Health
Do Vegetarians Really Have Higher Stroke Risk?
"Do Vegetarians Really
Have Higher Stroke Risk?" When ranked in order of importance,
among the interventions available to prevent stroke, the three
most important are probably diet, smoking cessation, and
blood pressure control. Most of us are doing pretty
good on smoking these days, less than half of us are exercising
enough, but according to the American Heart Association only 1
in a thousand Americans are eating a healthy diet, and fewer than 1 in 10
are even eating a moderately healthy diet. Why does it matter? Because diet is an important
part of stroke prevention. Reducing sodium intake, avoiding egg
yolks, limiting the intake of meat, and increasing the intake of whole grains,
fruits, vegetables and lentils. Like the sugar industry, the meat
and egg industries spend hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda,
unfortunately with great success. I was excited to check out Box number 1,
and was then honored, when I did. The strongest evidence for stroke
protection is for increasing fruit and vegetable intake, with
more uncertainty regarding the role of whole grains, animal products, and
dietary patterns such as vegetarian diets.
I mean one would expect they’d do great. Meta-analyses have found that
vegetarian diets lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and enhance
weight loss, and blood sugar control, and vegan diets may work even better.
So, all the key biomarkers are going in the right direction, but
you may be surprised to learn that there hadn’t ever been any
studies on the incidence of stroke in vegetarians and vegans… until, now. And if you think that's surprising,
wait until you hear the results. The risks of heart disease
and stroke in meat eaters, fish eaters, and vegetarians
over 18 years of follow-up.
Yes, less heart disease
among vegetarians (by which they mean vegetarians and vegans combined) no surprise—been there, done
that, but more stroke. An understandable knee-jerk
reaction might be “Wait a second, who did this study?” But this is EPIC-Oxford, world-class
researchers whose conflicts of interest may be more likely to read “I was
a member of the Vegan Society.” What about overadjustment? If you crunch the numbers
over a ten-year-period they found 15 strokes for every thousand
meat-eaters compared to only 9 strokes for every thousand
vegetarians and vegans.
Wait, so how can they say there
were more strokes in the vegetarians? This was after adjusting
for a variety of factors. For example, the vegetarians
were less likely to smoke; so, you want to cancel that
out by adjusting for smoking, so that you can effectively
compare the stroke risk of nonsmoking vegetarians
to nonsmoking meat-eaters. If you want to know how a vegetarian
diet itself affects stroke rates, you want to cancel out these
non-diet-related factors. Sometimes, though, you can overadjust. The sugar industry does it all the time. This is how it works. Imagine you just got a grant
from the soda industry to study the effect of soda on
the childhood obesity epidemic.
What could you possibly do after
putting all the studies together to arrive at the conclusion that
there was near zero effect of sugary beverage consumption
on body weight? Well, since you know that
drinking liquid candy can lead to excess calories that can lead
to obesity, if you control for calories, if you control for a factor
that’s in the causal chain, effectively only comparing soda
drinkers who take in the same number of calories as non-soda-drinkers
then you could undermine the soda-to-obesity effect, and
that’s exactly what they did. That introduces overadjustment bias. Instead of just controlling
for some unrelated factor, you control for an intermediate
variable on the cause-and-effect pathway
between exposure and outcome. Overadjustment is how meat-and-
dairy industry funded researchers have been accused of obscuring
the true association between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease. We know that saturated
fat increases cholesterol which increases heart disease risk. Therefore, if you control for
cholesterol, effectively only comparing saturated fat eaters with the
same cholesterol levels as non-saturated-fat eaters,
you see how you could undermine the saturated fat-to-heart disease effect.
Now let’s get back to this. Since vegetarian eating
lowers blood pressure, and a lowered blood pressure
leads to less stroke, controlling for blood pressure would be an
overadjustment, effectively only comparing vegetarians to meat-eaters
with the same low blood pressure. That’s not fair, since that’s one
of the benefits of vegetarian eating, not some unrelated factor like smoking; and so, it would undermine
the afforded protection. So, did they do that? No. They only adjusted for unrelated factors, like education, and socioeconomic class,
and smoking, and exercise, and alcohol. That’s what you want. You want to tease out the effects of a vegetarian diet on stroke risk…
you want to try to equalize everything else to tease out the
effects of just the dietary choice.
