Kresser: K2

[A] study recently published by the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) has revealed that increased intake of vitamin K2 may reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 35 percent. The authors point out that the benefits of K2 were most pronounced for advanced prostate cancer, and, importantly, that vitamin K1 did not offer any prostate benefits.

The findings were based on data from more than 11,000 men taking part in the EPIC Heidelberg cohort. It adds to a small but fast-growing body of science supporting the potential health benefits of vitamin K2 for bone, cardiovascular, skin, brain, and now prostate health.
[A] popular misconception is that vitamins K1 and K2 are simply different forms of the same vitamin – with the same physiological functions.
[Vitamin K'2s role includes] protecting us from heart disease, ensuring healthy skin, forming strong bones, promoting brain function, supporting growth and development and helping to prevent cancer – to name a few. In fact, vitamin K2 has so many functions not associated with vitamin K1 that many researchers insist that K1 and K2 are best seen as two different vitamins entirely.
[Researchers] found that calcification of the arteries was the best predictor of heart disease. Those in the highest third of vitamin K2 intakes were 52 percent less likely to develop severe calcification of the arteries, 41 percent less likely to develop heart disease, and 57 percent less likely to die from it.
K2 is preferentially used by other tissues to deposit calcium in appropriate locations, such as in the bones and teeth, and prevent it from depositing in locations where it does not belong, such as the soft tissues.
http://chriskresser.com/vitamin-k2-the-missing-nutrient
The rest of this post is a good read, and I'm sure you are asking "where do I get K2?"

The list:  Natto, hard cheese, soft cheese, egg yolk, butter, chicken liver, salami, chicken breast, ground beef

Kresser continues:  It is important to note that commercial butter is not a significantly high source of vitamin K2. Dr. Weston A. Price, who was the first to elucidate the role of vitamin K2 in human health (though he called it “Activator X” at the time) analyzed over 20,000 samples of butter sent to him from various parts of the world. As mentioned previously in this paper, he found that the Activator X concentration varied 50-fold. Animals grazing on vitamin K-rich cereal grasses, especially wheat grass, and alfalfa in a lush green state of growth produced fat with the highest amounts of Activator X, but the soil in which the pasture was grown also influenced the quality of the butter. It was only the vitamin-rich butter grown in three feet or more of healthy top soil that had such dramatic curing properties when combined with cod liver oil in Dr. Price’s experiments and clinical practice.

Just another example of how a change in life habits - like switching from a hunter gatherer style to that of wheat farming/consumption - can have a significant impact via a nearly invisible mechanism.  I've got to find a way to make the kidneys, heart and liver from harvested wild animals taste/smell good enough to eat.

Fat - You Can't Help Yourself?!

Is it simple lack of willpower that makes fatty snacks irresistible, or are deeper biological forces at work?
Some intriguing new research suggests the latter. Scientists in California and Italy reported last week that in rats given fatty foods, the body immediately began to release natural marijuanalike chemicals in the gut that kept them craving more.
The findings are among several recent studies that add new complexity to the obesity debate, suggesting that certain foods set off powerful chemical reactions in the body and the brain. Yes, it’s still true that people gain weight because they eat more calories than they burn. But those compulsions may stem from biological systems over which the individual has no control.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/when-fatty-feasts-are-driven-by-automatic-pilot/

So, let me ask you a question:  is it fatty snacks that drives you over the cravings deep end?  In other words, when thinking of the foods in your diet that you have the highest impulse for, is it avocado, macadamia nuts, egg yolks, mayonnaise, bacon, lard, olive oil and coconut oil that tops out your list?
When you are depressed and vulnerable to your impulse to "chow down" - do you go out and get a bucket of Crisco?
Ever puke because you binged on a bottle of vegetable oil?
If so, let me say - you are indeed unique.  Because what I see people compelled by is the combination of sugar and fat (ice cream!  Icing/frosting), or sugar/wheat combinations, or perhaps carbs, fat and salt (E.G. potato chips). 
I have never heard these words - "If I could just keep my hands off of those avocados, I know I could lick this weight problem."  Or, "I just have to keep the olive oil out of the house or I'll drink the whole bottle."
So why are these researchers, and this writer, bothering with the "fat" angle? 
Forgive the rhetorical question. 
For one thing, rats are omnivores but are known not to tolerate fats as well as humans, so rat fat consumption research has to be taken for what it is; a low cost way to keep researchers employed, and to keep research publications filled.  Sometimes, rat studies offer clues into human behavior, but often, not so much.
The real point boils down to this - I dare you to get fat by eating fat, while eating only vegetables for carbohydrates.  You may be able to do it, but it will take a lot of effort.  It may be harder than sticking to a weight loss diet.  Humans just can't eat that much fat, UNLESS humans mix fat with sugar, in which case we can pound it down like John Henry with two hammers. 

