of the run. Making sure I'm in ketosis before I start has made all the difference in my distance running.

We'll see how I do in the next marathon (Nashville, April).

[s123]

We all know that carbohydrates causes AGEs. But proteins and fats also causes the formation of AGEs. Fats creates ketons and ketons form AGEs. Proteins form methylglycoxal and this is converted to AGEs. Methylglycoxal is up to 40000 times more reactive than sugar. So a low carbohydrate diet is not the solution. What will help is eating low glycemic index foods. But fats only form ketons if you eat too much of them. Fats are first degraded into glycerol and fatty acids. These fatty acids undergo beta-oxidation. The end products of this process can then enter the Creb cycle but if there are too much they will react on another way and produce ketons. So you should eat just enough fats to take as much energy from them as possible but just under the amount that would cause the formation of ketons. Maybe you could spread your intake of fats and then fats can give a great amount of the energy that you need but they wouldn't create AGEs?

[Shepard]

s123, I think you mean ALEs in some of these instances.

So you should eat just enough fats to take as much energy from them as possible but just under the amount that would cause the formation of ketons.

You're always producing ketones. Ketone concentrations are due to the absence of carbohydrates from the diet, not high fat intake. If your carbohydrate intake is sufficient, your body has no reason to increase ketone production above basal levels.

[rabagley]

Fats creates ketons and ketons form AGEs. Proteins form methylglycoxal and this is converted to AGEs. Methylglycoxal is up to 40000 times more reactive than sugar.

A few issues: as already mentioned, it's an insufficiency of glucose that causes your liver to synthesize ketones from fats.

Second, none of the class of chemicals called blood ketones (acetoacetate, beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetone) cause glycation reactions. There are other ketones that are intermediates in various glycation reaction sequences, but those three aren't involved. It does appear that those three energetic molecules may be implicated in other degenerative reaction processes, but so far, they seem to be less important in human aging than glycation. We will be learning more about these other processes as more people spend more time living on ketogenic diets, so it's possible that lipolytic ketones will eventually be considered just as dangerous as blood glucose for aging.

On to methylglyoxal. This is one of those "other ketones" I mentioned before (fun fact: it's also an aldehyde). While it is true that methylglyoxal is a potent glycation enhancer (and a strongly atherosclerotic agent), the quantity of methylglyoxal in our bodies is so minute, that even doubling it's level (as occurs in dietary ketosis) has almost no effect on glycation rates. It is certainly less important (by several orders of magnitude) than limiting the quantity of free glucose as happens in a carb-restricted diet. Also, methylglycoxal's AGE activity is fully inhibited by anti-Amadori agents like aminoguanidine (available as a supplement from AOR) so the risk caused by metylglyoxal is fully manageable no matter what diet you choose.

The problems caused by AGE's result from slowly accumulating lifelong processes that take decades for effects to be noticed in healthy humans. Diabetics are a completely different story as most of the complications of diabetes are due to accelerated AGE processes. If you're really worried about AGE's, keep your blood glucose low and your insulin sensitivity high (depending on the condition of your pancreas, a low-carb diet can do this without any exogenous insulin) and take an anti-Amadori supplement. If you're over 40 or so, finding a source of Alagebrium (ALT-711) may be helpful by breaking some, but not all, of the existing crosslinks in your tissues.

[gavrilov]

...

On a few occasions, I haven't been in ketosis before a distance run, and I can feel the conversion as I quickly use up the last of my limited glycogen stores and change over to ketones. Not particularly fun, especially right at the beginning of the run. Making sure I'm in ketosis before I start has made all the difference in my distance running.

...

Amazingly, one new book written by a medical doctor claims that it is much easier to switch to ketosis just by drinking the so-called "Ketogenic Cocktail", consisting of three components only - the MCT oil, flax-oil and EPA (see page 203 at http://tinyurl.com/2t6jcv )

The book also suggests a low-carb diet for each of the seven days a week, with non-overlapping menus for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner (see pages 87-93 at http://tinyurl.com/2t6jcv )

It is promised that this regime will:

-- Strengthen memory
-- Sharpen focus
-- Speed reaction time
-- Lift brain fog
-- Alleviate hot flashes
-- Preserve hearing
-- Eliminate migraines
-- Prevent brain aging
-- Fight depression

(cited from the book back-cover http://tinyurl.com/2t6jcv ).

Obviously the claim to "prevent brain aging" is an overkill, but still it may be interesting to hear from the experts here, whether there are some good reasons for switching to low-carb diet and permanent ketosis.

Thank you!

-- Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D.
Website: http://longevity-science.org/
Blog: http://longevity-science.blogspot.com/
My books: http://longevity-sci....org/Books.html

[niner]

niner: Protein glycation might be the number one thing that makes people look old. It causes you to have saggy shrivelled skin, to need bifocals, to get tendon injuries, have high blood pressure, all manner of badness. To avoid it, keep your blood sugar stable and low, and use anti-glycation compounds
...
What I'm attempting to do is take them about 45 minutes before breakfast and dinner, so that I'm covered during the post-prandial glucose spikes. I'll be evaluating the success of this plan with an HbA1C test in the next few months.

Using A1C to test the effectiveness of anti-AGE intervention is interesting. Are you saying that (at least in theory) one could be reckless with one's glucose intake provided it is properly counteracted by AGE-retardants? IOW a diabetic could beat the test and fool his doctor about his long-term compliance by preventing the glycosylation of hemoglobin (eg by chain-eating tiramisus laced with benfotiamine)?

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say "reckless", but yeah, that's the theory. If a diabetic beat the A1C test, one could argue that he's not "fooling" his doctor, but that he really had prevented the damage that the glucose would have caused. In reality, I suspect there's more to it than that, at least in a diabetic. In someone with normal glucose control, I would hope that cutting the HbA1C in half would equate to cutting the rate of extracellular protein glycation in half as well. That's a hypothesis, and again it may not be that simple, but it's hard to imagine how there would not at least be a relationship between HbA1C and glycation of other proteins, since HbA1C is just a measure of glycation of a particular part of hemoglobin, a ubiquitous protein in blood.

[Shepard]

Amazingly, one new book written by a medical doctor claims that it is much easier to switch to ketosis just by drinking the so-called "Ketogenic Cocktail", consisting of three components only - the MCT oil, flax-oil and EPA (see page 203 at http://tinyurl.com/2t6jcv )

This would be a decent strategy for someone needing to get into ketosis quickly for whatever reason, but not what I'd consider useful from a long-term perspective. Glycogen depletion would be a more preferable method. Since MCT metabolism does lead to increased ketone formation, ketone concentration could reach a point where you are technically in ketosis...but you miss out on some things that come with glycogen depletion (although, your negatives might not be as bad).

Obviously the claim to "prevent brain aging" is an overkill, but still it may be interesting to hear from the experts here, whether there are some good reasons for switching to low-carb diet and permanent ketosis.

Obviously, most ketogenic diet studies were focused in cases of epilepsy until recently, so some of the cool brain effects have to be extrapolated. And, some clues could be taken from metabolic syndrome studies, too. Anyway, there are some interesting things going on with redox status, brain/mood/sleep quality, cancer, and metabolic health.

[krillin]

Much of the inquiry into the success of East African marathon runners frequently dismisses their high protein, high fat, moderate carb diet as an abberation. A contradiction that couldn't possibly help them in their distance running...

I'm going to need a cite for this. Their diet appears to be even higher carb than I would prefer.

http://www.djembe.dk...3/06godal1.html

The researchers concluded, that the diet was almost 100 percent vegetarian. The only animal material digested by the young African was milk and a very tiny amount of meat. The runners cover their energy need mainly by the main nutritional source, which is corn (served as ugali) and brown beans. The diet is both rich on protein and carbo-hydrate. In addition, they consume some green salads and a small quantity of eggs. Consequently, it turned out that their diet wasn't very mysterious, but low in fat, which is evidently necessary for endurance sports such as running.

http://www.gnxp.com/...ves/002505.html

And the Kenyan diet is on the low side for essential amino acids and some vitamins as well as fat, says Dirk Christensen of the Copenhagen center: "In spite of the diet, they perform at high level."

That "race prep" advice you're repeating is derivative of the same group that puts the AHA "heart safe" label on Count Chocula breakfast cereal (it's fat-free, right?) based on "science" sponsored by ADM and Cargill. People trying hard to make a case for grain sales are not really a credible source of dietary advice, IMNSHO.

The advice is based on solid sports science which has withstood the test of time. There's no conspiracy here.

[rabagley]

Much of the inquiry into the success of East African marathon runners frequently dismisses their high protein, high fat, moderate carb diet as an abberation. A contradiction that couldn't possibly help them in their distance running...

I'm going to need a cite for this. Their diet appears to be even higher carb than I would prefer.

http://www.everycult...bwe/Maasai.html

The traditional Maasai diet consists of six basic foods: meat, blood, milk, fat, honey, and tree bark. Wild game (except the eland), chicken, fish, and salt are forbidden. Allowable meats include roasted and boiled beef, goat, and mutton. Both fresh and curdled milk are drunk, and animal blood is drunk at special times—after giving birth, after circumcision and excision, or while recovering from an accident. It may be tapped warm from the throat of a cow, or drunk in coagulated form. It can also be mixed with fresh or soured milk, or drunk with therapeutic bark soups (motori). It is from blood that the Maasai obtain salt, a necessary ingredient in the human diet. People of delicate health and babies eat liquid sheep's fat to gain strength.

