Crickets . . .

. . . And it's buried in not widely available media sources. Frankly, it isn't an article that's provocative enough to publish in People, or Time, or Rolling Stone. And . . . who in their right minds would want to lockdown or eliminate sugar??? People need that stuff, and I hear it's perfectly fine when consumed in moderation as a part of a balanced diet. Just eat a little and move more.

In my previous world, one small piece of carrot cake was the equivalent to one small shot of heroin to a committed junkie or a shot of whisky to an alcoholic, it's merely a starting point. I could never settle for just one.

Well, I'm glad I woke up to the fact my blood glucose had gone berserk. I kept eating "low carb" with exceptions. This salad kit is low carb enough, even though it comes with dates and a sweet dressing, right? And my weekly taquitos, and Trader Joe's "protein" bar (yeah, right). Back on track now and finding corralling that BG is harder than I thought! And yes, everyone conflates obesity with bad outcomes but most obese (and skinny-fat) people also have crappy blood glucose control.

I'm glad you got back on track, cause, ya, it's not just about thinness or fatness.

New numbers out today. 750,000 dead in US. Makes me sad.

Of course, just as many perished from heart attacks and cancer and other diet related diseases.

Listened to a Dr Gundry podcast......a reminder that our food is our health. Not just whole foods, but an awareness of how depleted the soil is or isn't. I continue to learn how to garden....today digging potatoes and pulling sprouted garlic, which is delightful sauted. Over next few days , fresh compost will be spread over each bed.

And I'm reminded of Anne Whitmore, actually I'm forgetting her name, who provided sprouts to the chronically I'll in the Boston area nearly 100 years ago. The typical diet lacked greens.....

Our diet matters.

I wish more people realized this. So much suffering would be avoided.

Pretty good article in the Boston Globe on the weekend. The obesity pandemic has made COVID much more deadly



Bold mine. Don't have time to comment as I'm off to work, but a (disturbingly) rare mention of the intersection of the metabolic syndrome epidemic and COVID.

Thanks, Kristine!

The Globe is behind a paywall, but found it on MSN.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/t...adly/ar-AAQYj0d

Of course Dr Mozaffarian is the diet expert behind the new Tufts Food Compass, which suggests Fruit Loops are better than eggs, but this short article doesn’t mention much but eat more fruit and veg and exercise.

Thanks for posting articles. I felt only this community got the connection of poor metabolic health and Covid. Terrifying statistics!!!

My boys did not gain weight during Covid. They could go outside. Work around the farm. Not much junk food here besides bread.

The 1/6 statistics is terrifying. It's all manageable thru a better diet and regular exercise. ( And I mean exercise for metabolic health not weight loss, which we all know is useless.)

Yet nothing changes......

Thanks, Kristine, and thanks Janet for the alternative link to the article.


Regarding poor metabolic health and the damage uninformed eating habits do, yes, it has been happening for decades. I find the following statement amazing and dangerously naive:

In the midst of people getting fat and developing epidemic proportions of metabolic diseases, there are messages everyday both direct and subliminal that counteract any amount of sound advice regarding nutrition, health, and lifestyle. Many believe that it's only for those of us who are old. The irony is that those who are older and have high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer to name a few have acquired these not simply because you get them when you get old; rather, you get them when you eat haphazardly beginning as a child. It takes years to emerge, so those of us when we were young and those who are young today don't think any of this applies.

Then we have the food manufacturers who sell "food" concoctions and advertise everything over the media sources we watch at all ages. Conflicting messages? Yes, but how does this dynamic of conflicting messages get reined in? Many of us have focused on diet and nutrition either because we had the foresight to understand this mindless eating couldn't support a long, healthy life or that we developed some of the diseases of metabolic syndrome and took action. Will the conflicting messages and advertising stop? No, not unless there is an underlying understanding and the recognition of the associated health risks.

Anyone who is familiar with SNAP and the previous food welfare programs of food stamps understands what is bought and consumed by those in these programs. Very few items purchased can be considered healthy, so I find a continuation of "a single point of oversight" using the government to be very expensive and risky. Think of the food pyramid. How did that help? Think of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. How's that working? Are we to expect that the solution is there and will change overnight? And how do we get the message out that eating whole foods is individually different and effects people differently? Yes, it's preferable to processed foods, but when a "single point of oversight" discourages, taxes, or eliminates whole foods that some consider healthy today, like red meat (also implicated in having a negative effect on climate change), we lose our freedom to eat the foods that work for us. I'm concerned that things like the Food Compass and other things that are designed to promote healthy eating are also the very things that are potentially limiting for many of us.

We are currently overwhelmed by the cholesterol hypothesis informing today's common health assessments, treatments, and the designing and designation of many "healthy" foods and preferred diets. If that hypothesis is incorrect, which I strongly believe it is, how do we navigate the chaos sure to come?

Realizing this (and it's only one wrong hypothesis in a sea of them) is actually the opposite of how we assess risk. The onset is so pleasurable, the damage so far in the future, and way it accumulates completely undetectable... it's amazing we figured it out at all.

Vegetarianism rose around the same time and the same reasons even though it obviously works no better on heart disease, and the fear of red meat is REAL. I'm constantly seeing public, and then as people repeat it, private, reactions where people eat burgers made of chicken and pat themselves on the back.

For avoiding that deadly red meat. When something so nonsensical gets pseudo-science approval and constant repetition by actual people around you... it's no wonder so many of our newbies find the social pressure as bad as the cravings when it comes to quitting low carb and falling back into bad habits.

So many people have told me how they no longer eat red meat as if this was an unassailably positive step they were taking to improve their health and the health of the planet. Clearly this point of view has taken hold as "common sense" in the world at large, science be damned!

Back to Covid and Obesity…


The coronavirus attacks fat tissue, scientists find



https://www.seattletimes.com/nation...cientists-find/

Article from NYT, here not behind paywall.


Continues…..

Interesting, this spawned another google search and I found this study. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm

It seems to corollate BMI with risk. I have not read it deeply, nor do I intend to, but the graph that was most interesting to me that I couldn't figure out is why the IMV = invasive mechanical ventilation graph seems so linear compared to the other graphs, like death, that are the "Nike Swoosh" - I suppose there's another technical term for it.

Bottom line appears to be that, however you got fat, it might be a good idea to try to lower your BMI by any means necessary (high or low carb)

Lay off the Donuts - dont eat fat and carbs at he same time. pick a fuel source! ( <-- mostly directed at myself here :) )