And since, for example, meat eaters
in the study were on average 10 years older than the vegetarians,
you can totally see how when you adjust for that
vegetarians could come out worse. Since stroke risk can increase
exponentially with age, you can see how having 9 strokes among
a thousand vegetarians in their 40s could be worse than 15 strokes among
a thousand meat-eaters in their 50s. The fact that vegetarians had
greater stroke risk despite their lower blood pressure suggests
there’s something about meat-free diets that so increases stroke risk it’s enough
to cancel out the blood pressure benefits, but even if that’s true you
still would want to eat that way. Stroke is our 5th leading cause of
death, whereas heart disease is #1. So, yes, in this study there
were this many more cases of stroke in vegetarians, but there were this many
fewer cases of heart disease, but if there is something increasing
stroke risk in vegetarians it would be nice to know what
it is in hopes of figuring out how to get the best of both worlds.
This is the question we'll turn to, next..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Is Vegan Food Always Healthy?
"Is Vegan Food Always Healthy?" In my video on flexitarians,
I talk about how the benefits of eating a plant-based diet
are not all-or-nothing. Simple advice to increase
the consumption of plant-derived foods with
parallel reductions in the consumption of foods from
animal sources was found to confer a survival advantage,”
a live-longer advantage. They call it a pro-vegetarian eating
pattern, just moving in that direction, as a more gradual, gentle
doable approach. If you’re dealing with a serious
disease, though, like diabetes, avoiding some problem foods
completely may be easier than attempting to moderate their intake. It’s like clinicians would never tell
alcoholics to simply cut down on alcohol. Avoiding alcohol entirely
is a more effective and, ironically, easier for a problem drinker. Paradoxically, asking patients
to make a large change may be more effective than
making a slow transition. Diet studies show that recommending
more significant changes increases the changes that
patients actually accomplish.
It may help to replace the common
advice, ‘all things in moderation’ with ‘big changes beget big results.’ Success breeds success. After a few days or weeks of
major dietary changes, patients are more likely
to see improvements in weight and blood sugar levels— improvements that
reinforce the dietary changes. Furthermore, they may enjoy other health
benefits of plant-based eating. that may give them further motivation. Those who choose to eat plant-based
for their health say it’s mostly for general wellness and disease
prevention, or to improve their energy levels or immune function.
They felt it gave them a sense
of control over their health, helps you feel better emotionally,
improves your overall health, and makes you feel better. Most felt it was very important for
maintaining their health and well-being. For the minority that used it
for a specific health problem, it was mostly for high cholesterol
or weight loss, followed by high blood pressure
and diabetes, with most reporting they felt it helped a great deal. But others choose plant-based diets
for other reasons like animal welfare or global warming, and it looks
like they’re more likely to be eating things like vegan doughnuts,
sugary and fatty foods, compared to those eating
plant-based because of religious or health reasons. I mean the veganist vegan could bake
a cake using soda instead of eggs, with frosting, covered in marshmallow
fluff and chocolate syrup, topped with Oreos, with a side of Doritos
dipped in, vegan bacon grease.
But fruit for dessert… in the form of
Pop Tarts and Krispy Kreme pies. This, is a vegan meal. Yes, plant-based diets have
been recommended to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. However, not all plant foods
are necessarily beneficial. Like in that pro-vegetarian scoring
system you got points for eating potato chips and French fries,
just because they were technically plant-based, but Harvard researchers
wanted to examine the association of not only an overall plant-based diet,
but both healthy and unhealthy versions. So, they created the same kind
of pro-vegetarian scoring system weighted towards any sort
of plant-based foods, and against animal foods and then also
created a healthful plant-based diet index, where at least some whole
plant foods took precedence and Coca-Cola was no longer
considered a plant. Then lastly, they created an
unhealthful plant-based diet index by assigning positive scores
to processed plant-based junk, and negative scoring healthier
foods and animal foods. And then they found that a more
plant-based diet in general was good for reducing diabetes risk, but eating
especially healthy plant-based foods did better, nearly cutting risk in half, while those eating more
unhealthy plant foods did worse.
