Recently I've managed to secure an increase in the amount of hours I work at my employer, which is awesome considering the economy. Naturally this means I have less time for zero carb web-logging. I'm sorry to say that this post will be another link fest. I'm still working on new content, it's just coming together rather slowly. Perhaps I'll get a swift kick of inspiration soon. 

In the meantime here are some links I've been digging. Enjoy!

Lex Rooker's Journal - Lex has been engaged in a very high fat, low protein diet for several weeks in a effort to lower his HbA1c. Head over to his journal to find out his rhyme and reason as well as a crash course in how to conduct proper self experimentation.

Due to an elevated HBA1c of 6% I've decided to drop protein intake to 85g and raise fat to 210g. I'm currently eating 600 grams of food (that's 1.3 lbs) in one meal per day with total calories around 2,200.  I find this to be more than enough. I will have another HBA1c test done in December or January to see if glycation products drop.  I can say that in one month BG has dropped from an average of 100 to around 85 so I expect A1c will show improvement as well.

The reason I'm doing this is that A1c and blood levels of vitamin D seem to be more closely linked to death from heart and artery disease than HDL and LDL.  From what I've read, people with low levels of Vit D and an A1c level of 7% have a 19% chance of dying over a 12 month period.  People with adequate levels of Vit D and a 5% A1c level the mortality rate drops to 3% in a 12 month period.  Vitamin D also plays a critical role in maintaining bone density.

NephroPal - I'm late to the party, but this blog is fantastic. Admittedly some of the content is over my head, but with all the media it makes some of the harder to grasp concepts achievable for the layman. I especially liked Dr. T's post on Summer vs Winder Mode. The term nutrigenomics is introduced in this post, which I'm betting will be growing in popularity over the next several years.

My question to myself is: "Why is the sun (Vitamin D) so connected to human health?" The skin converts cholesterol to Vitamin D. Humans for the most part lack body hair and some of us have a lower amount of skin pigment. Both of which may be a reason for increased capacity to absorb UV-B rays from the sun for Vitamin D production. The highest amounts of Vitamin D are in the summer at the same time as the highest amounts of fructose consumption in the year. Connection? Excessive fructose consumption can be pro-inflammatory. Hmmm? In summer mode, ancient humans ate to store energy for the winter. What better source of energy than fructose? - which causes: 1) an increased appetite (by inhibiting the satiety hormone leptin on the brain) and 2) can easily cause weight gain. Vitamin D may have allowed this energy storage while lowering the amount of associated inflammation. But recall, increased fructose consumption was transient - unlike Westerners (high fructose corn syrup, sugar, etc)

Low-Carb For You - With her P.h.D. in medical biochemistry and succinct writing style, author and local poster at the ZIOH message boards Stargazey has created one hell of a weblog. I especially enjoyed this post detailing the conversion of protein into glucose.

It is almost an article of faith among low-carbers that the low-carb lifestyle is able to lower blood glucose values in diabetics and pre-diabetics. It would be logical to assume that the lower the carbohydrate intake, the lower the corresponding blood glucose. But recent observations in a limited sample of people who were doing something very close to zero-carbing suggest that this is not necessarily the case.

Robb Wolf has just posted a short overview of the origin and current status of the diet-heart hypothesis. 

The basics of the diet-heart hypothesis go like this: High cholesterol leads to atherosclerotic plaques that precipitate a clot which can result in a heart attack or stroke. This whole notion grew from a disease called Familial Hypercholesterolemia and subsequent experiments that involved feeding rabbits (herbivores) oxidized cholesterol. These critters do not eat ANY cholesterol so the fact oxidized cholesterol caused problems is not surprising but also completely unhelpful when talking about people. Anyway, 50 years to failed dietary recommendations to lower cholesterol have done nothing to alleviate the CVD epidemic. In fact, the epidemic is rolling along bigger and badder than ever before. Well This Study was pretty interesting. It indicates that most people who suffer a heart attack have…low cholesterol!

Now, everyone is in a fix to get folks on cholesterol lowering diets and statins to save them, but most heart attacks are in folks with…low cholesterol! Ok, doesn’t make any sense and it completely calls into question the notion that we need to reduce cholesterol levels…but why not give people statins and see how folks do on those. Well, interestingly, statins appear to decrease heart attack rates in people...with low cholesterol. The mechanism? Possibly a reduction in C-reactive protein (CRP), an indicator of systemic inflammation. Know what else reduces systemic inflammation? A paleo diet which controls insulin levels, removes gut irritating foods, balances omega-3/omega-6 fats. Add some vit-d and consistent good sleep and you have effectively turned off the type of inflammation underlying CVD, cancer and neurodegeneration.Oh! Then there is the fact low cholesterol increases stroke rates!!

So, just to clarify:

1-Cholesterol supposedly causes CVD, But

2-Most heart attacks are actually occurring in people with low cholesterol, Yet

3-Doctors insist on cholesterol lowering protocols, including statins, Even though,

4-The benefit of statins has nothing to do with cholesterol, but rather it’s mild anti-inflammatory action, Which

5-Can be accomplished with simple dietary modifications and a few inexpensive supplements.

It would be funny if people were not dying from this stuff.

Just to prove I haven't been lazing on the job, I wanted to share with you a beautiful picture of a very long, hard days work of fat rendering. I've learned even more tips that I intend on sharing in a future post about producing pemmican. Pictured are two gigantic jars of grass-fed suet (left) and grass-fed muscular fat (right). Both were rendered at 200F, and taste fantastic.

Within the week I should also have some genuine bison to make pemmican with, which I'm quite ecstatic about.