posted
Fascinating! But I am confused. Why is it called the "Calorie Restrictive" diet when (to me) the most important trait is that it is full of nutrient-dense foods? 1700-2100 calories is *not* that restrictive. Honestly. Many people try to lose weight by keeping calories below 1200 a day.
Edit: Sara, I really need to get some kind of long distance on our landline phone....
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quote:In CR, energy intake is minimized, but sufficient quantities of vitamins, minerals and other important nutrients must be eaten. To emphasize the difference between CR and mere "FR" (food restriction), CR is often referred to by a plethora of other names such as CRON or CRAN (calorie restriction with optimal/adequate nutrition), or the "high-low diet" (high in all nutrients aside from calories, in which it is "low"). Other names for the diet emphasize the goal of the diet, such as CRL (calorie restriction for longevity), or simply The Longevity Diet, as in a recently published book by that name.
I believe the "restriction" is in reference to the standard calorie recommendations based on basal metabolic requirements, which may or may not need to be revised. That is to say, it is "restricted" with respect to the current standard recommended average.
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posted
Malignant disease, in this case, refers to cancerous tumors:
"Among the many items of information of great interest furnished by Dr. Romig were facts that fitted well into the modern picture of association of modern degenerative processes with modernization. He stated that in his thirty-six years of contact with these people he had never seen a case of malignant disease among the truly primitive Eskimos and Indians, although it frequently occurs when they become modernized. He found similarly that the acute surgical problems requiring operation on internal organs such as the gall bladder, kidney, stomach, and appendix do not tend to occur among the primitive, but are very common problems among the modernized Eskimos and Indians. Growing out of his experience, in which he had seen large numbers of the modernized Eskimos and Indians attacked with tuberculosis, which tended to be progressive and ultimately fatal as long as the patients stayed under modernized living conditions, he now sends them back when possible to primitive conditions and to a primitive diet, under which the death rate is very much lower than under modernized conditions. Indeed, he reported that a great majority of the afflicted recover under the primitive type of living and nutrition."--from chapter 6
" In their native state they have exceedingly little disease. Dr. J. R. Nimmo, the government physician in charge of the supervision of this group, told me in his thirteen years with them he had not seen a single case of malignancy, and had seen only one that he had suspected might be malignancy among the entire four thousand native population. He stated that during this same period he had operated several dozen malignancies for the white population, which numbers about three hundred. He reported that among the primitive stock other affections requiring surgical interference were rare."---from chapter 11
"Dr. Anderson who is in charge of a splendid government hospital in Kenya, assured me that in several years of service among the primitive people of that district he had observed that they did not suffer from appendicitis, gall bladder trouble, cystitis and duodenal ulcer. Malignancy was also very rare among the primitives."---from chapter 9
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posted
Rabbit, thank you for reminding me how much Empress Maria Theresa rocks. She and her children were also influential patrons of famous musicians too. (I think Mozart but my memory may be faulty)
She's up there with Eleanor of Acquitane and Queen Elizabeth I in my book.
quote:Originally posted by steven: hey just_me---Chapter 18, plus "pottenger's cats." It's all there, I swear.
Wow, I'm so suprised that I didn't think to read chapter 18... you never mentioned that before and of course it'll all be there
How about providing something substantative besides "read chapter 18". All I see in chapter 18 is some choice quotes from other work - no indication of methods or application to human beings.
By the way, pottenger's cat doesn't prove anything. he made no attempt to correlate his findings to humans. He pretty much stated that it there are "obvious" parallels but there is no scientific merit or backing to theat claim. In other words stop trating pottenger's cat as a the holy grail of your argument because it's a cracked foundation on which to try and build an argument.
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posted
As mentioned before the only thing Pottenger's cats proved is that one of the essential feline amino acids is Taurine (even though they didn't know what Taurine was at the time)
posted
well, just_me--you could also take into account that the shellfish, fish, organ meats, and fish eggs diet showed up nearly everywhere on the planet. Also, the explanation was the same in every place--to ensure good reproduction and healthy children. What's your grand explanation for that? Mass delusion?
