The 80-10-10 Diet (811rv)

In the world of health and nutrition, there is not much out there that is wackier than Doug Graham’s self-fabricated 80-10-10 raw vegan diet. Don’t get me wrong. I have actually been positively influenced by the diet in some ways, and have reviewed all of Doug Graham’s materials as well as that of many of his even wackier disciples – including Durianrider of http://www.30bananasaday.com/ as well as Fred Patenaude (this guy actually appears to be sane), Michael Arnstein, Adam Panetta (kinda cool), and a handful of others. Heck, I’ve even watched a few videos by the Raw Brahs. They helped me to overcome my fruit phobia, which has proven to be a plus in my own personal healthscapades as of late.

The incorporation of absurd quantities of calorie-rich fruit and juice in my diet has decreased my allergies to pet dander, improved my breathing/asthma, cleared my nasal passages to such an extent that one person contacted me to tell me of the noticeable difference in my voice vs. older videos, improved the warmth of my toes (which occasionally felt slightly cool and clammy), gave me an increase in vascularity and vasodilation, and improved my exercise performance and recovery (although I’ve been doing very little lately other than chasing a Frisbee). I would also say that my skin looks noticeably younger, and, even though my teeth felt much worse for the first month or so – my teeth feel about the best they’ve felt in the last several years (still brushing only a few times per week).

So yes, these 80-10-10 folks are not totally out of their minds, and I have no doubts that athletic performance can in many cases be made superior by a very carbohydrate-heavy diet. But, there is an extreme darkside to this diet. That’s what I want to discuss. There is plenty of 80-10-10 worship going on out there in the fruitarian inner circle. A heavy dose of both skepticism and reality is what I hope to offer here for those out there who are perhaps following that diet and having some health challenges come up. Hopefully this post will be a voice of reason for those finding the diet lacking, and who are only being told “you’re not doing it right, you’re not doing it right” every time a problem arises.

Let me spell out the basics of the potential perils one could face on this diet and lifestyle promoted by Graham and his crackers…

My research has led me to believe that preserving a high metabolic rate and high body temperature is the essence of good health and delaying the aging process. You can read about that in THIS FREE EBOOK. But Graham, in something he titled “Cool Runnings” talks about how his diet and lifestyle helps to decrease body temperature to what he feels is the ideal body temperature – about 93 degrees F (similar to the tree sloth – the mammal with the lowest body temperature). It is true for the purposes of running or any endurance activity as I’ve stated many times before – for best performance you want your body temperature and resting metabolism to be as low as is humanly possible. As you lose body fat to very low levels, typically body temperature plummets due to the drop in leptin. As you lose muscle mass either from a low protein diet, low-net calorie diet (raw food is less absorbable than cooked food), or endurance exercise – body temperature falls even more. These are all adaptations that make it easier to perform endurance exercise because it enables a person to burn fewer calories per mile. The fewer calories you burn per mile, the less effort it takes to travel long distances – and the fewer calories you burn per mile, the longer you can travel on one “tank.”

I think this is one key, fundamental reason why those who stop doing endurance exercise due to burnout or injury tend to gain fat at an incredible rate – but that is another conversation…

If you are an endurance or ultra-endurance athlete like Michael Arnstein – your performance will be enhanced by eating a diet that is so incredibly effective for stripping away both body fat and muscle mass due to the extremely low levels of protein being taken in. From that vantage point, you can see why a fruitarian-ish diet would be a strong performance enhancer. It is the ultimate catabolic diet in which adequate energy for exercise is still being supplied (unlike just doing a water fast, which makes exercise impossible).

But this comes with metabolic penalty. When the metabolic rate falls, you notice things like being cold all of the time and having freezing cold hands and feet even in warm temperatures.

