T2 or NAFLD? ...or, a funny thing happened on the way to the surgery

Melgar

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,526
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Did you mean vitamin D, @Melgar ? - oh, and by the way - none of my above is specifically about infancy or early stage development - it's all of us at all times; I mean if the number of insulin receptors in your beta cells is limited by the level of vitamin D - which is what the article says directly - then anyone with an interest in better insulin resistance would benefit from supplementing right up to the maximum safe limit of vitamin D at all times, let alone during the winter months when the chance of sun exposure is low.

But also yes - vitamin D deficiency in childhood would lead directly to reduced beta cell mass. (according to this review). It also greatly increases the likelihood of the autoimmune attack that characterises type 1 (given other genetic dispositions).
It triggered a thought process when I read your post on vitamin D , so off at a tangent I went. I do supplement my diet with a multitude of vitamins and minerals because of absorption issues. I’m enjoying reading your posts on vitamins.
 

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Mouth watering at the thought of an orange.. can't rememeber the last orange I had...

So - quick review of the literature on protein-deficient (or malnutrition related) diabetes later, and yes, all of that would be explainable directly by a lack of vitamin D.
The bulk of the observational studies are based in lower-income populations, and my read is that this is termed "protein deficient" - because there populations are likely to be deficient in protein, but there is no mechanism as to why a general deficiency in protein would cause damage to a tiny part of a tiny part of the pancreas - and in some articles there was some lingering argument that this couldn't be classified separately without some kind of hormonal marker.
If you bring it more up to date and invoke vitamin D deficiency blocking insulin receptor growth, and also hobbling the beta cell metabolism, and also the inflammatory response targeting the beta cells (little bit hand wavy, but all the detail behind this is in the review) - you can easily see that these populations would have reduced insulin secretion as opserved.
 

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
All right then - a deep dive on Vitamin C.

Vitamin C, also known as L-ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in some foods, added to others, and of course available as a dietary supplement. Quite often in fizzy tablets, loaded with sugar. Humans, unlike most animals, are unable to synthesise vitamin C endogenously, so it is an essential dietary component.

I should pause for a second an examine the word "essential" because I see it continuously popping up in articles in the general media, boosting some superfood, or whatever - such and such is an "essential part of a balanced diet".

In the strict medical sense, essential means simply that we cannot make it ourselves. It really calls back to the essential meaning of the word, the inherent part of a thing - the essence. So, for example; "Essential oils for meditation" does not mean that these oils are required for the act of meditation, it just refers to the important bit of the oil, the thing that's necessary to have any meaning, rather than just oily lubricant.

This is important to understand, because there is often clever marketing involved, suggesting that this thing you cannot make, is also necessary to be healthy. That isn't always the case. Anyway, I digress.

Back to vitamin C.
Famously, vitamin C as a supplement goes way back to 1747, even before anyone ever had a single argument about saturated fat; A ship's surgeon (A Scot called James Lind, as it happens) decided to figure out what could be given to the sailors to stop scurvy. A set of experiments led to lime juice being given to all the ships company in a rare example of evidence-based nutritional guideline changes.

So goes the story - and so it was (at least far as I can determine from my perspective nearly 400 years later). Brits have ever since been known as "Limeys" and inside this sceptred isle, we have a picture of our expansionist navy cleverly using the secret power of citrus fruit to expand our sphere of influence into the largest empire the world has even known.

That sense has persisted, and I recently saw an interview with a qualified and experienced nutritionist who was reviewing the carnivore diet, and confidently dismissing it, because - well "who want's scurvy".

It's an understandable connection - scurvy is simply a deficiency of vitamin C (look up almost any obvious source and that's what it will say) - symptoms can be reversed almost immediately with citrus fruit, so a diet with no citrus fruit for periods of several months put you at risk of scurvy - right?

Pretty clear, except for the annoying fact that if it was that simple, nearly all human populations should be dead. Long dead. So there has to be more to the story.

The most obvious thing to say is that way back in the eighteenth century, returning to HMS Salisbury; it's worth noting that is was only the ordinary seamen who were dying from scurvy - not the officers. How could that be? Well, the stores, the cooking, the dining; were all split by rank. Commissioned officers ate very well, whereas the hands mainly subsisted on ship's biscuit and beer. Meat was eaten, but rarely and all dried. No veg.

