Ron Put

This is a vey old video that popped up that discusses some of Peter Attia's theses. Some of the stuff he no longer talk about, and the narrator is not all that polished, but many of the points are still valid today, and reflect my objections too. There is a brief discussion of Apo B too.

Thank you, mccoy. I am flattered that you think that I am lucky, and I am sure I am, as many here are, compared to people who have real health issues. But the best of my numbers had little to do with luck, but mostly with some significant changes in my diet (and to a much lesser extent, exercise). I was already vegan, as you you may know, but my cholesterol did not drop to its lowest points until I removed olive oil from my diet. I was consuming pretty liberal amounts of it (yes, extra-virgin), and when I stopped it, my total cholesterol dropped by 40 points, and my LDL by about 30+. My insulin also dropped to the low end of normal. My weight has been constant. I am going to test again in a month or so, although the last week I've had to go to dinner and I've had a few greasy vegan meals, and a few rich but delicious vegan deserts, so I expect those to have some impact. But I have to be social, and unfortunately it means eating, even if I no longer feel the mostly self-imposed pressure to drink socially.

Fair point. But I did a couple of searches and based on what I found, I am more inclined to assume that it's all business for Attia, with a strong and increasingly more polished marketing strategy built on his rather engaging persona. The Drive is part of it. I read and watched some of his old stuff too -- I didn't realize he got on the high-fat promoting bandwagon way back when Atkins was still alive. He's been promoting high-fat for so long, that he can't back down without destroying his business. I also thought that he was a practicing physician, but he actually runs a concierge medical service that charges well-healed metabolically diseased people $90k-160k each to stick a CGI on them and run them into the gym, while keeping them on what is essentially the old Atkins diet. And pump them chockfull of pharmaceuticals and then look like a hero because their numbers improve. That's why he pushes Apo B rather than LDL-C, because his patients are metabolically screwed up and he wants them to focus on particles, which in the obese I guess makes sense, but not in the healthy. Overall, the more I learned about Attia's history before The Drive, the more my respect for him diminished. I have always disagreed with "diet doesn't matter" take, but now it makes some sense to me, from a purely business perspective.

And speaking of the opposite of skeptics. The true-believers (or, the simply corrupt), and the nowadays lonely persistence of the US to recommend vaccinations across the board:

Hi, Igor. I agree that there is enough useful information presented on many of his shows, which is why I listen to many of them 🙂 But there is also plenty of assertions that are presented as facts, when I know that they are not true. In any case, I heard him say (almost certain) on the Drive within the last few months that he abandoned keto not because of health issues, but because his daughter is coming to an age where he is worried that his diet may screw her up, her being, you know, a susceptible girl. I remember thinking it did not ring genuine, which is why I probably remember it.

I knew that Attia has various tie-ins and people sometimes shill on his show, but I just searched for tie-ins and this popped up (yep, the headline is over the top...). I haven't checked it yet, but if it checks out even partially, it would make sense of Attia's apparent confirmation bias I mentioned above: Dr. Peter Attia: Hack, Liar and All Round Disgusting Individual Apparently Peter and his buddy Gary Taubes just love themselves some crappy pseudoscience. Both of them are funded by the Arnold Foundation, with substantial ties to animal agriculture industry lobbying. Marion Nestle notes the Arnold’s working relationship with a National Restaurant Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association consultant.

As I posted elsewhere, I would take Attia with a large grain of salt, even if I find his shows informative on many topics. Statins in healthy people may not be a solution, as they tinker with the body's ability to make cholesterol, and we all need that 🙂 There are questions about diminishing brain functionality, as well as potential insulin resistance and other issues, which for healthy people may not be worth the risks. Was this, for example, posted already? Long-Term Outcomes of Short-Term Statin Use in Healthy Adults: A Retrospective Cohort Study "Conclusions: Short-term statin use for primary prevention in this healthy cohort was associated with an increased risk of long-term diabetes and diabetic complications without cardiovascular benefits. Further study using pragmatic studies and prospective observational studies appropriately equipped to eliminate unidentified confounders are urgently needed."

I hope Europe opens up this can of worms and does a real investigation.

I watch a lot of Attia's shows, as I find them informative on many subjects. But he exhibits high levels of confirmation bias in selecting his guests `(most of whom are selling something, either directly or indirectly) and in the conclusions he reaches during his shows. I have to assume that Attia is sincere when he claims that what you eat has little or no bearing on one's health, or that he abandoned his keto diet not because of health concerns, but because dieting may somehow have psychological impact on his kids. Even if it makes no sense to me. But what makes even less sense is that he claims that animal protein is of utmost importance to longevity, and mentions his daily regimen of a bucket of eggs and steak, and then tells us that the CVD impact is inconsequential, or at least nothing that another bucket of pharmaceuticals cannot fix. I would listen to him if you want muscles, but would completely ignore him if you care about long-term health and longevity. For what it's worth, I am significantly older than him and my APO B is lower than that of virtually all of his guests I have heard mention their results, and when I stick to relatively low fat meals mine goes in the low 60s. My BP is below 115/70 and my inflammation markers are barely measurable. All without any pharmaceuticals. At this point, I feel I am more qualified to write a book on longevity than Attia 😄

Unfortunately, like Netflix, political power, especially on the Left, knows that facts can be changed when the audience is ignorant and apathetic, and that it is almost impossible to later explain and correct the public's perception: Remember when long-established practices were changed, first on death certificates, then on masks, then on scientific debate and free speech?

