I didn't mean to suggest that in the normal course of events, AGEs from cooked beef would be in any way dangerous. But then, in the normal course of events, peanuts wouldn't be acutely life-threatening. And as sucky as wheat may be, celiac isn't the normal course of events, either.

Part of the problem with endogenously produce AGEs isn't the presence of AGEs as such, as it is just what's getting glycated--useful proteins, with proper functions in the body that may be disrupted. Plus high endogenous AGEs pretty much pre-supposes insulin resistance.

Type II diabetics seem to be more prone to elevation of endotoxins with a fatty meal;

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/35/2/375.full



Peter at hyperlipid has pointed out that endotoxin absorption through dietary fat performs an important function in immune response. But every disease process is made up of various crucial functions, somehow gone awry.

And one more thing for now, this is all I've been able to find on endotoxins and a ketogenic diet specifically;



What I was hoping for was something showing the effect of a ketogenic diet on endotoxin.

Another thing Peter has suggested, is that on a ketogenic diet, there's less for bacteria to eat-->less bacteria, less endotoxin. So even if a greater fraction of endotoxin is absorbed on a high fat diet, there might not be as much endotoxin there to absorb. Another factor might be the effect of the diet on postprandial triglycerides, take a diabetic who responds well to a ketogenic diet, and their postprandial triglycerides during a fat tolerance test are going to look more like what happens to a non-diabetic--maybe if they start handling digestion of fat more like a non-diabetic, they'll end up with a non-diabetic's exposure to endotoxin, as well.

This study shows low endotoxemia and inflammation at both ends of the spectrum.






Increasing fat content from 20 to 45 wt% in a complex diet induces lower endotoxemia in parallel with an increased number of intestinal goblet cells in mice

Full Text

Thanks, just the sort of thing I was looking for. I don't know if this is how it works--but it makes sense that between "optimizing" for endotoxin content of the gut and absorption, there could be a muddy middle overlap where endotoxin exposure ends up higher.

The increased goblet cells are interesting. One of the early resistant starch "attacks" on low carbohydrate vs. gut bacteria was an increase in mucin-munching Akkermansia bacteria, the contention being that they posed a threat against the gut barrier. And then there's Jaminet at Perfect Health's conjecture (pulled from his buttocks, as far as I could ever tell, speaking of the gut biome) that a ketogenic diet would make a person mucin deficient, not enough glucose for glycoprotein synthesis. Bah.

Meanwhile, in mouse studies at least, Akkermansia are the heroes, gut integrity is increased, hyperglycemia is prevented, etc. The Akkermansia stimulate mucin production by goblet cells, so even though they eat mucin, they promote a thicker rather than a thinner mucin layer. Less leaky gut, less exposure to endotoxins, less likely fatty liver, etc.

But I have to take this bone and run with it. Being as I've chosen this diet as supposedly much superior for my health, after much research, I am still very open to investigating arguments against it. I was a vegetarian at one point--so if it turns out that a super-low-fat vegetarian diet is the best, no problem here. Well, okay, giving up butter might be an issue.

I'm intrigued by endotoxins, but still stuck on AGEs. I'm very interested in that angle because my dietary investigations grew out of my interest in feeding my cat, then dog, the best and most appropriate diet. So any large differences between a raw versus cooked diet really stand out to me. For instance, obviously a cat with renal failure is going to have a real problem with AGEs build up, thus a raw diet would be far superior.

What happens in mice is of no interest (or very little)--a cooked diet is not at all species appropriate for them! Mice don't go around eating rat chow (with whatever cheap crap is in that) and drinking HWC in the wild. Hard to figure out what is relevant or useful from those studies.

This study shows higher plasma AGEs in vegetarians, as opposed to omnivores, so that is a bit reassuring:
http://www.biomed.cas.cz/physiolres...f/krajcovic.pdf

So it sounds like a "fat fast" may not be a good way to go for someone with BG issues?

As originally designed, the fat fast was in little 200 calorie meals, five of them, right? Maybe larger portions, closer together, or a single, large fat meal would make the exposure to endotoxin acute rather than continuous through the day.

I'd bet that mice that did get a hold of some heavy whipping cream in the wild would do just fine, as long as the choline in the diet was sufficient to prevent fatty liver.

In the vegetarians,



I guess the problem could be either endogenous production of AGEs by the host, or maybe a fructose-induced alteration of the gut biome. Also the gut bacteria is malleable to the host's immune/hormonal system, we get a "vote" about which micro-organisms thrive.

Heavy cream actually doesn't look too bad as a fat source, so far as dietary AGEs go.

Butter, 26480 AGE units for 100 grams--that's 717 calories
Heavy cream, 2167 units for 100 ml--that's 331 calories.

So 37 per calorie, butter. 6.5 per calorie, heavy cream. This makes sense, butter gets its interesting flavour from those highly volatile short chain fatty acids. There's less protein etc. in butter for various reactions, but it's less protected. Butyric acid in butter has some protective effects that could plausibly kick in, but focusing on dietary AGE's alone, heavy cream looks pretty good.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...04564/table/T1/

They are also known for cannibalism.

Peter at Hyperlipid has written an educated opinion proton post triggered by Denise's idea of "Carbosis." The second half is easier to understand than the first - for me anyway.

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot....-once-more.html

There is a plausibility to the understandable bits.

And it is a good point that most find that sort of diet, or even just the idea of it, wretched. I have friends though, who say they just don't have the willpower to do low carb. They think what I'm doing is wretched, hard as I find that to understand.

