Ron Put

Just soaking a beautiful white fungus that I bought dried.

I have loved wood-ear mushrooms for a few years now, but just recently discovered white fungus. I just soak it and eat it raw as an appetizer or a snack. I find it delicious.

 

On 3/19/2023 at 2:32 AM, Saul said:

Covid-19 may have started in raccoon dogs, new DNA evidence shows

Saul, this has been floating around for over a year, it was first proposed by an Australian team a year ago, but it went nowhere. I find it curious that it is suddenly back in the news, served as (yet another) definitive answer that doesn't make much sense.

Not to belabor the matter, but an accidental lab leak is by far the most likely answer, and it explains China's behavior:

- deleting lab databases just before the pandemic

- retrofitting the filtration systems in the lab at the same time

- refusal to cooperate with the investigation and provide lab records

It also explains Fauci's suppression of specific virus attributes that indicate lab manipulation that initially came from his own team, and his panicked orchestration of public "takedowns" of those who suggested a lab leak.

BTW, if I recall, the Australian team that came out with the raccoon dog story last year was also implicated as part of the network that worked with the Wuhan lab and was receiving NHI funding.

It does appear that it is highly unlikely that such a rapid spread would occur without intermediate transmissions, but I guess these stories provide enough doubt to keep up the confusion, which may well be the goal.

On 3/18/2023 at 8:35 AM, BrianMDelaney said:

We won't be able to make solid judgments about any of this for a long time. The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk.

But my very provisional view is that I'm very glad COVID vaccines were available; not glad, however, that some people were (to varying degrees) forced to take them.

My take is that we can certainly make a solid judgment about invoking emergency powers and keeping them in place for years based on dubious scientific evidence, and using political structures to suppress opposing scientific evidence, and to generally suppress scientific debate. We should never do this again, and likely the only way to ensure it is to do proper investigation on how it came to be, and if there were abuses of power, to punish those who engaged in it.

The lockdowns were against all existing pandemic policies at the time, as were the mask mandates and the non-sterilizing vaccine mandates that in the US ignored, and still do, natural immunity. And all of it was accompanied by Chinese style censorship using private companies to enforce censorship and promote state propaganda.

I too am glad that the vaccines were available at such speed, but I feel uneasy about government favoritism toward Pfizer at the expense of other companies, including Novavax, which is still not fully approved in the US. Especially as Pfizer appeared to take a political stance by arbitrarily extending the trial and announcing a week after the election.

For the record, I was among the first batch to receive a Covid vaccine in the US, because after doing a fair amount of research on the subject, I joined the Novavax study. Also for the record, I have never had Covid and I have traveled to a number of hotspots, and thus have spend thousands on Covid tests. Because I travel, I have had probably more vaccines than most, and I believe that vaccines in general save lives and misery. When not politically weaponized and mandated. 

3 hours ago, mccoy said:

Dr. Peter Attia has hosted in his Drive podcast dozens of hours on lipidology. Even from other sources, it is also clear that no matter what you are eating or doing, in some people lipids homeostasis will not be perfect. Back to the podcasts from Peter Attia, the only viable solution to adjust a stubborn homeostasis seems to be correct lifestyle + pharmaceutical drugs. Statins, PCSK9 inhibitors and something else which I may have missed. I would consult specialists in your area, say that you want to prevent cardiovascular events and are maybe, unders their advise, willing to start taking specific medicines early. 

A second strategy would be to try all supplements available, there is Amla, there is red rice extracts which has been experimented in Italy, there is berberine, there are more. They will not lower the values very much but they may allow you to go on for a few extra years without medicines.

Attia can be very informative, but he tends to get people who agree with him and some of them seem to be shilling. He is high-protein, high-fat (a bit less so nowadays) guy and that's the bend of the guests he has. Again and again we har that dietary cholesterol doesn't matter unless you have a genetic predisposition, because most of it excreted. But "most of it" is 70-80%, which still leaves the subject with 20-30% absorption. So, instead of advising cut the eggs, the cheese or the meat, the suggestion is statins.

As to amla, I've been taking it for a couple of years and honestly have not noticed any particular benefits. But then again, I am metabolically healthy and don't have high blood pressure, so maybe it works for those who do.

Berberine I would stay away from -- I too k it for a while and it seems to screw up my numbers a little in the wrong direction, but not in a relevant way. More importantly, it can drop one's blood sugar too low and the swings it may cause can have a detrimental impact.

Matt, I and I am sure everyone here, is rooting that this resolves without complications.

But isn't phage therapy usually a one or two shot method of treating infections? With some potential unknowns?

I just read a bit on Raoultella planticola and it seems that your condition is likely to be treatable with combos like amoxicillin with clavulanic acid:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876034117300989

On 2/22/2023 at 7:21 AM, Saul said:

The pills won't arrive until about March 6 (13 days).  (They do have expedited shipping, that arrives somewhat sooner.)

