User kurt g harris md - PaleoHacks.com

Answer by Kurt G Harris MD for The four horsemen of the apocalypse: Gluten, Vegetable oil, Sugar, and [who am I?]

2011-08-09T01:24:21Z

Food reward is the fourth horseman.

Answer by Kurt G Harris MD for Did anyone get worse before getting better when starting paleo?

2011-01-24T18:13:14Z

Read Wofgang Lutz - "Life WIhout Bread"

He describes how those with true autoimmune diseases can experience a flare of activity at first. See your PHYSICIAN if you think you might need some corticosteroids or other medication temporarily for this...

I assume you have Reiter's or something similar?

Answer by Kurt G Harris MD for Is Art DeVany a new Jack LaLanne?

2011-01-21T21:17:49Z

[MODERATOR NOTE (for PaleoHackers who view answers by 'vote' and not 'oldest' or 'newest'): the quotes in this answer are from another "answer" to this question - linked here.]

"However, modern meat is taken from obese animals on the order of 33% body fat whereas wild animals have about 4%"

I killed a small whitetail buck last December and had most of the meat ground up into hamburger. When I had it butchered, I told them to toss in any carcass fat to fatten the hamburger. This did not include the leaf lard from around the kidneys, or the abundant pericardial fat, which I harvested separately when I field-dressed the animal. The resulting ground meat was so fat that it exceeded the fat content of the 20% fat ground round from the supermarket. In addition to this anecdote, there are plenty of references that directly contradict your claim for this low fat percentage. You are probably being confused by samples of lean cuts of muscle and not counting all the surrounding fat, to say nothing of the copious fat in offal, tongue, mesentery, etc, all of which were preferentially eaten by archaic peoples (for example, plains indians)

"There is evidence of shore-based tuber extraction as early as 1.5 million years ago in Olivai Gorge. But, nothing like this would have occured during the depths of the Ice Age when the modern human emerged."

Behaviorally modern humans emerged during ice ages - in EQUATORIAL africa. The consequently arid climate made it highly likely that starchy tubers were indeed a substantial part of the diet, as the aridity made animals more scarce. Given the latitude, it is not as if Kenya was buried by a glacier and there were no plants. One might argue that subsequent ice age cycles as H. Sapeins expanded through the Levant and into the near east, norhtern europe etc. had periods that would have allowed us to lose our ability to eat starch, but we seem to still be able eat fruits just like the presumed common ancestor of 7 mya so why would we lose our starch tolerance and keep our fruit tolerance? You do advocate fruit, I believe.

"Now what about roots and tubers? They are always a poverty food, even for our ancestors. They are extremely difficult to capture and an inferior source of nutrtion and energy from an energy efficiency point of view."

I am sorry but the totality of the paleoanthropology literature does not support such a claim. Sweet potatoes and Cassava and many root vegetables are highly nutritious. I agree that bread and some grains are poverty food, but not because they contain starch. And of course dead animals in general are more nutritious and safe to eat than dead starchy plants. We are omnivores, though, and the fact that high blood glucose is bad does not make polymers of glucose bad. That is just bad analogical reasoning and incorrect medical science. Our cells don't "see" glucose in the diet, they only see it in the bloodstream. If glucoregulation is not first disturbed (or irreversibly ruined) by hepatotoxins like excess fructose, wheat and linoleic acid, starch is a fine fuel source.

Answer by Kurt G Harris MD for NED: Can someone explain Art De Vany's stance on fat?

2011-01-21T21:49:31Z

He is tossing out the wrong part, the part with all the vitamins and healthy fat and cholesterol.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-10-06T00:59:49Z

"There is NO evidence that postprandial insulin spikes and BG spikes cause diabetes." This is the bottom line and is the loch ness monster of the CIH. I've looked for over 4 years and seen no convincing evidence that this happens. PP BG increases do not cause hyperinsulinemia. Pathological insulin resistance causes hyperinsulinemia, not the other way 'round...

