Simplify Your Health by Dr. Lucas Ramirez 2022

 22.10.15..19: bk.health/diet/Dr. Lucas Ramirez 2022`Simplify Your Health

. this is a commentary on the book of

vascular neurology Dr. Lucas Ramirez 2022:

Simplify Your Health: A Doctor's Practical Guide to a Healthier Life 

https://amzn.to/3Tkvf7Y[ad]

4-star/great advice ..and battling "misinformation":

. Dr.Ramirez's initial biology interest

was in sports nutrition 

which lead to an interest in medicine;

that's notable because nutrition is

a large factor of preventive medicine

along with stress reduction, sleep, and exercise.

. his preventive medicine efforts were inspired by

the fact that "80% of strokes can be prevented."

interesting food facts from Dr.Ramirez:

. p89 tells us to reduce highly processed foods

defined as causing a loss of nutrients

and identified as products having more than 5 ingredients.

. in the usa, 60% of calories are highly processed.

p94 promotes organic, locally grown plants

for having higher nutrients than crops grown on

synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.

. there is "inconclusive" evidence that an organic diet

will decrease the risk of several common diseases

including allergies and infertility.

-- and you thought vaccines were the problem:

it was Big Food all this time!

p94 also has my secret for pain-free dieting:

. there are safe foods you can eat without limit,

including leafy greens, and colorful vegetables (not fruits).

. he isn't mentioning beans or other legumes,

but he did say most of your food should be plants;

and, legumes are one of the few plants with

sufficient protein.

p96 says wild fish (not farmed) is one meat that

doesn't increase the risk of heart disease.[ref279]

. grass-fed animals 

give more nutritious meat, milk, and eggs.

. cage-free is also recommended (no explanation needed).

p93 may have an error:

"The more plants[fruits and veg] you eat, by default, 

the fewer sugars, carbohydrates, and meat you will eat."

--. how can that be true when plants are our

main source of carbohydrates?

the author may have meant "refined carb's".

when the doctor knows best in a big way:

p110: 

. even after 16 weeks of a DASH diet,

http://amerdreamduh.blogspot.com/2012/02/diet-dash-dietary-approaches-to.html

15% of hypertensive patients still need medications

to control their blood pressure.

. people have a natural aversion to taking meds

but hypertension drugs could save your life

while waiting for natural methods to take effect.

. if you thought doctors were just pushing pills

because they are financed by Big Pharma,

think again about high blood pressure meds.

establishment dietary advice:

. p7 says the evidence that the book uses

is not the "Level 1, Grade A" quality

that would be required for publishing in 

a peer reviewed journal;

then on p15, his [ref13] says 

high cholesterol is one of the top 5

modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

. what sort of diet causes high cholesterol?

is he going to let it be implied that 

we should be on a low cholesterol diet?

--that's very mainstream; but, is it true?

. Dr.Sears of the Zone diet revealed that

doctors used to think statins worked by 

lowering cholesterol,

but it turns out they are anti-inflammatories.

. also eggs are notorious for high cholesterol,

but Dr.Sears says the reason for limiting them

is that they have a very inflammatory omega-6 oil,

arachidonic acid, that should be balanced with

omega-3 fish oils.

. on p57, the recent rise in obesity is blamed on

getting 20% more calories by eating more at restaurants

that have doubled the size of their portions.

. but it's not just calories increasing:

Big Food is finding ways to add sugar to everything.

. and there has been a dramatic increase in

omega-6 vegetable oils 

--promoted for lowering cholesterol --

but there is evidence such oils are harmful:

Dr. Chris Knobbe 2019:

Ancestral Dietary Strategy to Prevent and Treat

Macular Degeneration. [a common type of blindness]

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see my articles about vegetable oils:

"how is higher linoleic omega-6 oil healthier?"

http://amerdreamduh.blogspot.com/2016/06/how-is-higher-linoleic-omega-6-oil.html

"chronic illness increased after oils of soy, grain, and seeds added to diet"

http://amerdreamduh.blogspot.com/2022/03/chronic-illness-increased-after-oils-of.html

. ref155 claims the obesity problem is made worse by

the average usa job requiring 140 less calories?

. our society is feeding us fattening foods

and then telling us we're too lazy!

. being fattening is not just about caloric density:

adding sugar raises the insulin;

which is what forces calories into fat cells

instead of being used for energy.

. adding long-chain saturated fats to the diet

can increase insulin resistance,

which drives up insulin levels even higher.

. processed meats are notorious for

combining long-chain saturated fats and sugars.

. p66 warns us about "high-fat" salad dressing

without distinguishing types of fat;

is there any risk to mct oil

(short-chain saturated fats)?

. from the evidence I've seen,

it's only longer chain saturated fats

that are inflammatory.