With a low metabolism, especially in the context of a vegan diet which greatly limits the body’s ability to manufacture cholesterol (the precursor to the steroid hormones), the rate of cholesterol conversion into highly beneficial, pro-longevity, pro-fertility, pro-sex drive, anti-autoimmunity hormones such as pregnenalone, progesterone, DHEA, and testosterone becomes greatly reduced. With this you see a predictable decline in sex drive in both men and women over time, lack of menstruation in women and other menstrual irregularities, and a host of other problems including a loss of skin elasticity and accelerated aging. You can see Arnstein talking about lowered sex drive here – a result of being overly lean, extreme fat restriction, catabolic endurance exercise, and other facets of his diet and lifestyle that is a perfect anti-fertility cocktail…



In terms of aging – while Doug Graham has an astounding level of fitness, athleticism, and agility for a man in his late 50’s, and I wouldn’t hesitate to take lessons from him on performing functional exercise for that purpose, comparing a recent video of him to a video 10 years ago...





…One has to wonder if Graham is competing for the title of world’s most rapidly-aging man. People who have met with him in person describe his skin as being extremely reptilian and aged – something he blames on sun exposure. Oh, the diet is healthy as long as you stay out of the sun! Whee! Sounds awesome!

Keep in mind that Graham’s response to the diet is presumably the best-case scenario.  Just like Sisson, this is a naturally healthy, elite athlete we're talking about here - which isn't always a result of the their diet and lifestyle nor can others expect similar results even if they do happen to be good (in Graham's case, I would argue the results are not good, but I don't give a flying rat's hiney about how many pullups a person can do - especially if they die of a stroke before age 65, my official prediction for Graham). 

With 80-10-10 you also see quite a bit of silliness, and the perpetuation of the belief that diseases like cancer are a result of eating impure or cooked foods. Nonsense. Cancer appears to be primarily a defect of cellular respiration and energy production – a result of having a low body temperature, low production of the hormones of youth like DHEA and progesterone, and an impairment of the mitochondria’s ability to produce energy. Sure, many toxic compounds and estrogenic chemicals in the environment can do this. I’m not discounting that. But you can surely achieve this carcinogenic state without ever taking in a single bite of non-organic or cooked food. Having metabolism fall as it does in aging is what predisposes someone to cancer. Being old is the leading risk factor for cancer for that very reason, as a lowered metabolism is the body shutting down.

Of course, just having a low cholesterol level is a much greater risk factor for stroke and cancer than having a high level of cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease. It’s not like, by having a low cholesterol level, you are somehow protected against disease. In many cases, it is quite the contrary – especially on something like Graham’s 80-10-10 raw vegan diet in which cholesterol and fats are so restricted that the amount of cholesterol needed to synthesize steroid hormones properly is so limited as to cause the body to methodically shut down given sufficient time.

So whatever, I’m not going to go on and on about Graham and his crackers. Just remember that there is much more to health than losing some body fat and having your fitness levels improve in the short-run on 811rv. Fitness is certainly not a gauge for health as the recent death of the marathon queen Grete Waitz shows…
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-me-grete-waitz-20110420,0,3207916.story

Short-term results and long-term results are often the exact opposite. If feeling better in the short-term was the key to health, we could all just take drugs. But unfortunately there is hell to pay for taking such a route, and I believe from what I’ve experienced, studied, and heard from others – that 811rv has a dark side that rears its ugly head in the long-term, usually starting with small things like lack of morning wood, coldness, and disappearance of the menstrual period followed by an escalation into much more serious health problems like anemia, infertility, hair loss, severe digestive problems, frequent illness/immune disorders, autoimmune disease, and any number of other strange complications.

More importantly, this diet is totally unproven, the brainchild of just one human being’s conclusions and a handful of mostly emaciated-looking devotees support, is totally polluted by a religious championing of vegan diet and lifestyle, and is a historically unprecedented diet for human beings, which instinctually would never eat a 95% fruit diet even if fruit was available in unlimited quantities. Add those together and you have the word “RISKY.”

But hey, thanks for showing me that fruit is a health food and that sugars can be friendly in the right context. I, as well as dozens of others that have been piling my email inbox high with thank you’s and pro-sugar testimonials over the past month are very thankful.

