Weekly Link Love — Edition 25
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Statins linked to diabetes, again.
A ketogenic diet helps relapsing MS patients lower fatigue, reduce depression, and lose weight.
Indigenous Australians traded pottery with Papua New Guineans for thousands of years.
A fatty liver epidemic in young people is bad news and simply shouldn’t be happening (but is).
Narcissists make better citizens.
Episode 328: Dr. Loren Cordain: Host Elle Russ chats with the creator of the original Paleo Diet, Dr. Loren Cordain PhD.
Episode 329: Dr. Lindsay Taylor: Host Brad Kearns chats with Dr. Lindsay Taylor, PhD and co-author of the Keto Passport.
Health Coach Radio Episode 8: Kama Trudgen: Kama Trudgen runs health retreats for the indigenous Yolngu people of Northeast Arnhem Land, Australia, helping them reclaim health using traditional diets and lifestyle practices.
Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.
Not grazing on junk all day long is “starving,” apparently.
Irish soil contains microbes that fight drug-resistant bacteria.
Ancient animal urine could reveal the history of animal agriculture.
A sandwich with pickles instead of bread? Sure, why not.
Enter now to win a Cuisinart Airfryer, $200 in Primal Kitchen loot, and a $100 gift card to PrimalKitchen.com.
My quick, effective road workout when I’m traveling light without gym access.
This seems like a good use of GMO technology: blight-resistant American chestnut.
Google pulls the plug on its glucose-monitoring “smart lens” they’d been working on since 2014.
Raw eggs in milk, carrots, steak, lamb chops, liver, and the odd ice cream sundae: Marilyn Monroe’s diet.
Virtual health summit you should attend: Habits to Thrive, a 7-day summit hosted by Deanna Wilcox, Anya Perry, and 17 other Primal Health Coaches.
Study I found interesting: Drug and alcohol use and life satisfaction.
Positive side effect I’m hoping develops: Scientists are mad that T-rex bones are going for millions on eBay rather than remain in the public trust. But what if high prices and private sales spur more finds and more discoveries?
I think there are better ways to lose weight: Than swallowing 3-dimensional cellulose matrix tabs that expand in your stomach and take up space.
I can’t think of a better way to gain weight: “…eating behaviors of modern consumers may be guided by a predominant goal to attain the subjective experience of complete fullness.”
Some high-end coffee places are banning milk, sugar, and cream, arguing that the extra additions detract from the true coffee experience. What do you think of food establishments with draconian policies like that—snobs or real artisans?
One year ago (Apr 14– Apr 20)
“What about a half scoop of metagenics thermaphaseprotein detox powder in water? Will this break my fast?”
– Depends which ThermaPhase tier you’ve reached. Tier 2 and below you’d better go a quarter scoop if you want to maintain the fast. Tier 3 ThermaPhase or higher actually extracts calories from you.
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Ⓒ 2020 Mark's Daily Apple
Jack Dorsey’s lifestyle does seem a bit extreme, but he probably likes it that way. The philosophy of Stoicism isn’t a simplistic fad, and it doesn’t really preach self-imposed deprivation, although that might be the path some people use to get where they want to be mentally and emotionally.
Stoicism emphasizes the discipline and mastery of the emotions through ancient teachings in order to reach a wiser, more rational, more peaceful mindset. In other words, It teaches you how to get outside of yourself in order to see an issue from other perspectives, versus being a slave to your runaway emotions.
There’s a big difference that the author of that article (who appears to be a nitwit) completely misses.
For anyone who is interested, “The Daily Stoic”, by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, offers a daily dose of wisdom based on the teachings of some very smart men who lived in ancient Greece and Rome.
Which resistance bands does Mark use on his road workout?
High end coffee places ban…
I am fine with ANY private establishment banning anything or anyone for any or no reason whatsoever.
What I am against is the GOVERNMENT (read: Liberals) forcing a private business to serve those the business does not want to.
The distinction is crystal clear and yet Liberals, knowing better than you, cannot stop “doing what’s best”.
Case in point: Civil rights. There were no “rights” granted or given, only taken away.
Liberals continue to lead us into full on fascism. For our own good, of course…
Yeah, conservatives now a days are all about personal freedom and small government. Get over yourself Sheriff Joe, felon.
Ad Hom. Next….
