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Here are some articles the truth about eggs. We all eat eggs almost every day. Should be of interest.
Link disabled in the face of valid protestations from Straight Talk!
It’s spam David, dump it.
@ST
You know how BU loves to debunk these theories which abound on the web. Let us give the Doc the pleasure of passing an opinion on this matter.
Whole eggs are perfectly OK as part of a balanced diet.
Fitness fanatics don’t discard the yolk for its nutritional qualities, they eat the white for a cheap source of almost pure protein. which they prefer to combine with a superior, and also cheap source of carbohydrate, usually pasta, to metabolise it.
I object to the link in your vid, selling the magic bullet slimming regime.
Scam, so spam.
David
There is nothing wrong with eating whole eggs once you dont eat lots of raw eggs.
Egg whites mainly contain the protein albumin. Albumin is one of the components of the serum proteins used by the blood to transport other chemicals.
The author is correct when he reacts to the point that “But I heard that whole eggs will skyrocket my cholesterol through the roof” by saying the following “No, this is FALSE! First of all, when you eat a food that contains a high amount of dietary cholesterol such as eggs, your body down-regulates it’s internal production of cholesterol to balance things out.
On the other hand, if you don’t eat enough cholesterol, your body simply produces more since cholesterol has dozens of important vital functions in the body.”
This is of course nothing new to BU readers, since I have expounded in great detail on cholesterol in previous posts.
We hear a lot about the “BAD” about cholesterol, but let me note a few GOOD things about cholesterol that we must bear in mind.
FUNCTION OF CHOLESTEROL
Cholesterol is not just a greasy molecule that causes heart attacks. It is the most abundant sterol, the most common steroid in animals, the major sterol in humans and a component of virtually all plasma and intracellular membranes.
Though the hydrocarbon skeleton of cholesterol also occurs in plant sterols in ergosterol, a precursor of vitamin D cholesterol itself is NOT found in plant tissues. There is no cholesterol in vegetable and plant products.
Whether derived from the diet or synthesized do novo, cholesterol has several important roles, in virtually all the cells of humans, because cholesterol is an extremely important biological molecule that is a precursor for other important steroid molecules, such as those in
membranes structure
synthesis of the bile salts
synthesis of steroid hormones, and
synthesis of vitamin D
These are all important derivatives of cholesterol.
Cholesterol is an ubiquitous and essential structural component of mammalian cellular membranes, myelin sheath, and brain and nerve tissue, and of the outer layer of plasma lipoproteins.
Cholesterol is especially abundant in myelinated structures of brain and central nervous system but is present in small amounts in the inner membrane of mitochondria.
Cholosterol increases or moderates membrane fluidity.
The presence of cholesterol in a phospholipid membrane inhibits transition to the crystalline state.
However interaction with the relatively rigid cholesterol decreases the mobility of hydrocarbon tails of phospholipids.
Phospholipid membranes that include cholesterol have a fluidity intermediate between the liquid crystal and crystal states.
Keeps the lipids in membrane from aggregrating and keeps the membrane intact as a bilayer
Cholesterol is involved in the storage and transport of lipid as cholesterol esters.
Cholesterol is thought to play a role in buffering the temperature-dependent fluidity of lipid bilayers by stiffening them at warmer temperatures but loosening them (by disrupting van der Waals interactions between phospholipids) at lower temperatures.
Besides being a component of cell membranes, cholesterol is an extremely important biological molecule that has an important role as a precursor for the biosynthesis of all of the other steroids in the body such as bile acids and steroid hormones, including
the mineralocorticoids and glucocorticoids which are synthesized in the adrenal gland (adrenocortical hormones)
both male and female sex hormones
bile acids and bile salts (important in lipid digestion)
and vitamin D
also myelin synthesis.
All steroid hormones are structurally related to and chemically derived from cholesterol, despite the fact that they have widely different physiological properties
Steroid hormones serve many functions in animals – including salt balance, metabolic function and sexual function
EAT ALL OF YOUR EGGS unless you have hypercholesterolemia
Oh and BTW, this is not my regime, I spent a couple of weeks with Ron Love, an ex-Detroit? cop, who didn’t need to research the effects of nutrition because he lived it and treated his body as a temple and nutritional experiment.