Oh and hey, apologies for any condescending and self-righteous tones in my writing as of late. You must understand that my young and impressionable mind was brainwashed by this kind of stuff as a kid… “I’m hot, and you’re not. You wanna hang with me I’ll give you one shot…”

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

My favorite soup is tomato basil and my daughter, Morgan, from Little House of Veggies created my very favorite recipe. She uses delicious cashew cream in place of dairy. You add both the cashew cream & the fresh basil at the end of a 20 minute simmer of the tomatoes and blend with either an immersion blender(which I used) or put batches in the blender. We created this recipe at the last cooking class I taught and I have been getting emails on the success everyone is having.  People are making it for their families and they are all loving it.  This is a very easy soup so full of delicious flavor.  I hope you enjoy it too. I added 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper to make it a little spicy and 1 Tbsp. maple syrup. With or without this addition, this soup is amazing. Thank you Little House of Veggies:)

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup
Printable Recipe
Serves 4-6

1 tsp.  Extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp. Earth Balance whipped non-dairy butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 28-ounce cans of diced tomatoes in tomato juice (a good organic one)
2 cups salt-free vegetable broth (Rupunzel Brand is good)
2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
black pepper
2 handfuls of fresh basil
1 recipe for cashew cream (recipe below)

Cashew Cream:
1/4 cup raw cashews
1/2 cup filtered water

Soak cashews for at least 2 hours. Soaking them will make them creamier. Drain and rinse the cashew well, and place in a blender with about 1/2 cup of water. Blend until smooth and creamy. Place in the fridge until ready to use for soup.

To Make the Soup:

Heat a large soup pot over medium high heat. Add the olive oil and butter, onions, garlic, and a pinch of salt and pepper and saute until the onions become tender, about 5 minutes. Add the canned tomatoes, vegetable broth, 2 tsp. salt, and a few cracks of black pepper. Bring up to a low boil, then cover and simmer soup on low for about 20 minutes. Add a few large handfuls of fresh basil to the soup, and stir in the cashew cream. Blend the soup in batches in a blender or use an immersion blender to make the soup smooth. Top soup with Mochi Croutons if you would like.  Recipe at Little House of Veggies.  The Mochi Croutons look really yummy so check it out.

The Bulimia Bandit

Matt Stone of www.180degreehealth.com stars in this short, heartwarming, and mildly-offensive film - The Bulimia Bandit.  Stone is cast in the leading role as the Bulimia Bandit himself - a masked hero that travels the world fighting women's hate crimes against themselves.  Although not shown, Stone has many magical powers including the ability to turn soy products, salad, laxatives, fingers, and meal replacement shakes into Strawberry ice cream.  Stone's nemesis is Jenny Craig.  His weakness is that, without carbohdyrates, he turns to the dark side.  Although never shown to conceal his identity, Stone's superhero attire is a full body latex suit patterned after Stone's favorite childhood superhero, Condorman (shown left).  It is fully equipped with an emergency orange juice tank, wings, and special jet-boots that enable him to fly from refrigerator to refrigerator - fully protected from ketosis and spillage from various toxic sludges, including Diet Coke, Slim Fast shakes, Skim or soy milk, and vegetable oil-based salad dressings...

Aerobic Exercise, Resistance Training and Mortality

The research support for regular exercise to be associated with reduced risk of death is growing.  However, there is limited research that focuses on effects of aerobic versus strengthen (resistance) training.  Additionally, there is limited data comparing mortality in those with and without a general medical condition. 

Schoenborn and Stommel recently published a study addressing these issues in teh American Journal of Preventive Medicine.  They examined a large sample of U.S. adults and assessed whether they met  the 2008 USDHHS Activity Guidelines for Americans:

• 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic activity
• OR 75 minutes per week of high intensity aerobic activity
• Encourage two days per week of weight training of 7 large muscle groups

The study examined exercise levels and mortality by linking data from the 1997-2004 National Health Interview Survey and death registry data from 1997-2006.  Mortality examined in groups with no chronic medical conditions compared to those with one or more medical conditions including: diabetes, hypertension, vascular problems, lung disease (asthma/bronchitis), one or more functional limitations (any difficulty walking, climbing steps, standing, sitting, stooping, reaching, grasping, or lifting/pulling or pushing large objects).

This study was informative because it looked at the effect of aerobic versus strength versus both aerobic and strength on mortality.  Additionally, it examined the effect of exercise on mortality in four age categories: 18 and younger, 18 to 44 years of age, 45 to 64 years of age and 65 and older age groups.