Saul, how was your overall experience with delivery, etc.?

Almost three years later, I still don't know how I feel about supplementing with vitamin D 🤔

Vitamin D Pills Don’t Prevent Bone Fractures, Osteoporosis: Study
 

Quote

 

As The New York Times reports, bone fractures and osteoporosis now join the list of several other vitamin D supplement use cases that the VITAL study has debunked. For example, earlier analyses of the data found that the supplements don’t protect against developing cancer or cardiovascular disease, falls, cognitive decline, migraines, stroke, macular degeneration, or joint pain—nor did it reduce body weight or BMI.

Even though the supplements are taken by millions of Americans, according to the Times, some experts who reviewed the data now say it’s not worthwhile to do so without specific reason, such as an extreme deficit.

 

I remember a time not long ago, when any suggestion of a lab leak was considered a conspiracy theory created by racist, and would get your social media posts taken down or your account banned.

How easily most conformed.

This is a summary of where we are today.
 

Collagen is another supplement with dubious science, shoddy studies, and applicability to human health/longevity. I may of course be wrong, but my opinion is based on what I have read over the years, and I am yet to see anything to convince me that it has real benefit, other than to those involved in making or selling it.

9 hours ago, mccoy said:

Fasting glucose was 90. I'm happy about that since I started again to eat some simple carbs, I couldn't resist Sicilian oranges, plus I'll have green bananas sometimes, beans, or very black bread often with buckwheat flour.

There are hardly bad carbs (well, depending on how refined is the flour, being black may or may not tell you much).

Overall, congrats, mccoy! Your numbers are good, although I'd strive for lower TG, as well as lower VLDL at al.

One important omission is insulin. Without it, glucose doesn't mean all that much.

Just curious, were you eating processed carbs before, like pasta, or pastries?

Not sure if this has been posted, so here it is, mice and all:

Comparing the Effects of Low-Protein and High�Carbohydrate Diets and Caloric Restriction on Brain Aging in Mice

Calorie restriction (CR) and ad libitum low-protein, high-carbohydrate (LPHC) diets improve cardiometabolic health in mice. Wahl et al. show that, like healthspan, CR and LPHC diets positively affect hippocampus biology in mice by influencing hippocampus gene expression, nutrient-sensing pathways, dendritic morphology, and cognition.

Mike, if I may point out one possible issue with your blood pressure and aging assumptions: I remember reading a few studies where blood pressure did not raise significantly with age in metabolically healthy people.

I was just looking up BMI in hunter gatherers and changed the search to blood pressure, and it seems that at least what pops up for me supports my thesis that blood pressure remains stable throughout most of life.

Abstract 029: Age-Related Blood Pressure Changes at the Incipient Stages of Westernization in Yanomami and Yekwana Tribes | Circulation (ahajournals.org)

 

6 hours ago, Gordo said:

Sorry, everyone on long term cr either stopped it, died, or got too frail or sick to make public appearances 😉

 

I have been here for close to 4 years, and still haven't figured out what exactly is a good definition of CR, as practiced here.

It's restricting calories, OK, but compared to what exactly?

Is it compared to eating ad libitum, and if so, at what stage of life or at what weight? If someone obese reduces their calories, most would call it a diet, not CR.

Is it BMI? I can think of at least one person here who claims that he is on CR, but then have a BMI in the mid-20s. I believe him, but I question the benchmark.

I personally do not consider myself as being on CR, yet I do track what I eat on Cronometer (mainly because of nutrients, but calories matter to me too), and my BMI is 18.5-19 on most days. This is where I was when 20 years old, and if CR means I have to be down 10%-20% from that, then I doubt many are indeed practicing CR.

For what it's worth, it appears that hunter gatherers hover around BMI 19-19.5 and at least some rural pastoralists have lower BMI than that.

Perhaps Dean fit the definition in the past, or even today, but then I know nothing about his long-term lifestyle and weight history.

In any case, there has to be some firmer definition of CR before there can be a reasonable discussion of who is on it and who is not.

And to drive the point about the cynicism and political opportunism of some in the political class when faced with media "death ticker tapes," here is an interview with the journalist who exposed select communication from Matt Hancock:
 

On 3/12/2023 at 7:34 AM, BrianA said:

How the Cochrane Review went wrong. Report questioning COVID masks blows up, prompts apology

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/03/10/how-the-cochrane-review-went-wrong-report-questioning-covid-masks-blows-up-prompts-apology.html

At this point, this kind of zealotry should be embarrassing: You are not even bothering to debate the study or point what exactly facts or methodology  you disagree with, instead you just cut and paste an article that does not discuss any details, other than to tell us:

"“When I saw it on Twitter, I rolled my eyes,” said Kate Maddalena, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who teaches and studies science communication and writing."