There are of course many East African cultural groups, each with a different traditional diet. When I was running in the Austin Marathon in 1997 and 1998, I was a part of a group that hosted four Maasai runners who came to join in the race. They ate more milk and meat along with fewer carbs than I had ever seen. When I asked them about carbo-loading, which I was dutifully doing at the time, they said that they used "a different approach" that worked better for them. I got the very distinct impression (though didn't go too much further into that discussion) that that was what all East African runners used for their endurance running diet.

However, data is not the plural of anecdote, so I'll concede that perhaps most East African runners don't follow the diet I observed.

Since observing the effects of my recent dietary change on my own endurance performance, I firmly believe that those runners were completely right the whole time, and that I have been completely and utterly wrong for many years.

http://www.nutrition...m/content/1/1/2

Impaired physical performance is a common but not obligate result of a low carbohydrate diet. Lessons from traditional Inuit culture indicate that time for adaptation, optimized sodium and potassium nutriture, and constraint of protein to 15–25 % of daily energy expenditure allow unimpaired endurance performance despite nutritional ketosis.

I did switch to Morton's Lite Salt to increase my potassium intake, and I'm in the process of shifting to an even higher fat diet to match up with the recommendations of the study above (I'm still at 30-40% calories from protein). So far, it's been working quite well. The moderate-protein, really high-fat recommendation was a bit of a surprise, but it's the high protein in most low carb diets that seems to interfere with highest athletic performance, so... 1-1.5g protein per 1kg body mass is actually fairly limiting in terms of daily intake. Eggs cooked in lard or butter are basically necessary for one meal each day.

If it makes you feel any better, I'll be having even less bbq meat after this month to make more room for more fatty foods.

Edited by rabagley, 16 January 2008 - 06:46 AM.

[ilanso]

niner: Protein glycation might be the number one thing that makes people look old. It causes you to have saggy shrivelled skin, to need bifocals, to get tendon injuries, have high blood pressure, all manner of badness. To avoid it, keep your blood sugar stable and low, and use anti-glycation compounds
...
What I'm attempting to do is take them about 45 minutes before breakfast and dinner, so that I'm covered during the post-prandial glucose spikes. I'll be evaluating the success of this plan with an HbA1C test in the next few months.

Using A1C to test the effectiveness of anti-AGE intervention is interesting. Are you saying that (at least in theory) one could be reckless with one's glucose intake provided it is properly counteracted by AGE-retardants? IOW a diabetic could beat the test and fool his doctor about his long-term compliance by preventing the glycosylation of hemoglobin (eg by chain-eating tiramisus laced with benfotiamine)?

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say "reckless", but yeah, that's the theory. If a diabetic beat the A1C test, one could argue that he's not "fooling" his doctor, but that he really had prevented the damage that the glucose would have caused. In reality, I suspect there's more to it than that, at least in a diabetic. In someone with normal glucose control, I would hope that cutting the HbA1C in half would equate to cutting the rate of extracellular protein glycation in half as well. That's a hypothesis, and again it may not be that simple, but it's hard to imagine how there would not at least be a relationship between HbA1C and glycation of other proteins, since HbA1C is just a measure of glycation of a particular part of hemoglobin, a ubiquitous protein in blood.

Which may well be one of the reasons HbA1C has recently somewhat been falling out of favor as premier long term glycemic control compliance indicator (the substitute being average blood glucose level). Since low hemo glycation can be accomplished by reducing either the carbs in the diet or the AGEs they produce, it's only accurate on people who don't successfully combat the latter. And, of, course, in diabetics, excess glucose in itself (in various organs) is the culprit, whence the need to measure its direct level.
Getting back to your plan, niner, to which of the two variables will you ascribe your anticipated drop? Will you keep your diet constant at the level of your last A1C testing?

Most literature is generally less optimistic on the ability to reduce the A1C. I guess it depends on the AGEnt, too.
For example, Hb-AGE (advanced, Maillard) is decreased with aminoguanidine treatment while HbA1c (early, Amadori) is not.
However,

Nonetheless, HbA1c levels decreased after 6 wk of treatment with 150 mg/day pyridoxine and increased again during placebo administration

Benfotiamin inhibits intracellular formation of advanced Glycation endproducts in vivo.
Diabetes. 2000 May; 49(Suppl1): A143(P583).
Lin J, Alt A, Liersch J, Bretzel RG, Brownlee MA, Hammes HP.

