Having a great week off work with my daughter, mostly swimming and gardening, so that blogging is off the radar as I'm fairly much off line at the moment. But...
I guess everyone has seen the takedowns of "meat causes cancer" by Longo et al. so no need for me to chime in. One hundred percent guilty of issuing a press release suggesting causation from an observational study. Duh. Hysterical highlight that meat is cancer for the decade 55-65 years of age and then, come your pension (as a bloke), it becomes the elixir of life. Shrug.
In the same Aussie pile of wallanga pertaining to report science there was a slightly more interesting study published by Le Couteur et al using the standard crippled C57BL/6 mouse strain. They fed umpteen macronutrient ratios to umpteen mice and looked at the longevity. Remember, you cannot feed butter to C57BL/6 mice. Saturated fats break their brain, they have problems with their peroxisomes and with their first phase insulin response, so they in no way resemble any but the most unfortunate of human beings. Feeding them saturated fat is out unless you feed them a ketogenic diet. With that said, enjoy the last comment in this quote from the group:
"Although the mice on a high-protein diet ate less and were slimmer, they also had a reduced lifespan and poor heart and overall health.
Those on a high-carbohydrate, low-protein diet ate more and got fat, but lived longest.
The mice that ate a high-fat, low-protein diet died quickest".
Executive summary: Fat = death.
A brief trip to supplementary data gives what the diets were made of:
"Diets varied in content of P (casein and methionine), C (sucrose, wheatstarch and dextrinized cornstarch) and F (soya bean oil)".
The only fat used was soya bean oil. Can I emphasise again, as many times before:
DO NOT CONSUME BULK CALORIES AS PUFA, ESPECIALLY OMEGA-6 PUFA.
A free "did you notice that?" snippet: Protein was "casein and methionine". Methionine restriction has been shown to prevent metabolic syndrome and possibly to extend lifespan. If you wanted to show protein was bad, might you spike casein by adding extra methionine? To complement the PUFA induced fat-badness??? How do these people sleep at night?
Peter
Wallanga? I had no idea you spoke Yolngu.
ReplyDeleteI had a quick look through that one but my patience ran out looking for diet ingredients. Soy oil...poor micey bastards.
Enjoy your break.
I'm not familiar with any decent studies looking at macronutrient proportions and lifespan, except that glucose restriction sometimes slightly increases drosophila lifespan. I've seen a gerontology study in rats that looked at lipofuscin and tail tendon break time. The high saturated fat, "meat and milk" diet came out best, followed by high unsaturated fat followed by the low fat, "cereal" diet.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insightful analysis as always. Although the PUFA problem stands out like a sore thumb, I amongst many would not have been familiar with the methionine issue.
ReplyDeleteThe last two paragraphs in a report by the ABC here in Australia says a lot about the veracity of the lead researcher:
"Professor Le Couteur says plenty of data in humans already exists that shows people who choose a high protein diet have worse outcomes in terms of death and disease.
"Certainly we found and we expected to find that high protein diets led to weight loss and led to increased muscle bulk, but this was associated with worse outcomes, whether it was blood pressure or diabetes or life span," he said."
Not only methionine, but bet you dollars to dimes it was DL-methionine.
ReplyDeleteD-methionine is an inessential, rare amino acid, but for some reason it is still added to rodent chow (in the same way that laboratories seem to now be holding all the world's stockpiles of d,l-tocopherol, which no free-living human has seen for years). It's said that rodents can metabolise D-methionine to l-methionine but, a) what is the cost of that conversion, and b) has its safety been tested with every mutant rodent ever munted by science?
I wonder what the results would have looked like had they used whey with added glycine. Both glycine and BCAA have been shown to extend lifespan.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/25/1_MeetingAbstracts/528.2
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20889128
I DO like your sardonic wit!
ReplyDeleteThis is the reason I sometimes think of you as Petro HypoLivid.
Sláinte
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ReplyDeleteThe part of these studies that I feel doesn't get enough criticism is the constant use of casein as the go-to protein of choice. I know if I have any more than a slight amount of casein it completely wrecks my digestion and I'm miserable for days. Might not apply to rats/mice, but it seems like making categorical statements about "protein" and then just testing casein is a bit disingenuous.
ReplyDeleteRe DLS, I'd guess your just overeating the peanuts. I know roasted salted nuts are like crack to me, and unless I meticulously measure, I will inevitably underestimate how much I really ate.
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ReplyDeleteHi Peter
ReplyDeleteWhen you say do not eat PUFA, do you include nuts? Do you eat any other nut than macadamias?
Really curious
Bonnie
@bjtemple Peter eats butter and egg yolks so he eats plenty of PUFA.
ReplyDeletePlenty from the point of view of sufficiency, not much by overall percentage.
"Although the mice on a high-protein diet ate less and were slimmer, they also had a reduced lifespan and poor heart and overall health.
ReplyDeleteThose on a high-carbohydrate, low-protein diet ate more and got fat, but lived longest.
The mice that ate a high-fat, low-protein diet died quickest".
----------------------------
I have trouble reconciling these statements with table s-2 in the supplement. For maximum lifespan, the 5 percent protein, 75 percent carb group did do best--but second best was the 5 percent protein, 75 percent fat group. And for median lifespan, while the 5 percent protein, 75 percent carb group wasn't shabby, the 42 percent protein, 29 percent carb high energy density group did best.
