Tweet
In this week’s show we interview the illustrious Kurt Harris, M.D. from PaNu.
Topics discussed include:
- Orthorexia
- Meditation practice
- Whether anyone should care about their lipid measurements
- Are their hormetic benefits from fructose, wheat and seed oils?
- A lot more…
We had a great time recording it, and I think you’ll enjoy it.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe via iTunes.
Subscribe to RSS feed (non-iTunes).
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
oh my, the cigarette comment. I can so see this being taken out of context.
Great stuff. I just don’t agree with the reaction a problem or imperfection that goes to one extreme without regard for the middle ground. “Oh our emotions are destroying us, we’re just so angry and so upset, let’s become as indifferent as we can”, or “We’re just so ruled by desire, we can never enjoy life because we are never content with what we have , so let’s aspire to nothing.” These people spend an inordinate amount of time doing amazing things with meditation and dicipline, but couldn’t we just learn to mediate our emotions so as to react rationally when we ought to, or learn to embrace the process of striving to be greater and do more? Buddhism seems to make more sense if you are truly despondent like Chinese peasants used to be.
It is also good that we aren’t getting too over-confident about our diets, or too obsessed with perfection like that is all that matters. I look at the reduction in heart disease risk of someone with low CRP, fasting glucose, A1C, good lipids, enough copper, enough magnesium and other nutrients, and it is all pretty stunning. But it could all be undermined by something we haven’t noticed yet. Like stress or lack of sleep, although usually diet helps with that. Usually.
Thanks Chris and Danny for taking my question (re: Hormesis and ox-PUFA) and asking it during the interview. Love your blog. Thanks again!
Regards,
Aravind
Thanks Chris and Danny for taking my question (re: Hormesis and ox-PUFA) and asking it during the interview. Love your blog. Thanks again!
Regards,
Aravind
I have a comment on PUFAs. According to wikipedia, PUFA content in lard, tallow and butter hover around 4%. So I would think the *minimum* PUFA you’ll get is 4% . However it sounds like according to Dr. Harris that we should aim for 4% maximum. How is that feasible?
4% of total caloric intake, not 4% of any particular fat.
Thank you, that clarifies things.
your orthorexia discussion hits homehard… when you said ‘down to steamed figh and broccoli…been there, done that. i am so glad someone else took the time to stress the MENTAL aspect of something like food and choices. you are what you think and you are what you think you will become. you can either be your own worst enemy or you most confident sidekick. i was convinced at one time everything was going to be bad for me and only ate a piece of fish daily to stay outa the hospital. it is ALL mental at that point and there is NO justification for your actions.
i love some buddhism for stress, mental, emotional, gut-brain stuff even as a practicing catholic(hypocrit, maybe lol). as someone who has been from one extreme to learning the ‘fuck it’ response to all the health biased, it is hard. i dont think its curable(at least anorexia), but you can mentally fix yourself to the point you will be able to flourish and displace yourself from the mental mess that is your mind. i wont ever forget being anorexic but i also wont ever allow myself all this hard work in recovery to back pedal, like you said ”something i can control consciously.’
Hey guys, great podcast loved all of it and both of your blogs. I was just wondering if anyone knew who the Peter that Dr. Harris kept mentioning was, and if anyone knows where he might be located on the web. Thanks for any information, again great podcast, can’t wait to hear what Dr. Harris has to say when he teams up with Robb for the Paleo Solution Podcast!
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/
Petro Dobromylskyj – The oracle
He’s referring to Peter Dobromylskyj at Hyperlipid. http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/
Enjoyed the pod. Glad to hear Kurt is ‘partially’ into Eastern philosophy. I think much more attention should be given to therapy that explores the potential of the mind to control the immune system and gut, rather than focusing on controlling the gut to control the mind and immune system.
The body is so dependent on the cocktail of hormones and nervous tone for athletic and academic performance, and studies of hypnosis bear out the powerful effect of mind on inflammation.
Two further examples that leave me in no doubt:
1.
Probably the most powerful example of the mind over the body is the Australian Aboriginals’ use of “Pointing the Bone”. This is basically a death curse delivered by Aboriginal tribe witchdoctors/medicine men. A bone is pointed at a person suspected of a crime, and immediately or within a week, the victim dies. I read once that an Australian hospital admitted an Aboriginal who was in a poor way after having the bone pointed at him. He was very weak and in danger of dying. He couldn’t hold down food orally so they fed him nasogastrically. He continued to deteriorate. They then fed him intravenously and he began to improve. This confirms his fear was so strong it caused a powerful small intestine malabsorption reaction, which was overridden with IV feeds.
2.
In my clinical experience, I’ve seen indirect evidence of how powerful the autonomic nervous system is. In one case, a US osteopath treated Chapman’s reflexes which resulted in a quick and violent loosening of a consolidated pneumonia that had dropped O2 sats dramatically causing end stage right heart failure. Hospital doctors had given up on this patient and told the husband his wife was not strong enough to survive or throw off the pneumonia. The husband called the osteopath who came immediately. As the treatment took effect, I interpreted what happened as the alverolar capillary barrier permitting large amounts of plasma to penetrate into the lungs which loosened the consolidated mucoid plugs that were severely compromising gas exchange.
Outstanding podcast. I especially enjoyed the discussion of the mind/body connection.
For either Chris or Dr. Harris,
I would love to hear your extended thoughts about heart rate variability (HRV) perhaps as a blog post in the future.
