Anyone know about the Uric Acid connection with insulin resistance?

(Doug) #21

I’m guessing Leon Uris - prolific author of books, several of them quite famous. Good topic, Marion - interesting if there is some connection with uric acid causing other bad conditions besides gout.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #22

Ah, the joys of autocarrot! :grin:

#23

Well I think, unless I am completely misinterpreting, there is …and it is a major development in the science of relevance to most people here…certainly to me…as an indicator the back cover of the Johnson book has quotes from Jason Fung, Nina Teicholz, Robert Lustig, Peter Attica and Casey Means.

Of course, Leon Uris…but Uris acid??? I am about to throw this iPad on the scrap heap, it doesn’t ever learn!!!

Thanks guys. I shall return and hopefully before then someone much brighter than I will have dropped in and clarified this question of mine.

Meantime, fewer oysters and uni for me!

#24

No, I didn’t misunderstand.
This is crucial info for anyone who struggles with weight or diabetes or wants to avoid dementia.

It is possibly spelled out more clearly in Perlmutter’s ‘Drop Acid’ which arrived 5 minutes ago.
@OldDoug…get onto this info asap, because elevated uric acid is evidence that there is an increase in free radicals and a reduction in nitric oxide (NO) synthesis, which is essential for vascular health AND THE HEALTH OF THE BRAIN AND MEMORY.THERE IS A DIRECT LINK BETWEEN URIC ACID…and cognitive decline because insulin requires nitric oxide to stimulate the glucose uptake in the body and brain.

I have no idea why we don’t know this already, both these books were published last year.

Off to read. Back in awhile.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #25

It has actually been known for quite some time that the elevated insulin resulting from a sustained high-carb diet interferes with NO production, because it’s one of the ways in which metabolic dysfunction (also known as insulin resistance) causes hypertension. NO is essential for relaxing arterial walls.

I’m not sure about the NO being necessary for glucose uptake. Every cell has a variety of glucose receptors. In the brain, the glucose needs to be accompanied by insulin to be absorbed, which is why researchers are now positing that many mental and neurological disorders are caused by insulin resistance of the brain. In fact, a number of researchers have now taken to calling Alzheimer’s disease Type III diabetes, precisely to emphasise that point.

I suspect that, while there is an association between uric acid level and other problems in the body, the association is not actually causal, but can be traced to insulin-resistance from a prolonged high-carbohydrate diet. Practically every chronic disease that plagues us these days can be traced to that same root cause.

The problem is that we have been so conditioned to see saturated fat as the problem, and a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet as the solution, that it is impossible to see the situation with fresh eyes. Only a few researchers have managed it, and they are often in trouble with the research establishment.

(Doug) #26

Marion, I have watched part of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ6jPCcFNa8 - Uric Acid: A KEY Cause of Weight Gain, Diabetes, Heart Disease & Dementia (Dr. David Perlmutter).

There is a lot of confirmation about what you say. I’m taking notes and will post a summary later. There’s a ton of information, very interesting , and it makes sense.

#27

Thanks OldDoug,
I hope it may be helpful for you too.
I appreciate you taking a look and thanks for the link, I will watch it when I take a break from the book.

If you get curious about the research data, the Richard J Johnson book Nature Wants Us To Be Fat contains all the publication references and details the years of research he undertook and all the collaborators. And it is a tremendously interesting read.

(Doug) #28

This is so true if we eat a lot of carbohydrates, especially fructose ( a new thing for me there), more than essentially in one period of the year.

(Megan) #29

I just watched the video. Very interesting. From a keto/carnivore perspective, one take away was to make sure we are drinking enough water if we are consuming a fair bit of salt. Other than that, we are eating very little fructose, especially in the form of high fructose corn syrup. No surprise the medical profession is focused on purine consumption and ignoring fructose.

(KM) #31

I’ve just spent the afternoon with Dr Perlmutter, so to speak, both online and reading Drop Acid. So many interesting takeaways! I’m especially interested in the potential role of fructose as a natural appetite stimulant/survival mechanism - That is, the idea that ripe fruit is available in the season right before starvation is most likely, and therefore eating fructose encourages the consumption of yet more fructose; our appetites are stimulated, ghrelin not suppressed, and leptin resistance in cells, because we need to look around for as much of that ripe fruit as we can find so we don’t starve to death in winter. Also interesting, the idea that dehydration can encourage fat accumulation as the body attempts to store water.

#32

“And I’m keeping “Insulin Resistance” in quotes cause I’m no longer sure what it means.”

Bob, there is a very good YouTube video that is very clear about insulin resistance, its about 8 months old.

“Reversing Type 2 Diabetes’ by Jason Fung. He explains early in the talk what insulin resistance is and what its relationship to hyperinsulinemia is, a few minutes into the talk.

Sorry I can’t link it for you.

#33

What was news to me from Johnson’s research is that the body produces fructose.

(Michael) #34

I have not watched the video , but I just had my uric acid measured. I am a carnivore that eats organ meats daily. In fact I eat nothing but high purine foods, and my uric acid was flagged as LOW.

When I was drinking Coca Cola daily I had an incident of gout years ago. Honestly, I do not think purines in and of themselves do raise uric acid, or at least for me, it does not seem to a true statement.

BTW, spleen has much higher levels of iron than any other food, might want to get some sheep spleens for iron ( and vitamin C) and alternate with small amounts of beef liver for copper and chicken liver for folate.

Just my drive by comments.

PS I am type 2 diabetic with continued HOMA-IR showing insulin resistance.

