Dr. David Perlmutter speaks about his book, Grain Brain, in this interview:
“Come with me if you want to live!” Ketogenic diet is Kyle Reese for cancer patients
Do you remember the scene in Terminator where Kyle Reese says to the terrified Sarah Conner, “Come with me if you want to live!” Well, if we consider cancer to be a terminator, then wouldn’t it make sense to do nothing that would make the Schwarznegger monster stronger, like feed it the energy it requires to grow and to invade? A new study shows that calorie and carbohydrate restriction and ketogenic diet (high fat, low carb) will enhance radiation therapy, giving the patient a fighting chance. If you want to live, come with me. Stop eating sugar and starches and stop feeding the Terminator.
Here is the clip:
Carbohydrate addiction scientifically explained
Thomas Seyfried on ketogenic diets and fasting as a treatment for cancer
I mentioned in an earlier post that it would make sense to implement a strict ketogenic diet as a treatment to help fight or prevent cancer. A ketogenic diet severely restricts sugars and starches, and turns to fat in order to maintain adequate energy. I might have been a bit too optimistic that a high fat low carb diet could cure advanced cases of cancer, but it seems logical that it would deprive cancer cells of glucose and thus give a cancer patient a fighting chance. We know that people with diabetes and metabolic syndrome have increased incidence of cancer, and it stands to reason that good blood glucose control could possibly ward off cancer cells’ ability to advance. In any case, I am convinced that good maintenance of tight glucose control (4.3-4.6) is essential for good health, and human beings can only achieve that through avoidance of too much carbohydrate. However, how much total carbohydrate a person can tolerate is a highly individual issue, but I doubt that people with extremely healthy blood sugar should consume more than about 150 gm of carbohydrate per day (cf. Paul Jaminet’s Perfect Health Diet). For myself I follow Dr. Richard K. Bernstein’s recommendation of about 30 gm of carbohydrate for those who have glucose intolerance.
Now, Prof. Thomas Seyfried is at the cutting edge of advanced research into this line of investigation. He has a new book, though very expensive, Cancer as metabolic disorder which explores this avenue of research and treatment. Youtube has two enlightening videos featuring Seyfried which I recommend. I am encouraged to implement regular intermittent fasting (I skip breakfast nearly every day) and also occasional longer fasts–though for this I will await the season of Lent, so that the fasting can contribute both to spiritual and physical health.
The healthy paleo diet of North American aboriginals
Lean native people of the not so distant past
This week some of my friends have been sharing pictures of Alaska natives on Facebook; these pictures depict people noticeably suffering from obesity. Indeed, diabetes rate among natives is twice that of the white population, yet it was a disease that was virtually non-existent before the inundation of White staples, flour and sugar. Natives too are realizing that they were much healthier when their diet was more traditional and contained less processed foods (CBC):
“Long time ago my parents didn’t know anything about diabetes,” recalls Flossie Oakoak, a 62-year-old Inuk originally from Cambridge Bay who has Type 2 diabetes. “When there was no white man here, there was only caribou, char. Most of the people are getting bigger and bigger.”
Along with diabetes and obesity, tooth decay had arrived among the Yupik, as I noticed one summer working in Bethel with a young man whose front teeth were rotting, a problem I’ve also seen among Africans. But the advent of sugar in the diet of the aboriginal people around the world has resulted in dental misery. We can also thank the Coca Cola Company for their successful sales abroad–exporting White man’s misery to the hapless native.
The lean healthy people of the aboriginal past is a major plank in the argument for the paleo diet. Gary Taubes presents a readable account of this tragedy in Why we get fat and what to do about. He tells how the Pima of Arizona were very healthy people before the Gold Rush and how, after the invaders came and destroyed their habitat and their wholesome food supply, the Pima began to depend on US government handouts which consisted of sugar and flour. Since then, the Pima have suffered terribly from malnutrition, obesity, and diabetes, along with all the diseases which stem from uncontrolled blood sugars. This includes higher rates of depression and suicide. People leading NGO and government efforts to help native communities overcome mental illness should consider the underlying contribution of bad diet consisting of processed foods high in sugar and grains.
For natives around the world, the paleo diet would consist of returning to a traditional diet high in fat and low in carbohydrate. Indeed, fat as the major source of nutrition in the diet would make a major contribution to health, if people would also cut the sugar and starch. This I know from my own experience, and it breaks my heart to see that the bad, iatrogenic nutritional advice of today’s conventional wisdom continues to kill people by destroying their health and depriving them of their vigour. I would urge aboriginal people to eat the fat, e.g., the pemmican and muktuk, but skip the sugar and starch.
The Righteous Investor 