Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
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Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
Admin Mon Jan 03, 2011 2:22 am
This thread will be for all write up postings. Will be easy to direct members to this thread to find what they one.
Thanks everyone.
Thanks everyone.
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Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:08 am
Hahaha...
http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/breadkills.html
Bread Kills!
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. Every piece of bread you eat brings you nearer to death.
5. Bread is associated with all the major diseases of the body. For example, nearly all sick people have eaten bread. The effects are obviously cumulative:
99.9% of all people who die from cancer have eaten bread.
100% of all soldiers have eaten bread.
96.9% of all Communist sympathizers have eaten bread.
99.7% of the people involved in air and auto accidents ate bread within 6 months preceding the accident.
93.1% of juvenile delinquents came from homes where bread is served frequently.
6. Evidence points to the long-term effects of bread eating: Of all people born before 1839 who later dined on bread, there has been a 100% mortality rate.
7. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as a teaspoon of dough can be used to suffocate a lab rat. The average American eats more bread than that in one day!
8. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
9. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and being fed only water begged for bread after as little as two days.
10. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
11. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
12. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
13. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
14. Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.
http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/breadkills.html
Bread Kills!
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. Every piece of bread you eat brings you nearer to death.
5. Bread is associated with all the major diseases of the body. For example, nearly all sick people have eaten bread. The effects are obviously cumulative:
99.9% of all people who die from cancer have eaten bread.
100% of all soldiers have eaten bread.
96.9% of all Communist sympathizers have eaten bread.
99.7% of the people involved in air and auto accidents ate bread within 6 months preceding the accident.
93.1% of juvenile delinquents came from homes where bread is served frequently.
6. Evidence points to the long-term effects of bread eating: Of all people born before 1839 who later dined on bread, there has been a 100% mortality rate.
7. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as a teaspoon of dough can be used to suffocate a lab rat. The average American eats more bread than that in one day!
8. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
9. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and being fed only water begged for bread after as little as two days.
10. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
11. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
12. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
13. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
14. Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:12 am
Not bad for a mainstream article!
7 Habits That Make You Fat
By David Zinczenko
Jan 03, 2011
According to recent research, the average person makes 200 decisions every day that will influence his or her weight. And most of these decisions aren’t monumental choices, like “Should I become an elite marathon runner?” or “Should I move to Wisconsin and live entirely on bratwurst and cheese curds?” Most, in fact, are tiny little choices—habits, really—that over the long run, lead us down one of two paths: The road to ripped, or the freeway to flab.
And guess what? That’s great news! Because it means that you don’t have to run marathons—or even give up bratwurst—to start losing serious weight. You just need to break 7 very simple, common habits—tiny changes that have nothing to do with diet and exercise, but have everything to do with dropping pounds, looking great, and making a huge improvement in your health.
FAT HABIT #1: Putting the Serving Dishes on the Table
Researchers at Cornell University found that when people served themselves from the kitchen counter or the stove, they ate up to 35 percent less food than they did when the grub was on the kitchen or dining room table. When there’s distance between us and our food, the scientists theorize, we think harder about whether we’re really hungry for more.
FAT HABIT #2: Getting Too Little (or Too Much) Sleep
A sleep schedule is vital to any weight-loss plan, say Wake Forest University researchers who tracked study participants for 5 years. In the under-40 age group, people who slept 5 hours or less each night gained nearly 2½ times as much abdominal fat as those who logged 6 to 7 hours; also, those who slept 8 hours or longer added nearly twice as much belly fat as the 6- to 7-hour group. People with sleep deficits tend to eat more (and use less energy) because they’re tired, says study coauthor Kristen Hairston, M.D., while those who sleep longer than 8 hours a night tend to be less active.
Bonus Tip: Preparing your own food is always healthier, and books like Cook This, Not That! can show you how to easily save time, money and calories. If you do go out, though, be prepared for the caloric calamities that lurk at restaurants by avoiding this list of The 10 Worst Fast Food Meals in America.
FAT HABIT #3: Not Multitasking While Watching TV
We don't need to tell you that too much TV has been linked to weight gain. But here's what you may not realize: You can have your TV and watch it, too. Just do something else at the same time. Washing dishes burns 70 calories every 30 minutes. So does ironing. Here's another thing to keep in mind: Cutting TV time even a little helps you burn calories, say researchers at the University of Vermont. In their study, overweight participants who cut their viewing time in half (from an average of 5 hours to 2.5) burned an extra 119 calories a day. “Nearly anything you do—even reading—uses more energy than watching TV,” says study author Jennifer J. Otten, Ph.D.
Bonus Tip: Got 10, 20, or 30 pounds to lose? Research shows that you're more likely to succeed if you have a friend or family member join you on your quest. (That's why we created the Belly Off! Club, a FREE weight loss community where members motivate and support one another. Click here to join today.)
FAT HABIT #4: Drinking Soda
Researchers say you can measure a person’s risk of obesity by measuring his or her soda intake. Versus people who don’t drink sweetened sodas, here’s what your daily intake means:
½ can = 26 percent increased risk of being overweight or obese
½ to 1 can = 30.4 percent increased risk
1 to 2 cans = 32.8 percent increased risk
More than 2 cans = 47.2 percent increased risk
That’s a pretty remarkable set of stats. You don’t have to guzzle Double Gulps from 7-Eleven to put yourself at risk—you just need to indulge in one or two cans a day. Wow. And because high-fructose corn syrup is so cheap, food marketers keep making serving sizes bigger (even the “small” at most movie theaters is enough to drown a raccoon). That means we’re drinking more than ever and don’t even realize it: In the 1950s, the average person drank 11 gallons of soda a year. By the mid-2000s, we were drinking 46 gallons a year. A Center for Science in the Public Interest report contained this shocking sentence: “Carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet.”
Bonus Tip: When it comes to making us fat, soda is only one of the big offenders. Other sugary drinks can add belly fat fast, too--so never imbide anything on this shocking list of The 20 Worst Drinks in America. Otherwise you can be slurping more than an entire day's worth of calories, sugar and fat--in just a few minutes.
FAT HABIT #5: Taking Big Bites
Dutch researchers recently found that big bites and fast chewing can lead to overeating. In the study, people who chewed large bites of food for 3 seconds consumed 52 percent more food before feeling full than those who chewed small bites for 9 seconds. The reason: Tasting food for a longer period of time (no matter how much of it you bite off) signals your brain to make you feel full sooner, say the scientists.
Bonus Tip: Now that you know how to optimize your eating, you need to know the foods that marketers try to convince us our healthy--when they're anything but. Check out this indispensable Eat This, Not That! slideshow of 25 New 'Healthy' Foods that Aren’t!
Fat Habit #6: Not Eating Enough Fat
You don’t have to go whole hog on a low-carb diet to see results. Simply swapping a few hundred calories of carbs for a little fat may help you lose weight and reduce your blood-insulin levels, according to researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. People in their study who consumed just 43 percent of their calories from carbohydrates felt fuller after 4 hours and maintained their blood-sugar levels longer than those who ate 55 percent carbs. Carbs can cause blood-sugar levels to spike and then crash, leading to hunger and overeating, says study author Barbara Gower, Ph.D. Fat, on the other hand, keeps you satiated longer. Some easy swaps: butter instead of jam on toast; bacon instead of potatoes; low-fat milk instead of a sports drink.
FAT HABIT #7: Not Getting the Best Guidance!
Signing up for e-mails (or tweets) that contain weight-loss advice can help you drop pounds, a new study reveals. When researchers from Canada sent diet and exercise advice to more than 1,000 working adults weekly, they discovered that the recipients boosted their physical activity and ate smarter. People who didn’t receive the reminders didn’t change. Lucky for you, we publish the best diet and fitness guidance every single day. Sign up for our free daily Eat This, Not That! newsletter or follow me right here on Twitter, and make 2011 your fittest flat-belly year ever!
------------
EAT RIGHT RULE: If your food can go bad, it's good for you. If it can't go bad, it's bad for you. FOLLOW DAVE ZINCZENKO RIGHT HERE ON TWITTER and get FREE health, nutrition and weight-loss secrets like this one every day! You'll lose weight and get healthy faster than ever!
7 Habits That Make You Fat
By David Zinczenko
Jan 03, 2011
According to recent research, the average person makes 200 decisions every day that will influence his or her weight. And most of these decisions aren’t monumental choices, like “Should I become an elite marathon runner?” or “Should I move to Wisconsin and live entirely on bratwurst and cheese curds?” Most, in fact, are tiny little choices—habits, really—that over the long run, lead us down one of two paths: The road to ripped, or the freeway to flab.
And guess what? That’s great news! Because it means that you don’t have to run marathons—or even give up bratwurst—to start losing serious weight. You just need to break 7 very simple, common habits—tiny changes that have nothing to do with diet and exercise, but have everything to do with dropping pounds, looking great, and making a huge improvement in your health.
FAT HABIT #1: Putting the Serving Dishes on the Table
Researchers at Cornell University found that when people served themselves from the kitchen counter or the stove, they ate up to 35 percent less food than they did when the grub was on the kitchen or dining room table. When there’s distance between us and our food, the scientists theorize, we think harder about whether we’re really hungry for more.
FAT HABIT #2: Getting Too Little (or Too Much) Sleep
A sleep schedule is vital to any weight-loss plan, say Wake Forest University researchers who tracked study participants for 5 years. In the under-40 age group, people who slept 5 hours or less each night gained nearly 2½ times as much abdominal fat as those who logged 6 to 7 hours; also, those who slept 8 hours or longer added nearly twice as much belly fat as the 6- to 7-hour group. People with sleep deficits tend to eat more (and use less energy) because they’re tired, says study coauthor Kristen Hairston, M.D., while those who sleep longer than 8 hours a night tend to be less active.