Serving breakfast to him was an experience : 36 hard boiled egg whites with 6oz pasta boiled – no additives.
Bland …certainly, but effective? you judge.
Shame about the lunchbox, but you can’t have everything.
@Doc GP
Thanks for the response! Here is the link to the cholesterol blog you referred. This matter seems to have hit a nerve with ST.
David:
I don’t like ordinary folk being ripped off by the promise of miraculous fat-loss programmes.
And they are by the thousands every day.
Simple people seeking simple solutions, and wasting their hard earned dollars in financing that illusion.
That you promote such a site is at odds with everything I considered your blog’s purpose.
But that’s your prerogative.
Link removed.
David
I have nothing more to add to what I have already said in detail on BU since March/April 2008 on cholesterol, its sources and its roles, except to give a brief note about using raw eggs.
The important vitamin cofactor biotin is an essential nutrient used in nearly all carboxylations in the body involving CO2. There is hardly any deficiencies for biotin because it is abundant and bacteria in the large intestine also make it. However, deficiencies have been seen and are nearly always linked to the consumption of raw eggs. . Raw eggs contain Avidin, a protein in egg whites that binds biotin very tightly like glue, rendering the biotin unavailable for these important reactions in the body. It is thought that Avidin protects eggs from bacterial invasion by binding biotin and killing bacteria. Excess consumption of raw eggs can cause nutritional deficiency of biotin.
Metabolism or (biotransformation) of foods and drugs occurs mainly in the liver using the cytochrome P-450 enzyme system. Metabolism generally changes fat soluble compounds to water soluble compounds that can be excreted by the kidneys. Note that alcohol, foods or dietary supplements that increase or inhibit these enzyme systems can change the rate or extent of drug metabolism. That is why wise doctors must have good answers to the question often asked by patients on receipt of a prescription “Can I take alcohol with the medicine doc?’
Some drugs are eliminated from the body as an unchanged drug, some are excreted as a metabolite. In fact for some drugs the metabolite is the active drug. Since renal excretion is the major route of elimination; persons who have defective renal function or urinary pH and many elderly do not excrete substances as well as they ought to. So decreased doses are needed or the drug should be discontinued and replaced by an alternative that is not excreted in the urine. This is important for readers to appreciate.
Some drugs are eliminated in bile and other body fluids like the sweat
So those fellas who drink a guiness, 2 raw eggs,a tin a nutrament, and a shot of Brandy in trouble if they do it often.
Thanks GP for the “meducation”.
LOL Hants!
@ David
The followinh note on Adsorption, Distribution, Metabolism & Excretion of the drug [A D M E] raised in one of the first powerpoints of this presentation addresses a question you raised with me a few weeks ago.
Knowledge of the method of adsorption ( the method by which the drugs gets into the circulation to exert its effect) allows us to use the appropriate route of administration of the drug to achieve our particular immediate aim. For example we use inhalers for lung problems like asthma. This allows us to use less drug, and get it to site of action faster. Also the drug gets to the lung before it is destroyed in the liver.
• Knowledge of the method of a drugs distribution and thus its concentration or drug levels in the circulation at any point in time, allows us to decide how to use the drug effectively, and specifically. For example, if an antibiotic seems to have an affinity for adsorption or distribution in the brain, and tends to concentrate there we would choose that drug preferentially in treating infections of the brain tissue.
• If a drug is concentrated in the bone, it would facilitate treatment of bone conditions for which the drug might be indicated.
•
• Knowledge of the drugs metabolism allows us to chose the drug preferentially above others in a particular indication. We would not exhibit drugs that are metabolized preferentially in the liver, if the patient has a liver ailment, nor would we use drugs that are metabolized preferentially in the kidney, if the patient has a kidney problem.
• Knowledge of the drugs excretion (the route in which the drug is cleared form the body ) allows us to make an intelligent choice about drugs in a particular drug class for a specific patient. If the drug is excreted by the kidney and the patient has a renal problem, we might chose preferentially its competitor in the same class which is not excreted via the kidneys mainly.
• On the other hand we might use a drug that is excreted exclusively by the kidney into the urine for a bladder condition.
