Gyroscopic Investing

Maddy wrote:MK et al., would you comment on the idea of using kelp as a one-stop source of dietary minerals?

Vegetables don't have much vitamins or minerals per se, i.e. not RDA levels. So I wouldn't count on it. They're only useful for phytonutrients and fiber.

They also have a nasty habit of accumulating toxic minerals like thallium. There was a story a few years ago about that and kelp. Apparantly there's a county in Northern California where people are health nuts and eat way too much kelp in smoothies every day so were devloping symptoms of thallium poisioning.

Personally, I've found my self-grown organic raw kelp to overstimulate me and give me a fatique crash the next day. Don't know if thats a sign of toxicity or there's just something stimulating in it (I'm very sensitive to stimulants though I would get a rebound headache to indeed indicate it was that afterwards). Cooked kelp seemed better but it still kept me up way past my bedtime. It wasn't a wired feeling just lack of being tired.

EDIT: Ooops, my bad! I was thinking of kale not kelp. Sea vegetables are the most concentrated source of minerals so they would work for trace minerals. However, I don't recall seeing any were ever dense enough to meet the RDA, so look into it. Kelp is essentially used for getting a naturally concentrated source of iodine.

MG et al., if you were limited to just a few supplements, which ones would you choose if your goal were to bring about a significant increase in energy level?

Ephedrine.

Take a Bronkaid tablet (20mg ephedrine) and a 200mg caffeine pill and you will be wired.

Not recommended if your heart is prone to exploding.

I wasn't exactly looking for "wired." I'd settle for feeling like 30 again.

Assuming you don't suffer from a chronic health condition, the human body does not need supplements in pill form if you eat a healthy, varied diet. That said, I take these supplements:

• Multi-vitamin - Doctor recommended as a "safety net" just in case I'm missing anything in my vegetarian diet (unlikely).

• Calcium - I eat very little dairy (mostly a little cheese here and there), so again, just a safety net.

• Vitamin D3 - Doctor recommended 5000IU daily. Whatever you say, doc.

• Low-dose aspirin - Twice weekly now that I'm over 50, for the potential protection against heart attacks, strokes, and colon cancer.

I used to also take vitamin C thinking that it warded off colds, but I eat fresh fruits and vegetables every day so I already intake a good quantity of natural vitamin C and I have not noticed an increase in illness since I stopped taking it in pill form. Leaves me with more money to invest in the Permanent Portfolio.

I tend to be pretty skeptical when it comes to alternative remedies that purport to do earth-shattering things, but after a good deal of experimenting, I have the following earth-shattering anecdote to offer about an herbal by the name of Ashwaganda root. It's touted as being an "adaptogen" which supposedly helps with stress and which has a number of other supposed attributes, including the ability to boost thyroid function.

I can't really speak to those issues, but I've found Ashwaganda to be as effective a sleep aid as Ambien. I buy the root in powdered form and fill Size 00 gelatin capsules, then take two capsules a half hour before bedtime. Now, I'm one of those people who frequently lies in bed watching the clock for four or five hours, and sometimes gets up twice during the night, before actually falling asleep. And I'm generally wrung out the next day. But since taking a dose of Ashwaganda at bedtime, I sleep like a log. I also notice that I'm a whole lot calmer during the day, something upon which a neutral third party spontaneously commented.

Maybe my experience will help some other folks here.

Chronic insomniac here, Maddy. Thanks for posting that. Will report back!

My gastroenterologist says to take calcium, selenium, a probiotic, and a low dose aspirin. I'm at elevated risk of colon cancer.

I've been taking zinc, magnesium, B6, fish oil, and D3 before going to sleep, and I've been sleeping even more like a stone than usual, with the added bonus of insane technicolor LSD dreams.

rocketdog wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2016 8:59 am Assuming you don't suffer from a chronic health condition, the human body does not need supplements in pill form if you eat a healthy, varied diet. That said, I take these supplements:

• Multi-vitamin - Doctor recommended as a "safety net" just in case I'm missing anything in my vegetarian diet (unlikely).

• Calcium - I eat very little dairy (mostly a little cheese here and there), so again, just a safety net.

• Vitamin D3 - Doctor recommended 5000IU daily. Whatever you say, doc.

• Low-dose aspirin - Twice weekly now that I'm over 50, for the potential protection against heart attacks, strokes, and colon cancer.

I used to also take vitamin C thinking that it warded off colds, but I eat fresh fruits and vegetables every day so I already intake a good quantity of natural vitamin C and I have not noticed an increase in illness since I stopped taking it in pill form. Leaves me with more money to invest in the Permanent Portfolio.

