Category Archives: Advanced nutrition

Research studies, hypotheses, data, etc.

How to manage painful muscle cramps

(I think)

disclaimer: to the best of my knowledge, the causes and cures of painful muscle cramps are unknown. Researchers have studied nearly every electrolyte & metabolite in people who don’t get cramps, people who get cramps, people who get cramps while they’re actively experiencing a painful muscle cramp, and when they’re not.

Conclusion:

¯\_(?)_/¯

 

This is about idiopathic painful muscle cramps. Pregnancy, dialysis, and cirrhosis-related cramps may be completely different.

 

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The Struldbrugs of Luggnag

Intermittent fasting (in mice)

Every-other-day feeding extends lifespan but fails to delay many symptoms of aging in mice.

 

THIS IS BASICALLY THE WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME

 

The Struldbrugs of Luggnag

 

 

Tl;dr: they’re immortal, but just keep getting older and older and it sucks. It’s basically the exact opposite of what we want, which is something akin to eternal youth.

 

 

This paper was a Giant.

 

Brief background: they were testing a model of intermittent fasting known as EOD, or ad libitum access to food every other day. It’s hard to relate this directly to humans because one mouse day is probably about at least 5 human days… although similar to humans, when chow time comes around, we tend to eat a lot. REFEED MAYHEM.

[rant]
It’s like that dude who takes a pic of 3 big steaks and posts it online, saying “dinner is served, bro” …trying to make it seem like they eat that way normally, ~3x/d, when in reality they’ve been intentionally restricting food intake all day to create a big enough energy deficit to accommodate said steaks… #CICO

P.S. as far as circadian rhythms and dietary protein requirements are concerned, this way of eating isn’t doing you any favors…
[end rant]

 

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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else.

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Ketosis in an evolutionary context

Humans are unique in their remarkable ability to enter ketosis.  They’re also situated near the top of the food chain.  Coincidence?

During starvation, humans rapidly enter ketosis; they do this better than king penguins, and bears don’t do it at all.

Starvation ketosis

 

Starvation ketosis

Humans maintain a high level of functionality during starvation.  We can still hunt & plan; some would even argue it’s a more finely tuned state, cognitively.  And that’s important, because if we became progressively weaker and slower, chances of acquiring food would rapidly decline.

Perhaps this is why fasting bears just sleep most of the time: no ketones = no bueno..?

Observation: chronic ketosis is relatively rare in nature. This doen’t mean animals evolved a protective  mechanism against ketosis.

 

 

Animals with a low brain/carcass weight ratio (ie, small brain) don’t need it. Babies and children have a higher brain/carcass weight ratio, so they develop ketosis more rapidly than adults. Is this a harmful process? No, more likely an evolutionary adaptation which supports the brain.

ketones age

The brain of newborn babies consumes a huge amount of total daily energy, and nearly half comes from ketones.  A week or so later, even after the carbohydrate content of breast milk increases, they still don’t get “kicked out of ketosis” (Bourneres et al., 1986).  If this were a harmful state, why would Nature have done this?  …and all those anecdotes, like babies learn at incredibly rapid rates… coincidence?  Maybe they’re myths.  Maybe not.




 

Ketosis in the animal kingdom

Imagine a hibernating bear: huge adipose tissue but small brain fuel requirement relative to body size and total energy expenditure.  No ketosis, because brain accounts for less than 5% of total metabolism.  In adult humans, this is around 19-23%, and babies are much higher (eg, Cahill and Veech, 2003Hayes et al., 2012).

 

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The Omega-3 Index: Eat Seafood

“Need” is a funny concept.  You don’t need to eat seafood.  You don’t need an appendix or legs, either.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/13840426 

https://www.patreon.com/posts/13840426

For example, Association of marine omega-3 fatty acid levels with telomeric aging in patients with coronary heart disease (Farzaneh-Far et al., 2010)

Telomere length is believed to be a biomarker of aging: the shorter your telomeres, the faster you’re aging.  In the study, they measured telomere length in white blood cells and EPA+DHA in whole blood at baseline and again 5 years later.

omega-3 intake and telomerase

Quartile 1: EPA+DHA = 2.3% of the fatty acids in whole blood.

Quartile 2: 3.3%

Quartile 3: 4.3%

Quartile 4: 7.3%

Potential confounders: quartile 4 was comprised of educated rich white old non-smokers with low levels of inflammation, but the statisticians assure us those variables were controlled for… so there’s that.

 

 

You might be thinking: Bill-man, I don’t feel like getting my Omega-3 Index tested, how much seafood will put me in that fourth quartile?