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quote:Originally posted by steven: well, just_me--you could also take into account that the shellfish, fish, organ meats, and fish eggs diet showed up nearly everywhere on the planet. Also, the explanation was the same in every place--to ensure good reproduction and healthy children. What's your grand explanation for that? Mass delusion?
That's it... you got it in one, mass delusion.
Must be similar to the delusion that we're all under that you might be capable of discussing this issue like a reasonable adult...
Thanks for setting me straight... I'm going to take my own advice from a couple pages ago and not bother trying to actually discuss this with you until you commit to actually discussing it.
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posted
steven, you are being very restrained. I wanted you to know that I noticed and I appreciate the effort it must take.
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quote: Malignant disease, in this case, refers to cancerous tumors:
"Among the many items of information of great interest furnished by Dr. Romig were facts that fitted well into the modern picture of association of modern degenerative processes with modernization. He stated that in his thirty-six years of contact with these people he had never seen a case of malignant disease among the truly primitive Eskimos and Indians, although it frequently occurs when they become modernized. He found similarly that the acute surgical problems requiring operation on internal organs such as the gall bladder, kidney, stomach, and appendix do not tend to occur among the primitive, but are very common problems among the modernized Eskimos and Indians. Growing out of his experience, in which he had seen large numbers of the modernized Eskimos and Indians attacked with tuberculosis, which tended to be progressive and ultimately fatal as long as the patients stayed under modernized living conditions, he now sends them back when possible to primitive conditions and to a primitive diet, under which the death rate is very much lower than under modernized conditions. Indeed, he reported that a great majority of the afflicted recover under the primitive type of living and nutrition."--from chapter 6
" In their native state they have exceedingly little disease. Dr. J. R. Nimmo, the government physician in charge of the supervision of this group, told me in his thirteen years with them he had not seen a single case of malignancy, and had seen only one that he had suspected might be malignancy among the entire four thousand native population. He stated that during this same period he had operated several dozen malignancies for the white population, which numbers about three hundred. He reported that among the primitive stock other affections requiring surgical interference were rare."---from chapter 11
"Dr. Anderson who is in charge of a splendid government hospital in Kenya, assured me that in several years of service among the primitive people of that district he had observed that they did not suffer from appendicitis, gall bladder trouble, cystitis and duodenal ulcer. Malignancy was also very rare among the primitives."---from chapter 9
Don't you understand how darwinian natural selection could cause this, and the instant you become "humanitarian" and allow weaker physical specimiens to live and reproduce, you end up getting more and more physical complications.
Heck I would have been dead long ago and it has nothing to do with my diet but the fact I'm the klutziest person in my family.
posted
steven, do you really not understand the difference between Dr. Price's quoting another doctor about how he's pretty sure that he didn't see any cancerous "primitives" in his practice and data showing lower rates of cancer among people on a specific diet?
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posted
Excellent point Banna. read this quote from the first paragraph, though:
"...He found similarly that the acute surgical problems requiring operation on internal organs such as the gall bladder, kidney, stomach, and appendix do not tend to occur among the primitive, but are very common problems among the modernized Eskimos and Indians...."
Check that last phrase:
"...but are very common problems among the MODERNIZED Eskimos and Indians...."
Once more "...MODERNIZED Eskimos..."
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posted
Once more: "do not tend to occur" and "are very common problems."
What does that mean? How often do these things happen in each population? What other variables might affect the incidence of these things? How is he measuring a given Eskimo's level of modernity?
Steven, really, do you see why it's exactly that sort of sentence which points out the unsuitability of the book?
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posted
Level of Modernity? Price mentions specifically how proud the "modernized" eskimos were of their new diet. They rejected the old ways thoroughly and thought that getting food anywhere but the store was "uncivilized", or what have you.
