My Nutritional Science Blog

[Let Go]

*trying to inject Ray Peat ideas into a normie-ish nutrition/health podcast*

Great job with Danny. He has always seemed very open minded

 

[Kyle M]

Great job with Danny. He has always seemed very open minded

Thanks, I hadn't heard of him before he contacted me, but he was great to talk to.

 

[Kyle M]

http://www.nutricrinology.com/?p=270

 

[Kyle M]

My Seattle talk about how sugar doesn't cause insulin resistance. Watch and add to the dislikes plz

 

[Amazoniac]

This appeared on a PC with Travisord. He consented in sharing part of his class here:

Check-out how Garza stylishly-avoids using "The Steinbeck" in his article:

Nieves, Ashley, and Luis A. Garza. "Does prostaglandin D₂ hold the cure to male pattern baldness?." Experimental dermatology 23.4 (2014): 224-227.

➫ "Therefore, it was important to demonstrate that PGD₂ indeed did decrease hair lengthening in both man and mouse." ―Garza
​

Using "The Steinbeck" can be tempting at times—and may be even considered novel by some—but it has actually been made trite through its indiscriminate use a few molecular geneticists about ten years ago.

Hastings Gilford was the first to pen The Steinbeck—before even Steinbeck:

"Such a smashing of cherished beliefs would not so much matter were they mere idols, serving no useful purpose, and were it not for the enormous prestige of research, now widely regarded as authoritative in all that concerns cancer in both mice and men." —Gilford​

Gilford, Hastings. "The New Cancer Problem." British medical journal 1.3811 (1934): 121.​

Steinbeck's novel was published three years later.

So shocking was the novel—and so close the Great Depression in the minds of medical researchers—that The Steinbeck, as such, wasn't even attempted until decades later. Brain pathologist RH Gorrill—apparently while having a flashback from his undergraduate Literature 101 class—was the first man to use the term post-Steinbeck in 1960. This was done in an article detailing experimental manipulations on the mouse kidney entitled: "The pathogenesis and evolution of experimental pyelonephritis in the mouse with special reference to comparable conditions in man."

"Here again the distortion of the pelvis and contraction of the cortex is a familiar feature in both mice and men and the mechanism is replacement fibrosis of the necrotic portion of the medulla." —Gorrill
​

It became a trendy phrase in the '60s and '70s among researchers, in a manner which can only be described as "name dropping;" a way of signifying to colleagues that one is both witty and well-read—or so they had hoped.. .

"In both mice and men the inheritance of susceptibility to cancer is due in most cases
to multiple genes with variable penetrance, the expression changing with environmental conditions;" —Burdette (1962)​

"The extrapolation of mouse genetics to man is not without danger, but both human family and
population studies on non-metrical variation (reviewed by Berry in press) support the contention
that the variants are inherited in a similar way in both mice and men..." —Berry (1967)​

"This would lead to an increase in lymphocytic malignancies in old age, a phenomenon observed in both mice and men, and to autoantibody production by mutant lymphocytes." —Fudenberg (1968)​

Researchers even started using it metaphorically, in a general sense to describe all of the Animal Kingdom:

"In both mice and men the genes associated with the antigens which evoke strong reactions
behave as Mendelian dominants," —Woodruff (1970)​

"Since most muscles contain one neuromuscular junction per myofiber in both mice and men,
the greater muscle mass of man is largely due to greater myofiber size than number of myofibers," —Zakgs (1970)​

"The Steinbeck"continued to gain popularity until its improprietous use in the high visibility journal nature, no less, led thousands to imagine the testicular differentiation of the novels main character Lennie Small:

"Thus, we have invariably observed an association between the presence of HY antigen and testicular differentiation in both mice and men, regardless of phenotype". —Åstedt (1976)​

Shocked that the naive Scandanavian would do such a thing, a five-year hiatus followed; a period of silence. David E Briles artfully revived the term in the Journal of Experimental Medicine with a literal use, citing proof of demonstration in both men (2) and in mice (1).

"Although it has been clearly demonstrated that antibodies to pneumococcal capsules are protective in both mice and men (1, 2)," ―Briles​

A stylish revival, no doubt. What was to follow would be a veritable explosion of The Steinbeck in the '80s.