LOL, yeah, those horrible folks that want people of all gender, race, religion, politic persuasion and sexual orientation to be treated equally. As a friendly reminder of one of the core principles of this country “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”.
Can we stick to health and primal topics please?
Hey Joe, did yo mamma drop you on your head and then blame it on Obama? There are no more decent conservatives. They are all in Herr TwittLER’s orifices now.
Joe is correct.
If those coffee places are “snobs” then so is every business that chooses to specialise by supplying goods and services to a limited clientele.
Name calling. Next…
AZ Joe said: “liberals”
Name calling. Next…
Joe’s right. The only heinous thing here would be if the government stepped in and banned milk, sugar and cream. Even if it was for a good reason.
Love how “liberals” come out of the wood work for this post. If you were liberals, you’d be just like traditional conservatives (not talking about neo-cons, they’re not conservatives). Ya know, stand for actual liberty like they wish to preserve it. Business owner’s should have every opportunity to serve customers exactly how they want. Some people want to sell a specific experience, and that’s okay.
Andrew Yang has a plan for both coffee snobs AND protected caffeinated classes. Seriously though, he is the first in my lifetime who wants to make my life better without making someone else’s worse. If you floated this question on the Yang Basecamp page on facebook, you’d get countless thoughtful replies in just a moment.
So in other words you are pro-discrimination. SMH. Why are conservatives so afraid of diversity and inclusiveness?
If diversity and inclusiveness is so wonderful, why does it have to be ENFORCED and FORCED upon us? And only us. No other peoples are being invaded like this.
BTW, you discriminate every day. You make choices based on what you feel is best for you. Every other group/ethnicity is celebrated for watching out for their own kind, except one. Why?
LOL straight out of the @lt right breightb@rt playbook.
Snobs.
I drink coffee black, but I care not one whit what you put in yours. No judgements.
PS – I like liberals, conservatives, green people, orange people (I know of one), and everyone else!
Not snobs. Astute business people who know that there are a million coffee places, and want to differentiate themselves. It’s called niche. marketing.
I like milk in my coffee, but it’s no skin off my nose if they don’t
I’d say they are not snobs, and definitely not astute. Fools comes to mind as the best definition.
If they ban all this stuff I’m afraid I will be going elsewhere. While I like my coffee black, my spouse doesn’t, so we will go where she can enjoy it her way, and I can too.
While I admire the optimism, in the case of commercial fossil hunting it is unfortunately completely at odds with the reality of paleontological research.
Firstly, private fossil digs (and much more numerous, complete laypeople inspired to dig by the promise of a market) often disregard and outright destroy the in situ data – geographical and stratigraphic context, preservational information, and other smaller, less spectacular fossils in the same deposit.
Secondly, a huge amount of “new” discoveries actually come out of work on fossils years or decades old. Sometimes their significance is not recognized at the time of collection; sometimes the technology necessary to make the discovery wasn’t available at the time; sometimes (often!) the real value of the fossil is in the context of or as part of the gestalt of information from dozens or hundreds of other fossils.
Without the in situ data, and without ongoing access to fossils by the research community, the huge majority of potential scientific value of fossils is stripped from them.
Source: Armstrong Economics
Heinrich Schliemann (1822 – 1890) was a German businessman and a major pioneer of field archaeology. He believed in the historical accuracy of Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid and that they recorded stories that reflected actual historical events. Of course, all the academics pronounced Homer’s writing was a story for children. Schliemann was an amateur archaeological excavator. He took Homer at face value and believed it was history. To this day people still diminish his contributions because he dared to challenge the academics. Many hate his guts for proving them wrong since they pontificated Homer was a story for children without any proof because they never set foot out into the field to prove that statement was even correct.
This picture of Schliemann’s wife wearing the jewels discovered in Troy was accused of being fake by academics while Schliemann called it Priam’s Treasure. The treasure was smuggled out of Turkey and the official assigned to watch the excavation was sent to prison as a result. The Ottoman government revoked Schliemann’s permission to dig and sued him for its share of the gold. Schliemann thereafter went on to Mycenae where he discovered another part of the Homer epic.