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quote:steven, do you really not understand the difference between Dr. Price's quoting another doctor about how he's pretty sure that he didn't see any cancerous "primitives" in his practice and data showing lower rates of cancer among people on a specific diet?
Do you really not understand how condescending and unproductive this is? What are you trying to gain?
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posted
The first time I read a post by TomD, 6 years ago, I thought he was about 40 years old. That's when he was 25.
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quote:Originally posted by beverly: Fascinating! But I am confused. Why is it called the "Calorie Restrictive" diet when (to me) the most important trait is that it is full of nutrient-dense foods? 1700-2100 calories is *not* that restrictive. Honestly. Many people try to lose weight by keeping calories below 1200 a day.
That may be why many people are unsuccessful in losing weight: 1200 is most likely such a low caloric intake for any given adult that after a short period of time the body tends to lower its energy expenditures. It's too restrictive and can cause the body to go into 'starvation mode.' Most people can lose weight by eating about 500 calories below their daily maintanance level. There's a ton of calculators out there to find out what that is, but for a rough estimate, take 15 times your body weight in lbs and subtract 500. So with moderate exercise, a 175 lb female could actually lose weight on a 2100 calorie diet consisting of complex carbohydrates, lean proteins, and healthy fats.
You're right, 1700-2100 is not that restrictive. Heck, if you eat healthy (brown rice, oatmeal, chicken breasts, etc), then 2000 calories a day is a LOT of food.
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posted
But steven there are no numbers. There are no statistical data with error bars. It doesn't sound like Price is referencing anything statistically. This is my problem. I'm an engineer, without numbers it's meaningless. I don't want Dr. Price's book I want the reference he used that had the numbers and to be able to look them up for myself.
posted
You can order "Pottenger's cats" in book form at Amazon.com. As far as the rest of them go, there's a list of references for each study mentioned at the end of each chapter.
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quote:Originally posted by steven: You can order "Pottenger's cats" in book form at Amazon.com. As far as the rest of them go, there's a list of references for each study mentioned at the end of each chapter.
Translation: I have no idea what you just said, so... um, read the book!
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posted
Here are some results from the end of ch. 18. I deleted most of the ones that were not animal studies, but you see the rest right there, at the end of ch. 18. I posted the link a page or two ago, but here it is again.
-MASON, K. E. Foetal death, prolonged gestation and difficult parturition in the rat as a result of vitamin A deficiency. Am. J. Anat., 57:303, 1935. -MEIGS, E. B. and CONVERSE, H. T. Some effects of different kinds of hay in the ration on the performance of dairy cows. J. Dairy Sci., 16:317, 1933. -BARRIE, M. M. Nutrition anterior pituitary deficiency. Biochem. J. In press. -BACHARACH, A. L., ALLEHORNE, E., GLYNN, H. E. Investigations into the method of estimating vitamin E. 1. Influence of vitamin E deficiency on implantation. Biochem. J., 21:2287, 1937. -SHERMAN and MACLEOD. The relation of vitamin A to growth, reproduction and longevity. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 47:1658, 1925. -HUGHES, AUBEL and LIENHARDT. Importance of vitamins A and C in the ration for swine, concerning especially their effect on growth and reproduction. Kansas Agric. Sta. Tech. Bull., No. 23, 1928. -HART and GILBERT. Vitamin A deficiency as related to reproduction in range cattle. Univ. of Calif. Agric. Exper. Sta. Bull., No. 560, 1933. -HUGHES, E. H. Effects of vitamin A deficient diet of sows. J. Agric. Res., 49:943, 1934. -SURE, B. Dietary requirements for fertility and lactation; dietary sterility associated with vitamin A deficiency. J. Agric. Res., 37:87, 1928. -HALE, F. The relation of maternal vitamin A deficiency to microphthalmia in pigs. Texas S. J. Med., 33:228, 1937. -WILLIAMS, W. L. The problem of teratology in clinical veterinary medicine. Cornell Veterinarian, 26:1, 1936. -SUTTON, T. S., SETTERFIELD, H. E. and KRAUSS, W. E. Nerve degeneration associated with avitaminosis A in the white rat. Ohio Agric. Exper. Sta. Bull., No. 545, 1934.
