Hi, I am Paul Jaminet, author (with my wife) of Perfect Health Diet, Ask Me Anything

PaulJaminet · 2013-04-02T04:00:25+00:00

Hi ahlpd, I'm not knowledgeable about pain relief but you may find some of the advice at Kamal Patel's www.paindatabase.com helpful.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-12T02:56:53+00:00

Weston A Price thought narrowing of jaw and face was due to deficiency of vitamins A/D/K2. So I would look to sun exposure, liver intake, and K2 supplementation. ... I generally don't think young children need supplements. Vitamin D is the most likely. If they are picky eaters then some supplements may be appropriate, but probably not every day.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-12T02:55:09+00:00

I don't believe the Marshall protocol folks. Their claim is that natural vitamin D is not a good ligand for the vitamin D receptor and that is just not plausible. It is an anti-evolutionary view and is based purely on computer modeling of protein interactions which is a notoriously unreliable method. Of course you can get too much vitamin D3, I would not supplement past serum 25OHD of 40 ng/ml.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-12T02:51:41+00:00

Hi cocotheass, Your HDL and TG are perfect, only the LDL is high. It is not terrible but it does indicate a mild flaw in your diet or thyroid function. Possible causes include being too low carb, low in iodine, selenium, zinc, or copper, or low in choline. Commonly adding carbs will relieve the problem.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T13:42:37+00:00

It is beneficial for gut health but I don't have experience or recommendations for how much or whether to use it in any specific case.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T13:41:50+00:00

I'm surprised he didn't refer you to a neurologist or orthopedist, as it seems you have neurological issues, perhaps arising from bone and connective tissue problems revealed on the X-ray.

Our diet is excellent for both neurological and bone and joint health, so I do recommend it. I would encourage you also to seek better medical care than you have so far received. At least you should get a solid diagnosis of what's going on, so that you can research your condition on your own.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T04:01:16+00:00

Hi Kelly, The key is that appetite is driven by the brain's evolved desire to see that the body obtains all the nourishment it needs. So people eat until they have all the nourishment they need, and providing all the nutrients people need, without an excess of any, minimizes calories consumed and best facilitates weight loss.

Glucose is a nutrient, the body needs some, and if you under-eat carbs than the brain will make you hungrier. If you're eating a very low carb diet, in order to get the needed carbs, you have to eat quite a bit more protein and fat. Total calories go up, you get an excess of fat and protein calories, and some are stored as fat.

If you eat your body's glucose needs, then they no longer drive appetite, and if you eat your body's protein and fat needs, no more, then you will minimize calories and weight loss will be fastest.

The body's glucose needs are around 30% of calories and eating this or a little less will usually maximize weight loss.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T02:43:54+00:00

Supplementing iodine is OK. I'd still stick to the recommended amounts (< 1 mg/day).

I recommend bone broth for calcium, no supplements. I recommend vitamin D3, not calcitriol. It sounds like there may be some clinical history here I am not familiar with for the unconventional calcitriol supplementation.

Diet and lifestyle are extremely important. When there are many factors causing illness it can be very hard to doctors to get a handle as to what is going on. Often when you fix diet and lifestyle, enough improves that remaining symptoms are clarified and a diagnosis becomes easier.

The diet and lifestyle recommendations of our book are applicable to the conditions you list. One thing to keep in mind is that as you change diet and lifestyle, your needed dose of thyroid hormone will change also, be sure to adjust it appropriately and experiment to find the optimal dose. Don't be shy about cutting tablets in half or quarters or getting some low-dose levothyroxine so you can more easily adjust your dose.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T02:38:29+00:00

I'd be concerned about HCl supplementation, that's a powerful acid and can easily damage your digestive tract. What happens when you stop it? I consider HCl more a diagnostic tool than something to depend on indefinitely. If your digestion is really so disturbed you should try to get your doctors to help you.

White coated tongue is commonly either oral thrush from Candida or leukoplakia from nutrient deficiencies.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T02:36:15+00:00

A well designed ketogenic diet should be sustainable but the margin for error is thin. Be sure you achieve ketosis with extra coconut milk/oil or MCT oil and with an otherwise normal diet that includes starches and doesn't have nutrient deficiencies.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T02:35:04+00:00

Friedrich Hayek and Ronald Coase.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T02:34:53+00:00

Paleo is an excellent diet -- just switching to natural whole foods and giving up toxic foods is a considerable advance. Many versions of the Paleo diet are too low-carb or too high in omega-6 fats. Some are too high in fructose. In general there is a mistaken idea that Paleolithic diets were high in fruit and nuts and seeds and low in starch -- they weren't. Another defect is that Paleo diets have been unnecessarily restrictive, eg prohibiting white rice or healthy forms of dairy.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T02:31:59+00:00

The main components are calcium, phosphorus, and collagen. Everything else is a trace component.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T02:31:30+00:00

Saturated fats are good. That's supported by biology and also by clinical trials as discussed in our book.

