Saul

I agree with Dean. -- Saul

-- Saul

Hi Tom! Dietary TMAO is not the source of your gut TMAO. For example, fish are higher in TMAO than land animals and animal parts, such as chickens, eggs and cows. But people who eat fish and are otherwise vegan (such as myself) have an excellent gut microbiota. People who eat excessive red meat and/or eggs usually do not have a good gut microbiota. TMAO is in their gut that comes from through a chain of reactions with unfavorable gut bacteria that act on the meat byproducts (I don't believe many of the steps are fully known yet, if ever), which leads to serum TMAO and eventually atherosclerosis. Sibiriak may be right that low dose aspirin may have some mild protective effect -- I don't know. But there's no question that improving your diet is the right way to go. -- Saul

Aspirin is in some ways more dangerous than other COX inhibitors -- for historical reasons. That's because it was the first one used; the popular opinion was a "miracle analgesic". Many still believe that it's possibly the safest analgesic. Of course, that's false. The safest analgesic is low dose Tylenol (which became available much later). I avoid that too; I don't need it. -- Saul

Hi Sibiriak! My wife is an NP specializing is gastroenterology, and deals routinely with patients that fall into this category. She has done more than research the problem -- she's dealt with it profusely. She is quite clear that COX inhibitors -- definitely including aspirin -- should be taken for limited periods only, and not continually, even in low doses -- no matter how good the patients' overall health. In particular, she includes me (not that I have any reason, need or desire for such stuff). Unlimited low dose aspirin, sooner or later, will result in gastrointestinal bleeding -- starting in the stomach. Best to stay off all COX inhibitors. COX 1 inhibitors are both more powerful and with more side effects than COX 2 inhibitors (not that COX 2 inhibitors are benign). Aspirin is a COX 1 inhibitor. -- Saul

But long term use of aspirin is associated with bleeding in the stomach and elsewhere in the gastrointestinal tract. Best is a good diet, and careful monitoring of bloodwork. -- Saul

Yes. Otherwise, the article seems quite credible. -- Saul

Hmmm.... I believe that wheat bran is high in INSOLUBLE fiber, and not very high in SDF -- vegetable fiber is much higher in SDF. While I believe the conclusions of the study -- this (if I'm correct) raises some doubts about the value of the study. -- Saul

Thanks. -- Saul

Grrrr.... Acronyms! I assume SDA is "Seventh Day Adventists". I guess that "HS" is "Health Study". I guess that "AHS" is the "A Health Study". What's "A"? -- Saul

High-fat diet cuts brain’s food brake IN SECTION: BODY & BRAIN Mouse study hints at neural changes related to overeating BY LAURA SANDERS A gut-busting diet may set the brain up for more of the same. After mice ate fatty food for just two weeks, cells in their brains that send a “stop eating” signal were quieter than those in mice that didn’t eat high-fat chow, researchers report in the June 28 Science. Food is key to survival, which may be why the brain has built-in redundancy — a multitude of overlapping systems to make sure animals eat enough. Neuroscientist Garret Stuber of the University of Washington in Seattle investigated one area known to be involved in eating. Called the lateral hypothalamus, this brain structure contains a large number of diverse nerve cells. Stuber and colleagues looked at gene behavior in single cells there and found that one group, called glutamatergic nerve cells, showed particularly big changes in which genes were active when the team compared lean mice with obese mice. Earlier work suggested that glutamatergic cells act like a brake on feeding: When the cells were artificially blocked from firing signals, mice ate more food and gained more weight. But it wasn’t clear how these cells behave over a more natural shift from leanness to obesity. “Obesity doesn’t just happen overnight,” says Stuber, who conducted some of the work while at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. To study that transition, the researchers fed mice high-fat mouse chow and periodically checked the glutamatergic cells’ ability to fire signals. Two weeks into the binge, even before mice plumped up, the nerve cells showed more sluggish activity, both in their spontaneous behavior and when an animal was given a sip of sweet liquid. That reduction continued as the mice grew larger, for up to 12 weeks in some cases. The results imply that “these cells’ decreased activity is removing the brake on feeding and obesity,” says neuroscientist Stephanie Borgland of the University of Calgary in Canada, who wrote a related commentary in the same issue of Science. The researchers don’t know whether these cells would regain their normal behavior if the mice stopped eating highfat food and shed weight. And it’s hard to say whether similar appetite-suppressing nerve cells are at work in people.

Michael Rae. 😉 -- Saul

Hi Tom! My supermarket has been selling several products sweetened with allulose for several months; mostly high protein chocolate bars -- not exactly a health food. Allulose is a naturally occurring rare sugar, which is poorly digested by most people -- so it delivers less calories per gram than sucrose. But anyone who consumes it doesn't know how many calories they are consuming (probably partly a function of your gut microbiota, I'd guess. Most of us probably have a very healthy gut microbiome, so we would probably would absorb more calories) It is also less not as sweet as sugar. A more interesting sweet substance is erythritol, a sugar alcohol. This is sweet, and is not digested. It is also not digested by mouth bacteria -- so it doen't promote tooth decay, like most sugars and sugar alcohols. Many items sweetened with stevia also have some erythritol -- examples are chocolate bars manufactured by Lilly in the US, and Cavalier in Belgium. These are hardly health foods -- baker's chocolate is high fat and high calorie. I have found that my favorite sweetener is no sweetener -- I drink my home brewed Chinese white tea with no sweetener -- like green tea, it tastes best that way.

Yeah. -- Saul

Hi Dean! Interestingly, there is fruit also called the paw paw that grows in the tropical areas of South Africa, such as in the province of Natal. When my wife and I visited South Africa (over 20 years ago), we ate some of them. They are much larger than the American paw paw, are large and round, and are a close relative of the papaya, but much larger. My wife just looked it up; the American paw paw is not related to the papaya (and therefore is not related to the South African paw paw). I remember that SA paw paws taste much the same as papayas, although usually not as sweet, and not at all like bananas or mangos. -- Saul