Michael Eades

Feb 1, 2015

Michael R. Eades blog

What, who?

I recently (2015) discovered Dr. Eades blog. (I had not heard of his books.) His blog contains a wealth of medical science explained in layman’s terms. The first few articles I read convinced me to start at the beginning of his “blog archive” and try to read HIS ENTIRE BLOG. I quickly learned: He has a lot of personal and current events posts which I’m not interested in, and there’s way way too much get through in short order.

I’m doing three things:

I’m making my own posts about a small number of his spectacularly useful blog posts.
I’m starting this list of EVERY blog post I found to be great medical science reading.
Posts which are really good science articles (biochemistry and how things work) are in bolded-caps.

I hope someone else finds this useful, because I hope no one else ever wastes this much time sifting through a blog. :^)

So, here’s how to read his blog, in chronological order:

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Feb 3, 2015

Carbohydrates are way more important

It’s much more important for your long term health to work on keeping your blood sugar down than it is to work to keep your cholesterol down. It’s especially important when you realize that most people try to keep their cholesterol levels at bay be consuming a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, which is a diet containing, in many cases, a cup and a half to two cups of sugar equivalents per day.
~ Micheal Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/diabetes/the-sugar-hypothesis/»

Feb 8, 2015

Dietary guidelines

I believe a big part of the problem can be laid at the doorstep of the US Government, specifically the USDA and their Dietary Guidelines for Americans (Dietary Guidelines).
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/girth-of-a-nation/»

Feb 15, 2015

They gavage with grain

They don’t gavage the ducks with steak, eggs, and ham – they gavage them with GRAIN, that wholesome stuff that most of the brain-dead nutritional advisers recommend you eat a half dozen times a day (the ducks only get it three times per day, and look at their livers).
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/saturated-fat/foie-gras-cest-moi/»

Feb 21, 2015

Magnesium and inflammation

The lipid hypothesis of heart disease is rapidly being supplanted by the inflammatory hypothesis, which, for my money, is much more on the mark. The researchers who have spent their careers doing cholesterol research are not going down without a fight, however.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/magnesium-and-inflammation/»

Feb 27, 2015

Carbohydrates and gallstones

A persuasive article in the June issue of Gut, a British gastroenterology journal, presenting data on the relation of excess carbohydrate intake in men to the development of gall stone disease.
Before we get to the article, let me give a brief review of gall stone disease…
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/carbohydrates-and-gallstones/»

Mar 5, 2015

How does life fat thee?

A group of scientists from multiple institutions looked at a number of other reasons that we could be in the midst of an obesity epidemic that have nothing to do with diet and exercise, or as they call them, the Big Two. They make the case in an paper published online in advance of print in the International Journal of Obesity that so many have so fully accepted the Big Two that pretty much no one has bothered to look for any other causes.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/how-does-life-fat-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/»

Mar 11, 2015

Fast way to better health

When researchers restrict the caloric intake of a group of lab animals to about 30 to 40 percent of that of their ad libitum (all they want to eat) fed counterparts, they find that the calorically restricted animals live 30 percent or so longer, don’t develop cancers, diabetes, heart disease, or obesity. These calorically restricted (CR) animals have low blood sugar levels, low insulin levels, good insulin sensitivity, low blood pressure and are, in general, much healthier than the ad lib fed animals.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/intermittent-fasting/fast-way-to-better-health/»

Mar 17, 2015

What is the glycemic index?

