Grain Brain - Notes Continued

Still reading and taking notes on a book called Grain Brain by David Perlmutter, MD.

Page 61 - "...at the heart of virtually every disorder and disease is inflammation."

After my five years at Logan, the concept of inflammation being an underlying cause of adverse physical situations has taken root in my mind.  I recall writing an email in which I stated my opinion that it isn't so much an elevated level of cholesterol which clogs up arteries but rather, I was looking at an underlying reason as to why the cholesterol and/or other fats would stick to the lining of the arteries to begin with.  In that we looked at inflammation of the arteries as in damage to the arteries and the body would be going about it's business to help protect the arteries with a buildup of plaque.  It's difficult to express these concepts since it has been a while since I've specifically studied these concepts.  All the more reason to keep reading and learning.

Page 62 - "Gluten sensitivity - with or without the presence of celiac - increases the production of inflammatory cytokines, and these inflammatory cytokines are pivotal players in neurodegenerative conditions.  Moreover, no organ is more susceptible to the deleterious effects of inflammation than the brain."

Here's something else that was on a page even before the Table of Contents:

"Your brain...
weighs three pounds and has one hundred thousand miles of blood vessels.
contains more connections than there are stars in the Milky Way.
is the fattest organ in your body.
could be suffering this very minute without your having a clue."

The post grad Internal Health Specialist (IHS) class I took also seems to verify and positively correspond to much of the writing in Dr. Perlmutter's book.  That class started to make clear the importance of fats in the diet for a variety of neurological maladies.

Another point this book made that I failed to jot down were people with blood sugar levels which tested in the normal range.  The book stated that even though blood sugar levels may be "normal" it also mentioned looking into the pancreas as to whether or not it was producing insulin at max capacity in order to maintain this level of normal.

Chapter 3:  Attention, Carboholics and Fat Phobics - Surprising Truths About Your Brain's Real Enemies and Lovers.

I particularly like the quote by George Bernard Shaw, "No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat.  Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.

Strong words on page 72 - "Eating high-cholesterol foods has no impact on our actual cholesterol levels and the alleged correlation between higher cholesterol and higher cardiac risk is an absolute fallacy."

Page 77 - "...research in 2008 published in the journal Movement Disorders showed that people with the lowest LDL cholesterol (the so-called bad cholesterol) were at increased risk for Parkinson's disease by approximately 350 percent!"
Subsequent paragraphs indicate that it's not so much the LDL which is the problem but oxidized LDL's which seem to get that way more likely in the presence of sugar molecules that bind to the LDL and change it's shape.

There is a passage in the book by Dr. George Mann, a researcher with the Framingham Heart Study

"The diet heart hypothesis that suggest that a high intake of fat or cholesterol causes heart disease has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons of pride, profit, and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientist, fund-raising enterprise, food companies, and even governmental agencies.  The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century." Ch3, citation #8

Another study from the medical journal the Lancet - 724 elderly individuals with an average age of 89 were followed for 10 years.  642 participants died however, each 39 point increase in total cholesterol corresponded to a 15% decrease in mortality risk.

On page 79, it's noted that patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) who had significantly higher cholesterol levels lived, on average, one year longer than patients with lower levels.

On page 80 - in 2010 the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition  did a retrospective evaluation of more than 340,000 subjects followed from periods of 5 to 23 years and concluded that "intake of saturated fat was not associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease."
Actual risk for coronary heart disease was 19 percent lower in the group consuming the highest amount of saturated fat.

One thing that keeps coming to mind is a statistic I recall hearing in a research methods class that there was a good 20-25 year lag between research and being accepted by the mainstream.  So, the study from 2010 might make it's way into a standard protocol for physicians in 2030 or later.  However, there is huge money in statins so, it could take even longer.

What will I advise to my patients?  All of these studies mentioned in this book are referenced so it looks like I'll need to dig out all those studies - the actual studies if I am to relate this information to my patients.  I need to make sure everything is legitimate.

The book did acknowledge that trans-fats were bad and the word trans refers to the conformation of the molecule with the alternate form being a cis-fat.  I know I've written about this in previous blog entries.

I think we'll end this session of reading at page 105.