Bonus Tip: Preparing your own food is always healthier, and books like Cook This, Not That! can show you how to easily save time, money and calories. If you do go out, though, be prepared for the caloric calamities that lurk at restaurants by avoiding this list of The 10 Worst Fast Food Meals in America.
FAT HABIT #3: Not Multitasking While Watching TV
We don't need to tell you that too much TV has been linked to weight gain. But here's what you may not realize: You can have your TV and watch it, too. Just do something else at the same time. Washing dishes burns 70 calories every 30 minutes. So does ironing. Here's another thing to keep in mind: Cutting TV time even a little helps you burn calories, say researchers at the University of Vermont. In their study, overweight participants who cut their viewing time in half (from an average of 5 hours to 2.5) burned an extra 119 calories a day. “Nearly anything you do—even reading—uses more energy than watching TV,” says study author Jennifer J. Otten, Ph.D.
Bonus Tip: Got 10, 20, or 30 pounds to lose? Research shows that you're more likely to succeed if you have a friend or family member join you on your quest. (That's why we created the Belly Off! Club, a FREE weight loss community where members motivate and support one another. Click here to join today.)
FAT HABIT #4: Drinking Soda
Researchers say you can measure a person’s risk of obesity by measuring his or her soda intake. Versus people who don’t drink sweetened sodas, here’s what your daily intake means:
½ can = 26 percent increased risk of being overweight or obese
½ to 1 can = 30.4 percent increased risk
1 to 2 cans = 32.8 percent increased risk
More than 2 cans = 47.2 percent increased risk
That’s a pretty remarkable set of stats. You don’t have to guzzle Double Gulps from 7-Eleven to put yourself at risk—you just need to indulge in one or two cans a day. Wow. And because high-fructose corn syrup is so cheap, food marketers keep making serving sizes bigger (even the “small” at most movie theaters is enough to drown a raccoon). That means we’re drinking more than ever and don’t even realize it: In the 1950s, the average person drank 11 gallons of soda a year. By the mid-2000s, we were drinking 46 gallons a year. A Center for Science in the Public Interest report contained this shocking sentence: “Carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet.”
Bonus Tip: When it comes to making us fat, soda is only one of the big offenders. Other sugary drinks can add belly fat fast, too--so never imbide anything on this shocking list of The 20 Worst Drinks in America. Otherwise you can be slurping more than an entire day's worth of calories, sugar and fat--in just a few minutes.
FAT HABIT #5: Taking Big Bites
Dutch researchers recently found that big bites and fast chewing can lead to overeating. In the study, people who chewed large bites of food for 3 seconds consumed 52 percent more food before feeling full than those who chewed small bites for 9 seconds. The reason: Tasting food for a longer period of time (no matter how much of it you bite off) signals your brain to make you feel full sooner, say the scientists.
Bonus Tip: Now that you know how to optimize your eating, you need to know the foods that marketers try to convince us our healthy--when they're anything but. Check out this indispensable Eat This, Not That! slideshow of 25 New 'Healthy' Foods that Aren’t!
Fat Habit #6: Not Eating Enough Fat
You don’t have to go whole hog on a low-carb diet to see results. Simply swapping a few hundred calories of carbs for a little fat may help you lose weight and reduce your blood-insulin levels, according to researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. People in their study who consumed just 43 percent of their calories from carbohydrates felt fuller after 4 hours and maintained their blood-sugar levels longer than those who ate 55 percent carbs. Carbs can cause blood-sugar levels to spike and then crash, leading to hunger and overeating, says study author Barbara Gower, Ph.D. Fat, on the other hand, keeps you satiated longer. Some easy swaps: butter instead of jam on toast; bacon instead of potatoes; low-fat milk instead of a sports drink.
FAT HABIT #7: Not Getting the Best Guidance!
Signing up for e-mails (or tweets) that contain weight-loss advice can help you drop pounds, a new study reveals. When researchers from Canada sent diet and exercise advice to more than 1,000 working adults weekly, they discovered that the recipients boosted their physical activity and ate smarter. People who didn’t receive the reminders didn’t change. Lucky for you, we publish the best diet and fitness guidance every single day. Sign up for our free daily Eat This, Not That! newsletter or follow me right here on Twitter, and make 2011 your fittest flat-belly year ever!
------------
EAT RIGHT RULE: If your food can go bad, it's good for you. If it can't go bad, it's bad for you. FOLLOW DAVE ZINCZENKO RIGHT HERE ON TWITTER and get FREE health, nutrition and weight-loss secrets like this one every day! You'll lose weight and get healthy faster than ever!
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:21 am
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/01/paleolithic-diet-clinical-trials-part-v.html
Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials, Part V
Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's group has published a new paleolithic diet paper in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism, titled "A Paleolithic Diet is More Satiating per Calorie than a Mediterranean-like Diet in Individuals with Ischemic Heart Disease" (1).
The data in this paper are from the same intervention as his group's 2007 paper in Diabetologia (2). To review the results of this paper, 12 weeks of a Paleolithic-style diet caused impressive fat loss and improvement in glucose tolerance, compared to 12 weeks of a Mediterranean-style diet, in volunteers with pre-diabetes or diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Participants who started off with diabetes ended up without it. A Paleolithic diet excludes grains, dairy, legumes and any other category of food that was not a major human food source prior to agriculture. I commented on this study a while back (3, 4).
One of the most intriguing findings in his 2007 study was the low calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. Despite receiving no instruction to reduce calorie intake, the Paleolithic group only ate 1,388 calories per day, compared to 1,823 calories per day for the Mediterranean group*. That's a remarkably low ad libitum calorie intake in the former (and a fairly low intake in the latter as well).
With such a low calorie intake over 12 weeks, you might think the Paleolithic group was starving. Fortunately, the authors had the foresight to measure satiety, or fullness, in both groups during the intervention. They found that satiety was almost identical in the two groups, despite the 24% lower calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. In other words, the Paleolithic group was just as full as the Mediterranean group, despite a considerably lower intake of calories. This implies to me that the body fat "set point" decreased, allowing a reduced calorie intake while body fat stores were burned to make up the calorie deficit. I suspect it also decreased somewhat in the Mediterranean group, although we can't know for sure because we don't have baseline satiety data for comparison.
There are a few possible explanations for this result. The first is that the Paleolithic group was eating more protein, a highly satiating macronutrient. However, given the fact that absolute protein intake was scarcely different between groups, I think this is unlikely to explain the reduced calorie intake.
A second possibility is that certain potentially damaging Neolithic foods (e.g., wheat and refined sugar) interfere with leptin signaling**, and removing them lowers fat mass by allowing leptin to function correctly. Dr. Lindeberg and colleagues authored a hypothesis paper on this topic in 2005 (5).
A third possibility is that a major dietary change of any kind lowers the body fat setpoint and reduces calorie intake for a certain period of time. In support of this hypothesis, both low-carbohydrate and low-fat diet trials show that overweight people spontaneously eat fewer calories when instructed to modify their diets in either direction (6, 7). More extreme changes may cause a larger decrease in calorie intake and fat mass, as evidenced by the results of low-fat vegan diet trials (8, 9). Chris Voigt's potato diet also falls into this category (10, 11). I think there may be something about changing food-related sensory cues that alters the defended level of fat mass. A similar idea is the basis of Seth Roberts' book The Shangri-La Diet.
If I had to guess, I would think the second and third possibilities contributed to the finding that Paleolithic dieters lost more fat without feeling hungry over the 12 week diet period.
*Intakes were determined using 4-day weighed food records.
**Leptin is a hormone produced by body fat that reduces food intake and increases energy expenditure by acting in the brain. The more fat a person carries, the more leptin they produce, and hypothetically this should keep body fat in a narrow window by this form of "negative feedback". Clearly, that's not the whole story, otherwise obesity wouldn't exist. A leading hypothesis is that resistance to the hormone leptin causes this feedback loop to defend a higher level of fat mass.
Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials, Part V
Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's group has published a new paleolithic diet paper in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism, titled "A Paleolithic Diet is More Satiating per Calorie than a Mediterranean-like Diet in Individuals with Ischemic Heart Disease" (1).
The data in this paper are from the same intervention as his group's 2007 paper in Diabetologia (2). To review the results of this paper, 12 weeks of a Paleolithic-style diet caused impressive fat loss and improvement in glucose tolerance, compared to 12 weeks of a Mediterranean-style diet, in volunteers with pre-diabetes or diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Participants who started off with diabetes ended up without it. A Paleolithic diet excludes grains, dairy, legumes and any other category of food that was not a major human food source prior to agriculture. I commented on this study a while back (3, 4).
One of the most intriguing findings in his 2007 study was the low calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. Despite receiving no instruction to reduce calorie intake, the Paleolithic group only ate 1,388 calories per day, compared to 1,823 calories per day for the Mediterranean group*. That's a remarkably low ad libitum calorie intake in the former (and a fairly low intake in the latter as well).
With such a low calorie intake over 12 weeks, you might think the Paleolithic group was starving. Fortunately, the authors had the foresight to measure satiety, or fullness, in both groups during the intervention. They found that satiety was almost identical in the two groups, despite the 24% lower calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. In other words, the Paleolithic group was just as full as the Mediterranean group, despite a considerably lower intake of calories. This implies to me that the body fat "set point" decreased, allowing a reduced calorie intake while body fat stores were burned to make up the calorie deficit. I suspect it also decreased somewhat in the Mediterranean group, although we can't know for sure because we don't have baseline satiety data for comparison.