And repeatedly call for censorship: "“It’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle once a statement like ‘masks don’t work’ is out there,” said Dr. Joe Vipond, an emergency room doctor in Calgary who co-founded Masks4Canada."

The left initially tried to kill, then delay, then bury the review, and then fell back on op-eds and a few articles short on substance, but full of innuendo and smear. The one above is certainly one of the more moronic and vacuous ones. It's true that the political pressure by the true believers did not result in outright censorship, but it still extracted a Cochran editor clarification that stated: "It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, and that the results were inconclusive."

And while the evidence that masks have no effect is low to moderate, based on the review, this was the accepted view, based on numerous earlier studies, of all major health organizations I know of. Virtually all medical bodies recommended against healthy people wearing masks, until the left in the US used fear to force mask mandates and visually separate the virtuous from the heathens.

But even if we accept that 180 degree turn and accept that the evidence is inconclusive, what part of "inconclusive" is not basis for coercion of others" is so difficult for some to understand?

Free speech, open debate and limits on state coercion against personal rights are at the core of liberal democracies. And they have been increasingly under threat by part of the population, some of whom are simply fearful, some are ignorant, other are zealots, and others opportunists. 

BTW, here is the review:

Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses - Jefferson, T - 2023 | Cochrane Library

18 hours ago, corybroo said:

Most significantly, that data compares the two countries over different time periods and ends before the middle of 2021. 

coybroo, thank you for expending the effort to research this. It seems to me that the time periods are the same, as I see in the OECD data tables, and the original article had a cut-off of late 2022 for cumulative excess deaths, as this was the latest confirmed data recently released by Australia -- they seem to be delaying data releases, likely because they expected just such political flack in response.

Australia has an excess of 17& of CVD death over the most recent period, and as this is the number one cause of death in Australia, the numbers are significant. Similarly with cases of dementia, if I recall. While some portion of it is likely due to either Covid, flu or other infectious diseases, or, as some argue, to the mass vaccination mandate with mainly mRNA vaccines, it is most likely due to the fear and extended lockdowns that led to deferred important care.

Even if you take just the last year, Sweden does way better in terms of excess mortality than pretty much every other country in Europe, according to Euromomo. With no lockdowns, no mask mandates and no forced immunizations and destroying the lives of those who's opinions differed.

But I want to come back to a much larger and more important point I have been trying to make: It is incredibly dangerous to democracies when those at the top use the media and institutions to spread fear through propaganda and censorship, and use it to lock up their populations, limit basic civil rights and suppress reasoned debate and dissenting opinions, all based on flimsy assumptions and political zeal advanced through endless emergency powers.




 

I came across an article about the supposedly oldest marathon runner in the world, who gave up marathons at the 100, but still walk 5 miles per day:

The #1 Eating Habit the World's Oldest Male Athlete Follows To Run at 111 (yahoo.com)

On the other hand, there seem to be only two wrestlers to ever cross the 100-year barrier, and the oldest, Abe Coleman, was of relatively small overall mass at just over 5", and died at 101.

Just saying.

Mike, have you considered trying the Tally Health's clock?

It's a David Sinclair company and I assume that some here must have been part of the trial (I did).

I am curious how it measures up. Especially if someone fakes their chronological age when submitting a sample 🙂

Alex, I am not a moderator, but if I may suggest that you do a search before you create new topic. All these new topic make the forum much harder to navigate and to find relevant information in an efficient manner.

Also, when in doubt, it may be best to keep topics that may not be directly related to a particular forum section in the Chitchat section. This topic, and the Myers Briggs one, are examples of just such posts, IMO.

Cheers.

 

I am certain that most who lurk here have already seen the Cochrane review on masking healthy people. But while I don't listen to Moran often, I thought his run through the review was good, and he placed in good perspective the largely politically motivated delays, censorship and general silence (other than occasional personal attacks) that followed.
 

Obviously, anyone is free to wear one or more masks where it is legal. But in liberal democracies, forcing healthy people to wear masks based on poor "science" that went against decades of medical practice, should never have been allowed to happen.

Well, Dr. Klaper changed his Omega-3 supplementation practice.

I am still not convinced of the benefits of supplementation, partially because high Omega-3 is not necessarily prevalent among studied populations with unusually high longevity, and partially because I am inclined to think that supplementation may dial down natural conversion. Plus, I am not convinced that the Omega Test is relevant to cognition.

But here it is:
 

On 3/10/2023 at 3:20 AM, corybroo said:

Yes, every country has good weeks and bad weeks.  And negative weeks can be obtained by excessive positive weeks at other times.  Indeed, in the early days of the pandemic, some sites reported very low to no deaths on Sunday and a near doubling on Monday.  Obviously, the Sunday counts were not a miracle.

I don't understand what exactly you are arguing and the logic behind it. What "bad weeks" are you on about?