Apparently a new study (financed by Bayer) indicates aspirin and fish oil supplements have no real benefits for heart health and increase gastro problems. Probably not the drones Bayer was looking for.

Anyone else try the Ashwaganda? That's an interesting observation Maddy!

There's too many excellent questions about the benefits of vitamins & supplements. I think the evidence in their favor is mostly based on association studies, which is a deeply flawed way of selecting interventions. I cut way down on calcium supplements after some reports that they may exacerbate or trigger heart disease (arterial calcium buildup). At my next dexascan my bone density actually increased - so much for that!

So I started focusing instead in eating locally grown produce, reasoning that most produce in supermarkets is nutritionally subpar - organic or no. This is easy in the summer with farmer's markets everywhere, and I really do feel the difference. For the other three seasons, I've been experimenting with indoor/home hydroponics, first with an Aerogarden, then decided to go whole hog with a DIY ebb and flow system. Obviously my time is very limited (the tenured professor gig has been getting seriously demanding) so I've been putting it together slowly. Fun little project. Does anyone else do this?? I am puzzling over all kinds of silly little things like how much space to allow between shelves.

WiseOne, if you have time, would you post pictures? Our winter is VERY long, so I'm interested in anything relating to indoor growing. Could your system be used on a scale that could provide a meaningful yield through the winter? With what types of vegetables are you having the greatest success?

Hooray Maddy, hope you get to try building your own hydroponics system this winter! DIY is absolutely the way to go. Kits and complete systems are available, but the markup is absolutely astounding and in the end you get an unflexible system that may or may not work for you.

I'm growing mainly leafy greens like lettuce, kale, chard, beet greens, arugula, mizuna, and herbs. You could do tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries also. Will post pictures when I'm done, but right now there's a lot of trial and error. Unfortunately there are no guides I could find online that offer useful help with specifics, like how do you set up the system to be absolutely leakproof, make it easy to rinse and refill the reservoir, and can be left alone for a week while you're away without disaster striking. Most guides provide only high level overviews, and the rest are people growing pot in large tents.

Kbg wrote: ↑Wed Aug 29, 2018 12:51 pm

rocketdog wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2016 8:59 am Assuming you don't suffer from a chronic health condition, the human body does not need supplements in pill form if you eat a healthy, varied diet. That said, I take these supplements:

• Multi-vitamin - Doctor recommended as a "safety net" just in case I'm missing anything in my vegetarian diet (unlikely).

• Calcium - I eat very little dairy (mostly a little cheese here and there), so again, just a safety net.

• Vitamin D3 - Doctor recommended 5000IU daily. Whatever you say, doc.

• Low-dose aspirin - Twice weekly now that I'm over 50, for the potential protection against heart attacks, strokes, and colon cancer.

I used to also take vitamin C thinking that it warded off colds, but I eat fresh fruits and vegetables every day so I already intake a good quantity of natural vitamin C and I have not noticed an increase in illness since I stopped taking it in pill form. Leaves me with more money to invest in the Permanent Portfolio.

Apparently a new study (financed by Bayer) indicates aspirin and fish oil supplements have no real benefits for heart health and increase gastro problems. Probably not the drones Bayer was looking for.

There’s an ­unspoken rule in the pharmaceutical industry that half of all academic biomedical research will ultimately prove false, and in 2011 a group of researchers at Bayer decided to test it. Looking at sixty-seven recent drug discovery projects based on preclinical cancer biology research, they found that in more than 75 percent of cases the published data did not match up with their in-house attempts to replicate. These were not studies published in fly-by-night oncology journals, but blockbuster research featured in Science, Nature, Cell, and the like. The Bayer researchers were drowning in bad studies, and it was to this, in part, that they attributed the mysteriously declining yields of drug pipelines. Perhaps so many of these new drugs fail to have an effect because the basic research on which their development was based isn’t valid.

- William Wilson, Scientific Regress

I wonder which one was wrong, this new study from Bayer, or all the ones that show benefits from fish oil, for instance these older ones?

Who knows, these days?

My current supplement/nutrition regimen is:

After morning shower...
1 ) A full pot of coffee while reading the news.
2 ) Serious weight lifting

After gym...
3 ) 6 egg yolks stirred into a half a cup of Orange Juice.
4 ) 50 grams of Hydrolyzed Collagen and 4 grams of salt mixed with 400ml of hot water.
5 ) 3000 mg of NAC - spread throughout the day.

Mid day...
6 ) Many miles of walking up and down hills with lots of sunshine on my torso.