For most protein/carb ratios, there were three groups, high medium and low energy density. The six lowest groups for maximal lifespan (which are also among the seven lowest groups for median lifespan) were all in the low energy density groups. Sounds like low energy density is even more dangerous than protein. Maybe I should stop whipping my cream.
Hi Peter,
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the paper, but it sounds like James Watson may be on the same page as you with respect to ROS?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140227213430.htm
Full paper available here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067361362365X
--
Phillip
This is not the kind of study I like - lots of places for errors - BUT I would say that the Germans and Austrians have a record of better nutritional research then in the USA. Not likely anyone will do a controlled study on humans..
ReplyDeletehttp://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/04/01/study-vegetarians-less-healthy-lower-quality-of-life-than-meat-eaters/
There is a link to the paper in the article.
"Vegetarians were twice as likely to have allergies, a 50 percent increase in heart attacks and a 50 percent increase in incidences of cancer." .....
“suffer significantly more often fromanxiety/depression.”
My bet - is that the grains people eat have changed over the years to the point where they are full of carbs and the diets lack protein.
This study is particularly damming in that the vegans had better weight and lower alcohol consumption, more money... .
I have seen the mental effects of vegan diets on people - wonder if the damage is permanent for kids growing up on rice and beans?
I also experienced the effects of low protein when doing heavy workouts - pain that got so bad that it interfered with my sleep. I wonder if some of the Chronic fatigue and Fibromyalgia is actually low protein intake? The weight lifters all know that there has to be an EXCESS of protein to gain muscle mass - and more muscle mass means better glycemic control.
The increase is cancer is most likey due to higher BG - and because cancers typically use glycolysis (like in fermentation) rather than mitochondrial respiration - they grow faster in people with high BG and likely out grow our immune systems ability to remove them.
The increase in heart attacks - again likely due to the increase in BG which increases OxLDL - which the macrophages misidentify as dead bacteria and pack into the intima of artery walls producing 'foam cells' that damage the vessels..
This is not the kind of study I like - lots of places for errors - BUT I would say that the Germans and Austrians have a record of better nutritional research then in the USA. Not likely anyone will do a controlled study on humans..
ReplyDeletehttp://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/04/01/study-vegetarians-less-healthy-lower-quality-of-life-than-meat-eaters/
There is a link to the paper in the article.
"Vegetarians were twice as likely to have allergies, a 50 percent increase in heart attacks and a 50 percent increase in incidences of cancer." .....
“suffer significantly more often fromanxiety/depression.”
My bet - is that the grains people eat have changed over the years to the point where they are full of carbs and the diets lack protein.
This study is particularly damming in that the vegans had better weight and lower alcohol consumption, more money... .
I have seen the mental effects of vegan diets on people - wonder if the damage is permanent for kids growing up on rice and beans?
I also experienced the effects of low protein when doing heavy workouts - pain that got so bad that it interfered with my sleep. I wonder if some of the Chronic fatigue and Fibromyalgia is actually low protein intake? The weight lifters all know that there has to be an EXCESS of protein to gain muscle mass - and more muscle mass means better glycemic control.
The increase is cancer is most likey due to higher BG - and because cancers typically use glycolysis (like in fermentation) rather than mitochondrial respiration - they grow faster in people with high BG and likely out grow our immune systems ability to remove them.
The increase in heart attacks - again likely due to the increase in BG which increases OxLDL - which the macrophages misidentify as dead bacteria and pack into the intima of artery walls producing 'foam cells' that damage the vessels..
Well, Peter, there is a new pile of Aussie 'wallanga', and this I think from the same institute, at least the same university: Sydney University (my alma mater).
ReplyDeleteHere is the report from ABC (Australia): http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/05/29/4243575.htm
It is published in Cell Reports: http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/abstract/S2211-1247(15)00505-7?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2211124715005057%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
On another note: I have been unable to find out what 'wallanga' means. I gather it is not a compliment. It does not appear to be Aussie slang (I am an Aussie) nor veterinary jargon (I am a vet).
I haven't checked out the diets used in this latest study: presumably soy bean oil etc.
Steve L in AU
2015-05-30
Well Steve, many years ago at a folk club in Nottingham I heard a guy perform a set of which one song described his experiences down a rabbit hole where he found himself on a desert island about to be eaten by cannibals. In an attempt to save his life by ingratiating himself with his captors he grabbed a guitar and sang them a song. At the end of the song they all cheered Wallanga! Wallinga! Encouraged, he sang another song with similar results. Then again. Eventually an ex London bus conductor was discovered and acted as an interpreter. The singer found he had been spared and was given directions as to how to get back to London. It involved a trek through a cave in to the middle of next week. But it was dangerous. In the cave they kept horses. They kept pigs. They kept cattle. It was dark in the cave. Make sure you don’t step in no wallanga.
ReplyDeleteIt was better as he sang it. He did a similar set at the RVC in London while I was an undergrad. Can’t remember his name but he was good. Smoked between each song and stored his cigarette by insetting it in to the coiled end of a guitar string. Back before smoking was a criminal offence on stage! Though I'm not sure the tobacco was 100% legal then or now in the UK.
Peter