Drinks malbec from a box, sits in a tub full of ice, loads up on Tim Ferris and catches up on Robin Sharma tweets, stands back in amazment at the truth that unfolds!!!

Shall I genuflect? Cross myself? Anoint myself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka? I am not worthy! Oh Dear GROK why oh why did Oprah go off the air? WTF people? Really Brent Pottenger? Really Sean? Really MARK SISSON??? REALLY???

Jumping J on a pogo stick! People, if this is the face YOU want plastered to Paleo - then vote my shit down! Otherwise please be more vocal about your distaste. AHS is going to be a sham because of this guy alone. ALONE!

For the time being I rename Paleo to the Biologically Sound Diet (B.S. protocol for short). A moving target cannot be taken easily. Let's pull chalks! Run! Run while you still can!!!!

Do I have to understand it first? :)

I may have misread something....It was a very long post and I'm prone to skimming. Anyhow, I see nothing wrong with two out of three. Keto paleo diet outside of very warm weather and working on our cold adaptation. I mean these aren't really all that controversial as far as I can tell until you throw in his theorizing on "why". And its simply his hypothesis .....so on and on.

In terms of what it is....well as a prescription it is likely less dangerous than an over the counter NSAID, so if I'm looking at risk/benefit it doesn't bother me.

Oh boy! I must think diagonally if he thinks vertically and horizontally! I think he needs to read one more book before he posts again: Strunk and White's The Elements of Style

But really the HCG thing kinda scares me and seems totally against all 'paleo' principles.

I hope he has the sense to take it down. It's embarrassing really.

Does anyone know how old Jack is? Healthgrades says 46. Can't be.

Being of Indian origin, I am very into this post. Here are things I'm going to directly implement into my way of life:

Obtain synethetic leptin, turn into Superman

"Do you really want to know why synthetic leptin was buried from development for sale? My opinion is they knew exactly what they were doing. Why would you need Amgen if you could cure all neolithic disease, including cancer and diabetes?"

Drop my theories, piecemeal, onto internet forums

"I went to another site (PH) and started dropping some of the theory in piecemeal fashion. That was not a good idea either, because dogma is hard to let go for anyone."

Embrace the quantum effect of cold

"The cold uses a “quantum effect” brought about by a heightened receptor binding affinity which supra-sensitizes all receptors to all hormones levels. It makes us have supra-human abilities. Those abilities are seen in Sherpa’s, Lance Armstrong, and Michael Phelps."

Really though, this post does inspire me to do a few things. One is that I want to read more about physics. Physics is fascinating, but not so much as it relates to the electrons in my diet but rather to the universe and matter in general. I want to forward Kruse's post to a clever physics professor I know, but I have to make sure to attach a disclaimer that I in no way affiliate with this "paleo" thing that Kruse is mentioning. Another is that I need to read more about the Indian subcontinent. Not necessarily about how Sherpas dominate southern Indians because of their cold adaptation (?) but rather the vast amount of history that I missed going through the American schools system.

I like Dr. Kruse. He's always calm, polite. He doesn't really care people call him a quack or laugh with his ideas. Sometimes I wonder if he's just trying to get his name out there, trying to get popular. And quotes like these :

My brain thinks horizontally and vertically. Most people work in the vertical dimension because of how we are taught to think in schools in modern times. This method of education leads physicians, scientists, and most of the world to a habit or thinking reductively about all things. We all need to rethink how we think about all things, as I spoke about today with Sean in my talk. I was not born with this ability to think horizontally or vertically. I taught myself how to do it as a kid, when I learned about how Einstein, DaVinci, and Michelangelo thought.

don't help. That's narcissism. I've always believed that a narcissi won't get far, since he only think about himself. Still, he continues with some nice quotes. A quote from his mother :

She told me that life begins at the edge of our comfort zone but too often our fears keep us from going there.

And about his childhood :

We had to rely on others to survive and they made sure we knew about it in many subtle ways. Even as a kid I felt that and it was uneasy.