Eventually, Schliemann traded some treasure to the government of the Ottoman Empire in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. That is located in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The rest of his discovery was acquired in 1881 by the Royal Museum of Berlin where it remained until 1945 when it disappeared from a protective bunker beneath the Berlin Zoo. The Russians seized the Treasure yet denied they had it until September 1993 when the treasure turned up at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Germany’s request to return it was rejected as Russia asserted that was compensation for the war destruction by Germany. Whether this Treasure was Priam’s is doubtful for it appears to be actually a thousand years older than Homer’s King Priam of Troy.
Schliemann not merely discovered Troy, he discovered much of ancient Greece including the Lions Gate pictured here as the entrance to Mycenae. disagreed. He was not an archaeologist, just a history enthusiast with money. He discovered Troy and most of the Greek cities of the Heroic Age, including Mycenae with its Lion’s Gate, described by Homer, not to forget the gold death mask of Agamemnon where Homer said he was buried.
This latest discovery of a clay tablet recording Homer’s tale is the oldest so far. This further demonstrates that the story was part of Greek history and not merely just a legend.
While I agree that it can be done badly, criticism like this only drives “who cares, get the money while it’s good” behavior. In the age of the Internet, and at a time when people have to figure out their own health, often not by going to a doctor, but by reading raw research and learning the jargon… I think it’s very possible to substitute that criticism with high expectations, and get good results. Institute a certification program in every state, one that includes a certain number of hours of geology with other training classes. Require that certification be maintained and don’t add to the already painful cost of college courses, and make the certification itself affordable. This would provide enjoyable jobs to people like me who hate working in an office, but was forced to do it anyway. I loved geology and if there was an honest path that wouldn’t be destructive to the fossil record, I would do this, and I wouldn’t break it if I could help it. I’m also not alone in wishing for this type of opportunity.
Another reason to love Marilyn Monroe.
Although she could use more sun…
Sadly when the blight was originally spreading the thinking of the time was to cut down more chestnuts to stop the spread, which accerlated the decline. Maybe there could have been a naturally resistant or partially resistant chestnut tree. I’ve heard there is a such a chestnut tree in Maine. Where I live there are many American Chestnut stumps that still generate shoots, only to die off. The local trial sites are a chinese/american chestnut hybrid. The book “Mycellium Running” [Stamets] has a reference to an American Chestnut in Canada that was healthy and it contained a specific fungi.
There are many viable american chestnut trees around. I had a post yesterday that apparently did not pass QC here, but what I said was that I planted 5 of them here last year. There are 2 ways they’re going about bringing them back.
First is the way Mark mentioned. It’s not really GMO, but selective breeding. Like you mentioned, they are slowly phasing the chinese out of the american/chinese hybrids, by recrossing them with pure american trees with each new generation. They now have the 15/16 american seeds available, but the 31/32 trees are already in development. I would be interested in the 31/32 trees, but I went a different route for now.
Go Native Trees in PA (look them up, maybe my link last time made me look like a spammer?) has lots of native trees available and a big section on hickories and american chestnuts. What they’ve done is bred trees from the relatively few fully grown trees out there and started their own farm with them. Out of those 60 or so trees they had 2 really strong trees that they bred together with. Now they are offering seedlings produced from those two trees. Those are where my 5 young trees came from.
I believe there are some very healthy american chestnut trees producing nuts out west since the blight is not out there.
Excited to be one of the coaches at the Habits to Thrive Summit! Such a fun line-up! Thank you for featuring it in today’s Link Love!
I want my coffee my way, not their way.
Exactly. Sure, the business has the right to serve coffee however they want to serve it. But to impose these rules on customers is just willful nastiness.
I don´t believe in fat free milk or soy, but if I had a coffeeshop I´d make them available anyway and let people do as they please.
Aw. How nice. Here’s the thing, though. They are not “imposing” anything on anyone. They offer this, and if you don’t like it, you take yourself…elsewhere! Isn’t that simple?
On the other hand, you may be correct. The other day I was shopping for some groceries and was highly insulted that the grocery store had no high speed electric drills for sale. The nerve! And then the Starbucks inside the store, get this, would not serve me a cheeseburger to go with my skinny frappe latte mocha no foam! I had a good cry, and bravely moved on…
Snowflakes are funny…
You’re pretty serious about this stuff.
yeah he is. but under it is a mound of (basic) contradictions typical of free market ideologues: “banning’s okay if it’s the ‘right’ (read: “people i like”) banning the things.” basically only care about stuff that fits their politics. but since life doesn’t happen in a vacuum, their ideology remains completely out of touch and unable to grok the finer points, details, and context of life. keeping an inanimate object, the so-called market freer than people doesn’t make a people free. you can’t fill your gas tank with money, or eat money, for instance.
