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National Day of the Cowboy – Why DocMuscles Wears A Cowboy Hat

Happy National Day of the Cowboy!  I love beef and a good cowboy hat as much as I love bacon.  And, the one thing that I think about when I cut into my ribeye steak is the cowboy that helped put it on my plate. Starting in 2005, National Day of the Cowboy is observed annually on the fourth Saturday in July.

The cowboy era and legends began after the Civil War in the heart of Texas and the southern states West of the Mississippi. Cattle were herded long before this time, but in Texas, they grew wild and unchecked. As the country grew, and populations moved West, the demand for beef (my favorite ketogenic food) in the Northern territories and Northwestern states increased.  Cowboys moved 5 million head of cattle  each year by cowboys pushing their herds on long Northward drives to where profits could be made selling the beef.

The draw of wealth and adventure, mixed with stories of a rough wilderness set on the backdrop of the Great Plains, gave way to the mythological image of the cowboy.  Where the dust settles out reveals the truth of the American cowboy and cowgirl. The life of a cowboy required a particular ability to live in a frontier world.  It required respect, loyalty and a willingness to work hard.

Former President Bush said of this day, “We celebrate the Cowboy as a symbol of the grand history of the American West. The Cowboy’s love of the land and love of the country are examples for all Americans.”

HOW TO OBSERVE

Celebrate with a cowboy you know and post on social media using #NationalDayOfTheCowboy. Enjoy a western novel or movie, attend a rodeo and embrace the cowboy way of life.  Or just pull out your cowboy hat and wear it, thinking about the men and women who tamed the West.

You can see how I observed this special day (Do you like my new hat?)

https://www.facebook.com/DrAdamNally/videos/1210442022417141/

The Cowboy Hat – Most Recognized Symbol of the West

The cowboy hat is a defining piece of attire that has carried over from the Old West.  Originally defined by J.B. Stetson in 1865, it is one article of clothing that has essentially remained unchanged.  It is a welcome addition to the Nally home as an essential part of our little ranch’s attire because of shade it provides in the hot Arizona sun, the fitted sweatband inside,  and the durability in the rain.

The durability and water-resistance of the original Stetson obtained additional publicity in 1912, when the battleship USS Maine was raised from Havana harbor, where it had sunk in 1898. A Stetson hat was found in the wreck, which had been submerged in seawater for 14 years. The hat had been exposed to ooze, mud, and plant growth. However, the hat was cleaned off, and appeared to be undamaged. (John B. Stetson Company. “Stetson Hats the World Over. The Story of 50 Years of Stetson Foreign Business.” 1927. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Cowboy Hat Design

Ornamentation, like bows and buckles, are usually attached on the left side. This had a practical purpose. Because the majority of people are right-handed, in the absence of a wide brim, bows or feathers on the right side of the hat would interfere with the use of weapons and lassos.

Inside the cowboy hat you’ll find a small memorial bow to past hatters.  In the early 1900’s hatters developed brain damage from treating felt with mercury (which gave rise to the expression “Mad as a hatter“). “Early hatters used mercury in the making of their felt hats. Their bodies absorbed mercury, and after several years of making hats, the hatters developed violent and uncontrollable muscle twitching. The ignorance of the times caused people to attribute these seizure like convulsions to madness, not mercury.” The bow on the inside hatband at the rear of the hat often resembles a skull and crossbones.

Meaning of The Cowboy Hat Crease

Today’s cowboy hat has remained essentially unchanged in construction and design since the first Stetson creation. The cowboy hat quickly developed the capability, even in the early years, to identify its wearer as someone associated with the West.  “Within a decade the name “John B. Stetson” became synonymous with the word “hat” in every corner and culture West of the Mississippi.” The shape of the hat’s crown and brim were often modified by the wearer for fashion and to protect against weather by being softened in hot steam, shaped, and allowed to dry and cool. Felt tends to stay in the shape that it dries. Because of the ease of personalization, it was often possible to tell where a cowboy hat was from, right down to which ranch, simply by looking at the crease in the crown.