Have you ever wondered why some drugs are given daily, but others are given twice a day or four times a day? It all has to do with the half life of a drug (t1/2) This is an expression used to describe the rate at which a drug is removed from the body.It is the time it takes half of the drug to be cleared by the body metabolizing the drug. The half life of a drug is the time taken for the amount of drug in the body [or the blood or plasma concentration] to decline to half its value, and is related to the elimination rate constant by tl/2 0.693/k.
The half life provides an estimate of the time required to reduce by one half the quantity of drug present in a particular body compartment (e.g. the plasma). Not only is a knowledge of the half life of a drug valuable in allowing a comparison between the elimination rates of several drugs, it is also useful in establishing dosage schedules within its therapeutic range.The half life of a drug depends simultaneously on both the clearance rate (inversely) and the volume of distribution (directly). Thus if the clearance rate is large the half life is shortened; if the volume of distribution is large, the half life is longer.
To cut a long and interesting story short DRUGS WITH SHORT HALF LIVES ARE GIVEN MORE FREQUENTLY. Drugs with long half lives are given less frequently i.e daily.
This concept of half life ought to be very interesting to women on the pill, because if they take substances that INDUCE or cause their 450 liver enzymes to work faster, what do you think is likely to happen and why?
@GP ‘half life ought to be very interesting to women on the pill.
Lol, the stork obviously.
That said, thanks for the presentation Doc. Excellent info.
A few queries:
cholesterol – noted the importance, but a question. Why then do we try to reduce the blood cholesterol re arteries, are we doing this incorrectly, is there a risk that apart from imapcting numerous body processes re hormonal (and other cellular), are we exposing the patient to cancer susceptibility as well as MS (myelin reduction, which may affect nerve protection, thus trigger MS?)
– you refer grapefruit. Is this the case of the grapefuti taking liver process capacity in preference to the drug? Will the overload damage the liver? I suspect many do not know to saty away from grapefuit when taking medications, as a general rule.
Unfortunate this, as grapefruit is a ‘Barbadian’ creation, by a fruit cross here in Barbados, years ago.
– your reference to genetic specific medicine seems to be the current trend in breakthrough medicine and custom-medicine for the future. I have sensed this with the exposures of the last couple of years. Does this also relate in some way (even if not tested) with the ‘eat right for your blood type’ practice?
– quinine -surprise here. Can diabetics on medicine still drink quinine water? Is this good backup for asistance ‘if’ they seem a little high in blood sugar, near the end of the day and need a little ‘boost’ in treatment?
– funnily enough, I prefer a meal, even if small, before vitamins etc, as some are strong for the stomach. However, I do note specific instructions for specific medicaitons, which reflects your slides as to specific absortion assists/ detractors.
Thanks again, muchly.
Crusoe // July 31, 2010 at 4:54 PM
Re @GP ‘half life ought to be very interesting to women on the pill.
Lol, the stork obviously.
Correct Crusoe! That’s why missing one pill can be important; especially if the woman is on a very low dose pill. In such cases if she is taking alcohol or other foods or drugs that induce i.e speed up the metabolism or biotransformation of the pill, the levels necessary to prevent ovulation might be decreased thereby allowing conception to occur and an ensuing pregnancy.
Re cholesterol – we are often bombarded with the bad about this steroid, so I decided to emphasize that there are lots of good things about cholesterol.
Re your question Why then do we try to reduce the blood cholesterol re arteries, are we doing this incorrectly?
Not really. We try to reduce the blood cholesterol levels in those with hypercholesterolemia! If you are abusing fat such that your levels are high, or if you have a congenital problem with the transportation of cholesterol YOU HAVE A PROBLEM and we need to work on reducing cholesterol levels and the probability of plaque formation in the arteries. The thing is that we must not in Bim, get like folk in other countries who treat blood results and numbers rather than treating patients.
Why would you want to lower your cholesterol if you are exercising eating a moderate and balanced diet unless you had trouble with cholesterol- usually congenital in these cases. We must not listen to the media hype and the stupid tv ads.
No Crusoe because under normal circumstances, if there is little cholesterol in your diet , the liver makes cholesterol from dietary fat there is unlikely for a person to have so little cholesterol in their bodies to cause the problems you asked about.