. confusingly p67 considers "olive oil and vinegar"

(an olive-based Vinaigrette {salad dressing})

to be a healthy alternative to {salad dressings}!;

so either he does imply the type of fat matters

(olive oil versus other dressing oils)

or also he's suggesting that

if you make your own Vinaigrette

you will do well to add less olive oil.

. p85 is documenting how usa's official diet policy

has evolved. but they still say to avoid fat

instead of identifying types of fat,

and Dr.Ramirez is going along with them

without showing us the evidence.

battling cancer misinformation:

. p112 promotes the use of cancer screening

without mentioning the evidence for that is disputed.

. breast screenings are x-rays that carry some risk,

and have in the past resulted in many false positives,

although that may no longer be the case.

. p118 mentions colon screenings have a 

high rate of cancer prevention

but doesn't mention a surprisingly high rate of

death from being punctured by the colonoscope.

[Cheryl Clark, 2016, "Colonoscopy Complications Occur at Surprisingly High Rate"]

. also a randomized study had a surprising outcome;

all-cause mortality 

was not significantly reduced by Colonoscopy.

NEJM 2022:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2208375

Effect of Colonoscopy Screening on 

Risks of Colorectal Cancer and Related Death.

Michael Bretthauer, M.D., Ph.D., et al.

"The risk of death from any cause was

11.03% in the [colonoscope-invited] group and

11.04% in the usual-care group

(risk ratio, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.96 to 1.04)."

. however out of 28,220 colonoscope invitations

only 11,843 (42.0%) accepted the invitation.

"No perforations or screening-related deaths occurred

within 30 days after colonoscopy."

. that is consistent with other studies

that showed the risk of a fatal colonoscopy

was on the order of 1 in 10,000.

["Risk of Death From Colonoscopy in a FIT-Positive Program"

Douglas K. Rex, MD, MASGE, reviewing 

Kooyker AI, Toes-Zoutendijk E, Opstal-van Winden AWJ, et al. 

Colonoscopy-related mortality in a fecal immunochemical 

test-based colorectal cancer screening program. 

Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol 2020 Aug 7.]

https://www.endoscopy-campus.com/en/ec-news/risk-of-death-from-colonoscopy-in-a-fit-positive-program/

battling vaccine misinformation:

. on p17 the short list of preventive measures

includes getting vaccinated 

-- including every year for the flu? --

what is the quality of that evidence?

. every medical intervention carries risk

so to get a flu vaccine every year,

that requires strong evidence of effectiveness,

which I didn't see in this book.

p133 gives you an idea of the risk of vaccines.

I had never heard of ADEM 

(acute demyelinating encephalo myelitis);

it is caused often by infections [ref385]

so some vaccines could actually reduce your risk.

. even for the every-honking-year flu vaccine,

it is said to reduce your risk of GBS paralysis [ref390]

if it actually prevented your flu that year;

but how often is that actually the case?

see the CDC's "Past Seasons’ Vaccine Effectiveness Estimates"

-- we are not talking herd immunity here.

. speaking of the flu and immunity,

this book has no mention of

optimizing vitamins D, A, and K2.

. generous doses of vit'D and little vit'A 

are great for enhancing immune function,

but vit'D may steal calcium from your bones

unless you have good levels of vitamin K2.

. see the book by Kate Rheaume-Bleue 2013:

Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: 

How a Little-Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life

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p125 blames today's vaccine hesitancy on

a 1997 Wakefield paper that was retracted

after it was later interpreted to be evidence that

a certain vaccine increased the risk of autism

in infants with a pre-existing gut infection.

. I felt like Wakefield had a pretty good defense

but his side of the story was not mentioned in this book.

. moreover, the real cause of vaccine hesitancy

has to do with the limits of vaccine science.

. one thing to keep in mind in the vaccine debate

if you are trying to sympathize with both sides,

is that good science involves having a control group

so that we may compare the health of the vaccinated

to that of the unvaccinated,

but that is considered to be unethical,

because it deprives random kids of life-saving vaccines,

and also there is "herd immunity" to worry about,

where if you don't get vaccinated,

you could be infecting someone who can't take the vaccine.

. but if everyone is getting vaccinated

we don't know if things like autoimmune dysfunction

are being caused by vaccines or not.

. however, to be fair to the vaccines,

we can't just let people decide for themselves;

rather, we have to randomly assign vaccines;

otherwise, the evidence is inconclusive;

eg, a clinic doctor allowed patients to skip vaccines,

and his records showed that the unvaccinated had

fewer chronic medical conditions,

but it wasn't randomly controlled,

so the parents that avoided vaccinations

could have also be doing something else to 

reduce the risk of chronic medical conditions,

such as being more likely to use only organic food

or to use breastfeeding longer,

thus, the non-randomized study didn't really prove 

that vaccines were a problem.

[Acad Pediatr. 2018

"Assessing Potential Confounding and Misclassification Bias

When Studying the Safety of the Childhood Immunization Schedule"]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6445249/

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