Hi Bob (above), hi context (below),
You seem confused. This has nothing to do with “banning”, or “imposing rules”. It is simply about the OWNER of a store selling, providing whatever product or service they like. In your quest to be a victim, you miss out on the tremendous power YOU have in the equation: you do not have to shop there! Try to imagine (I know, I know…) yourselves being forced to provide a product you don’t want to sell, or a service you don’t want to provide, to ANYONE you don’t want to do business with. Pretty sure you two would be outraged at the very idea! But if YOU want it, then THEY better give it to you! I know this has zero chance of making sense to you, but try. For your own good (hey look! I did it this time!).
Just a generic RWNJ.
Waiting for coffee establishments to offer the option of low carb sweeteners, organic heavy whipping cream, coconut cream, collagen, butter, MCT or reishi mushroom powder.
On drug-resistant bacteria – why do we continue to ignore simple and absolute bacteria-killing cleansers such as salt and baking soda for cleaning surfaces? There is no need in most cases for using the anti-bacterial liquid soaps, formulated to stay active in water – and therefore developing super=bacteria in our ground water.
On pickles for sandwiches – lettuce rolls (common in Korean cuisine) are another option that is a bit more neutral in flavor….
Almost all research on the resistant bacteria story refuses to acknowledge the culpability of medical centers and hospitals in creating the problem in the first place. They didn’t pay attention to biofilms on their equipment until it was too late and at the same time insisted that everyone over 50 get regular colonoscopies. That’s not the only thing they did to create a perfect storm, but it’s the one that’s easily and instantly grasped today, but in their time, in the 1980s, it wasn’t grasped at all and it was assumed all was well. In the 1990s, during the first epidemic of MRSA, hospitals had a culture of secrecy about it, just like now they have secrecy about Candida auris (or did until the media stopped helping them hide it this time). They failed to adpot the simple nose swabbing practice that eradicated it from hospital patients in Denmark, because it was unnecessarily alarmist or some other nonsense.
We need to stop blaming patients for medical policies that have failed.
Oh, and who cares about Marilyn Monroe’s diet? It does not tell us much. She died at the age of 36.
She died of a drug overdose or possible suicide using drugs. Her diet is a thing people talk about because people argue about her lifestyle over and over again. Her diet had nothing to do with her death, and the article itself is directed towards busting a vegan mythology about her. As a weekend link article, it is a an interesting flighty one to read. So lots of people care, just not you., and that’s okay Marge.
Those chestnut trees aren’t really GMO. They’re a result of cross breeding the American chestnut with the asian ones. The original seedlings were obviously a 50/50 mix, but they’ve been crossing pure American chestnuts back in with the hybrids each generation. They are now up to a tree that is 15/16 American that shows blight resistance and, if I recall correctly, the next generation of 31/32 American trees are in development. Of course, you never truly get all of the Asian out of the American trees that way.
I planted 5 American chestnut trees last year from GoNative nursery. They’re going a different route with this by planting many 100% pure American chestnut trees and continually breeding only the trees that show the most blight resistance. For those looking to plant some of these, I’d suggest giving GoNative a try at least until the 31/32 trees are available.
https://www.gonativetrees.com/Chestnut.htm
OMAD and combined with two 48-hour fasts per week were game changers for me. Finally allowed me to break below a weight floor that I wasn’t able to for years. Eating just five meals a week is incredibly liberating as well…only have to think about food 5 times a week, not 20+ times a week. The weight just dropped off, as this WOE allowed for the caloric deficit I needed, but could not accomplish, eating twice a day–which resulted in being hungry all the time. With 23 hour fasts 5 days a week, and the other two fully fasted, and staying quite keto to keep insulin low…I can fast without that hunger. I get more of a “sure, I could eat” feeling, which I found is easy to just let pass.
A friend of mine confided in me that while he was happy for me that I dropped 30 lbs in about 10 weeks, have lots of energy, great workouts even 45 hours into a fast–the two-day fasts he said ‘worried’ him…”that can’t be healthy.” He really seems to think that going without food for 48 hours is somehow ‘dangerous.’ Off course, he eats three meals a day and snacks in between and in the evening…5-6 feedings a day? Talk about never giving one’s body a break from the constant flow of insulin. Not to mention never experiencing the health impacts of autophagy.