So, let's leave naval warfare, and consider what Scurvy is. Again, most sources simply call it a deficiency of vitamin C, so that's a bit circular and unhelpful. We all have images of bleeding gums, but what is actually going wrong, what is the pathology?

Well, it's remarkably similar to the haemoragic fever that characterises Ebola infection. As a complex organism, we are a collection of systems, separated by membranes. Most obviously, the digestive system is a tube that goes all the way through us, and the stuff inside that system are separated from the rest of the body, outside the system. The Vascular system similarly. At the membranes of all these systems, complex processes allow the things that should cross over to pass through, and to stop everything else. In Scurvy, and Ebola, these barriers break down, and stuff begins to leak all around the body - thus blood leaking out of the gums.

So then, its worth looking deeper - a vitamin deficiency and a contagious virus sound very different, but there are some learned connections - Dr Thomas Levy wrote after studying and treating outbreaks; "the virus so rapidly and totally metabolises and consumes all available vitamin C in the bodies of victims that an advanced stage of scurvy is produced after only a few days."

So, the Effect of the ebola virus is to cause scurvy.. by consuming, or shutting down access to vitamin C.

Dr Robert Cathcart, who has more experience treating potentially deadly infections with high dose vitamin C than any other doctor maybe anywhere, says “the Ebola virus kills by way of free radicals which can be neutralised by massive doses of sodium ascorbate intravenously".

In other words, ebola can be combatted with massive vitamin C dosage, and that free radicals are the underlying cause. Now we're getting somewhere.

By the action of virus, or acute shortage of vitamin C, free radicals (reactive oxygen species, or ROS) build up to a point where they can smash down the barriers between our systems, and stuff starts to leak into places they shouldn't be, and we're in big trouble.

And we're back to a critical balance we all have to manage - oxidative stress - that fundamental Faustian (or Promethean, if you prefer your tragedies to be Greek) bargain that our ancient ancestors made with the explosive power of oxygen. You can get all the power you need to become complex animals, but that oxygen is always going to be looking to blow up - not in your face, but in each and every cell, all the time, and you'll need an army of anti-oxidants to keep dealing with it. If you run out, or get too old to keep producing enough; you die.

After digging about as deep as my sanity allows, that's where I land - vitamin C - ascorbic acid - it isn't so much that you must eat citrus fruit or you will have scurvy, it's that the more your metabolism is prone to oxidative stress, the more anti-oxidants (which include, but are not limited to, vitamin c) you will need, and citrus fruit is a hugely effective source.

"But,", I hear you all say in unison, "if vitamin c, a pesky little acid, is so effective in the fight against our oldest enemy, ROS, then why did we lose the ability to make it for ourselves - most other animals can, why not us?"

And - of course - that opens up more questions than it answers.

The answer to when? is about 40 million years ago, with a mutation to the GULO gene, which is responsible for the last stage in the production of the enzyme that synthesises vitamin C. This affected all (most?) of the great apes that we evolved from.

Why? - that's more difficult.
I can't say for a certainty, but there are articles which lay out the evolutionary advantage of this mutation. It's pretty complicated, but the simple version is that we lost the ability to make vitamin c and gained a more efficient way of allowing glucose to enter the cells (and specifically red blood cells); creating energy in a way that produces less ROS, thus requiring less antioxidants.

Specifically, this led to changes in the Glut-1 transport. You may have heard of it, it's one of the important entranceways to red blood cells for glucose, and (as far as I understand it) means less vitamin c is required, but also makes red blood cells more energetic in the way that they can store and deliver anti-oxidants to where they are needed around the body.

Red blood cells have no mitochondria and can only create energy directly from glucose - they cannot use oxygen, because their purpose is to transport oxygen.

Bottom line, there seems to be a benefit overall in the "pros and cons" involved in the mutation that stopped us from making VC.

A final thing to say is that in the gut - vitamin c and glucose compete for the same route through the gut lining (that whole thing about the transport in the red blood cells points to how similar in structure vitamin c is to glucose) so if your food is high in glucose, this will limit your ability to absorb vitamin c. This actually puts non-starchy veg at the top of the list for best vitamin c, but also; the less glucose in what you eat - the less vitamin c there needs to be in what you eat, in order to absorb enough.

