7 replies to this topic

[Chrystoph Kardashev]

I'm going through the nutritional targets section of the cronometer and reading on the various nutrients I am not educated on as my first step towards cron. The values are so far based on my weight, height and BMI/R @ a macro ratio of 1:1:1 because I haven't made my mind up on that yet plus I'm soon starting a gym routine and will have to take into account my intention to shed body fat and gain some muscle mass. I've also filled in some missing minimum and maximum values based on what I found online but much blank space remains and I know this is mostly due to insufficient data but I wonder how up-to-date the cronometer database on this stuff is... I'm listing the vacant values below just in case anyone's come across any study that indicates an RDA of sorts or at least suggests an Upper Limit. Or perhaps it's best to avoid it? Disregard it?

 

-Every subset of vitamin A besides Beta-carotene

-Every Subset of Vitamin E

-Starch

-Sugar and all its subsets

-Monounsaturated

-Polyunsaturated

-Upper Limit of Omega-6

-Upper Limit of Phytosterol

 

As for proteins:

-The minimum of Alenine, Arginine, Aspartic Acid, Glycine, Hydroxyproline, Proline, Serine.

-The maximum of Cystine, Histidine, Hydroxyproline, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Serine, Threonine, Valine

 

 

 general.jpg   24.46KB   2 downloads

===================================

 vitamins.jpg   94.91KB   2 downloads

===================================

 minerals.jpg   54.26KB   2 downloads

===================================

 carbs.jpg   44.64KB   2 downloads

===================================

 lipids.jpg   39.94KB   2 downloads

===================================

 protein.jpg   68.66KB   2 downloads

Edited by Chrystoph Kardashev, 20 December 2014 - 11:09 PM.

[Michael]

Posted Today, 06:08 PM
I'm going through the nutritional targets section of the cronometer and reading on the various nutrients I am not educated on as my first step towards cron.

Congratulations for using nutrition software! I am amazed by the number of people who continue to try to just wing it.
 

I'm listing the vacant values below just in case anyone's come across any study that indicates an RDA of sorts or at least suggests an Upper Limit. Or perhaps it's best to avoid it? Disregard it?

 
-Every subset of vitamin A besides Beta-carotene

I target 18 mg of lycopene, based on the epidemiology. Yes, you have to eat a lot of heat-processed tomatoes to get there.

 

-Every Subset of Vitamin E

I target 5 mg of γ-tocopherol, based on the epidemiology. This is actually difficult for me to get, despite eating a fairly high-fat diet, because it's mostly found in seed oils which I don't use. I buy it in liquid form and fortify my EVOO with it, titrating the dose to get me 5 mg after 2 T/d. No reason to target any particular am't of the others.

 

-Starch

No reason for any particular target AFAICS.

 

-Sugar and all its subsets

46 g of fructose max, tho' I will say with some embarrassment that I don't recall where I came up with this. If you aren't consuming added sugars and aren't a fruitarian, you're probably in no risk of hitting that.

 

-Monounsaturated

Get 2 T/d of real, ultra-premium, high-oleic EVOO/d (scroll down here); I don't know that there's a good reason to target MUFA in g/d.

 

-Upper Limit of Omega-6

Not clear IMO, but I think 17 g (the current AI) is too high, especially if you eat any meat (arachidonic acid).

 

See this post on the "DHA-Accelerated Aging Hypothesis/MiRFAA for my guidelines on intake of unsaturated fats for people on CR; and reasons to think that saturated fat really is bad for you (followed by additional evidence on saturated fat).

 

-Upper Limit of Phytosterol

Not worth worrying about from dietary sources AFAIK.

 

-The minimum of Alanine, Arginine, Aspartic Acid, Glycine, Hydroxyproline, Proline, Serine.

None of these are essential aminos, and I'm not aware of any good reason to actively increase one's intake.

 

-The maximum of Cystine, Histidine, Hydroxyproline, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Serine, Threonine, Valine

 

I also moderate my intake of methionine + cysteine and of leucine (see this and this for more recent studies on health effects of high intake of leucine; we were discussing this study and this one). Note that the methionine post was heavy on emphasizing the limitations of the methionine restriction research at that time; today, I find it pretty convincing -- just irrelevant for human application, whereas methionine moderation is justified practice. (Please, please, please, people, stop muddying the water by referring to limiting one's intake of some nutrient to RDAish levels as "restriction" of that nutrient! Biogerontological studies of protein, Met + Cys, Leu, Trp, or Calorie restriction involve restricting consumption of these nutrients to levels far below the animals' "RDA" intake; aside from CR itself, I don't practice or endorse that, and neither does anyone I know of (including a few folks who do, unfortunately, refer to what they do as "restriction" of that nutrient)).