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-10-06T00:55:41Z

The linear relationship between HBA1c and mortality falls apart below 6.0 for several reasons. Diabetics have shortened red cell lifespan compared to healthy normals, which means healthy normals HBA1c overestimates glycation damage. Healthy normals have higher variability in HBA1c, that makes it less accurate at these lower levels. Finally, we all have de-glycation enzymes that repair the glycation damage. No one has zero glycation, and no one needs to have it.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-10-06T00:48:42Z

If you eat animals, you will get roughly get equal amounts of saturated and mono fats for your fuel. Outside a handful of tropical biomes that have easily processed sources of MCTs via coconut, it makes no evolutionary or historical sense to even talk about choosing between fat types that are "safe" to combine with starches. You can eat starch. You can eat animal fat that is 50/50 mono/LCSF. You can eat coconut fat for fuel as well. The idea that you can't safely combine them without some armchair theoretician's permisssion is just silly. There is no good evidence for this idea.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-10-06T00:36:08Z

"The idea that "natural" is irrelevant and that you can game the system is not uncommon in medicine, and not particularly effective either. Isn't it a bit presumptuous to imply that the brain's default fuel preferences are incorrect and that evolution made a mistake?" - TRAVIS "I guess you are looking at it from a non hormone optic" - QUILT I favor Travis' wide field of view binocular over the narrow field of view high power "hormone' optic. It makes absolutely no sense that neurons only start using ketone bodies under nutritional stress- glucose shortage - if that is the "best"....

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-10-03T16:49:11Z

The audience I was with dubbed him "Donut Bob" due to his lack of dentition. He is obviously not feeding himself with the atlatl...

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-10-03T15:54:16Z

I wondered too if this was at a game farm, but it did not look like it so I assumed it was early archery season. Agree about the water storage. Bears would be all over that like a cheap suit. And they should have fished more and dried that too.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-10-03T15:49:56Z

They would need a waiver for CO but a few other states allow atlatls for game including deer.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-08-10T03:41:15Z

If you want to read mockery that is actually entertaining and funny, I recommend Matt Stone. Although for vitriol he's a bit of a dilettante by comparison. But if you just want to feel schadenfreude, then CS is your place, I suppose.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-08-10T03:37:52Z

@Gavin Well, hello again, Gavin. There are plenty of blogs that disagree publicly with Taubes' low carb theories, including mine, Ned Kock's, Stephan's, Paul Jaminet's Chris Kresser's, Melissa's Chris Masterjohn's and others. None of us have the ad hominen attack as a prominent feature. You could read only these blogs and lose nothing but the spectacle by avoiding carbsane. If you think vitriol, name-calling and accusations of nefarious motive is necessary to advance your cause and change minds, then fine. Maybe you only change your mind when insulted. I know it doesn't work for me.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-08-10T02:30:40Z

Evelyn, don't you get tired of being so angry?

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-08-09T23:02:22Z

Aravind- I have other real enterprises (as in, income-producing) and interests that require or capture my attention. It really is that simple. Sometimes a hobby blog has to go by the wayside for a while. But I got rid of television about 6 months ago and I find that combined with not doing much on the internet it has really been a breath of fresh air to spend more time in the actual physical world as opposed to this virtual one.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-08-09T22:58:03Z

I welcome anyone to read everything I wrote and decide for themselves, Evelyn. Just keep up the name-calling, by all means. You followed me here, remember? You started the name-calling first, as you always do and always will.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-08-09T19:27:58Z

"Folks were trashing me, including Kurt, on Peter's blog and when I comment I get accused of spamming Now Evelyn, who is the liar? You mocked Peter. Yo mocked me. You mocked Stephan and the Doctor he was quoting. MANY responded to you the way I and Peter and Travis did. Stephan did not, so you think he is your friend, but he was just avoiding your anger, not approving of it. You were hostile first, as you always are. As you were here today. Paleohacks and the internet are not all about you. Why not take a break from blogging for a while and see how the world still revolves without you?

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-08-09T16:48:42Z

You are not just reading. You are calling me names, are you not? Did you not call me an "immature frat boy"? Or did we all just imagine that part? Is this the way you have a dialogue and convince people of your argument? To show up on a forum you've not been to before and insult people gratuitously? Is it your goal to be the most hated person on the internet DESPITE your ideas? You are certainly on the way. YOU calling ME nasty? Are you serious? Have you ever read your own blog? You insulted me first and you know it. Perhaps when you have BPD it's easy not to notice these things, I guess.

Comment by Kurt G Harris MD

2011-08-09T16:29:53Z

Insulting me when I did not insult you is "chiming in"? Jack asked: "If Kurt Harris gets wind of this question, I would LOVE!!! to hear his take on this outside the space of CarbSane 'arguing' with him. Jack was specifically requesting my opinion outside the fight ring of your blog and you are tone deaf to his request. He could have posted on your hate blog if he felt like it, though I suspect he may have regretted it. You are "allowed" to chime in. The question is why you would do so when asked not to other than just to irritate people?