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Cats and dogs detox diet
Quote from Tricky on September 25, 2024, 3:35 pmQuote from lil chick on September 25, 2024, 3:13 pmHi Tricky Turkey! Have you sat and had a think about why these cats lived longer than other cats?
How many individual cats are you talking about? I didn't bother to read the Creme Puff thing, no point in analyzing one questionable anecdote.
I suspect this is basically the same as trying to understand why some humans live so much longer than others...too many factors to say definitively, although it's safe to say that generally avoiding toxins conveys a higher likelihood of long life.
The guy has two cats on the longest-lived list, and the vet says that several of his cat have at least made it to 30 according to his records.
We aren't talking about taking some known terrible poison in tiny doses LOL. We are talking about taking small amounts of foods and beverages which most people would never dream of giving to a cat.
However, these are foods and beverages that many people do ingest, including some who make it to very old ages. (coffee, wine, champagne). These happen to be foods that sometimes ARE touted as having health benefits. I guess what I'm wondering is, does taking them in the tiny amounts they were given... are they gaining *actual* benefits? I can totally see that if they were drinking only booze and coffee they would have died EARLIER than other cats, but maybe something about taking tiny doses actually proved the so-called benefits of these drinks?
They also ate eggs, broccoli and turkey bacon. As an egg eater, I'm not adverse to the idea that eggs and turkey might be helping (as a form of less-processed animal protein than dry cat food) and I can also imagine that a little bit of broccoli might have given fiber, which I intuit my cats might have benefited from when they were toxic.
Along with their dry cat food and happy lifestyle.
If I remember properly there was some discussion once about alcohol sending VA out of the liver and into circulation (for good or bad there). I think it was a scientific study.
@tricky congrats on your new cat!
My mother (who has had pets her entire long life) insists that cats and dogs just eat grass simply because: THEY LIKE IT!
So, lets say that is true. Why do we like things? I think the term "like" might be very close to the term "instinct".
Now, not every like or instinct is good for us, but many are! Some might be confused. Lots of things taste "sweet" but some are poisonous like anti-freeze. But most sweet things have calories, and calories are good.
I think it is interesting how good and wholesome coffee and wine seem, at least in small amounts. The scent of each is just wonderful. Opening a new package of coffee is heaven. These drinks start to feel less good to me after a small amount. My mouth starts registering something off or toxic after the first cup.
Alright, I read the article about Perry. It sounds as though his cats had lots of sources of stimulation. Humans seem to live longer when they have something to live for...when they keep actively learning or working away at something with a sense of purpose. Maybe that, in combination with genital sterilization, being kept in a controlled indoor space their entire lives, and being well-loved, moved the needle on cat longevity?
I stand by my statements on hormesis and taking in toxins. For every person or cat that took in toxins and/or fiber and lived a long life, there are far more people and cats who also took in toxins and/or fiber and did not live long.
Domestic cats do all sorts of stupid things that are not "healthy", but they apparently enjoy doing them anyway. I do not for one second think that just because a domestic cat willingly does something means it's good for the cat. If you want to assess instincts in cats, look at wild cats in their natural environment.
Try removing all plants from your diet for a stretch of time. It's amazing how your sense of taste and smell gets recalibrated as your body relieves itself of the tolerances its built to plant compounds. Domesticated fruit tastes disgustingly sweet. Pure honey practically burns the tongue. Anything with a significant amount of simple sugars tastes appallingly sweet and just wrong. Even the tiniest amount of bitterness stands out on the tongue, which means that practically any whole plant food you put in your mouth doesn't taste very good. Both soluble and insoluble fibers stand out more as "roughage" in the mouth, so even things like oatmeal, rice, and potatoes feel remarkably rough. Herbs smell disgusting. I can tell when someone has been eating onions or garlic the moment they walk in my door, it's a truly foul smell (vampires are right to steer clear!). Alcohol also smells extremely offensive.
Quote from Tricky on September 25, 2024, 3:10 pmBuilding muscle by lifting weights is a classic example. When you lift something that is heavy enough to strain your muscles, you tear muscle fibers. Is tearing muscle fibers desirable? No. Tearing muscle fibers makes you vulnerable and compromises your ability to survive. The body wants to survive, so it rebuilds the damaged muscle and adds additional muscle to insure against future tears. Having that additional muscle is only desirable if you're going to continue to lift heavy things that would otherwise tear a smaller muscle. If you're not going to keep lifting heavy things, then the cost of maintaining and carrying that extra muscle is unnecessary and can actually compromise your overall fitness. Similarly, the body often reconstructs a broken bone to be bigger/stronger than before the break to insure against future breaks, which sounds great, except the additional bone mass is only desirable if you are at risk of breaking that bone again; otherwise, that extra bone mass represents an unnecessary cost.
Trick/Wavy, what do you recommend in terms of exercise for longevity and healthspan? No exercise at all? Do you exercise?