Not only had it become trendy, it had be become requisite. Editors took preference, and would even send-back drafts demanding rewording. The stage was set for this metaphor to become as solidified in the medical journals as it had been already in classic literature, and Medical students with minors in poetry were excited to the point of thinking about which other literary allusions they could interject.. . .

All hopes were shattered in 1992, when mass murdering psychopath John Malkovich was shown petting—and then killing—beloved lab animals (and a human) in a film adaption of Steinbeck's "Of Mice of Men".




Editors who'd seen this movie were aware of the effect the continuing use of "The Steinbeck" this would have on readers, especially in articles involving rabbits. Editors who hadn't seen this movie, were made aware. What followed was an essential blacklisting of the phrase for nearly a decade.

And the geneticist Stephen Welle in 2001, ostensibly unaware of the delicate history of the situation, used it thrice in the same paragraph.

"The decisions were as follows: 17 results were similar in mice and men and 32 were dissimilar;
6 were classified as “overexpressed in both mice and men,” 19 as “overexpressed in mice but
not in men,” 11 as “underexpressed in both mice and men,” and 13 as “underexpressed ..." ―Welle​

This entritened the term to such a degree that essentially only Asians, South Americans, and Indian Subcontinentals would ever attempt to use it—native English speakers had reservations. A few tentacles of Rupert Murdoch's publishing empire actually allowed some of this.

Luis Garza—besides discovering how eicosanoid prostaglanin D₂, and no other, inhibits hair follicles—demonstrates his propriety by avoiding the Steinbeck; this move would further solidify his reputation. He knows that any mention, post-1992, of the phrase makes the reader stop cold—paralyzed with fear—imagining John Malkovich (or Lennie Small) actually petting to death the lab animals he's trying to describe.

"Therefore, it was important to demonstrate that PGD₂ indeed did decrease hair lengthening in both man and mouse." ―Garza (2014)​

@Kyle M @NickC

 

[Kyle M]

This appeared on a PC with Travisord. He consented in sharing part of his class here:

@Kyle M @NickC

Is this a play on the use of mouse and human studies in my talk? lol

 

[Amazoniac]

Is this a play on the use of mouse and human studies in my talk? lol

I'm being irresponsible for not having listened to it yet..

 

[Kyle M]

I'm being irresponsible for not having listened to it yet..

That’s fine, I’m just wondering what the post you made was about.

 

[meatbag]

man those comments are rough haha"what a facile comment!","when the body baths in chemicals it becomes resistant to that chemical", "extremely danger video!".
converted to mp3 and gonna listen to it tomorrow! Enjoyed the last presentation you did (also it'd be cool if you could post an mp3 download, you'd probz get more listens too)

 

[Kyle M]

man those comments are rough haha"what a facile comment!","when the body baths in chemicals it becomes resistant to that chemical", "extremely danger video!".
converted to mp3 and gonna listen to it tomorrow! Enjoyed the last presentation you did (also it'd be cool if you could post an mp3 download, you'd probz get more listens too)

They are rough. I’ll look into hosting an mp3 version on my website.

 

[Ideonaut]

thnx. this nudges me over the edge to try very low fat.

 

[Amazoniac]

That’s fine, I’m just wondering what the post you made was about.

I thought that it was going to be useful for you somehow in the future, such as thesis, studies, etc.

 

[Kyle M]

I thought that it was going to be useful for you somehow in the future, such as thesis, studies, etc.

oh ok cool, I'll check it out

 

[Amazoniac]

oh ok cool, I'll check it out

Of course you will, it's by Travis: it's not optional.

 

[Koveras]

This appeared on a PC with Travisord. He consented in sharing part of his class here:

@Kyle M @NickC

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29032250

 

[Kyle M]

Ray Peat-inspired podcast that I was just on:
EP31: Estrogen Misconceptions & How We've Been Misled With Kyle Mamounis

 

[Kyle M]

For anyone interested in what I *really* do, this is my first publication in my new lab: Structure and enzymatic properties of an unusual cysteine tryptophylquinone-dependent glycine oxidase from Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea. - PubMed - NCBI

It doesn't have anything to do with nutrition or health.