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I’m a neuroscientist and have struggled with my (mental) health for 30 years. With the pandemic I realized how much foods affect how I feel every day. Going mor

• loceng 4y ago
  If you haven't yet it's a good idea to do a microbiome stool test kit to see if there is any overgrowth of bad bacteria or yeast in your GI tract, as well an Igg food sensitivity test/food panel for 200+ foods to see if there are any common foods you're regularly or irregularly eating that may be causing inflammation, irritating your GI tract. Also important to note, many plants have toxins in them to prevent animals eating them, and that most research studies on red meat are greatly flawed.
  • robg 4y ago
    Sugar and Candida was really eye opening - it’s the fungal overgrowth driving my addiction to sweet stuff.
  • groestl 4y ago
    Can you provide a little more insight/some links on the last paragraph?
  • geewee 4y ago
    > and that most research studies on red meat are greatly flawed. Care to elaborate on this? Preferably with sources.
    • amanaplanacanal 4y ago
      I don’t have any sources for you, but a lot of people have been revisiting saturated fat and cholesterol, and it appears that they probably aren’t as bad for you as we once thought.
      • adrian_b 4y ago
        While moderate amounts of saturated fats are not bad, there is no doubt that it is recommended that in the eaten fat the most abundant fatty acid must be oleic acid (i.e. the fat must contain mostly MUFA, mono-unsaturated fatty acids). The reason is simply that oleic acid is the most abundant fatty acid in human fat. When the ingested fat consists mostly of oleic acid, it can be used as such, while when the ingested fat contains either mostly saturated fats, like many animal fats or mostly poly-unsaturated fatty acids, e.g. linoleic acid, like most cheap vegetable oils, the ingested fatty acids must be converted by the liver into the fatty acids preferred inside the human body, so that is extra work for the liver and the liver becomes less efficient at old ages. If the liver does not succeed to convert all the ingested fatty acids that should have been converted, than the composition of the fat used for various purposes in the body may be suboptimal. Examples of foods with optimal fatty acid composition are olive oil, high-oleic sunflower oil (not classic sunflower oil, which contains mostly linoleic acid), hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, cashews, peanuts.
        • lambdaba 4y ago
          By this logic (which I agree with), land animal fats would best match (for beef fat: "oleic acid (36.21%), palmitic (25.67%) and stearic (20.97)"). Nuts & seeds are often high in omega-6 and are hard enough to digest that it's hard to have them as a staple. I say this as someone who was a big fan of nuts, especially almonds, but had to give them up as they triggered autoimmune symptoms. Macadamia nuts by be okay though, they are also the highest in MUFA and low in phytic acid (which causes digestive troubles and inhibits mineral absorption).
    • lambdaba 4y ago
      You might be interested in this document from Credit Suisse: https://research-doc.credit-suisse.com/docView?language=ENG&source=ulg&format=PDF&document_id=1053247551&serialid=MFT6JQWS%2B4FvvuMDBUQ7v9g4cGa84/gpv8mURvaRWdQ%3D https://research-doc.credit-suisse.com/docView?language=ENG&... There are more than 450 references to saturated fat in the document, but I found this phrase early on: > Our view is that saturated fats intake is at worst neutral for CVD risks and the current 10% upper limit should be lifted. Apologies if there was some other property of red meat that you had in mind, although I've been convinced from people commenting studies purportedly linking red meat and say, colon cancer, are just based on poor quality epidemiological data. And, while there was some sort of intuitive sense in which one could imagine the saturated fat eaten with meat/dairy products would mechanically clog arteries, I don't see anything like this with red meat. In fact, we are made of it, why would eating it have a deleterious effect? To the contrary, it seems that abstaining from meat often quite quickly causes iron deficiency/disregulation, B12 deficiency and so on.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    What test do you recommend and why? Last time I googled these tests I got so many results it seems like a small bullshit industry. Gut bacteria is obviously important but I'm not sure the results of these tests are useful.
    • robg 4y ago
      https://www.nowleap.com/the-patented-mediator-release-test/ https://www.nowleap.com/the-patented-mediator-release-test/ Importantly, should be ordered by a nutritionist and requires a blood draw. It’s got some challenges but overall helped me when paired with a restricted diet. Easy to relapse though, 2-3 months versus a lifetime of eating behaviors.
  • robg 4y ago
    Did the food sensitivity test (MRT) and helped a bit but also learned how immune responses can become associated with foods we eat a lot. Overall gut health and inflammation is so obvious, the engine strains with bad fuel, but very difficult to live it when pasta and pizza and burgers are staples. Why I think Pollan’s mantra is great, he’s not absolutist about any meat. Just mix and match, which we would in nature. It’s really hard to catch a consistent meat source.
  • Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    I do believe cooking food neutralizes most of those toxins. Anyway, I do believe (citation needed) that food sensitivity is also correlated to gut biome, and that some sensitivities can be overcome with dietary and/or gut biome changes.
    • adrian_b 4y ago
      While the toxins that are proteins are usually inactivated by cooking, some of the other substances require additional steps, which were always used in traditional cooking, but not all modern cooks are aware of them. For example, all the kinds of seeds, including all kinds of dry legumes and all kinds of nuts, require soaking in water for many hours and the water must be dumped and they must be washed before cooking, in order to remove as much of the phytic acid as possible. The soaking in water is much more efficient if the water is acidulated, e.g. with lemon juice or with vinegar. Another example is with the vegetables rich in oxalic acid, e.g. spinach, which must be boiled in several stages. After each stage, the boiling water must be dumped and replaced by fresh water, in order to remove as much of the oxalic acid as possible.
      • MichaelCollins 4y ago
        > For example, all the kinds of seeds, including all kinds of dry legumes and all kinds of nuts, require soaking in water for many hours and the water must be dumped and they must be washed before cooking, in order to remove as much of the phytic acid as possible. Or you can just... not do any of that. Eat raw almonds and shit out phytic acid. What's the problem?
  • whyenot 4y ago
    > many plants have toxins in them to prevent animals eating them Almost all of the plants humans eat have been domesticated and bred to no longer produce these compounds in the parts that we eat. For other plant parts, such as fruit, being full of sugar and tasty is an adaptation because it helps with dispersing the plant's seeds. If this is something that interests you I recommend reading 'With Bitter Herbs they shall eat it: Chemical ecology and the origins of human diet and medicine.' by Timothy Johns. It was published 30 years ago and is essentially his PhD dissertation but quite readable and still one of the best resources on this subject.
  • Wyoming23 4y ago
    > Igg food sensitivity test/food panel for 200+ foods Last I looked into this, the science didn't really support this interpretation and in fact may have been directionally opposite. Iirc in layman's terms, a "positive" result in that test didn't really mean "immune response" it just meant your body had the corresponding chemical to break down the food. What you had eaten in the past week could alter the results of the test and the results weren't predictive of foods that would cause digestive issues.
  • tpush 4y ago
    1) IgG food tests are not scientifically validated. 2) GI irritation is separate from inflammation, and many common food stuffs that may be causing irritation generally decrease inflammation. 3) Those "plant toxins" are either deactivated by processing (cooking etc.) or are in such low quantities that there's no negative effect, and most of the time even a slightly positive one. 4) "Most research studies" on red meat are not flawed. Edit: Formatting.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • rewgs 4y ago
    IgG tests are junk and meaningless.
    • rewgs 4y ago
      Uh, why exactly am I being downvoted for this? ^ IgG tests are objectively bad science, used to scam people into thinking they have allergies when they don’t. IgG will basically just give you a list of what foods you’ve eaten lately. They are completely and utterly useless. IgE tests are what matter. I have dozens of food allergies and unfortunately have had to learn more about allergies and the immune system than I ever imagined. I know what I’m talking about here.
• boplicity 4y ago
  It's not just the food that determines how our body reacts; it's also the microbiome, which produces a wide array of compounds that can enter our bloodstream, and possibly cross the blood-brain barrier. The microbiome is an incredible collection of microbes that is necessary for our health, and yet mostly a mystery at this point. The foods we eat have a direct impact on which microbes thrive, or don't thrive, in our gut -- which is a siginificant part of how our diet affects our gut health.
  • pstuart 4y ago
    Dr. Rhonda Patrick talks about diet resistant starch feeding the gut itself. Potato starch is a cheap and easy way to augment that need (YMMV).
    • boplicity 4y ago
      You microbiome is more akin to a forest than a farm. You can't just plant potatoes (or whatever) and assume that it will get balanced. Sometimes things like this do help, but sometimes they don't. Fertilizer makes plants grow, but it can have unintended consequences. (For example, runoff leading to bacterial blooms in a watershed.) The gut is an ecology, hence the difficulty of determining one-size-fits all fixes to a complex ecosystem.
      • pstuart 4y ago
        I'm well aware, thanks (YMMV was the disclaimer). My suggestion was for a cheap and easy hack that is likely to benefit a majority of the population. Obviously the best way is to have a well-rounded diet and get all nutrition that way but we know that can be challenging for many. Edit: in today's news feed: https://www.sciencealert.com/in-a-first-a-dietary-supplement-shown-to-cut-the-risk-of-hereditary-cancer-by-60 https://www.sciencealert.com/in-a-first-a-dietary-supplement...
• FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  Hi neuroscientis, maybe you should look into the genetics of you own, and others, gut metabolism. I did and it change my life. (Disabled with Scizoaffective Bipolar Disorder and Ankylosing Spondylitis). I found out I am a FUT2 non-secretor through 23andMe, unusual for a European Caucasian. So basically I cannot fight of gut microbes like you heart farmer folk. Secretor Genotype (FUT2 gene) Is Strongly Associated with the Composition of Bifidobacteria in the Human Intestine https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0020113 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Human genetic variation and the gut microbiome in disease https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2017.63 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2017.63 Since FUT2 releases fucose (Not fructose) I decided to see what foods contained fucose and try eating those. Turned out it is very high in seaweed and mushrooms, which is interesting because I have Sami heritage. Also the spuds that changes my gut microbiome were important as well, this meant reducing my short chain PUFAs as low as possible because of my FADS1 and FADS2 genetics. Eating those regularly turned my IBD into IBNormal and it helped my brain and inflammation as well. So "Eat (whole) foods. Not too much. Mostly plants" is quite wrong for me, genetically. In fact, when I was a (good) vegan and vegetarian my HDL was 30 with hyperlipidemia! Eating kind of keto with only seafood pushed my Hal up to 55. As a neuroscientist you should know that Mood Disorders are highly polygenic so there is no same cause and therefore no same cure for anyone. So can you please start looking into personalized medicine so people like me do not have to live in constant hell? Thanks.
  • amelius 4y ago
    > Since FUT2 releases fuctose (Not fructose) Fuctose has no wikipedia page. Could you provide some sources? > I found out I am a FUT2 non-secretor through 23andMe, unusual for a European Caucasian. Wikipedia says: > Approximately 20% of Caucasians are non-secretors due to the G428A (rs601338) and C571T (rs492602?) nonsense mutations in FUT2 20% doesn't seem extremely unusual.
    • PlatinumHarp 4y ago
      I think it's a typo, it should be Fucose not Fuctose.
    • 4y ago
• carapace 4y ago
  I'm old enough to remember when this sort of thing was "woo-woo", so it's good to see it getting a grounding in solid scientific investigation. "Let your food be your medicine." and all that, eh? Historically our microbiome and the external environment must have been in a kind of dialog: available food would be a pretty direct function of the local ecosystem, and our feces, which are something like 80% microorganisms, would of course be integrated back into the soil. (It's not really that surprising, from this POV, that our bellies would have brains.)
• worker_person 4y ago
  Best thing I ever did for health was a 30 day elimination diet. I felt much better, and could easily tell which foods bothered me when I reintroduced them. I would eat a roll and 20 minutes later I was feeling hot and flushed and irritated. Just like I had been for years. A slice of pizza is basically a day of feeling horrible.
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    Deets on the diet? Was this a self-directed or clinician (nutritionist / MD / ...) programme? I'm presuming this began with a minimum baseline to which you added foods over time?
    • peytoncasper 4y ago
      I could be wrong, but I think OP meant, choose something to eliminate and do it for 30 days. Then choose to introduce it back in if you wish. This allows you to observe the effect it has on you. I did this with added sugars. I could definitely feel the cravings to not only eat more as you added it back in but also the baseline cravings to just have some amount of sugar in your body. It is very eye opening. You also become very aware of how much sugar is in everything.
      • elmomle 4y ago
        To clarify, the thing one eliminates is typically a molecule or a food group--the most common are probably (in no order) added sugar, gluten, fried foods, processed foods, dairy, and red meat. One can eliminate any or all of those, typically for a month (gives your gut time to change), and then, if you want to, experiment with adding things back in. A nice thing about the gut microbiome is that it's self-reinforcing, both psychologically and gustatorily--as in, once one's body realizes a food doesn't help, one tend to both think "why would I make myself feel like that?", and to find the experience of eating/drinking it less pleasurable, alien, or even disgusting.
      • browningstreet 4y ago
        An elimination diet is a protocol where you start with a baseline of "safest" foods and exclude everything for a while, and then.. in an orderly fashion, start to re-introduce foods while noting how you respond or change in light of those additions. It's a protocol, one you can get from a nutritionist or dietician or by searching online. And the food lists can be adapted to people with varying eating modalities.