#DocMuscles Cowboy Hat Crease

The mystique of the “Wild West” was popularized by entertainers such as Buffalo Bill Cody and western movies starring actors such as Tom Mix, the Cowboy hat came to symbolize the American West.  John Wayne christened them “the hat that won the West”.  The “Boss of the Plains” design influenced various wide-brimmed hats worn by farmers and ranchers all over the United States.  Later designs were customized for law enforcement, military and motion pictures.

Murphy Elliot #DocMuscles Famous Cowboys
Murphy Elliot’s Sketches of Famous Cowboys and Their Hats

Why Be In Ketosis? Part XIII: How Ketones Modulate Pain

DocMuscles in Downtown Denver

I traveled to downtown Denver, Colorado, this week.  It gave me the opportunity to talk to a number of really great people.  A number of those people that I chatted with were searching for relief from pain and other aliments.  Not surprisingly, being in the mile-high city, many of those were using derivatives of marijuana (pun not intended).  I was actually surprised at the number of people who spontaneously admitted to using tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or cannabinol (CBD).  They use it in various forms to treat their pain or other complaints.  Only a handful of those that I had the pleasure of talking to had ever heard of nutritional ketosis as an approach to pain control. This got me thinking about my patients and their pain control.  Many of them have had significant improvement in pain using a ketogenic diet and exogenous ketones.

Nutritional Ketosis as a Method of Pain Treatment

I started using nutritional ketosis as an adjunctive treatment to disease twelve years ago. Quite a few of my patients reported improvements in their overall pain using this approach.  I started to see 50-60% improvement in the inflammatory types of pain, and 40-50% improvement in neuropathic pain.

Ketosis and Forms of Pain

There are a number of forms of pain: thermal, inflammatory, and neuropathic. Looking over the scientific literature, there is no strong data showing that ketogenic diets reduce thermal pain, however, there is data showing improvement in inflammatory pain.  Within two days of dietary changes, inflammatory pain and secondary swelling, as well as plasma extravasation (excess fluid accumulation around the area of swelling) show measured improvement.

Watch my four minute vlog below about pain control being one of the twenty-five reasons to use nutritional ketosis (This video has a mic problem, so turn your sound all the way up):

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Even though the published science has not caught up to fully clarified what we are seeing clinically, evidence demonstrates that ketones improve nerve pain. When ketones are present in increased amounts in the blood stream, the current evidence points to a number of poorly understood mechanisms.  Ketones compete with chloride ions in the peripheral nerve cells.  When ketones bind instead of chloride, there is a decrease in glutamate production, a key amino acid necessary in the signaling of pain fibers.  The lower glutamate level causes a rise in gama-aminobutyric acid (GABA). . . leading to decreased sensation of pain.

This is the same pathway that stops intractable seizures and may play a very significant role in dietary treatment of autism.

Denver is ranked No. 3 by Zagat on the list of “Foodie Capitals” of America. And, the downtown scene is absolutely beautiful, but I walked by eight different restaurants specializing in “carbage” while walking just two blocks.  Encouraging cities to eat less bread may be a challenge.   But, hey, you get to eat more bacon!  And, bacon is the duct tape of the culinary world.

Bacon Boy loves to travel. Click Here to take him on your next photo opportunity.

Why Be In Ketosis – Part XII (Thyroid)

There is a pattern that I’ve noticed on every live-stream that I’ve appeared on talking about ketosis that someone always asks the question: “What about the thyroid?”  That’s literally how it’s asked. . . someone I am unfamiliar with keys in the question, “What about the thyroid?”

The blunt sarcastic response in my head is usually, “Well, what about it?”

Buried within the vague periscope or twitter question above is the real question that is on the minds of thousands of people,  “Does ketosis effect the thyroid . . . ?”