To come full circle, there is a small amount of vitamin c in meat (and quite a lot in liver and pate). I had thought there may be a lot in black (blood) pudding given that I've just laid out how blood cells can be a "storage pool" for vitamin c - but of course that only applies for that gene mutation, which doesn't apply to the animals that we tend to make black pudding out of.

But - either way - this is why people on carnivore diets aren't all keeling over with scurvy after a few months. We are evolved to need less, you absorb more in a low carb diet, and there is some in meat.

Also - a good diet, which includes in my opinion, (but is not limited to) carnivore, will reduce oxidative stress by definition. A diet high in carbs, industrial seed oils and additives from ultra-processed food-like stuff; will lead to mitochondria operating less than optimally, and that means more oxidative stress; which means a greater need of anti-oxidants like vitamin C.

Final point (honestly)
The job of Vitamin C isn't just to mop up ROS, it's a much more involved enterprise involving breaking down, repairing and building up those membranes and structures. Collagen is involved, and a whole host of other particles and processes. I've really focussed on ROS to leave a story that is somewhat easy to follow, but of course there is more.

There is a strong line of thought that as we (humans now) evolved more and more to process meat (the evidence being the increase in brain size, and shortening of the intestine), and as such, evolutionarily - we turned to a lipoprotein to do the job of vitamin C. Lp(a) - pronounced "El-pee, little a". That's a whole post to itself though.
 

Melgar

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,526
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Mouth watering at the thought of an orange.. can't rememeber the last orange I had...

So - quick review of the literature on protein-deficient (or malnutrition related) diabetes later, and yes, all of that would be explainable directly by a lack of vitamin D.
The bulk of the observational studies are based in lower-income populations, and my read is that this is termed "protein deficient" - because there populations are likely to be deficient in protein, but there is no mechanism as to why a general deficiency in protein would cause damage to a tiny part of a tiny part of the pancreas - and in some articles there was some lingering argument that this couldn't be classified separately without some kind of hormonal marker.
If you bring it more up to date and invoke vitamin D deficiency blocking insulin receptor growth, and also hobbling the beta cell metabolism, and also the inflammatory response targeting the beta cells (little bit hand wavy, but all the detail behind this is in the review) - you can easily see that these populations would have reduced insulin secretion as opserved.
@Chris24Main I was interested in the idea that early malabsorption issues in the very young impaired the development of beta cell mass. So possibly contributing to raised blood sugars in adults due to system stressors such as increasing insulin resistance due to age, increases in weight, less active lifestyles and the slow down in metabolism. I’m just throwing it out there. It is something that may affect population in poor countries, or poverty in developed countries or early childhood illnesses including diseases such as coeliac, and other intestinal issues.

So quoting from the paper ‘Beta-cell mass and proliferation following late fetal and early postnatal malnutrition in the rat’

“In conclusion, prolonged malnutrition until weaning impairs beta-cell development but not beta-cell proliferation. Subsequent re-nutrition is followed by increased beta-cell proliferation but this is insufficient to fully restore beta-cell mass.”

Unfortunately the article is behind a pay wall, so I’ve only got the abstract. M

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9754832/#:~:text=In conclusion, prolonged malnutrition until,fully restore beta-cell mass.


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1451950/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016882279090022L

ed to add a sentence.
 
Last edited:

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Not sure where you are going with that @Melgar -
The science direct article states that 7 undernourished people had suppressed beta cell function. Well, that would totally fit with the vitamin D deficiency hypothesis.
For the two pubmed articles - I'm not entirely sure what feeding rats a synthetic low-protein chow tells us. Directly, or post natal. I've no idea how to relate that in any way to anything.

I've no doubt that extreme malnutrition causes all sorts of problems - I saw it all over Africa growing up - but as far this concerns us, the uptick in modern chronic disease, including T2DM, these are all happening in populations which are post-poverty in the classic sense.

I mean - nobody was worried about an outbreak of Celiac in Ethiopia in the mid Eighties..
 

