Matt Metzgar

A Bit of Bacteria

Last year, a study showed that supplementing with prebiotics could produce weight loss.  The weight loss was relatively small: 2.2 pounds over 12 weeks. 

Another study has been done to determine the mechanism behind this weight loss.  In the first study, subjects took 21 grams of prebiotics per day, and in the second study they took a slightly lower amount, 16 grams per day.  The second study, however, went into more detail about subjects' food intake.

The subjects consuming prebiotics averaged 2,339 calories per day while the subjects consuming the placebo consumed 2,501 calories per day.

This is pretty significant in my view.  Without altering any other diet parameters other than adding prebiotics, subjects consumed 162 less calories per day.  This could lead to gradual weight loss like I talked about in this post.

Looking at it the other way, the lack of prebiotics and/or the lack of healthy gut flora could lead a person to consume 162 more calories per day than they usually would.

When researchers talk about how our mechanisms matching calorie intake and output are off by a little bit, bacteria seems like the prime candidate.  Earlier generations with healthy gut flora kept their calories and weight in balance.  Today, the average person's gut bacteria is disturbed, leading to high rates of obesity and chronic disease.

Mineral Absorption

I've seen a few papers that show there are micronutrient deficiencies in people who are overweight/obese.  This paper shows that overweight subjects had zinc deficiencies.  The article recommends zinc supplementation to correct the situation.

I agree with this, but there is more to the story.  Omega-3 fats affect micronutrient absorption.  In this paper, it is shown that there important interactions between omega-3 fats and zinc.  This paper shows that omega-3 fats can affect zinc levels in the brain.

Therefore, while it may be good to supplement with zinc if you are deficient, it may be more important to get sufficient omega-3 fats in your diet first.

Eggs

The Paleo Diet blog had a long post on eggs last week.  Cordain points out that eggs could not be consumed year-round in the Paleolithic era.  Eggs may have been consumed for a few weeks or few months, but they were a seasonal food.

I was starting to lean in this direction on my own volition.  This summer when I had time off, I got in the habit of eating eggs on most days.  After a while, it just didn't feel right.  When the I started back to work in the fall, I dropped the eggs and felt better.

I think if you substitute eggs for meat too often, you miss too much protein.  Eggs are really a high-fat food, and not a high-protein food.  I usually feel better after eating meat than I do after eating eggs.

Book Review: Why Diet and Exercise Fail

Daniel Korn was nice enough to send me a copy of his book, "Why Diet and Exercise Fail", for review.  The book is an analysis of different worldwide diets and how each affects obesity levels.  Daniel analyzes what are usual suspects for causing obesity and then dismisses each in turn.

By the end of the book, there is a focus on what are the real potential causes: chemical agents in foods, nutritional deficiencies, and gut bacteria.  All of this fits in nicely with the new research on the links between gut bacteria and obesity.  He also mentions a key example: farmers have traditionally used antibiotics to fatten up livestock.  Antibiotics upset the gut balance which leads to livestock overeating.  By consuming acidic foods and chemical ingredients, the same process may be happening with humans.

The book is a bit shorter and self-published, but that doesn't really detract from it.  It seems like a sincere effort to answer an important question: why are people gaining weight?

There are a couple of key points made in the book.  The first deals with low-carb diets.  He states that as people consume unhealthy food and become overweight, they lose gut bacteria.  This means they lose the ability to properly digest foods like fruits and vegetables.  When they go on a low-carb diet, they may feel better because now they don't have the digestive issues.  I would add here that a low-carb diet is then treating the symptoms of inflammation and not the cause.  If a person's gut bacteria is out of whack and they can't digest healthy carbs, then the appropriate long-term solution is not to go low-carb.  A person should work on adding healthy carbs back in along with good bacteria (probiotics).

This also connects to whole grains.  Daniel explains that obesity and diabetes were low in the US way back when 80% of all calories were coming from whole grains.  Apparently, the combination of oils and fiber in whole grains can keep gut bacteria in working order.  Refined grains with the fiber and oils stripped out disrupt gut bacteria.  All this can explain how someone like Clarence Bass, who has been eating whole grains for decades, can remain lean.  Also, this does not mean that whole grains are superior to fruits and vegetables in any way.  It just shows that whole grains may not upset the gut bacteria in the way that refined grains do.

Overall, it was a good read.  I learned some things and enjoyed it.  It's good to see a book with an honest purpose. 