Astounding, conventional wisdom just persists, despite all the great knowledge out there now.
BTW, I did run a decent caloric deficit to cut the pounds, but when that was through, I was able to boost my eating to maintenance, which is feels gluttonous.
Awesome PK. Might be something you should cycle off and on from rather than thinking that is exactly how you will do things the rest of your life., but of course you will monitor the situation for your n=1 experiment. 🙂
The coffee discussion should have included amounts of sugar added, i.e. can the full flavor still be experienced by adding just 1/2 tsp. – for those of us who can’t drink coffee without a little sweetness..
reg: ‘red meat will kill you’.
it’s more the other way around! After my BIL died last year my 67-year-old partner went cold turkey vegetarian, no eggs or cheese! He also did some major fasting days. He not only lost much weight but his sarcopenia turned into full-blown muscle atrophy. His vitality went through the window. He now is back onto animal proteins. Age and gender are so important to consider what we eat and when!
Thank you for being so vigilant interpreting these studies, pls keep going.
the customer isn’t always right, but they always have the right to not be your customer. i’d prefer if they warned me about the coffee in advance, but i’m in the let-them-live camp.
Over the past two years, a world-wide war on meat has broken out. Militant vegans have been rioting in Australia. The Lancet has joined forces with a well-funded Swedish lobby called ‘EAT’ to demonise all meat products.
I ‘d like to see a full de-construction of the research paper that argues for a 0.1% increase in colorectal cancer amongst male meal-eaters.
Read “the Vegan Myth” by Lierre Keith
As you know red meat and life aren’t all about calculations; good points you made, thanks Mark – but that is enough – go lie in the hammock!
I love to hear more about the red meat and colon cancer theory. As someone who ate healthy and a fairly average amount of meat before my cancer diagnosis 18 months ago, I’m pretty certain my wasn’t linked to food at all, but possibly to ivf drugs that I took to conceive our first child. Do you think that could be possible. I am currently in remission. Maria 42
It looks like Dr Tim Kay is an advocate of the vegan diet for environmental reasons not just health. Maybe the Oxford study has a bias.
I think it’s “interesting” that they track red meat AND processed meat as a single category, then only mention the red meat. Processed meat is a pretty broad category of its own and one I generally avoid due to weird chemicals used to lengthen shelf life.
Wow, The common sense of this washes over me Ollie a cool breeze on this beautiful Easter Sunday. So often we have to suffer criticism for following a natural diet from ill informed experts with knee jerk reactions to nothing more than anecdotal evidence and personal interpretations of studies directed towards a pre-determined conclusion to reinforce personal prejudice.
Thanks Mark
Yes, please do a full blog post on the latest red meat study, so I can point the annoying, nagging people in my life to it to read the truth … if they dare.
And I want to read it too 🙂
As per your red meat article, Why doesn’t someone challenge the term “relative risk” as it’s the same idiotic term used to lie about statin drug results as well as other drugs. It’s totally descriptive and should be challenged.
Thanks for another take-down of another red meat vilifying study. Can you say more about bacon? My mother in law sent me a new article based on the new study saying that one slice of bacon a day increases the risk of colorectal cancer. It’s easier to argue for rd meat not being as bad as claimed (and articles to support that argument), but it’s harder to make the argument that bacon, a processed meat, is ok to eat regularly.
Reading your comments on the red meat study and highlighting the difference between absolute and relative risk…..that happens so often. I would like to have a better grasp on how to calculate absolute when relative is stated.
I would love more comments please on the benefits of red meat versus vegetarian. I have a lot of clients who are eating vegetarian that need to be eating meat to regenerate lean body mass. Any arguments that I haven’t thought of would be appreciated, including any counters to “the poor animals”! This article was particularly helpful. Thank you
Re: “the poor animals” ask them if they would rather the animals die of disease and starvation or be eaten alive by the few predators that are left. That’s what happens when herds of grazing animals expand unchecked, not to mention the negative impact unmanaged grazing has on the rest of the ecosystem. Nature requires a balance to thrive and will do whatever is necessary to keep it.
