In 1997, a killer whale attacked and killed a great white shark. In “Whale Kills Shark, Setting Biology on Its Ear” (ABC’s Good Morning America, Nov. 28, 2009), Bill Blakemore told the story in a poem called “Nightmare of the Great White,” “in the same Old English verse form used in the great medieval epic, ‘Beowulf.’ ”
You can hear what it sounds like by watching the ABC GMA report on YouTube. The video was, I think, originally on National Geographic.
Children with Starving Brains: A Medical Treatment Guide for Autism Spectrum Disorder by Ms Jaquelyn McCandless might be a good book — not one I have read or had recommended, though. Amazon says:
Product Description
Children With Starving Brains is a message of hope in the midst of a worldwide epidemic of autism, ADD and ADHD. This is the first book written by an experienced clinician that gives a step-by-step treatment guide for parents and doctors based on the understanding that ASD is a complex biomedical illness resulting in significant brain malnutrition. Genetic susceptibility activated by “triggers” such as pesticides and heavy metals in vaccines can lead to immune system impairment, gut dysfunction, and pathogen invasion such as yeast and viruses in many children. Dr. McCandless, whose grandchild with autism has inspired her “broad spectrum approach,” describes important diagnostic tools needed to select appropriate treatment programs. Her book explains major therapies newly available and identifies safe and effective options for parents and physicians working together to improve the health of these special children.
About the Author
The book The Myth of Autism: How a Misunderstood Epidemic Is Destroying Our Children by Dr. Michael Goldberg sounds good. I have not read it and have not had it recommended to me, but it sounds like it is on the right track and full of good information. To find out more about him, read Dr. Goldberg’s bio on Facebook, watch the 8-minute video of his on YouTube, and read the interview of Dr. Goldberg on the Website The Autism Connection!.
On Amazon, the book is described as follows:
Experts agree that America is in the midst of a disturbing epidemic of what has thus far been diagnosed as autism. In just thirty years autism diagnoses have risen from 1 in 5,000 children to 1 in 110, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But in the history of our society there has never been an “epidemic” of any developmental or genetic disorder—it is scientifically impossible. So what is this mysterious affliction known as “autism,” and how can we stop it? Dr. Goldberg and his colleagues illustrate why autism cannot be genetic, but is a symptom of a treatable neurological disease that attacks the brain’s immune system. Readers will come to understand:
• Autism is not psychological or developmental, but a medical disease.
• Autism is caused by a dysfunction in the neuro-immune system and often by secondary neurotropic viruses that impact the neuro-immune system and brain.
• Illnesses such as autism, ADD/ADHD, and chronic fatigue syndrome all have different “labels” but are actually variations on the same thing: neuro-immune dysfunction syndromes (NIDS)
Wheat, Rice, and Children’s Brains by Dr. Emily Deans is good. An excerpt:
There is another post-worthy probiotics paper on the hopper, but before that I wanted to cover an article called Breakfast Staple Types Affect Brain Gray Matter Volume and Cognitive Function in Healthy Children (freely available on PLoS one). I like some parts of this paper, though it is observational in nature, so keep that in mind.
As we all know, our big old brains develop not only prenatally, but also throughout childhood and adolescence. In children, several studies have been done showing nourishing breakfasts help cognitive performance compared to skipping breakfast – especially the “high quality” breakfasts, with one study showing that a breakfast of low glycemic index foods having an immediate positive effect on attention throughout the morning (1).
In other introductory information, many studies in children have been able to correlate the amount of brain gray matter (vs. white matter) and IQ, especially gray matter in the prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex and the cingulate gyrus. Therefore, since breakfast types affect cognitive function, and brain structure can correlate with IQ, does breakfast type correlate with brain structure and IQ? I don’t know. Let’s find out.
Rational Public Radio has a nice interview of Robb Wolf. Some good points are around -33 minutes, around -28 minutes, around -25 minutes, and around -23 minutes. Highly recommended. They describe the interview as:
We caught up with fitness guru Robb Wolf to talk about America’s weight problem. In addition to writing the bestselling book “The Paleo Solution” he is also the co-host of the “Paleo Solution” podcast.