Now, but is that because they
were also eating more animal foods? People often eat burgers with their fries; so, they separated out the
effects of healthy plant foods, less healthy plant foods,
and animal foods. And healthy plant foods were
protectively associated, animal foods were
detrimentally associated, and less healthy plant foods were more
neutral when it came to diabetes risk. Here’s what the graph looks like:
higher diabetes risk with more and more animal foods, no protection
whatsoever with junky plant foods, and lower and lower diabetes risk
associated with more and more healthy whole plant foods in the diet. So, they conclude that yes, plant-
based diets are associated with substantially lower risk of
developing type 2 diabetes, but it may not be enough to just
lower the intake of animal foods, but also less healthy plant foods as well.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
The Healthiest Natural Source of Iodine
"The Healthiest Natural Source of Iodine" Dairy milk supplies between a quarter and
a half of the daily iodine requirement in the United States, though milk
itself has little native iodine. The milk iodine content is mainly
determined by factors like the application of iodine-
containing teat disinfectants. The iodine residues in milk
appear to originate mainly from the contamination
of the teat surface. The teats are sprayed or dipped with
like betadine-type disinfectants, and the iodine just kind
of leaches into the milk.
Too bad most of the plant-
based milks on the market aren't enriched
with iodine, too. Fortified soy milk is probably
the healthiest of the plant milks, but even if it was enriched with iodine,
what about the effects of soy on thyroid function? It's funny, when I searched the
medical literature on soy and thyroid, this study popped up: a cost-effective way to train
residents to do thyroid biopsies. Just stick the ultrasound probe
right on top and go to town. It turns out on ultrasound your
thyroid gland looks a lot like tofu. Anyway, the idea that soy may
influence thyroid function originated over eight decades ago when
marked thyroid enlargement was seen in rats fed raw soybeans, though the
observation that people living in Asian countries have consumed
soy foods for centuries with no perceptible thyrotoxic effects
certainly suggests their safety.
The bottom line is there does
not seem to be a problem with people who have
normal thyroid function. However, soy foods may inhibit
the oral absorption of Synthroid, thyroid hormone replacement
drugs, but so do all foods. That's why we tell patients to take it
on an empty stomach. But you also have to be getting enough iodine,
so it may be particularly important for soy food consumers to make sure
their intake of iodine is adequate.
What's the best way to get iodine?
For those who use table salt, make sure it's iodized. Currently, only half of table
salt sold contains iodine, and the salt used in processed
foods is typically not iodized. Of course, ideally, we
shouldn't add salt at all. Dietary salt is a public health hazard.
Think this title is a little over the top? Dietary salt is the #1 dietary risk
factor for death on the planet Earth, wiping out more than
three million people a year twice as bad as not
eating your vegetables. What's the best source of iodine, then? Sea vegetables! You can get
a little iodine here and there from a whole variety of foods, but the most concentrated source
by far, with up to nearly 2,000% of your daily allowance
in just a single gram— which is like the weight
of a paperclip: seaweed.
Given that iodine is extensively stored
in the thyroid, it can be safely consumed intermittently, meaning you
don't have to get it every day, which makes seaweed use
in a range of foods attractive, and occasional seaweed intake
enough to ensure iodine sufficiency. However, some seaweed
should be used with caution due to its overly high iodine
content, like kelp. Too much iodine can
cause hyperthyroidism, a hyperactive thyroid gland.
A woman presented with a racing heartbeat, insomnia,
anxiety, and weight loss thanks to taking just two
tablets a day containing kelp. In my last video, I noted how the
average urinary iodine level of vegans was less than the ideal levels, but
there was one kelp-eating vegan with a urinary concentration over 9,000.
Adequate intake is when
you're peeing out 100 to 199. Excessive iodine intake is when you
break 300; 9,437: way too much. The recommended average daily intake
is 150 mcg/day for non-pregnant, non-breastfeeding adults, and we may want
to stay below 600 on a day-to-day basis, whereas a tablespoon of
kelp may contain 2,000. I'd stay away from kelp
because it has too much, and stay away from hijiki because
it contains too much arsenic. Here's how much common seaweed
preparations should give you an approximate daily allowance:
two nori sheets, you can literally just nibble on them
as snacks like I do; one teaspoon of dulse flakes, which
you can just sprinkle on anything; one teaspoon of dried arame, which
is great for like adding to soups; or one tablespoon of seaweed salad. If iodine is concentrated in marine
foods, this raises the question of how early hominins living in
continental areas could have met their iodine requirements. Well, here's what bonobos do,
perhaps our closest relatives.