And then there are those annoying fruitarians. Maybe some people would rather wallow in their sugar addiction than turn their back on it. If there's a way for them to do that that's less dangerous to their health, it might not be better than abstention, but it's their lives I guess.

Just remembered this study on a fat-free diet in a single subject, I always found it fun. To be fat-free the diet had to be pretty close to a purified diet, sugar, starch. There was some skim milk power though. So protein modified carbosis. Most of the calories from sugar in one form or another.

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/16/6/511.full.pdf



Headaches went away, highish blood pressure went down. A mid-afternoon slump in his energy levels disappeared. Makes the Rice Diet look paleo, though. He ate a candyish anise/sugar syrup hourly.

Peter's hypothesis should be easy to test--measure insulin levels before and after very low fat diet is instituted.

I decided to do a little more research about what the Kempner rice diet actually entailed. So here is what you will be eating:
--250-350 grams of dry rice, about 3 cups cooked. I'm only finding 242 calories per cup, which would be 726 calories for 3 cups.
--unlimited amounts of sugar (How the heck do you eat plain sugar?! I guess you pour it over the rice??) Sugar can be raised up to 500 grams (1 cup!) if necessary for more calories. Usual intake is about 100grams.
--fruit (sounds like it is unlimited?) and fruit juices.

After 4-6 weeks, 1/4 of a tomato is added (whoohoo!)
After 11-12 weeks, 1 oz. of meat 4 x per week (something to look forward to)

A sample menu was given as 1 cup of rice 3x a day, 2 pieces fruit and fruit juices. Source says usual intake is 2000 to 2,400 calories per day. So are they eating 800 calories of fruit? (average medium apple has 65 calories). I find that hard to believe.

If you can stick to that diet for more than 2 days, I think fasting would be a snap! Which begs the question--if you are going to go on such a radical, unsustainable regime to improve health as rapidly as possible, why not just experience the "magic of fasting"?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...t00405-0075.pdf

This is a study on nitrogen balance in the Rice Diet, it has a sample menu of one of the participants. 2101 calories, I get a rough estimate of about 1000 of those calories as rice. Two varieties at every meal, boiled and parched. Yum.

Eight different kinds of fruit, mostly canned, plus orange juice at every meal. And 100 grams of sugar for the day. I'm noshing on my neighbour's brains just thinking about it.

Agreed, and while I was never a vegetarian at any point, I was always a nutrition geek trying to identify the most healthy foods. We should always have enough curiosity to question how we eat to refine what works. As for Kempner's rice diet, I'm extremely intrigued by the results reported. It would have been far more interesting (for those of us consuming amounts of fat and moderate (not lean) protein that many in the past and present feel is unhealthy) if Kempner had done a study with several groups including one with very low carbs and a healthy portion of fat to determine if there were alternatives to the results he produced with the rice diet. He attacked this problem with the objective to resolve kidney and high blood pressure issues. In the rice diet, he eliminated fat and only introduced small amounts of lean protein once his patients adapted. To provide a better context of comparison, he missed the trick by not adding in the fat/protein group and maybe a SAD, including wheat and other grains of the time, control group.

While I don't intend to go there, I'm very curious about how I would react to his rice diet. I can say with some certainty, that it would be impossible for me to sustain (unless someone whipped me or threw me in the Gulag ), and I'm fairly certain that the cravings I used to have eating grains and other garbage would likely return with a vengeance. Hello my little friend!!!

Back in Kempner's day (1939), how many on the rice diet were Insulin Resistant? Overweight and obese people and processed foods were rare. It is possible that the fruit and sugar did not cause raging cravings in the predominantly normal weight to slightly chubby dieters. In ~1970 there were a couple of girls in my HS who were on the Rice Diet trying to lose 5-10 lbs, but none of them stuck with it for more than a couple of weeks. Atkins 1972 came just in time to quash the resurgence of the Rice Diet.

In the 1960's Lucy's friend Ethel Mertz was considered a comically fat person, though today she's be of average or even lower than average weight.

I just read part of this, but not the whole thing, but what was up with all those *babies* put on fat-free diets and studied? Even in the 1930's it's hard to believe this was considered ethical to experiment on human babies.

I did have my own n=1 experience on a totally fat-free diet back around 2007 when I developed excruciating agonizing pain any time a trace of fat crossed my lips. Doctors said my symptoms were classic for gallbladder but all my gallbladder tests were completely normal. In fact every test I had was completely normal! But even a bit of skim milk had enough residual fat to have me in serious pain.

Even fat-free food caused pain, so for a couple months I lived on water, black coffee, and small amounts of carrot or beet juice ~ to the tune of about 300 calories a day as more than that made me feel ill and bloated.

But as long as I stuck to those beverages and didn't exceed 300 calories I felt fine, didn't miss any work except when required to go off for another test somewhere. During that time I lost 50 pounds! But I didn't have blood tests or anything like that. It would have been interesting. But my brain still functioned well enough for me to perform my demanding high tech IT job.

However like various other odd ailments I've had over the years a cause was never found and one day I woke up wanting to eat, and I did and felt fine, and from then on it was back to regular eating.

I still keep hoping that one day I'll wake up and begin losing weight again!

But insulin resistance is just exactly what the Rice Diet was used versus. People with massive hypertension that gave them a life expectancy of six months. Type II diabetics reversing their retinopathy, getting off diabetes medication. And the before/after pictures Denise posted of people on the Rice Diet--they were quite obese.

It's an extreme diet, extreme diets are hard to do, this is a given. But it looks like it's a hard diet that would work for a lot of people. Same with the ketogenic diet, same with fasting. I guess choose your hard--and if one hard doesn't work for a person, maybe another would.