He explains why government lies are to blame for the obesity epidemic. It turns out that following the government sponsored “food pyramid” is just about the worst thing you can do.
Next, Robb clues us in on what a healthy diet actually looks like. The answer is pretty shocking, it’s almost diametrically opposite to the conventional wisdom.
©2011 RationalPublicRadio.com
In “An Unconventional Approach to PCOS,” Peggy Emch writes about how powerful a factor diet is for health, mental health, and well-being.
When I was 14, I went to the emergency room with 4 cysts which had ruptured on my ovaries in unison (utterly agonizing pain). But after the ultrasound confirmed that the cysts had ruptured, the doctors said I should be fine and those too were ignored.
I had other signs that something was wrong with my body. When I was 12 my hip joint fell out of its socket and I had to go to the ER to get it put back in place. They didn’t know why it happened so they sent me on my way (my hip and my shoulder continued to do this until I was 26, when I quit eating gluten).
Once I had a head ache so bad it sent me to the ER. The pain that day was worse than childbirth. The spinal tap showed nothing and so it too was ignored.
I looked so healthy despite the symptoms
I guess it might have been hard to take me seriously since I was such a pretty young teen. How could anyone so pretty and thin be such a wreck? And so, I was eventually diagnosed with mental problems. All the cramps, the diarrhea, the pain, the joint problems, the feeling of being out of control were all in my head.By the time I was 12 it would become the job of psychiatrists to fix me, but they didn’t do a bit of good for someone whose mind suffered as a result of malnourishment and hormonal imbalances. (Even today it seems psychiatrists are mostly clueless about the connection between the mind and the body. Depression and mental problems are totally avoidable and correctable. Emily Deans is aware of this. I wish she had been my shrink.)
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Like with every other modern health condition PCOS can be avoided and controlled by diet and lifestyle changes. (Genetics can predispose a person to develop the condition but genetics are rarely the cause of disease. Check out this article on Mark’s Daily Apple for more information about the relationship between genetics and disease.)
After learning about grains and sugars, I discovered Loren Cordain’s book, The Paleo Diet. My health improved immediately and within 3 months I was pregnant. It was amazing that I was starting to get my hormonal problems under control but, unfortunately, a return to an evolutionary diet was not the whole solution for me.
So I started taking vitamins, minerals, and hormone balancing herbs. I stopped over-exercising. I did all the things that I read should take care of the problem. But I still didn’t fully recover – many of my thousand symptoms improved but not all of them. For years, even after going Primal, I struggled with (minor by this point) PCOS symptoms.
Read the article to find out what else Mrs. Emch did to return to health — to a natural state of physical health, mental health, and well-being. Very interesting read!
In “Hope Warshaw’s Pepsi Challenge,” Tom Naughton writes:
In my last post, I commented on a reply from Hope Warshaw — the diabetes educator (ahem, ahem) — to a reader of this blog in which she pooh-poohed his “experience of one” with using a low-carb diet to manage diabetes.
The same reader emailed me that he conducted an “experiment of one” in recent days to compare his blood sugar after drinking a 12-ounce Pepsi versus eating some of the foods Hope Warshaw recommends for diabetics. Take a look:
Food Carbs BG before BG at 60 mins
12-ounce Pepsi 42 g 89 156
Oatmeal, milk 40 g 113 163
Whole wheat bread 48 g 93 141
Whole wheat toast, milk 36 g 103 173Perhaps those numbers don’t look scary to you, but they do to me. Here’s what Chris Kresser of The Healthy Skeptic wrote about post-meal glucose levels awhile back:
Even the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists is now recommending that post-meal blood sugars never be allowed to rise above 140 mg/dL. Unfortunately, less informed groups like the ADA haven’t caught up with the science.
The consequences of this are severe. Nerve damage occurs as blood sugar rises above 140 mg/dL. Prolonged exposure to blood sugars above 140 mg/dL causes irreversible beta cell loss (the beta cells produce insulin). 1 in 2 “pre-diabetics” get retinopathy, a serious diabetic complication. Cancer rates increase as post-meal blood sugars rise above 160 mg/dL.
