Posts made by BioS

The way Smith writes it's very clear that he is quite good at self-promotion, and uses the classic "copywriting" format: short sentences, simple words, many newlines, attention-grabbing, emotional baiting etc...But on the scientific front, he is an abject and disgraceful failure. No one should heed his advice.

I have no idea what is going on in the RPF at this point. According to charlie the low Vitamin A thing is a divine occurrence. Total self-obliteration of the forum seems inevitable.

It's important to realize Charlie's motivation for keeping the domain name is purely economical. The RPF gets a lot of traffic from google searches, and this converts to sales of his "Health Natura" as well as subscriptions. He is using all the content generated by the users to drive his profit.

He won't change the URL. He will keep profiting off Ray's work (nothing wrong with doing this legitimately) while subverting Ray's ideas.

@Kvirion said in Why is the Ray Peat community so far right?:

a whole (Gaussian) spectrum of political views is needed to keep the system healthy.

@Kvirion said in Why is the Ray Peat community so far right?:

“Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.” ― David Sloan Wilson, Edward O. Wilson

Interesting commentary. As you say, context dependence plays a very big role. Also, some amount of irreducible complexity that defies broad and sweeping solutions is inherent in all human systems.

If social sciences hadn't devolved into meaningless noise we could have a much stronger empirical understanding of the best ways to organize human groups. The work of Weber comes to mind.

Interesting! Tryptophan can be very inflammatory, and if you are hypothyroid low protein can alleviate certain symptoms. As has been mentioned above, the balance of amino acids is key.

In From PMS to Menopause Ray writes: "In the case of amino acids, balance is everything"

90% of AS cases (the so-called HLA-B27 positive) are definitively linked to Klebsiella growth in the gut, and limiting the growth of Klebsiella bacteria by avoiding all starch is essentially curative. Some links:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1561397/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8835506/

It may be that because of your particular microbiome makeup limiting protein somehow reduces Klebsiella growth. Limiting nitrogen availability is a strategy that the body uses to control microbiome growth.

@yerrag said in Polycystic Kidney Disease:

I also have temporal arteritis, which is a bulge on my temple. They are benign and they are hard to get rid of. But because they pose no harm, they are low in my priority list.

Temporal arteritis does not "pose no harm." It can lead to irreversible blindness in a question of hours if it flares up. It's fine if you believe that it is harmless, but spreading the idea that it is can lead to serious harm to others.

Fibrosis is the main thing in PKD. Pentoxyfiline and ARBs are drugs that lower it consistently in studies. Bemethyl (synthetic soviet actoprotector) seems to increase GFR quite a bit according to anecdotal reports. Selenium and Vitamin E may also counter fibrotic changes.

They have NO RIGHT, let me say that again, NO RIGHT to claim any improvement or moving forward of Ray's ideas beyond crude molestation combined with grotesque "toxic bile" fondling.

They have shown zero capacity to understand neither the principles nor the implications of Ray's extensive body of thought. If anyone wants to claim that they are "transforming the movement Peat aspired to create" then let them prove their intellectual honesty, commitment, and achievement in mastering Ray's ideas. On all fronts, the deluded "toxic bile" cronies fail completely.

Fortunately, we have many people honestly committed to advancing Ray's work in directions that are consistent with its basic premises. And we need no repugnant HR brief to justify us doing so.

At this point, the RPF is a google search storefront for HealthNatura, as well as the moronic "bile theory."

@Kappakd Many off-target effects and can be heavily contaminated

It is difficult to read ASG without a basic physics and biology background, and impossible to read Ling without an extensive physics and maths one.

The basics should start with 1. physiology (Physiology, Costanzo; or Text-Book of Physiology, Bikov), 2. biochemistry (Lehninger 1st ed is good), and 3. organic chemistry (Organic chemistry with a biological emphasis). This sets foundational knowledge that is assumed in most of the books that influenced Ray.

A course on physics that covers classical physics, EM, basic QM, and an introduction to condensed matter is also necessary. I particularly like the three-volume Feynman lectures on Physics. They can probably be read in a year of appropriate effort.

Then endocrinology (Textbook of endocrinology, CR Martin), histology, and embryology in particular are necessary to understand the far-reaching implications of Ray's work. Ray was very fond of using examples from embryology.

This is the order that makes the most sense to me, but it can be tedious to put in so much time to master the fundamentals.

The particular text of choice for the subjects is mostly arbitrary so long as it is easy to read and didactic. I like older ones.

@OrpingtonClose No. It is a steroidal cortisol blocker that also has abortifacient properties, supposedly because it also blocks some of progesterone's actions.

Most peaty substances reduce both cortisol and estrogen.

Aromatase inhibitors like Exemestane and cortisol blockers like Mifepristone have a lot of therapeutic potential, there are just safer substances to try first before jumping on them.

I did the same as an experiment once. Very weird feelings, but it will pass. Keep a detailed log of it, because the psychosexual effects of massive doses of Progesterone in men are almost unknown.

MPB reminds me of PCOS, where blocking androgens is somehow helpful, but I doubt DHT is central to MPB. Insulin resistance seems to be central to PCOS and may be to MPB as well.

It happens that lowering DHT helps MPB, but it may be by a very long indirect chain of cause-effects.

Serotonin blockers were used for migraine when nothing else was available. Methysergide was the best anti-migrane medication but it was withdrawn because it caused retroperitoneal fibrosis.

In some countries, pizotifen and cyproheptadine are used for migraine prevention.

Anything that lowers serotonin will prevent a migraine. GABA agonists like progesterone can also be used to abort an incoming one

Starch triggers an insulin response that is undesirable for sedentary people (I don't eat start and do only one short workout per week), but for physically very active people this insulin spike seems to be craved and needed.

I think it forces a lot of amino acids very quickly into muscle cells allowing for an accelerated repair that sugar just can't replicate.

Peer review is worse than useless. It encourages mediocrity and conformism to the (inevitably short-sighted) majority. That Ray never submitted to this humiliation ritual, while still proving his biochemical knowledge, is one of the strongest points in his favor.

The idea that calories don't matter is a lie, and Ray never endorsed anything like it. A higher metabolism will make weight loss easier, maybe even effortless, but a caloric deficit is still needed. Either introduce a modest TDEE cut of 10- 15% or severely limit a macro (ideally fat) which will introduce the limit for you.

Let's not go back to the RPF lunacy that you just need to eat more until your metabolism somehow "activates" and the fat automatically will come off. It never worked except for people with very weak appetites.