>The key findings from the study were:

• Strength training alone was not associated with decrease mortality risk
• Aerobic exercise was linked to reduced mortality risk aerobic exercise with over 150 minutes per week somewhat better than less than 150 minutes per week ( although going above 300 minutes per week did not correlate with additional mortality reduction)
• Among those meeting aerobic exercise guidelines, adding strengthening showed a trend for correlation with an additional beneficial  mortality effect
• Older adults  with one or more chronic conditions appeared to have the strongest association between exercise and lower mortality risk

The chart below summarizes the magnitude of association between exercise levels and lower mortality rates in those in the 45 to 64 age category and those aged 65 and older with one or more medical conditions.  To aid in interpretation of the numbers the SMR for those 65 and older with one medical condition meeting both aerobic and strengthening exercise guidelines was .52.  This means during follow up they were 48% (1-SMR) less likely to die than those not meeting exercise guidelines for either aerobic or strengthening types.

This study is a correlational study and not a prospective controlled trial so the data need to be interpreted cautiously.  It may be that individuals with chronic medical conditions die not because they don't exercise but because their illness is so severe they are unable to exercise.  Nevertheless, this study adds to our knowledge of the relative correlation of aerobic and resistance training and mortality.  Additionally, it suggests that exercise may have a significant beneficial role in older adults who have one or more medical conditions.

Figure by author adapted from data provided in manuscript.

Schoenborn, C., & Stommel, M. (2011). Adherence to the 2008 Adult Physical Activity Guidelines and Mortality Risk American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 40 (5), 514-521 DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2010.12.029

Mark Sisson

Hey, sorry about my absence late last week. Wednesday distraction, Thursday drama, Friday crisis, and weekend recovery explains the last 5 days. Good stuff. All is well now though. Where were we? Ah yes, I wanted to continue our discussion of some popular diets/gurus. As promised, today we discuss Mark Sisson of http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

For starters, I want to make this perfectly clear. Sisson is one of the best health icons on earth – he’s truly the best of the low-carbers. He is running around advocating a nutritious, whole foods-based diet with no truly crippling restrictions – sort of an 80/20 rule approach. The guy drinks coffee at times, eats chocolate, has cheat meals, and otherwise has taken a general health “blueprint” and custom built it into something fairly safe, reasonable, easy to follow, and fun. His exercise advice is great. He encourages good sleep, lots of rest, having fun outdoors, getting natural sunlight – the list of pros goes on and on.

In an honest review of a health guru, you have to admit – he’s really on track with a lot of stuff.

But it’s also important to spell out exactly where Sisson comes up short – not to attack the guy or nitpick his program, but more to provide a resource online for those who are failing miserably following his general guidelines and need to hear the other side of the story. At the end of the day, there are many out there that will be demolished by trying to run sprints, lift heavy things, and go on long walks fueled by less than 150 grams of carbohydrates per day – what Sisson calls the cutoff that leads to “insidious weight gain” if you exceed such levels. Don’t even get me started on that. Well, okay I guess I guess I should take a closer look at that bold statement. That’s what this post is all about…

Yes, you heard that right. In Mark Sisson’s book, The Primal Blueprint, he shows a little chart with carbohydrate levels ideal for weight loss, weight maintenance, and the levels of carbohydrate intake that lead to, in his words, “insidious weight gain.” Get above 150 grams of carbohydrates per day in your diet and you enter the danger zone. I have said this many times and I will say it again – in all the information I’ve ever read on nutrition and health, this could very well be the dumbest and most unsubstantiated tidbit I’ve ever come across. It is downright retarded, with 5 billion…. 5 BILLION living exceptions to the rule that a carbohydrate intake exceeding 150 grams per day triggers insidious weight gain. This is just plain stupid. I couldn’t even believe my eyes when I read it. This guy is, and should be, the laughingstock of anyone who studies obesity or nutritional science. He completely undermines his credibility as an intelligent person with this one uber-knuckleheaded and poorly-thought out conclusion.