Scientists have known for years that normal blood sugars follow this kind of rapid increase, slow return to normal curve. At some point someone asked the question: do different foods cause a different curve? In other words, if someone eats a piece of cake does that make a different blood sugar curve than if that person eats a bowl of ice cream?
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/metabolism/what-is-the-glycemic-index/»

Mar 23, 2015

Eat grass-fed beef

Feedlot operators basically pack cattle together in close quarters in which they stand or lie in manure all day, feed them an unnatural diet that changes the environment within their digestive systems, make them sick, treat them with antibiotics to fight the infections such conditions cause, add growth hormones to increase weight gain a little more, and ultimately slaughter them. Most of the beef you buy has suffered this fate. Even the beef that ends up labeled ‘Organic’ pretty much goes through the same process except it gets fed ‘organic’ grain and doesn’t get the antibiotics or the hormones, which is an improvement for you but not much of one for the cow. The meat from these cattle can still be contaminated since the majority of the E. coli arises as a function of grain feeding.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/good-eating/another-reason-to-eat-grass-fed-beef/»

Mar 29, 2015

Metabolic advantage

Instead of looking at the equation as one that can be driven only from the right side, let’s look at it from the position that it may be driven from the left. What if the change in weight drove the amount of calories eaten and the amount of caloric energy dissipated? I can think of one situation where the equation makes perfect sense looked at that way.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/karl-popper-metabolic-advantage-and-the-c57bl6-mouse/»

Apr 4, 2015

Inflammation and intermittent fasting

These posts, particularly the one on inflammation, inspired a host of questions on whether intermittent fasting decreases inflammation. Based on my knowledge of the medical literature on inflammation and intermittent fasting I’m pretty sure that it does. A recent paper presents data indicating that it indeed does.
The April 2007 issue of Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism includes an article on the positive changes in inflammatory markers brought about by the intermittent fasting Muslims undergo during Ramadan.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/intermittent-fasting/inflammation-and-intermittent-fasting/»

Apr 10, 2015

Metabolism and ketosis

If you read any medical school biochemistry textbook, you’ll find a section devoted to what happens metabolically during starvation. If you read these sections with a knowing eye, you’ll realize that everything discussed as happening during starvation happens during carbohydrate restriction as well. There have been a few papers published recently showing the same thing: the metabolism of carb restriction = the metabolism of starvation. I would maintain, however, based on my study of the Paleolithic diet, that starvation and carb restriction are simply the polar ends of a continuum, and that carb restriction was the norm for most of our existence as upright walking beings on this planet, making the metabolism of what biochemistry textbook authors call starvation the ‘normal’ metabolism.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/metabolism-and-ketosis/»

Apr 16, 2015

Copper and low carb diets

Zinc and copper are absorbed through the same ionic channel, and when there is an overabundance of zinc it gets absorbed instead of the copper. […] Certain elements in their ionic form get absorbed through the same channel. As long as these elements present to the channel in a specific ratio, they get through in that same ratio. If, however, there is an overabundance of one, it occupies the channel, preventing the other from getting through and can create an deficiency of the other despite an adequate intake.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/low-carb-diets-and-copper/»

Apr 22, 2015

Low-carb adaptation

There is an adaptation period that takes place when starting a low-carb diet. Someone who has been on a high-carb diet–the standard American diet, for example–has to metabolize a lot of sugar. All metabolic processes require enzymes to carry them out. Our DNA codes for these enzymes, but we don’t make them unless we need them. And when we do need them it takes a while for them to get brought up to the necessary levels. So, when we’re on a high-carb diet, we’ve got a lot of sugar-metabolizing enzymes kicking around, ready to metabolize sugar. All the sugar-metabolizing pathways are working efficiently.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/lt-frederick-schwatka-and-low-carb-adaptation/»

Apr 28, 2015

Longevity and membrane saturation

The cell membranes of both young and old honey bee queens are highly monounsaturated with very low content of polyunsaturates. Newly emerged workers have a similar membrane fatty acid composition to queens but within the first week of hive life, they increase the polyunsaturate content and decrease the monounsaturate content of their membranes, probably as a result of pollen consumption. This means their membranes likely become more susceptible to lipid peroxidation in this first week of hive life. The results support the suggestion that membrane composition might be an important factor in the determination of maximum life span.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/longevity-and-membrane-saturation/»

