Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

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BTL-34
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Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

Post by BTL-34 »

45 year old Male. APOE 3/4 and some form of hypercholesterolemia - at age 30 I developed a Xanthelasma palpebrarum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercholesterolemia ). My dad had multiples of those on his eyelid but not until his early 60's. He passed away after a second heart attack from uncontrolled T2 diabetes at 68. Grandpa lost his foot to diabetes, etc...

After 16 months carnivore (probably upwards of 100g saturated fat a day) in order of good to bad -

Best shape of my adult life
Down 55 lbs (245->190). 20 to go
A1C - 4.7
Fasting Insulin - 5.0
Fasting Glucose - 74
CRP Cardiac -.3
hsCRP - 1.0
Lp(a) - 29.4

Triglycerides - 132
HDL - 30
TC - 395
LDL-C 339
LDL-P > 3500
Small LDL-P > 2300
ApoB - 235
ApoA1 - 95
Ratio - 2.47
CAC - 71 -> 100 (40% progression)

Good on the outside. Not so bad on some of the higher level measures like HOMA-IR, A1C but when you don't eat carbs or glucose that's to be expected. But absolutely terrible on the inside.

Giving mono based keto (olive oil, avocado, macadamia nuts, seafood) a try and have given up dairy and red meat. Have added D3, magnesium, K2, resveratrol to the mix.

Hoping that it's a saturated fat issue and not a total fat intake issue. Haven't really found much out there on Hypercholesterolemia though besides the "high level literature".
circular
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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

Post by circular »

Thank you for sharing this. I hope more following this diet will do so. You're yet another good example of trying something and then testing to see what's happening, getting to know your body. I like your plan for what's next too :)
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

Post by TheresaB »

BTL-34,

Thank you for sharing.

I have to admit a 40% progression in your CAC scan is very concerning.

While I know many folks both who cite praises of a carnivore diet, one of the things that concerns me, and I don't think there’s enough evidence yet to pass full judgement on this, is the effect on the gut biome. Gut bugs are not static, they thrive or diminish in response to what they are fed. While a carnivore diet seems to get rid of bad gut bugs, what is it doing to enhance certain good gut bugs? I’ve read from multiple sources that for maximum gut bug diversity and abundance, intake of a variety of foods, especially plant foods, is essential and great diversity and abundance is vital for cognitive health.

We are learning more and more that there is a powerful link between our gut bacteria and our brains. The research from this paper
APOE genotype influences the gut microbiome structure and function in humans and mice: relevance for Alzheimer’s disease pathophysiology suggests that there is a difference in gut bug diversity and abundance between the different ApoE ε alleles and that ApoEε4s tend to be deficient in comparison to 2s and 3s.

I know my husband was a vegetarian for many, many years, (before we married) but he started developing insulin resistance so he switched to a meat and cheese heavy paleo diet. He didn’t stay on that diet long (maybe a year or so ish?). The cheese aggravated his afib significantly. He also had a CAC scan reflecting calcification (between 25th and 50th percentile), of course it is hard to say if the calcification developed during his paleo days.

Upon learning his ApoE ε4 status, he switched his diet to more plant based, but he has had digestive issues he never had as a vegetarian. Fiber actually seems to have the exact opposite effect it's supposed to have. We’ve both been working pretty aggressively on our gut biome, but my husband is having a devil of a time getting back to the digestive comfort level he had as a vegetarian. I can’t help but suspect his gut microbiome was changed during his paleo days diminishing (but hopefully not completely eliminating) certain good gut bugs. Can’t say for sure, just my personal suspicion.
-Theresa
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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

Post by NF52 »

BTL-34 wrote:45 year old Male. APOE 3/4 and some form of hypercholesterolemia - at age 30 I developed a Xanthelasma palpebrarum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercholesterolemia ). My dad had multiples of those on his eyelid but not until his early 60's. He passed away after a second heart attack from uncontrolled T2 diabetes at 68. Grandpa lost his foot to diabetes, etc...

Triglycerides - 132
HDL - 30
TC - 395
LDL-C 339
LDL-P > 3500
Small LDL-P > 2300

Good on the outside. Not so bad on some of the higher level measures like HOMA-IR, A1C but when you don't eat carbs or glucose that's to be expected. But absolutely terrible on the inside.

Hoping that it's a saturated fat issue and not a total fat intake issue. Haven't really found much out there on Hypercholesterolemia though besides the "high level literature".
Hi BTL-34!