Mark
Can you explore the red meat study in depth because the media sensationalizes studies at their own gain and so do the some of the backers of certain studies
Hi Mark. I think the information you provided on the red meat subject covered it quite well. Thanks for that. Would you mind diving a little deeper on what to do for running on keto. Specifically a half marathon. Is it necessary to have anything other than water? Before- during- after.
Thank you. Always look forward to Sunday with Sisson!
Thank you for today’s Sunday with Sisson. Speaking for myself and being a woman, I had to have a few days of red meat recently, because I’ve been trying the intermittent fasting and felt some days of fatigue. I’m more of a fish and seafood kinda girl. Don’t get me wrong I love bison and grass-fed beef, I just don’t eat it as often, as the other. Somedays I’m all vegetarian and it’s not by choice but it just happens because I love variety.
All that said, I recognized the fatigue right away. It has happened before in my struggles to lose weight. I would add to my daily supplements a vitamin B complex and go to the grocery to purchase the red meat. I would create meals to have over several days, maybe not every day. I would feel much better over time. My physical health assessment with my PCP was excellent. I strive to eat the best I can and recognize the signs, when my body feels a change in it.
Eating red meat is what I need more of at times. If sometimes eating a great seasoned, grill steak medium-well is my taste for that day, DONE! ?
Thank you for your all you do!
Your lingering Primal Health Coach,
Robin
THANK YOU for the prompt response to the news story about red meat being carcinogenic! Not everyone knows how to investigate further! Wonder who funded the study?
Liked your takedown of the current study on meat. But as a woman reading it, yes it could be my mother, my sister etc., but of course it could also be me.
Hi Mark,
That study on colorectal cancer and red meat also claims that participants lowered their cancer risk by 14% by eating “fibre from bread and breakfast cereals”. I would be interested in your take on that part of the study.
Yes, I guess I’d like to to write more on colorectal cancer and red meat, and I will share it online. But sharing it with dogmatic vegetarians or blind followers of Big Med will be like talking to flat earthers.
* like you to write . . . .
Dear Mark
“There’s a new “red meat will kill you” study. This time, it’s colorectal cancer”.
Could you possible investigate and share your findings with us?
I absolutely LOVE your writings and INFORMED opinion … VERY helpful.
With much love &appreciation
A BIG supporter and FAN of yours
He did just that in his “Sunday With Sisson” e-mail. Apparently you have not signed up for it yet?
Why are THEY so determined to destroy the beef industry? We now can be entertained any time by conservative politicians screaming at a yelling crowd “THEY want to take away your cheeseburger and malt!” This is in response to the truth of climate change. They have settled on the cows as the problem.
My only question, which I have been asking for years, is WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO CONSERVE? Certainly not the planet or the life forms that are trying to share it with u.s.
Oddly, it seems that I see more “meat is bad for you” pushes during the more recent conservative administrations – Paleo / Keto got popular under the somewhat less conservative Obama administration.
Very odd, considering every vegan and vegetarian I’ve met have been liberals.
Mark, you and your team are awesome! Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge and experiences with us. All of us out here trying to live healthier lives really appreciate everything you do, especially your honest, open, genuine and factual approach to finding the truth about health issues – always being sure to let us know when the data or conclusions are not clear yet and your continued efforts to seek out the truth. Again thank you so much.
Dear Mark,
Please do further address the “red meat will kill you” study. It must get tiring but it really helps when you start having people around you come at you with ‘see what about this’ when they see the headlines.
Thank you.
Yes Mark, more on the topic of bad biased science villifying meat! Theres a propaganda war on meat and animal products these days and a strong balanced.voice of reason is greatly needed!
About the red meat study and colon cancer, all I can say as a female is…is that I eat much more fruit and vegetables than most men I know.So I agree with you, it’s probably got to do more with what you eat with that red meat. If we are out to eat versus eating at home, my husband will make choices to eat things he wouldn’t be having if we were making the food ourselves. For the most part I try to stick to our home eating habits as much as possible.
Mark, I enjoy all of your writings and an very appreciative that you provide so much valuable information for free, and in a writing style I greatly enjoy. You have been my go to for health info for years.
I am in a pretty severe state of depression, for many reasons but lately it feels greatly exacerbated by my image of myself. It has been over 2 years since I have birth to my last child, and I still struggle all the time with looking like I’m 5-6 months pregnant. No exaggeration. I am not overweight. I have very little fat anywhere on my body except for my belly, but most of it doesn’t feel like fat as oftentimes my stomach is flat in the mornings. I am 15 lbs heavier than I was before having children. I have done the diastasis recti test and I pass the less than 2 finger widths, so that doesn’t appear to be my issue.