Quote from Retinoicon on September 28, 2024, 4:04 pmQuote from Tricky on September 25, 2024, 3:10 pmBuilding muscle by lifting weights is a classic example. When you lift something that is heavy enough to strain your muscles, you tear muscle fibers. Is tearing muscle fibers desirable? No. Tearing muscle fibers makes you vulnerable and compromises your ability to survive. The body wants to survive, so it rebuilds the damaged muscle and adds additional muscle to insure against future tears. Having that additional muscle is only desirable if you're going to continue to lift heavy things that would otherwise tear a smaller muscle. If you're not going to keep lifting heavy things, then the cost of maintaining and carrying that extra muscle is unnecessary and can actually compromise your overall fitness. Similarly, the body often reconstructs a broken bone to be bigger/stronger than before the break to insure against future breaks, which sounds great, except the additional bone mass is only desirable if you are at risk of breaking that bone again; otherwise, that extra bone mass represents an unnecessary cost.
Trick/Wavy, what do you recommend in terms of exercise for longevity and healthspan? No exercise at all? Do you exercise?
I haven't spent much time reading about this, but my impression at the moment is that people can live long, healthy lives on any part of the spectrum from endurance athlete to more low-key walker types if they are eating an appropriate diet. Personally, I've always been into athletics, mainly soccer until my 20's, then long distance nordic skiing and cycling through my 30's. The biggest thing I've learned is that rest is as important as effort.
I think how you choose to exercise mainly depends what your goal is in life. If you want to live longer above all else, then probably slowing your metabolism by minimizing exercise will point you in that direction so long as your diet is matched to just sitting around. If you want to be more physically capable and are willing to accept the possibility of a slightly shorter life as a tradeoff, then doing moderate cardio or HIT might be the way to go. I'm not sure where lifting weights fits in...I don't think focusing exclusively on lifting is ideal, but if you're not already lifting some external weight in other parts of your life then doing a bit of lifting in the gym would make you more "well-rounded", whatever that's worth to you.
Thanks, Jalee and Tricky for the thoughts on exercise. What you say about exercise makes sense to me.
The original point was on hormesis. Tricky's point applied to adding vegetables to a carnivore diet would be that the vegetables would only provide a hormetic benefit for consuming vegetables in the future. But there are decently documented claims about hormesis giving benefits in slightly different contexts than the original source of the supposed hormesis. For example, the Wikipedia article on hormesis suggests that low dose ionizing radiation exposure lowers cancer risk.
My friend who is battling worms wonders if one of the reasons to eat toxic plants occasionally is to beat back parasites.
Plant poisons are made for things like that.
My pet theory is that the body sends out VA as a weapon, leading to symptoms that are very much like detox during times of infection. It would give a reason that the body likes to keep it around. It might also be why "baby feed" such as eggs or milk might have more of it than you'd expect given the typical VA load of the mother. You would expect that the amount would be LESS than the mother, or the SAME as the mother, not MORE than the mother.
Quote from Retinoicon on September 29, 2024, 7:55 amThanks, Jalee and Tricky for the thoughts on exercise. What you say about exercise makes sense to me.
The original point was on hormesis. Tricky's point applied to adding vegetables to a carnivore diet would be that the vegetables would only provide a hormetic benefit for consuming vegetables in the future. But there are decently documented claims about hormesis giving benefits in slightly different contexts than the original source of the supposed hormesis. For example, the Wikipedia article on hormesis suggests that low dose ionizing radiation exposure lowers cancer risk.
From what I can see, these examples suffer from the typical problems: lack of controls and lack of replication. Identifying "risk" of health outcomes requires the establishment of causative relationships, which are hard to come by confidently in studies of human processes that take years or decades to occur. If you spend any time listening to Bart Kay, you've probably heard this a thousand times already. I think Bart draws too hard a line because there are statistical methods that can help narrow down causative agents in a study that lacks total control (the more variables you measure in a system, the more capable you are of parsing the contributions of those variables to a given outcome), but he's right that pretty much any study of human health that extends beyond 6-12 months is going to be so confounded that you can't confidently establish causation.
Quote from Tricky on September 29, 2024, 1:24 pm
From what I can see, these examples suffer from the typical problems: lack of controls and lack of replication. Identifying "risk" of health outcomes requires the establishment of causative relationships, which are hard to come by confidently in studies of human processes that take years or decades to occur. If you spend any time listening to Bart Kay, you've probably heard this a thousand times already. I think Bart draws too hard a line because there are statistical methods that can help narrow down causative agents in a study that lacks total control (the more variables you measure in a system, the more capable you are of parsing the contributions of those variables to a given outcome), but he's right that pretty much any study of human health that extends beyond 6-12 months is going to be so confounded that you can't confidently establish causation.
That is always possible. I would need to do a deep dive to form an opinion of whether any particular claimed beneficially hormetic effect is really indeed hormetic. It could be that eating vegetables does produce compounds like Nrf2 that bave benefits for other purposes than eating more vegetables.
I'm paraphrasing my friend here, I don't think she will mind. She is low vitamin A and having the troubles with worms from drinking un-purified water: (and parasite load might be a thing that shortens lives in cats and people)
"I think my diet is good and my detox capabilities are good and at the same time…we maybe need something to kill the suckers in order for them to BE detoxed. …and maybe, I am considering, certain plants are not so much “superfoods” as they are useful to eat periodically in order to use their plant chemicals in our defense to kill parasites etc…"
And, me talking again, tropical countries often have daily cuisines full of harsh plant chemicals. Northern countries have histories of harsh herbal dewormers used at least yearly and as needed. It could be that alcohol directly kills parasites (much as we would use chlorine tablets) and vinegar too. Which may explain why they have their adherents who say they are healthy in small amounts. In large amounts, the toxins start killing the host as well, LOL.