New paper from Dr. Gundry on stopping progression of CAD

[floramaria]

There is no documented need for any supplement to enjoy these health benefits, nor a need for an extreme diet, nor is there any evidence that lectins are causing any of those things Gundry claims they're causing, just as his previous invention of non celiac gluten sensitivity is yet to be found in the wild.

At one point I thought of starting a new thread, ”Sceptic Follows Gundry “. I read both Diet Evolution and Plant Paradox, and responded to both with a large “hmmmmmmmmmm”. Since I seem to have still have the constitution of a (healthy) horse and I don’t have any subjectively observed symptoms or health complaints, I could not expect to have a profound observable symptomatic reversals like Kenny4/4 or Tincup regardless of any dietary changes. I do have some out of whack biomarkers though, including those indicating Hashimoto’s. Also very high levels of several heavy metals.
So in the spirit of n=1 which I have enjoyed so much on this website, I decided to see what following the Plant Paradox diet could do for me, neither anti-Gundry nor believer. I have been following it, with only a couple minor slips, for about 2 months now. (there were bits of tomato in the guacamole I ate a bit of once, and I had humus when that was the best food choice available at an event ) I am hoping that my thyroid antibodies will clear up. Also since I am doing heavy metal chelation , I was willing to try anything that could possibly improve gut health, since some of the detox experts/gurus, including Joe Pizzorno, advise healthing the gut, liver and kidneys prior to any aggressive detox program. I have no idea how tight my cell junctures are in the lining of my gut. At Rebel Health Tribe, I listened to convincing arguments by microbiologist Kiran Krishnan in a series on the Microbiome, that anyone with any autoimmune disease has leaky gut. So maybe I do.
For gut health, I won’t have any biomarkers to compare before and after. But I will be able to report on the Hashimoto’s when I re-test.
Though I miss cashew milk and cashews in general, it is a wide world of food and I like just about everything in it, so I have not had any problems with the restrictions that come with following the Plant Paradox diet.

[Stavia]

Floramarie, I am very interested in your thyroid test results!

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[floramaria]

Floramarie, I am very interested in your thyroid test results!

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Me too!
I will go longer with my experiment before re-testing. I have heard 90 days minimum. I will give it longer and will post the results.

[Tincup]

... or, to be precise: it cannot be ruled out they are crypto-CR studies. Amazing that so many researchers still don't know to do iso-caloric comparisons of different dietary constituents (and to make the studies "iso-exertional", etc., etc.).

The patients studied are not calorically restricted. These are all free living people.

We don't know they're not CR'd if energy-intake isn't measured. My point with the (possibly cryptic) term "crypto-CR" is that it is precisely free-living people who often do end up on CR, but unintentionally, and for reasons that make the tendency in a study to be on accidental CR non-evenly distributed across the intervention and control groups. Hence, a study looking at dietary fat levels or lectins or whatever could end up being an "accidental CR" study.

Happens all the time.

So if people in a study are "free-living" and amounts of food eaten aren't measured, at a minimum one must measure body weight (a fairly good proxy for energy intake, if activity levels don't change between groups).

But our first step with Gundry should be to encourage him to do a prospective trial. Otherwise we're just engaging in speculation based on patient testimonials and metabolic pathways that are still far too poorly understood to serve as the basis of scientifically grounded dietary and lifestyle advice.

Brian

Brian,

Gundry would likely agree with you that CR is a material part of his program. If you look at his first book, Diet Evolution, clearly he is encouraging a form of CR. Among other things, he had people avoid grains and most processed foods in general. While not specifically keto, he did also encourage fasting. He mentioned the book was a compromise between what he was doing with his patients and what the publisher thought would sell (i.e. the book recommendations were lest strict). He also said he'd originally written a fasting chapter and most of that got cut. He got on the lectin kick after the first book was published. Because there were some autoimmune case studies in the book, he started getting tough autoimmune cases from all over. It was his iterative solution to many of these problems that led him to what he now recommends. In our first consult, he told us, "get your numbers in line and then see what you can get away with." His patients post they swear he can tell almost everything they eat. My wife cheated twice over the Christmas Holidays in 2016. In a January 2017 test, he could tell as she had an elevated inflammatory response marker that was related to gluten. He has lots of metrics he measures, but A1C, fructosamine, insulin along with sdLDL & oxLDL (the latter two, he says will also spike on excess carbs). So yes, there is certainly the CR component. The other restrictions have evolved over time as he has tried to optimize inflammatory markers. Again, he would agree that there is a large range of responses. He calls himself a "canary" and Kenny is likely in that category, as am I.