I gotta say I thought I wouldn't be able to go through the article, but this intrigued me. Dr. Kruse is clearly talking about his childhood, so I considered this a great chance to understand the man better. So I continued reading :

She told me back then, that if I wanted to change my lot in life I had to learn things and begin to create my own reality. I can hear her saying it as I type these words with tears in my eyes. It was the greatest gift my mother ever gave to me. I am sad that I never told her that before she died recently. I am also sad that she never saw the true power of that lesson unleashed. Ironically, what I uncovered here, might have allowed her to do just that, if I would have begun it sooner. That is a regret I will have to live with. I am hoping to close that wound by sharing it with all of you now.

You can say what you want about Dr. Kruse, but this quote is beautiful. I asked myself again "is he for real, or is he just messing with us". Similar thing happened to me : my aunt died 2 years ago (suicide). I loved her, and when I heard what she ate (2 sandwiches a day, no food containing zinc or other important minerals), I got a bit unwell too.

I was a shell of a person, and did not represent what I wanted to be. I was a mediocre specimen of a human.

There is clearly a problem with Dr. Kruse that he needs to solve : I think he's blinded by his own success, like so many people. Like durianrider, the raw vegan that can't shut his mouth about his diet. Like his friend Freelea, that shows off her body whenever she can. That's dangerous. That's how people fall into the 30-bananas-a-day trap and get depressed and ill. And if Jack thinks the same way about his diet, similar things can happen. I'm glad PaleoHacks is different, as we have things like "safe starches". Jack Kruse says "there is no such thing as a safe starch". So I hope people will be able to tell for themselves what makes sense and what doesn't.

And then he goes on about his magical findings, about monks and cold. He is not very clear about what science articles he read, what his findings were exactly, ... It sounds something like "sherpa's are superhumans and the eat ketogenic but they also live in the cold so this is he solution to everything : eat ketogenic and stay in the cold". Yeah, that's a lot of fun. I've done that. I did lose weight, but I didn't need to. My skin got inflamed. I had to stop eating eggs, but that didn't solve everything. So saying something like :

Every time I tried to disprove what I had found…….I lost. This implied I found something huge.

sounds like total crap to me. You're a scientist, but you say : because I tested it three times and found out the theory is still true, it must be the solution to everything. Dr. Kruse, you might be on to something, but this is not a smart way to tell it to the world. You sound just like me on my vegan days when I said : "of course, the theory of alkalinity explains everything"! If you're really a scientist, and you were on to something, you would have waited until you'd be absolutely sure. You would be patient and test, test, test, ... Again, I ask myself : "is he serious, or is he just trying to get us pissed so he gets more website views"?

So, I went to another site (PH) and started dropping some of the theory in piecemeal fashion. That was not a good idea either, because dogma is hard to let go for anyone.

Wait, are you saying PaleoHacks is dogmatic??? If we were, we would quote Loren Cordain all the time. Instead, we quote Dr. Kurt Harris, Dr. Paul Jaminet. and Dr. Stephan Guyenet : they defend starches, they started things like food rewards, ... Stephan Guyenet even defended sugar recently. If anyone is dogmatic here, it's you, Dr. Kruse.

...

I continued reading the rest. But the more I read, the more it looks made-up with some random scientific words thrown in. I won't reject (yet) what he says :

If you do not buy it now, you might pay a steep price later.

I can't tell you if he's right or wrong (or both). But I can tell you this : if he's right, he just got lucky.

Dr. Kruse, your organization sucks. Your article is a big mess. If you really believe your theory is revolutionary, then pay someone to write it down for you. Don't rush into things, be patient and write everything down using titles, subtitles, images, ... : this will make reading easier, and people might actually take you seriously.

I would like you to explain to me why my sleep got worse on a ketogenic diet, also.

go take a $290 test to test your telomeres and prove to yourself that I am wrong

The fact you put the price of the test in the same phrase means you're afraid of people that would actually do this. I hope some people will do this!

During the whole article you act as if your theory is amazing and awesome, but honestly : after reading that whole thing, I still don't even know what your theory is. What? Do I have to go swimming in lakes during the winter now? Or immigrate to the himalayas and eat way less? I don't know about you, but I'd rather live 75 years while eating until satisfaction, than spend 100 years in a cold tub while eating 2 small steaks a day.