The article I posted above and you are attacking is not about "bad weeks" but on the contrary, it points out that Sweden has the lowest rate of "overall cumulative excess deaths" between 2020 and the latter part of 2022. Did you somehow miss the all important "cumulative" bit, and did you even look at the OECD data I posted?

Even the Economist shows the annual cumulative weekly bars later in the admittedly slightly obfuscating article you seem to think contradicts the OECD data and the Australian article. If you even glance at the bars you'll see that they support the OECD tables and it is also clear that Sweden is doing better than say, Australia -- if you measure the overall cumulative excess death rate for the almost two year period.

Cheers.

On 3/3/2023 at 5:08 AM, Mike41 said:

ust published a review explaining the power of red wine

Based on what I have read, if there is any benefit it is mostly due to the alcohol, not to any magic in red wine specifically, no matter what the industry and the exporters, or studies they fund, claim. This would at least make some sense based on population studies. I get the hormesis idea, but like with cold exposure, on balance things may not be so clear. Alcohol appears to increase inflammation, and my understanding is the less inflammation triggers, the better.

I am not sure if this has been posted before:

Risk thresholds for alcohol consumption: combined analysis of individual-participant data for 599 912 current drinkers in 83 prospective studies

In the 599 912 current drinkers included in the analysis, we recorded 40 310 deaths and 39 018 incident cardiovascular disease events during 5·4 million person-years of follow-up. For all-cause mortality, we recorded a positive and curvilinear association with the level of alcohol consumption, with the minimum mortality risk around or below 100 g per week. Alcohol consumption was roughly linearly associated with a higher risk of stroke (HR per 100 g per week higher consumption 1·14, 95% CI, 1·10–1·17), coronary disease excluding myocardial infarction (1·06, 1·00–1·11), heart failure (1·09, 1·03–1·15), fatal hypertensive disease (1·24, 1·15–1·33); and fatal aortic aneurysm (1·15, 1·03–1·28). By contrast, increased alcohol consumption was log-linearly associated with a lower risk of myocardial infarction (HR 0·94, 0·91–0·97). In comparison to those who reported drinking >0–≤100 g per week, those who reported drinking >100–≤200 g per week, >200–≤350 g per week, or >350 g per week had lower life expectancy at age 40 years of approximately 6 months, 1–2 years, or 4–5 years, respectively.

On 9/12/2022 at 11:28 AM, kpfleger said:

But it's harder for me to buy the idea that the sodium amounts that occur naturally in foods that we evolved eating provide an amount that is somehow so low that it creates a dangerous deficiency, especially if blood tests show sodium levels within the normal range.

This makes sense (but quoting or relying on (without verifying rationalwiki) doesn't 🙂

I was curious when I posted earlier above, and did not find a single study suggesting that a whole foods varied diet without salt supplementation is detrimental to health or longevity. On the contrary.

This is just one example:

The science of salt: a systematic review of clinical salt studies 2013 to 2014

"The authors provided a systematic review of the clinical and population health impact of increased dietary salt intake during 1 year. Randomized controlled trials or cohort studies or meta-analyses on the effect of sodium intake were examined from Medline searches between June 2013 to May 2014. Quality indicators were used to select studies that were relevant to clinical and public health. A total of 213 studies were reviewed, of which 11 (n=186,357) were eligible. These studies confirmed a causal relationship between increasing dietary salt and increased blood pressure and an association between several adverse health outcomes and increased dietary salt. A new association between salt intake and renal cell cancer was published. No study that met inclusion criteria found harm from lowering dietary salt. The findings of this systematic review are consistent with previous data relating increased dietary salt to increased blood pressure and adverse health outcomes."

I just received my results and Tally Health's clock pins my "Tally Age" right at my chronological age (which I provided to them), based on some DNA methylation magic they do.

Of course, they are here to help lower it, for the low, low annual commitment price of $129 per moth for up to four tests and a miracle "daily longevity supplement."

To quote:

"The goal is for your biological age - which is influenced by holistic lifestyle factors - to be lower than your chronological age. If your biological age is older than your chronological age, don’t worry. You can improve your biological age, and we can help.

Along with your biological age, you’ll also receive a specially formulated daily supplement designed to target the hallmarks of aging and specific lifestyle tips crafted by our team of scientists that offer high, medium, and low impact options to lower your biological age. By implementing these changes, such as eating less ultra-processed food, limiting alcohol, or exercising regularly, you can better support your health and help improve your TallyAge™."

The miracle supplement Tally Health offers is Calcium alpha-ketoglutarate (1,000 mg: 790 mg alpha-ketoglutarate and 210 mg calcium (16% DV)).

The giant grain of salt this miracle pill must be taken with is to be provided by the user.

P.S. I may, of course, be completely wrong and this may indeed be a miracle...