(Doug) #35

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ6jPCcFNa8 - Uric Acid: A KEY Cause of Weight Gain, Diabetes, Heart Disease & Dementia (Dr. David Perlmutter).

The human body makes uric acid from fructose. Uric acid causes metabolic dysfunction. Evolutionarily, fructose means “winter is coming,” as fruits are ripe. Blood sugar is raised. Insulin resistance is raised. It’s time to store fat.

Nowadays, we’re always telling our bodies to prepare for food scarcity if we eat fructose or activate the pathways that produce it in our bodies. Uric acid is the signal for all this.

Uric acid is best kept under 5.5. Gout is usually with uric acid of 7 or more, but cardiometabolic issues often arise with uric acid at 5.5 or higher. Study results: uric acid at 7 or higher, +16% all-cause mortality and +38% cardiovascular mortality. For each point above 7, +8-13% all-cause mortality. Uric acid above 7 = +155% as much dementia, +55% Alzheimer’s disease, +80% vascular dementia.

@Naghite :slightly_smiling_face: Purines: 2/3 of purines come from our own daily activities. Fructose is the real problem, not purines. There has been suppression of anti-sugar information in the press and in studies, and with medical advisories against sugar.

Fructose --> uric acid --> acts in cellular mitochondria to inhibit enzymes: cis aconitase and NADPH oxitase. This reduces our ability to burn fat, and increases our storage of fat. There is also a down-regulation of mitochondrial activity.

Uric acid inhibits levels of nitric oxide. Low levels of nitric oxide reduces the ability of insulin to do its job, raises blood pressure, decreases blood flow.

Dehydration causes higher sodium, tells the body to make fructose from glucose, raises uric acid, stimulates fat storage, since the body can gain water as an end-product of fat metabolism (along with carbon dioxide). This is what a camel does - stores fat in its hump - to survive long periods of time with no access to water. The same for hummingbirds, getting up to ~40% bodyfat in readying for long migratory flights.

Higher sodium/dehydration stimulates the survival pathway, increases fat storage. Enough hydration prevents this.

Alcohol stimulates the production of fructose from glucose in the body. If the metabolism of fructose is blocked, then alcohol does not cause cause alcoholic fatty liver disease. It is the same pathway as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Fructose --> uric acid --> lipogenesis in the liver, whether or not alcohol is involved.

Mild elevation of blood glucose leads to fructose production, uric acid, and the harmful metabolic pathways.

#36

Thanks OldDoug.

That is a great summary!

I think what excited Perlmutter about the uric acid info, as it relates to brain function, is it gives neurologists for the first time an easy effective cheap way to intervene in the dementia trajectory and the so-called type 3 diabetes of the brain, which until now, hasn’t had a viable intervention available.

I have Perlmutter’s book Drop Acid on my desk at the moment and my young visitors tend to think that I am reading about LSD. :grinning: Getting my uric acid levels checked in a week for so, really hoping they have dropped with the Quercetin supplement.

Red onion apparently is a great source of quercetin but I can’t eat them at present, so swallowing supplements in an attempt to get my levels down.

#37

Thanks Michael.
I guess it is a very individual thing, uric acid and I wonder if it may have something to do with where we are in our life cycle. I am 72yo and my uric acid level shot up recently having always been in the low to mid range in tests .
I asked my local butcher if he could get me sheep spleens and he said no, gave me a sideways look,so I will try another butcher! I am in the city and our Sydney butchers aren’t what they once were. Thank you so much for the suggestions of where to get iron and folate. I had an iron infusion a few weeks ago, which seemed odd to me (for a carnivore), but I am not absorbing nutrients due to gut problems. Now I am on a search for sheep spleens for iron, I suspect my reputation in the neighbourhood will be enhanced.:grinning:
My copper levels have shot up too and based on your suggestion to eat beef liver for copper, that may explain why. I have been eating beef liver 3x week (based on my dieticians recommendation, to try to get my iron levels up). I eat a mix of ground liver and mince, cooked in beef bone broth in a slow cooker.

I had no idea that chicken liver was good for folate, brilliant!!!

Thank you again for all this helpful information…I infinitely prefer to get nutrients from food than supplements but didn’t have these missing pieces of the puzzle.

(KM) #38

I actually sat in on my hub’s dr appointment yesterday, asked as an aside if they could throw uric acid onto the test panel, and then made a complete hash of explaining why. Sigh. Wish I’d had this summary to refer to.

The point where I started losing it was basically the claim of causation. IS uric acid really a causative, or is it simply correlated. I’ve done enough carrying on about cholesterol, per se, being the cause of nothing at all, and now I’m really leery about waving the UA flag as anything but a predictor of disease. (Of course I ran out and bought myself some quercetin because why not, haha, but that’s not the same as arguing with Authority about it.)

(Doug) #40

Dr. Perlmutter says so - used to be we only got big hits of fructose in late summer or fall because of the once-yearly ripening of fruit. Our bodies make uric acid from fructose, and that’s the signal for the body to store fat and “get ready for winter.”

That’s not to say that other stufff, like insulin, doesn’t do the same thing or some of the same things. It also need not be mutually-exclusive, as with Perlmutter saying that elevated blood glucose (apparently from any cause) will cause the body to make fructose.

(KM) #41

Lol, I did read the book Dropping Acid but then when I was there on the spot I couldn’t think of a single useful thing to say. It’s, um, predictive, um, maybe causative, er, metabolic alzheimers uh. And fructose. Thank you for that scintillating summation, Dr. Kib. :zipper_mouth_face:

#42

It is very different from what we have been told in the past!