Influenced to Death

In part 2, Hannah & Victoria go full carnivore nerd and explore the full spectrum of evidence surrounding an all-animal food diet.What’s the evidence for carnivore?PubMed search for “carnivore diet” returned 21 results, but only a small handful are applicable to this conversation, i.e., this diet has not been thoroughly studied.* https://journals.lww.com/co-endocrinology/abstract/2020/10000/can_a_carnivore_diet_provide_all_essential.11.aspx Can a carnivore diet provide all essential nutrients? Current Opinion in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and ObesityBy L. Amber O’Hearn, aka @ketocarnivore on X, “Eat Meat, Not Too Little, Mostly Fat” major nutrient she reports as possible deficiency is calcium, likely due to acid loadMore on her background:https://twitter.com/ambimorph * https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34934897/ Behavioral Characteristics and Self-Reported Health Status among 2029 Adults Consuming a "Carnivore Diet" * social media survey was conducted 30 March-24 June 2020 among adults self-identifying as consuming a carnivore diet for ≥6 mo* 2029 respondents (median age: 44 y, 67% male) reported consuming a carnivore diet for 14 mo (IQR: 9-20 mo), motivated primarily by health reasons (93%)* Most common sx were GI related, but still low (3-5%)* Among a subset reporting current lipids, LDL-cholesterol was markedly elevated (172 mg/dL), whereas HDL-cholesterol (68 mg/dL) and triglycerides (68 mg/dL) were optimal. Participants with diabetes reported benefits including reductions in median [IQR] BMI (4.3 [1.4-7.2]), glycated hemoglobin (0.4% [0%-1.7%]), and diabetes medication use (84%-100%)* BSL and OHH were supported by National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grants K23 DK119546 and R03 DK123541 to study a low-carbohydrate diet. JTM was supported by National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health training grant T32AT004094. The funders had no involvement in the design, implementation, analysis, and interpretation of the data. Author disclosures: Dr. David Ludwig: DSL reports royalties for books that recommend a carbohydrate-modified diet; his spouse owns a nutrition education and consulting business. All other authors report no conflicts of interest.* Carb/insulin model - obesity is caused by excess consumption of carbohydrate which then disrupts normal insulin metabolism leading to weight gain * Biggest issues were altered lipid profiles, specifically high LDL. Authors state that for those with a more extreme LDl response, meds could be considered. * Authors propose benefits could be due to eliminiaton of reactive foods/plant chemicals, (though they do state that plant compounds have proven benefits) * Calcium might be a problem * Did a great job of stating limitations* Limitations of Self-reported Health Status and Metabolic Markers among Adults Consuming a "Carnivore Diet" editorial“The authors are aware of many of the limitations of their study design and the generalizability of the results. It is also abundantly clear that higher-quality research is required to determine the carnivore diet’s long-term positive and adverse health effects. However, considering the propensity of media outlets and the lay public to misinterpret, exaggerate, and disseminate findings from scientific research, we believe caution should be exercised when discussing the study’s conclusions. In particular, discussion relating to the changes in health status and metabolic markers recorded in this study requires considerable reference to the unverifiable nature of the data.We congratulate the authors on taking the first steps towards scientifically quantifying the health effects of the carnivore diet and welcome any future, high-quality studies that may provide valuable data to fill the sparse literature on this specific eating pattern.”Ancestral:Some traditional people ate close to exclusive meat and fat diets due to what was available (Arctic), but most ancestral people ate plant foods. Katharine Milton laid this out in an editorial for AJCN in 2000…she looks rad af: https://nature.berkeley.edu/miltonlab/index.html She says, “The hunter-gatherer data used by Cordain et al. (4) came from the Ethnographic Atlas (5), a cross-cultural index compiled largely from 20th-century sources and written by ethnographers or others with disparate backgrounds, rarely interested in diet per se or trained in dietary collection techniques. By the 20th century, most hunter-gatherers had vanished; many of those who remained had been displaced to marginal environments. Some societies coded as hunter-gatherers in the Atlas probably were not exclusively hunter-gatherers or were displaced agricultural peoples. Because most of the ethnographers were male, they often did not associate with women, who typically collect and process plant resources.Finally, all the hunter-gatherers that were included in the Atlas were modern-day humans with a rich variety of social and economic patterns and were not “survivors from the primitive condition of all mankind” (6). Their wide range of dietary behaviors does not fall into one standard macronutrient pattern that contemporary humans could emulate for better health. Indeed, using data from the same Ethnographic Atlas, Lee (1) found that gathered vegetable foods were the primary source of subsistence for most of the hunter-gatherer societies he examined, whereas an emphasis on hunting occurred only in the highest latitudes.”https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10702155/ Net base/acid load of ancestral diet:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12450898/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10702160/ Anecdotal: Some people feel crazy better!Mikhaila Peterson’s video on the Lion Diet article by the Mayo Clinic: The Mayo Clinic article: https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/nutrition-fitness/a-meat-only-diet-is-not-the-answer-examining-the-carnivore-and-lion-diets/ For reference: 44,000 people follow The Lion Diet on FB, 165K on YouTube, and many post their success stories. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit influencedtodeath.substack.com/subscribe