Melgar

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,526
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
So, @Chris24Main I’m just picking up on something you mentioned in your post about vitamin C being ‘essential’. The bit where you talk about vitamin C and its role in improving the gut Barrier. I have been reading some interesting articles on leaky gut , the permeability of the gut wall allowing toxins and bacteria to leak into the blood stream causing all kinds of issues first the body’s immune system. And of course, the breakdown of the gut wall contributing to its role in the development of autoimmune conditions, such as Type1 diabetes, RA, systemic Lupus and coeliac. All of interest to me. And not to mention the role of vitamin C in the balancing of the gut Microdome. And not firgetting also The development of inflammatory bowel diseases. Inflammation being the driver of insulin resistance.
Hopefully I’m not joining the dots here mistakingly drawing a rabbit rather that a ball, so to speak.
I’m just throwing all this out there in response to you very interesting post on vitamin C.

ed grammar, I’m writing too fast.
 
Last edited:

Melgar

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,526
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Not sure where you are going with that @Melgar -
The science direct article states that 7 undernourished people had suppressed beta cell function. Well, that would totally fit with the vitamin D deficiency hypothesis.
For the two pubmed articles - I'm not entirely sure what feeding rats a synthetic low-protein chow tells us. Directly, or post natal. I've no idea how to relate that in any way to anything.

I've no doubt that extreme malnutrition causes all sorts of problems - I saw it all over Africa growing up - but as far this concerns us, the uptick in modern chronic disease, including T2DM, these are all happening in populations which are post-poverty in the classic sense.

I mean - nobody was worried about an outbreak of Celiac in Ethiopia in the mid Eighties..
Animal subjects are obviously used not human infants for obvious reasons. I may be over stretching here, but I’m suggesting that there is a connection with not only malabsorption, but poor diet, smoking, alcohol consumption and so forth as a factor, in vitro, and during the first few months, in child development that may contribute to problems with the development of beta cell mass, amongst other things which later affects us as adults, specifically in this case T2 diabetes. As I write I feel I’m over stretching here.
 

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
So, @Chris24Main I’m just picking up on something you mentioned in your post about vitamin C being ‘essential’. The bit where you talk about vitamin C and its role in improving the gut Barrier. I have been reading some interesting articles on leaky gut , the permeability of the gut wall allowing toxins and bacteria to leak into the blood stream causing all kinds of issues first the body’s immune system. And of course, the breakdown of the gut wall contributing to its role in the development of autoimmune conditions, such as Type1 diabetes, RA, systemic Lupus and coeliac. All of interest to me. And not to mention the role of vitamin C in the balancing of the gut Microdome. And not firgetting also The development of inflammatory bowel diseases. Inflammation being the driver of insulin resistance.
Hopefully I’m not joining the dots here mistakingly drawing a rabbit rather that a ball, so to speak.
I’m just throwing all this out there in response to you very interesting post on vitamin C.

ed grammar, I’m writing too fast.
It's all inflammation, really. Oxidative stress and inflammation. Oxidative stress is basically the mitochondrial consequence of anything not burning perfectly, and inflammation is the immune response to that and other cellular insult. Inflammation leads directly to breakdown of the tight junctions in the cells lining the gut which is what leaky gut is.

But - I was really meaning all barriers - cell boundaries, and membranes. Not just the gut; the vascular endothelium, the lining of the lungs, the blood-brain barrier.. all these things are under attack all the time from free radicals; simply that we can minimise the rate by improving mitochondrial health, then improve the ability to heal by improving inflammation (the less the system has to do, the more efficient it is)

The key to understanding (In my humble opinion) is that you cannot avoid either -they are utterly a part of existence - it's about balancing.

I'm not sure I recognise the "role in vitamin C in balancing the gut microbiome" - you'll have to point me at that; I think we basically guess at what the gut microbiome is, what it's supposed to be or do, or how to influence it - it's trillions of bacteria, millions of different types, all doing their own thing - I'm not sure that anyone can tell you that your microbiome is one thing or the other. Definitely not saying it isn't important, only that we know far less about it than some people would have you believe.

