Thoughts from this week: 2024/12/13

tl;dr: Fridays are supposed to be quiet, winding down for the weekend. Drat.

So last week I did the first of these.

Thoughts from this week: 2024/12/7

These are going to be paid-subscriber only, and unlike the rest of my posts, they are not going to go free after a month. They’re generally current-issue oriented, and so will go stale pretty quickly. (I expect. I reserve the right to make exceptions or change my mind.)

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Surprising new paper:

“Diabetes Mellitus Therapy in the Light of Oxidative Stress and Cardiovascular Complications” (Osman, 2025—yes, it’s dated in the future. How do I get these stock quotes?)

“Oxidative stress contributes to the development and progression of type 2 diabetes as well as to the development of its complications through several mechanisms…. In our study, we have collected information on the most frequently used antidiabetic drugs (metformin, glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists and sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors) in the EU and the USA based on their antioxidant effects.”

“Based on our results, we can conclude that the antioxidant effects of the investigated antidiabetics may contribute significantly to the management of the disease and its complications and may open new therapeutic perspectives in their prevention.”

I have a bunch of papers I have been collecting showing that many common drugs work, in part, through their effect of reducing the Ω-6 seed oil metabolite 4-HNE. This seem to be another such paper (don’t have the full-text yet).

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News

American Indians (the Clovis culture) ate like carnivores. Mostly Mammoths—which is why there are no mammoths.

“Fig. 3. Models of Anzick-1 maternal diet based on bone collagen δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values.

“Estimated contributions (%) of food sources to maternal diet were determined using a 9-source (model 1), 10-source (model 2), and 4-source (model 3) and 2-biotracer (δ¹³C_collagen and δ¹⁵N_collagen) mixing model in SIMMR. Box plots showing median (center line), 50% credible interval (CI) (box edges), and 95% CI (error bars) for estimated contributions.” (Chatters, 2024)

h/t

Nick Jikomes

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Jeff Nobbs wrote a letter to the New York Times on their silly article titled “Are Seed Oils Actually Bad For You?”

Linked-in post.

I don’t know if they published it. This is from last week, but Jeff posted it on Linked-in and it took me a while to recall where I had seen it.

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Travis Statham published his Master’s thesis:

“From Pasture to Plate: Striking an Omega Balance Between Grass-Fed and Grain-Fed Beef Ribeyes - Fatty Acid Composition, Minerals, Soil, And Forage Analysis.” (Statham, 2024)

He included this fascinating figure:

So while grain-fed beef is an outlier, grass-fed beef is right in the middle. Can we eat nothing but grass-fed beef?

It ties in with the Clovis data and my post about Ω-3 deficiency:

Can a Low-Carb American Diet Cause Omega-3 Deficiency?

Travis and I are going to work with this data a little further to help answer the question: How much Ω-3 and Ω-6 should we eat, and what do we need to eat to get it?

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X Activity

The theme this week seems to have been interactions.

X post.

If you’re not familiar with him, he’s got a very popular podcast, and has covered lots of interesting topics.

I had three responses, and a number of people recommended me to him as an expert (Heaven help me).

“"An article"? Just the one?

Let's start here:

“Corn Oil in Treatment of Ischaemic Heart Disease” (Rose, 1965)

X post.

No calories involved in that study. In fact, the corn oil arm lost weight. That study and a series of similar ones demonstrated a role for seed oils in causing or worsening CVD.

Next…