During swamp visits, they
all forage aquatic herbs..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
The Best Diet for Cancer Patients
"The Best Diet for Cancer Patients" Our lifetime risk of
developing an invasive cancer, not like some superficial skin
cancer or like ductal carcinoma of the breast, but serious
cancer is about 40%. Two in five of us are going to get a
cancer diagnosis in our lifetimes. What can we do to reduce our risk? Only about 5% of cancers are caused by problem genes we
inherited from our parents. The other 95% are
caused by mutations in our DNA we acquire
in our lifetimes. For example, based on a genetic
analysis of lung cancer, smokers may acquire an
average of one DNA mutation for every 15 cigarettes smoked.
Smoking is bad, but the number one
cause of these mutations is our diet, and that’s not even including
the cancers attributed to obesity. I’ve got tons of videos on dietary
approaches to prevent cancer, but what if you
already have it? Well-meaning professionals
sometimes counsel cancer patients to “Eat whatever you want.“ Given the time constraints that doctors
face, it may be understandable that the treating oncologist,
the treating cancer doctor, may be reluctant to engage in
a conversation about nutrition, but given the critical
role that diet may play, perhaps it should be a critical
part of their job to be able to answer patients’ questions
about nutrition before and after cancer treatment
and not default to the unhelpful “it doesn’t really matter,
eat whatever you want” which may not be in the
best interest of the patient.
The official recommendation of the American Institute
for Cancer Research, a leading authority
on diet and cancer, is that those with cancer
should follow the same diet that helps prevent cancer from
taking root in the first place. That means more whole grains,
vegetables, fruits, and beans, while limiting fast food, processed
food, meat, soda and alcohol. Similar recommendations have been put forth by other cancer authorities: more fruit, vegetables,
whole grains, and beans, and less salt, sugar,
meat, and alcohol. Cancer survivors adhering to
these guidelines do seem to live significantly longer, or at
least older female cancer survivors, the only group in which
it’s been looked at so far. They add that there are certain
foods that may be beneficial in cancer care including: beans,
berries, cruciferous vegetables, flaxseed, garlic, green tea,
tomatoes, and others, but emphasizes it’s not about a single
magic bullet food or component, but the combination of foods in
a predominantly plant-based diet. Here’s how some popular diets
used by cancer patients stack up. The so-called alkaline diet
gets high marks for being vegetable-focused and encouraging
people to cut down on animal foods.
The keto diet does the worst,
though they get points for keeping people away from refined grains,
alcohol and soft drinks. Macrobiotic diets win the day,
being closest to a whole food, plant-based diet, centered
around whole grains, vegetables, and beans though may not
be advising enough fruit. Paleo diets are a mixed bag with
insufficient whole grains and beans and too much meat, and the
vegan diet starts out strong, but doesn’t necessarily preclude
all manner of vegan junk food. Have any of these diets
been put to the test? I’ve done a video on the
abject failure of the keto diet.
The alkaline diet was tried
on eleven lung cancer patients. They lived an average of
28 and a half months, which is about 40% longer
than most patients have historically lived, but there
was no direct control group. The only diet proven in a
randomized controlled trial to reverse the progression of cancer
was Dr. Dean Ornish’s whole food plant-based lifestyle program,
which I’ve covered before. Most randomized controlled trials
to date on diet and cancer are like this, feasibility
studies just to see if we can get cancer patients to
eat healthier.
Period. Otherwise what’s the point
of even running the study? Here they did find they could get
patients with head and neck cancer to ramp up green leafy and
cruciferous vegetable intake up to 9 cups a week, so it’s at
least something you could test, but we don't yet have outcomes
data, but why wait? What’s the downside of
trying to eat healthier? It may even save your
life, another way. Cardiovascular disease competes with
breast cancer as the leading cause of death for older women
diagnosed with breast cancer. Researchers followed more
than 60,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer
over the age of 65 for an average of nine years,
by which time half had died. And the number one cause of death
was actually cardiovascular disease, edging out the breast cancer,
and so choosing a healthy diet centered around whole plant foods,
the only diet ever proven to reverse heart disease
in the majority of patients, may save your life, whether
you have cancer or not.
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Update on Vegetarian Stroke Risk
"Update on Vegetarian Stroke Risk" Healthy plant-based diets
have been associated with lower all-cause mortality,
up to a 34 percent lower risk of death from any cause over an average
of an eight-year period, just being in the top
versus bottom quarter of healthy plant-based consumption. If sustained, that could translate
into more than four extra years of life. A meta-analysis of a dozen studies
prospectively following more than a half a million people
for up to 25 years similarly found significantly lower
heart disease and overall death rates among those eating more plant-based.