Of all the articles for HRV on pubmed, most fall into the following areas:
a) Decreased HRV and its relationship to heart disease
b) Athletic performance (using HRV readings to determine overtraining as an example)
c) Stress (how it lowers HRV and how techniques like paced breathing and meditation increase it)
Do you think that there is a role for HRV monitoring with respect to clinical settings as a potential indicator of heart problems and/or for teaching people how to manage stress with real-time HRV feedback?
Thanks!
Tim Huntley
Chris…..I have to say that I am loving your Podcast and especially enjoyed this one. The discussion on Orthorexia really hit home with me. Coming from a background with competitive bodybuilding I know this subject first hand. When I quit the bodybuilding lifestyle and adopted Paleo I was able to leave those issues behind me and I got to a really good place. However, over the past several months those old habits came back and it not only effected me mentally but physically by gaining bodyfat. I was totally shocked because I didn’t change a thing and I was gaining weight on a diet that it’s next to impossible to gain bodyfat. This podcast was the wake up call I needed to remind myself to quit obsessing over my what I eat!
Also, I love the positive vibe you provide in your podcast. A lot of other paleo podcast and forums seem more like a soapbox or judgment fest!
Very nice podcast. I’m a real anti leaky gut freak. Wrote several post about it. Did not involve stress as a possible cause for permeability up until now. I’ll surely dive into it. VBR Hans Keer
Oh… very good. I so look forward to more of this “eastern medicine meets western” – because a lot of the eastern medicine seems to work by non-chemical pathways. Our chemical-based medicine seems too often harm as much as it does good. It’s much better to let the body heal itself when possible – with as little as possible chemical intervention.
I’m also glad you clarified the vitamin-d question. As a person with hashimoto’s I’m especially interested in treatments that touches on all kinds of autoimmunity. And we are so many. So please don’t count your audience as “all normal” (un-)healthy humans. I’m quite convinced that most of us that look for general-health information are sufferers of different illnesses and that the illness triggered the interest.
Oh… very good. I so look forward to more of this “eastern medicine meets western” – because a lot of the eastern medicine seems to work by non-chemical pathways. Our chemical-based medicine seems too often harm as much as it does good. It’s much better to let the body heal itself when possible – with as little as possible chemical intervention.
I’m also glad you clarified the vitamin-d question. As a person with hashimoto’s I’m especially interested in treatments that touches on all kinds of autoimmunity. And we are so many. So please don’t count your audience as “all normal” (un-)healthy humans. I’m quite convinced that most of us that look for general-health information are sufferers of different illnesses and that the illness triggered the interest.
Oh… very good. I so look forward to more of this “eastern medicine meets western” – because a lot of the eastern medicine seems to work by non-chemical pathways. Our chemical-based medicine seems too often harm as much as it does good. It’s much better to let the body heal itself when possible – with as little as possible chemical intervention.
I’m also glad you clarified the vitamin-d question. As a person with hashimoto’s I’m especially interested in treatments that touches on all kinds of autoimmunity. And we are so many. So please don’t count your audience as “all normal” (un-)healthy humans. I’m quite convinced that most of us that look for general-health information are sufferers of different illnesses and that the illness triggered the interest.
That was a fantastic podcast. Thanks guys. Kurt is really refreshing – a true voice of reason
thoughts as mental secretions, now that’s one to remember! me thinks i value my mind way too much at times!
I am a regular listener to your podcast Chris.. something funny happened to this one though, somehow my iphone sped it up and all of you sounded like you were jacked up on a gallon of coffee! It was still great to listen to and I had to laugh that your normal laid back voice was almost at Chimpmunks level.
deb
Chris,
I am enjoying your podcasts and information, although I didn’t find this one with Dr. Harris as helpful, I have liked all your other podcasts better, as they have great information and explanations of what is going on in the body.
Thanks for all the time and effort you put into educating, us the public.
I came to the mind/body connection through an unusual route. I was in talking therapy for depression in my early twenties, and my counsellor gave me a book that suggested that all physical ailments had a psychological basis. (Body, Self and Soul). I embraced the idea and with my therapist examined the possible childhood traumas that might have created my shortsightedness, my overweight, my backpain, irritable bowel, etc. As you can see, my problems were of the types that doctors will often attribute to the psychological, and adding chronic fatigue in my late 20′s didn’t change that. But I’ve been pulled inexorably towards the physical aspects in dealing with my problems. for eg, I realized that I could not really stabilize my depression without eating protein at every meal, no matter how much I examined it. and further experimentation revealed that I needed less protein if I ate less sugar/starch. I also needed to get enough sleep to be able to keep my mental stability. And then i figured out metabolic disregulation, leaky gut, etc.
Imagine a parent trying to reason with a overly tired and hungry child. It doesn’t really work. But just feeding the child and putting it to bed is not enough, either, as the child needs to feel love and connection, and to learn how to self-sooth from having been soothed.
So, my point is really that I realized the complexity of the mind/body connection. Meditation can help me sleep, but a sad light gives me the desire to stick to my self-care routines, such as meditation. I can get into vicious cycles of neglecting myself and isolation, or increasing cycles of taking care of myself, and these patterns are profoundly rooted in the physical and the social and the mental.
So even though I completely agree that there is a mental/psychological aspect to my illnesses, when a doctor, who knows nothing about nutrition, esp nutrition as it plays a role in mental illness, tells me chronic fatigue doesn’t exist and offers me prosac, I can become quite angry. and I can understand why people might resist the diagnosis. Because it is often offered as a denial of the physical instead of an ajunct to it. You know, “it’s all in your head”