Let me tell you how I really feel about it… 99% of the 5 BILLION lean people alive on planet earth right now, most of them living in Africa and Asia, eat far more than 150 grams of carbohydrates per day. Meanwhile, countries like the United States enjoy one of the lowest carbohydrate diets in the world – barely getting 50% of their dietary calories from carbohydrates while everyone else on earth aside from the Masai, Eskimo, and some Europeans that also have serious obesity problems get far more of their dietary calories from carbohydrates. The Chinese eat more than 400 grams of carbohydrates per day. Every species of primate gets 70% or more of their dietary calories from carbohydrates.

150 grams of carbohydrates. Ha. It has been a couple of months since I’ve even eaten a MEAL with fewer than 150 grams of carbohydrates. I’ve got at least 150 grams of carbs in me by 9am each day, and often 400 grams or more by noon.

Okay, that’s enough. Just had to get that out of my system. But here are some other important things that simply must be mentioned before we leave the subject of Sisson…

Consider what I heard on Wednesday during my “distraction” from the computer for a day. I traveled across the state of Florida to meet with a very wealthy man with health problems and a strong desire to restore his vitality. Many years ago this guy had spent time at the Pritikin institute with low-fat guru Nathan Pritikin. Pritikin, according to this guy, was really a portrait of health that lived and breathed his health advice and looked young, lean, and more or less perfect. Of course, on the inside he was dying – committing suicide at 69 and reported to perhaps have leukemia.

He was replaced by some other guy who supposedly looked even more impressive, with absolutely no body fat whatsoever and the picture-perfect body of what, in the modern era, is erroneously used to symbolize health. He died far younger supposedly, of a stroke – typical of someone with low cholesterol.

Professional athletes are looked upon as being physical specimens. Of course, athletes are notorious for long lists of health problems and dying young.

I bring this up, not because it’s all that relevant to Sisson, but because the idea that having a 6-pack is healthy and not having a 6-pack is second best is absolutely stupid. Being lean and attractive by modern standards, if anything, is a sign of terrible health not great health. I think of a supermodel having the worst health, followed by a lean, female collegiate athlete, followed by the morbidly obese, followed by professional athletes, followed by everyone else. Most obese people eating at McDonald’s today can at least reproduce. The same can’t be said about supermodels or say, female distance runners – most of which cannot reproduce. At the very least, seeing someone’s abs because there isn’t enough fat on them to obscure them from view is not a cue to get on your knees and start worshipping.

This also brings up the question – would Sisson be obese and unattractive if he had oatmeal or toast or even Pop Tarts and Fruit Loops with pasteurized milk on them for breakfast? Of course not. I know far more people with abs that eat Pop Tarts than eat a Paleo diet. Tyson Gay eats at McDonald’s and eats ice cream. Should we do that because he has abs and can run real fast? Or should we eat what Sisson says to eat because of his abs? Whose abs determine the composition of your diet? How much of Sisson’s appearance can be attributed to the junk food diet he was raised on and how much can be attributed to the low-carb Paleo diet he has eaten for the last decade or whatever? He was a world class athlete on standard fare. Is it a surprise that he also looks “good” doing lots of smart training while otherwise taking great care of himself and eating a lower carbohydrate diet? Looks are more or less meaningless. Diets of the obese and the lean have been compared. There is almost no difference whatsoever.

But the real reason I wanted to do this post was an email I was sent recently. It was the same old story. Followed Sisson, everything was great, then everything went to hell within a year. This is the same thing that happened to me when I was eating 150 grams per day or less of carbohydrates for an extended period of time. It is very important for everyone who reads this to understand basic human physiology here. This is not a fluke or one in a million response to a low-carbohydrate diet. Low-carb diets are a great stress to most people, increasing the catecholamines, advancing the rate of aging, slowing down thyroid function, increasing inflammation, and reducing many important anti-aging hormones like testosterone, progesterone, and DHEA.

