I had heard about epigenetics many times before but THIS time it made sense. I guess all it takes to force “young people these days” to learn anything is to put it on YouTube and keep it short!

So if you have 9 minutes, it’s easy to understand and funny to boot. Here’s what I learned from the video:

• Epigenetics refers to how your DNA is read by your body. DNA (your genes) say “here’s what the human species can do” and epigenetic markers stick to your DNA and say “these are the genes you should read and ignore these ones over here”. That’s how an eyeball can have the same DNA as a foot. They are reading different parts of the same DNA.
• Epigentic markers can be passed from generation to generation. It may explain why it took your grandpa 80 years to get diabetes, your mother 45 years, you only took 20 years and your child may get type 2 diabetes when she’s just 8 years old. Each generation is modified based on what their ancestors did and what they do themselves.
• Even if you start off with crappy epigenetics, they are changeable. Hurray! So while you may be at a disadvantage compared to others more fortunate, positive lifestyle changes will be reflected in your own DNA and improve both your quality of life and of your children.

I had a dirty little secret up until a few days ago… I had terribly high cholesterol even while on my low-carb paleo diet. gasp Yes, I know that the internets abounds with people who say “Cholesterol doesn’t matter but even if it does mine is amazing!” Well I was NOT one of them. My total LDL was 280, triglycerides were 130 and my HDL was an abysmal 24. This was after 10 months of following a strict low-carb (usually ketogenic) diet and the last 6 months I was also paleo.

I had lots of theories as to why my LDL was high (resolving fatty liver, diabetes, maybe I had hypothyroidism) and I also kept comforting myself with studies that showed that high cholesterol in women is correlated with less heart disease. But there was no getting around the worryingly low HDL and for someone on a low-carb diet my triglycerides didn’t add up either. I would pour over Chris Mastejohn’s work and podcasts (his most recent appearance on Ask the Low Carb Experts with Jimmy Moore is quite good!) and still come up with no actionable ideas.

Well now I think I know what happened! The short story is that I had an infection (see long embarrassing story below). Once I discovered the infection and mostly cleared it up, my lipids are pretty damn good: total cholesterol is 170, triglycerides are 68 and my HDL is 46. Which is nice because now I can join the annoying group of people who don’t get bitched at by their doctors for having high cholesterol. But I’m not going to now proclaim to the world that my diet is what fixed everything. There’s just more to it than diet alone, but more on that later.

I’m just very glad that it’s better, not because the numbers matter to me that much but because I was feeling horrible and now I’m back to obsessively cleaning the house and dorking around on the internet. Though having good numbers certainly do help (especially when trying to convince a cardiologist that my white coat syndrome doesn’t matter!). Again something I’ll save for another post.

So if your diet isn’t magically improving your cholesterol, maybe you should take a look at the rest of your health. There is more to life than just numbers!

Long Embarrassing Story

I used CamelBak water bottles (think sippy cups for adults) all the time. I had one on my nightstand, one in the office and another for around the house. I washed all 3 in the dishwasher though admittedly not as often as I should have. For the past few months I had been feeling more run down and by December I was back to taking 3 hour naps on Saturdays and Sundays just to make it through the week. I couldn’t breathe through my nose but had no snot, my nasal passages were simply that inflamed which seemed to rule out the usual sinus infection. I also had splitting headaches as well.

Then one day as I was dismantling my bottles I took a good hard look at the hole in the lid. Some of the most disgusting black, orange and green mold I had EVER seen was growing in each one. To think that I was drinking out of those a couple times an hour still makes me want to gag. After throwing them away and switching to cups (and subsequently guarding them from being tipped over by the cats), all of my symptoms have been going away. I refused to do antibiotics because I love my gut bacteria too much for mass genocide so it’s been a slow recovery.

What is Paleo?

Paleo is just an approach to eating that minimizes inflammation that casts one eye toward our genetic heritage as hunter-gatherers but keeps the other eye on modern biomedical developments so that we can weld together the best offerings that we have out of the past and the present, to live the most optimized life that we can.

-Robb Wolf

• How Do You Know It’s Paleo? A handy flow-chart!
• Wheat and Type 1 Diabetes The connection between wheat intolerance and Type 1 diabetes is pretty strong. It would be interesting to find/fund a study looking at type 1 diabetes diagnosis’s between children who eat wheat and those who don’t.
• Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? Evidently your brain can “bonk” when it runs out of glucose, leading to some pretty poor decision making. I wonder if a ketone adapter brain would do any better?
• How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body I used to follow yoga because I thought it made me more flexible but I’m starting to think that super slow or high intensity (HIT) may give me the same results without the back pain.

Since I was one of the first 150 members of Chris Kresser’s Personal Paleo Code, as a bonus I received a free seminar on advanced weight loss. The concept behind this 4 week series is to share the tactics for battling stubborn weight problems that have worked in his medical practice. It is intended for people who have tried low-carb or paleo and either didn’t lose weight or have stalled out with a significant amount still to go. Sounds right up my alley!

I just attended the first session this morning. Chris outlined his theory of obesity (listen to this episode Why It’s So Hard To Lose Weight – And Keep It Off) and what the weight loss plan entails. First off, is that you don’t start implementing the plan until after the first 3 classes. I guess there is a lot to cover, so in the meantime I’ll be brushing up on the personal paleo code and doing my own version of Mardi Gras before I start the new diet.

So what makes his plan different from others? He says it is because his plan also lowers your body’s set-point, so that once you lose the weight your hormones aren’t fighting to bring it back up to where it’s more comfortable. The plan uses a Protein Sparing Modified Fast and eventually transitions you to a “simple” paleo plan. I assume that simple means that you aren’t eating delicious meals and desserts that often are categorized as “paleo” because they don’t use sugar or flour. Instead I am guessing that you stick to simple meals that follow the Food Reward hypothesis which I’m not sure I subscribe to but … I am a wee bit desperate.

So wish me luck and I’ll report back with what I learn and any progress.

Dad just called me today with the results of his latest blood tests. He had been on cholesterol lowering medications for years and decided to stop because it was causing excruciating leg cramps. He has also recently been really sticking to a low-carb, mostly grain free diet. drum roll

I am SO proud of my dad! These are excellent numbers, I wouldn’t change a thing about them.