Saturday, August 25, 2012

Donaldson's 25%

This idea occurred to me several days ago, but i was in the middle of something and i didn't write it down....  Well, i'm reminded of it again now.

A favorite blogger has been on a VLC regime which, though she doesn't really like it, IS effective for weight loss.  Unfortunately, the discomfort of it caught up with her and she's had to abandon it -- you HAVE to abandon an eating plan which makes you feel awful, no matter if others thrive on it or what.

When i read in "Strong Medicine" that 75% of Donaldson's patients did very well on his VLC regime, i didn't really spend much time thinking about the ones who did not.  He didn't describe them in much detail, but left me with the impression that they just didn't care to comply.  I'm rethinking that now.

Suppose they were like our blogging friend, who was doing the program determinedly, but had to give it up because it didn't agree with her physiology?  Shall we use as a reasonable assumption that up to 25% of the population CANNOT do VLC, for thoroughly valid reasons?  Perhaps their genetic backgrounds are such that they do not make the right enzymes to thrive on a diet providing very few carbohydrates.  Perhaps their collections of gut-bugs aren't optimal for the situation.  There could be all kinds of reasons, but the upshot is, VLC is just not right for them.

Makes good sense to me:  NO single regimen is right for EVERYONE.

8 comments:

  1. You know, it's interesting that you should bring this up. I've been rereading some of Peter's archives recently and every so often people would post comments about cardiac arrhythmias and other complications they experienced while attempting Kwasniewski style diets. Peter seems to think that not everyone can eat like this and he has a very good post about the potential dangers of ketosis. It's hard to know what to do. No LC guru will even acknowledge this problem yet the LC forums are full of people who attempted VLC and found themselves in trouble.

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    1. the variation in people is SO interesting.... it's no wonder the medical profession wants to ignore people who don't fit their paradigms, and would rather call them liars or non-compliant, when their bodies don't respond as expected. the have to protect their egos, which are wrapped up in their careers. after all, they lose every single patient, in the end!

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  2. Ah, the voice of reason! A good reminder that even when the general principle makes sense, is heading in a better direction and works in many cases-each of us has a very individual physiological construct and we can make gross changes, but we're still going to have to adjust and tweak as we go. We still have to listen to our bodies, adapt when they change and find what works best for us. Of course, that is harder to do when we don't have our own lab resources to monitor blood/endocrine function.
    And, occasionally there will be a physiological condition that won't respond to dietary adjustments alone. If only mainstream medical care would look at the whole picture and give diet equal consideration.

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  3. hell, i'd be impressed if they looked at the body as a single unit, instead of the numerous different systems sewn together in a bag, as they seem to. everything affects everything else, though, and they discover new functions and hormones and things STILL. it's amazing to me....

    yeah, it would be nice if everything could be measured as easily as we do glucose, now! as it is, though, we have to do exactly as you say, "we're still going to have to adjust and tweak as we go. We still have to listen to our bodies, adapt when they change and find what works best for us."

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  4. I just listened to Dr. Phinney on LLVLC and the same thing, mostly talking about compliance when people asked questions about stalls. Two answers were, "just accept it if you can't lose more weight". When someone asked about thyroid/adrenal issues, he immediately jumped onto thyroid and mentioned tons of tests he had done on that, debunking. Hey, but what about the adrenal issue? He also mentioned that the person who had issues about thyroid only had a biology degree. Well, Schwarzbein has more than just a biology degree, perhaps they should chat? I noticed that Rosedale mentioned adrenal issues on his blog recently too. Trouble is, you can't get any other doc to take adrenal issues seriously. At least thyroid abnormalities are sort of on their radar. I figured out how to fix the adrenal issues through Jack's stuff on MDA, but unfortunately, most of that stuff is now behind the paywall. Too bad for the rest.

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    1. EB, I listened to the Phinney podcast too and got the same impression. He was quite dismissive of the issue and was citing his metabolic ward studies but let's face it, thyroid-adrenal crapouts, if they happen, won't happen overnight. It'll be after months or even years of VLCing. I don't see any good data on this, just anecdotes.

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    2. Sid, if adrenal issues caused your recent difficulty, i'd bet the farm it was building before and the VLCing was just the last straw. looks like a grain-free whole foods diet without sugar is the prescription for healing, actually.

      i haven't listened to that podcast yet, as it was supposed to last the best part of two hours. :-P from what you two say about it, i'm not sure i want to "waste" that much time on this guy!

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  5. ...oh, i've got to write on the adrenal thing today. there's no way i can say what i want to in a couple of short sentences in "comments". :-) thanks for inspiring me, EB!

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