I want to sleep on it and I don't mean that sarcastically. I think I'll need to read-sleep a few times before I decided to what degree I agree or disagree.

I'll say this. I may be more open to such ideas right now because the shift from IF (intermittent fasting) to ADF (alternate day fasting) is causing seemingly profound changes in how my body feels and reacts so I KNOW there is always the possibility of learning new things--things that are new to us but have been there forever.

If I am experiencing how fabulously my body responds to a 40-hour fast, how can I casually dismiss someone else's experiences with cold and diet?

So right now I'm thinking and considering and not ready to pronounce judgement of any kind.

TUESDAY UPDATE: Okay, after a good night's sleep (at moderate temp, Bea :-)) I am going to read the MDA thread including anecdotal reports of those trying Dr Kruse's protocol but I am going to continue on ADF. . One, I absolutely hate cold and didn't last 2 minutes with an ice pack when I wrecked my ankle. Two, good things are happening on ADF and it deserves the full 8 week action period. I watched a recent Hidden Planet segment in which a reporter visited with the Hazda, a traditional hunter/gatherer tribe in Africa. He accompanied them on a hunt--there was no pancake breakfast and they hiked 2 hours without water bottles. The hunt failed and they had to hike back. The reporter asked what they would do and they told him when the hunt fails they dig tubers and gather fruit. So, as we often speculate on PH, fasting is a natural human condition and while meat is primary carbs will do in a pinch.

Go ahead and yell at me but I don't think this use of cold is a crackpot idea. I may call it impractical, I'm unlikely to try it myself, but I won't call it crackpot. If it had been introduced by Mark Sission in his style I think many people would be thinking--not necessarily acting, but definitely thinking. It's no more radical than ADF in my mind.

Let's not tailor weight loss to individuals and their unique pathologies and physiology, let's instead combine the most violent, harsh weigh loss strategies into a single protocol that may be harsh as hell on the body but sure will cause weight loss. Because that's what life is really about, right? It's about not being heavy. Well being be damned!

I tried lots of paleo diets. They'd work for a while, then not. Through the pearls that Dr. Kruse dropped on here and MDA, I discovered I had leaky gut. I found a doctor who was open to 'leaky gut' and cured it. Would have never happened w/o Quilty. Then, I tried his Leptin Reset. I ate 50g protein as soon as I got up. I gained a little at first, then something magical happened--I started losing weight like mad. My doc is into testing. My ldl plummeted, my hdl skyrocketed, my trigs went from 350 to 30 in less than 6 mo. My Vit D was 8, while taking 10,000IU for a year--now it's 89. hsCRP was 10, now it's .1.

Here's my plan for his latest information on Cold Thermogenesis: I am going to take him up on his challenge. I ordered a telomere test kit from SpectraCell and will retest next year.

I have a few issues I want to see if it eating a ketogenic diet through the cold months will resolve.

I kind of wish I lived in the alternate universe where the anti-Kruse has the same ideas but has the ability to express them coherently in writing.

I don't see very much wrong with his arguments. For some reason, PH members here seem to latch on to things that are irrelevant to his actual arguments. They complain of spelling, style, and so forth, but each time I've listened to him in a podcast, he's articulate, well spoken, and his ideas are clear and make sense. His writing may not match his spoken words, but so what? IRL, I can write much better than I can speak, everyone has different levels of skills.

Just because what he says is further away from conventional wisdom from actual conventional wisdom as compared to other Paleo bloggers, doesn't mean he's wrong. Spending the time to understand the message he's trying to get across, even when it's hard to read would show that he does make sense. Sure, he should get an editor, but, even this post is far more clear than others from his early days.

He's certainly done more to advance the paleosphere than all of his detractors who have "answered" this question put together.

I don't see him as bombastic, or comparing himself to DaVinci, and Michelangelo. Rather, he's actually pointing out that the best ideas were thought by those who went against the grain, against the normal, conventional way of thinking, and that we should avoid that mode of thinking.

