On Sun, 9 Aug 1998, Don Wiss wrote:

> Todd Moody wrote:
>
> >  Remember that
> >Karsten Andersen, Stefansson's partner in the 1928 all-meat
> >experiment, experienced an increase in cholesterol to a high of
> >800 by the end of the year.
>
> You really love to post that!! But you yourself have admitted that it
> doesn't jibe with what is written in other accounts of the experiment.

The "other accounts" that you refer to are mere *mentions* of the
experiment by Atkins, the Eades, and Audette and Gilchrist.
Atkins at least mentions that the cholesterol of one of the
participants went up, even though he doesn't say by how much.

I post it because it is a highly significant piece of information
for anyone for whom cholesterol might be a health issue.  I post
it because the authors of these books neglected to provide this
information.

> How
> do you know that the 800 isn't a misprint?

The accompanying text mentions this value explicitly.  I have no
evidence that it is a misprint.

> I bet it is.

Maybe it's best to believe that anything that inconveniences our
beliefs is a misprint or a conspiracy.  It certainly simplifies
things.  Or we can entertain the hypothesis that, from a paleo
standpoint, it matters what kind of fats we eat and in what
amounts.  Ray Audette cautions us to respect the fact of the
seasonal availability of fruits in the typical paleo environment.
Eaton and Cordain point out that supplies of saturated fats would
also vary according to season, and the composition of the fat
would be quite different from what we get today.  Maybe this
matters.

> In the Harper's
> "Adventures in Diet" it has "we were in at least as good average health
> during the year as we had been during the three week mixed-diet at the
> start. We thought our health had been a little better than average." I find
> it hard to believe Stefansson would write that with Anderson having a
> cholesterol of 800, which is a number almost impossible to achieve.

Maybe Stefansson just didn't consider blood lipid values--a much
more arcane matter then than now--particularly relevant to
health.  Indeed, from the introspective standpoint of his
comment, they are not.  A person with elevated cholesterol
doesn't feel any different.

Look, Don, I think it is terrific that some people can do
Neanderthin and eat massive amounts of saturated fat, in the form
of pemmican and marbled meats, etc., and still experience
improved blood lipids.  But some of us get different results, as
I did.  I know it was no misprint when my cholesterol went to
302, and then to 320 when I tried Troy Gilchrist's suggestions.
Furthermore, some of us have low HDL values that are very hard to
budge, and that is also relevant to the TGL/HDL ratio.  On
Neanderthin my LDL went up almost 100 points but my HDL gained a
mere 3.

Frankly, I have no idea what the solution to this problem is, or
whether it is really a problem.  It could be, as Gary Ditta once
suggested, that my lipid metabolism is out of whack after years
of dietary abuse, and it will take time to normalize it.  I don't
believe, however, that it is a good idea to ignore evidence that
doesn't fit.

Todd Moody
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