No surprise,
a systematic review concluded since plant-based diets
may arrest or even reverse our number one killer—
cardiovascular disease. Those eating wholly plant-based
tend to be significantly slimmer with lower LDL cholesterol, triglycerides,
blood sugars, blood pressures, significantly less inflammation,
and less carotid artery wall thickening (a sign of atherosclerosis measured
via ultrasound in the neck), as good as what you see
in endurance athletes who’ve run an average of 50,000 miles,
which is like twice around the globe. And changes in risk factors
can happen fast, as evidenced by results
from one to three-week ad libitum (eat-all-you-want)
plant-based “kickstart” programs. For example, the results from the first
few hundred participants of the at-home
15-day Jumpstart program created by the nonprofit Rochester
Lifestyle Medicine Institute were recently published.
On a whole food plant-based diet,
obese patients lost an average of 7 pounds without controlling portions
or counting calories or carbs. Diabetics saw their fasting blood sugars
drop 28 points. Those with LDL cholesterol
over 100 experienced a 33-point drop (comparable to some statin drugs), and hypertensive individuals
experienced a 17-point drop in systolic blood pressure,
which is better than drugs, and all within just two weeks! Studies dating back nearly 40 years
show those eating meat-free diets also have improved blood “rheology,”
meaning fluidity or flowability, which may play a role
in cardiovascular protection.
Subsequent interventional studies putting
the cross-sectional findings to the test, show that switching people
to a plant-based diet can improve rheology measurements
within three to six weeks. But might the blood of vegetarians flow
a bit too well, though? In 2019, a study of thousands
of British vegetarians called EPIC-Oxford found that they were at higher risk
of hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke. They had such a lower risk
of heart disease that they still had less
cardiovascular disease overall (and a half dozen studies show no overall
increased risk of stroke mortality), but why the greater stroke incidence? I suggested it might be vitamin B12
deficiency, which can lead to excessive levels
of a stroke- associated metabolite called homocysteine
which is normally detoxified by B12. This is thought to be the reason
why vitamin B12 supplementation can improve artery function
of vegetarians. Vitamin B12 supplements
or fortified foods are critical for anyone eating plant-based,
but my 12-part video series on vegetarians and stroke risk
triggered by the 2019 publication was all in vain.
It turns out vegetarians don’t appear
to have higher stroke risk after all. In response to the EPIC-Oxford results,
researchers around the world scrambled to see if the findings
were merely a fluke. In 2020, UK Biobank, a massive study
following more than 400,000 volunteers, confirmed that vegetarians
had lower cardiovascular disease rates and importantly,
no increased incidence of stroke. And two studies from Taiwan
found vegetarians had significantly
lower risk of stroke. Following tens of thousands
of vegetarians for up to ten years, they only had about half the stroke risk
compared to nonvegetarians (including a 64 percent lower risk
specifically of hemorrhagic stroke). By 2021, Harvard researchers
had finished and published their analyses of the 200,000+ participants
of the Nurses’ Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study II, and the Health Professionals
Follow-Up Study. They too found no increased stroke risk
for vegetarians and indeed a decreased risk of stroke among those eating
healthy plant-based diets.
A meta-analysis putting all the studies
together found that indeed the EPIC-Oxford data appeared
to be a fluke after all, finding, if anything, a lower risk
of stroke in a subgroup analysis. A 2022 systematic review
concluded that vegetarian and low-animal product diets are associated with a significantly
lower risk of bleeding strokes, a significantly lower risk
of clotting strokes, and a significantly lower risk
of total strokes across the board..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
The Best Diet for Hypothyroidism and Hyperthyroidism
"The Best Diet for Hypothyroidism
and Hyperthyroidism" There are several autoimmune diseases
that affect the thyroid gland, the most common being Graves' disease
and Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Graves' disease results in hyperthyroidism,
an overactive thyroid gland. Though slaughterhouses are
supposed to remove thyroid glands, should some neck meat slip in,
you can suffer a similar syndrome called hamburger thyrotoxicosis. But that's not from your body making
too much thyroid hormone; that's from your body eating
too much thyroid hormone.
Graves' disease is much more common,
and meat-free diets may be able to help with both, as plant-based diets
may be associated with a low prevalence
of autoimmune disease in general, as observed, for example,
in rural sub-Saharan Africa. Maybe it's because plants
are packed with antioxidants, which are possible protective factors
against autoimmune diseases. Maybe it's because plants are packed
with anti-inflammatory compounds. After all, a whole food plant-based diet
is basically synonymous with an anti-inflammatory diet.