We have demonstrated previously that intracellular formation of the advanced glycation end product (AGE) N-[Epsilon]-(carboxymethyl)lysine (CML) inversely correlates with diabetic vascular complications independently from glycemia (Diabetologia 42, 603, 1999). Here, we studied the effect of benfotiamine, a lipid-soluble thiamine derivative with known AGE-inhibiting properties in-vitro on the intracellular formation of (CML) and methylglyoxal-derived AGE in red blood cells. Blood was collected from 6 Type 1 diabetic patients (2m, 4f, age 31.8 ± 5.5 years; diabetes duration 15.3 ± 7.0 years) before and after treatment with 600 mg/day benfotiamine for 28 days. In addition to HbA1c (HPLC), CML and methylglyoxal were measured using specific antibodies and a quantitative blot technique. While treatment with benfotiamine did not affect HbA1c levels (at entry: 7.18 ± 0.86%; at conclusion 6.88 ± 0.88%; p not significant), levels of CML decreased by 40% (737 ± 51 arbitrary units/mg protein (AU) vs 470 ± 86 AU; p<0.01). The levels of intracellular methylglyoxal were reduced by almost 70% (1628 ± AU vs 500 ± 343 AU; p<0.01). The data indicate that thiamine derivatives are effective inhibitors of both intracellular glycoxidation and AGE formation.

I've been taking benfo for 12 months and the A1c has been just like I had it in the previous 2-3 yrs (5.4-5.7% Thank God)

[gavrilov]

Amazingly, one new book written by a medical doctor claims that it is much easier to switch to ketosis just by drinking the so-called "Ketogenic Cocktail", consisting of three components only - the MCT oil, flax-oil and EPA (see page 203 at http://tinyurl.com/2t6jcv )

This would be a decent strategy for someone needing to get into ketosis quickly for whatever reason, but not what I'd consider useful from a long-term perspective. Glycogen depletion would be a more preferable method. Since MCT metabolism does lead to increased ketone formation, ketone concentration could reach a point where you are technically in ketosis...but you miss out on some things that come with glycogen depletion (although, your negatives might not be as bad).

***

What good things do we miss out, that come with glycogen depletion ?

[caston]

What would be best to avoid fructose glycation if you like to eat fruit?

[Shepard]

What good things do we miss out, that come with glycogen depletion ?

The big one that comes to mind would be increases in whole-body AMPK activation and everything that goes along with it.

[gavrilov]

What good things do we miss out, that come with glycogen depletion ?

The big one that comes to mind would be increases in whole-body AMPK activation and everything that goes along with it.

***

OK, I understand that by AMPK you mean the 5'AMP-activated protein kinase, which is expressed in liver, brain, and skeletal muscle, leading to:

-- stimulation of hepatic fatty acid oxidation and ketogenesis,
-- inhibition of cholesterol synthesis, lipogenesis, and triglyceride synthesis,
-- stimulation of skeletal muscle fatty acid oxidation and muscle glucose uptake,
-- modulation of insulin secretion by pancreatic beta-cells .

Are there any drugs/herbs stimulating AMPK before the glycogen is completely depleted?

Thanks!


-- Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D.
Website: http://longevity-science.org/
Blog: http://longevity-science.blogspot.com/
My books: http://longevity-sci....org/Books.html

[Shepard]

Are there any drugs/herbs stimulating AMPK before the glycogen is completely depleted?

Depending on the tissue you're looking at, you've got AICAR, metformin, TZDs, resveratrol, some creatine analogues, and some others I'm sure I'm forgetting. Good old exercise, too...but exercise in a glycogen-depleted state would lead to a greater increase due to higher IL-6 release.

[caston]

http://en.wikipedia...._protein_kinase

I did a google search on metformin and AMPK. Man this is making my head spin. Can I just have my immortality now?
It's seem the most sure thing though is that good 'ol exercise as you say.

Anyway off to bed maybe I will read more about this tomorrow when I get home from work.

Thanks Shepard

Edited by caston, 16 January 2008 - 05:53 PM.

[gavrilov]

Obviously the claim to "prevent brain aging" is an overkill, but still it may be interesting to hear from the experts here, whether there are some good reasons for switching to low-carb diet and permanent ketosis.

Obviously, most ketogenic diet studies were focused in cases of epilepsy until recently, so some of the cool brain effects have to be extrapolated. And, some clues could be taken from metabolic syndrome studies, too. Anyway, there are some interesting things going on with redox status, brain/mood/sleep quality, cancer, and metabolic health.

***

Would it be accurate to summarize your statement in this way:

"If you are in a right mind, then do not rush to do it (permanent ketosis)" ?

Thanks!