He did get pretty good results with his first plan. I recall one lady I've corresponded with. The first time she met him was in the hospital for a pre-op for a bypass he was going to do on her the next day. She asked if there was any other way to solve her problem. She had a farm/ranch and could no longer work. Gundry told her to get (what was then) his first book and do it. She did and never needed the bypass. She was able to return to the strenuous work on her farm. I do recall that weight loss was a material component of her experience.

So the question I hear you asking is how much of the result is doe to CR and how much is from reduced inflammation from other dietary factors, correct?

[Brian4]

So the question I hear you asking is how much of the result is doe to CR and how much is from reduced inflammation from other dietary factors, correct?

Hey T, yes, that's exactly right. (Although I also have more general questions that result from his (post-≈2004) work never being done as a normal prospective trial.)

I have sympathy for the objection: who cares – as long as people are improving! But if the driver of the effect is energy-reduction, there might be better ways to reduce energy than his prescribed diet.

More importantly, perhaps, not being able to rule out CR means we waste a lot of time speculating about a false mechanism. This leads us astray.

It's sort of like: I go on a diet where, let's say, I only eat foods from plants whose taxonomic names contain letters that can be rearranged to form the names of one of my ex-girlfriends. I get healthier. I get my patients to try it. They get better. I write a book called "The TEL (Taxonomic Ex-Lover) Diet", get more patients, etc. Websites and blogs are all speculating about how reflecting on the Latin (sometimes Greek) language might spur changes in the brain that reduce inflammation, or thinking about past loves might increase oxytocin, etc., etc.

But, of course, all that's happening is that people are going on CR because – in most cases – they don't have enough ex's to find many foods they can eat.

Brian
Author, The TEL Diet: How Past Loves Can Reduce Inflammation and Increase Heathspan

[Julie G]

Apologies again for mischaracterizing this poster, not paper. My bad

In fact, it looks like Gundry hasn't had anything peer-reviewed since 2004 (the later papers in the above search are by a different Gundry). It's a shame that he's not doing real trials and submitting the results to journal peer-review. That would really help a lot of people. I can't say anything about Gundry's work because there aren't enough details, and, more importantly, I don't trust the work (work, not person ) of someone who refuses to subject it to peer-review.

I respect your perspective, but I’ve seen too many peer-reviewed papers with faculty conclusions to use that as my gold standard... especially for nutritional science. N=1 rules for me. I’ve also seen enough anecdotal evidence from Gundry patients to peak my intellectual curiosity. FWIW, if you're curious, there are lots of details in his book

ApropoE4, I’m assuming that you’re NOT familiar with Gundry’s approach based on your comments? You might be surprised to learn that he also encourages the use of lots of nuts, vegetables and a limited amount of wild-caught fish and seafood, CR, long fasts, and exercise? While you may have legitimate concerns about the amount of EVOO that he recommends, I suspect that you’d be surprised to learn about the broad areas you agree might upon. Taking down a straw man is easy. On the other hand, learning the nuances of your opponent's approach takes a bit of time and effort, but doing so strengthens your argument and furthers the discussion.

There is no documented need for any supplement to enjoy these health benefits, nor a need for an extreme diet, nor is there any evidence that lectins are causing any of those things Gundry claims they're causing, just as his previous invention of non celiac gluten sensitivity is yet to be found in the wild.

Help us understand your comment about non celiac gluten sensitivity? It appears to be a real phenomenon for some people, myself included. Even the gluten re-challenge evidence find that around 40% of people remain affected using the Salerno criteria. It’s also noteworthy that the number grows as the duration of the challenge is extended. Out of curiosity, do you think gluten (or grains) are necessary for health?

Noteworthy, when the gluten re-challenge was performed according to the current recommended procedure (i.e., the Salerno criteria) the overall percentage of patients relapsing after gluten was significantly higher as compared to placebo (40 vs. 24%; p = 0.003), and the meta-analysis showed a highly significant RR and IRR of relapse after gluten as compared to placebo. This finding supports the existence of a causal relationship between gluten and relapsing symptoms, and strongly suggest to follow the Salerno expert recommendations when suspecting the diagnosis of NCGS, until a valid biomarker will be available, as previously reported (Skodje et al., 2017). This is further supported by the results of the meta-correlation analysis showing that the percentage of relapse was highly correlated with the amount of gluten and the duration of challenge.

