Mastering Nutrition

Do you want beautiful, flawless, radiantly healthy skin? Want to stay healthy during cold season? Want to eat that bagel without your blood sugar spiking through the roof? Then it's time to think about zinc. Zinc is critical to every aspect of our biology, but the first things to go when we run low are our skin health, our immune system, and our glucose tolerance. Zinc, moreover, is critical to antioxidant defense, so should be considered broadly protective against all of the degenerative diseases that occur with aging. Wait, are you too young to care about aging? No problem. You at least want healthy skin, great sex, or a lean physique, so listen up. Zinc-rich foods are harder to come by then you'd think. Nutritional databases can be wildly inaccurate if you don't adjust for inhibitors of zinc absorption in natural foods. And zinc supplements can be valuable, but they're not a panacea. In fact, used wrongly, they can quickly induce a deficiency of copper and other minerals that are just as critical to your health.  The show notes can be found at chrismasterjohnphd.com/36. They contain recommendations for specific supplements. This episode is brought to you by Kettle and Fire Bone Broth. Use the link kettleandfire.com/chris to get $10 off your first order. This episode is also brought to you by US Wellness Meats. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter "Chris" at checkout to get 15% off your order as long as the final price is over $75 and you order fewer than 40 pounds of meat. You can use "Chris" to get the same discount twice. In this episode, you'll find all of the following and more:  0:00:35 Cliff Notes; 11:40 The discovery of zinc deficiency on diets of whole wheat bread with small amounts of milk and potatoes, a quarter pound of clay, and no meat: dry skin, hypogonadism, lack of secondary sex characteristics, short stature, frequent infections; 17:25 The biochemical and physiological roles of zinc; 19:00 structural roles of zinc, with an emphasis on zinc finger motifs; interactions with vitamins A and D, thyroid hormone, adrenal hormones, and sex hormones 24:07 Catalytic roles of zinc, including the RNA polymerases that make it necessary for the production of every single thing in the body; 26:30 Interactions with vitamin A, from transport via retinol-binding protein (RBP) through activation by alcohol dehydrogenases to retinal and retinoic acid through creating vision via rhodopsin and regulating gene transcription via DNA-binding of the retinoic acid receptor; 29:20 Regulatory roles of zinc 32:25 Zinc and oxidative stress (necessity for hydrogen peroxide production in the thyroid gland and immune phagocytes, zinc release from zinc-thiolate clusters; protective effects of metallothionein exchanging zinc for other metals; negative effects of uncoupling of endothelial nitric oxide synthase [eNOS] on blood vessel function and oxidative stress; 42:45 Regulation at the cellular level (metallothionein, MT; ZIP and ZnT transporters) 44:20 Regulation of metallothionein (metal transcription factor-1 [MTF-1] through the metal response element [MRE] controlled primarily by zinc but also heavy metals, antioxidant response element [ARE] via Nrf1 and Nrf2, which provides regulation by oxidative stress and copper, glucocorticoid response element [GRE] which provides regulation by adrenal hormones and inflammation; 53:40 What happens when we eat zinc (effects of phyate, amino acids, calcium, organic acids, and iron) 1:01:00 Plasma zinc and the exchangeable zinc pool 1:06:00 Factors that affect plasma zinc status (variation according to meals, diurnal variation, stress, inflammation, menstruation) 1:10:25 Causes and effects of deficiency 1:14:20 Variations in soil zinc; 1:15:40 Balance of animal protein and phytate in the diet 1:19:00 Causes and effects of toxicity (especially with respect to copper deficiency) 1:27:20 What is the best marker of zinc status? 1:29:45 Plasma zinc as a marker of zinc nutritional status; 1:37:00 Copper deficiency markers as the most sensitive markers of zinc excess 1:38:10 Dietary strategies (animal foods, especially oysters, red meat, and cheese; soaking, sprouting, and fermenting to neutralize phytate) 1:40:35 Zinc supplementation on a plant-based diet (especially relevant to vegan diets but also to vegetarian diets) 1:42:25 Supplementation of zinc (what form? Citrate, acetate, gluconate, picolinate, oxide? What dose? When to take it?) 1:44:35  Recommendations for timing of diet and supplements across the day for best absorption 1:47:00 Wrapping up Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/036-why-you-should-manage-your-zinc