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: King of Men, did you read the whole book? What did you think?
Nah, I'm kind of stuck at chapter 16, it's been an extremely busy week at work. I can't really say anything about the Most Holy Chapter XVIII (tm) yet.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I just read chapter 18 from the link steven posted above. It isn't that long.
I can't believe I'm saying this this, but I'm going to reiterate what steven said, read the chapter for yourself.
I'm not thrilled about the facial feature stuff, I think it has some of the eugenics bias that was not uncommon in medicine at the time.
However I do not think that that chapter as it stands alone is saying what steven says it is saying.
What I took from it, is that a balanced diet provides all essential nutrients. At the time, they couldn't isolate those nutrients in commercial feeds, or enrich them like they can today.
Based on this chapter alone (and I admit I haven't read the rest) I think Dr. Price today would *not* be a proponent of the back-to-nature, because of the virtue of the unsullied diets from primitive cultures.
Rather, I think he'd be advocating taking a well-balanced vitamin supplement daily, and probably be doing research in how to create better baby forumulas, to get closest to actual breast milk.
posted
Based on my first impression of chapter 19, I think Price subscribed to a fair bit of eugenics and phrenology quackery, granted it wasn't viewed as quackery at the time. He's trying to correlate facial features (cleft palates particularly) with lowered I.Q. and criminal behavior.
He's also trying to make all sorts of correlation with "mongolism" with facial deformities, and has a case study that is highly amusing and is a classic "correllation is not cause" blunder. Although for the 1930s it could have been far, far worse.
steven, you are aware that mongolism, as Price is referring to it, means children with Downs syndrome, and that Downs syndrome is associated with a specific chromosomal anomaly right?
Anyway the case study describes a 16 year old pre-pubescent boy with Downs syndrome, who they operated on to improve his sinuses and jaw structure and he suddenly "miraculously" hit puberty *because* of the operation, and was also able to function more independently than he had before. Perhaps the kid just had slow puberty... I think that's pretty normal in people with Downs's?
The passage also indicates however that Dr. Price spent a lot of one-on-one time interacting with the kid, and it doesn't appear that the kid may have been given the *opportunities* to learn anything before because no one tried to teach him!
quote: A most remarkable event happened in connection with this procedure {the operation}. He lived in another city, and so, while with me, stayed in a boarding house at a little distance from my office in order that he might have frequent, and almost constant attention. On his return to his home town, his efficiency had increased to such an extent that his mother could send him with the money to the grocery store with the order for the day's groceries, and he could bring back the right change and could tell when it was correct. He could also come alone to me ninety miles by railroad and make two changes of trains and the various transfers on the street cars of the city with accuracy and safety.
Ya think?! The poor guy just needed attention and interaction.
I can't fault Price for trying to find a cause and or cure for Down's Syndrome. He was actually trying to improve the kid's life. Some of the information he states, like Down's occuring more frequently in the pregnancies of older women is right on.
Watson and Crick didn't figure out the structure of DNA until the 1950s. If Price had known about DNA and understood modern chromosomal inheritance principles, he would have interpreted his observations entirely differently. But he didn't have the information at the time, and a lot of people looked at a lot more crackpot theories, before DNA was actually identified as the basis for inheritance and isolated.