In part 1 of this “meaty” extravaganza 👀, Hannah and Victoria explore the history of the Carnivore diet and their biases.Be sure to listen to part 2 for the full Carnivore story.Full show notes:Definition: A carnivore, or meat-eater, is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements are met by the consumption of animal tissues whether through hunting or scavenging.Likewise inspired by observations on an indigenous diet in St. Lucia, Dr. John Rollo in 1797 successfully treated 2 patients with diabetes with a diet consisting only of meat and fat. Rollo recommended the near-complete elimination of plant foods, a prescription that was widely adopted and empirically optimized to prolong the life of people with diabetes in the 19th century. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5112440/ Meatrition.com (hahaha): The Philosophy of the Stomach; or an Exclusively Animal Diet is the Most Wholesome and Fit for Man. By Bernard Moncriff, London 1856.https://books.google.com/books?id=CG_HmgEACAAJ&pg=PP12&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false "The most wholesome diet is that which requires the least quantity of matter to be introduced into the digestive cavity for the support of the system."“My face, from being rather shallow, became clear and youthful, my eyes serene and mirrors of happiness. It gave me unknown, or rather, forgotten pleasure, to jump over ditch and hedge, and to make those exercises which required muscular strength”."I have not felt the slightest disagreeableness arising from the bowels, either in the shape of eructations from the stomach, or obstruction, or dysentery, or of any denomination whatever. Indeed, it if was not from memory, and from books, I should not know that I had such things as a stomach and intestines. The evacuation of the bowels takes place with ease and regularity once every other day.”Clinical calorimetry: XLV. Prolonged meat diets with a study of kidney function and ketosis - 1930 - “Two normal men volunteered to live solely on meat for one year.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021925818768427 Inspired by Inuit peopleScurvy wasn’t present in native pop, but when it occurred in scientists it was cured by eating raw meatAfter one year, gingivitis had disappeared in one of the men. The total acidity of the urine during the meat diet was increased to 2 or 3 times that of the acidity on mixed diets, and acetonuria was present throughout the periods of exclusive meat. Meat diet contained less calcium, but study didn’t report a deficiency.Dr. Shawn Baker “invented” the modern carnivore diet: https://carnivore.diet/dr-shawn-baker-md/ - surgeon, author, athlete, fatherThe Carnivore King, https://www.youtube.com/@ShawnBakerMD Dr. Paul Saladino (psychiatrist)(Google him if you must, we’re not giving him a backlink.)“Learn which foods are b******t.”Liver King: Brian Johnson - owns Heart and Soil supplement company with Paul Saladino.“Whole Package” male hormonal support supplement is most eye-catching; contains beef testicles, liver, blood extract:2023 article in The New Yorker by Manvir Singh titled Red Shift: Is an all meat diet what nature intended? quoting Raw Egg Nationalist (213K followers on X), who talks about soy globalism and how a low-fat veggie diet tanks testosterone. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/02/is-an-all-meat-diet-what-nature-intended This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit influencedtodeath.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Hannah and Victoria welcome Brooke Cates, founder of The Bloom Method and passionate pre and postnatal fitness pioneer. They discuss the #fitmom trend and research showing that influenced postpartum fitness leaves women worse for wear. Full show notes:History of PP fitness: https://www.eternalblossombirthandbeyond.com/the-history Historical overview of pregnancy fitness, not PP fitness, but SUPER interesting to see pregnancy fitness history from the 1700s (!!!) to present: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3563105/ Great blog describing #fitmom influence: https://buildnurturerestore.com/body-image-postpartum-healing-versus-getting-your-body-back/ “A novel 2022 experimental study found that women exposed to body-focused social media posts targeted at new mothers experience not only higher rates of body dissatisfaction but also cultivated an unhealthy relationship with food, resulting in eating less and feeling guilt after eating (3).“The #fitmom study: https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-022-05089-w#Tab2 “Our finding that this improvement in body dissatisfaction appeared to happen among mothers in our control group, but not for mothers in our intervention group, suggests that exposure to body-focused social media prevented intervention mothers from the progression of feeling better about their bodies as they move further from birth toward 12 months postpartum”#fitmom hashtag has 29.5 million videos on IGhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7926552/ - Recovery of Abdominal Muscle Thickness and Contractile Function in Women after Childbirth“Therefore, abdominal muscle exercises might help prevent postpartum symptoms; however, because deterioration of muscle function is significant in the first four months, careful attention should be paid to exercise intensity. The study limitation was a relatively small sample size, thus future studies should involve more participants.”Pelvic organ prolapse Strenuous physical activity, exercise, and pelvic organ prolapse: a narrative scoping reviewhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10238337/Eight prevalence studies were retrieved. Prevalence rates of symptomatic POP varied between 0 (small study within different sports) and 23% (Olympic weightlifters and powerlifters). Parity was the only factor associated with POP in most studies. There is scant knowledge of exercise and POP in the postpartum period. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit influencedtodeath.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Hannah and Victoria do their best to keep an open mind as they discuss Breatharianism, aka the influencer-led trend of living on breath alone.No food.No water.Just prana.- Dunning-Kreuger effect: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/ - Wiley Brooks: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2508172/How-Michelle-Pfeiffer-seduced-deadly-cult-says-live-air-alone.html, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV6Xizszik8, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkN8cmcNC6Y - Ellen Greve aka Jasmuheen: https://jasmuheen.podia.com/darkroomretreats - Ray Maor: https://raymaor.com/expand-your-consciousness-portal/retreats/ (Some retreats cost over $3000) - Audra Bear: https://www.instagram.com/audrabear/ - “Claims of anomalously long fasting: An assessment of the evidence from investigated cases”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830720302032?via%3Dihub- Nirjal Upvas in Ayurveda- Inedia: Latin for “fasting”- Bigu in Taoist tradition: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5728740/, https://journals.sfu.ca/jnonlocality/public/journals/1/PREPRINTS/BiguStudy081413r.pdf - Survival into the 21st Century: https://www.amazon.com/Survival-into-21st-Century-Planetary/dp/0933278047 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit influencedtodeath.substack.com/subscribe