This series is getting more and more interesting. Thanks. Looking forward to the next installment.

Oh, my - there's so much to comment on this post, I scarcely know where to begin. Being neither premenopausal nor postmenopausal (yes, I am smack dab in the middle of the peculiar Hell known as perimenopause), I wonder what my cortisol levels look like. They're far less than they used to be, I can tell you that - removing NADs from my diet has done wonders for the murderous mood swings I used to experience. It's funny, too, because shortly after I moved to northeast Ohio, which is one of the most overcast areas in the country (I was born and raised in Texas), I was diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder. For the first four winters I was impossible to live with by February. This last winter, though? More or less smooth sailing.

This doesn't even begin to address the fact I no longer think about food constantly. Well, okay, I think about food all the time, it's what I do, but I don't think about eating constantly. So don't tell me diet isn't at root of our society's growing health problems. I'll laugh in your face.

BTW, JS - just received your book; I'm not far into yet, but I am enjoying it immensely so far.

This has been a fascinating series, but the above is my favorite installment yet. JS, you are doing a great job of keeping these articles succinct and profound.

I didn't know that acts of self-control actually affect blood glucose levels. This helps explain the late-night binge phenomenon: the mind wills the body to stay awake, lowering blood glucose and driving up cortisol, leading to snowballing hunger and disintegrating self-control. Personally, I have plenty of willpower during the day to make rational food choices, but keep me up past my usual bedtime and I am easily reduced to zombiehood, my hand reaching of its own accord for the salted macadamias...

In her intriguing blog entry from which the quote above, Emily Deans describes a study on pigs. Those pigs that ate junk food to the point of obesity presented decreased PFC activity. So the mental "policeman" atrophies to its weakest when its discipline is needed most. Count that as another strike against willpower as a method of weight loss.

In my own failed diets of the past, relying on willpower was a very ineffective and unpleasant tactic. What finally worked for me was a fativorous paleo diet. Only after fixing my nutrition did physical exercise became easy and enjoyable.

i think your posts are all fine, but then i've been reading up on nutrition from this stance for 4-5 years started with Fathead movie blog, then onto robb wolf, MDA, GCBC, then fathead movie, followed some of WAPF, read primal body primal mind, robb wolfs book, primal blueprint, WWGF etc etc
and it all adds layers to your understanding but then trying to pass that information on in a bite sized portion (normally in like 5 minutes of conversation) is practically impossible.
especially when the other person believes the government knows all and are not themselves beholden to corporations etc etc.

but again the person i referred to refuses to try/learn stuff, i meet these people a lot.

About a "For Begginers" section, I realise you were thinking about lower science density, but I think the article about meat rotting is really good, in the sense that it shoots down a commom missconception very well, shows there's a lot of bad information out there and that you're not just spitting things out and should be generally engaging for anyone actually interested.

It's a good way to make people start questioning instead of writting you off as some crazy guy making things up.

Also, in my opinion you shouldn't care too much about people who want it very simple right now, as I kind of doubt they'd buy into it before it gets much more popular.

I think that if there's anything to a blood type diet it lies in finding clues to what keeps an individual person's GI tract happy and what makes it unhappy--what is more likely to lead to a leaky/permeable gut in one person versus another. The ideas Peter D'Adamo set forth are too easily dismissed and the one guy I saw try to do it by appealing to some scientific fact has since strongly discredited himself in my eyes so as far as I'm concerned, we're back to square one.

I have more respect for someone who goes, "Hm, we should test some of these ideas and see if they hold up," than someone who says, "Oh, that's B.S., everyone knows that isn't true." Show me the evidence or STFU, is the way I see it. Saying "there is no evidence" is not enough--I wouldn't begin to know where to look for it in the first place!

I've actually read D'Adamo, and one thing people claim about him that isn't true is that he says type As are supposed to be vegetarian. What he actually said was type As *do better* as vegetarians. But whenever I see that misquoted I know to not take the detractor seriously, even if it turns out D'Adamo is totally wrong. Just like the people who talk trash about Dr. Atkins and then claim he said to eat burgers and bacon and cheese and nothing else.

This is an awesome series of yours, by the way. I refer people to your stuff from time to time.