There’s loads of information about the thyroid on the internet.  Much of it is garbage.   Seriously.  Ask Google about “thyroid,” and you’ll see thousands of articles, posts and comments on WebMD, Women’s Health, and Wikipedia all across the “interwebby.”  Everyone, and I mean everyone, seems to have a “thyroid opinion.”  Much of the “wikopinion” out there is here-say, conjecture and anecdotal. It doesn’t really give people any foundational understanding of what their thyroid is doing, or more importantly for that matter – what their thyroid isn’t doing.

Of late, the Paleo and Vegetarian thought leaders seem to decry nutritional ketosis because they claim that this dietary approach suppresses thyroid function. This wiki-theory (yes, it is just a theory) was extrapolated from a single study where the T4 level dropped in the first few weeks after ketosis was entered.  But just because T4 drops, doesn’t mean the diet suppresses the thyroid.  Using T4 as a screening test alone for assessment of thyroid function is 1987 thinking (1987 brought us the Kia Concord and the Subaru Justy just so you get the mental picture).  T4 fluctuates with a number of binding proteins and following this number alone is really bad medicine.  Taking thyroid advise from the Paleo people is like asking your Fed Ex driver about the correct lift on your 4×4 truck.  Really?

Excessive insulin, the hormone produced when you eat sugar, starch and some proteins, actually stimulates thyroid peroxidase antibodies and can cause exacerbation of thyroiditis (causing over-production or under-production of thyroid hormone).  Because 85% of the people I see in my office over-produce insulin (this is referred to as insulin-resistance), in response to starches, there is a significant flux in thyroid function due to  this pre-diabetes state (insulin over-production) on high carbohydrate based diets.

Leptin, the hormone produced by fats cells when they are “full,” actually stimulates the conversion of T4 to T3.  At least 40% of my obese, insulin-resistant patients are also leptin-resistant, meaning they over-produce leptin as well.  This has a suppression effect on T4 (by converting it to T3) and is the usual cause of the T4 levels being lower when initially staring a ketogenic diet.  It is also the reason that some people feel anxious or “activated” when changing to nutritional ketosis.  Leptin-resistance is driven by a high level of fructose in the diet and the presence of high triglycerides, inhibiting the leptin signal from crossing the blood-brain barrier.  As a person follows a ketogenic diet and lifestyle, leptin returns to normal over 3-6 months and T4 levels normalize.  The Paleo and Vegetarian nay-sayers never mention that . . . do they?  What they won’t tell you is that calorie restriction, which is a must for weight loss, on the DASH, Mediterranean, Paleo or Vegetarian diet causes suppression of testosterone, leucine, and thyroid function, causing worsening T4 suppression over time.  Hmmm . . .  put that in your low-fat green vegetarian taco, and smoke it.

Wait . . . I don’t advocate smoking so, ignore that.

The point is, a ketogenic lifestyle stabilizes thyroid function and improves auto-immune thyroiditis. I’ve seen it happen clinically for over 12 years.  It, also, dramatically helps stabilize the other 30 hormones involved with the diseases of civilization including obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes.

Watch my live-stream recording below to find out more about the thyroid.

 

Coconut Oil – Duct Tape for the Broken Metabolism

Coconut oil can be found in just about every grocery store, health food store and coffee shop near you.  It was made popular in the last few years by the highly advertised Bullet Proof Coffee claims of health and taste over the last few years.  But in the last few days, the news outlets through video and print have made it clear that the American Heart Association (AHA) isn’t happy with our use of this “duct tape for one’s metabolism.” The AHA has long been a proponent of education against activities increasing the risk of heart disease.  Since 1961 the AHA has decried the use of saturated fat, based on their support of Ansel Key’s diet heart hypothesis, and leading to over 60 years of preaching against the use of saturated fats from the pulpits of science.  The claim is that 85% of coconut oil is saturated fat (this is the fat deemed “evil” by those “disciples of the low-fat cloth”).   Yes, coconut oil is predominantly a saturated fat.  And approximately 75% of that is medium chain triglycerides, the form that converts most efficiently into ketones, for those of us using ketogenic nutritional approaches to health.  But is coconut oil really bad for your heart health?