There are a few possible explanations for this result. The first is that the Paleolithic group was eating more protein, a highly satiating macronutrient. However, given the fact that absolute protein intake was scarcely different between groups, I think this is unlikely to explain the reduced calorie intake.
A second possibility is that certain potentially damaging Neolithic foods (e.g., wheat and refined sugar) interfere with leptin signaling**, and removing them lowers fat mass by allowing leptin to function correctly. Dr. Lindeberg and colleagues authored a hypothesis paper on this topic in 2005 (5).
A third possibility is that a major dietary change of any kind lowers the body fat setpoint and reduces calorie intake for a certain period of time. In support of this hypothesis, both low-carbohydrate and low-fat diet trials show that overweight people spontaneously eat fewer calories when instructed to modify their diets in either direction (6, 7). More extreme changes may cause a larger decrease in calorie intake and fat mass, as evidenced by the results of low-fat vegan diet trials (8, 9). Chris Voigt's potato diet also falls into this category (10, 11). I think there may be something about changing food-related sensory cues that alters the defended level of fat mass. A similar idea is the basis of Seth Roberts' book The Shangri-La Diet.
If I had to guess, I would think the second and third possibilities contributed to the finding that Paleolithic dieters lost more fat without feeling hungry over the 12 week diet period.
*Intakes were determined using 4-day weighed food records.
**Leptin is a hormone produced by body fat that reduces food intake and increases energy expenditure by acting in the brain. The more fat a person carries, the more leptin they produce, and hypothetically this should keep body fat in a narrow window by this form of "negative feedback". Clearly, that's not the whole story, otherwise obesity wouldn't exist. A leading hypothesis is that resistance to the hormone leptin causes this feedback loop to defend a higher level of fat mass.
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Thu Jan 06, 2011 2:36 pm
http://www.smart-publications.com/articles/view/lies-and-deception-how-the-fda-does-not-protect-your-best-interests/
Lies and Deception: How the FDA Does Not Protect Your Best Interests.
Did you know that many retired FDA officials go to work as special advisors to the pharmaceutical and food industries?
It's true. Federal agencies like the FDA—which were created to protect consumers—often behave like branch offices of companies like Monsanto, which they are supposed to regulate. And when the names and dossiers of the individuals who work with allies in Congress and the White House to oppose food safety measures are revealed, the picture becomes even more sinister.
The fact is, it has been widely reported that FDA (Federal Drug Administration), EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) officials are frequently rewarded with lucrative jobs at the companies they were regulating.
Conflict of interest
This insidious conflict of interest exhibited by the U.S. food and pharmaceutical industries has been going on for almost half a century. Mark Gold, founder of the Aspartame Toxicity Information Center in Concord, New Hampshire (mgold@holisticmed.com) provides an overview of the situation in his "Analysis of the influence of the Aspartame Industry on the Scientific Committee on Food." 1
"In the United States, corruption of governmental and scientific committees by the food industry was disclosed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In an article in the journal Science (1972), it was revealed that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Food Protection Committee was being funded by the food, chemical and packaging industries. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was relying on the NAS Committee for 'independent' information. The Chairman of the NAS Subcommittee investigating monosodium glutamate (MSG) had recently taken part in research partially funded by the MSG manufacturer. Another member of the Subcommittee became a spokesperson for the MSG industry. (Science 1972) Other members of the Subcommittee had ties to the MSG industry.
Since that time numerous governmental committees have been corrupted by the placement of food industry-funded consultants on these committees." 23
The revolving door
A recent report by the Edmonds Institute lists names of the possible hundreds of men and women who move in and out of "revolving doors" as Federal regulators and directors, commissioners and scientists at the companies they are supposed to regulate.4
Close relationships between regulators and those they regulate are always a cause of concern because the conflict of interest inevitably results in the quality of regulation and oversight of a technology being compromised … which inevitably results in the promotion of foods and drugs that are frequently unsafe.
The Edmonds Institute has been researching these relationships for some time. Here are some examples:
Margaret Miller … former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, … now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).56
Michael Taylor, former legal advisor to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Bureau of Medical Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA,…still later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company, … still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United States Food and Drug Administration, … and later with the law firm of King & Spaulding … now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.56
Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA "primary reviewer for all rbST and other dairy drug production applications") were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation in 1994 for their role in the FDA's approval of Posilac, Monsanto Corporation's formulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). The GAO Office found "no conflicting financial interests with respect to the drug's approval" and only "one minor deviation from now superseded FDA regulations". (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO report).
The FDA and Monsanto: Strange bedfellows
Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on rBGH to the FDA so the agency could determine the growth hormone's safety. Margaret Miller put the report together, and in 1989 shortly before she submitted the report, Miller left Monsanto to work for the FDA. Guess what her first job was? Strangely enough, to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto! The bottom line is that Monsanto approved its own report. Miller was assisted by another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen.
But in an article titled "Not Milk: The USDA, Monsanto, and the U.S. Dairy Industry" Ché Green, founder and director of The ARMEDIA Institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization focusing on farm animal issues in the United States, writes that, "The results of the study, in fact, were not made available to the public until 1998, when a group of Canadian scientists obtained the full documentation and completed an independent analysis of the results. Among other instances of neglect, the documents showed that the FDA had never even reviewed Monsanto's original studies (on which the approval for Posilac {rBGH} had been based), so in the end the point was moot whether or not the report had contained all of the original data." 7
And as though the FDA didn't already exhibit enough audacity it handed Michael Taylor the responsibility to make the decision as to whether or not rBGH-derived milk should be labeled. (At the time, Michael Taylor, who had previously worked as a lawyer for Monsanto, was executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA.)
In 1994, Taylor ended up writing the rBGH labeling guidelines that prohibit the dairy industry from stating that their products either contain or are free from rBGH. Even worse, to keep rBGH-milk from being "stigmatized" in the marketplace, the FDA ruled that the labels of non-rBGH products must state that there is no difference between rBGH and the natural hormone.8
According to journalist Jennifer Ferraro, "while working for Monsanto,Taylor had prepared a memo for the company as to whether or not it would be constitutional for states to erect labeling laws concerning rBGH dairy products. In other words, Taylor helped Monsanto figure out whether or not the corporation could sue states or companies that wanted to tell the public that their products were free of Monsanto's drug." 9
The current situation
Monsanto is suing Maine-based Oakhurst Dairy for labeling their milk "Our Farmers' Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones." According to Monsanto, Oakhurst Dairy does not have the right to let its customers know whether its milk contains genetically engineered hormones. What hogwash! Oakhurst says they've been labeling their products like this for four years, in response to consumer demand.
Although rBGH has been banned in every industrialized nation in the world except for the United States, Monsanto continues to claim that rBGH-derived milk is no different from the natural stuff, despite documentation that rBGH milk contains substantially higher levels of a potent cancer tumor promoter called IGF-1.
This poses a serious risk to the entire U.S. population, which is now exposed to high levels of IGF-1 in dairy products, since elevated blood levels of IGF-1 are among the leading known risk factors for breast cancer, and are also associated with other major cancers, particularly colon and prostate.10
In 1994, Monsanto sued two dairies and threatened several thousand retailers for labeling or advertising milk and dairy products as "rBGH-free." Despite Monsanto's intimidation tactics, more than 10% of U.S. milk is currently labeled as "rBGH-free," while sales of organic milk and dairy products (which prohibit rBGH) are booming.
And just to add insult to injury, in recent months a Monsanto-funded front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, has launched a smear campaign against organic dairies, including Organic Valley, claiming they are defrauding consumers. 11
How Monsanto's policies have become U.S. policy
Prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put G.W. in office, Clarence Thomas was Monsanto's lawyer. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (Anne Veneman) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation. The Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Searle pharmaceuticals. The U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin's governor. The two congressmen receiving the most donations from Monsanto during the last election were Larry Combest (Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee) and Attorney General John Ashcroft. (Source: Dairy Education Board)
What can you do?
1) Contact your state representatives and let them know your views.
2) Educate yourself about what is really in our food.
Three recommended books:
Eric Schlosser, "Fast Food Nation" New York: Harper Collins, 2002.
Marion Nestle, Food Politics: "How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health." University of California Press, March 2002.
Marion Nestle, "Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism." University of California Press, March 2003.
3) Eat only organically grown and produced food. Sadly and unfortunately, we cannot trust the FDA or USDA to ensure the safety of our food.
Lies and Deception: How the FDA Does Not Protect Your Best Interests.
Did you know that many retired FDA officials go to work as special advisors to the pharmaceutical and food industries?
It's true. Federal agencies like the FDA—which were created to protect consumers—often behave like branch offices of companies like Monsanto, which they are supposed to regulate. And when the names and dossiers of the individuals who work with allies in Congress and the White House to oppose food safety measures are revealed, the picture becomes even more sinister.
The fact is, it has been widely reported that FDA (Federal Drug Administration), EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) officials are frequently rewarded with lucrative jobs at the companies they were regulating.
Conflict of interest
This insidious conflict of interest exhibited by the U.S. food and pharmaceutical industries has been going on for almost half a century. Mark Gold, founder of the Aspartame Toxicity Information Center in Concord, New Hampshire (mgold@holisticmed.com) provides an overview of the situation in his "Analysis of the influence of the Aspartame Industry on the Scientific Committee on Food." 1
"In the United States, corruption of governmental and scientific committees by the food industry was disclosed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In an article in the journal Science (1972), it was revealed that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Food Protection Committee was being funded by the food, chemical and packaging industries. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was relying on the NAS Committee for 'independent' information. The Chairman of the NAS Subcommittee investigating monosodium glutamate (MSG) had recently taken part in research partially funded by the MSG manufacturer. Another member of the Subcommittee became a spokesperson for the MSG industry. (Science 1972) Other members of the Subcommittee had ties to the MSG industry.
