Loss brings determination
November 22, 2015
Life cannot be lived without loss. Losses we call ‘big’ and ‘small.’ Some losses are of a nature that you only know you have lost because you know you will never be able to have an experience you didn’t even know you wanted to have.
My good friend Denmark West has been honoring the life of Ha
nk
Williams owing to his recent and unexpected death. He was a pioneering entrepreneur and a tireless advocate for increasing diversity in the technology arenas. Reading Denmark’s heartfelt posts triggered a cascade of thoughts. So, in addition to being supportive of my friend at the loss of his, I’m struck by the nature of my loss having never met Hank. Had I, I’m positive it would have been to our mutual benefit. Also, it was a reminder as to how utterly socially inept I have come to be (my momma taught me better – she doesn’t deserve this) to let soo many months go by since speaking to Denmark (sorry, man – I’m gonna fix that). Then the reminder that there are at least a 1/2 dozen other such people who I need to get with (sorry Todd).
But the most biggest and most insistent word in the word cloud is health. You see, Hank died aged 50 of a viral heart infection. 50.
While I have no more detailed information about the circumstances of his death (other than the news reports), Denmark’s plea in one of his posts honoring Hank kept ringing in my ears:
I created the blog you are reading over six years ago now (after delaying several years) because of repeated requests of friends and acquaintances to share some of the self-taught lessons that have enabled me to continue in excellent health well past the age at which Hank was taken from us.
Sadly, I let these pages languish over the last while. Maybe because in 2015 blogging is just quaint (Oh look, he’s blogging, must be hard to compose those posts on a flip phone). Or maybe there are much better sources from which one would be able to get much of what I have to share (Mark’s Daily Apple, Vitamin D Council, Diet Doctor, Nutritional Science Initiative).
All that may be true, but I am determined to get back to helping people in any way I can.
It’s a small token, but I can say this loss has lead to determination.
Watch these pages. There is more to come.
It’s Fall – time to think about vitamin D
November 4, 2015
Had a friend inquire about Vitamin D. Re-blogging this post with corrected links. As relevant now as it was when I authored the post over five years ago.
Well, it’s always a good time to think about vitamin D, but since we’re heading into November fast, its now that those great vitamin D levels of the summer (that is, if you actually got out into the sun this summer) start waning. Vitamin D is used in a myriad of mechanisms throughout the body. Since you’re been paying attention to this blog, you know how important it is.
The ‘new’ things in this post aren’t all that different than what you’ve been hearing me harp on for months now, but I did come across a few things I hadn’t seen:
- University of California San Diego and Grassroots health have teamed up again to present an updated set of video seminars on the latest vitamin D research:
University of California-San Diego TV – Vitamin D
Here are a few teasers:
Vitamin D: Nutrient, Not A DrugVitamin D: Role in…
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Too soon?
June 30, 2014
Twenty years on, maybe we’re back on track
Maybe its time to refresh the blog.
Props to http://pilargerasimo.com/ for the composition of the image.
Heard you missed me, well I’m back (again).
For the last few months, I’ve been working with a stellar all-volunteer team who has put together a great event that brings together innovators in Health Information Technology.
Won’t you join us?! Learn more here!
When: Wed, 03/14/2012 – 5:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Washington Museum of History and Industry
2700 24th Avenue East
Seattle, WA
*** WE HAVE EXTENDED OUR EARLY BIRD RATE UNTIL 5:00 PM, FRIDAY, MARCH 9 ***
Health IT is transforming our healthcare system. Healthcare reform, industry consolidation, and demographic changes have spurred a significant increase in the U.S. healthcare industry’s use of technology to improve health and enhance the patient experience while trying to help control the ever-increasing cost of care. New players are emerging and cloud computing, social media, and mobile technology solutions targeting patients and healthcare providers are creating new opportunities.
Join us for our March 14 MIT Enterprise Forum and discover how NW technology entrepreneurs can identify these opportunities and succeed in the health IT market. Our panel of industry thought-leaders moderated by Rob Coppedge, Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Cambia Health Systems, includes:
- Sailesh Chutani, CEO, Mobisante
- Peter Gelpi, CEO, Clarity Health
- Luis Machuca, President & CEO, Kryptiq Corporation
- Gwen O’Keefe, MD, Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Group Health
Our panel will provide an overview of major health IT trends, the new opportunities technology presents for both patients and healthcare providers, as well as explain how this may enable change in the traditional healthcare industry cost structure. Most importantly, our speakers will identify business opportunities and what regulatory restrictions such as HIPAA really mean for the NW technology entrepreneur community.