No progress was ever made from simply accepting what everyone else believed. Only when you question conventional wisdom, and test those ideas, do you make progress. Isn't that the whole point of science? To test hypotheses? Not to simply accept the surface idea?

Making fun of his choice of analogy simply shows that you lack the ability to comprehend what he's saying. It doesn't speak against his point, it speaks against his style, and it's barely half a notch above ad hominem attacks.

It's the equivalent of saying that you hate Robb Wolf because he doesn't shave his head, or Art De Vany for his lack of a Brooklyn accent, or a beard, or something just as ridiculous.

And worse, there is a lot of history about geometric words to ideas. For example "To be cross with someone" means to be angry with them. The word "orthogonal" has been used in the past to mean the opposite as well. So, why not horizontal and vertical? Don't we constantly hear about horizontal and vertical monopolies? Don't those have meanings? Why not extend the analogy to a mode of thought?

Why claim to be diagonal, when that just means to be in middle of the road between conventional wisdom and paleo? It brings to mind this quote from the original Karate Kid "Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later get squish just like grape." If that's your path, go follow Don Matesz and eat more grains, and quit polluting PH.

I remember previous bashing on PH in comments by those who were too ignorant to use a dictionary or to just google it, giggling themselves purple about his use of the word terroir. Now it's about using geometric analogies to the flow of ideas. This is just as craven...

I, for one, found his story about his childhood, cute and funny, and perhaps his voice in this story is that of a child. So what? It's certainly entertaining to me, and doesn't detract from his points. I certainly hope I can guide my own kids down the path of learning and a love for museums and unconventional ideas, because I'd feel a failure if they grow up embracing conventional wisdom.

And more giggling about the hot tub vs ice treatment. Gee folks, what kind of temperatures did we experience in the ice ages? Sure, we had animal skins to wear, but did we fail to survive because there were glaciers everywhere? Just because we're not adapted to the cold today doesn't mean that we can't be.

Can't someone reserve the right to change his mind, and explore new ideas by testing them? Isn't that what science is about? Just because you're too pusillanimous to try a cold shower, and later ice cold water, doesn't mean others are!

Shame on the peanut gallery here! Remember folks, peanuts ain't paleo!

Am I open to it? Yes. I was a skeptic that not eating (IF) occasionally would prove as healthy as it has, but when it was explained in clear detail I understand the "why". I'm ready to believe that Intermittent Cold exposure is as positive as Intermittent Fasting.

However, I'll wait until someone can explain what Dr. Kruse is hinting at in a way that isn't wrapped in a halo of a "What the Bleep Do We Know" vibe but is instead in plain english.

Seriously.

I'd believe someone who has such an important message would make an effort to communicate it well, not complain people aren't rising up to his plane.

[Contemplative edit] Can anyone familiar with other, more clearly presented, online articles/posts in cold thermogenesis post links to the best ones? Thanks!

Pops popcorn, sits back, and waits... ;)

" cold adapted mammals in warm climates so much of what has been studied about us is just not correct."

I'm a huge fan of studying cold adaptation in humans (and its potential benefits), but there absolutely no evidence I know of that ancestral hominids were a cold-weather species. Please open up any anthropology textbook and read about ancestral hominids. Certain homo sapiens subspecies possibly did cold adapt and then hybridized with homo sapiens, but genomic scans show that cold adaptation-related genetic adaptations are derived rather than ancestral and not well-distributed among all homo sapiens.

Furthermore, arctic people maintain their extremely low leptin levels (see Leonard et al.) even if they eat a high carbohydrate diet.

" No, you do not need to eat Moose thyroid to have reproductive fitness if you are cold adapted as was recently reported in a podcast."

The cultures that eat things like this are pretty freaking cold adapted considering they live in negative temperatures in TENTS. I don't know how much more cold adapted you can be.

For the record, Wim Hof is the world champion in cold adaptation and does not eat a special LCHF diet at all. I'd like to see Dr. Kruse go up against him. Or me or John Durant (has been doing polar bear swims for years) for that matter.

I'd also like to know what method Dr. Kruse used to check his telomeres.