Restricting salt, replacing iodized salt with natural unrefined salt, and consuming plant foods that generate isothiocyanate can all have their place in a healthy diet, but raise the risk of iodine deficiency. Here’s how to spot the problem and what to do about it. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

There are good reasons to eat traditional fats like butter, olive oil, animal fats, and tropic oils, rather than modern vegetable oils. But years of consuming vegetable oil can cause your vitamin E requirement to remain elevated for up to four years after you make the switch, leaving you vulnerable to some extra wear and tear during the transition. Here’s how I recommend using vitamin E in food or supplements to smooth out the transition. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

I currently use a Germ Guardian, but for about a decade I used this method, which is half the initial cost and one fifth the long-term maintenance costs. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

If you’re one of the 7% who have this gene, then drinking coffee may just save your life. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Selenium is critically essential to the defense against oxidative stress and to thyroid hormone metabolism. Soil concentrations cause so much variability in the selenium content of foods that any two of us could be eating the same diet and one of us could have too little selenium and the other too much. That makes it essential to understand how to measure and manage our nutritional status. In episode 35, I continue the series on managing nutritional status by teaching you how to do just that. The show notes for this episode are found at chrismasterjohnphd.com/35. They contain recommendations about foods and supplements. This episode is brought to you by Kettle and Fire Bone Broth. Use the link kettleandfire.com/chris to get $10 off your first order. This episode is also brought to you by US Wellness Meats. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter "Chris" at checkout to get 15% off your order as long as the final price is over $75 and you order fewer than 40 pounds of meat. You can use "Chris" to get the same discount twice. In this episode, you will find all of the following and more: 0:00:34  Introducing the new name, Mastering Nutrition; 0:01:00 Cliff Notes; 0:10:55  My story with selenium deficiency: white spots in fingernails and frequent colds; 0:14:14  Soil variation plays a major role in selenium deficiency and toxicity; 0:18:40  Biological roles of selenium (antioxidant protection, immunity, thyroid health, through glutathione peroxidases and thyroid deiodinases, control of protein function through thioredoxin reductase, other poorly understood roles); 0:29:00  Signs of deficiency (vulnerability to viral infection and other infection, hepatic cirrhosis, white fingernails that can fall out, cardiac insufficiency and enlargement of the heart with fibrosis and necrosis as occurs in Keshan disease, increased vulnerability to vitamin E deficiency, iron overload, and toxin exposure) 0:39:45 Signs of toxicity (hepatic cirrhosis, white spots and streaks in brittle fingernails, loss of hair and nails, additional signs in acute toxicity from mistakes in supplement manufacture); 0:43:45  Optimizing between deficiency and toxicity: Hashimoto's thyroiditis and cancer; 0:49:00  Different forms of selenium in plant and animal foods; 0:49:38  How selenomethionine from plants is metabolized to selenocysteine; 0:55:10  How selenocysteine from animal foods enters as selenocysteine; 0:55:30  How selenocysteine is converted to selenide for incorporation into selenoproteins; 0:56:25  How inorganic selenite and selenate are converted to selenide using glutathione; 1:01:46  Markers of nutritional status (selenoprotein P, glutathione peroxidase, selenium concentration of various body tissues with an emphasis on plasma and serum but including other blood fractions, hair, and nails) 1:12:53 Ideal ranges of markers; 1:16:42  Dietary requirements and how to meet them with food (organ meats and offal, seafood, Brazil nuts, bioavailability issues in seafood, mushrooms, and cruciferous vegetables); 1:26:45 Why methyl-selenocysteine is not a substitute for selenocysteine and why selenomethionine is the best currently available option for a supplement; 1:28:13  The proper dose of a supplement; 1:35:07  Things we will learn in the future: implications of needing methylation to both utilize enough selenium and detoxify excess; interactions with glutathione and antioxidant system; selenoprotein P becoming commercially available to health care practitioners and individuals; the rise of novel markers as we learn more about the poorly understood selenoproteins 1:37:10  Wrapping Up Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/035-why-you-should-manage-your-selenium

This is a quick note to let you know that I changed the name of the show from "The Daily Lipid" to "Mastering Nutrition" and to explain why I did it.