Some bacteria flourish with some food types - some with others; generally ultra processed food, not so much. Stick to real food of almost any variety and your gut microbiome will look after itself - at least that's how I see it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Melgar and AloeSvea

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Animal subjects are obviously used not human infants for obvious reasons. I may be over stretching here, but I’m suggesting that there is a connection with not only malabsorption, but poor diet, smoking, alcohol consumption and so forth as a factor, in vitro, and during the first few months, in child development that may contribute to problems with the development of beta cell mass, amongst other things which later affects us as adults, specifically in this case T2 diabetes. As I write I feel I’m over stretching here.
So - I laid out a causal path between vitamin D deficiency (not directly associated with any age), and less insulin receptors in the beta cells, meaning increased insulin resistance. I would stand by that. Everything you say is obviously important - but in a general sense. I don't buy any in-vitro argument explaining the rates of increase in T2DM. It just doesn't stack up - I mean London in the Seventeen hundreds would have been teeming with T2DM, if it was just poor diet and alcohol... Smoking peaked and dropped away, yet T2DM is still increasing at a faster pace all the time.

Clearly, there are other pathways to inflammatory attacks - but that's all on the T1 (and LADA) side of the equation and I'm not nearly confident in my biology to go there...
 
  • Like
Reactions: AloeSvea

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
"I don't buy any in-vitro argument explaining the rates of increase in T2DM"

Actually, that isn't true, but it's more subtle, and I haven't yet figured out the words to try to explain what I understand of it... at least not yet. It's more of a generational thing, the cellular construction of the human species has changed in surprising ways because of the change in the fats we eat, and this has some interesting consequences, that mother passes on to baby. I need another couple of go-arounds before I can make anything like sense on that one.
 

Melgar

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,526
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I'm not sure I recognise the "role in vitamin C in balancing the gut microbiome" - you'll have to point me at that; I think we basically guess at what the gut microbiome is, what it's supposed to be or do, or how to influence it - it's trillions of bacteria, millions of different types, all doing their own thing - I'm not sure that anyone can tell you that your microbiome is one thing or the other. Definitely not saying it isn't important, only that we know far less about it than some people would have you believe.

Some bacteria flourish with some food types - some with others; generally ultra processed food, not so much. Stick to real food of almost any variety and your gut microbiome will look after itself - at least that's how I see it.
I have been reading up on gut health because I’m taking a very powerful PPI - Dexlansoprazole. There is so much research on long term PPI usage and its impact on the unique balance of the microbiota in your gut. Thus making one susceptible to bacterial overgrowth - SIBO or C-difficile .

A compromised gut lining, I would think, would impact significantly the sensitive balance of the gut environment. Also didn’t you highlight Vitamin C as an antioxidant? As an antioxidant then does it not neutralize those roaming free radicals thus helping to prevent damage to the gut microbiota and the integrity of intestinal cell walls - and on that last point isn’t vitamin C ‘essential’ , there’s that word, for the synthesis of collagen. Collagen being a protein that helps the gut lining retain its integrity. As you say it prevents the spaces forming at the Tight Junctions (TJ ‘s ) , by, well keeping them tight.
Digging deep on this response, so I could be way out of my depth with this. As they say a bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
 

Melgar

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,526
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
@Chris24Main You mentioned 17th century London somewhere in your posts and suggested that 17th c London would be full of T2 diabetics. My answer to that is , would anyone even know they had Type 2 diabetes back then, even if they had it? Unlike T1 that was identified because of the sweet smell or ‘ honey smelling urine’ and then death, and I’m guessing death for what would now be known as insulin dependant T2’s. Also Bear in mind that life expectancy was a lot lower, like in the 40’s , so diabetes of the type 2 variety may Not have developed due to death by other causes. I had the honour of knowing Roy Porter. A very entertaining and knowledgeable historian of medicine. I attended one of his wig parties.
Anyways I digress somewhat and I have totally thrown your two posts of course.

edited for my dreadful grammar
 

Melgar

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,526
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
And if you ever get the chance to read any of Roy Porter’s books they are highly entertaining. His big and exuberant personality are forever immortalized in his books. They are well worth reading. Sadly he died at 55.
 

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I have been reading up on gut health because I’m taking a very powerful PPI - Dexlansoprazole. There is so much research on long term PPI usage and its impact on the unique balance of the microbiota in your gut. Thus making one susceptible to bacterial overgrowth - SIBO or C-difficile .

