Article Review
as requested by a few
Sometimes people send me health and wellness articles and kindly ask for my opinion.
If they ask nicely, sometimes I give it.
So today is your lucky day!!
Recently I was forwarded an article written from Dr Mercola. For those of you who do not know Dr. Mercola, he has been in the holistic/alternative health and wellness sphere for longer than most, longer than me, and I believe I have been there awhile.
But being that I was in a good mood today, not bad with the weather getting colder, I decided to read the article and make some comments, which are included below.
From Farm to Health — A Vision for Regenerative Agriculture and Metabolic Wellness by Dr.Mercola
As with most Mercola articles, he brings up topics and finds an obscure person to put in the spotlight. He then grabs you with key words and headlines (perhaps clickbait), some of which are indeed true, while others are just opinion. As I am open minded I realize that some opinions, even if they are not my own, can still be true.
Quite a bit of what Dr. Mercola has written in the past that sounded a bit off, indeed really were true, so I do not discount what he writes. But I also realize they are opinions and not facts. They are theories and not necessarily proven.
My belief in medicine, health and wellness is that you should have to prove something is both safe and effective before telling everyone how wonderful it is. Or, say you have this theory that you are working on, and if people realize it is a theory and not a fact, but they believe in it, then they have choice in a free world about whether to partake.
So back to the article, which in summary, one of his beliefs is that we need to eat more dietary carbohydrates, I think he stated 250 grams daily, to prevent issues with your thyroid and adrenal glands.
Well, I do NOT agree with him there, and here is partly why. I have been monitoring people’s health for over 20 years who have been on both low, moderate or high carbohydrate diets.
My beliefs from what I have seen over the years.
Thyroid function is NOT affected poorly by lack of carbs. Thyroid function in the form of active FT3 (the thyroid hormone that actually gives you all the metabolic effects) is need based. I’ll say that again as it is very important.
Thyroid function in the form of active FT3 is need based.
Need based means, if you eat less carbs the need for FT3 goes down.
If u eat more carbs the need for FT3 goes up.
Too many docs don’t understand this simple concept. Then again I have been testing thyroid for 2 decades all the while watching the effects on thyroid and other markers. I have observed patterns and trends and how they relate to health or illness. You can not say a value of a marker is good or bad without the context of what the person was doing at/around the time of the testing. The belief that your FT3 dropping when you reduce your dietary carbohydrates is a bad thing is just incorrect!
All that being said, what I don’t understand here is why Dr. Mercola believes we need to eat—> burn carbohydrates for our fuel when we can also burn fat and ketones just as easily and effectively. Many people also believe that burning fat and ketones are less inflammatory on the body.
When people say there is a thyroid problem with low carb or keto because the FT3 blood levels drop, they are missing the point. FT3 levels are demand driven or need based, whichever way makes better sense to you, meaning the more carbohydrates you eat, the more bodily demand of FT3. If you eat less carbs, the demand for FT3 drops and the production and measurement in the blood drops as well. This is why I call the FT3 blood test my BS or Bullshit detector for seeing how compliant people are on their low carb diets.
Dietary carbohydrates are not evil. Yes I said that and will say it again. Dietary carbohydrates are not evil. In fact I just added some back to my diet for a rebalance.
So what is/are the issue(s)?
Chronic Excess dietary carbohydrates are the issue, and advising people to eat at least 250 grams of carbohydrates a day as Dr. Mercola advised, well, I just do not agree with that at all.
Yes some people do fine with high carb diets. Here are some of the ways it can be done.
1- Eat a very low calorie diet so you are not consuming/storing excess carbohydrates. Low calorie diets will burn most all of the dietary carbohydrates consumed.
2- Build up more muscle mass. Muscles burn carbohydrates very efficiently. So the more muscle mass you have, the more carbohydrates you can consume and clear safely, WITHOUT having to store excess.