Best Baby Resources Page

I created a permanent page that lists the best resources for babies.  There is a link over in the right sidebar or you can click here.

I plan on adding and improving the page, but I wanted to get the main resources out there for any new parents or parents-to-be.

Man the Fisher: In Practice

  
I have been trying a few things related to the Man the Fisher idea.  The first is iodine.  I eat virtually no salt and also no seafood, so it seemed like a good idea to try some iodine.  I have been supplementing with it for about a month.  I haven't noticed any huge improvements, but there doesn't seem to be any negative side effects.

Next up are the Trace Minerals shown above.  The idea is that there are critical elements that can only be provided by marine foods.  Again, no big improvements but no side effects either.

I look at these two supplements as insurance policies.  If the historical Paleo diet was heavily dependent on marine food, then I'm covered.

Disappointed

As one could probably guess from my last few posts, I have been disappointed with how things have been going in the Paleo community lately.  There seems to be more nonsense than ever before.  I've been involved online in Paleo for 10+ years so I've seen and read a lot of things.

Things seemed to change when Art Devany's blog went private.  I think Art has some goofy personality traits and certainly wasn't 100% correct with his ideas (then again, who is).  But overall, his information was top-notch, and he hit a lot of home runs in terms of breakthroughs.  I'm not sure what he's writing about now since I don't subscribe to his private blog.

Now there are only a few quality blogs left that I check.  It just seems like there is a vacuum.  I'm doing my thing here, but I'm very busy with family and work.  The world needs more quality Paleo bloggers.

Errors in Thinking: Hypnotic Writing

This category is responsible for a huge number of errors.  There are lots of writers and bloggers out there who are good at what I'll call "hypnotic writing".  This is writing in such a way that a person is convinced of your argument, but not through rational means.  It is somewhat hard to explain, but I find it easy to spot.

Hypnotic writing is really a skill.  Some people just naturally do it, and others increase their skill at it over time. 

In this blog, I try to write in a non-hypnotic way, and instead analyze things in a rational manner.  I see others who write hypnotically and then gather big audiences.  For sure, if you learn to write in a hypnotic way, you will gain an audience.  You only have to look at an example like Anthony Robbins who has put millions under his trance.

I read about this phenomenon a while back in an evolutionary psychology book (though I can't remember which one).  The argument was that communication in an evolutionary sense was always more about persuasion and entertainment than rational thought.  You can see this in book sales - sales of fiction books dwarf the sales of non-fiction books.

I think some people put hypnotic writing to good use, but others mostly use it to stroke their ego.  This is why scientific journals are written in the way they are - all the style and personality is taken out, and only the argument remains.  This is how science moves forward.  Hypnotic writing is usually not the way to improved knowledge.

Errors in Thinking: Cross-Subject Expertise

Another common error is when a person has expertise in one subject area, and then others assume that this expertise carries over to other domains.  A prime example is celebrities, who often dispense advice about diet, love, and who knows what else.  Unfortunately, their true expertise lies in acting, and not all these other subjects.

Or for a personal example, I have a Ph.D. in Economics.  Does that mean I know anything about health?  That's up for readers to decide.  But I don't assume that my expertise in one field carries over into another.

You also run into this error with M.D.s, as well.  For example, lots of people criticize Dr. Dean Ornish.  They say he's this medical doctor who doesn't really know anything about nutrition.  Yet if an MD supports a Paleo Diet, then all of a sudden he or she has credibilty.  Why is one person's MD credentials important now but not the other? 

Credibility lies in knowledge, and not necessarily academic degrees.

Errors In Thinking: "It Worked For Me"

I wanted to put a few short posts up about common errors in thinking.  I am not immune to them myself, but knowing what the common errors are seems to help.

One of the more common thinking errors is, "it worked for me".  That is, people see someone who is healthy and try to duplicate their particular diet or exercise routine.  Unfortunately, this duplication often doesn't work.  First, everyone is different.  Second, a person may be doing a mix of positive and negative things, but the overall balance is positive.  Therefore, if another person just pulls out certain pieces of another's routine, they may get the positive or they may get the negative parts.

Third, even within a healthy framework, like Paleo diet and exercising, there is room for variation.  Some people may thrive on more or less meat, or more or less plant food.  This doesn't even get into gender differences, which is often overlooked with dietary prescriptions.