 

Here are my my guidelines on overall protein intake for people on CR.

Edited by Michael, 22 December 2014 - 08:22 PM.

[Chrystoph Kardashev]

Thanks for your input michael! Can you explain what you mean by T/d and g/d? Maybe I'm just tired! I'll look into that EVOO you mentioned too.

[Michael]

Thanks for your input michael! Can you explain what you mean by T/d and g/d? Maybe I'm just tired! I'll look into that EVOO you mentioned too.

 

Tablespoons/day and grams/day.

[Chrystoph Kardashev]

Alright, got it. I've played around with cronometer a bit now, adding random food items and listing the healthier aspects of my current unplanned diet and noticed a few peculiarities. Entering a long coveted delicacy of mine, Natto, a mere cup of it to be precise, shoots Omega 3 & 6 to 80% (1.3g) & 96% (9.6g) of the standard minimum value. The subsets of protein that had a preset standard value are all 50-100+% (particularly glutamic acid) on 1 cup of natto while overall protein is around 6% so I'm wondering if there's reason to monitor them at all. I am still ignorant to all this.

 

Next I entered a short list of foods that make up a mediterranian salad I frequently eat (arugula, tomatoes, olives, carrots, cucumber and grilled eggplatnt, zucchini & red pepper). Distribution of nutrients was as expected but I noticed Vitamin A shot up to 26366 IU, 2.6 times higher than the default maximum and b-carotene similar story. The way I interpret the values on conometer is with Minimum being an RDA of sorts and Maximum being a safe upper limit of sorts; is that right?

 

Lastly I want to ask about the significance of Lutein, Zeaxanthin and Retinol. I can't seem to get a clear picture.

[Chrystoph Kardashev]

Edit: A cup of cooked-from-fresh spinach, for example, boosts Folate to 66%, Vitamin K to 740%, iron to 80% and Manganese to 73%. Standard values. And again vitamin A and beta-carotene are well past the maximum. I've been largely misinformed about nutrition for most of my life so I'm beginning to wonder if I was underestimating the availability of certain nutrients?

Edited by Chrystoph Kardashev, 22 December 2014 - 12:51 PM.

[Michael]

Natto, a mere cup of it to be precise, shoots Omega 3 & 6 to 80% (1.3g) & 96% (9.6g) of the standard minimum value.

 
Do you eat fatty fish, or is all your omega-3 from plants? If the latter, you'll probably want more like 3-6 g ALA.
 

The subsets of protein that had a preset standard value are all 50-100+% (particularly glutamic acid) on 1 cup of natto while overall protein is around 6% so I'm wondering if there's reason to monitor them at all. I am still ignorant to all this.

 
By "subsets of protein," you mean amino acids, right? First, it isn't enough to just look at getting 100% of the RDA for each: to make efficient use of them, you also need adequate total protein and for the amino acid profile to be relatively balanced (ie, if you're getting 200% of the RDA of seven essential aminos, but only 110% of the eighth, you actually are only making effective use of ~110% of RDA for the other 7; ceteris paribus, you would want to bring that 7th up to 200%). This poorly-understood, oft-misrepresented subject is discussed in the last IOM report on macronutrients, beginning here, with discussions of actual calculations beginning here. 
 
The relevant info is in Tables 10-24 and 10-25. NB, as they say: "the requirement pattern proposed here for adults is fundamentally different from a number of previously recommended requirement patterns (Table 10-25). The [previous] pattern for adults (FAO/WHO/UNU, 1985) has uniformly lower proportions of all the indispensable amino acids, as these requirement values were determined from studies of nitrogen balance, which are now considered to be not as reliable as values derived from metabolic amino acid data (see previous discussion)."
 
I realize now I'd forgotten to include any suggestions on amino acid targets in my earlier post; I'll update today or in the next few.
 

Next I entered a short list of foods that make up a mediterranian salad I frequently eat ... Vitamin A shot up to 26366 IU, 2.6 times higher than the default maximum and b-carotene similar story.

 
Don't worry about the maximum for β-carotene, or even for "vitamin A:" it's only preformed retinol about which there's an overdose worry. Apply the UL there.
 

Lastly I want to ask about the significance of Lutein, Zeaxanthin and Retinol. I can't seem to get a clear picture.

Lutein and zeaxanthin seem to be protective against macular degeneration; here are some ideas on targets from studies reviewed in the IOM Report Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Selenium, and Carotenoids ( 2000 ):

 

Le Marchand et al. (1993) found that higher dietary intake of α-carotene, β-carotene, and lutein was significantly associated with lower lung cancer risk in both men and women. Optimal levels of intake for each of these three carotenoids were as follows: β-carotene more than 4.0 mg/day for men and more than 4.4 mg/day for women; α-carotene more than 0.6 mg/day for men and more than 0.7 mg/day for women; and lutein more than 3.3 mg/day for both males and females. Ziegler et al. (1996a) also found significant inverse trends for dietary α- and β-carotene and a marginally significant effect for lutein and zeaxanthin with risk of lung cancer. Optimal levels in this study were as follows: β-carotene 2.5–5.9 mg/day; α-carotene more than 1.5 mg/day; and lutein and zeaxanthin more than 4.2 mg/day. ... [p. 343]

 

Recently, the U.S. Health Professionals Follow-up Study reported a relative risk for cataract extraction in men of 0.81 (95 percent CI = 0.65−1.01) for those at the top quintile of lutein and zeaxanthin intake (median intake of 6.87 mg/day) relative to the lowest quintile of intake (Brown et al., 1999). Similar inverse associations for dietary lutein and zeaxanthin were seen in the Nurses' Health Study cohort, with a relative risk of 0.78 (95 percent CI = 0.63−0.95) for those at the top quintile of total lutein and zeaxanthin intake (median intake of 11.68 mg/day) relative to the lowest quintile of intake (Chasan-Taber et al., 1999). ... [p.351]

 

In addition to real differences in intakes between populations, more info on levels of carotenoids has slowly become available over the years, so newer studies wth more up-to-date nutrient databases will tend to report higher intakes across the population.

 

[In the case-control] multicenter Eye Disease Case-Control Study ... Five ophthalmology centers in the United States. ... [with] A total of 356 case subjects who were diagnosed with the advanced stage of AMD within 1 year prior to their enrollment, aged 55 to 80 years, and residing near a participating clinical center. The 520 control subjects were from the same geographic areas as case subjects, had other ocular diseases, and were frequency-matched to cases according to age and sex. ... A higher dietary intake of carotenoids was associated with a lower risk for AMD. Adjusting for other risk factors for AMD, we found that those in the highest quintile of carotenoid intake had a 43% lower risk for AMD compared with those in the lowest quintile (odds ratio, 0.57; 95% confidence interval, 0.35 to 0.92; P for trend = .02). Among the specific carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin, which are primarily obtained from dark green, leafy vegetables, were most strongly associated with a reduced risk for AMD (P for trend = .001). [Looking at their Table 2, "Odds Ratios for Exudative Age-Related Macular Degeneration by Quintile of Energy-Adjusted Nutrient Intake," the highest-quintile lutein + zeaxanthin intake is 5757 IU]

PMID:    7933422

 

I am unclear on how these investigators converted μg lutein + zeaxanthin to IU.

[Chrystoph Kardashev]

Once again Micheal, thanks for the info. I had a look through many of the links you provided and its done wonders if only to broaden my scope on the complexity of all this. I've been taking recipe ideas from April's blog, adding to my own and doing them on the cronometer and, my god, once you've added 10 recipes fulfilling the cronometer values becomes a game of mix&match. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, some walnuts for fat, tomato juice for lycopene, vitamin D supp and bam. Nothing above max, nothing above min, easy on the wallet too by the looks of it. Big thanks!

 

The only wall I hit is in regards to protein, again going by the values; nothing practical yet. Getting RDA on "protein" is easy but the amino acids are out of whack and few ever meet 100% when no meat is involved. Getting approx. equal amount of aminos shouldn't be a concern as I'm not CRing right now but how do you manage that? Supps?

Edited by Chrystoph Kardashev, 24 December 2014 - 09:41 PM.