A compromised gut lining, I would think, would impact significantly the sensitive balance of the gut environment. Also didn’t you highlight Vitamin C as an antioxidant? As an antioxidant then does it not neutralize those roaming free radicals thus helping to prevent damage to the gut microbiota and the integrity of intestinal cell walls - and on that last point isn’t vitamin C ‘essential’ , there’s that word, for the synthesis of collagen. Collagen being a protein that helps the gut lining retain its integrity. As you say it prevents the spaces forming at the Tight Junctions (TJ ‘s ) , by, well keeping them tight.
Digging deep on this response, so I could be way out of my depth with this. As they say a bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
A compromised gut lining, I would think, would impact significantly the sensitive balance of the gut environment.
A compromised gut lining compromises everything - by allowing things to leak from the gut to the resto of the body. I'm not sure why you think the effect would be bad for the gut environment itself - one of the critical risks is that bacteria which should be in the gut, can leak out and cause damage in the rest of the body. Again, my sense is that the trillions of gut bacteria can look after themselves - I'm more interested in the parts of me that are me.

Vitamin C as an antioxidant - yes. Neutralise free radicals. Yes, by allowing them to oxidise vitamin C particles, yes. Thus, helping to protect intestinal cell walls - yes, like all cell walls - yes and yes. Protecting gut microbiota - maybe, who knows. A perfectly healthy person still has poop full of dead gut microbiota. They can look after themselves.

Collagen, yes. isn't vitamin C essential? - yes, in the sense that you cannot make it yourself. Collagen is built from Lysine and Proline which require an enzyme which requires vitamin C. I need to look more into this, because LP(a) also interacts with collagen, but basically yes, you need some vitamin C, but again, not much (unless your vitamin c is busy staving off Ebola, or if you are eating it with food which inhibits your ability to absorb it) because we've evolved a more efficient way of storing, packing and delivering it via the red blood cells.

Not arguing with you... I'm more interested in what it is you are saying, because you are raising points that seem in some way to be reactive, but are all actually agreeing with things I've said - is there anything I'm saying that you fundamentally disagree with?

All the gut microbiome stuff - yes, the gut microbiome is important - but I just don't have any idea what a balanced gut microbiome looks like, how you can measure it, or what steps you can take to achieve it - the activity of the bacteria themselves can massively change (some going dormant, some becoming active) within days, depending on the type of food you eat. Eating more of a type of food will encourage bacteria that specialise in that type of food. There are no bacteria evolved to specialise in ultra processed food-like stuff. I don't see an argument for going any further than that.

Proton Pump inhibitors, that is something on my list, and maybe I'll think differently once I get to that.
 

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I'll look into Roy Porter; all the history of medicine as it pertains to Diabetes I've mainly read from the investigative journalism of Nina Teicholz and Gary Taubes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Melgar

Melgar

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,526
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Nope not reactive at all, @Chris24Main , I’m engaging with you, rather than being a passive reader and simply clicking the like button. I’m interested in what you are saying, if I wasn’t I wouldn’t engage. Think of it as a friendly, kicking the ball about, kind of thing. I was brought up in a household that debated and challenged everything just for fun. In point of fact I still live in that kind of environment at home. I have so many issues with my gut that it is an area of interest for me, but I’ll leave you alone. ;)
I am however, very interested in your thoughts on PPIs on the gut. :)
 

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Ok - great, understood.
[for anyone else reading this, as usual; I'm not presenting any of this as "fact" - only my own understanding of a difficult topic - which may be wrong, so I'm actively looking for dissent; anyone pointing out something incorrect in my thoughts only helps my understanding]
 
  • Like
Reactions: Melgar

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Talking of the gut - generally anyway: I suppose that a bunch of what I'm saying must come across as pushing a carnivore, or at the least a meat-centric position.

At the start of my own journey, I was if anything the opposite - very pro-vegetable. I would eat quite a bit of fruit, and could have survived on stir-fried veggies quite happily. Most of my cooking was based on variations of that, with some small added amount of meat; like a portion of grilled chicken, or some lean ground beef.

As I get deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of the science of metabolism (as opposed to the fundamentally dogmatic approach of nutrition) - it's just harder and harder not to see all the ways that we are adapted for, and have hugely benefitted from, eating the meat and organs of other animals.

