A few months ago, I read a book called The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Living. The authors are two of the world's leading researchers on low-carb diets.

Dr. Jeff S. Volek is a Registered Dietitian and Dr. Stephen D. Phinney is a medical doctor. These guys have performed many studies and have treated thousands of patients with a low-carb diet.

According to them, there are many stumbling blocks that people tend to run into, which can lead to adverse effects and suboptimal results.

To get into full-blown ketosis and reap all the metabolic benefits of low-carb, merely cutting back on the carbs isn't enough. If you haven't gotten the results you expected on a low-carb diet, then perhaps you were doing one of these 5 common mistakes.

1. Eating too many carbs

There is no clear definition of exactly what constitutes a "low carb diet."

Some would call anything under 100-150 grams per day low-carb, which is definitely a lot less than the standard Western diet.

A lot of people could get awesome results within this carbohydrate range, as long as they ate real, unprocessed foods.

But if you want to get into ketosis, with plenty of ketoness flooding your bloodstream to supply your brain with an efficient source of energy, then this level of intake may be excessive.

It could take some self experimentation to figure out your optimal range as this depends on a lot of things, but most people will need to go under 50 grams per day to get into full-blown ketosis.

During the May 2013 annual conference of the American Psychiatric Association ( APA), a study was presented, alleging that Electroconvulsive Therapy, ECT, (formerly known as Electroshock) for adolescents "is a safe, reasonably well-tolerated, and effective treatment." Unfortunately, like all psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, these claims are dependent upon the psychiatrist's interpretation - not scientific fact.

Keeping in mind that the APA cannot provide any science to support that even one of its alleged psychiatric disorders is a real medical condition, it is difficult to accept this new study with any level of credibility.

After all, if the psychiatric community cannot prove that a psychiatric disorder exists, how can it possibly prove that any "treatment," specifically frying a child's still developing brain with "therapeutic" electricity, is safe and effective?

In a nutshell, psychiatry's theory of ECT is to induce, through electric current directly to the frontal lobes of the brain, a grand mal seizure, which will presumably "jump start" the alleged disordered brain. There are two glaring problems with the theory - no one knows how the brain works and, despite 70 years of research, nobody knows how ECT works.

The author of the ECT study, Dr. Chad Puffer, a general psychiatry resident at the Mayo Clinic, said "the idea that this is a barbaric treatment is typically perpetuated by those who have not seen the treatments as they are currently administered."

Dr. Puffer is alluding to the horrific ECT "treatments" that were conducted in the past, when patients were subjected to high doses of "therapeutic" electricity with no anesthesia or medications, causing violent seizures, broken bones and even death.

Psychiatry's diagnostic bible has broadened the definition of mental illness to absurdity.

The American Psychiatric Association released a revision of its diagnostic bible in May, the first major rewrite in two decades. The Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, is the official guidebook for diagnosing every conceivable psychiatric ailment. This new edition loosens the rules in a disturbing way.

In previous editions, you the patient had to meet certain specified criteria in order to be diagnosed for any particular condition. For example, if I were going to diagnose you as having schizophrenia, then you had to have specific symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations. If you didn't have those symptoms, then I couldn't make the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Not anymore. Last month, DSM-5 introduced a new diagnosis, "Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder." The only required criterion is that you have some distress from unspecified symptoms, but you "do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders in the schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders diagnostic class." You don't have to have delusions. You don't have to have hallucinations. In fact if you do have delusions and hallucinations, then you probably don't qualify for unspecified schizophrenia. (You will find the new diagnosis in one short paragraph at the bottom of page 122 of DSM-5.)

Likewise for every other diagnostic category, including, for example, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Let's suppose that you occasionally don't pay attention to your wife. You don't meet the old-fashioned criteria for ADHD, which included impairment in multiple settings, like on the job or while driving. You are inattentive only when your wife is talking. You pay attention to everybody else. Hey, no problem. You now qualify for "Unspecified Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder."

Part 1

Many of you have probably heard of the 'alkaline diet'. There are a few different versions of the acid-alkaline theory circulating the internet, but the basic claim is that the foods we eat leave behind an 'ash' after they are metabolized, and this ash can be acid or alkaline (alkaline meaning more basic on the pH scale).

According to the theory, it is in our best interest to make sure we eat more alkaline foods than acid foods, so that we end up with an overall alkaline load on our body. This will supposedly protect us from the diseases of modern civilization, whereas eating a diet with a net acid load will make us vulnerable to everything from cancer to osteoporosis. To make sure we stay alkaline, they recommend keeping track of urine or saliva pH using handy pH test strips.

In this two-part series, I will address the main claims made by proponents of the alkaline diet, and will hopefully clear up some confusion about what it all means for your health. Will eating an alkaline diet make you and your bones healthier?

Foods can influence our urine pH

Before I start dismantling this theory, I want to acknowledge a couple things they get right. First, foods do leave behind acid or alkaline ash. The type of 'ash' is determined by the relative content of acid-forming components such as phosphate and sulfur, and alkalis such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium. (1, 2) In general, animal products and grains are acid forming, while fruits and vegetables are alkali forming. Pure fats, sugars, and starches are neutral, because they don't contain protein, sulfur, or minerals.

It's also true that the foods we eat change the pH of our urine. (3, 4) If you have a green smoothie for breakfast, for example, your pee a few hours later will likely be more alkaline than that of someone who had bacon and eggs. As a side note, it's also very easy to measure your urine pH, and I think this is one of the big draws of the alkaline diet. Everyone can probably agree that it's satisfying to see concrete improvements in health markers depending on your diet, and pH testing gives people that instant gratification they desire. However, as you'll see below, urine pH is not a good indicator of the overall pH of the body, nor is it a good indicator of general health.

