"Five Diets" website

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James
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"Five Diets" website

Post by James »

I came across this yesterday and thought it interesting. The "about me" section shows the author to have come full circle regarding nutrition and cholesterol metabolism, and it's obvious that he's very informed and balanced on these and ApoE4. I think many of us could benefit from following his progress.

Basically, he's experimenting with different diets and getting NMR-lipoprofiles after each. The diets look very well designed and controlled to make adequate comparisons. He hit all the major issues with food selection, calorie/weight stability, duration, and diet ordering. As a nutritional scientist, I'm impressed with the rigor and am quite excited about it. :-)

Five Diets
Overview

I decided that for five separate three-week periods, I would rotate through the following five diets, starting with where I mostly already was:

A Low-Carb Paleo Diet: Not 80/20, but a 100%, good old-fashioned Paleo diet, circa 2010.
A Potato Monodiet: This diet was essentially born in the wake of a self-experiment by Chris Voigt in 2010, and was further popularized by long-time blogger Richard Nikoley at FreetheAnimal.com, broken-down scientifically by Petro Dobromylskyj of Hyperlipid, Dr. Stephan Guyenet and others, and discussed ad-infinitum in the forums at Mark’s Daily Apple.
The Mediterranean Diet: Considered by the mainstream to be the epitome of heart-healthy diets.
A Protein-Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF): Born in bariatric wards of the 70′s and 80′s, it was essentially re-engineered by Lyle McDonald as a way for bodybuilders to safely “cut” as rapidly as possible, while still maintaining lean-body mass.
The Low-Fat Vegan Diet: The doctor’s prescription, Berkeley Heart Lab’s recommended diet for anyone APOE4, and based upon all other pre-experiment evidence, where I will most likely end up.
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by Ski »

Look forward to it. However, I'm slightly dissapointed that its close to a month now and he still hasnt posted his NMR results post Paleo.
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by SpunkyPup »

I looked at his Paleo Diet and as I suspected this guy is clueless.

A potato diet is some short term thing and is not a diet..he is just a blogger fooling around they come and die every so often seen my share of that fascination.
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Julie G
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by Julie G »

Very cool, I'd love to chat with this dude. We read the same stuff and have the EXACT same interests :D James, I've read you're a recovering Caveman; I'm guessing this is your experiment :?: I have a bunch of questions. I'll post directly to the mystery author... if it's not you. Huge thanks for sharing.

EDIT, perhaps not you, James :( I see this guy is a 3/4.
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Julie G
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by Julie G »

Sad, he seems to have abandoned the experiment. A few of us have posted comments and not heard back :(
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by James »

Julie, that isn't me. It does seem as if he's stopped updating the site, but he mentioned something about undergoing some surgery on 10/31 that would require taking antibiotics and perhaps parenteral nutrition, and he was going to put off the experiments until that passed. Still, he hasn't posted the completed paleo diet results.

Spunky, I agree the diets aren't necessarily perfectly designed depending on what one might consider popular or sustainable iterations of such, but I think it's still neat to get some relatively good data to see how he's affected.
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fivediets
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by fivediets »

Hey all -- this is Chris, the guy behind the Five Diets website.

First of all, thanks for everyone who has stopped by. When I started this thing, it really was mostly for my own edification; I wasn't a blogger before this, and probably won't be after. It all really came about when my newly assigned cardiologist wanted to start me on statins, and I just felt compelled to explore the diet side of the solution before starting on a medication that would make it hard to know what changes were being made by food and what changes were being made by drugs.

The experiment is not abandoned. I did have some medical issues come up as I mentioned in a post, then some personal issues -- such as life sometimes is -- that required me to put things on hold, and didn't even leave me any time to check in on the site, hence the missed comments. When I finally got a chance to get back into Wordpress, I was both surprised to see the responses, and bummed that I had missed them.

I will be starting up again with the Potato Diet on Monday.

As for the diet selection and the particular choices on their implementation, it was all intentional, if not up for debate. The potato diets and the PSMF are certainly not sustainable long-term; I meant them to be extreme. As for the Paleo implementation, there are more ways to "do Paleo" now then ever; one could even argue the term has become meaningless. However, for better or worse that's the way I mostly did it for years, so that's what I wanted to replicate here.

Before restarting Monday, the first order of business is getting the Paleo results up, hopefully over the weekend.

I'll be checking back here on a regular basis. Any additional questions/comments/input is totally appreciated. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

Chris
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by Silverlining »

YAY Chris...thanks SO much for popping in. I was thinking "he's in the wind and we'll never hear from him again"! Sorry about your recent unexpected travails...IT does happen; sounds like you're back on track though. The 4/4's here are especially concerned about finding the optimum diet for our long term health, knowing each individual is obviously different, there must be some commonalities we can discover. Look around, we have some smart and dedicated individuals here and always looking for more "4's"...you know the more, the merrier. Take care!
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by Julie G »

Hey Chris,

You’re a man after my own heart, struggling with this. I LIKE that you’re self-experimenting and very much appreciate your sharing. In your blog, you suggest that the quest for the “perfect” diet is probably quite individualized. I tend to whole-heartedly agree with you there, my friend. We are more than our ApoE.

FWIW, I’m a 4/4, on your same quest. I’ve have read the same materials you quote (and many of the references behind them,) and agree with some of your conclusions and disagree with others. That being said, I certainly have no definitive answers. I’m running my own n=1 experiment and have had slightly different results.