May 4, 2015

Persistent organic pollutants

Organochlorine pesticides (DDT, lindane, etc), organochlorine and organobromine industrial pollutants, solvents, placticizers, and a host of other such substances are in the stored fat of all of us. Their use over the previous decades has so filled our environment with these chemicals that we can’t escape them. The are in the air, they fall in the rain, they are in the groundwater. Consequently, they are in our food. Whenever we eat, we get a load of these persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that make their way into our fat cells and cells in other tissues. And they build up because we can’t get rid of them.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/a-legitimate-use-for-orlistat/»

May 10, 2015

Carbohydrates are addictive

You think carbohydrates aren’t addictive? You think it’s easy to give them up? You don’t think it possible that people might prefer carbs to life?
Think again.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/carbohydrates-are-addictive/»

May 16, 2015

Dietary protein increases lean mass

I know that many female readers will not want to gain extra muscle. They shouldn’t worry, however, because in the absence of exogenous anabolic steroids women won’t become ‘muscle bound’ or non-feminine appearing. What generally happens is that the muscle replaces fat within the muscle. We’ve all seen marbling in beef, which is fat within the muscle tissue. With the extra protein, new muscle replaces this fat, and the muscle may even become a little smaller in females while at the same time becoming more dense and stronger.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/dietary-protein-increases-lean-mass/»

May 22, 2015

Agriculturalists and hunter-gathers

The anthropological record of early man clearly shows health took a nosedive when populations made the switch from hunting and gathering to agriculture. It takes a physical anthropologist about two seconds to look at a skeleton unearthed from an archeological site to tell if the owner of that skeleton was a hunter-gatherer or an agriculturist.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/nutrition-and-health-in-agriculturalists-and-hunter-gatherers/»

May 28, 2015

Eating meat made us human

Meat eating made us human. The anthropological evidence strongly supports the idea that the addition of increasingly larger amounts of meat in the diet of our predecessors was essential in the evolution of the large human brain. Our large brains came at the metabolic expense of our guts, which shrank as our brains grew.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-library/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-ii/»

Jun 3, 2015

Hyperinsulinemia (too much insulin)

Then I asked myself the big question: If I have too much insulin (and I was guessing I did – it wasn’t something you measured in those days unless you were in a scientific lab), how do I get it down? There were only two conclusions. Don’t eat. Or don’t eat carbohydrates. The latter seemed to make a lot more sense over the long run.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cardiovascular-disease/four-patients-who-changed-my-life/»

Jun 9, 2015

Sunshine is good

Most of the US and Europe are too far north to get enough sun exposure to generate the production of adequate vitamin D during a large part of the year. And, second, most parents are so fearful of sunburn that they slather their kids with sunscreen if and when they let these children play outside during the part of the year they can make adequate vitamin D. Since a sunscreen with an SPF of only 8 reduces the synthesis of vitamin D by 95 percent, think of how little vitamin D children with sunscreens of SPF 30 or 45 are making. Zero.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/supplements/sunshine-superman/»

Elsewhere, this is 4upodi1. — slipbox

Jun 15, 2015

Can your food make you fit?

During the course of our conversation, I told these researchers about my practice and about the success I was having with patients on low-carb diets. I explained how my patients lost weight fairly easily and experienced significant and rapid changes in blood pressure, lipids, fasting insulin and blood sugar levels. They became intrigued since these changes pretty much mirrored those seen over time in caloric-restriction studies on lab animals. It set them to wondering whether humans following low-carb diets would manifest the same enzymatic changes as calorically-restricted animals. They proposed an experiment.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/inflammation/can-your-food-make-you-fit/»

Jun 21, 2015

How to get rid of gallstones without surgery

He replied that although the drug did dissolve gallstones, it didn’t treat whatever the underlying problem was causing the gallstones in the first place. Patients who took the drug, got rid of their stones, but as soon as they went off the drug, the stones redeveloped. He said the only effective permanent treatment of gallstones was to remove the gallbladder.
Over the next few years of my medical education, I learned this was the common wisdom on dissolving gallstones. It can be done, but what’s the point? The stones will simply come back.
Turns out, however, that there may well be a way to avoid surgery, get rid of gallstones and, most importantly, keep them gone.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/get-rid-gallstones-without-surgery/»