Tag Archives: diet

An interesting theory on the treatment of muscle cramps

Posted on August 31, 2017 | 17 comments

Being the nerd I am, after experiencing a few days of painful muscle cramps (which I wrote about here), I went to Google like a madman.

Here’s what I learned from the experience and subsequent Googling.

Most things I wrote in the original post still stand. But there are a ton of completely different types of muscle cramps; those associated with cirrhosis, MS, pregnancy, dialysis, idiopathic nocturnal, etc.

Number 1 mandatory advice: do all the long-term stuff like broths, (20% off Kettle & Fire!) potassium, mag, etc (even though all of these things have mixed findings; they might work for your specific type of cramp and are unlikely to cause harm). But for immediate management of painful cramping, you may need to bite the bullet and take a muscle relaxer or benzo or something.

A lot of this post is inspired by a crazy theory touted by a new anti-cramp product (targeted at yet another type of cramp, “exercise-associated muscle cramp” [EAMC]), but the explanation of it’s mechanism is super-interesting.

I still stand by the previous interventions, except according to a few case studies and a lot of anecdotes, pickle juice can work within 1-2 minutes! That observation was part of the basis of developing this product. Some people think the acidity in pickle juice activates gastrointestinal TRP receptors (see below), and I’m totally cool with all kinds of vinegar…

But I digress.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Exercise, strength

Tagged carbs, diet, muscle, nutrition

How to manage painful muscle cramps

Posted on August 28, 2017 | 11 comments

(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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Posted in Advanced nutrition, circadian, Fish, muscle, sleep, strength

Tagged circadian rhythm, diet, muscle, nutrition

Meal timing and the circadian regulation of nutrient partitioning.

Posted on August 23, 2017 | Leave a comment

Breakfast [in the morning] strengthens circadian rhythms and reduces postprandial glucose excursion after lunch (Jakubowicz et al., 2017)

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Ketosis in an evolutionary context

Posted on August 15, 2017 | 104 comments

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

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.

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, 2003 & Hayes et al., 2012).

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, circadian, clamp, coconut, diet, Dietary fat, Exercise, fat, insulin, Ketosis, Protein, Trans fat

Tagged Atkins, calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, energy expenditure, fat, insulin, nutrition, Paleo, protein

On the impact of diet on circadian phase setting

Posted on August 10, 2017 | 17 comments

We’ve seen that meal size and frequency can influence circadian rhythms, but here are some examples of how nutrients can, too.

Circadian phase advance: going to bed earlier, waking up earlier. Blue blockers at sunset, bright light at sunrise. Flying east. Autumn.

Circadian phase delay: staying up late, sleeping in. Flying west. Spring. Using smart phones, tablets, and iPads in bed at night. Light pollution.

Relative to adolescents, infants and children are circadian phase advanced. This is part of what is fueling the movement to delay high school start times. Kids are mentally better prepared to work later in the day. With early school start times, performance is down in the morning, but they kill it on video games after school. Delaying start time by an hour won’t totally fix this, but could help.

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Posted in chronopharmacology, circadian, diet, Energy balance, insulin, Ketosis, melatonin, Protein, sleep

Tagged body composition, carbs, circadian rhythm, diet, fat, ketosis, melatonin, protein

Low carb, low glycemic index, or something else entirely

Posted on August 9, 2017 | 10 comments

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.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, fat, Grains, insulin, Protein

Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, fat, protein

Hormesis and a blow torch

Posted on August 4, 2017 | 1 comment

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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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet

Tagged diet, nutrition, Paleo

Endurance Performance Doesn’t Decline on a Low Carb Diet

Posted on July 29, 2017 | 2 comments

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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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, endurance, Exercise, fat, insulin, Ketosis, muscle, Protein, strength

Tagged Atkins, body composition, calories proper, carbs, diet, exercise, fat, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, nutrition, protein

Allu-lujah: the new Quest Hero bars

Posted on July 23, 2017 | 7 comments

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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