Dr. Pollack describes a “fourth phase” of water called EZ (exclusion zone) or structured water that is physically ordered and carries a negative charge, distinct from ordinary liquid water.

Transcript of the relevant part of the discussion about Blue Zone diets:

Jesse Chappus: When it comes to the food-zoning in on this piece-you mentioned how it's the polar opposite of how it's being portrayed by the Blue Zones brand. Any idea how that got so lost in translation? And I'll add to this: we're talking about one of the Blue Zones here. Have you traveled to any of the others?

Dr. Schindler: No, but I have talked to people like Mary Rodic who have. Other than Loma Linda, which is the Seventh-day Adventist community-um, which I'm confident... I haven't been there, but I'm confident what's being portrayed from a vegetarian perspective is probably very accurate-all the rest of them... I have talked to people who have been to the others, and they report a very similar thing to what I have.

Jesse Chappus: Any idea why things got so lost in translation?

Dr. Schindler: Oh, I'm confident it was intentional. In fact, I talked to-You know, one of the things that's portrayed about Sardinia is that they eat a massive amount of this minestrone soup, some vegetable-based minestrone soup. And some of the people there-in fact, I was in the home, the meal that I'm mostly referring to as I'm talking to you-that was the centerpiece of their home. The BBC came out to do a big special there, and they did it in their home, and they were joking about it the whole time. They're like, "I don't know where this minestrone soup thing came from. We eat it, but it's rare that we even eat it." It was so funny. But I'm convinced it was intentional.

They mostly talk about Sardinia, but as someone living in Japan, the Okinawan diet is also poorly reported in blue zones study. Okinawans eat fish like all of Japan and pork. It's the part of Japan that consumes the most luncheon meat, which isn't popular here in Tokyo. It's even considered Okinawan "soul food."

To quote https://www.bluezones.com/explorations/okinawa-japan/

Older Okinawans have eaten a plant-based diet most of their lives. Their meals of stir-fried vegetables, sweet potatoes, and tofu are high in nutrients and low in calories.

This is a bald-faced lie, and I'm amazed they're allowed to get away with it. "Older" Okinawans lived through postwar Japan. Everyone was poor and unable to afford food. The low cost is likely one of the reasons why luncheon meat became popular in Okinawa in the first place!

Dr. Georgia Ede and Dr. Bret Scher discuss the recently released EAT-Lancet diet report.

I found it particularly interesting that they responded to the criticism of the first report by re-releasing it and removing the parts of the report that were criticised, without directly addressing the criticism.

Dr. Sher:

In advance of the release of the 2.0 [diet report], there was actually a release of the "mis-influencers" who have done an organized approach to discredit and attack EAT-Lancet. Their words, not mine. And you were listed as a very high-ranking member of this. So first, how does it feel to be labeled as a "misinfluencer"?

Dr. Ede:

It's interesting. I actually think it's a very good thing. And the reason why is clearly [that] the content that I produced that criticized the EAT-Lancet report came to their attention. I think that that's no small thing, and I would like to believe that the content that I and others produced had a lot to do with the fact that they felt the need to produce this report to try to discredit all of us. I think it may also have had something to do with the way the report was re-released. I noticed that certain things that I criticized about the report are no longer there, and I'm not the only one who produced content critiquing the report.

Also, there are certain concerns that I and others voiced about the content of the report, and it appears as though the authors have gone to great lengths to try to acknowledge and address [these concerns] without actually addressing them. But they're trying to make it look as though they're addressing these shortcomings.

Loved the pictures of all the breeds of cow and also the description of how they've come about and what they taste like. I personally don't actually like A5 Wagyu that much, but plain old Japanese beef and not Wagyu I like a lot.

The colour of the fat showing how nutritious it is (yellow = grass fed) is a nice bit of knowledge to have! I'd also love to be able to dry age my own beef, but I think that's quite an endeavour. Would make a nice project to do on the side, maybe.

::: spoiler Results

I found this really pleasant to listen to so I thought I'd share. It's nice to hear someone talk about the fat loss, satiety, and all the other things that I also experienced when I went carnivore. Murray switched cold turkey and seems to have experienced some unpleasant effects like keto flu, but they resolved after a time.