While many low-carb zealots will deny reality and go about searching busily to find evidence that supports low-carb eating – that’s what they do, defend a pre-conceived conclusion – this is the simple biological truth as I understand it…

Glucose is the ultimate source of cellular energy. Short and medium chain saturated fatty acids like butyric acid and lauric acid are the only thing that can compete. If you do not get enough glucose, stress hormones rise. At first this can feel amazing – giving you tireless energy, blunting appetite, and burning up body fat. But over time the wear and tear on the adrenal glands to produce this increased demand for stress hormones catches up with you. When the adrenal energy finally wanes you are left with lower thyroid hormone production – the adrenal hormones oppose the thyroid and even cause the thyroid gland to atrophy (the catecholamines cause the thymus – the epicenter of the immune system to atrophy as well, which would explain my observation that low-carb eating increases proneness to allergies, food allergies, and autoimmune disease).

When the thyroid is negatively impacted, the whole system goes into decline. The thyroid controls the production of hormones like progesterone, DHEA, and testosterone – perhaps the most important anti-aging hormones known. It is no surprise why it is so common for women to have reproductive and menstrual issues on a low-carbohydrate diet, especially if that is paired with a lot of stress or exercise or lack of sleep and so forth. Insulin resistance increases and glycogen storage becomes impaired. Thus, eating carbohydrates can trigger massive hypoglycemic attacks (which, oddly, often reinforces people’s devotion to a low-carb diet). In men, testosterone falls. I for one had some pretty substantial erectile problems on a low-carb diet for example. My athletic performance and recovery was at an all-time low.

The list goes on and on. To think that no health problems could emerge from eating a low carbohydrate diet is absurd. I have had plenty – from chest pains to increased allergies to foul body odor to mood disorders to digestive problems to insomnia. Hundreds of people have gravitated to this site after their health was ravaged by prolonged low-carbohydrate intake.

Lack of carbohydrate intake is just one issue with low-carbohydrate diets. Another is intake of excessive amounts of animal protein, which I have found to be particularly destructive. Animal protein concentrates highly-inflammatory amino acids like tryptophan, methionine, and cysteine. After the growth and development stage of life, unless you are trying to add muscle mass for bodybuilding, there is only a tiny dietary requirement for these amino acids to maintain lean body mass. Any excess is, I believe, a huge detriment. Eating large quantities of protein in general, particularly without complementary carbohydrate, raises the hormone glucagon as well, which triggers the stress hormone and inflammatory chain reaction in the body.

At the end of the day, while there could be some individual exceptions no doubt, a carbohydrate-based diet is vastly superior for health, longevity, and human performance – athletic or otherwise. By carbohydrate-based I don’t mean low-fat, but just 50% of dietary calories or so, maybe drifting towards 60-70% of dietary calories if you are a hard-training athlete.

Anyway, I’m done with this rant. The point of this post is very simple. There are people out there brainwashed into believing that mimicking a caveman by fasting, eating a low-carbohydrate diet with a bunch of meat, etc. is a surefire path to everlasting health and Sisson-like abs. This is false. More than that, some aspects of Sisson’s approach are causing health problems in people, even in those with seemingly-miraculous health benefits initially like those I experienced with a similar approach. Abandoning nonsensical phobias like the fear of insidious weight gain if more than 150 grams of carbohydrates are consumed is very important, and there are literally millions of people out there with low-carb-induced health problems that could be easily overcome if they were able to get past their carbophobic stigma.

For recovering from some of these issues and guru infatuation – Sisson or otherwise, read this FREE EBOOK on how to recover your metabolism from prolonged restricted dieting of any kind.

Autism Twin Studies Point to Key Next Steps

Angelica Ronald and Rosa Hoekstra have written a nice review of recent twin studies in autism spectrum and autism traits.  The review is online prior to print in the American Journal of Medical Genetics Neuropsychiatric Genetics.

They note in the review that twin studies have evolved from a perspective of looking at narrowly defined autism, to the broader category of autism spectrum to an even broader phenotype, the dimensional character of autistic traits in the general population.

I don't know much about autism traits in the general population but this twin studies review highlighted some current understanding.

• Relatives of individuals with autism spectrum disorder show elevated autistic traits
• Autistic traits in the general population show a smooth distribution through the normal range to the clinical extreme--this suggests a biological continuum rather than a normal or disease clinical status
• Understanding the cause of variation of autistic traits in the general population is likely to aid in the understanding of autism
• The heritability of autistic traits in the population is very heritable (genetic) ranging from 40 to 60% in young twins but increasing to 60 to 90% in adolescence.