Although vitamin B12 is mostly found in animal products, there are true vegetarian and vegan sources. Nevertheless, designing a B12-adequate diet is more nuanced than it may seem even for someone with a healthy digestive system, because we can only absorb a limited amount from each meal. In this video, I teach you how to do exactly that for vegans, omnivores, and everyone in between. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

If you’re going to cook your own fresh liver, here are five core principles to make it taste as good as it possibly can. These can be applied to any recipe. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Stephan Guyenet made a book! The Hungry Brain is available now, and in episode 34, Stephan and I talk all about it. Stephan is a long-time friend and colleague. He has a PhD in neuroscience, and studies the role of the brain in controlling the food we eat and the other behaviors we engage in that affect our body composition and risk of obesity. His book lays out how the brain makes these decisions and what we can do to outsmart these deeply rooted instincts in today's challenging environment. We begin by talking about what makes us fat, why we are now fatter than ever, why our environment affects some of us so much more strongly than others, and what we can do about it on both an individual and societal level. Then we move on to the book: what you can get out of reading it, why Stephan decided to write it, and the process he used during the three years of research, writing, and publication. In the last part, I get Stephan's advice for people who want to follow a similar career path, and ask Stephan how he sees his career evolving now that he's left academia but has stayed so intimately involved with science. You can find the shownotes for this episode at chrismasterjohnphd.com/34. This episode is brought to you by US Wellness Meats. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter "Chris" at checkout to get 15% off your order as long as the final price is over $75 and you order fewer than 40 pounds of meat. You can use "Chris" to get the same discount twice. This episode is also brought to you by Kettle and Fire Bone Broth. Use the link kettleandfire.com/chris to get $10 off your first order. In this episode you will find all of the following and more: 0:35 Introduction, Stephan’s bio, overview of the interview; 1:00 Why do we get fat and why are we fatter than ever before? 13:00 Teasing apart increased food intake from decreased physical activity; 15:53 If the Hadza (hunter-gatherers in Tanzania) don’t have higher energy expenditure than we do, why are they so lean? 19:03 Food reward hit our society after a long decline in physical activity; what happens when high food reward hits a society where physical activity remains high? 22:25 What is the most fattening diet in the world? 28:15 Are effort costs more powerful than exercise? 33:52 The effect of the “built environment,” the effort costs of exercise and the cultural honor we bestow on convenience; 35:17 If our environment has become so obesogenic, how come so many of us are lean? 39:23 In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Weston A. Price took hundreds of photos of people all over the globe who ate themselves into very ill health with diets rich in refined flour and refined sugar, yet none of them are fat. Why not? 43:03 What are the most impactful things we can do as individuals to maintain healthy body composition? 46:50 What are the most impactful things we can do as a society to encourage healthy body composition? 48:56 The risks of food taxes and similar political tools, and the risks of inaction. 51:09 Who should read Stephan’s book, “The Hungry Brain,” and what does he hope they’ll get out of it? 53:26 How did he decide to write “The Hungry Brain,” and why did he find the concept so compelling and book-worthy? 55:20 That the brain regulates body fatness seems obvious in retrospect. What hid its obviousness for so long? 59:56 How receptive are nutrition scientists to the food behavior concepts being studied by neuroscientists? 1:02:35 How researching this topic in such depth caused Stephan to recalibrate the evidence and understanding he needs before he would be willing to challenge the perspectives of experts. 1:05:27 A day in the life of writing The Hungry Brain; 1:06:35 How Stephan got experts to talk to him; 1:09:15 How Stephan made the decision to leave academia from his postdoc to write a book rather than pursuing a tenure-track faculty position, and how he sees his career path evolving; 1:12:53 If someone were to follow in Stephan’s footsteps and write a scientifically rigorous book for a general audience, what do they need to lay the foundations for success? Audience building, funding and frugality, time for writing, pitching a proposal, illustrations, keeping the gears of the publishing gears turning, publicity; 1:16:30 How much time did Stephan spend on this? 1:18:15 Managing a book advance 1:19:38 The surprising hurdles of self-employment: will Stephan keep jumping them, or get a job?  1:20:00 Wrapping up: where people can find the book, where people can find Stephan’s other work. Stephan has given us all so much for free over so many years. Let's all buy his book! Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/034-stephan-guyenet-and-i-talk-about