Sony's AOSP on Xperia Open Devices page: https://developer.sony.com/open-source/aosp-on-xperia-open-devices

With the recent activity around Google restricting sideloading and not releasing device trees for Pixel, this is a possible alternative. I haven't tried it, but intend to switch to a Sony device for my next phone.

There are only three available where I live, so I thought I'd start with my thoughts after having worn all three of them.

Let me start by stating that I wore the sensors as-is, without calibrating with finger-prick readings if calibration is available. I am not diabetic and do not rely on the sensors for accurate readings, so my opinions on these sensors should not inform your decision on which sensor to wear if you do.

Freestyle Libre 1, Abbott Laboratories

The first CGM I tried. Only supports NFC scanning, 6 hour history retention on-sensor. The sensor itself is pretty large and I experienced some aches wearing it. It may be because I didn't apply it properly since I wasn't expecting the loud sound the applicator made. The sensor lasts for 14 days and cost me 8000 yen, in a batch order of 2.

No real-time data and the 6 hour-only history meant gaps in my readings overnight, but I still think that it is alright. Still better than no CGM at all if this is the only sensor available.

Freestyle Libre 2, Abbott Laboratories

I'm wearing this one right now. The sensor is smaller than the Libre 1 and it now supports per-minute live readings via BT. The history retention is longer and I no longer see gaps in overnight readings, but since it updates live that's also less of a concern. The sensor's readings also aren't very noisy compared to the G7. The sensor lasts for 14 days and cost me 7500 yen, in a batch order of 4.

I like this one the best so far, and I haven't noticed any discomfort wearing it yet.

G7, Dexcom

The sensor is an oblong shape and is smaller than the Libre 1 and about the same size as the Libre 2, but longer. The adhesive is much wider and so it feels larger when worn. This was the most uncomfortable one of the three for me. I experienced a lot of aching while wearing this sensor.

The G7 supports live readings every 5 minutes over BT, with a (I think?) 24 hour history on the sensor itself. The readings are quite noisy, and fluctuate up and down a lot. Also, they appear to read generally higher than the Libre1/2, such that my baseline is about ~10% (90) more than on the Libre.

I like the G7 better than the Libre 1, but less than the Libre 2. It is the cheapest of the three, at 6500 yen in a batch of three, but it also only lasts for 10 days.

Phone Apps

LibreLink

The official LibreLink app for the Libre sensors is usable. There is no dark mode, and the amount of detail on the charts aren't user definable. This is probably fine if only used to check immediate readings, but as someone interested in statistics and historical readings I'd use an open source alternative if possible.

Dexcom G7 App

This thing doesn't run on my phone, so I can't review it. I had to use XDrip+ with my G7 sensor.

XDrip+

Open-source app that worked seamlessly with the Dexcom sensor. It's got highly customisable display and alert settings, plus all history data and settings can be exported so it can easily be backed up. It also has a nice widget and a detailed high priority notification display on Android.

It only works on my Libre 2 with Juggluco as a Eversense source. My guess is the OOP2 companion app required does not work with the Japanese Libre 2, since it displays NFC Invalid Data errors. Thankfully, Juggluco can take its place.

This is my preferred app for CGM readings.

Juggluco

By itself I've found this app clunky and hard to use, but it is able to set-up and pair with the Libre 2 sensor easily. In the settings, there is an option to enable Eversense broadcasting so it can send data to XDrip+, turning it into a replacement for OOP2.

Maybe a continuous insulin monitor isn't far off the horizon. Unfortunately paywalled.

Dr Jamnadas shares his experience holistically treating patients with heart disease. There is a lot of content, and it's hard to do a write-up when all of it is interesting, so I'd recommend watching the video to anyone who's even at all interested in managing heart disease and staying healthy, since there is a lot of actionable advice.

Remarks in no particular order:

While suggestive, one obvious caveat of this approach is that the minimally invasive and clinically ubiquitous physiological biomarkers most likely to be available in lifespan studies (e.g., HbA1c, BP, CRP) are not the most sensitive mechanistically.

BP can fluctuate easily and Hba1c is a weighted average of glycation, using an estimated 117 days for men and 106 days in women. Glucose levels on days nearer to the test contribute substantially more to the level of A1c than the levels in days further from the test. If the lifespan of the RBC are not near the average, then the reading will be skewed.

In contrast, blood CRP, indicative of inflammation, showed no significant changes around either landmark. n.s., not statistically significant

Curious that this marker inflammation would be have no statistical significance for brain network instability.

