#46 – Chris Masterjohn, Ph.D.: Navigating the many pathways to health and disease – NAD and sirtuins, methylation, MTHFR and COMT, choline deficiency and NAFLD, TMAO, creatine and more
“People are gonna make a decision to. . . either wait 10 or 20 years until we know something better, or you take the position that you’re going to tinker. And if you’re going to tinker, you’re a lot more successful if you have a working model of what’s going on than if you don’t.” —Chris Masterjohn
Is a low fat diet best for weight loss?
I know many of you are awaiting Part II of the mini-series on ketosis, but I’d like to digress briefly to comment on a study published last week, which a number of you have asked about. In this study, by Hooper et al., titled Effect of reducing total fat intake on bodyweight: systematic review and…
Good science, bad interpretation
In 2012, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study entitled Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance. While I’m guessing most readers have not read this study, I’m pretty sure most of you have heard about the results as it was all over the news this week. I was fortunate…
Gravity and insulin: the dynamic duo
Last week I wrote about how carbohydrates are effectively a performance-enhancing substance, at least for certain performances in certain people. I received many great questions, including some challenging this suggestion, which really pleases me because it demonstrates folks are thinking about tradeoffs and questioning everything.
What do anabolic steroids, EPO, and carbohydrates have in common?
Before getting to this week’s post, if anyone didn’t see the 60 Minutes segment on Sunday about the toxicity of sugar, here is a link to it. I was pleasantly surprised by what they were able to convey with such time constraints. In addition to the great work by Dr. Lustig, the very short segment…
Do calories matter?
In a word, yes. But, technically this is the wrong question.
Why Weight Watchers is actually a low carb diet
Invariably I get asked the question, “If carbohydrates are so bad, why did [so-and-so] lose weight on the [such-and-such] diet?”, where “such-and-such” diet is not a “low-carb” diet. Obviously, this is an important question and a pretty complex one.
How can carbohydrate restriction be healthy if it means limiting “natural foods” like fruits and vegetables?
This week I’d like to tackle one of the most important questions that I get asked. However, before getting to the question, I think it’s worth investing a few minutes to frame this discussion around a theme tightly linked to it — sugar.
What are the side effects of aspartame, stevia, and other sugar substitutes?
Once you realize how harmful sugar is (by sugar, of course, I mean sucrose and high fructose corn syrup or HFCS, primarily, but also the whole cast of characters out there like cane sugar, beet sugar, dextrose, corn syrup solids, and others that masquerade as sugar), you inevitably want to understand the impact of substituting…
Sugar 101 – How harmful is sugar?
Any discussion on the culpability of poor nutrition as the cause of our health woes begins with a discussion on sugar.