AJ
Even on the eugenics stuff, it doesn't seem as insidious as other eugenics theories that were going around at the time. He was trying to find cure's to society's social ills as well. While it seems pretty condesceding from my modern perspective, it appears that he was trying to reduce birth defects and improve I.Q. by improving nutrition in women. He wasn't blaming criminal behavior on genetics or race, but rather poor nutrition in ithe womb, and was trying to fix it in people he thought *were* poorly nourished to see if it would improve their outlook on life.
quote:Originally posted by steven: Rabbit, the numerous animal studies that show similar rates and types of disease on the same diet make all that unnecessary.
posted
steven one of the bigges flaws in saying that "numerous animal studies" when referring to Price's work, is that the body of animmal study data they were working from in the 1930s has increased by several orders of magnitude since then, we are in 2006... almost 2007. We have sooooo much more information avialable to us today than Price had back then. In some ways it's amazing they got anything right at all, when they didn't know about DNA.
Since then, further studies have been continually narrowing down the broad observations of the early studies to quantify *exactly* what the real variables were with more and more controlled studies.
With the advent of the Industrial Age, people *were* poorly nourished and unable to eat balanced diets in many cases, they stayd alive because industrialization also enabled for greater food production, with modern farm equipment, but the poor factory worker wasn't going to have the money to buy fresh foods and veggies. It's the same with a college student on a macNcheese diet. Carbs in pasta provide easily accesible calories, but *don't* give you the vitamins you get in fresh brocolli. Yet your stomach will feel full and you won't feel hungry even if you might not have gotten all the vitamins you need... if you could only afford bread and rice, that was it.
However with the exact same diet and a daily vitamin pill their physical conditions would have been greatly improved. Of course it is always generally better to get your vitamins from food rather than pills(though many of our foods today are vitamin enriched, with the exact same stuff that's in the pill form.)
posted
Somehow in all of the hububub until steven posted the references, I had no idea that this was based on 1930s research.... I mean by that that Dr. Price was actually a 1930s researcher. I thought he was a modern bloke who was using 1930s research and trying to hornswoggle people into subscribing to his dietary principles, like every other fad diet book out there.
I'm far more forgiving of Dr. Price now than I was when I thought he was some modern nutritional quack. Unfortunately it appears the modern nutritional quacks, don't realize that Price was actually trying to get at scientifically based conclusions. If Price was around today, would be jumping up and down, at many of the modern biological discoveries, thinking they were marvelous answers to the questions he was asking.
(although he'd be dissipointed that we still haven't cured all societal ills with medicine, and have also realized that medicine is not the vehicle by which social ills *should* be cured.)
His work definitely needs to be viewed in historical perspective with the Great Depression and since disproven eugenics theory. In some ways he was an anti-eugenicist compared to the eugenic philospophies that WWII made infamous.
Some of his things on crime rising in the population and the worry about the decline of civilization As They Knew it can be directly attributed to the Great Depression, but he didn't have the historical perspective to understand that.
He seems like an intensely curious man, probably a Progressive at the time, remaining open-minded to newer ideas, that could explain the "whys" of life.
What is this theory that you're saying has been disproven?
As I understand it, eugenics would work just fine in humans like it does with other mammals. That is, if we selectively bred humans for certain traits and "culled the herd" to remove undesirable traits, the human population, over time, would become more like what we were trying to make it.
Of course, most people consider this evil, but that doesn't make it ineffective nor disproven.
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At least in my limited understanding, what you said about race and cleft palate are not unseparably tied with eugenics theory any more than the idea that we are descended from neanderthals is an essential part of the theory of evolution.
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posted
In the modern view of eugenics they are not neccesarily tied together.
In the 1930s world, some people were convinced they were connected.
I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Not all eugenics theory has been disproven.
False eugenics theory = the parts of eugenics theory that have now been proven false. Those parts have been proven so false in many instances that they are no longer considered "eugenics" in the modern view, but they may have been deeply held beliefs inseperable from "eugenics" at an earlier time in history.
AJ
My apologies mph, for mixing you and squicky, it was my mistake and I would have reacted differently if I had realized it was you, because I know I need to interpret you very literally, rather than what it feels like is being insinuated to me. I've realized that in your case you are almost never mean what my brain interprets your intentions and meaning to be.
quote:Originally posted by steven: It's only logical that, if you can produce predictable results in animals using different diets, ranging from stillborn to deformed to very healthy, that the same effects in humans could also be produced using some kind of deficient diet. Isn't it?