Another insightful section of the manuscript dealt with the degree of genetic and environmental overlap between different autistic symptoms.  Autism spectrum is made up of a triad of symptoms: social impairment, communication impairment and restrictive behaviors and interests.  Twin studies suggest these different symptom clusters may be "fractionable", meaning they may have some independence from each of the other clusters.  The authors note more genetic and twin studies should focus on one symptom cluster of the triad, rather than only studying those who have all three components.

The authors note that twin studies have helped explain the relationship between autism and intellectual disability and low IQ.  There appears to be some common genetic contribution to autism and intellectual disability.  However, since some individuals with autism and ASD have relatively normal intelligence, the picture is complex.  Studying ASD in those with normal intelligence may provide further insight into specific autism genetic influences. 

What needs to be done in the future?

Need for twin studies to tease out genetic and environmental factors that explain the common co-occurence of autism, ASD and autism traits with conduct disorder, sleep disorders, antisocial behavior and depression.

More attention needs to focus on genetic and environmental effects on developmental change in ASD and autistic traits in children (only two current studies published) and in adults (zero studies published).

More research on age-appropriate measures of autism traits--measures appropriate for one developmental age may not be appropriate for other ages.

More studies are necessary to look at cognitive phenotypes in autism and autism traits .

Photo of St. Louis Cardinal Daniel Descalso Courtesy of Yates Photography

Ronald, A., & Hoekstra, R. (2011). Autism spectrum disorders and autistic traits: A decade of new twin studies American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 156 (3), 255-274 DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.31159

Ignorance and Addiction

I’ve written before about how the “low fat diet is the healthy diet” message has infected so many other disciplines. Those concerned with environmental issues and agricultural policy are not immune to this contagion. Here are two examples.

Mid-April grazing in the Willamette Valley

Environmental Issues

One piece of conventional “wisdom” is that animal agriculture is responsible, in part, for anthropogenic global climate change (formerly known as “global warming”). If that were true, then advocating a diet based upon animal products would harm the environment, while plant-based diets would save it. Hence “Meatless Mondays” and “Meat=Heat” campaigns. Some recent web-surfing took me to the Meat and Livestock Australia web site. Lots of interesting information, including their Red Meat Green Facts and Myth Busting pages. Two of the busted myths are worth mentioning:

Myth: It takes 13,209 gallons (50,000 liters) of water to produce 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of beef

Have you ever heard of “virtual water figures”? I hadn’t. Apparently virtual water figures attribute every drop of rain that falls on a farm to the production of red meat, ignoring that most of the water ends up in waterways, as ground water, or is used by trees and other plants not grazed by cattle. It is obviously inappropriate to use virtual water figures for environmental measurements. A more appropriate figure is from a life cycle assessment that calculates the amount of water used to produce a pound of beef from grazing on farm to exiting the processing facility. A 2009 life cycle assessment carried out by The University of New South Wales for three beef production systems in southern Australia found that it takes 7 to 143 gallons (27 to 540 liters) of water to produce 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of beef (See this link for more information.). That’s a figure almost 100 times less that the myth, at least!

Myth: Livestock produce more emissions than the various forms of transportation, combined.

This frequently quoted figure comes from Livestock's Long Shadow, a report published in 2006 by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). A 2010 review of this report by scientists from the University of California Davis found that the FAO authors calculated greenhouse gas emissions in two different ways, resulting in an unfair comparison (link to abstract). One of the authors of the FAO report, Livestock Policy Officer Pierre Gerber, told BBC News he accepted the criticism. "I must say honestly that he [Professor Mitloehner] has a point; we factored in everything for meat emissions, and we didn't do the same thing with transport". The estimate of anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted from the world's livestock stated in Livestock’s Long Shadow is 6 times greater than that from the Environmental Protection Agency (18% vs. less than 3%).

I think the evidence shows that animal agriculture is the only truly sustainable form of agriculture we’ll ever hope to have, and that anything else will be a compromise. I was pleased, therefore to find the Meat and Livestock Australia site (thanks to Neil Lane). But as I read down through the list of myths, it happened again!