I see it somewhat differently: One suspends definitive personal judgment and if a choice is necessary, it is made based on how one parses the currently available evidence. But under no conditions can such personal judgment be used to force others to take affirmative action against their own personal judgment. The latter is what many governments around the world did, and is still done in the US.

Amazon should sell it there, do they deliver in Italy? I am currently in Asia for a couple of weeks, here is what I bought today from the local health market: Black fungus (wood-ear) and white fungus 🙂

SOme may find this discussion interesting and illuminating:

Thank you, Brian. Funny enough, my Myers-Briggs type is a "sceptic." It seems to really annoy some, some of the time. And oh boy, you stumped me 🙂 I had only a vague recognition of the name, from an undergraduate class way back in the last century. I had to watch this intro lecture for it to come to life for me. So, thank you again.

Do you have a rational comment, or any con or pro argument on the merit, or anything thoughtful to say? If you do, I'd be thrilled to read it, perhaps in its own thread. But silly ad hominem attacks against anyone that is at odds with your seemingly strong and rather rigid biases, are uncalled for.

Ironically, this kind of regurgitated nonsense is a textbook disinformation campaign, where information is periodically released to dilute evidence pointing to culpability and to appeal to the confirmation bias of potential supporters. The Russian used the same method to deny culpability for the shooting in Malaysia Airlines flight 17, and are using it to claim that it was the West that started the Ukraine war. The Chines are using it to cover up the origins of Covid, aided by Fauci and much of the left in the US, in a rather bizarre political stance (I can understand Fauci's reasons, of course). Because of the flood of disinformation spread by "reputable" media, ChatGPT will be convinced that this is the truth for the foreseeable future... Anyway, the preprint is out, and here is one discussion of it:

Take a look at Asian markets, much more likely to find it there, in dried form.

I had run across a vitamin D population study from Japan, which claims that a large portion of the Japanese are deficient based on the 20 ng/ml guidelines: The prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency (serum 25(OH)D3; 12 ng/ml (30 nmol/L) ≤ and <20 ng/ml (50 nmol/L))/deficiency (<12 ng/ml) was 47.7% in summer and 82.2% in winter. Conversely, North Americans, who take vitamin D more frequently, are much less likely to be deficient. Yet life expectancy in NA is far lower than in Japan (I realize that this is broad brush and there are many other differences). But my point is that perhaps the push for higher D intake in the West has something to do with the fact that vitamin D supplementation (virtually all produced in China) is a $1.9 billion industry, expected to double in the next decade. See also this from the Harvard Health blog: Vitamin 😧 What’s the "right" level?

It is rather beautiful, indeed. If you haven't tasted it, I highly recommend trying it.

This is from the study posted immediately above by Sibiriak (I bolded the Mediterranean diet part) "... a diet very rich in fat, a normal Western diet or a diet mainly composed of protein and fat with low or no sources of carbohydrates and fibers (e.g., ketogenic diet, very low carb diet) leads to an acute postprandial and chronic production of TMAOs, by changing the ratio between Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes in favor of the former [3]. Poor quality diets also create dysbiosis [122]. The classical beneficial Mediterranean diet does not lower TMAOs levels after six months of intervention, maybe because of the fish intake that directly brings free TMAOs molecules into the organism."

Good point, mccoy, but not much out there, unfortunately. Here is what I found (emphasis in bold added by me): Abdominal Visceral Adipose Tissue and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review Introduction: Increased abdominal visceral adipose tissue (VAT) implies an adverse cardio-metabolic profile. We examined the association of abdominal VAT parameters and all-cause mortality risk. ... Results: We included 12 cohorts, the majority used computed tomography to assess abdominal VAT area. Six cohorts with a mean age ≤ 65 years, examining all-cause mortality risk per increment in VAT area (cm2) or volume (cm3), showed a 11-98% relative risk increase with higher VAT parameters. However, the association lost significance after adjusting for glycemic indices, body mass index, or other fat parameters. In 4 cohorts with a mean age >65 years, the findings on mortality were inconsistent. Conversely, in two cohorts (mean age 73-77 years), a higher VAT density, was inversely proportional to VAT area, and implied a higher mortality risk. Conclusion: A high abdominal VAT area seems to be associated with increased all-cause mortality in individuals ≤ 65 years, possibly mediated by metabolic complications, and not through an independent effect. This relationship is weaker and may reverse in older individuals, most likely secondary to confounding bias and reverse causality. An individual participant data meta-analysis is needed to confirm our findings, and to define an abdominal VAT area cutoff implying increased mortality risk.