Not if you understand the biochemical differences between humans and other mammalian species. I am unaware of any animals that have evolved eating the same diet as humans. As I pointed out earlier, koalas and ruminants are obviously very poor models for the nutritional needs of humans. But even if you look at other primates, none of them have similar diets to primative humans. Different animals have differences in their ability to synthesize amino acids, fatty acids and numerous co-enzymes. Animals that lack certain synthetic pathways for a fatty acid for example, must get that fatty acid in their food. Other animals are able to sythesize these same fatty acids and so don't need to eat them. There are also major digestive differences. The ruminant digestive system for example is designed to foster the growth of bacteria that can break down cellulose. These animals can therefore get nutrients from cellulosic plant matter which are inaccessible to humans. Humans are able to get nutrients from plants where are inaccessible to strict carnivors.
Even among different human racial groups there are significant differences in nutritional needs. The most obvious example is that humans in Europe and South Asia who have been eating cow, sheep and goats milk for thousands of years, retain the ability to digest lactose into adulthood. Whereas humans who lived in North America and part of Africa and Asia where dairy products have only recently been introduced are unable to digest lactose after childhood.
Its also clear that pacific islanders have a much greater sensitivity to certain foods with a high glycemic index than other racial groups. Eskimos have a much higher demand for vitamin D in their diets than other Northern peoples.
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posted
The oft mentioned Dr. Price still held to the view that cleft palates and specific facial structures, directly correllated with lower intelligence. This wasn't an uncommon belief in the 1930s, and they thought they were gathering data to prove it. In fact, many times in gathering the data, they so skewed their population sample towards their assumptions as to make it useless.
This is an example of "false eugenics theory".
Price may actually have had a bit of very, very general insight on proper nutrition and those in the state pen. At the time of the great depression, particularly, I'm sure a disproportionate number of criminals were poor and malnourished, and many lower income families today suffer from poor nutrition also. (and yes correlation is not cause, but in modern times poverty has been pretty directly correllated with both criminal behavior *and* nutritionally poor diets.)
posted
Here's another example of how he was influenced by "false eugenics theory".
quote: On the presumption that all mentally crippled individuals will be in danger of transmitting these qualities to their offspring there is a strong movement continually in operation toward segregating such individuals or incapacitating them by sterilization. Several primitive racial stocks have produced large populations without criminals and defectives by means of an adequate nutritional program which provided normal development and function. May it not be that even our defectives, when they have resulted from poisoning of germ cells or interference with an adequate normal intrauterine environment, may be able to build a society with a high incidence of perfection, that will progressively return toward Nature's ideal of human beings with normal physical, mental and moral qualities? Because of its interpretation of the individual's responsibility for his mental and moral qualities, society has not only undertaken to protect itself from the acts of so-called unsocial individuals but has proceeded to treat them as though they were responsible for the injury that society has done to them. Does it not seem inevitable that this apparently false attitude will change if it be demonstrated that they are the result of a program of inadequate nutrition for the parents.
Even while arguing against the eugenics of the time, some arguements he is using against it, are still steeped in the unconcious eugenics paradigm of the time he lived in.
Posts: 11265 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Oh man... this post is going to get me in trouble but here goes...
I submit that the educational system has miserably failed our friend steven. In this case specifically science education, although we can include logic and reasoning into the bundle to appease Irami's moral fiber.
When reading a piece of scientific literature from a different era, he completely lacks the critical reasoning skills and scientific knowledge to separate between the actual scientific discoveries and the incorrect baggage of the era from which Dr. Price lived.
In fact he has almost entirely embraced all of the incorrect ideas in the book, rather than the valuable theories proposed that have subsequently been proven by modern science, like prenatal vitamins for pregnant mothers.
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