But you
don't know until you put it to the test. It turns out the exclusion of all
animal foods was associated with half the prevalence of hyperthyroidism
compared with omnivorous diets. Lacto-ovo vegetarian and
fish-only diets were associated with intermediate protection, but
a 52% lower odds of hyperthyroidism among those eating strictly
plant-based diets. This apparent protection may be due
to the exclusion of animal foods, the benefits of plant foods, or both. Animal foods, like meat, eggs,
and dairy products, may contain high estrogen concentrations,
for example, which have been linked to
autoimmunity in preclinical studies.
Or the decrease in animal protein
may downregulate IGF-1, which is not just a cancer-
promoting growth hormone, but may play a role in
autoimmune diseases as well. Or it could be the good stuff in
plants that may protect cells, like the polyphenol phytochemicals,
such as flavonoids found in plant foods. Maybe it's the environmental toxins
that build up in the food chain. For example, fish contaminated with
industrial pollutants, like PCBs, are associated with increased
frequency of thyroid disorders. Okay, what about the other autoimmune
thyroid disease, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which, assuming you're getting
enough iodine, is the primary cause of hypothyroidism, an underactive
thyroid gland. Graves' disease wasn't the only autoimmune disorder
that was rare or virtually unknown among those living in rural sub-Saharan
Africa, eating near-vegan diets.
They also appeared to have less
Hashimoto's. There's evidence that those with Hashimoto's have
compromised antioxidant status, but we don't know if
it's cause or effect. But if you look at the dietary factors
associated with blood levels of autoimmune anti-thyroid antibodies,
animal fats seem to be associated with higher levels, whereas vegetables and other plant
foods are associated with lower levels. So again, anti-inflammatory
diets may be useful. No surprise, as Hashimoto's
is an inflammatory disease. That's what thyroiditis means:
inflammation of the thyroid gland. Another possibility is the reduction
in methionine intake, an amino acid concentrated in animal protein, thought
to be one reason why the consumption of whole plant foods is likely to have
a favorable influence on longevity, through decreasing the risk of cancer,
heart disease, and diabetes. And methionine restriction improves
thyroid function in mice, but it has yet to be put to the test
for Hashimoto's in humans.
If you compare the poop of patients
with Hashimoto's to controls, the condition appears to be
related to a clear reduction in the concentration of Prevotella
species. Prevotella are good fiber-eating bugs known to enhance
anti-inflammatory activities. Decreased Prevotella levels
are also something you see in other autoimmune conditions, such as
multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes. How do you get more Prevotella?
Eat more plants. But put a vegetarian on a diet
of meat, eggs, and dairy, and within as few as four days
you can drive down levels. So one would expect those eating plant-
based diets to have less Hashimoto's, but in a previous video I expressed
concern about insufficient iodine intake, which could also lead to hypothyroidism. So, which is it?
Let's find out. Vegan diets tended to be
associated with lower, not higher, risk of hypothyroid disease.
Why the word "tended"? Because the associated protection against
hypothyroidism incidence and prevalence studies did not reach
statistical significance.
It wasn't just because they were slimmer. The lower risk existed even after controlling for body weight, so
they think maybe it's because animal products may induce inflammation. The question I have, though, is: if
someone who already has Hashimoto's, I mean, what happens
if you change their diet? That's exactly what I'll explore next..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Should Vegetarians Take Creatine to Normalize Homocysteine?
"Should Vegetarians Take Creatine
to Normalize Homocysteine?" Almost universally, research findings
show a poor vitamin B12 status among vegetarians because they're
not taking vitamin B12 supplements like they should. And this results in
an elevation of homocysteine levels that may explain why vegetarians
were recently found to have higher rates of stroke. Of course, plant-based eating is just
one of many ways to get B12 deficient. I mean, even laughing gas can
do it, in as short as two days, thanks to the recreational use
of whipped cream canister gas. That's something new I learned today.
Anyways, if you do eat plant-based, giving vegetarians and vegans
even as little as 50 micrograms once a day of cyanocobalamin, the
recommended, most stable form of vitamin B12 supplement,
and their homocysteine levels start up in the elevated
zone, and within 1 to 2 months their homocysteines normalize right
down into the safe zone under 10.
