The Digest - June 14

• Most ObGyn doctors don’t even know this and it’s scary.
• Insulin resistance proves to be a better long-term predictor of disease than anything else.
• The glycemic index of your breakfast DOES NOT MATTER much.
• Statins deplete Vitamin K2, increase risk of atherosclerosis. Go figure…
• Statins vindicated in relation to memory loss? Not so fast!
• Collagen: the most important nutrient for healthy skin.

• There are 2 types of doctors: A few months ago, I was having a conversation with a gynecologist: she was telling a woman that she should take folic acid to protect the neural tube during pregnancy. It’s a common recommendation made by doctors to women seeking to be pregnant, since deficiency in folate significantly increases risk of birth defects. HOWEVER, the key word here is “folate”, which is very different from folic acid, the supplement recommended by doctors. The problem is that folic acid is synthetic (doesn’t exist in nature), and your body requires a 5-step process to convert folic acid to folate (the useful form). The problem is that up to 70% of women don’t have the enzyme to transform folic acid into folate (due to a genetic phenotype), and so folic acid doesn’t really protect their embryo from birth defects. There are folate supplements out there, but they’re less common and more expensive, but certainly worth it. You can do a simple genetic test to find out whether you have this phenotype which stops you from converting folic acid to folate. The doctor I was speaking to wasn’t aware of that, and when I showed her the research (such as this one from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition), she was intrigued and started digging further. I like this type of doctors (willing to look at research), as opposed to other doctors who dismiss your comments offhand without even verifying.

• While the rest of the medical community is still stuck in the 1970s and 80s dogma of “fat is the source of all disease”, most of the research since the turn of the new millennium has revealed that the blame doesn’t lie with fat and cholesterol, but rather with sugar and insulin. One recent example of such study is discussed in this article: in this study, scientists measured the insulin sensitivity of people and watched them over a 6-year period to determine whether insulin resistance is a better predictor of disease vs. other biomarkers. The results support what most of the new science has been saying for years: “none of the people in the least insulin-resistant group developed disease or died”, “36 percent of the people in the most insulin-resistant group developed disease and/or died, from a variety of causes including hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and cancer”.

• These are the kinds of studies which drive people to eat oatmeal and high fiber “healthy” cereal for breakfast, unknowingly stopping them from being able to lose fat and achieve their body composition goals. In this recent study, scientists showed that eating a “low glycemic” breakfast will cause a lower insulin spike and lower levels of blood glucose after eating when compared with a “high glycemic” breakfast (sugary breakfast). This is expected and normal. But what the study also showed is what I keep repeating all the time: regardless of the glycemic index of the breakfast, the level of glucose in the blood 90min after breakfast was the SAME. You see the difference between a low and high glycemic carbohydrate is how fast it gets into your bloodstream, but after 90min, they all end up in your bloodstream anyway! This is important because unless you are “using” that glucose around that 90min mark, then most of that glucose will end up being converted to fat! And since it’s breakfast you’re talking about: unless you’re eating right after a hard workout which “emptied” your glycogen stores (which store excess glucose up to a point), then all of that glucose is going to get removed from your blood and stored as fat, low glycemic or not…

• Strong evidence has surfaced over the past 10 years demonstrating that statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs) actually increase risk of atherosclerosis (hardening of arteries) and thereby increase risk of cardiovascular disease. Most of the evidence which surfaced in recent years concentrated on how statins deplete heart muscle cells from co-enzyme Q10. Think of CoQ10 as the batteries that allow your heart muscle to contract, and they exist in every heart muscle cell. Statins, while lowering cholesterol, actually “weaken” the heart muscle itself by depleting it of CoQ10. Some additional evidence is now surfacing, showing that statins also inhibit the production of Vitamin K2. Those who’ve been reading my articles over the past couple of years will have known that a VitK2 deficiency significantly increases the risk of calcification of arteries (plaque formation). The reason is that while Vitamin D helps your body absorb Calcium from food into your bloodstream, you need K2 to drive that calcium into your bones. Otherwise it just hangs around in your blood stream causing calcification and plaque formation. Go statins!

• In the same vein, a new study sought to vindicate statins when it comes to causing a decline in cognitive (brain) function. Common and well-documented side-effects of statins include memory loss and a general decline in mental function. This is not surprising since statins cause a drop in cholesterol, while your brain (and your entire nervous system) depends on cholesterol to function properly (one of the reasons why ketogenic high fat diets are used to treat neurological disorders). What I find hilarious in this study is the conclusion: memory loss from statin drugs not worse than other cholesterol medication! Of course, they omitted to mention that the same study demonstrated that both kinds of cholesterol-lowering drugs caused memory loss compared to people who didn’t take any such meds…

• When my wife took a spill a few weeks ago and needed several stiches to her chin, I went to the healthfood store to pick up a few supplements to help her skin heal faster and better. One of the key supplements I picked up was hydrolyzed collagen (alongside Vitamins E, A, D, K2, and C). Collagen in supplement form and from organic bonebroth from grass-fed beef is critical for healthy skin. This is not just important for healing from skin damage and wounds, but also to develop a healthier-looking and functioning skin in general. Of course, you don’t have to take supplemental collagen if you get enough from food. Here is a list of foods that are either rich in collagen or help create it.