Posts

Did CHOs make us human? I doubt it

“I like to start with an evolutionary perspective” — Jennie Brand-Miller Today at the Food for Thought Conference, Jennie Brand-Miller argued that dependence on exogenous glucose played a critical role in our evolution. I and others disagree for several reasons. Let’s look at the main arguments Brand-Miller put forward in support of exogenous glucose. The […]

Ketosis Without Starvation: the human advantage

I recently had the honour to speak at Low Carb Breckenridge 2018. You can find the video here. Below are my slides, notes, and references. On a high carb diet, you might need to fast to attain an enlightened brain state. On a ketogenic diet, as a human, that doesn’t appear to be necessary. The […]

Does a ketogenic diet confer the benefits of butyrate without the fibre?

Tenuous arguments from fibre apologists According to many plant-eating enthusiasts, we must eat fibre to be healthy for the following reasons: Note: These are not the only arguments people make for eating fibre. These are only reasons related to butyrate. Fibre is the only way to get butyrate. Butyrate prevents colon cancer. Butyrate in the […]

Ketogenic Diets, Vitamin C, and Metabolic Syndrome

This is an excerpt from today’s guest post on breaknutrition.com:The Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) for different nutrients were developed on Western diets, and therefore, high-carb diets. Given that a ketogenic metabolism uses different metabolic pathways and induces cascades of drastically different metabolic and physiological effects, it would be astonishing if any of the RDAs are […]

Optimal Weaning from an Evolutionary Perspective:

The evolution of our brains, meat eating, and a reliance on ketogenic metabolism I recently had the privilege of presenting a talk, with the same title as this post, at the Ancestral Health Symposium. I am posting the video here, with a transcript, some references, and related material. Transcript This is what I said for […]

Why are heart disease and dental health related?

Some years ago people became excited about the news that poor dental health, particularly gum disease, and heart disease are correlated. Not only that, but gum disease develops first! Post hoc ergo propter hoc (“after this, therefore because of this”) right?Soon we started hearing advice to take good care of our teeth (by brushing and […]

Microbiome Nonsense: response to “Chowing Down On Meat”

Response to “Chowing Down On Meat” As the claim that animal protein and saturated fat is unhealthy becomes less and less tenable, those who have the intuition that animal-based nutrition must be bad for you are looking elsewhere. There was great excitement at the end of 2014 about a study posted in Nature demonstrating the […]

Ornish Diet Worsens Heart Disease Risk: Part I

Dr. Dean Ornish has come under a lot of criticism lately for his misleading statements about diet and heart disease. See, for example: Critique of Dean Ornish Op-ed, by Nina Teicholz, and Why Almost Everything Dean Ornish Says about Nutrition Is Wrong, from Scientific American. Ornish made his name with a study that claimed to […]

What about the sugars in breast milk?

Something that nearly always comes up when we talk about babies naturally being in ketosis is the fact that breast milk contains sugars — as much as 40% [1].Some people have even argued with us that therefore babies are not in ketosis! @Dr_Rousseau @Jonathan_Witt “Assumption” of babies being ketogenic is wrong. Breast milk is 40% […]

Meat is best for growing brains

There are multiple lines of evidence that an animal-based diet best supports human brain development in infants and young children. In brief / contents Human fetuses and infants rely on ketones for brain building. Weaning onto meat increases brain growth. The brain is an energy-intensive organ that required an animal-based diet to evolve. Because humans […]