https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics
I remember reading this book when i was young and impressionable, valuable life lesson
jet
joined 2 years ago
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if you want an example of his "persona" I can think of no better video then this: https://youtu.be/BVbs6gux5vE
kidney stones are calcium oxalates (typically). I'm glad you have solved kidney stones! Just drink more water.
Correct! glucose and vitamin c both compete with the GLUT-4 transporter.... if you dont have excessive glucose, then you don't have excessive competition. This is why the zero-carb diet avoids scurvy!
Yeah... that is how big empires fall I suppose. complacency
she isn't selling supplements, just the recommendation to avoid oxalates in your food.
If you want paperwork:
If you don't want to buy her book, or if your too lazy to pirate it, and you can't be bothered to watch the interview.... I'll give you the TLDR: Oxalates kinda suck, but most people don't care until they get a kidney stone. If you are concerned then don't eat food with oxalates in it.
video summerizer
Summary
In this detailed and informative interview on the Low Carb Ancestral Living channel, host Pym Johnson revisits the topic of oxalates with expert Sally K. Norton, a well-known advocate and researcher on oxalate toxicity and healing. The conversation delves deep into the chemistry, physiology, and health implications of oxalates—naturally occurring compounds in many plants—and their impact on human health, especially in relation to chronic diseases, kidney stones, and systemic inflammation. Sally explains the dual nature of oxalates as acids and salts, their formation of nano- and micro-crystals in the body, and how these crystals can accumulate in various tissues causing oxidative stress, inflammation, and damage to organs such as kidneys, bones, joints, and glands.
The discussion also covers which foods are high in oxalates, including popular leafy greens, nuts, seeds, grains, and certain fruits like kiwi and raspberries, while emphasizing the importance of avoiding these for those sensitive or poisoned by oxalates. Sally explains why some plant foods historically considered healthy can be problematic due to their oxalate content, and shares practical advice on managing oxalate intake, including food preparation techniques and dietary choices.
Sally further discusses symptoms linked with oxalate poisoning, which range from joint pain, arthritis, skin issues, fungal infections, fatigue, migraines, neurological symptoms, to pelvic pain and urinary problems. She highlights the complexity of healing from oxalate toxicity, which can be prolonged and involve “healing reactions” such as flares in symptoms, exhaustion, and the necessity of adequate rest.
The interview also touches on the controversial topic of high-dose vitamin C and its relationship to oxalate production, the role of sex hormones in oxalate-related kidney stone risks, and the limitations of probiotics or gut microbiota modifications in fully resolving oxalate toxicity. Sally emphasizes the importance of mineral repletion, particularly through supplementation or mineral baths, to support detoxification and mitigate symptoms.
Finally, Sally talks about her upcoming book Toxic Superfoods, online support groups, and consultations, encouraging people to approach oxalate issues with informed caution, patience, and gradual dietary adjustments.
Highlights
- 🧪 Oxalates are water-soluble acids and salts that can form harmful crystals in the body, affecting bones, kidneys, joints, and connective tissues.
- 🥬 Common high-oxalate foods include spinach, chard, beet greens, nuts (especially almonds, cashews, peanuts), quinoa, buckwheat, sweet potatoes, and chocolate.
- ⚠️ Oxalate toxicity symptoms are diverse and can mimic other chronic conditions: arthritis, migraines, skin rashes, fungal infections, fatigue, and urinary tract irritation.
- 💊 High-dose vitamin C (oral or IV) can increase oxalate production and worsen crystal formation, cautioning against indiscriminate mega-dosing.
- 💤 Detoxification from oxalates is a slow process that can cause symptom flares and exhaustion; sleep and rest are critical components of healing.
- 🧂 Mineral supplementation and mineral baths can support detoxification and alleviate symptoms by replenishing depleted calcium, magnesium, potassium, and citrate.
- 🚫 Probiotics alone cannot fix oxalate toxicity because the gut ecosystem complexity and environmental factors prevent full restoration of oxalate-degrading bacteria.
Key Insights
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🔬 Oxalate Chemistry and Biological Impact: Oxalates exist as oxalic acid or oxalate salts, which can bind to minerals like calcium and magnesium to form tiny insoluble crystals. These crystals precipitate in body tissues, causing inflammation and oxidative stress that undermine cellular function, especially in mitochondria, connective tissue, and glands. This explains the widespread systemic effects beyond just kidney stones, including fatigue, joint pain, and neurological symptoms.
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🥗 Dietary Sources and Evolutionary Mismatch: Many popular “healthy” plant foods contain high levels of bioavailable oxalates, which humans are not evolutionarily adapted to consume in large quantities. The presence of oxalates in seeds and fruits serves as plant defense “micro-weaponry” to deter herbivores. Modern diets rich in nuts, dark leafy greens, and gluten-free grains can inadvertently overload the body with oxalates, leading to chronic poisoning symptoms.
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⚡ Oxalate Toxicity Mimics Chronic Illnesses: Symptoms of oxalate poisoning are often mistaken for autoimmune diseases, fibromyalgia, or other chronic syndromes. The immune system reacts to nano-crystals by causing inflammation in joints, connective tissues, bladder, and skin. This inflammation and oxidative stress interfere with cellular signaling, especially calcium signaling, which is critical for cell metabolism and repair.
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🛑 Vitamin C Overuse Can Worsen Oxalate Load: Vitamin C metabolizes into oxalic acid, so excessive vitamin C intake—particularly intravenous high-dose therapy—can exacerbate oxalate crystal formation in tissues and veins, causing fibrosis and vascular damage. This is a caution against indiscriminate use of vitamin C supplements without considering oxalate toxicity risks.
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🕰️ Healing is a Long-Term Process with Flare-Ups: Oxalate crystals lodged in bones, joints, and organs can take years to clear. Detoxification often triggers immune responses and symptom “healing reactions,” such as rashes, arthritis flares, headaches, and exhaustion. Understanding this pattern helps patients stay patient and avoid discouragement during recovery.
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💧 Mineral Balance is Crucial for Prevention and Healing: Oxalates rob the body of essential minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium), contributing to bone loss, kidney stones, and systemic dysfunction. Supplementing with mineral salts like potassium citrate, magnesium citrate, and using mineral baths can restore mineral balance, alkalinity, and prevent stone formation. Adjusting urinary pH and citrate levels is key to protecting kidney health during oxalate detox.
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🌿 Gut Microbiome Interventions Are Insufficient Alone: While gut bacteria can degrade some oxalates, the complexity of the human microbiome and environmental insults prevent the microbiome from fully protecting against oxalate poisoning. Attempts to “fix” oxalate problems solely with probiotics or microbiome therapies have not succeeded clinically, emphasizing that dietary management and mineral support remain foundational.
Additional Context and Practical Takeaways
- Avoiding high oxalate foods like spinach, nuts, sweet potatoes, and chocolate is the first step for those with symptoms or history of oxalate toxicity.
- A gradual reduction in oxalate intake is advisable to prevent overwhelming the kidneys with oxalate mobilized from tissues.
- Incorporating small amounts of certain carbohydrates like low-oxalate vegetables, rice, or sweet potatoes can help modulate the oxalate detoxification process and alleviate exhaustion.
- Monitoring symptoms such as joint pain, urinary discomfort, skin issues, and neurological disturbances can indicate oxalate load and detox activity.
- Support groups, educational resources, and professional guidance—such as Sally Norton’s online classes and consultations—are valuable for navigating the complexity of oxalate issues.
- The upcoming book Toxic Superfoods promises a comprehensive, accessible resource for understanding oxalates and managing related health issues.
The interview is a vital resource for anyone struggling with unexplained chronic symptoms, kidney stones, or those interested in the lesser-known impacts of diet on long-term health. It empowers listeners to take control of their health by recognizing oxalate toxicity as a real and addressable problem with proper knowledge, patience, and support.
Just finished the episode, it was interesting, especially when she went through the different manifestations people experience. I did take a look at pubmed, not too much research outside of stones being published.
I am happy that my zero-carb approach avoids this entirely.
I'd add carbohydrates to the list of culprits. Sugar (raw, refined, etc) and Carbohydrates both end up in the blood stream as glucose, so as far as insulin response goes they are equivalent.
Can someone consume carbohydrates and maintain health? Sure! Is it helping them do so? not so much.
One problem with detecting oxalic acid is its not usually in the blood stream (i.e. waiting in the adipocytes)
I've only heard of people doing carnivore reporting Oxalate dumping. Though the protocol seems to be to introduce a small amount of oxalates in the diet to prevent dumping when inconvenient.
Notes:
most common endocrine disorder in women in the reproductive age, with an estimated prevalence ranging from 6 to 15%
Common signs of PCOS not included in diagnostic cri-teria are represented by insulin resistance, reversal of the FSH/LH ratio and obesity, which is an important clinical feature of PCOS.
it is important to remark that these metabolic abnormalities may also be present in non-obese patients
96% of westerners have impaired metabolic health, its not just the visibly obese!
The ovaries of PCOS patients usually maintain a normal response to insulin.
It's tragic, people with impaired metabolism have elevated insulin levels, but their ovaries are still very insulin sensitive - so the signal is just too strong!
PCOS women present a peculiar dietary pattern, characterised by reduced use of extra-virgin olive oil, legumes, seafood and nuts, a lower amount of complex carbohydrate, fiber, monounsaturated fatty acids, and higher simple carbo- hydrates, total fat and saturated fatty acid, compared to normal women.
it is controversial whether diet composition per se has an effect on reproductive and metabolic outcomes. Blood glucose levels are affected by carbohydrate intake and regulate insulin secretion from the pancreas, so very-low carbohydrates diets may be superior to standard hypocaloric diets in terms of improving fertility, endocrine/metabolic parameters, weight loss and satiety in women with PCOS
That is a UNDERSTATEMENT!
This was a 12 weeks, single-arm study. The outcome measures were body weight, BMI, FBM, LBM, FBM percentage, LBM percentage, glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, total testosterone, free testosterone, progesterone, estradiol, LH, FSH, DHEAS, LH/FSH ratio, SHBG and Ferriman Gallwey Score.
Anthropometric and body composition measurements revealed an
- average weight loss of 9.43 kg (pre 81.19 ± 8.44 kg vs post 71.76± 6.66 kg; p < 0.0001)
- significant reductions (− 3.35) of BMI (pre 28.84 ± 2.10 vspost 25.49 ± 1.69; p < 0.0001)
- FBM (− 8.29 kg) (pre 27.96 ± 5.11 kg vs post 19.67 ± 3.72 kg; p < 0.0001).
- LBM absolute value showed a slightly significant decrease (pre53.23 ± 5.02 kg vs post 52.09± 4.60 kg), but its percent- age value was slightly increased (pre 65.74 ± 3.75% vspost 72.71 ± 3.55%; p < 0.0001)
- VAT showed a very signifi-cant (pre 1750 ± 181.58 grams vs. post 1110,36 ± 189.23;p < 0.0001) decrease
- waist circumference decreased in a significant manner (pre 100.7 ± 4.81 vs post 96.69 ± 3.82; p = 0.0015)
Not bad for a 3 month study!
Not bad at all!
KDs could be considered, as a nutraceutical therapy aimed to increase insulin sensitivity. The data available in the literature [26, 30–32], although few, confirm the assumption that a KD, correcting hyperinsulinemia and improving body composition, can contribute to the normalization of the clinical picture in PCOS. During fasting or a carbohydrate restriction such as a KD, blood insulin concentration decreases, while glucagon increases to maintain the normal blood glucose level, first through glycogen stores, then through the β-oxidation of fatty acids stored in fat depots. Approximately 3–5 days after a very low carbohydrate diet, when the concentration of KBs begins to grow, hunger considerably decreases, but maintaining a state of well-being [51]
we can be assumed that 12 weeks were not sufficient to observe a decrease in hirsutism scores: the hair cycle, in fact, depending on the body area can last for some months and it is known that pharmacological therapy based on antiandrogens takes from 6 to 12 months to obtain a good reduction of the score.
This is a very important point, hormonal interventions (which a KD is), will take months if not years to fully correct. If it took 30 years to get into a biological state, it might take longer then a 12 week study to correct it.
There is a established link between elevated insulin levels and PCOS
i.e. Ketogenic - Chapter 3 - Endocrine
3.7.3.3 Polycystic ovarian syndrome and infertility / The insulin connection
“is that the three defining features of PCOS (hyperandrogenism causing masculine features, polycystic ovaries and anovulatory cycles) all reflect the same pathophysiology: too much testosterone, ultimately caused by too much insulin. In other words, too much insulin causes PCOS. Like obesity, PCOS is best understood as a disease of hyperinsulinemia. Although obesity and PCOS do not always occur together, they are both manifestations of an underlying hyperinsulinemia.
The eponymous criterion of PCOS is the presence of multiple cysts in the ovaries, which are derived from the multitude of small follicles. Many women have a few cysts on their ovary, but the sheer number of cysts distinguishes this syndrome from virtually all others. Almost no other much insulin and too much testosterone human disease causes polycystic ovaries. Ultimately, these polycystic ovaries are caused by too.
Both the cysts on the ovaries and the hyperandrogenism are caused by the same underlying problem: too much insulin.
The full book is available on the normal free literature places, but the TLDR is that a diet that reduces insulin levels can be used to treat and reverse PCOS
This is also another more direct (and open) article on the issue: Effects of a ketogenic diet in overweight women with polycystic ovary syndrome - My notes from reading the paper can be found here - https://hackertalks.com/post/13750353
There are many dietary patterns available and in the zeitgeist.
MacroNutrient
On the macronutrient scale we have 3^3 (27) choices, the most common are:
- HCHFLP - High Carb, High Fat, Low Protein : This is the "standard"/default western diet
- HCLFMP - High Carb, Low Fat, Medium Protein: This is the default "healthy" diet recommended by media
- HCLFHP - High Carb, Low Fat, High Protein: A body builder bulking diet
- MCLFHP - Medium Carb, Low Fat, High Protein: Body builder cutting diet
- LCHFMP - Low Carb, High Fat, Moderate Protein : A diet that maintains the metabolic state of ketosis
MicroNutrients Inside of any macronutrient regime there are essential micronutrients/minerals that are required. Essential means the body does not have the ability to produce them from other sources. There are too many to list here, but using a diet tool like chronometer (free and can use the website) will let you see if your covering your micronutrient targets (Recommend Daily Intakes). One note is that the RDAs are usually minimums (though in some contexts may be more then necessary).