Since that time numerous governmental committees have been corrupted by the placement of food industry-funded consultants on these committees." 23
The revolving door
A recent report by the Edmonds Institute lists names of the possible hundreds of men and women who move in and out of "revolving doors" as Federal regulators and directors, commissioners and scientists at the companies they are supposed to regulate.4
Close relationships between regulators and those they regulate are always a cause of concern because the conflict of interest inevitably results in the quality of regulation and oversight of a technology being compromised … which inevitably results in the promotion of foods and drugs that are frequently unsafe.
The Edmonds Institute has been researching these relationships for some time. Here are some examples:
Margaret Miller … former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, … now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).56
Michael Taylor, former legal advisor to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Bureau of Medical Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA,…still later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company, … still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United States Food and Drug Administration, … and later with the law firm of King & Spaulding … now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.56
Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA "primary reviewer for all rbST and other dairy drug production applications") were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation in 1994 for their role in the FDA's approval of Posilac, Monsanto Corporation's formulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). The GAO Office found "no conflicting financial interests with respect to the drug's approval" and only "one minor deviation from now superseded FDA regulations". (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO report).
The FDA and Monsanto: Strange bedfellows
Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on rBGH to the FDA so the agency could determine the growth hormone's safety. Margaret Miller put the report together, and in 1989 shortly before she submitted the report, Miller left Monsanto to work for the FDA. Guess what her first job was? Strangely enough, to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto! The bottom line is that Monsanto approved its own report. Miller was assisted by another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen.
But in an article titled "Not Milk: The USDA, Monsanto, and the U.S. Dairy Industry" Ché Green, founder and director of The ARMEDIA Institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization focusing on farm animal issues in the United States, writes that, "The results of the study, in fact, were not made available to the public until 1998, when a group of Canadian scientists obtained the full documentation and completed an independent analysis of the results. Among other instances of neglect, the documents showed that the FDA had never even reviewed Monsanto's original studies (on which the approval for Posilac {rBGH} had been based), so in the end the point was moot whether or not the report had contained all of the original data." 7
And as though the FDA didn't already exhibit enough audacity it handed Michael Taylor the responsibility to make the decision as to whether or not rBGH-derived milk should be labeled. (At the time, Michael Taylor, who had previously worked as a lawyer for Monsanto, was executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA.)
In 1994, Taylor ended up writing the rBGH labeling guidelines that prohibit the dairy industry from stating that their products either contain or are free from rBGH. Even worse, to keep rBGH-milk from being "stigmatized" in the marketplace, the FDA ruled that the labels of non-rBGH products must state that there is no difference between rBGH and the natural hormone.8
According to journalist Jennifer Ferraro, "while working for Monsanto,Taylor had prepared a memo for the company as to whether or not it would be constitutional for states to erect labeling laws concerning rBGH dairy products. In other words, Taylor helped Monsanto figure out whether or not the corporation could sue states or companies that wanted to tell the public that their products were free of Monsanto's drug." 9
The current situation
Monsanto is suing Maine-based Oakhurst Dairy for labeling their milk "Our Farmers' Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones." According to Monsanto, Oakhurst Dairy does not have the right to let its customers know whether its milk contains genetically engineered hormones. What hogwash! Oakhurst says they've been labeling their products like this for four years, in response to consumer demand.
Although rBGH has been banned in every industrialized nation in the world except for the United States, Monsanto continues to claim that rBGH-derived milk is no different from the natural stuff, despite documentation that rBGH milk contains substantially higher levels of a potent cancer tumor promoter called IGF-1.
This poses a serious risk to the entire U.S. population, which is now exposed to high levels of IGF-1 in dairy products, since elevated blood levels of IGF-1 are among the leading known risk factors for breast cancer, and are also associated with other major cancers, particularly colon and prostate.10
In 1994, Monsanto sued two dairies and threatened several thousand retailers for labeling or advertising milk and dairy products as "rBGH-free." Despite Monsanto's intimidation tactics, more than 10% of U.S. milk is currently labeled as "rBGH-free," while sales of organic milk and dairy products (which prohibit rBGH) are booming.
And just to add insult to injury, in recent months a Monsanto-funded front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, has launched a smear campaign against organic dairies, including Organic Valley, claiming they are defrauding consumers. 11
How Monsanto's policies have become U.S. policy
Prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put G.W. in office, Clarence Thomas was Monsanto's lawyer. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (Anne Veneman) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Calgene Corporation. The Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto's Searle pharmaceuticals. The U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto during his winning campaign for Wisconsin's governor. The two congressmen receiving the most donations from Monsanto during the last election were Larry Combest (Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee) and Attorney General John Ashcroft. (Source: Dairy Education Board)
What can you do?
1) Contact your state representatives and let them know your views.
2) Educate yourself about what is really in our food.
Three recommended books:
Eric Schlosser, "Fast Food Nation" New York: Harper Collins, 2002.
Marion Nestle, Food Politics: "How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health." University of California Press, March 2002.
Marion Nestle, "Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism." University of California Press, March 2003.
3) Eat only organically grown and produced food. Sadly and unfortunately, we cannot trust the FDA or USDA to ensure the safety of our food.
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:27 pm
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Mon Jan 10, 2011 5:59 am
http://www.annals.org/content/153/3/147.abstract
Weight and Metabolic Outcomes After 2 Years on a Low-Carbohydrate Versus Low-Fat Diet
A Randomized Trial
Gary D. Foster, PhD; Holly R. Wyatt, MD; James O. Hill, PhD; Angela P. Makris, PhD, RD; Diane L. Rosenbaum, BA; Carrie Brill, BS; Richard I. Stein, PhD; B. Selma Mohammed, MD, PhD; Bernard Miller, MD; Daniel J. Rader, MD; Babette Zemel, PhD; Thomas A. Wadden, PhD; Thomas Tenhave, PhD; Craig W. Newcomb, MS; and Samuel Klein, MD
From Temple University, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado; and Washington University School of Medicine and University of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri.
Abstract
This article has been corrected. For original version, click “Original Version (PDF)” in column 2.
Background: Previous studies comparing low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets have not included a comprehensive behavioral treatment, resulting in suboptimal weight loss.
Objective: To evaluate the effects of 2-year treatment with a low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet, each of which was combined with a comprehensive lifestyle modification program.
Design: Randomized parallel-group trial. (ClinicalTrials.gov registration number: NCT00143936)
Setting: 3 academic medical centers.
Patients: 307 participants with a mean age of 45.5 years (SD, 9.7 years) and mean body mass index of 36.1 kg/m2 (SD, 3.5 kg/m2).
Intervention: A low-carbohydrate diet, which consisted of limited carbohydrate intake (20 g/d for 3 months) in the form of low–glycemic index vegetables with unrestricted consumption of fat and protein. After 3 months, participants in the low-carbohydrate diet group increased their carbohydrate intake (5 g/d per wk) until a stable and desired weight was achieved. A low-fat diet consisted of limited energy intake (1200 to 1800 kcal/d; ≤30% calories from fat). Both diets were combined with comprehensive behavioral treatment.
Measurements: Weight at 2 years was the primary outcome. Secondary measures included weight at 3, 6, and 12 months and serum lipid concentrations, blood pressure, urinary ketones, symptoms, bone mineral density, and body composition throughout the study.
Results: Weight loss was approximately 11 kg (11%) at 1 year and 7 kg (7%) at 2 years. There were no differences in weight, body composition, or bone mineral density between the groups at any time point. During the first 6 months, the low-carbohydrate diet group had greater reductions in diastolic blood pressure, triglyceride levels, and very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lesser reductions in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and more adverse symptoms than did the low-fat diet group. The low-carbohydrate diet group had greater increases in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels at all time points, approximating a 23% increase at 2 years.
Limitation: Intensive behavioral treatment was provided, patients with dyslipidemia and diabetes were excluded, and attrition at 2 years was high.
Conclusion: Successful weight loss can be achieved with either a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet when coupled with behavioral treatment. A low-carbohydrate diet is associated with favorable changes in cardiovascular disease risk factors at 2 years.
Weight and Metabolic Outcomes After 2 Years on a Low-Carbohydrate Versus Low-Fat Diet
A Randomized Trial
Gary D. Foster, PhD; Holly R. Wyatt, MD; James O. Hill, PhD; Angela P. Makris, PhD, RD; Diane L. Rosenbaum, BA; Carrie Brill, BS; Richard I. Stein, PhD; B. Selma Mohammed, MD, PhD; Bernard Miller, MD; Daniel J. Rader, MD; Babette Zemel, PhD; Thomas A. Wadden, PhD; Thomas Tenhave, PhD; Craig W. Newcomb, MS; and Samuel Klein, MD
From Temple University, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado; and Washington University School of Medicine and University of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri.
Abstract
This article has been corrected. For original version, click “Original Version (PDF)” in column 2.
Background: Previous studies comparing low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets have not included a comprehensive behavioral treatment, resulting in suboptimal weight loss.
Objective: To evaluate the effects of 2-year treatment with a low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet, each of which was combined with a comprehensive lifestyle modification program.
Design: Randomized parallel-group trial. (ClinicalTrials.gov registration number: NCT00143936)
Setting: 3 academic medical centers.
Patients: 307 participants with a mean age of 45.5 years (SD, 9.7 years) and mean body mass index of 36.1 kg/m2 (SD, 3.5 kg/m2).