Those of us using ketogenic diets know that LDL-C will commonly rise with increased saturated fat intake.  And, we’ve know this for over twenty years. This is to be expected, because LDL-C is really comprised of three different LDL sub-particles (big fluffy, medium, and small dense).  We’ve known for the last twenty years that increased saturated fat actually causes a shift in these particles to bigger “fluffier” particles.  We also know that it’s the small dense LDL particles are the atherogenic/inflammatory particles participating in the formation of vascular disease (arterial blockage) and their presence in the blood is directly correlated with the level of triglyceride, and that the big “fluffy” particles actually reduce the risk of vascular disease. Those of us following ketogenic lifestyles and treating disease with these protocols also know that triglycerides levels are increased directly by increasing levels of insulin.

The 2015 British Medical Journal published a study reviewing the relevant 19 peer reviewed medical articles that included over 68,000 participants.  This review showed that there is no association of high LDL-C (a calculated value of all the LDL sub-particles) with mortality (meaning that an elevated LDL-C does not lead to an increased risk of death from heart disease).  In stark contrast to this landmark review, The American Heart Association’s Presidential Advisory published this week in the June 20, 2017 issue of Circulation states that saturated fat is the cause of increased LDL-C and elevated LDL-C is associated with an increase in death by cardiovascular disease.  This boldfaced claim is based on a single small 4 year (2009-2013) literature review completed by the World Health Organization with a whopping 2353 participants, most of these studies only lasting 3-5 weeks (not nearly long enough to see fully effective cholesterol changes) and none of which had any focus on carbohydrate intake, insulin levels or LDL sub-particle measurement.  From this singular study, the AHA concludes that elevated LDL-C is an indicator of increased cardiovascular mortality.  That’s the equivalent of saying, “you know cars drive on the roads and cause pot holes, so we should all STOP driving cars because it is causing our freeway system to have increased pot holes.”

You can’t extrapolate mortality risk based on a single small study that doesn’t actually identify correlation or causation.  But the AHA did exactly that in 1961, and they are trying to do it again today.   The MR-FIT study, largest study ever completed, is incessantly quoted as the study that demonstrates reduction in cholesterol leads to reduction in cardiovascular disease, but this trial was actually a failure and did not demonstrate improved risk by lowering cholesterol.  In fact, the Director of the study, Dr. William Castelli actually stated, “. . . the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower people’s serum cholesterol…”

“We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories weighed the least and were the most physically active,” he said.

Isn’t that interesting?

So, is coconut oil, or any other food high in saturated fat to blame?  Absolutely not!  There is no solid evidence to support these facts and there hasn’t been in over 65 years.   In fact, clinically, I find that the addition of coconut oil lowers triglycerides, decreases appetite, improves energy, improves skin tone, and plays a huge role in shifting the Omega 3/6 ratios to a more normal 2:1 level.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Is coconut oil, or any other food high in saturated fat to blame?  Absolutely not! #docmuscles” quote=”Is coconut oil, or any other food high in saturated fat to blame?  Absolutely not!  There is no solid evidence to support these facts and there hasn’t been in over 65 years. #docmuscles”]

So, how does coconut oil help the broken metabolism?  The majority of people I see in my office have insulin resistance to some degree.  Insulin resistance is an over production of insulin in response to any form of carbohydrate or starch.  Increasing your saturated fat, does two things.  It provides a fantastic form of fuel, one your body can use very easily.  And second, it will decrease your craving for starches and carbohydrates, naturally decreasing production of insulin and helping to improve insulin resistance over time.

If you want to learn more about using fat and improving insulin resistance, see my previous blog post here.

You can learn more about how our acceptance of bad science has lead to an obesity and diabetes epidemic in our country over the last 65 years by reading these books below: