This article mentioned that people on paleo have higher levels of TMAO, which is associated with heart disease, due to having higher levels of the gut bacteria that produce TMAO. It was claimed that the lack of legumes and whole grains caused the increase of the TMAO producing bacteria.
Who would like to weigh in on this?
Edit: written while I shovel in egg salad, liverwurst, and pork rinds for breakfast. 
Also, could some explain this abstract to me?
It was a link in the Runner’s World article. I’m not quite understanding the numbers of the comparisons between the groups. It also seemed to me that the pseudo paleo followers had higher TMAO than the strict paleo followers. Did I read that correctly? 
Well, first of all… the article hinges on this:
Their studies showed that TMAO directly contributes to the narrowing of artery walls through plaque build-up — findings hailed by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association in 2013 as [one of the top 10 advances in heart disease and stroke science]
The AHA recieves millions from pharmaceutical companies (who make statins) and big food companies. Paleo and keto threaten their profit margins so they spend a lot of time and money designing studies that produce the outcome they desire and then publish. I’m sure any studies that do no get suppressed.
You also notice they ONLY push whole grains as a source of resistant starches? Which only the processed food companies can provide. An added bonus is if you add whole grains back into your diet it most likely will trigger cravings for other unhealthy food they produce - and they know it!
You can get resistant starch from cold potatoes - real food. Not processed. Cold potato salad is yummy and you can load it up with healthy mayo if you want to get some resistant starches in your diet if on maintenance. I wouldn’t recommend eating potatoes while still trying to lose weight or if it might trigger a binge.
Yup, understand that. I read through the entire second article I posted. Unfortunately, a lot of it is above my head. I know they were testing for the TMAO, but it seems to my un biochemistry brain that the results didn’t seem statistically significant. Then they pulled from the current nutritional dogma to come up with their conclusions. I need a better understanding of their statistical numbers.
Yeah, I looked it up because I am not familiar with paleo, so their attack on that diet is valid. I suppose the same could be said of keto but potatoes can be worked into your macros on maintenance if someone wanted to get resistant starches in.
I think THEIR STUDIES are all BS. I also think there is a lot going on in our gut biome that they do not understand and affects our health.
1 Tbl of potato starch is 10 carbs, so definitely doable on maintenance if someone wanted to experiment with adding resistant starches to their diet. I did it for quite a while several years ago (not on keto then) and I couldn’t tell any difference so I stopped.
I also tried potato starch (along with other pre- and pro-biotics) and found no benefits, only detriments, though I was able to maintain ketosis.
I think TMAO is misguided. See here:
People love to find some marker that has supposedly a correlation with heart disease (using crappy epi studies), and then find that it goes up when people do “bad” things like not eat whole grains.
Well, in the article, the paleo people had lower triglycerides and higher HDL cholesterol than their control group. Who knows, it could be that, once again, the TMAO numbers matter with high carb and high insulin, but keto changes it’s significance.I’ll read that Diet Doctor article.
Thanks.
TMAO levels are also elevated when fish and vegetables are eaten but they are only bad when meat is eaten.
TMAO… LMAO!
This is the garbage you find in this area:
Elevated levels of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) – a compound linked with the consumption of fish, seafood and a primarily vegetarian diet – may reduce hypertension-related heart disease symptoms. New research in rats finds that low-dose treatment with TMAO reduced heart thickening (cardiac fibrosis) and markers of heart failure in an animal model of hypertension.
So, there’s the “super healthy” TMAO that you get from vegetables and fish, but the DEADLY TMAO you get from eating “meat” and particularly red meat.
Does it all make sense, now? 
If TMAO mattered, the human race would have gone extinct long ago and we would not be here discussing this bullshit. In my ever so humble opinion. 
Although I don’t follow Nick M on Twitter, I do see his posts (someone I follow likes his post, so I see it). He’s always good.
Goodness gracious!! It’s a wonder people are having a hard time with figuring out how to eat!! 