Intervention: A low-carbohydrate diet, which consisted of limited carbohydrate intake (20 g/d for 3 months) in the form of low–glycemic index vegetables with unrestricted consumption of fat and protein. After 3 months, participants in the low-carbohydrate diet group increased their carbohydrate intake (5 g/d per wk) until a stable and desired weight was achieved. A low-fat diet consisted of limited energy intake (1200 to 1800 kcal/d; ≤30% calories from fat). Both diets were combined with comprehensive behavioral treatment.
Measurements: Weight at 2 years was the primary outcome. Secondary measures included weight at 3, 6, and 12 months and serum lipid concentrations, blood pressure, urinary ketones, symptoms, bone mineral density, and body composition throughout the study.
Results: Weight loss was approximately 11 kg (11%) at 1 year and 7 kg (7%) at 2 years. There were no differences in weight, body composition, or bone mineral density between the groups at any time point. During the first 6 months, the low-carbohydrate diet group had greater reductions in diastolic blood pressure, triglyceride levels, and very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lesser reductions in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and more adverse symptoms than did the low-fat diet group. The low-carbohydrate diet group had greater increases in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels at all time points, approximating a 23% increase at 2 years.
Limitation: Intensive behavioral treatment was provided, patients with dyslipidemia and diabetes were excluded, and attrition at 2 years was high.
Conclusion: Successful weight loss can be achieved with either a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet when coupled with behavioral treatment. A low-carbohydrate diet is associated with favorable changes in cardiovascular disease risk factors at 2 years.
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:42 am
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/01/does-dietary-saturated-fat-increase.html
Does Dietary Saturated Fat Increase Blood Cholesterol? An Informal Review of Observational Studies
The diet-heart hypothesis states three things:
1) Dietary saturated fat increases blood cholesterol
2) Elevated blood cholesterol increases the risk of having a heart attack
3) Therefore, dietary saturated fat increases the risk of having a heart attack
To evaluate the second contention, investigators have examined the relationship between blood cholesterol and heart attack risk. Many studies including MRFIT have shown that the two are related (1):
The relationship becomes much more complex when you consider lipoprotein subtypes, density and oxidation level, among other factors, but at the very least there is an association between habitual blood cholesterol level and heart attack risk. This is what you would want to see if your hypothesis states that high blood cholesterol causes heart attacks.
Now let's turn to the first contention, the hypothesis that dietary saturated fat increases serum cholesterol. This idea is so deeply ingrained in the scientific literature that many authors don't even bother providing references for it anymore. When references are provided, they nearly always point to the same type of study: short-term controlled diet trials, in which volunteers are fed different fats for 2-13 weeks and their blood cholesterol measured (2)*. These are the studies on which the diet-heart hypothesis was built.
But now we have a problem. Nearly every high-quality (prospective) observational study ever conducted found that saturated fat intake is not associated with heart attack risk (3). So if saturated fat increases blood cholesterol, and higher blood cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of having a heart attack, then why don't people who eat more saturated fat have more heart attacks**?
I'll begin to answer that question with another question: why do researchers almost never cite observational studies to support the idea that dietary saturated fat increases blood cholesterol? Surely if the hypothesis is correct, then people who habitually eat a lot of saturated fat should have high cholesterol, right? One reason may be that in most instances, when researchers have looked for a relationship between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol, they haven't found one. Those findings have essentially been ignored, but let's have a look...
The Studies
It's difficult to do a complete accounting of these studies, but I've done my best to round them up. I can't claim this post is comprehensive, but I doubt I missed very many, and I certainly didn't exclude any that I came across. If you know of any I missed, please add them to the comments.
The earliest and perhaps most interesting study I found was published in the British Medical Journal in 1963 and is titled "Diet and Plasma Cholesterol in 99 Bank Men" (4). Investigators asked volunteers to weigh all food consumed at home for 1-2 weeks, and describe in detail all food consumed away from home. Compliance was good. This dietary accounting method was much more thorough than in most observational studies today***. Animal fat intake ranged from 55 to 173 grams per day, and blood cholesterol ranged from 154 to 324 mg/dL, yet there was no relationship whatsoever between the two. I'm looking at a graph of animal fat intake vs. blood cholesterol as I write this, and it looks like someone shot it with a shotgun at 50 yards. They twisted the data every which way, but were never able to squeeze even a hint of an association out of it:
Making the most out of the data in other ways- for example, by analysis of the men very stable in their diets, or in whom weighing of food intake was maximal, or where blood was taken close to the diet [measurement]- did not increase the correlation. Because the correlation coefficient is almost as often negative as positive, moreover, what is being discussed mostly is the absence of association, not merely association that is unexpectedly small.
The next study to discuss is the 1976 Tecumseh study (5). This was a large cardiovascular observational study conducted in Tecumseh, Michigan, which is often used as the basis for comparison for other cardiovascular studies in the literature. Using the 24 hour dietary recall method, including an analysis of saturated fat, the investigators found that:
Cholesterol and triglyceride levels were unrelated to quality, quantity, or proportions of fat, carbohydrate or protein consumed in the 24-hr recall period.
They also noted that the result was consistent with what had been reported in other previously published studies, including the Evans county study (6), the massive Israel Ischemic Heart Disease Study (7) and the Framingham study. One of the longest-running, most comprehensive and most highly cited observational studies, the Framingham study was organized by Harvard investigators and continues to this day. When investigators analyzed the relationship between saturated fat intake, serum cholesterol and heart attack risk, they were so disappointed that they never formally published the results. We know from multiple sources that they found no significant relationship between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol or heart attack risk****.
The next study is the Bogalusa Heart Study, published in 1978, which studied the diet and health of 10 year old American children (8). This study found an association by one statistical method, and none by a second method*****. They found that the dietary factors they analyzed explained no more than 4% of the variation in blood cholesterol. Overall, I think this study lends little or no support to the hypothesis.
Next is the Western Electric study, published in 1981 (9). This study found an association between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol in middle-aged men in Chicago. However, the correlation was small, and there was no association between saturated fat intake and heart attack deaths. They cited two other studies that found an association between dietary saturated fat and blood cholesterol (and did not cite any of the numerous studies that found no association). One was a very small study conducted in young men doing research in Antarctica, which did not measure saturated fat but found an association between total fat intake and blood cholesterol (10). The other studied Japanese (Nagasaki and Hiroshima) and Japanese Americans in Japan, Hawai'i and California respectively (11).
This study requires some discussion. Published in 1973, it found a correlation between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol in Japan, Hawai'i but not in California. The strongest association was in Japan, where going from 5 to 75 g/day of saturated fat (a 15-fold change!) was associated with an increase in blood cholesterol from about 175 to 200 mg/dL. However, I don't think this study offers much support to the hypothesis upon closer examination. Food intake in Japan was collected by 24-hour recall in 1965-1967, when the diet was mostly white rice in some areas. The lower limit of saturated fat intake in Japan was 5g/day, 1/12th what was typically eaten in Hawai'i and California, and the Japanese average was 16g, with most people falling below 10g. That is an extraordinarily low saturated fat intake. I think a significant portion of the Japanese in this study, living in the war-ravaged cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, were over-reliant on white rice and perhaps bordering on malnourishment.
In Japanese-Americans living in Hawai'i, over a range of saturated fat intakes between 5 and 110 g/day, cholesterol went from 210 to 220 mg/dL. That was statistically significant but it's not exactly knocking my socks off, considering it's a 22-fold change in saturated fat intake. In California, going from 15 to 110 g/day of saturated fat (7.3-fold change) was not associated with a change in blood cholesterol. Blood cholesterol was 20-30 mg/dL lower in Japan than in Hawai'i or California at any given level of saturated fat intake (e.g., Japanese eating 30g per day vs. Hawai'ians eating 30g per day). I think it's probable that saturated fat is not the relevant factor here, or at least it's being trumped by other factors. An equally plausible explanation is that people in the very low range of saturated fat intake are the rural poor who eat an impoverished diet that differs in many ways from the diets at the upper end of the range.
The most recent study was the Health Professional Follow-up study, published in 1996 (12). This was a massive, well funded study that found no hint of a relationship between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol.
Conclusion
Of all the studies I came across, only the Western Electric study found a clear association between habitual saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol, and even that association was weak. The Bogalusa Heart study and the Japanese study provided inconsistent evidence for a weak association. The other studies I cited, including the bank workers' study, the Tecumseh study, the Evans county study, the Israel Ischemic Heart study, the Framingham study and the Health Professionals Follow-up study, found no association between the two factors.
Overall, the literature does not offer much support for the idea that long term saturated fat intake has a significant effect on the concentration of blood cholesterol. If it's a factor at all, it must be rather weak, which is consistent with what has been observed in multiple non-human species (13). I think it's likely that the diet-heart hypothesis rests in part on an over-interpretation of short-term controlled feeding studies. I'd like to see a more open discussion of this in the scientific literature. In any case, these controlled studies have typically shown that saturated fat increases both LDL and HDL, so even if saturated fat did have a small long-term effect on blood cholesterol, as hinted at by some of the observational studies, its effect on heart attack risk would still be difficult to predict.
The Diet-heart Hypothesis: Stuck at the Starting Gate
Animal Models of Atherosclerosis: LDL
* As a side note, many of these studies were of poor quality, and were designed in ways that artificially inflated the effects of saturated fat on blood lipids. For example, using a run-in period high in linoleic acid, or comparing a saturated fat-rich diet to a linoleic acid-rich diet, and attributing the differences in blood cholesterol to the saturated fat. Some of them used hydrogenated seed oils as the saturated fat. Although not always consistent, I do think that overall these studies support the idea that saturated fat does have a modest ability to increase blood cholesterol in the short term.
** Besides the fact that it's a logical fallacy. Just because A causes B, and B causes C, does not mean A causes C.
*** Although I would love to hear comments from anyone who has done controlled diet trials. I'm sure this method had flaws, as it was applied in the 1960s.
**** Reference cited in the Tecumseh paper: Kannel, W et al. The Framingham Study. An epidemiological Investigation of Cardiovascular Diseases. Section 24: The Framingham Diet Study: Diet and the Regulation of Serum Cholesterol. US Government Printing Office, 1970.
***** Table 5 shows that the Pearson correlation coefficient for saturated fat intake vs. blood cholesterol is not significant; table 6 shows that children in the two highest tertiles of blood cholesterol have a significantly higher intake of saturated fat, unsaturated fat, total fat and sodium than the lowest tertile. The relationship between saturated fat and blood cholesterol shows no evidence of dose-dependence (cholesterol tertiles= 15.6g, 18.4g, 18.5g saturated fat). The investigators made no effort to adjust for confounding variables.
Does Dietary Saturated Fat Increase Blood Cholesterol? An Informal Review of Observational Studies
The diet-heart hypothesis states three things:
1) Dietary saturated fat increases blood cholesterol
2) Elevated blood cholesterol increases the risk of having a heart attack
3) Therefore, dietary saturated fat increases the risk of having a heart attack
To evaluate the second contention, investigators have examined the relationship between blood cholesterol and heart attack risk. Many studies including MRFIT have shown that the two are related (1):
The relationship becomes much more complex when you consider lipoprotein subtypes, density and oxidation level, among other factors, but at the very least there is an association between habitual blood cholesterol level and heart attack risk. This is what you would want to see if your hypothesis states that high blood cholesterol causes heart attacks.
Now let's turn to the first contention, the hypothesis that dietary saturated fat increases serum cholesterol. This idea is so deeply ingrained in the scientific literature that many authors don't even bother providing references for it anymore. When references are provided, they nearly always point to the same type of study: short-term controlled diet trials, in which volunteers are fed different fats for 2-13 weeks and their blood cholesterol measured (2)*. These are the studies on which the diet-heart hypothesis was built.
But now we have a problem. Nearly every high-quality (prospective) observational study ever conducted found that saturated fat intake is not associated with heart attack risk (3). So if saturated fat increases blood cholesterol, and higher blood cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of having a heart attack, then why don't people who eat more saturated fat have more heart attacks**?
I'll begin to answer that question with another question: why do researchers almost never cite observational studies to support the idea that dietary saturated fat increases blood cholesterol? Surely if the hypothesis is correct, then people who habitually eat a lot of saturated fat should have high cholesterol, right? One reason may be that in most instances, when researchers have looked for a relationship between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol, they haven't found one. Those findings have essentially been ignored, but let's have a look...
The Studies
It's difficult to do a complete accounting of these studies, but I've done my best to round them up. I can't claim this post is comprehensive, but I doubt I missed very many, and I certainly didn't exclude any that I came across. If you know of any I missed, please add them to the comments.
The earliest and perhaps most interesting study I found was published in the British Medical Journal in 1963 and is titled "Diet and Plasma Cholesterol in 99 Bank Men" (4). Investigators asked volunteers to weigh all food consumed at home for 1-2 weeks, and describe in detail all food consumed away from home. Compliance was good. This dietary accounting method was much more thorough than in most observational studies today***. Animal fat intake ranged from 55 to 173 grams per day, and blood cholesterol ranged from 154 to 324 mg/dL, yet there was no relationship whatsoever between the two. I'm looking at a graph of animal fat intake vs. blood cholesterol as I write this, and it looks like someone shot it with a shotgun at 50 yards. They twisted the data every which way, but were never able to squeeze even a hint of an association out of it:
Making the most out of the data in other ways- for example, by analysis of the men very stable in their diets, or in whom weighing of food intake was maximal, or where blood was taken close to the diet [measurement]- did not increase the correlation. Because the correlation coefficient is almost as often negative as positive, moreover, what is being discussed mostly is the absence of association, not merely association that is unexpectedly small.
The next study to discuss is the 1976 Tecumseh study (5). This was a large cardiovascular observational study conducted in Tecumseh, Michigan, which is often used as the basis for comparison for other cardiovascular studies in the literature. Using the 24 hour dietary recall method, including an analysis of saturated fat, the investigators found that:
Cholesterol and triglyceride levels were unrelated to quality, quantity, or proportions of fat, carbohydrate or protein consumed in the 24-hr recall period.
They also noted that the result was consistent with what had been reported in other previously published studies, including the Evans county study (6), the massive Israel Ischemic Heart Disease Study (7) and the Framingham study. One of the longest-running, most comprehensive and most highly cited observational studies, the Framingham study was organized by Harvard investigators and continues to this day. When investigators analyzed the relationship between saturated fat intake, serum cholesterol and heart attack risk, they were so disappointed that they never formally published the results. We know from multiple sources that they found no significant relationship between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol or heart attack risk****.
The next study is the Bogalusa Heart Study, published in 1978, which studied the diet and health of 10 year old American children (8). This study found an association by one statistical method, and none by a second method*****. They found that the dietary factors they analyzed explained no more than 4% of the variation in blood cholesterol. Overall, I think this study lends little or no support to the hypothesis.
Next is the Western Electric study, published in 1981 (9). This study found an association between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol in middle-aged men in Chicago. However, the correlation was small, and there was no association between saturated fat intake and heart attack deaths. They cited two other studies that found an association between dietary saturated fat and blood cholesterol (and did not cite any of the numerous studies that found no association). One was a very small study conducted in young men doing research in Antarctica, which did not measure saturated fat but found an association between total fat intake and blood cholesterol (10). The other studied Japanese (Nagasaki and Hiroshima) and Japanese Americans in Japan, Hawai'i and California respectively (11).
This study requires some discussion. Published in 1973, it found a correlation between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol in Japan, Hawai'i but not in California. The strongest association was in Japan, where going from 5 to 75 g/day of saturated fat (a 15-fold change!) was associated with an increase in blood cholesterol from about 175 to 200 mg/dL. However, I don't think this study offers much support to the hypothesis upon closer examination. Food intake in Japan was collected by 24-hour recall in 1965-1967, when the diet was mostly white rice in some areas. The lower limit of saturated fat intake in Japan was 5g/day, 1/12th what was typically eaten in Hawai'i and California, and the Japanese average was 16g, with most people falling below 10g. That is an extraordinarily low saturated fat intake. I think a significant portion of the Japanese in this study, living in the war-ravaged cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, were over-reliant on white rice and perhaps bordering on malnourishment.
In Japanese-Americans living in Hawai'i, over a range of saturated fat intakes between 5 and 110 g/day, cholesterol went from 210 to 220 mg/dL. That was statistically significant but it's not exactly knocking my socks off, considering it's a 22-fold change in saturated fat intake. In California, going from 15 to 110 g/day of saturated fat (7.3-fold change) was not associated with a change in blood cholesterol. Blood cholesterol was 20-30 mg/dL lower in Japan than in Hawai'i or California at any given level of saturated fat intake (e.g., Japanese eating 30g per day vs. Hawai'ians eating 30g per day). I think it's probable that saturated fat is not the relevant factor here, or at least it's being trumped by other factors. An equally plausible explanation is that people in the very low range of saturated fat intake are the rural poor who eat an impoverished diet that differs in many ways from the diets at the upper end of the range.
The most recent study was the Health Professional Follow-up study, published in 1996 (12). This was a massive, well funded study that found no hint of a relationship between saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol.
Conclusion
Of all the studies I came across, only the Western Electric study found a clear association between habitual saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol, and even that association was weak. The Bogalusa Heart study and the Japanese study provided inconsistent evidence for a weak association. The other studies I cited, including the bank workers' study, the Tecumseh study, the Evans county study, the Israel Ischemic Heart study, the Framingham study and the Health Professionals Follow-up study, found no association between the two factors.
Overall, the literature does not offer much support for the idea that long term saturated fat intake has a significant effect on the concentration of blood cholesterol. If it's a factor at all, it must be rather weak, which is consistent with what has been observed in multiple non-human species (13). I think it's likely that the diet-heart hypothesis rests in part on an over-interpretation of short-term controlled feeding studies. I'd like to see a more open discussion of this in the scientific literature. In any case, these controlled studies have typically shown that saturated fat increases both LDL and HDL, so even if saturated fat did have a small long-term effect on blood cholesterol, as hinted at by some of the observational studies, its effect on heart attack risk would still be difficult to predict.
The Diet-heart Hypothesis: Stuck at the Starting Gate
Animal Models of Atherosclerosis: LDL
* As a side note, many of these studies were of poor quality, and were designed in ways that artificially inflated the effects of saturated fat on blood lipids. For example, using a run-in period high in linoleic acid, or comparing a saturated fat-rich diet to a linoleic acid-rich diet, and attributing the differences in blood cholesterol to the saturated fat. Some of them used hydrogenated seed oils as the saturated fat. Although not always consistent, I do think that overall these studies support the idea that saturated fat does have a modest ability to increase blood cholesterol in the short term.
** Besides the fact that it's a logical fallacy. Just because A causes B, and B causes C, does not mean A causes C.
*** Although I would love to hear comments from anyone who has done controlled diet trials. I'm sure this method had flaws, as it was applied in the 1960s.