Or just 2000 micrograms of
cyanocobalamin once a week, and you get the same beautiful
result, but not always. In this study even 500 micrograms
a day, either as a sublingual chewable or swallowable regular B12 supplement, didn't normalize homocysteine
within a month. Now, presumably if they had kept it up, their levels
would have continued to fall like in the other study. But if you're
plant-based and have been taking your B12 and your homocysteine levels
are still too high, meaning above 10, is there anything else you can do? Now, inadequate folate intake
can also increase homocysteine, but folate comes from
the same root as foliage. It's found in leaves, concentrated
in greens, as well as beans. But if you're eating beans and
greens, taking your B12, and your homocysteine level is still
too high, then I'd suggest trying, as an experiment, taking
one gram of creatine a day and getting your homocysteine levels
retested in a month to see if it helped.
Creatine is a compound formed
naturally in the human body that is primarily involved in energy
production in our muscles and brain. It's also naturally formed in the
bodies of many animals we eat. And so when we eat their
muscles, we also can take in some creatine through our diet. We need about two grams a day,
so those who eat meat may get like one gram from their diet, and
their body makes the rest from scratch. There are rare birth defects where
you're born without the ability to make it, in which case you have to get it
from your diet, but otherwise our bodies make as
much as we need to maintain normal
concentrations in our muscles.
When you cut out meat, the
amount of creatine floating around in your bloodstream goes down, but the
amount in your brain remains the same, showing dietary creatine doesn't
influence the levels of brain creatine, because your brain just makes
all the creatine you need. The level in vegetarian muscles is
lower, but that doesn't seem to affect performance, as both vegetarians
and meat-eaters respond to creatine supplementation with similar
increases in muscle power output. And if vegetarian muscle
creatine was insufficient, then presumably they would
have seen an even bigger boost. So basically, all that happens
when you eat meat is that your body just doesn't
have to make as much. What does this all have
to do with homocysteine? Okay, in the process of making creatine,
your body produces homocysteine as a waste product. Now
normally this isn't a problem because your body
has two ways to detoxify it using vitamin B6 or using a
combination of vitamins B12 and folate.
Now B6 is found in both plant and
animal foods; it's rare to be deficient. But B12 is mainly in animal
foods, and so can be too low in those eating plant-based who don't
supplement or eat B12 fortified foods. And folate is concentrated in plant
foods, so can be low in those who don't regularly eat greens or
beans or folic-acid fortified grains, and without that escape valve
homocysteine levels can get too high. If, however, you're eating a healthy
plant-based diet and taking your B12 supplement, your homocysteine levels
should be fine, but what if they're not? One might predict that if you started
taking creatine supplements, the level of homocysteine might go
down since you're not going to have to be making so much of it from scratch,
producing homocysteine as a by-product. But you don't know until you put it
to the test, which we'll cover next..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
Friday Favorites: Is Vegan Food Always Healthy?
"Is Vegan Food Always Healthy?" In my video on flexitarians,
I talk about how the benefits of eating a plant-based diet
are not all-or-nothing. Simple advice to increase
the consumption of plant-derived foods with
parallel reductions in the consumption of foods from
animal sources was found to confer a survival advantage,”
a live-longer advantage. They call it a pro-vegetarian eating
pattern, just moving in that direction, as a more gradual, gentle
doable approach. If you’re dealing with a serious
disease, though, like diabetes, avoiding some problem foods
completely may be easier than attempting to moderate their intake. It’s like clinicians would never tell
alcoholics to simply cut down on alcohol. Avoiding alcohol entirely
is a more effective and, ironically, easier for a problem drinker. Paradoxically, asking patients
to make a large change may be more effective than
making a slow transition. Diet studies show that recommending
more significant changes increases the changes that
patients actually accomplish. It may help to replace the common
advice, ‘all things in moderation’ with ‘big changes beget big results.’ Success breeds success.
After a few days or weeks of
major dietary changes, patients are more likely
to see improvements in weight and blood sugar levels— improvements that
reinforce the dietary changes. Furthermore, they may enjoy other health
benefits of plant-based eating. that may give them further motivation. Those who choose to eat plant-based
for their health say it’s mostly for general wellness and disease
prevention, or to improve their energy levels or immune function. They felt it gave them a sense
of control over their health, helps you feel better emotionally,
improves your overall health, and makes you feel better.
