I don't know if this is relevant, but I've been thinking for a long time that one of the undesirable effects of linoleic acid it that it blocks glycolysis. Which seems to be uncontroversial in the cancer literature.
And if you can't do glycolysis properly, the excess glucose gets shunted down the polyol pathway.
I'm going to have to go back to my biochemistry books and think about all this, but just off the top of my head when diabetics have excessive blood glucose then the glucose can get diverted down the polyol pathway, which turns it into sorbitol.
It doesn't look like it's for anything, but it's evolutionarily conserved so it must be useful in normal metabolism for some reason. I remember thinking it looks like it's an overflow mechanism in case of temporary high glucose levels.
The sorbitol then usually gets converted back to fructose and put back into glycolysis, at the cost of some trading between NADH and NADPH, but if there's always excessive glucose then the sorbitol can build up and that is thought to cause some of the bad effects of diabetes.
Nice post. The comments on Stefansson and his thick blood confused me because I read Omega Balance and I remember discussion on how the Greenland Inuit had very *thin* blood -- supposedly due to their high Omega 3 diet. And I thought Stefansson studiend Greenland, but I was not remembering my names and Stefansson was an earlier ethnographer for a different population of indigenous people.
One fun note on Omega-3 perhaps thinning blood. Flaxseed oil is high in Omega-3s and is also called linseed oil which is used by oil painters to thin their paints. So flaxseed oil has an actual thinning ability and possibly a blood thinning ability.
I asked Grok the question about Stefansson and any reports about "milky" blood. Here's the answer it gave which indicates this was reported by *other researchers* involved but not by Stefansson himself.
----
No, Vilhjalmur Stefansson did not report in his writings or accounts that his blood became thick and milky while following the Inuit (Eskimo) diet.
While living with the Inuit and during his 1928-1929 Bellevue Hospital experiment (where he and Karsten Anderson ate only meat for a year), medical observations by supervising physicians noted "visible lipemia" (a cloudy or milky appearance in blood plasma due to high fat content) when fat intake was high, along with cholesterol levels ranging from 200 to 800 mg per 100 cc of blood (higher during lipemia periods). However, these details appear in scientific papers by the doctors involved (e.g., McClellan and Du Bois in the 1930 Journal of Biological Chemistry, and related studies by Tolstoi), not in Stefansson's own books like "The Fat of the Land" (1956) or articles like "Adventures in Diet" (1935), where he discusses the diet's health benefits but omits any mention of blood appearance or elevated cholesterol.
A recent claim in Richard Johnson's book "Nature Wants Us to Be Fat" (2022) alleges Stefansson's blood was "thick, white, milky" with 800 mg/dL cholesterol, but this appears to draw from the medical reports rather than Stefansson's reports, and reviewers familiar with Stefansson's work have noted no such description in his accounts.
Interesting. If it's in those medical accounts, that would probably be where Johnson picked it up. Curious that you can apparently have thick, milky white blood and still be healthy?
Interesting but I really have trouble buying in on the polyols hypothesis there are too many lean counter examples. Things like MSG also support liver function and gut repair. And right now as you know, a bunch of crazy types are loading up on sugar to try and exploit that FGF21 thing and getting very lean in the process (though it seems to me that's asking for trouble later, but whatever). Conspicuously, I don't see anyone going adlib-eat'em-all, on vegetable oil, or if they are they haven't really reported back yet (I don't know how to get a skull emoji in here). Are you familiar with Kyle McDonald? He trained bodybuilders who're often trying to get to sub single digit bodyfat. For some reason it's desirable for them to look like skeletons wrapped in masses of bungy chord while feeling like castrates, but he says some interesting things. Worth a look probably.
I would argue that the sugar thing actually DOES NOT work for most people. That's the impression I get from those I know that have tried it. It's by far the quickest failing diet fad I have ever seen.
I am familiar with Lyle MacDonald, yea. I think none of his stuff is applicable. In a recent interview, he said that "Oh yea and obviously they all were on TRT and growth hormone and.." all that bodybuilder stuff doesn't work for regular people is my experience.
Well, I have a sweet tooth and I have no problem with sugar generally, but it sounds horrible so I wouldn't even.
I think you just got unlucky with your sample of Lyle. He mostly deals with natural lifters, while he does mention those who're on the juice occasionally, that certainly isn't his focus.
I gave myself gout when I was on a high protein diet and eating beef heart a few days a week because it's cheap protein. Now I have to be careful eating 4 oz of liver once a month. Alcohol can also cause a flare.
Well, we know that cirrhosis of the liver requires both omega-6 oils and fructose (or alcohol) in quantity. So maybe the survival/torpor switch does too?
It does seem like some of these ideas can be combined with keto/carnivore to be helpful. As a long-time keto dieter, its very interesting to hear someone talk about lactose as good, and umani as something to avoid. I have recently found lactose as a carb really helpful. Two weird weight gain culprits I was already aware of are parmesan cheese and salsa. Which also fits what he says!
I don't know if this is relevant, but I've been thinking for a long time that one of the undesirable effects of linoleic acid it that it blocks glycolysis. Which seems to be uncontroversial in the cancer literature.
And if you can't do glycolysis properly, the excess glucose gets shunted down the polyol pathway.
So that might connect these two ideas somehow?
Interesting, so it's more of an overflow/pop off valve thing?