It seems to me Dr. Kruse's ideas can be subjected to the Robb Wolf test. 30 days of ketogenic paleo, along with cold. I like this because it is testable, doable, though I don't particularly like cold water.

It seems to me some of you assume the 'professionals' will accept you if you cast out the oddballs. I've got news, they won't. You either out-compete the professionals, or they make you their shill. You go from tearing apart their shoddy studies to making blog posts about consensus and giving us lovely little romps through the 'relevant' literature, all without harming any of their sacred cows, or getting them fired for gross incompetence. Politics is not paleo.

It is quite difficult to critic a 12,000 word blog post that gives no sources for its information and makes few claims that make sense.

Some things from the start stood out:

The book was a mirror in which I saw my present self. But what really caught my attention, > was what occurred in Chapter three on page 13. "I saw a man becoming transformed, by a bunch of Monks who lived in the Himalaya’s. It was said most of them lived to be over 100 years old on little food, in the cold, and were incredibly productive.

"It was said" is not a great justification for a claim. My understanding is that this book is a work of fiction? But I am prepared to be corrected. I would like to see some actual evidence for most of the monks living to over 100.

"If you draw a line between northern and southern India, you see in the south, near the equator, there are millions of vegetarians who suffer from ridiculous amounts of autoimmune disease and diabetes.

This is a gross simplification of the situation in India and indicates a rather ignorant view of the world. There are large regional disparities in the rate of diabetes across India correlating, as I understand it, more with the modernization of diet and lifestyles than with altitude or vegetarianism.

In the north, we see Sherpa’s and Himalayan Monks who routinely live to hundred years old in subarctic conditions on the top of mountains that seem to reach the sky. Moreover, they eat few calories, wear few clothes, hardly eat or drink, have low stress, great immunity, and are smart and happy people. I remembered from my youth, that the Sherpa’s were the only humans that really had lived in this environment for the last 25,000 years. They also ate a very different diet than the rest of India. It was one that was heavily skewed to animal protein and fats. No carbs really grow that high up or in those temperatures with any regularity. Not even the Inuit have lived in the Arctic as long as the Sherpa’s have in the Himalayas. The Inuit also ate an animal diet but it was high in marine mammals. Both diets were ketogenic for the most part.

This includes some questionable claims. The other sources I could find differ in their thoughts of the traditional Sherpa diet such as this one.

"The Sherpa diet is dominated by starchy foods, supplemented by vegetables, spices, and occasionally meat. In addition, Sherpas drink Tibetan tea (tea served with salt and butter) at all meals and throughout the day. A typical breakfast consists of Tibetan tea and several bowls of gruel made by adding tsampa, a roasted flour, to water, tea, or milk. Lunch is eaten in the late morning and may include boiled potatoes which are dipped in ground spices. Sometimes a stiff dough made from a mixture of grains (sen) is eaten with a thin sauce made from spices and vegetables, or meat if it is available. A typical dinner is a stew (shakpa) consisting of balls of dough, potatoes, and vegetables. Dairy products, especially butter and curds, are important in the Sherpa diet. Sherpas eat meat, but as practicing Buddhists they will not kill animals themselves."

This does not sound like a ketogenic diet and starch based foods are commonly grown in Nepal forming the basis of the diet as in most other parts of the Indian sub-continent.

I also understand that is is possible to wear few clothes, have low stress, great immunity, and be happy at low altitudes in warm climates.

A couple of other points that were amusing:

"This implied to me my obesity might be reversible."

Really, obesity might be reversible? Has no one considered this possibility before?

"It also implied to me that health, pain control and longevity were coupled here as well."

So until now everyone thought health and longevity had nothing to do with each other?

Dr. Kruse says:

"When we live by assumptions, too often and we forget its fundamental concepts. I realized I had to stop living by my life’s assumptions..."

I would agree with this. It is better not to live by assumptions that confirm our ideas but instead to actually find out about what the world is really like.

I don't even know where to start with all the rest of the post. However he has in the past proven not to be a reliable source of information. What I would ask is that people should question Dr. Kruse in the same way they should question any other doctor making questionable claims on the internet.

