For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering a bunch of questions from comment sections. First, did I get AMPK and mTOR mixed up in a recent post? Yes. Second, I give a warning for those who wish to add ginger to their broth. Third, is it a problem that we can’t accurately measure autophagy? Fourth, how does coffee with coconut oil affect a fast? Fifth, is there a way to make mayonnaise with extra B12 and metformin? Actually, kinda. Sixth, should you feel awkward about proposing hypotheses or presenting scientific evidence to your doctor? No.
Let’s go:
Read MoreSo, you’ve done a Whole 30® (or other dietary reset involving the removal of potentially allergenic or sensitizing foods to establish homeostasis). It’s over. It went well. You feel good. You’re ready to take on the world. Now what?
Officially, you’re supposed to reintroduce the allergenic foods you removed, one at a time, to see how they affect your digestive, psychological, metabolic, and overall health. After all, the main point of the Whole 30 is to uncover the allergenic foods that actually bother you and the ones that don’t. A broad, diverse diet is awesome if you tolerate it, and having more foods available to eat makes living easier and more enjoyable. There’s no reason not to eat legumes (or dairy, or a glass of wine) if you like them and they don’t negatively affect your health. The reintroduction phase of the Whole 30 simply helps you learn which of those foods work and which don’t. That said, it’s intimidating for a lot of folks….
Read MoreThe tricky thing about fiber is that it’s not a monolith. There are dozens of varieties. Some of them perform similar functions in the body, but others have extremely unique effects. Some rend your colonic lining to stimulate lubrication. Some turn into gelatinous slurries. But we can’t talk about fiber without understanding that the word describes a variety of compounds. As such, anyone making declarative statements about “fiber” without differentiating between the different types and their effects isn’t being accurate (except for me in that exact sentence).
This leads to a lot of confusion. People make blanket statements that might be true for some types of fibers and incorrect for others.
Read MoreFor anyone who’s experienced it, the frustration can be miserable. The countless tossing and turning, the minutes that tick by (turning into hours), and you STILL haven’t gotten a modicum of decent sleep. No matter how hard you try to ignore it, that urge to constantly move or stretch your legs just won’t let up.
Restless legs syndrome (RLS), aka Willis-Ekbom disease, affects a decent chunk of the population: thought estimates vary wildly, this 2017 representative survey places its prevalence between 5.7 and 12.3% of the population. That’s up to around 40 million people in the U.S. alone who go to bed every night knowing they’ll likely be kept awake for hours with that unrelenting, restless sensation.
“Some people continue to suffer uncomfortable digestive problems despite omitting the foods they may be intolerant to. If there are no definite test results pointing at an allergy or intolerance, then you’ll most likely be diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Scientists Peter Gibson and Susan Shepherd at Moash University in Australia researched the reasons behind the vicious cycle of bloating, diarrhea, constipation, and discomfort. They came upon some evidence proving that certain sugars could actually be the cause of many of these ailments: ‘Fermentable Oligo-Di-Monosaccharides and Polyols,’ thus founding the term FODMAP.
Read MoreGreetings readers, as you know, gut health has become the hottest of topics in ancestral health circles, and is also getting increased attention in mainstream medicine. More and more science is validating how a healthy gut microbiome has wide-reaching impact on general health, and that a damaged gut can set you up for all kinds of downstream health challenges. There are several helpful primers on gut health published here (1, 2, 3).
Today’s message, however, is something a little different and more personal. It comes from a dynamic young health expert from Australia named Kale Brock. We are pleased to bring his wildly popular grassroots gut health book, The Gut Healing Protocol: An 8-Week, Holistic Program to Rebalance Your Microbiome, to the U.S. market. Kale became an expert on gut health not from formal medical training, but rather the hard way. Like many thought leaders in the ancestral health community, Kale’s obsession with gut health was triggered by a serious health setback that was poorly addressed by traditional medicine.
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