Further supporting the physiological biomarker and gene expression results, we demonstrated that an acute intervention that bypasses neuronal insulin resistance was able to reverse the aging effects. In this case, the fact that ketosis was induced within minutes was key in isolating mechanisms.

It is not clear if they also studied people who eat a diet that would result in more ketosis, or if they only induced ketosis in the participants of the study using exogenous ketones.

While our results implicate metabolic changes as occurring prior to vascular and immune changes, it is also important to consider that neuronal insulin resistance may itself be caused by even earlier age-related changes in neuronal mitochondrial functioning (74, 75)—an important topic for future research.

To be safe, probably best to start being metabolically healthy earlier rather than later.

Meanwhile, in agreement with our previous results in young adults, the glucose bolus calorically matched to each participant’s D-βHB dose did not show stabilizing effects in any of the age groups (Fig. 3C), indicating that the results were specific to non-GLUT4 (and thus noninsulin) mediated pathways.

Our body does not appear to need external sources of glucose to stabilize the networks in our brain.

One key conceptual challenge with devising a strategy for early intervention in brain aging is that the process involves many mutually interacting and reinforcing mechanisms.

Nice that they recognize that reductivism leads to poor conclusions.

For example, mitochondrial dysfunction can generate excessive reactive oxygen species that damage vascular endothelium and activate inflammatory pathways (61). This vascular damage is exacerbated by age-related reductions in cerebral blood flow, which compromise the delivery of nutrients and removal of metabolic waste products (62). The resulting tissue stress triggers microglial activation and promotes chronic low-grade inflammation or “inflammaging,” characterized by elevated proinflammatory cytokines that further impair metabolic and vascular function.

Very succinct summary of metabolic syndrome.

Blood–brain barrier dysfunction emerges as a critical nexus in this interaction, as it affects immune cell trafficking, metabolic substrate availability, and overall brain homeostasis (64). These changes are further complicated by cellular senescence, which affects all three systems through the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), promoting sustained inflammation and tissue dysfunction (65). This intricate interplay creates self-reinforcing cycles where dysfunction in one system can propagate through the others, potentially accelerating cognitive decline and increasing susceptibility to age-related neurological diseases.

Postulated mechanism for brain network instability as a result of MetS.

Dense paper that took me a while to get through, but worth the read.

Personal anecdote: I'm now one month into eating an animal-sources only diet. I eat mainly steaks that I sous vide, and about twice a week I'll eat oily fish, chicken, or pork.

I'd say that I'm currently about 95% adherent. I still drink lattes, and when I'm outside drinking with my friends I don't restrict what foods I eat, although I'll try to politely decline carbohydrates, vegetables, and sweet alcoholic drinks or beer. I really enjoy cooking and baking, and I do miss being able to cook most of what I used to, so that's a little bit of a downside. On the upside, my kitchen has been greatly simplified.

Based on a test I've done today, in mg/dl, my LDL is 212, Tg 98, and HDL 66. My doctor expressed concern about LDL but was happy to observe for a few more months, although he did float the idea of statins. I told him that with my 120/70 BP and ideal waist/height ratio that I'd prefer to wait and see, and he agreed. My tg/hdl ratio of 1.48 was not discussed, although it suggests to me that there isn't anything to worry about.

I found this discussion between Prof. Bart Kay and Dr. Sean Patterson about cholesterol levels helpful, so I'm linking it here:

Another video that's been helpful is the one by Dr. Mason, about blood test results on a ketogenic diet. :

Edit: apologies for the placeholder URL, I'd originally intended to only post one youtube video but then decided to do a write-up instead and I don't know how to remove it.

I tried fermenting Kefir yesterday. Put some store-bought freeze dried Kefir powder and put them in a 1L tetrapak carton of pasteurized milk, and then I left it for ~24h. Ambient temperature is currently around 28-30'c.

When I opened the milk carton today the Kefir was almost entirely solid and I was unable to pour it out of the carton. I managed eventually to move it to the bottle by scraping it out of the carton, where it now rests.

I've put about 200 ml of milk in a small glass jar and because I was unable to find any grains, added 2 tbsp of the kefir to the glass jar. I wonder if this will let me continue fermenting without using another packet of freeze dried Kefir?

If anyone has any advice about how I should go about doing this I'd really appreciate it.