Monday, February 4, 2013

AHS-12 videos finally coming through!

I enjoyed the hell out of J Stanton's presentation when i saw it the other day, but i may have been wowed more when i watched Chris Masterjohn this evening

Funny thing, though, i was most interested in an early point he made -- that salivary amylase activity is predictive of glucose tolerance, and that it varies significantly from one individual to the next.  Unless i'm much mistaken, this is highly significant for choosing one's life-long dietary path.  The only problem is how to know where you stand early enough....  I wonder if this is one of those tests you can just order up on the internet?

To me it also means that all the pro-carb blow-hards who claim everybody ought to be able to shovel down potatoes as fast as they do are DEMONSTRABLY wrong.  Hee hee!  :-D

The rest of Chris's talk was not only great material, it was very well presented.  I had to back up and listen to a few points again, and i paused even more times to peruse his slides at my own pace, but he explained things so well i never actually got lost. Great job, Dr. M!

I'm so glad they "listened to me" [smirk] and provided a microphone for the questions at the end of the talks this time -- the AHS-11 q&a session drove me batty.

4 comments:

  1. Some parts were good but it seems like Masterjohn has been infected by the meme that usually infects obesity researchers into thinking that obesity is a condition of "excess" energy overload.

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    1. i kinda thought he was just tiptoeing around the carbohydrate question -- he's stayed carefully out of the debate all this time. on the other hand, he IS one of those skinny young men.... ;-)

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    2. The commenter at the end had a great point, giving obese people anti-oxidants doesn't resolve anything. That was tricky for Masterjohn.

      Also he made such a strong connection between salivary amylase and starch tolerance, but then made the strange conclusion that humans can "thrive" on a wide variety of diets. When actually the conclusion should be that humans can only thrive on a diet that their ancestors thrived on or that fits with their genetic makeup.

      I.E. we cant pick a human at random between all populations and then expect him to "thrive" on any old diet we give him.

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    3. oh, i absolutely agree! i just interpreted his comment a little differently than you did (i should watch it again). i didn't feel his comment meant that ANYONE can eat starch, just that the generality of humans can live on a wide variety of diets.

      and it's interesting that we LCers don't seem to want to push "them" into dumping their potatoes -- we just resent what we see as THEIR tendency to "make" us eat them....

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