Audience Takeaways
During this event, you will learn:
- How the health IT market has changed in the wake of healthcare reform and government investment incentives
- What different types of care and cost models might look like, and what opportunities those present for entrepreneurs
- Potential sources of funding for innovative health IT technologies
- Approaches entrepreneurs can take to handle barriers presented by government regulations such as HIPAA
‘No Sugar’ drumbeat gets louder
April 25, 2011
Well, if you wanted to call me a Gary Taubes fanboy before, I guess you’ve got one more reason to now as here’s one more post about his writings.
Back in October 2010, I authored a post entitled Sugar – Public Enemy Number One. The main takeaway I intended for the article was to argue that if all the diet books and nutrition gurus in all the world would just agree on this *one* thing: elimination of refined sugars from the diet (including fruit juices, by the way) that would be the single most important contribution they could all make to our public health. This would result in vastly healthier people and dramatically lower health care costs.
Back in January when Gary took his show on the road to Seattle, he mentioned he was working on this big article for the New York Times about sugar. The summary was he was taking a look into the claims of Dr. Robert Lustig of UCSF who came out and said fructose was a toxin – in the concentrations consumed in the SAD (Standard American Diet). Now that Gary is a left coaster, he’s gotta make nice with the neighbors (he even got his new BFF Michael Pollan to say nice things about his new book – nice going :)). The net of all this is a ‘little’ piece in the New York Times called Is Sugar Toxic?. Of course, Gary doesn’t do ‘little’ so don’t expect a reader’s digest version, but you should expect a thorough and well reasoned article.
Of course, I want you to read it, but the summary is he thinks there’s something to the idea that sugar should be considered a toxin. One small step for man …
BET Spreads the word on Vitamin D
April 21, 2011
Imagine my delight and surprise that today’s BET.com Daily News Blast prominently noted the importance of Vitamin D.
They cited the alarming statistic I wrote a post on back in January of 2010 that 97% of African-Americans are deficient in Vitamin D.
To read this article The 411 on Vitamin D, please visit the BET site and let them know you’re interested in raising awareness of this issue.
Gary Taubes Seattle event – Elliot Bay Books
February 7, 2011
Last minute notice for those of you in Seattle tomorrow evening. Gary Taubes will be here at Elliot Bay Books to talk about his new book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It.
Here are the particulars:
http://www.elliottbaybook.com/node/events/feb11/taubes
When:
Tuesday 02/08/2011 7:00 pm (Tomorrow at the time of this writing)
Where:
Elliot Bay Books
1521 Tenth Avenue
Seattle WA 98122
More info:
http://www.elliottbaybook.com/node/events/feb11/taubes
Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Knopf) is acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes’ no-beating-around-the bush examination of why so many today are seriously overweight. A three-time recipient of Science in Society Journalism Awards, and presently a Robert Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Berkeley, he builds on the strong base of material he presented in his Good Calories, Bad Calories—which Michael Pollan said was "a vitally important book, destined to change the way we think about food." Part of that thinking is seeing the problem lying in particular kinds of carbohydrates, not fats, and not in calories per se.
I’ll be there! Hopefully you can make it as well.
Why We Get Fat: Central Premises
January 20, 2011
In the first of several posts on Gary Taubes’ new book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, I focus on the very brief introduction to the book where he sets out his central premises that explain the central issue raised in the title: why *do* we get fat?
They are stated very simply. So simply they may be hard to grasp. Here they go:
- When Insulin levels are elevated, we accumulate fat in our fat tissue; when these levels fall, we liberate fat from the fat tissue and burn it for fuel
- Our insulin levels are effectively determined by the carbohydrates we eat – not entirely, but for all intents and purposes.
Simple, right?
What’s missing: talk of calories expended or calories consumed. the need for fat-burning exercise, staying just a little bit hungry all the time. All these assumptions will be addressed systematically, but the two paragraphs above essentially explain the ‘Why" to the whole getting fat thing.
There is one more section in the introduction that bears pulling out here:
The science tells us that obesity is ultimately the result of a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one – specifically, the stimulation of insulin secretion caused by eating easily-digestible, carbohydrate-rich foods
Just like the body ‘grows’ early in life in response to hormonal cues (i.e. the presence of growth hormone), fat tissue ‘grows’ later in life in response to hormonal changes (principally, insulin).
Next Post: Section 1: dismantling the going assumptions
Back in the saddle – with a big book note
January 19, 2011
I’ve been scolded repeatedly over the last month or so about the unconscionable neglect of my blog. What can I tell you? Well, I’m back now!