Is it possible that my abdominal muscles are just so weak that when I eat, they can’t hold my stomach & intestinal contents in? Or could it be more an issue of having a a sluggish digestion? I don’t believe my diet will change it very much as I have gone as long as 3+ months having zero sugar and still looked pregnant.
I’m sorry this is so long but I have researched just about everything I can on the topic, maybe going to a naturopathic doctor would help me but I can’t afford that. I am desperate and SO beyond tired of looking pregnant. I have to hide my stomach in public so people don’t ask me if I’m pregnant and it is so embarrassing and I feel so horrible in my own body. Any advice/a post about postpartum changes to a woman’s body and stomach/something like that would be awesome and so much appreciated. I am only 22 years old with 2 toddlers and seemingly healthy in every other respect, so it is very frustrating to be having this problem.
Thanks for all that you do.
(any of mark’s readers’ comments/advice would be appreciated too, you guys are great!)
Dear T, I am deeply sympathetic. I’ve had 2 children, and struggled with the belly thing for many years. I do a set of 30 crunches every morning, plus other ab exercises. In my personal experience, the 2 abdominal exercises which have done the most good were these:
1.The yoga Cat and Cow poses, alternating, with extra attention in the Cat pose, sucking your abdomen up toward your spine. and 2.Lie on your back with a large exercise ball pressed between your knees and hands. Release the ball with your left hand & right knee, then return them to the ball, and release the ball with your right hand and left knee. Repeat that about 10 times.
My ob/gyn doctor, a woman with children, told me that some nerves get torn when your belly expands in pregnancy, so that the ab muscles are more poorly enervated afterword, have poorer muscle tone. We have to work on that muscle tone much harder afterward… Alas! Good luck!
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. I will start those two exercises right away. I think I have an exercise ball. Did you do them daily? The info about the nerves being torn during pregnancy is helpful. My pregnancies were close together so that probably didn’t help (I didn’t have the belly issues after my child). Thank you again, did you ever get your belly flat again? Before pregnancy I ate all the sugar and carbs and never worried about looking pregnant. *sigh*
After my first child*
TGJ, thanks for sharing your experience here, and I’m grateful to those who have already responded with their experience and perspective. It’s one of the things I love about this community… Look for a post in the next few weeks about the issues you bring up here. In the meantime, rest in the fact that you’re healthy…and go easy on yourself. The early parenting years (especially for women, who bear the physical work and changes) are probably the most intense chapter of life. Best — M
Thank you so much, I’ll be finally cutting the sugar out in the meantime. 🙂
TGJ … here is an exercise that was found to help women with exactly what you are concerned about https://www.rd.com/health/fitness/10-minute-flat-stomach-exercise/?trkid=ad-rd-msn&utm_medium=ad-rd-msn
That is really hard! I got to about 1 minute… I’ll have to work up to 10 or maybe I’d get the same benefit with 10 total minutes in a day/10 sets of 1 minute each. Thanks for sharing it with me, I have started up some DR specific exercises, they seem to help me not look as pregnant, though if I relax I still do, but I’m working on keeping my core tight in daily activities whereas it normally feels like jello.
Brilliant summing up of “red meat will kill you” study.
If you can be bothered writing more, please do -> is great to have somewhere to point people to when they are confused or preach about the perceived risks.
Great summary!
I have to wonder what the motives are behind the fear mongering. Maybe some people are just that unwilling to say, “maybe we were wrong.”
Thanks for your comments on eating red meat! And for showing how statistics really work in these research articles !
The narcissism and citizenship study doesn’t show a positive correlation between the two, but rather a positive correlation between “the endorsement of citizenship” and narcissism. Big difference!
The piece about Dorsey is one of the worst articles I have ever read. What an out of touch self righteous writer. ffs.
Perhaps there can be more of a collective paper among a large group of influential people among yourselves and even others outside the circle. What if you got like, 1000 influential people?! All signing on to a “take down”?
Once someone commented on what I was eating: “Now that’s a sandwich.” It was the best I could do with institutional food – spicy bologna between slices of processed cheese.