Most felt it was very important for
maintaining their health and well-being. For the minority that used it
for a specific health problem, it was mostly for high cholesterol
or weight loss, followed by high blood pressure
and diabetes, with most reporting they felt it helped a great deal. But others choose plant-based diets
for other reasons like animal welfare or global warming, and it looks
like they’re more likely to be eating things like vegan doughnuts,
sugary and fatty foods, compared to those eating
plant-based because of religious or health reasons. I mean the veganist vegan could bake
a cake using soda instead of eggs, with frosting, covered in marshmallow
fluff and chocolate syrup, topped with Oreos, with a side of Doritos
dipped in, vegan bacon grease.
But fruit for dessert… in the form of
Pop Tarts and Krispy Kreme pies. This, is a vegan meal. Yes, plant-based diets have
been recommended to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. However, not all plant foods
are necessarily beneficial. Like in that pro-vegetarian scoring
system you got points for eating potato chips and French fries,
just because they were technically plant-based, but Harvard researchers
wanted to examine the association of not only an overall plant-based diet,
but both healthy and unhealthy versions. So, they created the same kind
of pro-vegetarian scoring system weighted towards any sort
of plant-based foods, and against animal foods and then also
created a healthful plant-based diet index, where at least some whole
plant foods took precedence and Coca-Cola was no longer
considered a plant. Then lastly, they created an
unhealthful plant-based diet index by assigning positive scores
to processed plant-based junk, and negative scoring healthier
foods and animal foods.
And then they found that a more
plant-based diet in general was good for reducing diabetes risk, but eating
especially healthy plant-based foods did better, nearly cutting risk in half, while those eating more
unhealthy plant foods did worse. Now, but is that because they
were also eating more animal foods? People often eat burgers with their fries; so, they separated out the
effects of healthy plant foods, less healthy plant foods,
and animal foods.
And healthy plant foods were
protectively associated, animal foods were
detrimentally associated, and less healthy plant foods were more
neutral when it came to diabetes risk. Here’s what the graph looks like:
higher diabetes risk with more and more animal foods, no protection
whatsoever with junky plant foods, and lower and lower diabetes risk
associated with more and more healthy whole plant foods in the diet. So, they conclude that yes, plant-
based diets are associated with substantially lower risk of
developing type 2 diabetes, but it may not be enough to just
lower the intake of animal foods, but also less healthy plant foods as well..
Video Transcript – As found on YouTube
How To Start A Plant Based Diet | Dr. Laurie Marbas
How To Start A Plant Based Diet | Dr. Laurie Marbas
To work with Dr. Laurie Marbas, visit: https://www.drmarbas.com/
In this “The Doctor Is In” episode:
Dr. Laurie Marbas explains not only how to start a plant-based diet, but also some of the many benefits a plant-based lifestyle brings.
Find Dr. Laurie Marbas:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlauriemarbas/
New Study: Vegan Bone Density Is The Same. What’s Going On?
New Study: Vegan Bone Density Is The Same. What’s Going On?
Whole body bone mineral density and t-score results raise questions about previous research.
– Links and Sources –
Support Me Here: https://www.patreon.com/micthevegan
My Cookbook: https://micthevegan.com/product/mics-whole-vegan-cookbook/
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Main Study:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2024.1411003/full
This meta has of course been used to attack vegan diets.
https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/77/1/1/5146363
Higher BMI or weight in general increases bone density.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-association-between-BMI-and-lumbar-BMD-stratified-by-age-Sex-race-ethnicity-level_fig4_360603089
From this smaller one where it is most evident, BMD appeared lower in the vegetarians but then when adjusting for BMI the relationship disappeared. https://www.jandonline.org/article/S0002-8223(98)00172-2/abstract
Popping a study in the meta analysis that found a difference: 6 vegans that had a 3 point lower BMI, easily can be 15 lbs different but it was a small enough study for it not to be statistically significant.
https://www.jandonline.org/article/S0002-8223(00)00134-6/abstract
8 vegans in 1998 with lower BMI, still not stat sig diff for BMD even.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9664916/
Or this one, bigger with 28 vegans who had a BMI of 1 point lower, not stat sig for BMD?https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4446759/pdf/nutrients-07-03416.pdf
It also had a Buddhist nun study which found no difference.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00198-009-0916-z
The largest one was a 250 person Taiwanese study on more NUNS from 1997.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/PL00005812
18 raw vegans and 18 controls. BMI was 5 whole points lower!! No mention of adjusting for BMI.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/486478
Intro/Outro Song: Sedução Momentânea by Roulet:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Roulet/Beats_dAmor/Roulet_-_Beats_dAmor_-_07_Seduo_Momentnea