 

omega-3 index

 

Affiliate discounts: if you’re still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers, Carbonshade  is offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like the taste, Real Mushroomsmakes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS.

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https://www.patreon.com/posts/13840426

A robust circadian rhythm is the key to good aging

That’s basically everything.

 

 

Aging predisposes you to pretty much every single disease. We all die eventually, and no one wants the last 10 years to be low quality of life. We used to say “healthspan,” now people say they “want to die as young as possible, as old as possible.” That is, to live a long life but remain healthy and active until the end.

Couple recent studies suggest a robust circadian clock (both centrally & peripherally) may be the key.

LIGHT is the primary zeitgeber which entrains the central clock. Food entrains the peripheral clock. Both in the morning, to co-entrain both clocks and prevent desynchrony.

DARKNESS and decreased food intake in the evening is just as important. Being young helps, too (von Gall and Weaver, 2006)

 

 

 

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update: part 2 is up now!

 

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Low carb, low glycemic index, or something else entirely

Why Low Carb?

OmniCarb (Sacks et al., 2014)

Study design & results in a nutshell:

5 weeks, low(ish) vs. high carb (40 vs. 58%) with the calorie difference split between protein (23 vs. 16%) and fat (37 vs. 27%).  In other words, the low(ish) carb diet was higher in protein and fat.  And there was 2 versions of each diet —  a high and low glycemic index.  Lots of crossing over; all in all, weak intervention but decent study design & execution.

Aaaand nothingsauce nothingburger.  Goal was insulin sensitivity, not weight loss.

 

glucose and insulin

 

 

 

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Hormesis and a blow torch

I joke about hormesis a lot because it has little-to-no scientific proof. Maybe it’s true, but it’s really hard to prove experimentally.

Imo, whatevs. But I do walk the walk: Hormesis of the AGEs.

disclosures: I’m a horrible food photographer… it’s really hard to take pictures while actively blow torching food! (and not burning down the house)

and 2) bowls don’t last forever, especially mine.

 

My weapon of choice: this and these

 

 

 

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Endurance Performance Doesn’t Decline on a Low Carb Diet

The new study by Zinn and colleagues doesn’t debunk ketoadaptation. And the authors agree!

In brief, it was 5 ~50-year old recreational endurance athletes. They’ve been training a lot for a very long time. In other words, one way to view this study is the opposite of n00b gainz. Experienced exercisers don’t typically make gains in 10 weeks without drastically changing their training program or increasing protein intake – neither of which occurred in this study.

 

 

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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else

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Long-term fat adaptation.

Ketoadaptation

More on physical performance and ketoadaptation

A timeline of ketoadaptation.

 

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Allu-lujah: the new Quest Hero bars

On that sweetener in the new Quest Hero bars: allulose (formerly known as D-Psicose).

1. I’m sure they were quick to adopt the alternate nomenclature because it’s hard not so say Piss-cose lol

2. Nutrition-wise, Hero bars are basically Quest Lite. A bit less fibre. But I really think they’re getting much better at texture.

3. On to allulose. It’s not really like sugar – even though the FDA says it must be labeled as such – because it carries virtually no calories and actually blunts the blood glucose spike from a meal.

 

Exhibit A. n=20 healthy peole: 7.5 g D-psicose alone, 75 g maltodextrin alone, 75 g maltodextrin + 2.5, 5, or 7.5 g D-psicose (Iida et al., 2008)

amazeballs

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibit B. n=26, zero or 5g psicose with a standardized meal (Hayashi et al., 2010). Note: there are ~12 grams of allulose in a Hero bar.

It works better in diabetics.

 

 

They did a 12-week study where psicose was dosed 3 times a day, 5 grams each time, and showed it was perfectly healthy. Some markers even improved.

 

Exhibit C. Psicose metabolism (Iida et al., 2010)

In doses ranging from 5 to 30 grams, up to 70% is excreted intact and the rest does not go to farts.

It’s virtually calorie-free:

 

 

and is barely fermentable (compared to FOS):

 

 

compare to other low carb protein bars here, get the new Quest bars here, or just buy some straight allulose and experiment with it!

Mechanisms? 1) it’s not sugar, but it still enhances glucose disposal; and 2) some animal studies show it enhances liver glucose uptake. Idk.

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Scheduled Meals for Circadian Entrainment

Scheduled Meals for Circadian Entrainment

This one’s for Patrons!

For $3 a month, Patron’s have access to all articles.  I still plan on 4-5 new ones per month and I’ll post at least one of ’em here.  Join up! Thanks.

 

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