**** Reference cited in the Tecumseh paper: Kannel, W et al. The Framingham Study. An epidemiological Investigation of Cardiovascular Diseases. Section 24: The Framingham Diet Study: Diet and the Regulation of Serum Cholesterol. US Government Printing Office, 1970.
***** Table 5 shows that the Pearson correlation coefficient for saturated fat intake vs. blood cholesterol is not significant; table 6 shows that children in the two highest tertiles of blood cholesterol have a significantly higher intake of saturated fat, unsaturated fat, total fat and sodium than the lowest tertile. The relationship between saturated fat and blood cholesterol shows no evidence of dose-dependence (cholesterol tertiles= 15.6g, 18.4g, 18.5g saturated fat). The investigators made no effort to adjust for confounding variables.
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Sun Jan 23, 2011 8:52 am
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/lipid-hypothesis/the-big-lie/
The Big Lie
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
Joseph Goebbels
Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.
Mark Twain, Advice to Youth
I’ve always loved the above two quotes because their sentiments are so on the money. It is sad but true that the bigger the lie, the more people are willing to unquestioningly accept it. And the greater the mass of people who accept the lie, the easier it is to persuade others to join the growing crowd. In such a way does a great lie snowball into a great ‘truth.’
Nutritionally I can’t think of a bigger lie than the one claiming that fats in general and saturated fats in particular are bad for us. This lie is so deeply embedded in the minds of most that you couldn’t blow it out with a stick of dynamite. Especially in the minds of academics, and more especially in the minds of most dietitians. Not all, but most. Nutritionally, it is truly the Big Lie.
Despite the fact that they all tenaciously cling to the Big Lie, the evidence disputes it. But, “a lie told well is immortal.” Over at Whole Health Source Stephen Guyenet wrote a post recently looking at the observational data about saturated fat and cholesterol levels and heart disease. Most of the Big Lie devotees worry obsessively about saturated fat intake while the great mass of observational data shows little, if any, correlation. A couple of years ago, I wrote a long post about the invalidity of observational studies as proof of much anything, but in that post I neglected to mention that although observational studies can’t show that correlation equals causation, they probably are valid in demonstrating the opposite: if there is no correlation, there probably isn’t much of a case for causation. So, if there isn’t a lot of correlation between saturated fat intake and elevated cholesterol and/or heart disease, is doubtful that saturated fat intake is causal.
I just came across a paper – a research editorial, to be correct – in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (JADA) that, did I not already have a close and abiding relationship with Jameson, would drive me to drink. In fact it probably did drive me to drink just a little more. Now the JADA is the journal edited by and written for Registered Dietitians, and, as a consequence, it has an RD feel to it in terms of content. It usually hews to the low-fat, high-carb party line, but every now and then it publishes a paper on some facet of low-carbohydrate dieting. The particular article that caused my heartburn is titled Low-Glycemic Load Diets: How Does the Evidence for Prevention of Disease Measure Up?
This article annoys me on many levels, the first of which is that it even talks about glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL). I’ve written previously about why I don’t believe the glycemic index to be a particularly valid way of characterizing carbohydrates. And I don’t think the glycemic load concept is much better. What’s wrong with simply counting carbohydrates? It provides more benefits and doesn’t encourage the consumption of fructose, a harmful sugar with a low glycemic index. The reason the glycemic index and glycemic load have been so embraced by the academic community is because they simply can’t bring themselves to admit that the low-carb diet is a superior diet for weight loss, lipid control, blood pressure lowering, blood sugar stabilization, GERD ridding, etc. than is their beloved low-fat diet. So instead of manning up and admitting that they had been wrong for the past 40 years, they tart the venerable low-carb diet up in academic sounding garb and call it the glycemic load diet and hope no one notices the subterfuge.
It’s perfectly acceptable to talk about low glycemic load diets bringing about health benefits without anyone saying, Whoa, you’ll croak your kidneys. Or, Whoa, you may lose weight, but you’ll clog your arteries. No, the low glycemic load diet is perfectly innocuous in any company. No pompous academic will give you grief if you simply use the word ‘glycemic.‘ Try using the term ‘low-carb’ in the halls of Academe, however, and you may be in for some withering stares.
The author of the ‘research editorial‘ drones on about a handful of studies that have looked at the efficacy of low-glycemic-load diets in preventing the development of type II diabetes and other metabolic conditions in healthy subjects. All of the studies discussed have various problems: not large enough, not long enough, less than optimal dietary questionnaires, etc. Given the watery results of the studies describe, the article then ends on a bizarre note.
Despite the limitations of the available studies, there is increasing evidence that low-glycemic-load diets could prevent diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers, including endometrial cancer and esophageal adenocarcinoma.
Say what?
Yep, each of these statements is backed up by a citation or two. It would seem to me that the ‘research editorial’ would have been much more interesting and meaningful had it focused on the results of these cited studies instead of the ones it did.
Nonetheless, the author soldiers on (and this is the part that really torques me):
In light of these findings, adherence to a low-glycemic-load diet, provided it meets current dietary recommendations including those related to dietary fat content and portion control, seems prudent. [bold mine]
Ah, the Big Lie rears its fearsome head. Doesn’t matter how well the diet works or what diseases it might prevent, we don’t want to follow it unless we meet those current recommendations on fat. No sir.
Do you think the author of this drivel has ever really thought about what food is made of? It seems unlikely.
Food is made of fat, protein and carbohydrate. That’s it. Food also contains water, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, but only fat, carbohydrate and protein provide calories. And when a diet is constructed of these things – especially one that toes the line as far as portion control is concerned – trade offs have to be made.
If you keep the calories the same, and you decrease one of the three components, you’re going to have to increase one of the others. Let’s look at how the brain of a lipophobe would cypher this. Okay, we need to cut the fat, so that’s the first thing we’ll do. We’ll cut fat, and we’ll really cut saturated fat. But now we’ve got to get our calories back up, so we’ll add low-glycemic carbohydrates to do that. But, uh oh, when we add that many carbs, even though they are low-glycemic-index carbs, we increase the glycemic load. We can’t really do that if we want to prevent all these diseases. We’ll increase the protein. But, wait, we can’t increase it too much or we’ll damage the kidneys. (A myth, of course, but they all believe it.) And it’s hard to increase the protein without increasing the fat because most good sources of protein contain fat, even, God forbid, saturated fat. So if we up the protein, we up the fat. But fat is the devil in disguise, oh yes it is; it’s the devil in disguise. Can’t go there.
See what I mean. If you are a lipophobe, there is no solution. It could be called the Lipophobe’s Conundrum. And that’s why I’m glad I‘m not a lipophobe, so I don’t have to worry about it. I haven’t bought into the Big Lie. All I need to do is cut the carbs and let everything else take care of itself.
*Below is the Goebbel’s quote in full. Interesting to note that Dr. Joe’s ideas are still alive and well and in full use by many of our own politicians.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
The Big Lie
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
Joseph Goebbels
Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.
Mark Twain, Advice to Youth
I’ve always loved the above two quotes because their sentiments are so on the money. It is sad but true that the bigger the lie, the more people are willing to unquestioningly accept it. And the greater the mass of people who accept the lie, the easier it is to persuade others to join the growing crowd. In such a way does a great lie snowball into a great ‘truth.’
Nutritionally I can’t think of a bigger lie than the one claiming that fats in general and saturated fats in particular are bad for us. This lie is so deeply embedded in the minds of most that you couldn’t blow it out with a stick of dynamite. Especially in the minds of academics, and more especially in the minds of most dietitians. Not all, but most. Nutritionally, it is truly the Big Lie.
Despite the fact that they all tenaciously cling to the Big Lie, the evidence disputes it. But, “a lie told well is immortal.” Over at Whole Health Source Stephen Guyenet wrote a post recently looking at the observational data about saturated fat and cholesterol levels and heart disease. Most of the Big Lie devotees worry obsessively about saturated fat intake while the great mass of observational data shows little, if any, correlation. A couple of years ago, I wrote a long post about the invalidity of observational studies as proof of much anything, but in that post I neglected to mention that although observational studies can’t show that correlation equals causation, they probably are valid in demonstrating the opposite: if there is no correlation, there probably isn’t much of a case for causation. So, if there isn’t a lot of correlation between saturated fat intake and elevated cholesterol and/or heart disease, is doubtful that saturated fat intake is causal.
I just came across a paper – a research editorial, to be correct – in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (JADA) that, did I not already have a close and abiding relationship with Jameson, would drive me to drink. In fact it probably did drive me to drink just a little more. Now the JADA is the journal edited by and written for Registered Dietitians, and, as a consequence, it has an RD feel to it in terms of content. It usually hews to the low-fat, high-carb party line, but every now and then it publishes a paper on some facet of low-carbohydrate dieting. The particular article that caused my heartburn is titled Low-Glycemic Load Diets: How Does the Evidence for Prevention of Disease Measure Up?
This article annoys me on many levels, the first of which is that it even talks about glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL). I’ve written previously about why I don’t believe the glycemic index to be a particularly valid way of characterizing carbohydrates. And I don’t think the glycemic load concept is much better. What’s wrong with simply counting carbohydrates? It provides more benefits and doesn’t encourage the consumption of fructose, a harmful sugar with a low glycemic index. The reason the glycemic index and glycemic load have been so embraced by the academic community is because they simply can’t bring themselves to admit that the low-carb diet is a superior diet for weight loss, lipid control, blood pressure lowering, blood sugar stabilization, GERD ridding, etc. than is their beloved low-fat diet. So instead of manning up and admitting that they had been wrong for the past 40 years, they tart the venerable low-carb diet up in academic sounding garb and call it the glycemic load diet and hope no one notices the subterfuge.