I'm going to have to go back to my biochemistry books and think about all this, but just off the top of my head when diabetics have excessive blood glucose then the glucose can get diverted down the polyol pathway, which turns it into sorbitol.
It doesn't look like it's for anything, but it's evolutionarily conserved so it must be useful in normal metabolism for some reason. I remember thinking it looks like it's an overflow mechanism in case of temporary high glucose levels.
The sorbitol then usually gets converted back to fructose and put back into glycolysis, at the cost of some trading between NADH and NADPH, but if there's always excessive glucose then the sorbitol can build up and that is thought to cause some of the bad effects of diabetes.
Nice post. The comments on Stefansson and his thick blood confused me because I read Omega Balance and I remember discussion on how the Greenland Inuit had very *thin* blood -- supposedly due to their high Omega 3 diet. And I thought Stefansson studiend Greenland, but I was not remembering my names and Stefansson was an earlier ethnographer for a different population of indigenous people.
One fun note on Omega-3 perhaps thinning blood. Flaxseed oil is high in Omega-3s and is also called linseed oil which is used by oil painters to thin their paints. So flaxseed oil has an actual thinning ability and possibly a blood thinning ability.
I asked Grok the question about Stefansson and any reports about "milky" blood. Here's the answer it gave which indicates this was reported by *other researchers* involved but not by Stefansson himself.
----
No, Vilhjalmur Stefansson did not report in his writings or accounts that his blood became thick and milky while following the Inuit (Eskimo) diet.
While living with the Inuit and during his 1928-1929 Bellevue Hospital experiment (where he and Karsten Anderson ate only meat for a year), medical observations by supervising physicians noted "visible lipemia" (a cloudy or milky appearance in blood plasma due to high fat content) when fat intake was high, along with cholesterol levels ranging from 200 to 800 mg per 100 cc of blood (higher during lipemia periods). However, these details appear in scientific papers by the doctors involved (e.g., McClellan and Du Bois in the 1930 Journal of Biological Chemistry, and related studies by Tolstoi), not in Stefansson's own books like "The Fat of the Land" (1956) or articles like "Adventures in Diet" (1935), where he discusses the diet's health benefits but omits any mention of blood appearance or elevated cholesterol.
A recent claim in Richard Johnson's book "Nature Wants Us to Be Fat" (2022) alleges Stefansson's blood was "thick, white, milky" with 800 mg/dL cholesterol, but this appears to draw from the medical reports rather than Stefansson's reports, and reviewers familiar with Stefansson's work have noted no such description in his accounts.
Interesting. If it's in those medical accounts, that would probably be where Johnson picked it up. Curious that you can apparently have thick, milky white blood and still be healthy?
Interesting but I really have trouble buying in on the polyols hypothesis there are too many lean counter examples. Things like MSG also support liver function and gut repair. And right now as you know, a bunch of crazy types are loading up on sugar to try and exploit that FGF21 thing and getting very lean in the process (though it seems to me that's asking for trouble later, but whatever). Conspicuously, I don't see anyone going adlib-eat'em-all, on vegetable oil, or if they are they haven't really reported back yet (I don't know how to get a skull emoji in here). Are you familiar with Kyle McDonald? He trained bodybuilders who're often trying to get to sub single digit bodyfat. For some reason it's desirable for them to look like skeletons wrapped in masses of bungy chord while feeling like castrates, but he says some interesting things. Worth a look probably.
I would argue that the sugar thing actually DOES NOT work for most people. That's the impression I get from those I know that have tried it. It's by far the quickest failing diet fad I have ever seen.
I am familiar with Lyle MacDonald, yea. I think none of his stuff is applicable. In a recent interview, he said that "Oh yea and obviously they all were on TRT and growth hormone and.." all that bodybuilder stuff doesn't work for regular people is my experience.
Well, I have a sweet tooth and I have no problem with sugar generally, but it sounds horrible so I wouldn't even.
I think you just got unlucky with your sample of Lyle. He mostly deals with natural lifters, while he does mention those who're on the juice occasionally, that certainly isn't his focus.
*Lyle McDonald even.
I gave myself gout when I was on a high protein diet and eating beef heart a few days a week because it's cheap protein. Now I have to be careful eating 4 oz of liver once a month. Alcohol can also cause a flare.
Well, we know that cirrhosis of the liver requires both omega-6 oils and fructose (or alcohol) in quantity. So maybe the survival/torpor switch does too?
Of course Johnson thinks it's just fructose. But he has never met a person who wasn't high in o6, since we all are.
I sort of suspect that PUFA is setting you up for problems, and then various things can "ignite" the powder keg, including fructose.
Great post… is there a ‘Bob’ T-shirt available
Haha no, but I do love the MS Paint art. Maybe I should do it more again.
It does seem like some of these ideas can be combined with keto/carnivore to be helpful. As a long-time keto dieter, its very interesting to hear someone talk about lactose as good, and umani as something to avoid. I have recently found lactose as a carb really helpful. Two weird weight gain culprits I was already aware of are parmesan cheese and salsa. Which also fits what he says!
Dude, both hard cheeses & salsa induce insane hyperphagia in me. I wrote about an insane episode of salsa-induced hyperphagia a while ago: https://www.exfatloss.com/p/hedonic-hyperphagia-salsa-salad-chilies