There have been a number of these free on-line "conferences" and summits about Paleo, gluten-free, etc. with varying levels of quality. I have tried a few and ignored many. This one is of interest to me, mainly because almost every speaker is a blogger or food writer I enjoy, respect, especially John Durant the moderator, and want to hear the topics. Thought this one was worth posting in this forum.

This note is from Chris Kresser:




btw, if you sign up as a member of Kresser's new site, you have access to seven free E-books, some are 30+ pages long. The one on Thyroid is 37 pages, Paleo Diet Challenges and Solutions is 35 pages, etc. Nutrition for Skin is 14 pages, all have been useful and interesting.

I listened to the interview of Loren Cordain and learned a few new things. For example:

- Milk is filtered blood and has a high estrogen content, estrogen breaches the intestinal barrier making dairy a risk factor for breast cancer and prostate cancer.

- Dairy products cause a low glycemic response but a high insulin response. A group of kids was given all their protein from meat for 10 days. Then they were given all their protein from dairy for 10 days. During the dairy segment of the experiment all the kids became insulin resistant.

- Dairy consumption is strongly associated with Type I diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

- Dairy products are very low in vitamins and minerals. (I should have known that already.)

- Taking antioxidants is associated with a 20-25% increase of cancer mortality. Antioxidants reduce reactive oxygen species (ROS) which were thought to damage cells. It turned out that the immune system uses ROS to destroy cancer cells. If you get rid of ROS you prevent the immune system from regulating cancer growth.

- Taking calcium supplements is associated with an increase in heart disease.

- Folic acid is a synthetic vitamin invented only a half-century ago and is used to enrich grains and grain products in the US and Canada. Though it does reduce about 300 deaths from neural tube defects per years it also accumulates in the bloodstream of hundreds of millions more people and has caused a 30% increase in prostate cancer compared to the countries that didn't use it in the same period.

Interesting stuff. I should read some of Cordain's books.

I've registered and just finish listening to an interview of Cordain by Durant, good stuff. That was the only one that piqued my interest today, we'll see what tomorrow brings.

I didn't get much out of Abel James' talk. It was mostly about his own experience of fasting. There were no references to research on fasting.

Alli, agree on those two talks. Dairy is a separate chapter in The Paleo Answer, the one I copied to remind me why dairy is not great for me. Need to find out more about some supplements, definitely reading more about manufactured supplements causing more problems than solving.

Cordain's talk was good... but I think some of the Paleo "problem" foods, including dairy, might be problematic largely because of the modern diet. Once you're eating a diet high in wheat, sugar, and alcohol, leaky gut might make problems with various proteins, estrogen in milk, etc. appear, even if they wouldn't have otherwise. All kinds of otherwise harmless proteins may trigger inappropriate immune responses due to leaky gut.

As far as milk being filtered blood... well, that's where all organs get their nutrients. But that's an exaggeration, I think. Does whey protein flow through a lactating woman's bloodstream? Does casein? Does galactose, or is it produced in the milk glands? According to Wikipedia, most galactose in milk is filtered from the blood stream...based on a study called



Looks like Wikipedia got it wrong--waste not, want not, if dietary galactose does show up in the blood, it will preferentially be used for milk production, if not it will be synthesized in the milk glands.

http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full...g&pmid=12519857

I'm not saying dairy's harmless for all people, I just doubt it's the universal poison Cordain makes it out to be.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...j00865-0113.pdf



Somebody alert Denise Minger. We don't need any more new myths.

Moving on to the next topic, and being snowed in today, already listened to "All about Gluten" with Dr Thomas O'Byran. Fantastic summary, with really simple visuals (stomach lining is shag carpet, celiac is Berber) so anyone can understand NCGS in 30 minutes.
He also contributed a talk from his Gluten Summit for more in depth extra info. I had heard him before on a few interviews, but this one is the best yet.

Janet, thanks for the input on that - I had not prioritized watching that (nothing today appealed much to me) but I'll try to put it on later.

I enjoyed the habits talk yesterday - nothing earth-shattering, but a good overview of a lot of the self-improvement hack stuff, which I'm always trying to improve

Am I the only one who misses the days when an online paleocon would have been more about food, and less about what kind of shoes we ought to be wearing, or how many hours a day we shoud be sitting down, whether we should get a device to allow us to go into a full squat when pooping, and all that?

It's branched out

I stay open-minded; every time I read a rant about dairy I run across something that points out grass-fed, high fat dairy is a whole other beast. Then there's the raw/pasteurized debate...

I fell for the "low carb" pasta and gained back 20 pounds. I tried "resistant starch" and it didn't resist nearly enough and I gained 10 pounds.

One thing Death by Food Pyramid did for me was explain how different genetic strains can make what works for me not work for even a close relative with different parents. I am in the possibly unique position of having been off dairy for many years through a misdiagnosis, and never noticed a change before and after.

Quitting wheat made a dramatic difference!

They had some food ones, though I had already heard most of them interviewed on other podcasts, but Kresser, Minger, O'Byran, Cordain, Davis, etc.were good. Well for free, good enough.

Do they ever make transcripts of the interviews? I can read/skim up to 5X faster than I can listen to podcasts, and I process what I see more completely than what I hear - I hate podcasts since I can't skim past the rants, boring bits or repeats of what I already know (and some interviewers spend too much time talking about themselves, not focusing on the interviewee and topic at hand). I've rarely listened to a podcast on any topic that couldn't have covered the key information in half the time.

I think PaleCon will have them in their package, but for big bucks, no thanks. The best podcast with transcripts is ChrisKresser. He use to talk soooo slooow in monotone and can get off tangents on obscure micronutrients, I prefer reading his. I think with all the speaking he is doing on his book tour, his podcasting voice has picked up the pace.
Robb Wolf also has them, and he does more interviews with outside experts. Mark Sisson just started a Primal podcast, only at episode five. He includes topic time stamps and written transcripts, and it moves along quickly.
I wish everyone had a written transcript..I much prefer reading too, and way faster than listening. But I only listen to them while I walk or drive, so the option isn't there anyway.

It's not that I mind the other stuff that much, I just enjoy the nutrition stuff so much more.