Date:    Mon, 26 Mar 2001 19:16:43 -0800
From:    J D Weaver <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: carbs, etc.

Diane, your excellent quote about native fruits was duly noted and
appreciated.>>

Oh I didn't mean by YOU, John.  Others whose anti-carb philosophy is
extremely orthodox chose to ignore it.  I found it, plus numerous references
to fruits/carbs/root veg that American Indians ate, to be fascinating.  Fact
is, we don't know a lot about people ate 35,000 years ago.  We can only
extrapolate backwards from limited info.

>Seems to blow the whole low carb theory out of the water.

It does raise tantalizing questions, doesn't it?>>

Really it does.  And it removed any residual guilt I had about eating
fruit!!.

(One thing I somewhat disagreed with is that the author seems to question
whether sugar addiction exists and says somewhat humorously that if it did,
people would be buying enormous quantities of fruit.  I think sugar
addiction DOES exist, and people are drugging themselves with enormous
quantities of candy, baked goods, etc.)

Another thing about the anti-carb propagandists is that when they talk about
carbs raising insulin levels, I always want to scream, "how many grams are
you talking about??" Fifteen?  Or 150 at a sitting?  And wouldn't 150 grams
of carbs mean simply that you are overeating?  And that overeating may have
a leetle to do with raising insulin levels?

And anyway, what is so terrible about insulin levels rising? We keep
forgetting the enormous amount of physical effort that our paleolithic
ancestors (and all premodern peoples) had to exert to accomplish the basics
of life.  And correspondingly how much physical effort has been bred out of
our lives.  You can't compare the two ways of life.  Can't compare.  Maybe
there's an evolutionary game we are trying to outwit: nature wants us to be
fat, because famine is always around the corner.  Only in our society, it's
not.

<<There's more. Since long chain fatty acids are not delivered to the liver
via portal blood, but instead go to the bloodstream via the lymphatic
system, which dumps them into the left subclavicle vein near the heart,
there is likely a significant time delay associated with any possible
insulin response to fat. The typical research subject is only measured for
a period of four hours, while sitting in a laboratory with an indwelling
catheter stuck in the arm, connected to an saline IV drip to keep the
catheter from clotting shut.>>

This means very little physical activity.
Since lymphatic flow depends on the contractions of skeletal muscle, a
sedentary subject may not transport any long chain fats to the bloodstream
during the measurement period. I'm not aware of any published research
which has looked at this. If anyone else is, I'd appreciate a reference.>>

R U saying that the insulin could rise after the four-hour period?