Late day...
7 ) A big ass steak and a bottle of wine.
8 ) Some sort of sex.
9 ) 8 to 10 hours of sleep.
10 ) Repeat

Not a lot of science that will vouch for me, but it seems to be working. And I've experimented with everything for a long time...

MangoMan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 30, 2019 7:45 pm Apparently, there is also a vague link to increased incidence of prostate cancer in men who take fish oil capsules. You just don't know who to believe anymore.

What, with an N of 8?

I say go for common sense. Fish is good for you. Fish oil probably is too.

Mark, we're on the same page. If I didn't know any better, I'd think your last name was Sisson. But I have to ask, WTF is up with that eggs and orange juice combo?

It's incredibly hard if not impossible to find nutrition data you can use...it sucks. I get it that as new studies come out things change, but a "here is the current consensus on X" kinda website would be awesome.

Mark Leavy wrote: ↑Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:08 pm Who knows, these days?

My current supplement/nutrition regimen is:

After morning shower...
1 ) A full pot of coffee while reading the news.
2 ) Serious weight lifting

After gym...
3 ) 6 egg yolks stirred into a half a cup of Orange Juice.
4 ) 50 grams of Hydrolyzed Collagen and 4 grams of salt mixed with 400ml of hot water.
5 ) 3000 mg of NAC - spread throughout the day.

Mid day...
6 ) Many miles of walking up and down hills with lots of sunshine on my torso.

Late day...
7 ) A big ass steak and a bottle of wine.
8 ) Some sort of sex.
9 ) 8 to 10 hours of sleep.
10 ) Repeat

Not a lot of science that will vouch for me, but it seems to be working. And I've experimented with everything for a long time...

Where do you go for #8?

Kbg wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:08 am It's incredibly hard if not impossible to find nutrition data you can use...it sucks. I get it that as new studies come out things change, but a "here is the current consensus on X" kinda website would be awesome.

Given that the "current consensus" on nutrition led to the obesity epidemic I don't think I would put much stock in a website like that. One of my go to guys for nutritional information is Dr. Ken Berry. He's the author of a book called "Lies my doctor told me".

I've gotten to the point where I put more stock in anecdotal evidence than I do so-called "studies" because they have so often been shown to have hidden agendas. And also the actual findings of the study don't always line up with the click-bait headline version upon further investigation.

I'm currently following the ketogenic diet with daily fasting. I've dropped 50 lbs from my peak weight and I'm feeling great @ almost 70.

I've been Keto/Paleo on and off for the past couple years.

On it again since Jan 1, so this is a month again for me.

I have dropped 8 pounds and joints feel good.

There's always something that knocks me off the wagon. However, each successive time I feel more inclined to stay on, esp. as I watch the older generation get older and deal with health issues.

I kind of went off on my cousin at a birthday party last weekend when we were discussing the type of creamer she puts in her coffee (mainly sugar/HFCS) and that her doctor tells her that if you're going to eat sugar, Turbinado sugar is better for you.

When I told her all I put in my coffee was heavy cream, her eyes got wide. The aversion to fat is still strong in society, but getting better.

jacksonM, yes, real world data from normal humans changing their diet and seeing real results is much better than studies. A huge benefit of the internet.

Keep in mind that studies aren't created equal. Metabolic chamber studies are a lot more useful than self-reported data. But really, just look at people who need to have their nutrition figured out, like bodybuilders, athletes, etc.

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 11:25 am I've been Keto/Paleo on and off for the past couple years.

I like to avoid unnecessary volatility with a strategy I call "Half-Assed Paleo".

It's kind of a mix of low-carb and cognitive dissonance.

flyingpylon wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:11 pm

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 31, 2019 11:25 am I've been Keto/Paleo on and off for the past couple years.

I like to avoid unnecessary volatility with a strategy I call "Half-Assed Paleo".

It's kind of a mix of low-carb and cognitive dissonance.

I think any diet will work for weight loss in the short term, and even in the long term if you can follow it strictly enough. The real question is how sustainable is it? Jillian Michaels of "The biggest loser" fame has just made some videos critical of the ketogenic diet. She says her standard method of caloric restriction while eating six meals a deal, including lots of whole grain foods, and lots of exercise is the way to go but all you have to do to debunk her claims is listen to the "biggest losers" that have regained all the weight and then some.

It does take some effort and ingenuity to go keto/low carb/paleo but I've found it to be highly sustainable. I think this is because you can actually eat and feel full. Show me a steak and a donut and I'll go for the steak every time.

I agree. It always takes a few days, but sugar cravings go away pretty fast, and when there are sweets around it gets easier and easier to say no.

One thing I do miss is eating half a bag of some good salty BBQ potato chips....