Vitamins D3 and K2

February snowfall outside of Ken and Jackie’s house .

 

From www.Freetheanimal.com:

 
... And it makes perfect evolutionary sense. "Paleoman", at least in most times & places would have had far more access to starchy tubers than fruit, and keep in mind that the fructose concentrations in wild fruits were significantly lower than our selectively bread fruit of today.

 

Moreover, if you look at what happens to bears when they consume massive amounts of wild berries, they pretty much become obese & near diabetic in advance of hibernation. It's reasonable to speculate that for humans, seeking out fructose when available in the summer and fall was a specific mechanism we evolved to fatten up a bit so as to help us through the leaner months.

 

So, essentially, unless you are trying to loose weight or are diabetic, I don't think "low carb" is that essential for most people; but, those carbs should come primarily from starch and not fructose and in particular, not refined packaged carbohydrates/sugar.

 

My supplementation regime is pretty simple (there's a couple more, but this is the foundation):
 
Vitamin D3, as I'm not in the sun nearly as much as our ancestors would have been and as well, the epidemiology of cancer when plotted against latitude is pretty interesting.

Omega 3s [krill/fish oil], to balance out the n-6s ...

Vitamin K2 (MK-4, menatetrenone). This is the form made from K1 by ruminants (found in marrow, organ meats & milkfat) and is also found in eggs, particularly fish eggs. This is Dr. Weston Price's "Activator X."

The combo of D and K2 in particular has had profound health effects for me.
 
My personal anecdote is that I have always had huge plaque / calculus buildup on my teeth, particularly around the molars & the inside lower front. In time, this created places for bacteria to grow, invade the gum tissue, finally resulting in deep pockets, inflammation, bleeding gums and eventually two surgeries in 2001. But the surgery was only successful in setting back the clock. I still had to have four deep cleanings per year just to hold things at bay.

 

But when I went paleo and dropped the grains, flour & sugar, something interesting happened. My gum disease began to reverse, as documented by the dentist's measurements. I still got the plaque and calculous buildup but it wasn't having an adverse effect on my gum tissue.

 

Then I began taking the D and K2 and now, I have zero plaque or calculous. My teeth are like smooth pearls every morning and in fact, I only brush now & then -- and I use wooden toothpicks instead of floss. The last cleaning I had, well over six months ago demonstrated my gums to be in better shape than when the dentist began warning me back in 1993, 17 years ago.
 
What do I take away from this? Well, if you read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price and take stock in the huge disparity in tooth decay and malocclusion (crowded teeth) between people existing on their traditional diets and those who left for contact with civilization it becomes quite clear that replacing high nutrient-density foods like raw milk, eggs, organ meats, meat, fish and organically grown vegetables with flour and sugar has profound costs.
 
And, I think that dental health is a great surrogate for asking: how healthy are your bones? How about your arteries? The combo of D and K2 helps to ensure that calcium and other mineral salts go everyplace they should (bones, teeth) and no place they shouldn't (artery walls, kidney stones, etc.).

 

And you might want to read Dr. Stephan Guyenet's nine part series, Malocclusion: Disease of Civilization. Go to the bottom and read the posts in reverse. This is amazing work on Dr. Guyenet's part.

In the end, everyone needs to decide for themselves. I took charge of my own health going on three years ago, now. Rather than paralyze and scare myself to death with contradictory, agenda driven, profit driven "science," I sought to find out what healthy people were doing, then copy and experiment. Now I've lost weight and dispensed with prescription medications for allergies & GURD, and above all, feel great and happy.

You have to figure this out for yourself. Gather information, think about it [be cautious and use critical thinking about what you are told/read,] use what makes sense in your own life, but let no one -- including me -- tell you what's right for you.