Potassium Power and the Dry Skin Epidemic

Just over a month ago, I (along with my dog) set out on a cavity healing diet: low in carb, grain-free, high in vitamins A and D, and high in calcium and phosphorus. I've made some changes along the way and listed what Molly and I are now eating at the end of this post.

Potassium Power

The potassium pills seem to have put the pep back in my step. This weekend, I worked both days helping the tax secretary, whipped my house back into shape, and I'm ready to go out and tear up the dance floor tonight.

The Dry Skin Epidemic

Since starting this diet, after I stopped eating raw eggs (since I seemed to be allergic to them), my skin has looked better than it ever has. My skin improved last year after I started a low-carb, high-fat diet (more resilient, less callousing, and lot less dry), but now I'm cautiously optimistic that my niggling adult acne is completely gone. A diet's effect on skin was brought home to me while I read an article in People magazine (no jokes, please) that featured several celebrities talking about their skin. Nearly all the women complained of dry skin. One woman, age 37, said she used a bottle of moisturizer every night. I never went to that length, but before I went low carb, those skin care products were my crack cocaine. Ulta has aisles of skin care products, and the past ten years or so have seen entire chains like Bath & Body Works and Aveda mushroom. Now, at age 42 and living in a semi-arid climate, I use a little moisturizer now and then--that's all I need. The women didn't say what they ate, but I blame the dry skin epidemic on our national fear of dietary fat.

What Molly and I are Eating Now on the Cavity Healing Diet

1/2 lb calf liver/week for each of us

18 eggs/week (between the two of us)

2 cans sardines/week for each of us

red meat (mostly pork) as desired

1 can salmon/week for each of us

butter, cream, and cheese as condiments

salad for me; carrots or cabbage for Molly

bone marrow from a few bones every week

I also have a few chocolate candies a day, some low-carb ice cream, tea, and usually two cups of coffee a day. Molly eats a few egg shells now and then.

I'm now taking 2 GNC hair, skin and nails vitamins, 750 mg magnesium oxide/gluconate, 100 mg zinc gluconate, 18 mg iron, 3,000 IU of D3, and ~200-300 mg potassium gluconate every day.

Molly takes 250 mg of magnesium and 99 mg of potassium per day.

Your needs, especially with regard to supplements, may vary. Some of these doses could be toxic to some people; medical tests can help you figure out the supplements you need.

This Just In: Yogurt Doesn't Improve Health

A recent study from Spain finds "In comparison with people that did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life, and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," states López-García. Most yogurt is pretty much pudding with a little bacteria . Pudding is a sugar bomb. Hard to believe the stuff doesn't improve health outcomes, isn't it? But as usual, researchers are calling for...more research. "For future research more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."

Paleo Diet: Eating Differently from Everyone Else is Fine!

I've been seeing more and more articles by women (it's always women) whose heads have exploded trying to figure out life without yogurt and cupcakes. Oh, the shenanigans they get up to: bathroom problems from stuffing themselves with vegetables, paleo baked goods that don't taste the same as ones from the bakery, and especially the irresistible urge to eat "normally." The technical problems aren't hard to sort out: substitutes like baked goods will taste different because they are different, but an adjustment period of a few months will make those foods taste normal. And whatever you eat, don't stuff yourself. First, though, read a book by Loren Cordain or Mark Sisson to learn about the paleo diet before diving in. The articles I keep reading, though, have more to do with attitude: the urge to be exactly like everybody else or the urge to be helpless. If you're in the second category, I can't, by definition, help you. If you'd rather be Lu

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder .

A Reason to Eat Red Meat, Fat, Eggs and Salt

It looks like Reason magazine has been reading about my diet...or maybe just studies showing no associations between red meat and mortality, saturated fat and heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease, or salt consumption and disease. Summarizing published research from the past few years, the article calls the government's dietary advice of the past forty years a fiasco of misinformation, even noting there's a positive association between a low-sodium diet and death. It adds that the US government's Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has dropped their long crusade against cholesterol. The article explains, Observational studies [which the government relied on] may be good at developing hypotheses, but they are mostly not a good basis for making behavioral recommendations and imposing regulations. It's refreshing for the mainstream media to recognize that mainstream dietary advice hasn't been working instead of parroting the same misinformation. T

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

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