This article is one that would comport with Guyanet's articulation of the food/reward hypothesis.  However, I think they are all ignoring the pink elephant in the room, which is, as I try to point out above, that fat is not the problem.  Sugars and bread are the problem.  There's just no reason to believe that the one third of us that are sick from eating too much of the wrong kinds of foods need to eat less fat, or that the fat is what drives the over consumption.  When you remove fat, appetite is not well controlled, nor is the urge to overeat diminished.  On the contrary, for obese people, removing fat is almost torture, whereas removing carbohydrate while eating enough protein and fat predictably results in a much better outcome (for most) with a spontaneous reduction of caloric intake. 
Eat meat, eggs, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit and starch, and no sugar/wheat.

The Animal on Wheat Belly

Richard at Free the Animal is a colorful guy, to say the least.  His blog started as a documentation of his paleo journey from fat to fit, but accumulated thousands of followers.  Now, "he's a voice" in the low carb/paleo world.  He's posted about "wheat belly" and brings a great perspective:
And who remembers my Nutrition Density Challenge: Fruit vs. Beef Liver, where it took a full 5 pounds of fruit to roughly equal the nutrition in 4 ounces of liver? How about we do one real quick like, beef liver vs. bread?
So, he did the research for what is exactly inside of a 1400 kcal loaf of bread, and ran the numbers on a comparable amount of liver and salmon.  What did he find?
Now of course, nobody's going to eat the roughly 30 ounces of liver or salmon needed to get to 1,400 calories, but you could eat a 4th of either of them and still break bread and leave it on its ass. And we also aren't even touching on the aspect that most of the "nutrition" in the grains are in the minerals, and grains have high levels of phytic acid that bind to minerals, preventing their absorption.
Cut back on the liver and salmon, add in some leafy greens, maybe some starchy veggies, add some fruit in there, maybe some nuts and eggs and you will always, always blow grains out of the water, and you'll do it every time. No exceptions. It's not even close. Grains are poverty food, plain and simple. Are you that poor? [underline/bold is mine]
http://freetheanimal.com/2011/09/wheat-how-about-against-the-grain-and-zero-servings-per-day.html
Although Richard's attacks on the hapless advocates for grains are not to my taste, the charts he posted detail clearly the nutrient/calorie picture for bread, liver and salmon.  That of course is why most bread is sold "enriched", because wheat is actually a great example of a nutrient poor, calorie dense food - which is exactly the role it played in the human diet.  If you need to get 1500 kcal/day to a bunch of impoverished folks (subsistence farmers, serfs, the unwashed masses), bread will do it.  But the price in health and wellbeing is high.
How a low cost, high calorie, nutrient poor food product can be trumpeted by "health experts" in an age characterized by undernourished, obese, sick humans is virtually impossible to understand. 

Food/Reward or Carbs/Insulin? Making the Case

In general, people with PhDs come to science in a way that differs from MDs. They are taught to break down large questions into small pieces and to look at differences between carefully controlled groups. They use dishes of cells, strains of rodents, and matched groups of human subjects. This makes it easier to see significant changes between groups that differ only (one hopes) because of the treatment variable. However, PhDs must always be careful to remember that their conclusions may not be valid outside the tissue type/rodent strain/particular human subjects they have studied. Scientific studies of this type are useful because they provide guidance about what might work to treat a particular condition or disease. They do not provide absolute truth about what must work to treat a particular condition or disease.
http://lowcarb4u.blogspot.com/2011/09/low-food-reward-versus-low-carb.html

I like this author's post overall.  I like the paragraph above because it echoes my perspective on how often folks in the research business get caught up "looking through the straw."  They see a tiny piece of something, spend years trying to make sense of it, and then apply it incorrectly to the systems in which their piece of the puzzle fits.  The skills that make them brilliant at detailed research do not always translate in the application of the specific knowledge gained. 
It is the real world example of the blind men who find the elephant, and each thinks the part they are touching IS the elephant. 
I don't have any doubt that food addiction and therefore food/reward plays a role in human behavior, but I remain to be convinced that it is the dominant factor in human obesity.  As I've laid out previously, neolithic doses of blood sugar elevating carbohydrates could easily explain food addiction, before one even considers palatability, and/or opioid content. 
The good news, again, is that two of the protagonists are designing a study to test the food/reward conjecture.  Live and learn.
More on the topic may be found here:
http://fireofthegodsfitness.blogspot.com/2011/09/hyperlipid-weighs-in-on-taubesguyanet.html
http://fireofthegodsfitness.blogspot.com/2011/09/about-taubes-guyanet-science-ahs-and.html
http://fireofthegodsfitness.blogspot.com/2011/08/guyanet-at-ahs.html

Get In My Wheat Belly - Eades Review

Mike Eades reviews "Wheat Belly" here:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/saturated-fat/wheat-belly/
Over a half decade ago Professor Jared Diamond, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel, famously wrote

“The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.”

Dr. Eades doesn't spend too much time restating Wheat Belly's premise, but instead endorses the concept and provides additional context for it.

http://twitter.com/#!/DrEades/statuses/118002532038623232
This photo just came around Twitter - and considering the sponsors for the ADA, don't hold your breath for that organization to change it's prescription for how to kill diabetics ... I mean, how to theoretically help diabetics by force feeding them carbohydrate so they can look forward to a life of massive, consistently blood sugar spiking, doses of carbohydrate - and the resultingly high A1c statistics and the approximate 10 year reduction in lifespan such an approach provides.