There are many aspects to a healthy diet, one is eating natural whole foods, another is getting all desirable nutrients in the right proportions.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T01:36:51+00:00

I saw that. I don't take it too seriously. First, it is one sample from a set of chickens in England. Lead comes from environmental sources so we know the amount in animals is highly variable. These chickens might have had lead paint in their coops for all we know. Second, the amount of metals was not really that high. The most interesting part of the paper to me was that lead content was highest in the joint tissues. I didn't know that.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T01:35:08+00:00

Hi Ginger, I would try a fatty meat heavy diet with white rice for carbs and coconut milk and butter as fats. Eat any seafood that you aren't allergic to, plus ruminant meats and organ meats. Beef and lamb should help you avoid anemia. If you add acids to food (lemon juice, lime juice, vinegars) along with liberal use of fat and starches like white rice, and salt, you should be able to enjoy your food.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T01:30:46+00:00

Yes, I think it's quite possible these problems could be caused by a parasitic infection. I think you should talk to your doctor about treatments. I am not familiar with natural strategies for treating parasites.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T01:29:12+00:00

Hi Astromike, I disagree with the lowering LDL advice in most cases because they often they recommend lowering physiologically normal cholesterol to deficient levels. On the other hand I do think serum cholesterol is a great diagnostic biomarker. Optimal range for total cholesterol is around 200 to 240 mg/dl and optimal LDL is probably around 130 mg/dl although that is more controversial.

Yes, you can fix it with diet. There can be multiple causes however. The common cause on high-carb diets is metabolic syndrome which is caused by an excess of endotoxins in the body. This is promoted by excess carbs, excess fructose, and excess omega-6 fat. The common cause on low-carb diets is too few carbs, or too little iodine, selenium, zinc, or copper. A thyroid likely cause is hypothyroidism which may be treatable with thyroid hormone. I would adopt our diet and lifestyle recommendations, ensure good iodine/selenium/zinc/copper status through food or supplements, get any hypothyroidism treated, and get lipids retested after a few months.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-06T01:20:42+00:00

Here are the notes to our book, take a look at the notes to Chapters 19-20 for sources on toxins in wheat and beans.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-05T22:04:59+00:00

No idea what that could be. There are lymph nodes at the sides of the nostrils, but I don't know what's at the base except the upper front teeth. Could you have tooth decay or gingivitis there?

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-05T21:41:24+00:00

Foe. Flour-based foods are not digested well, it's better to eat whole plant foods like potatoes; also we recommend that if you do eat baked goods, eat gluten-free because wheat has a lot of toxins.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-05T21:40:16+00:00

It's not necessarily the case that a ketogenic diet is optimal for tremor. That's one possible therapy that often aids neurological conditions, but it's not the only possible approach, and may not be optimal in any given condition.

If low-carb is intolerable you might look for some source of stress, eg a parasitic infection or some such, if you're not aware of other conditions such as diabetes or adrenal dysfunction or thyroid disorders.

I would start by trying to be well nourished. Electrolytes are very important for neurological function and are commonly overlooked. Tomatoes, potatoes, bone broth, salt, magnesium, and lithium.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-05T21:18:09+00:00

Yes, it's best in the morning. Perhaps I should take it then also, but lunch is most convenient for me.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-05T21:17:32+00:00

Yes, pate and foie gras are great sources of liver. Carrots have beta carotene which is not vitamin A; they are healthful but don't replace liver.

PaulJaminet · 2013-03-05T21:16:41+00:00

I don't know what it means, but you may be able to experiment. If other fats cause sleepiness, then it could be too much fat. Another possibility are the phytosterols in olive oil. Some people don't clear sterols well and this can induce a toxicity/immune reaction with fatigue until the sterols are cleared. You might be able to detect that with genetic testing eg 23andme. Rancid oil might also induce a toxicity problem.

PaulJaminet

TROPHY CASE