I am open to it, but I have not tried the cold therapy the way people on MDA are doing it. I thought it was his most interesting blog post yet.

Does... does... does this mean he's getting rid of the hot tub?!!?!

I'm neutral about it; neither a fan or a hater of him.

Perhaps I'm more open to his ideas as I frequent MDA a bit more than PH, though visits are about equal lately. The difference in how Kruse is perceived on the two forums are almost polar opposite. Yes, the skeptics do exist on MDA but there are more open to his ideas than those here, in my opinion. There's a certain set of people on MDA who are trying his cold thermo protocol and seeing a break in their plateau.

I'd be open to trying any of those things since at this point I'd try anything, however since I live in Florida and an apartment that stays at around 80F due to roommates, an ice bath would be a pain in the butt to set up and maintain for any length of time ;)

HCG for me I wouldn't do (I'm only 20lbs away), but I'm at the point of restricting calories, back to a higher-protein breakfast and trying to ween myself into taking colder showers -- but that was even before this 'holy trinity' came about.

Maybe a loose analogy, but these ideas are not any stranger than if someone 20 years ago said that calories in/calories out doesn't matter.

(Some people may argue that it still matters, but anyone with an understanding of uncoupling proteins will know it's far more nuanced than calories in/calories out)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22216339

"Uncoupling process plays an important role in modulating aging especially in muscular and nervous tissues, which are indeed very responsive to metabolic alterations and are very important in estimating health status and survival in the elderly."

Anyone else read these posts in Dr. [Nic]K's voice?

Every post should start out with "Hi, everybody!"

You know, in reading through Dr K's blog, I'm convinced there are really two of him. The speaking one you see in presentations/youtube. And a Star Trek style goateed version that types things out online.

But he's sure good for the votes/views. :)

Oh, and I think he's really talking about things already well known in re. cold and losing weight. Scuba divers can lose tons of weight in cold water for example (they usually don't because they eat more afterwards). The question is how to get the same benefits without doing all the scuba diving, and without getting the increase in appetite because of the expenditure. The cold therapy he's describing sounds like an interesting hack of avoiding all the scuba gear (without all the extra BS language), but I'm not sure I'm masochistic enough to want to do it.

I don't see the problem with having an opinion on things. The man is asking questions in case you don't see the ?'s after the stated. Every blog doesn't have to be backed with facts or scientific data, it's a blog (sort of like a diary of thoughts). All of this elitism is getting deep in here. If you don't agree, you simply don't need to agree #J.F.C.P. Where are the moderators?

I just read Christopher Hitchen's final literary essay in The Atlantic. It was about G.K.Chesterton. A major theme in his commentary was that Chesterton was frivolous most of the time, except when he was serious and sinister. A supposed master of paradox, yet incapable of seeing the paradox of the Vatican being complicit with Fascism in the 1930's, and wandering off in that direction because of his fervent Catholicism. A paradox that really mattered, yet he was oblivious to the danger. In Hitchen's final words "a minor but still important failure to meet a distinct moral challenge." I'm seeing a similar set of rabbit trails here, wandering away from ancestor lifestyle towards Xanadu.

I like medical language for discussing things like anatomy, physiology, and metabolism. His more whacky language choices dilute the clear communication, leading me to care much less what Quilt claims to know.

Communicate it clearly, or get a good editor to clean up what you are putting out there.

Discussions of health should not resemble word-salad or mad-libs!

I want more signal in my signal/noise ratio, so I often just pass the Quilt by... He might have nothing but great ideas, but I'll never know.

I can't see how he got through medical school communicating like this.

Do you know what I mean without the use of jumbled prose? I hope so!

I think he may be nutballs, but he's kinda entertaining. And I actually feel somewhat compelled to now take cold showers (dude, what if he's right?). Just sayin'.

I like the restricted calories for longevity.

All the people he states are cold adapted don't even eat low carb diets. Its hard to believe him when the people he states are his inspiration don't appear to eat zero carb diets.

http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Mauritania-to-Nigeria/Sherpas.html#b http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/08/13/the-michael-phelps-diet-dont-try-it-at-home/ http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Freeze