In Colorado daycare workers required to wear burqas, Monica Hughes, PhD, writes:
OK, I exaggerate slightly for the purpose of generating a few hits. But seriously, I can’t really summarize it better than the source itself.
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But what really gets me worked up is food issues. There are simply few things more fundamental than the right to decide what goes into your body: whether it’s a pill or food or a doctor’s surgical implement.
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No one should need a doctor’s note to feed their kid in a healthy way — in a way that humans have done since the dawn of time. Period. The American Academy of Pediatrics lost all credibility when they said babies should get lowfat milk and approved statin drugs for 8 year olds. But then they were beyond redemption when they sanctioned female genital mutilation. I should require a pediatrician’s note to feed my kid healthily? If your pediatrician listens to the AAP then their advice is an impediment to health, not the other way around.It seems that increasingly these days, only in America or the UK can you get away with proposing this type of garbage that regulates common sense out of existence. This is why I’m increasingly embarrassed to even call myself an American. This WAS the greatest country in the world. We have long ago lost that status and it is questionable whether we will ever regain it.
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And we wonder why kids can’t focus in school. Perhaps this, this, and this lend a clue: it’s the food culture and the culture in general in this country that are the problems. Coupled with idiots in positions of government who have zero scientific background doling out farm subsidies that make seed oils, refined grains, and refined sugars cheap, and who listen to CSPI, and then craft rules about what your kids should be eating. No conflict of interest there: none at all. Move right along, nothing to see here.
Be sure to look at the links Mrs. Hughes has included in her post showing examples of food lunches around the world! Wow! America has sunk to the fetid bottom!
Here are some blog posts that will show you, again, how wrong is the “medical advice” regarding nutrition that you hear now-a-day: “Nuts!” to the Nutty Diabetes “Expert”, Stand Up And Say “Nuts!”, Bad Science Receives Another Spanking. There are plenty more out there; those three I just took the time to read recently.
Oh, and Tom Naughton wrote an interesting post on vegetarianism: Most Vegetarians Become Ex-Vegetarians?
Episode 13 of Chris Kresser‘s podcast is a good interview of Dr. Emily Deans.
Mr. Kresser said:
Dr. Emily Deans’ Evolutionary Psychiatry blog has quickly become one of my favorites over the past year. It’s rare to find a psychiatrist that acknowledges the role of nutrition in mental and behavioral health at all, much less one that approaches these topics from an evolutionary perspective.
This week Dr. Deans joins us on the podcast to discuss the role of Paleo nutrition in mental health. Topics covered include:
- The link between diet and Alzheimer’s
- Can nutritional changes effect depression?
- Does gastric bypass surgery lead to mental health issues?
- Can gluten intolerance induce mental disorders?
- What role does the “modern lifestyle” play in the increasing prevalence of mental health problems?
- How does an individual’s mental state influence his/her biology?
- Does iron deficiency anemia contribute to mental health problems?
Copyright © 2011 The Healthy Skeptic
Recommended interview!! There is a lot to learn from it!! A lot that will help you and your children have better neurologic and mental health.
Chris Kresser of The Healthy Skeptic interviews Chris Masterjohn about cholesterol and health: The Healthy Skeptic Podcast — Episode 11. Mr. Kresser said:
This week we’re glad to welcome Chris Masterjohn to the show. Chris is currently pursuing a PhD in Nutritional Sciences with a concentration in Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition at the University of Connecticut. He writes a blog called The Daily Lipid and is also a frequent contributor on the Weston A. Price Foundation’s blog.
I consider Chris to be one of the foremost experts on the topic of cholesterol and its relationship to heart disease. In this episode, we discuss (among other things):
- the history of the cholesterol-heart disease connection
- misconceptions around diet vs. lipid hypothesis
- finding middle ground between cholesterol skeptics and proponents of the lipid hypothesis
- the LDL receptor and familial hypercholesterolemia and what they can tell us about cholesterol and CHD in normal populations
Copyright © 2011 The Healthy Skeptic
The interview clarifies the role and importance of cholesterol to our health and proper functioning, and gives a good analysis of the science and history of cholesterol research. So the interview is a good way to learn a bit about how science should work and about how we should analyze “scientific” reports.
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