“I was sure that by keeping sugar low, eating healthy fats and decent meat, my body would self-regulate cholesterol levels to where it needed them to be” One could argue that with a 60-80% compliancy rate, you really weren’t giving your diet a chance. That by cheating, you may have accidentally created the perfect storm. From everything I’ve learned high fats + high carbs = BIG trouble. And, smoking too? Yikes- inflammation city. (I know quitting is incredibly difficult, but I pray you’ve given them up for good :?: ) You draw the conclusion that your Paleo Diet resulted in your NMR results and coronary calcium. I might suggest that your self-confessed years of SAD, poor compliance with your version of the Paleo Diet, smoking, and your family history- ALL contributed to your health picture.

I LOVE your Peter Attia quote: “Eating cholesterol has very little impact on the cholesterol levels in your body. This is a fact, not an opinion. Anyone who tells you different, is at best, ignorant of the topic. At worst, They are a deliberate charlatan.”

I do have Pre-Paleo numbers to fall back on and I wholeheartedly agree with you & challenge Peter on this one. E4s may be the exception to that rule. Although, even Dr. Thomas Dayspring says that not ALL E4s are hyper-absorbers. Perhaps of all of the ApoE alleles, E4s may be most prone to hyper absorb. You and I seem to fall into this category.

Pre-Paleo
TC 183
LDL 88
HDL 84
TG 54

Paleo
TC 251
LDL 150
HDL 92
TG 47

My results are far from scientific. In full disclosure, I have to admit I actually upped my fat intake a bit prior to testing to truly gauge the effect of higher fat. I wanted to get a clear indication of whether or not I was hyper-absorbing. I was. :shock: You can see that in 9 months, my LDL almost doubled. THAT, certainly contradicts our friend Peter’s claims. Unlike you, it didn’t fully turn my off of Paleo, however, as my my particle count of 1117 & overall extremely low inflammation and glucose markers still seem to put me at low risk of CVD. Indeed, data from the Framingham Heart Study suggests that my specific type of discordance, with high LDL-C and low LDL-P, puts me in a very low risk category.
MESA-LDL-P-vs-LDL-C-3-groups-645x481.jpg


See our friend, Peter, for a fuller explanation http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the- ... ol-part-vi

I don’t want to bore you with my full story. (See Julie’s Intro & Julie’s Lipids for more info) But, like you, I started this journey, with a history. I learned of my 4/4 status right before I turned 50 y/o. Despite a healthful lifestyle (per conventional wisdom), I was having some pretty serious medical issues and some frightening memory problems. When I learned of my 4/4 status, I was dumbfounded; Alzheimer’s didn’t run in my family...or so I thought. (I’ve since identified a few cases.) I was convinced (and still am) that at age 49, I was exhibiting symptoms.

Cut to the chase, I enlisted Dr. David Perlmutter, a renowned neurologist and functional practitioner, to help me sort out all of my complex health issues and put me on a path to prevent Alzheimer’s. He basically PRESCRIBED a sort of modified Paleo Diet for me. Since complying with that, 100% of the time, my memory issues are gone and my health is almost fully restored.

Like you, I’ve seen the Berkely Heart Lab materials. At one point, I actually took the time to read all of the references that they cited in coming up with their recommendations. As G points out, the studies are old. Most use an already sick (CVD/CAD) population for their interventions. They ones that don’t, fail to separate carbs and fats when doing interventions. For instance, the high fat interventions are also high carb…so we can’t see if the effect is truly from the higher fat OR the from the synergistic (inflammatory) effects of the two. I also question whether guidelines for reversing and treating heart disease are the best way to prevent Alzheimer’s. I pour over the research daily and have yet to see a study that separates ApoE genotype and tests a HFLC diet, with proteins rich in Omega-3s. So, despite the things you and I have both read, I remain unconvinced, and my study of one continues.

I do, however, remain enthralled by your experiment, Chris. Forgive my length here; God Bless you if you made it this far. I’m a fan and fellow sojourner. I wish you all the best & can’t wait to see what your trials reveal. Thanks for sharing with us all.
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fivediets
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Re: "Five Diets" website

Post by fivediets »

Hey Julie -- I did make it all the way through, and I'm glad to know a fellow experimenter. It's interesting that your LDL-P numbers are that low as a 4/4 and a hyper-absorber. I just downloaded and posted my results (http://www.fivediets.com/the-paleo-diet/#results) from DirectLabs (I've had so much going on even I haven't been able to really look at them until now) and in a nutshell: My total, LDL-C, and LDL-P numbers are higher than they have ever been before -- higher than on SAD or 80% paleo. No smoking. No cheating. Only trace amounts of polyunsaturated fats and very little monounsaturated. 90% of all fats coming from a) coconut oil, b) MCT oil, c) grass-fed ruminant meat, and d) eggs.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing the same discordance you are, and I'm only heterogenous E4.

It's interesting that because of family history you're looking at these issues through the lens of potential Alzheimer's, while I'm looking at the same issues for the same reason through the lens of potential (or worsening) heart disease. Though my father's mother suffered from Alzheimer's, my dad is two years shy of 80 and is still sharp as a tack. Yet as I wrote, his heart disease came hard and early. So even though it's my understanding that high cholesterol may serve a neuro-protective function in E4's, I'm for the time being kind of putting that to the side, and keeping arterial inflammation and incursion to a minimum as my primary goal.

I know it's just three weeks of personal experiment, but my results on a high-fat paleo diet (with no synergy from heavy carbs) took my numbers to places I don't ever want to see them again.
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