As someone who also had a dad with uncontrolled T2 diabetes who died from cardiac arrest at age 67 with severely occluded arteries 8 months after quadruple bypass surgery, I think you're wise to be wondering about the significance of that CAC progression, and wonder myself if what you have is familial hypercholesterolemia, which is a different genetic animal than simply high cholesterol. If you check out the caption on the wikipedia page you shared it has a link for the familial type, and that has a chart with common factors seen by age, including TC > 360 in the general population over age 40, and TC> 290 if you have a first degree relative with familial hypercholesterolemia. It also uses LDL-C > 205 (1st degree relative) or 260 (general population). Given the risk of cardiac complications, my understanding is that people suspected of this diagnosis should be seen for a definitive diagnosis, and then options considered for monitoring and possible lipid lowering. Lipid scores may not be an issue for most people with ApoE 4, but that's like saying that traffic isn't an issue for most people in rural Montana--great as long as you live in rural Montana, not so great if you commute to work in Washington, D.C.
So from someone who had an LDL particle number in the 2200 range, and has an Lp(a) number far higher than yours, and is old enough to be your mom, allow me to gently suggest you meet with a good cardiologist or endocrinologist and get their take on this. (And then share what you found--I guarantee we'll be interested!)
4/4 and still an optimist!
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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

Post by BTL-34 »

As far as gut diversity goes, there's this plus a few others I've seen privately in chat groups. So that's not a concern really.

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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

Post by circular »

BTL-34 wrote:As far as gut diversity goes, there's this plus a few others I've seen privately in chat groups. So that's not a concern really.

Thanks for posting a link to that. I’ve been wondering lately about the thinking that the biome must be diverse and large to be healthy. A commenter at your link suggests the notion is only based on the Hadza research (?). In this thread I posted a podcast where research into multiple hunter gatherer diets is reviewed which states:

1) They tend to eat the same things all the time except for seasonal changes, which would suggest lower biome size and diversity (unless they just mean by macronutrient), and

2) Their diets vary greatly between groups, which would suggest their biome size and diversity would as well.

I think ancestrally much of our biome would have come from being covered with soil microbes and drinking water from streams, lakes and the like.
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

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BTL-34 wrote:As far as gut diversity goes, there's this plus a few others I've seen privately in chat groups. So that's not a concern really.

... 92352?s=19
Hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but a couple years ago after getting our microbiomes analyzed with an at home test kit, our functional medicine doctor basically told us that he’s been telling folks not to waste their money. He’s not a casual observer of such things, annually he attends a microbiome meeting in Paris and he told us about a presentation on how core samples have no relationship to the outside of the stool from which most home tests are taken from.

Basically, these tests are too immature to provide anything of value. Don’t believe my doctor? How about:

Getting Your Microbiome Analyzed Probably Won’t Do Anything for Your Health 2017,
“the field is still in its infancy, said Dr. Rashmi Sinha, a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. “It’s not ready for prime time,” she said.”
Should you test your microbiome? 2018
Rob Knight, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and cofounder of the American Gut project, put it this way: “The enthusiasm of the manufacturers simply goes well beyond where the science is right now,” he told MIT Technology Review last March.
Getting Your Microbiome Analyzed Probably Won’t Do Anything for Your Health 2018
So, while at-home microbiome tests can be helpful in flagging an abnormal microbiome, it’s difficult to draw any definitive conclusions from this information.
-Theresa
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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

Post by circular »

I read an article by someone about a year ago who sent the “same sample” to two biome companies and got different results, no surprise.
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

Post by circular »

Apparently changes are afoot as UBiome files for chap 11 and seeks a buyer while continuing with day to day business as before:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 11717.html
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: Results after 16 Months Carnivore - Good, Bad, Ugly

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circular wrote:I read an article by someone about a year ago who sent the “same sample” to two biome companies and got different results, no surprise.
Several years ago, Gundry told us:

"Dr G: ..., well I tell you. We’ve been analyzing a lot of the Ubiome stuff and the problem as I see it and several other researchers is how this is sampled and it varies so much from day to day that I’ve basically told people not to waste their money.

Okay
19:25
Dr G: Basically what you’re sampling is the outside of the stool. And there was an interesting paper last year out of San Francisco that was at the microbiome meeting in Paris that I lecture at every year that did core samples of the stool and they found that the cores bore no relationship to the outside of the stool and all of us who were listening said, oh crap!

(laughter)

20:03
Dr G: So I think the science of this is really lagging. And one of my very good friends decided to become a scientific advisor to Ubiome and he’s kind of wishing he hadn’t now. So don’t panic on your Ubiome, how’s that?
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