Cronometer example micronutrient display
Importantly, VERY importantly, not all foods are ingested by the human body the same, so the amount on the label is not the same that ends up in the body. This is a good paper discussing the bioavailabilty measurements of food, DIAAS seems to be the best scoring system out there to date.
Whole Foods
Regardless of macro and micro nutrient choices, the evidence, and consensus across medical professionals, and zealots, is that eating whole foods from natural sources that are not industrialized and hyper processed is a good guide to health and better outcomes.
If the ingredients for what you are eating are more complex than the name of the thing, you shouldn't eat it. Don't eat food from a factory out of a box and wrapped in plastic!
I.e. shop the outside edge of the grocery store, not the aisles in the middle.
This might be somewhat controversial, but I would include modern seed oils as a type of processed food to be avoided on a Whole food Diet. No vegetable oils that come from a factory please!
Low Carb High Fat / Ketogenic
The LCHF, ketogenic/keto/atkins, macronutrient profile has many benefits - Increasing insulin sensitivity and reducing the issues insulin resistance causes (obesity, hyper tension, pcos, diabetes 2, etc).
The key schism of LCHF diets is over the dietary necessity (or lack thereof) of carbohydrates, this well referenced document is a must read for those who are incredulous. There is NO SUCH THING AS AN ESSENTIAL CARBOHYDRATE - the human body can do gluconeogenesis and produce all the glucose it needs from fat.
Sometimes this LCHF diet is referred to a fed-fasting diet, since it maintains metabolic ketosis even when eating.
The core mechanism of action here is allowing insulin levels to return, and stay at, normal levels throughout the day which enables the body - an amazing homeostasis machine - to function properly. The body is full of feedback mechanisms, like hunger, thirst, satisfaction, etc - to stay in optimal bounds.
Being on a LCHF diet is easy to maintain, because you're not hungry, you can eat as much as you want - you just let your body self regulate.
NOTE - if you are on some medications, such as high blood pressure, and insulin, changing your diet can change the effectiveness of these medications and should be done under medical supervision. Either with your doctor, a metabolic doctor, or a service such as virta. Watch your biomarkers when you change a diet to make sure your medications are not taking you outside of your targets.
LCHF diets can include Plant based diets (vegetarian/vegan), Animal Based Foods (Carnivore), or any mix in between (just keto, or ketovore)
Insulin Sensitivity
93% of Americans (and probably similar in western countries) have insulin resistance, this can manifest as obesity, or high blood pressure, visceral fat, diabetes, etc. It may not be visible at all - Skinny Fat - Thin Outside Fat Inside (TOFI).
You can use your TG/HDL ratio has a very good approximation for your insulin sensitivity. You want to be <0.9 (mmol/L) or <2 (mg/dL). If your ratio is low, congratulations you are insulin sensitive
Carnivore
Carnivore is a strict subset of a LCHF/Ketogenic diet that restricts itself to only animal sourced foods (ASF). The reasons for doing this can include:
- Better food bioavailability - Need to eat less food
- Inflammation from different plant based foods - oxalate / lectins
- Allergies
- Regenerative and Sustainable farming lifestyle (Local farm can provide biocomplete nutrition without needed to transport rare foods over long distances)
- Ease of adherence (not that many choices, hard to do it wrong, don't have to count carbs)
ASFs are almost entirely digested in the stomach and large intestine, very little makes it to the small intestine - This is why people eating strict carnivore have less frequent bowel movements, and people with gut issues can see impactful quality of life improvements on this intervention
What should you choose?
Ask yourself what you're trying to achieve? What issues are you tackling? The only thing that matters in personal health is your personal outcomes. Focus on what works for you, or is specifically sustainable for you.
Weight Loss - Don't lose weight to get healthy, get healthy to lose weight - A LCHF diet, or even a Whole Food diet, can be used to regain a healthy metabolism
Most of the benefits of Carnivore can be achieved with just LCHF/keto (Even a vegan keto diet). In terms of most effective things you can do, don't worry about carnivore start with LCHF.
If LCHF/Keto isn't enough, such as persistent inflammation, or prolonged gut issues, then Carnivore could be a good option for you.
If you're insulin sensitive, you can keep doing whatever you have been doing - Keep being awesome!
Civility
I'm sure this conversation will touch on people's passions and triggers, I just ask that when you participate you consider the whole human and speak with each other with compassion and empathy for their choices.
this is really cool! I hadn't realized