Re grapefruit, which is as you said, a ‘Barbadian’ creation, by a fruit cross in Welchman Hall I think it was between a shaddock and a wild orange or something so:
Slide 24 points out that Grapefruit/juice: inhibits the metabolism of numerous drugs by inhibiting cytochrome P-450 3A4 enzyme. This should interest our readers since either they or their relatives or friends are very likely taking calcium channel blockers, HMG CoA inhibitors, anti-anxiety agents) etc. It may interfere with the absorption of other drugs .ie you could be wasting time and money buying and taking these drugs (and blaming your doctor) because you are not getting the drugs or because your love for grapefruit may very well be enhancing the effects of these drugs and increasing risk of toxicity because they are not being broken down ; may interfere with the absorption of other drugs.
It may be wise to stay away from grapefruit when taking medications, as a general rule,since grapefruit seems to have a half life of 72 hours Slide 29 is a good list of drugs that interact with grapefruit..
It is interesting that drugs that can cause hypoglycemia include ethanol and quinine.
You ask an interesting question , “Can diabetics on medicine still drink quinine water? Is this good backup for asistance ‘if’ they seem a little high in blood sugar, near the end of the day and need a little ‘boost’ in treatment?
I( would say probably not. Remember they will be fasting over night. You do not want to do anything to increase the likelihood of the Dawn phenomena. Read up on this. You might find this interesting.
What is indeed clear is that most drugs have nutritional status side effects. So we must always look for therapeutically significant interactions between food and drugs and try to identify and monitor high risk patients, those on multiple medications and marginal diets
One of the concepts raised in the first 10-12 power points of the presentation was that of “the effect of a drug”. IYou will will remember that a few weeks a Pharmacology dunce wanted to argue with me about the difference between EFFECT and SIDE EFFECT Here is a little account of both. Hope this helps
• The effects of a drug describes WHAT the drug does -its actions.
• For example Angiotensin II is a potent vasoconstrictor and a negative feedback mediator for renin activity. Thus, when enalapril lowers angiotensin II plasma levels, blood pressure decreases and plasma renin activity increases. In addition, baroreceptor reflex mechanisms are stimulated in response to the fall in blood pressure.
• ACE-inhibiting drugs can act locally to reduce vascular tone by decreasing local angiotensin II-induced sympathetic and/or vasoconstrictive activity.
• ACE inhibitors also can inhibit presynaptic norepinephrine release and postsynaptic adrenergic receptor activity, decreasing vascular sensitivity to vasopressor activity even though this action may not be clinically evident at usual doses. Decreases in plasma angiotensin II levels also reduce aldosterone secretion, with a subsequent decrease in sodium and water retention.
• Enalapril causes arterial dilation, thereby lowering total peripheral vascular resistance. In hypertensive patients, blood pressure is decreased with little or no change in heart rate, stroke volume, or cardiac output.
• However, in patients with heart failure, enalapril increases cardiac output, cardiac index, stroke volume, and exercise tolerance. The drug also decreases pulmonary wedge pressure, pulmonary vascular resistance, and mean arterial and right atrial pressures in these patients.
The above chatter gives us in some detail what enalapril and the other commonly used “prils: do.
Adverse reactions or side effects are actions or effects of a drug that are unpleasant, often causing the drug to be discontinued or which might lead to poor compliance in the use of the drug.
For example, common adverse reactions associated with cisapride therapy are headache, nausea/vomiting, abdominal pain, rhinitis, diarrhea, and constipation, flatulence, dyspepsia, sinusitis, coughing, viral infection, upper respiratory tract infection, pain, fever, urinary tract infection, urinary frequency, insomnia, anxiety, nervousness, rash, pruritus, arthralgia, abnormal vision, vaginitis, dizziness, vomiting, pharyngitis, angina, fatigue, back pain, depression, dehydration, and myalgia.
Often adverse reactions are dose related. For example, the side effects described for cisapride occur more frequently in patients receiving 20 mg of cisapride than in those receiving 10 mg.
It is important to instruct our patients to call the doctor as soon as they can for appropriate advice if they get any side effects.
Patients must be instructed to look out for known adverse effects of the drugs we prescribe, and to let their doctor know about these side effects if they do not go away or if they annoy them..