The forces of economy (meat is expensive to supply) and marketing (non-meat is cheaper to produce and lasts longer) and food security (agriculture since inception has been more about supporting large populations, as you get more food energy per unit area from plants) and religion (anything from Seventh-day Adventism and breakfast cereals to keep male ardour in check, to Bhuddism and non-violence) to animal welfare concerns (are we not advanced enough to not need to kill and butcher other animals) to concern about the environment (though this one is complex, and far from the one-sided argument it seems to be) - all combine to make it seem that the only reasonable path forward for humanity is a plant-based one.

But - when you strip away all bias and start with - ok so I want to reverse this insulin resistance; let's start to follow the evidence about what might be better for me to eat... it's just more and more difficult to avoid the conclusion that; at least as a short-term intervention to see if you feel (and can measure) better; some form of highly reductive animal products and diary (if you can...) eating regime with no snacking; no sugars and starches and seed oils; is the most effective approach; metabolically speaking ...

<and in that, I'm still not arguing that it's a thing anyone should do; our choices are our own; I'm just following the evidence>


-- totally forgot the connection to the gut -sheesh --

So, early on, when I was struggling with all the "but what about ... " Arguments that come from all the plant-based concerns, I came across a guy who had had his colon removed, (extreme case of inflammation as is happens) - and so could see all of his poop being formed from what he was eating in his colostomy bag. He had a unique view into the end of his gut. The shocking thing, was that all meat that he had eaten was absorbed, and nearly all vegetable matter ... was still basically the same as when he put it in his mouth. That just rattled around in my head - it's difficult to square the idea that veggies are full of nutrition compared to meat, when you can see the evidence that we absorb meat, and discard the vegetable matter... why would that be, unless we are actually specialised in absorbing nutrition from meat...?
 
Last edited:

Outlier

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,083
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Re: the fruit and vegetables thingy - and speaking only from my lifetime and in post-war England - fruit and veggies were only available in season and were expensive. Few homes had refrigerators, so any preserving was done in jars and bottles, using salt and vinegar, and sugar once it came off ration circa 1954. I do remember mother preserving a glut of runner beans in salt solution - we ate them all winter. They went grey but tasted - well - in those days you had to eat what you were given. So the necessity of fresh fruit and veg. in our diets we are told is vital now didn't actually happen except briefly in summer. Even when in season, veggies were soaked in salt water because of the garden gribblies that infested them. Eurgh it was a vile business. DDT was the only insecticide, was wildly overused with no safety considerations but we still had a lot of competition for our veg. We lived near the docks, and all through the '50s and early '60s dockers would strike and imported fruit and veg would rot on the ships or be thrown in the sea. Shops and markets did what they could, but we customers needed to be adept as avoiding being fobbed off with elderly veg. on the turn towards being rotten. Storage was primitive, and there was often a cat asleep on the vegetables in our village greengrocer's. There wasn't much fruit unless you grew it yourself.

Put the violin away - those days have gone - I am not saying any more than - we didn't get scurvy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AloeSvea

Chris24Main

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
1,010
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
In beautifully serendipitous fashion, fermenting was one of the adjacent topics I was going to launch into... Sauerkraut is basically chopped cabbage in salt water...

so - why is it good? well for a bunch of reasons, but primarily for the same kind of "good gut microbiome" type arguments that we all get used to ... there is bacteria already on the veg (there is bacteria on all surfaces all the time) and when you seal it away from oxygen, that bacteria starts to do its thing... and feeds on the otherwise indigestible plant material in the cabbage (or your runner beans).

What happens in the process of that fermentation? - the sugar (and this is undigestible sugar to you, of course) is digested into short chain fatty acids ... not a million miles away from ketones (though not ketones) - they are fats that are available for burning immediately, can be absorbed in the stomach (and can pass into the brain, but that's a more specialist topic) and are generally really healthy for mitochondria because they are immediately available easy, "clean" fuel, which cannot be stored as "fat"... though ironically this is another form of saturated fat. This gives you another opportunity to have fun with your nutritionist; when you are told to reduce your saturated fat, say "got it; you want me to throw away the sauerkraut..."

So - you are using the bacteria to pre-digest the vegetable matter that you can't deal with properly, and eating the result, which you can deal with much better, and absorb something really nutritious.

Bizarrely - that same thinking also applies to grass. You cannot eat the grass; or at least you cannot absorb anything useful from it.... but... you can let the cow eat the grass, do all the digestion for you, and then absorb all the nutrients from a beef steak.

It's a thought.