Thank you for sharing your success, Kenny! From offline discussions, I know that lots of folks here have experienced the same, but they’ve decided to walk away from this discussion because of the derisive tone used. Our Community Guidelines are specifically designed to allow for intellectual discussion of controversial topics without fear of intimidation. Like you, I also feel better when I limit lectins, but I’m not as diligent as I probably should be. A life without a vine ripened tomato now and then… is inconceivable to me. I do use glucosamine chondroitin and D-mannose to block the lectin effects when I cheat. They seem to help. For me, cutting out grains has made an enormously positive impact on my health. that said, I'm still very much a WIP.

[Brian4]

Julie, minor point for the record about the logic of my claim:

I'm not saying:

IF peer-reviewed THEN good ("gold")

but rather:

IF NOT peer-reviewed THEN NOT good (or, rather: I simply can't assess it well)

Big difference. Plenty of peer-reviewed garbage out there, to be sure.

But, yes, plenty of non-peer-reviewed material is fun and contains cool ideas! But I decided a long time ago to restrict myself almost entirely to peer-reviewed material, mainly because of the plethora of ideas out there. I needed a filter to avoid having my brain go "pop".

Brian

[Fiver]

I don't know much about Dr. Gundry. I scanned one of his books and listened to some of his podcasts. It didn't click with me right away. I was surprised about that. I thought I'd love it since my background is in plant natural products and physiology. I do like to look at data, figures, and stats so maybe I was hoping for more of that in the books. For this reason I tended to gravitate towards Bredesen's work. I may circle back around to re-read Gundry's books in the future.

In general, my experience has been that in any scientific field there are people coming at an issue from all sides. When the field is healthy the various approaches compliment each other. The sciences fact-check the practitioners, journalists, and companies....helping to eliminate the profiteers. At the same time practitioners, journalist, and companies (and patients!) feed some non-traditional insights back into the science, while giving the slow-march of research a much needed kick in the backside occasionally.

There's supposed to be some tension between the approaches. Reminds me of an old Jimmy Buffett story: he broke some strings on his guitar during a gig and the salty pub owner said to loosen up the strings or go home. Jimmy reminded the owner that without tension the strings don't work and there is no music.

Since medical science hasn't met the needs of patients - no cure, treatments, or early detection, etc. - we are all just finding our way.

[floramaria]

It's sort of like: I go on a diet where, let's say, I only eat foods from plants whose taxonomic names contain letters that can be rearranged to form the names of one of my ex-girlfriends. I get healthier. I get my patients to try it. They get better. I write a book called "The TEL (Taxonomic Ex-Lover) Diet", get more patients, etc. Websites and blogs are all speculating about how reflecting on the Latin (sometimes Greek) language might spur changes in the brain that reduce inflammation, or thinking about past loves might increase oxytocin, etc., etc. .

Brian
Author, The TEL Diet: How Past Loves Can Reduce Inflammation and Increase Heathspan[/quote]

HI Brian, I appreciate your point and especially the humorous delivery. I think your book will be a big hit! Once I finish my experiment with the Gundry diet, I may just try the “Taxonomic Ex-Lover Diet”.

You gave me a good laugh, which I believe increased my telomere length, reduced stress and inflammation and added at least 7 minutes to my health span. thanks!

[TheresaB]

Help us understand your comment about non celiac gluten sensitivity? It appears to be a real phenomenon for some people, myself included

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a real thing for me too. I’ve tested negative for the celiac gene, but test very strongly in a different test when exposed to just a little gluten. According to this study: Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II: Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance this is a real thing and growing.

Celiac disease, and, more generally, gluten intolerance, is a growing problem worldwide,… Here, we propose that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, Roundup®, is the most important causal factor in this epidemic.

I know I'm off the Gundry paper topic but I bring this up given the timeliness, since recently a jury awarded $280 million to the school groundskeeper who developed non-hodgkin lymphoma after using Round-up in his job. The jury awarded $39.2M in damages and $250M because Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, acted with “malice, oppression, or fraud.” Monsanto claimed there was no evidence, but many of the confidential documents that were unsealed in the court case showed otherwise and revealed the dirty tactics Monsanto undertook, such as having company employees ghostwrite scientific articles and paying scientists to publish articles favorable to Monsanto.

But somewhat getting back to the topic of this thread, it was Dr Steven Gundry that opened my eyes to the health concerns associated with glyphosate in his book Plant Paradox.