Hello

[genec]

I was asked to introduce myself, so here goes:

I am heterozygous for E4. My mom, who doesn't want to know her results, is E4/E4. My dad died two years ago from Alzheimers after a fairly rapid decline. He pretty much did everything wrong, he smoked for most of his life, no exercise, *terrible* diet.

I, on the other hand, figured out that I am moderately insulin insensitive and have been on a low carb, mostly vegetarian diet for quite a while now. It made a big improvement on my lipid profile, though my moderately-high LDL levels are intractable and have never responded to anything but statins.

Of potential interest to some, I am a genomics scientist and have been working in biotech/pharma for some 20 years, mostly in the areas of metabolic disease, oncology, and immunology. If you have any questions interpreting a scientific paper, shoot me a copy...

--genec

[JML]

So nice to know more about you. I'm sorry to hear about your dad, but it sounds like you are trying to make better lifestyle choices for yourself. Your background as a genomics scientist will likely be an asset to this forum!

[SusanJ]

Welcome genec and thank you for your generous off to interpret papers!

So sorry you have had to witness the decline of your dad - my father followed a similar path to dementia so I can both empathize and understand the motivation it provides to not follow his mistakes.

I, on the other hand, figured out that I am moderately insulin insensitive and have been on a low carb, mostly vegetarian diet for quite a while now.

I'd love to hear more about your diet. I used to be pretty much a vegan, but my health suffered, so I'm always interested in how people do a mostly vegetarian diet.

[genec]

I'd love to hear more about your diet. I used to be pretty much a vegan, but my health suffered, so I'm always interested in how people do a mostly vegetarian diet.

My wife is vegetarian, and I was never much of a meat eater myself, so it was easy to go most of the way there. No meat in the house, a modest amount of chicken, mostly, when we eat out. I'm happy to go into more dietary detail if requested. If your health is suffering on a vegetarian or even a vegan diet, then you're probably doing it wrong. It just takes time to figure out what works for your body.

I first used Tim Ferriss' "The 4-Hour Body" as a guide to going low carb, using eggs, fake meat, and protein powder (mostly pea and other veggie protein) to replace carbs with protein, getting down to around 50 to 70 grams carbs per day. I think some of Ferriss' approach has not really held up to what I see in the literature, so over the years I got away somewhat from his program, bringing back some more carbs into my diet as veggies and especially more legumes and lentils. I think fiber is very important.

I really like the stuff from Dr. Michael Greger and his nutritionfacts.org website and youtube videos, and more recently his How Not To Die book. He's not perfect either. I really appreciate that most of his reports are centered around published research, and he will point out examples of bad research (missing control groups, lack of blinding, very small studies), but he will still use what I think are weaker research reports if they support his position. Granted, I think his position is generally the right one, but occasionally I will wince a little when he makes some conclusion that is a bit on the weak side.

[SusanJ]

Thanks for sharing. I think most everyone here is big on fiber. Important stuff.

Vegan was wrong for me, for sure, and I will say relying on gluten, soy and other legumes for protein (along with copious amounts of veggies and some fruit - a constant in my diet since childhood) in my late 40s and early 50s brought me joint pain and gut problems. A doctor put me on an elimination diet to sort it out.

Even after much healing work, I still can't eat any of those foods without having problems (except for a modest amount of rice). Guessing some of us are just more sensitive to eating too much of any of those foods, given our genetics. I do carry several inflammatory variants (Il6, TNF-alpha and others implicated in autoimmune disease, common in my family) along with some celiac related genes, and I am allergic to dairy (some research suggests dairy and gluten intolerances are often linked) so maybe relying on larger amounts of grains and legumes to fill in my protein was a tipping point for me.

We had a brief go at genes and diet here: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2124&hilit=diet+genes

Glad to hear it works for you! That's the most important thing.

[KatieS]

Genec, do you agree with Greger about eggs?