@GP
It seems from an earlier comment you have highlighted the importance of the patient ‘history’ as a key determinant for the doctor to prescribe not only the correct drugs but also the correct dosage. It has become common in Barbados for many to bypass the Doctor and go directly to the pharmacist to procure drugs. Usually the symptom of the ailment is communicated and the pharmacist using all of their wisdom and training will whip up a concoction or the other and the customer feels smart by saving that big doctor fee.
Comment?
David
I was taught, and I believe because I have proven it to be so that a doctor will come to the correct diagnosis in 98% of the times if he takes a good history from the patient. When I was a student or a junior hospital doctor, when my peers or I failed to come up with the correct diagnosis, a more senior and more experienced colleague would come along and ask one or two questions that we did not know and arrive at the correct diagnosis.
It is very unlikely that anyone will prescribe the correct drugs without having made the correct diagnosis
It is very unlikely that anyone will make the correct diagnosis unless one knows that it exists and have studied the relative basic science that will inculcate the information necessary to enhance the likelihood of coming to the correct diagnosis.
I do not think that Pharmacists are trained to perform as doctors do. It seems to me that it is the height of folly in this day, for persons to bypass the Doctor and go directly to the pharmacist to procure drugs, except for very trivial complaints.
In days of yore when there were few doctors and very few medicines, I can understand the whipping up of concoctions. But I doubt that pharmacists using all of their wisdom and training can whip up effective concoctions for the more serious ailments commonly seen today. Persons who feel smart by thus saving that big doctor fee., are probably stupid. I wouldn’t advise that.
This note is with respect to the person who asked
your reference to genetic specific medicine seems to be the current trend in breakthrough medicine and custom-medicine for the future. I have sensed this with the exposures of the last couple of years. Does this also relate in some way (even if not tested) with the ‘eat right for your blood type’ practice?
In addition to developing new antibiotics needed for resistant strains, genetic engineering can allow us to produce antibiotics in large quantities. An area of pharmaceutical production of great importance is the cloning of the human gene for insulin. Diabetes is a disease in which the blood sugar levels are too high, either from not enough insulin production, or the insulin produced does not do its job correctly. Before the 1980’s, insulin production was an arduous and expensive process using cat and pig hormones and resulted in side effects. Using EcoR1, a restriction enzyme, a plasmid (circular bacterial DNA), and the human gene for insulin, billions of copies (clones) of bacteria embedded with the gene for human insulin are produced commercially. Simply stated; a plasmid is used as the vector and EcoR1 is used to cut the plasmid where the gene for insulin will be inserted. The recombinant plasmid is then inserted into an E.coli bacterium, and the bacterium placed in an incubator where it will undergo many divisions and eventually yield millions of copies of the insulin gene. The bacteria and plasmids are then removed and we are left with large quantities of pure insulin that is safe and virtually side-effect free.
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are another area of genetic engineering that is of interest to humans. GMOs have been widely used in agriculture such as in herbicide resistant tobacco, corn and tomatoes. Dairy farmers began using recombinant bovine growth hormone in their cows to increase milk production. By the same token, pig farmers are interesting in yielding pigs with more meat and less fat. Recently, the FDA approved a new genetically modified salmon for human consumption. However, many people object to the use of GM food for consumption. One area of debate falls around HFCS, or high fructose corn syrup. Of course corn is not bad for us, but the corn used to make HFCS is almost certainly genetically modified to be resistant to herbicides. Being resistant to herbicides is not necessarily a bad thing, but these crops are sprayed with round-up (an herbicide), and that herbicide (poisonous to humans) inadvertently finds its way into the HFCS. Another debate about GMOs lies in the use of rBGH in dairy cows. Some researchers suggest that BGH affects human hormones and can create a myriad of problems such as colon, breast and prostate cancers. Europe and Canada have banned rBGH for use in dairy cows for human consumption. There is a new movement in this country that calls for people to drink “raw” milk that is not completely pasteurized and is free of rBGH
Lastly, genetic engineering is important in vaccine production. Today’s vaccine production from microbes results in a safe and risk free subunit vaccine. Subunit vaccines are made from the protein coat and subunits of the virus. Therefore they are unable to infect the host (person getting the vaccine). Another reason recombinant vaccines are desirable is because they allow for a higher dose of the vaccine (and hopefully successful immunity) without the side effects. The vaccines can be created quickly as well. DNA vaccines are being developed as well.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.