Not that I’ve been waiting for an excuse to blog. There has been a lot to say, just hadn’t gotten around to saying it. However, the big impetus for me has been the release of the most anticipated book on nutrition in the last couple of years. I’ve posted regularly on the work of Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories. At the risk of repeating myself, GC, BC was a turning point for me in that it opened my eyes to a completely new way of looking at diet and nutrition, and did so in a thorough and convincing way. While the book was not a diet book (no recopies there) I changed my diet to adhere to the general principles laid out in the book (eating meats and leafy vegetables until satisfied, eliminating sugars and starches, limiting fruit, etc.) and lost 20 pounds without any additional changes (i.e. no exercise).
While I still recommend GC, BC, it is admittedly a challenge to take on. It’s over 600 very densely-packed pages with lots of biology, biochemistry and medical terminology. Of all those to whom I’ve recommended the book, only a handful (3?) have reported they actually read it. Given it was so important and influential, Gary (we’re on a first-name basis, these days) got repeated requests for a ‘readers-digest’ version of GC, BC that more people would actually read.
In December, the much anticipated condensed release of the last ten years of Gary’s work was published:
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Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Borzoi Books) The much-anticipated condensed version of the groundbreaking work begun almost ten years ago with his New York Times "Big Fat Lie" article and the epic "Good Calories, Bad Calories." |
For all the times I’ve recommended GC, BC, replace that recommendation with Why We Get Fat. Not only is the book much more condensed and simplified, it also has the benefit of the previous three years since GC, BC was published. The message is essentially the same – just re-emphasized:
- The principal driver of fat storage is chronic insulin elevation and chronic insulin elevation is driven by consumption easily-digestible carbohydrates
- The presumption ‘calories-in, calories-out’ is the principle explanation of why we get fat is an over-simplification and says nothing about a causal relationship between what we eat and why we get fat
That’s enough for this post as I plan to have a series of posts on this book planned. It’s that important.
More very soon.
Sugar part trios – Beat Sugar Addiction
November 6, 2010
First of the passel of ‘sugar’ books I heartily recommend:
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Beat Sugar Addiction Now!: The Cutting-Edge Program That Cures Your Type of Sugar Addiction and Puts You on the Road to Feeling Great – and Losing Weight! |
Wish authors didn’t have to play the tabloid headline game with their book titles. Makes serious books look silly. This one is pretty serious.
While the author does focus primarily on the syndromes and conditions that emerge out of sugar addiction, there’s also a *lot* of really great education about what happens to your body hormonally and metabolically and when you consume sugar (of course, when I say ‘sugar’ I mean the whole gamut of sweeteners). He offers a useful breakdown of ‘types’ of sugar addiction that relate to specific responses (adrenal fatigue/distress, yeast overgrowth, etc.). He also approaches the issue from the specific medical conditions. This section I found especially useful and insightful. If any of these conditions means anything to you, you ought to consider reading this book:
- Anxiety
- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Fibromyalgia
- Depression
- Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
- Heart Disease
- Hypothyroidism
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome/Spastic colon
- Migraines and Tension Headaches
- Obesity
- Sinusitis
Another general area I appreciated was the way he encouraged the use of appropriate dietary supplements, acknowledging that when you’re trying to right a listing ship, you need to take more activist measures than ‘staying the course.’ Diet alone – especially given our modern patterns of food production/distribution/consumption – just won’t do it. One can imagine it might be a little too much for some, but I believe he erred in the right direction.
While I heartily recommend the book and I learned *a lot* reading it, as is my wont, there are a few things I’d change:
- It’s great that he references the importance of vitamin D for overall health and specifically as it relates to the conditions that are associated with high sugar intake. His advice, though, is pretty lame. He basically says ‘don’t be afraid of the sun.’ Which is fine if you live in a non-industrialized location the tropics and you are regularly outside in the mid-day throughout the year. Most of the readers of his book would see no appreciable improvement in their vitamin D status by taking his advice. He’s clearly not up on the research in that area (see more).
- Surprised that he is totally supportive of various sugar alcohols (erythritol especially) as sweetener alternatives. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, but it surprised me nonetheless.
- Gives processed fructose a free ride by not citing the highly toxic effects of processed fructose (see Dr. Lustig).
- He cites a number of published studies and books, but did not take the trouble to include a bibliography or a list of references to the studies cited. In some cases, I was not able to find the studies he cited in either Pubmed or PLoS. I find that more than a little suspicious.
Even with these reservations, I strongly recommend the book. You will certainly learn something new.
UPDATE: Just happens my good buddy, Jimmy Moore, just recently interviewed the author and the audio may be obtained here.
Health Man Blog 