It's common to hear that "doctors aren't taught about nutrition in medical school". Does that mean that everything a doctor knows was learned at medical school? Did the professors teach how to fish, repair cars, write novels, play a guitar? Of course not.

The idea that a doctor is somehow deficient because he/she didn't learn about nutrition in medical school is just an excuse. Essentially, "The poor dolt wasn't taught about nutrition, exercise, clean water or even probiotics, so we can't expect her to know anything - or do anything - other than what they were taught in medical school." At times I've been guilty of this myself, but I want to stop using that kind of statement to either justify ignorance or explain why this or that doctor always falls back on what they were taught - how to read lab tests and prescribe drugs, surgery, or radiation treatments. Starting from the premise that doctors are intelligent, I must accept that they are capable of rational thought and using reason to arrive at answers - ones that agree with their medical school professors, and ones that don't. A mature rational person reacts in certain ways when confronted with information that conflicts with their education and experiences. They can ignore the new information. They can use their reasoning skills to refute it. They can even evaluate the new material and begin a process for changing their old belief based on the new findings and rationale. In all three of those possibilities, the intelligent person can still decide not to change their actions. In the case of a doctor, she can decide to not move away from what she's been doing, regardless of the contrary evidence. Why would she do that? One reason might be comfort. She could say, "I've been doing it that old way for decades and I don't see any reason to change my practice." That's the response we would expect from a lazy person. Some people are lazy. Doctors are people. Therefore...

Pay attention, as I can't say this seriously enough. Last week, the FDA took a drug off the market, and the reasons should send shivers of fear down the backs of consumers, investors, generic drug companies - and the FDA.

The FDA announced last week that the 300mg generic version of Wellbutrin XL manufactured by Impax Laboratories and marketed by Teva Pharmaceuticals was being recalled because it did not work. And this wasn't just a problem with one batch - this is a problem that has been going on with this particular drug for four or five years, and the FDA did everything it could to ignore it.

The FDA apparently approved this drug - and others like it - without testing it. The FDA just assumed if one dosage strength the drug companies submitted for approval works, then the other higher dosages work fine also. With this generic, American consumers became the FDA's guinea pigs to see if the FDA's assumption was right. It wasn't.

Exercise, even in small doses, changes the expression of our innate DNA. New research from Lund University in Sweden has described for the first time what happens on an epigenetic level in fat cells when we undertake physical activity.

"Our study shows the positive effects of exercise, because the epigenetic pattern of genes that affect fat storage in the body changes", says Charlotte Ling, Associate Professor at Lund University Diabetes Centre.

The cells of the body contain DNA, which contains genes. We inherit our genes and they cannot be changed. The genes, however, have 'methyl groups' attached which affect what is known as 'gene expression' - whether the genes are activated or deactivated. The methyl groups can be influenced in various ways, through exercise, diet and lifestyle, in a process known as 'DNA methylation'. This is epigenetics, a relatively new research field that in recent years has attracted more and more attention.

As the autism epidemic continues to accelerate, one of the least well known contributing factors goes mostly unnoticed: wheat consumption.

A new study published in the open access journal PLoS is reinvigorating the debate over what are the primary causes of the accelerating autism epidemic.

Whereas too many within the conventional medical establishment, failing to identify a singular cause, apathetically label the condition "idiopathic," i.e. cause unknown, or worse, "caused by unknown defective genes," there is a growing awareness that a multitude of environmental factors including vaccines, chemical exposures, C-sections, antibiotics, genetically modified food, and food intolerances are essential in both understanding and treating this disturbing affliction.

The point therefore is not to prove one thing the cause (e.g. "autism genes"), and another not the cause (e.g. vaccines), as if it were strictly some kind of academic sport or past time, rather, to acknowledge possible contributing factors, and eliminate them whenever possible as a precaution.

The new study titled, "Markers of Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity in Children with Autism," explored the possible association between gluten sensitivity and autism, which previous research has confirmed only inconsistently.[i]

How much longer will we deny the growing body of research linking Roundup to infertility before calling this chemical a contraceptive?

Following closely on the heels of the EPA's decision to allow Roundup herbicide residues in your food at concentrations a million times higher than shown carcinogenic, a concerning new study published in the journal Free Radical Medicine & Biology implicates the herbicide, and its main ingredient glyphosate, in male infertility, at concentration ranges well within the EPA's "safe level" for food.[1]

Both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co. agreed to change their product formulations nationally after a new California law would have required cans to come with a cancer warning -- but Pepsi hasn't made the change outside of California, according to The Center for Environmental Health. The ingredient in question is 4-Mel, found in caramel coloring.

An environmental group said Wednesday that the caramel coloring used in Pepsi still contains a worrisome level of a carcinogen, even after the drink maker said it would change its formula.

In March, PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. both said they would adjust their formulas nationally after California passed a law mandating drinks containing a certain level of carcinogens come with a cancer warning label. The changes were made for drinks sold in California when the law passed.

The chemical is 4-methylimidazole, or 4-Mel, which can form during the cooking process and, as a result, may be found in trace amounts in many foods.

Watchdog group The Center for Environmental Health found via testing that while Coke products no longer test positive for the chemical, Pepsi products sold outside of California still do.

Pepsi said its caramel coloring suppliers are changing their manufacturing process to cut the amount of 4-Mel in its caramel. That process is complete in California and will be finished in February 2014 in the rest of the country. Pepsi said it will also be taken out globally, but did not indicate a timeline.