3- Exercise and be very active so you can burn more dietary carbohydrates, again to avoid chronic excess carbohydrate storage.
There may be other reasons but these three are the ones on the top of my low carb brain for now. The pattern above is to avoid EXCESS dietary carbohydrates, and what is excess is different for everyone. But, with the Institute for Medical Wellness (IMW) Advanced Wellness Testing (AWT), we have many ways to determine this for you.
What can chronic overconsumption of dietary carbohydrates cause?
How bout cause/contribute to Overweight, Obesity, Hypertension, PreDiabetes, Fatty Liver, Insulin Resistance, Dyslipidemia, Heart Disease, Strokes, Cancer, Dementia….
So avoiding chronic OVERconsumption of dietary carbohydrates should be a worthwhile health goal.
Dr. Mercola then discusses body temperature. The main part that I do not believe has been proven is that the optimal body temperature is 98.6 degrees. I very much doubt there is one optimal temperature. My belief is that systems in the body work to remain in a balanced range, from a low to a high where it can function well. While 98.6 is a healthy body temperature, and while thyroid activity is partly responsible for body temperature, I’d like to know why so many people who eat very low carb do not have issues with either thyroid, adrenals or body temperature? Again it is up to Dr. Mercola to prove his theories. Proving a theory is more difficult than disproving one. All I need to do to disprove a theory is show one single instance where it is not valid.
So instead of focusing on a specific body temperature, I would say to check your own temps and see if they change throughout the day, or with different diets, or different amounts of dietary carbs. But also try and measure/determine how you feel on each different dietary regimen, and do not let one marker alone dissuade you from something that improves your health. Be aware of it, but do not let it sabotage your thinking.
Dr. Mercola then went to discuss PUFA’s, a type of fat as well as phytoestrogens (plant estrogens).
I probably agree with most of what he wrote, with the exception about Estrogen being harmful. I don’t believe any hormone or substance the body has evolved to make is harmful. But I do believe they all need to be in proper balance. The best way I know of today to determine hormonal balance when we discuss Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is with Saliva levels of Estrogen, Testosterone, Progesterone and Cortisol. The saliva levels of these hormones are an indication of what your actual cells are using internally. Blood levels I agree are not that helpful.
As for Regenerative Agriculture, we absolutely need more of it. I probably agree with most of it, but I am not a farmer and not an expert in farming, but it sure sounds good. But then Dr. Mercola appears to plug the sale of something which then makes my eyes glaze and not want to believe anything. I have no issues with promotions and sales. We all do it whether we realize it or not. I would ask that we just say we are doing it so people can decide for themselves the difference between truth, theory, facts, sales and promotions.
To end, much of what Dr. Mercola wrote I am in agreement with, but there are other parts I do not agree with. But it does not matter much what my beliefs are. What matters is that you do your own homework, critically think thru health and wellness issues, discuss with people on all sides of the issues, and then decide for yourself. I am just happy that you are here to read this, and allow me to be one of those people you read to learn about health and wellness.
As always, comments and questions welcome below.
With the substack app above, you can get Common Sense Health and Wellness and read it thru the app instead of by email. You also have access to other health and wellness issues I comment on by using Substack posts. These are similar to Twitter/X, but much tamer and without as much vitriol. Those posts are much shorter and used for quick comments and engagement. So if you have not yet gotten the Substack app, please do so.
I read the emails you send and appreciate your knowledge and medical advice. Thank you for reviewing Dr. Mercola’s article on carbohydrates. Even though I was not the one that sent it, I needed to hear your expert opinion. Miss you and appreciate you. The other day, I thought about your mother of blessed memory.
Thank you for commenting on this article. Although it was posted by Dr. Mercola it was written by Ashley Armstrong. I was more interested in the temperature aspect of the article than the carb intake which you addressed to my satisfaction. Ashley is mostly known for developing low PUFA eggs. How important are these as compared to organic Vital Farms eggs?