Lastly, here's Denise Minger's review of "Forks Over Knives."  She's a skilled analyst, and it's a longish but thorough critique.  In the yin and yang of diet/health blogging, Denise is on the "more like a book than a blog" side, which is either wonderful or dreadful depending upon your taste in these things.  This may only be relevant to you if you have a significant other who views the "Forks over Knives" crowd as legit.
http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/09/22/forks-over-knives-is-the-science-legit-a-review-and-critique/

Want a review of the potential dangers of wheat without buying Dr. Davis' book?  Here you go, courtesy of Chris Kresser:
http://chriskresser.com/9-steps-to-perfect-health-1-dont-eat-toxins
{Added content on 26 Sep 11, 1600}

Deadly Cost?

Doctors warned last night that continued calorie counting was a health time-bomb.

Cutting out nutrient-rich foods in a misguided attempt to lose weight could have “alarming” long-term consequences.

And with an estimated 12 million Britons currently on diets it could prove devastating for the nation’s health, placing massive burdens on the NHS. It has long been known that an unhealthy diet can lead to a host of deadly conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and cancer.

But a low-fat diet that lacks vital vitamins and minerals can also lead to long-term ­problems. A report found that many Britons have a dangerous attitude to food, being concerned mainly with cutting their intake of fat and calories rather than thinking about what they need to eat to stay healthy.

Experts are now calling on people to “re-learn” what good nutrition tastes like in a bid to stave off health problems for future generations.

“It would seem that we are still struggling to grasp the concept of ‘good nutrition’ and the reason why we eat food in the first place. Though it is important to acknowledge calorie intake it must not come at the expense of eating a balanced and varied diet, low in saturated fat but also rich in vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/258048/Deadly-cost-of-low-fat-dieting

If the low fat concept is as wretched for most humans as I think it is, there is and will continue to be a deadly cost.  The cost in lives and wellness is on display every day, in every store I visit, every time I'm in public.  It's painful to see and like many, I go through periods of anger at the bizarre abuse of science that led to the last thirty years of USDA directed "low fat is healthy" dieting.  It is axiomatic that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Let us be thankful that the USDA does not at present have so much power as to compel us to eat by their model of health.
I agree with the conclusion above.  As Loren Cordain pointed out, there's no defining parameter, no overarching concept for the science of diet, and as a result, the science has been easily corrupted, imprecise, and only marginally helpful.  I hope for better days as the obvious flaws in the low fat fad come to light.

Ethnographic Data of Modern Hunter Gatherers

Abstract:  In the past, attempts have been made to estimate the carbohydrate contents of preagricultural human diets. Those estimations have primarily been based on interpretations of ethnographic data of modern hunter-gatherers. In this study, it was hypothesized that diets of modern hunter-gatherers vary in their carbohydrate content depending on ecoenvironments. Thus, using data of plant-to-animal subsistence ratios, we calculated the carbohydrate intake (percentage of the total energy) in 229 hunter-gatherer diets throughout the world and determined how differences in ecological environments altered carbohydrate intake. We found a wide range of carbohydrate intake (≈3%-50% of the total energy intake; median and mode, 16%-22% of the total energy). Hunter-gatherer diets were characterized by an identical carbohydrate intake (30%-35% of the total energy) over a wide range of latitude intervals (11°-40° north or south of the equator). However, with increasing latitude intervals from 41° to greater than 60°, carbohydrate intake decreased markedly from approximately equal to 20% to 9% or less of the total energy. Hunter-gatherers living in desert and tropical grasslands consumed the most carbohydrates (≈29%-34% of the total energy). Diets of hunter-gatherers living in northern areas (tundra and northern coniferous forest) contained a very low carbohydrate content (≤15% of the total energy). In conclusion, diets of hunter-gatherers showed substantial variation in their carbohydrate content. Independent of the local environment, however, the range of energy intake from carbohydrates in the diets of most hunter-gatherer societies was markedly different (lower) from the amounts currently recommended for healthy humans.

Abbreviations: P:A energy subsistence ratios, plant-to-animal energy subsistence ratios

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271531711000911

Interesting research!  Very interesting that the 30% number is so close to Barry Sears' speculation in The Zone Diet.  While The Zone Diet is inarguably effective, it is also tedious, and I think there are many, in particular those who are "recovering" from being significantly overweight, who benefit from a much lower dose of carbohydrate - less than 100g/day. 
The takeaway - healthy humans can thrive on a variety of macronutrient ratios, but there are many who will suffer when eating large quantities of carbohydrates at "agriculturally availability" for 12 months per year - never mind the impact of abnormally high intake of fructose, low sunlight exposure and therefore low vitamin D levels, excess omega 6 fatty acids from their "oil fed plants", low levels of vitamin K2, and "light contaminated sleep".