5. The state of
medicine
Overprescribing
Bribing of doctors, corruption =
overmedication = opioid crisis
Search if your doctor is taking money from
drug companies:
https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/
More palliative than curative
The best medicine is preventative – who wants a
disease in the first place?
Enter: diet as medicine
7. Industry-funded
confusion?
Some studies will measure fasting cholesterol
(chol.) levels 12 h after consumption
Result: it looks like dietary chol. doesn’t raise
plasma chol.
Heart attack chances are increased 2 hours after
chol. laden meals
The cholesterol plateau
If you eat a chol.-rich diet, additional diet chol.
won’t change serum chol,. much
Using this one can easily make a study suggesting
diet chol. doesn’t raise chol. in the blood
Cholesterol in blood for 7 hours: 5 meals w/
dif. cholesterol amounts (Dubois 1994)
280 mg/dL = about a two-egg omelet
(Hopkins 1992)
8. More Industry Baloney
The egg industry launched a secret two-year war
against a vegan mayonnaise competitor
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-egg-
board-investigation-20161007-snap-
story.html
How big government helps big dairy sell milk
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/2/11565698/bi
g-government-helps-big-dairy-sell-milk
The Politics of Meat: A look at the meat industry’s
influence on Capitol Hill
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
shows/meat/politics/
9. Cholesterol
• Cholesterols are prone to oxidation, forming oxysterols,
which have “cytotoxic, mutagenic, atherogenic, and
possibly carcinogenic” effects (Valenzuela, 2003).
• Oxidation causes injury
• Immune response begins with release of platelets,
• They stick to the artery & clump up (Ross, 1977).
• This normally heals arterial lesions, but not if it’s the
product of chronic injury
• Macrophages are also recruited
• Eat lipoproteins (LDL) and form “foam cells” (Moore,
2013)
• Lack of negative feedback = engorged macrophages =
compromised immune response
• Form unstable necrotic cores – may lead to blood clots
• Cholesterol also crystallizes (Duewell,
2010)
• Pointy crystals cause plaque rupture &
incite inflammation
Heavy in antioxidants, inh
oxidation
No dietary sources of
cholesterol – less LDL in
Foam cells don’t develo
crystallization less like
Foam cell
10. Time to ruin eggs…
What about the “good” HDL?
- Eggs raise LDL far more than HDL
HDL & CVD: correlation =/=
causation
Cholesterol in 2 large eggs: 374mg
(Sources include: USDA)
Lean ground beef: 78mg (per 100g)
Chinook salmon: 85 mg (per 100g)
So egg bad?
Yes.
RL
11. Other harmful substances in animal products
Saturated fat
Heme iron
Feces – e coli outbreaks
Lactose
Estrogens
13. What the end may actually look like.
Environmentalism as medicine. Patient: Earth
14. Conclusion
Reduce or eliminate animal product
consumption to…
Improve health outcomes
CVD
Cancer
Type 2 Diabetes
BMI
Microbiome health
Alzheimer’s, dementia,
Fibromyalgia, acne, etc.
Save the planet
And reduce harm
But how?
Start with one plant-based day a week
Get informed: (see resources on last
slide)
RL
15. Conclusion (in the words of Neal Barnard):
“The consumption of animal products exposes humans to saturated fat,
cholesterol, lactose, estrogens, and pathogenic microorganisms, while displacing
fiber, complex carbohydrates, antioxidants, and other components needed for
health. In the process, consumption of animal products increases the risk for
cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and other disorders. This dietary
pattern also promotes the growth of unhealthful gut bacteria, fostering, among
other things, the production of trimethylamine N-oxide, a proinflammatory
compound associated with cardiovascular and neurological diseases. “
Am J Clin Nutr 2020;112:926–930. (Barnard 2020)
16. Literature cited
1. Barnard, Neal D, and Frédéric Leroy. “Children and Adults Should Avoid Consuming Animal Products to Reduce
Risk for Chronic Disease: Yes.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 112, no. 4, 2020, pp. 926–930.
2. Dubois, C, et al. “Effects of Increasing Amounts of Dietary Cholesterol on Postprandial Lipemia and
Lipoproteins in Human Subjects.” Journal of Lipid Research, vol. 35, no. 11, 1994, pp. 1993–2007.,
doi:10.1016/s0022-2275(20)39946-6.
3. Hopkins, P.. “Effects of dietary cholesterol on serum cholesterol: a meta-analysis and review.” The American
journal of clinical nutrition 55 6 (1992): 1060-70 .
4. Valenzuela A, Sanhueza J, Nieto S. Cholesterol oxidation: health hazard and the role of antioxidants in
prevention. Biol Res. 2003;36(3-4):291-302.
18. Resources if you’re
interested in eating more
plants:
To track calories,
macronutrients, &
micronutrients
Free apps: chronometer
& MyFitnessPal
Helpful YouTube
channels:
- Mic The Vegan
- Simnett Nutrition
- Happy Healthy Vegan
- Earthling Ed
Documentaries
Links:
Nutrition: https://nutritionfacts.org/
Recipes: https://minimalistbaker.com/recipe-index/
The video that made me go vegan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5hGQDLprA8
More Resources: https://www.nomeatathlete.com/podcast/radio-105/
Editor's Notes
I think we all know that whenever there are billions of dollars at play, there is also a lot of corruption and behind the scenes stuff. If you would like to see if your doctor is taking money from drug companies, feel free to download this PowerPoint and use open payments data.gov. Some doctors can receive in excess of $200,00 a year, and in exchange for these nice payments and occasional nice dinners, doctors prescribe drugs when otherwise they might not. This leads to overmedication and the current opioid crisis we find ourselves in.
Now the state is not just overprescribing, it is also overly palliative. We talked about that in this class – this is when you focus on alleviation of symptoms, and it can be really important for terminal illnesses or complex diseases where we can improve quality of life. However, for things like CVD, where there are known causes and reversal treatments, doctors tend to prescribe statins and other drugs that address only symptoms and not the underlying disease. So we don’t see doctors prescribing nutrition plans or workout regimens because, correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t training in nutrition to become a doctor – which seems pretty backwards when diet and lifestyle along with genetic predispositions are the greatest predictors of disease and health.
Why aren’t they prescribing the best things we can do to cut our chances of dying from the two leading killers CVD and cancer – being active and eating right? Well hardly anyone knows what eating right really is.
Here we have most of the well-studied metabolic pathways in animal cells from the Kreb’s & urea cycles to glycolysis and fat oxidation. Basically, this is nutrition in a nutshell – complex organic chemistry and figuring out how chemically intricate foods like an orange are broken down, transported, and reincorporated into the body. So how do you turn an apple into a pair of biceps? It’s terribly complex and there is still so much we don’t know – the state of nutrition science is a bit of a mess and people often use that uncertainty and outdated or industry funded studies to come to whatever conclusions are most palatable or profitable. In the media there is so much confusion and misleading nonsense about nutrition, health, and fitness. It’s quite disgusting, and the only thing you can do to separate truth from fiction is to get informed through the scientific literature, and there is a very steep learning curve.
Cholesterols are highly prone to oxidation and form oxysterols, which are harmful to living cells, cause mutations, induce atherosclerosis, and may contribute to cancer.
This oxidation causes damage to artery walls.
Immune response starts off with platelets – these are the blood bits that stop up a scab. So they clump up and form a scab on the inside of your artery. Normally this heals the lesion, but it gets more complicated if the injury is the product of chronic damage and when there is a lot of cholesterol in the blood.
So cholesterol is kind of a nebulous concept. We can’t SEE cholesterol, so let’s connect it to a popular food very high in cholesterol – eggs.