In response to the myth that “Replacing red meat would be beneficial for people's health” they state that “Red meat delivers nutrients essential for health and wellbeing including: protein, iron, zinc, B vitamins and long chain omega-3s.” Good points, I agree. They then provide a link to “Find out more about red meat and nutrition.” On that page we find the statement “With less than 4% saturated fat, trimmed red meat has the Heart Foundation’s Tick of Approval.”

Sigh …

Agricultural Policy

A colleague from the Healthy Nation Coalition recently asked me about George Pyle’s book Raising Less Corn, More Hell: The Case for the Independent Farm and Against Industrial Food. I am sympathetic to the case that Pyle is trying to make. Our agricultural system is broken, too. I believe that our policy incorrectly favors the largest producers, and subsidizes the production of commodities that are NOT required for human health. But mid-way through his book, Pyle goes wrong. The fact that he was so close to the truth when he did so made it all the more disconcerting.

On page 88 Pyle offers an explanation for why “Poor women of all races and ethnic groups are 50 percent more likely to be obese than are their richer sisters.” He suggests it’s due to the fact that “poor people have diets heavy in starches and sugars, processed foods that are thought to be cheaper and more filling.” I have no problem agreeing with that. Later, on page 89, Pyle writes “the London-based International Obesity Task Force estimates that some parts of Africa have more overnourished children than undernourished ones. (Over-nourished, that is, in the sense of too many sugars and starches.)” And then, on page 90, Pyle writes “By 2004 the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization found another link between hunger and obesity in developing countries, a link also caused by the increasing availability of American-style cheap, fatty foods.“

Wait a minute! Where did the “fatty” come from? He hadn’t made that point in his preceding discussion! He was so close to making a significant breakthrough. But having gone off the rails, he proceeds to destroy the right-of-way. “The hungry people of rural Africa, Asia, and, most maddeningly, of the rural communities that consistently top the list of America’s poorest counties are like the amputated toes of the diabetic or the diseased heart of the cholesterol-loaded person. They are unseen parts damaged by the unthinking efforts of the rest of the body to ensure it is always full.” On page 92, he states “Cheap corn not only translates to cheap beef, which means we eat more of it and get fat” and that beef will “shorten their lives by an indefinite number of years.”

I’ve found it hard to continue reading this book. If he’s this far off on this, how many other factual errors did he make throughout the rest of the book? Until we’ve completely uproot the faulty reasoning that got us into the chronic disease epidemic we now face, we will have difficulty fixing what’s so broken.

Addiction

And we must remember that we’re not just striving to correct factual error. We’re facing a population that is addicted to carbohydrates. Paul John Scott’s recent article, Are Carbs More Addictive Than Cocaine? might seem like hyperbole, but I don’t think so.

In “Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution” I read the story of a diabetic woman who, by following Dr. Bernstein’s program, had significantly lowered her blood sugars, dramatically improved total cholesterol/HDL ratio (meaning she’d lowered her cardiac risk), reversed the vision loss she had been experiencing, almost completely restored the feeling in her feet, along with some weight loss as a fringe benefit. A critical part of Dr. Bernstein’s program to achieve normal blood sugars is, of course, a restricted carbohydrate diet. After describing all of these improvements in her health, this patient says: “I miss the goodies I give my grandkids, all the cookies, candy bars, ice cream. And the holidays. Everything’s kind of restricted.” If that doesn’t sound like addiction to you, it sure does to me! I understand cravings and missing things I used to eat, believe me! But to have experienced such an improvement in your health, to have been taught so much by the extraordinarily intensive counseling and coaching approach that Dr. Bernstein employs, and to still think that these “food” items are fit food for human beings – let alone your diabetes-prone grandchildren – is frankly breathtaking. Imagine a clean and sober woman saying: “I sure miss the methamphetamine, especially when I give it to my grandkids.”

References

Bernstein, R. K. 2007. “Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars. Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY.

Pyle, G. 2005. “Raising Less Corn, More Hell: The Case for the Independent Farm and Against Industrial Food.” Public Affairs, New York, NY.