It’s perfectly acceptable to talk about low glycemic load diets bringing about health benefits without anyone saying, Whoa, you’ll croak your kidneys. Or, Whoa, you may lose weight, but you’ll clog your arteries. No, the low glycemic load diet is perfectly innocuous in any company. No pompous academic will give you grief if you simply use the word ‘glycemic.‘ Try using the term ‘low-carb’ in the halls of Academe, however, and you may be in for some withering stares.
The author of the ‘research editorial‘ drones on about a handful of studies that have looked at the efficacy of low-glycemic-load diets in preventing the development of type II diabetes and other metabolic conditions in healthy subjects. All of the studies discussed have various problems: not large enough, not long enough, less than optimal dietary questionnaires, etc. Given the watery results of the studies describe, the article then ends on a bizarre note.
Despite the limitations of the available studies, there is increasing evidence that low-glycemic-load diets could prevent diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers, including endometrial cancer and esophageal adenocarcinoma.
Say what?
Yep, each of these statements is backed up by a citation or two. It would seem to me that the ‘research editorial’ would have been much more interesting and meaningful had it focused on the results of these cited studies instead of the ones it did.
Nonetheless, the author soldiers on (and this is the part that really torques me):
In light of these findings, adherence to a low-glycemic-load diet, provided it meets current dietary recommendations including those related to dietary fat content and portion control, seems prudent. [bold mine]
Ah, the Big Lie rears its fearsome head. Doesn’t matter how well the diet works or what diseases it might prevent, we don’t want to follow it unless we meet those current recommendations on fat. No sir.
Do you think the author of this drivel has ever really thought about what food is made of? It seems unlikely.
Food is made of fat, protein and carbohydrate. That’s it. Food also contains water, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, but only fat, carbohydrate and protein provide calories. And when a diet is constructed of these things – especially one that toes the line as far as portion control is concerned – trade offs have to be made.
If you keep the calories the same, and you decrease one of the three components, you’re going to have to increase one of the others. Let’s look at how the brain of a lipophobe would cypher this. Okay, we need to cut the fat, so that’s the first thing we’ll do. We’ll cut fat, and we’ll really cut saturated fat. But now we’ve got to get our calories back up, so we’ll add low-glycemic carbohydrates to do that. But, uh oh, when we add that many carbs, even though they are low-glycemic-index carbs, we increase the glycemic load. We can’t really do that if we want to prevent all these diseases. We’ll increase the protein. But, wait, we can’t increase it too much or we’ll damage the kidneys. (A myth, of course, but they all believe it.) And it’s hard to increase the protein without increasing the fat because most good sources of protein contain fat, even, God forbid, saturated fat. So if we up the protein, we up the fat. But fat is the devil in disguise, oh yes it is; it’s the devil in disguise. Can’t go there.
See what I mean. If you are a lipophobe, there is no solution. It could be called the Lipophobe’s Conundrum. And that’s why I’m glad I‘m not a lipophobe, so I don’t have to worry about it. I haven’t bought into the Big Lie. All I need to do is cut the carbs and let everything else take care of itself.
*Below is the Goebbel’s quote in full. Interesting to note that Dr. Joe’s ideas are still alive and well and in full use by many of our own politicians.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
chickenbackside Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:41 am
Not bad for a mainstream article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1349960/5-day-fruit-vegetables-myth-claims-nutrition-expert.html
This cynical five-a-day myth: Nutrition expert claims we've all been duped
By ZOE HARCOMBE
With great fanfare, it was reported last week that the current health advice about eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day is outdated, and that scientists now believe that eight portions is more beneficial.
While many people grumbled about how on earth they would manage those extra portions, I allowed myself a wry smile.
For more than two years I’ve known that the ‘five-a-day’ mantra we’re all so familiar with is nothing but a fairytale.
Myth: The truth is that fruit and veg are pretty useless nutritionally
Of course, they are tasty, colourful additions to any meal. But in terms of health and nutrition, fruit and veg have little to offer, and telling us to eat eight portions a day is compounding one of the worst health fallacies in recent history.
Surprised? Many people will be, and no doubt some dieticians and nutritionists will reject my arguments. But science backs me up.
The latest findings come from a European study into diet and health looking at 300,000 people in eight countries.
It found that people who ate eight or more portions of fresh food a day had a 22 per cent lower chance of dying from heart disease. Yet just 1,636 participants died during the study from heart disease, which is about half of one per cent.
Out of that very small proportion, fewer people died from the group that ate more fruit and veg.
However, the researchers cautioned that these people may have healthier lifestyles generally. They may be less likely to smoke; they may eat less processed food; they may be more active.
What we should not do is to make the usual bad science leap from association to causation and say ‘eating more fruit and veg lowers the risk of dying from heart disease’.
Vegetables offer some vitamins, but your body will be able to absorb these only if you add some fat, such as butter or olive oil
This survey comes not long after another large study, which examined half a million people over eight years, reported that fruit and veg offer no protection against breast, prostate, bowel, lung or any other kind of tumour. Those eating the most fruit and veg showed no difference in cancer risk compared with those eating the least.
So how have we been duped for so long?
You might assume our five-a-day fixation is based on firm evidence. But you’d be wrong.
It started as a marketing campaign dreamt up by around 20 fruit and veg companies and the U.S. National Cancer Institute at a meeting in California in 1991. And it’s been remarkably successful.
People in 25 countries, across three continents, have been urged to eat more greens, and have done so in their millions, believing it was good for them.
No doubt it was set up with the best intentions — to improve the health of the nation and reduce the incidence of cancer. But there was no evidence that it was doing us any good at all.
The fact that our own government has spent £3.3 million over the past four years on the five-a-day message shows how pervasive this belief is.
People are convinced that fruit and vegetables are a particularly good source of vitamins and minerals.
For a long time, I too was a believer. I was a vegetarian for 20 years. It is only after nearly two decades of my own research — I am a Cambridge graduate and currently studying for a PhD in nutrition —that I have changed my views.
The message that fruit and veg are pretty useless, nutritionally, gradually dawned on me.
The facts are these. There are 13 vitamins and fruit is good for one of them, vitamin C.
Vegetables offer some vitamins — vitamin C and the vegetable form of the fat-soluble vitamins A and vitamin K1 — but your body will be able to absorb these only if you add some fat, such as butter or olive oil.
The useful forms of A and K — retinol and K2 respectively — are found only in animal foods. As for minerals, there are 16 and fruit is good for one of them, potassium, which is not a substance we are often short of, as it is found in water.
Vegetables can be OK for iron and calcium but the vitamins and minerals in animal foods (meat, fish, eggs and dairy products) beat those in fruit and vegetables hands down. There is far more vitamin A in liver than in an apple, for instance.
But surely, people ask, even if there is no evidence that increasing our intake of fruit and vegetables will help prevent disease, they remain good things to eat?
I don’t think so. If people try to add five portions of fruit and veg — let alone eight — a day to their diet, it can be counterproductive. Fruit contains high levels of fructose, or fruit sugar.
Among dieticians, fructose is known as ‘the fattening carbohydrate’. It is not metabolised by the body in the same way as glucose, which enters the bloodstream and has a chance to be used for energy before it heads to the liver.
Fructose goes straight to the liver and is stored as fat. Very few people understand or want to believe this biochemical fact.
Another argument that is often put forward by dieticians on behalf of fruit and vegetables is that they are ‘a source of antioxidants’.
They believe we need to have more antioxidants in our diet to counteract the oxidants that damage the body’s cells, either as a result of normal metabolic processes or as a reaction to environmental chemicals and pollutants.
But I would rather concentrate on not putting oxidants such as sugar, processed food, cigarette smoke or chemicals into my body.
Besides, fruit has a fraction of the antioxidants of coffee, though you rarely hear dieticians singing coffee’s praises.
Incidentally, the body’s natural antioxidant is vitamin E, which is found in seeds — and particularly sunflower seeds.
Another problem is that dieticians tell you to eat less fat. We’re told that fat is bad for us but this has not been proven at all.
Of course, man-made trans-fats such as those found in biscuits and cakes are very unhealthy and should be banned.
But natural fats such as those in eggs, meat and fish should not be demonised alongside trans-fats. They are essential to our wellbeing and they are what we’ve lived on for thousands of years.
According to a recent survey, the British people are deficient in vitamins A, D, E — all of which are fat-soluble. If we added a dollop of butter to our portion of vegetables, they would be better for us — not worse.
Essential minerals are absorbed while food is in the intestines, so why do we want to flush everything out? It is far better to concentrate on not putting bad foods into your body.
Then there is the issue of fibre. Again, I don’t agree with the prevailing view that we should all eat more fibre in order to help us feel full and keep our digestive systems moving.
The fact is, we can’t digest fibre. How can something we can’t even digest be so important to us, nutritionally?
We are told that we need to ‘flush out’ our digestive systems. But essential minerals are absorbed while food is in the intestines, so why do we want to flush everything out? It is far better to concentrate on not putting bad foods into your body.
The biggest tragedy of all is the lost opportunity from this misguided five-a-day campaign.
If only we had hand-picked the five foodstuffs that are actually most nutritious and spent what the Department of Health has spent on promoting fruit and vegetables over the past 20 years on recommending them, we could have made an enormous difference to the health and weight of our nation.
If you ask me, these foodstuffs are liver (good for all vitamins and packed with minerals), sardines (for vitamin D and calcium), eggs (all-round super-food with vitamins A, B, D, E and K, iron, zinc, calcium and more), sunflower seeds (magnesium, vitamin E and zinc) and dark-green vegetables such as broccoli or spinach (for vitamins C, K and iron).
Add milk (good for calcium, vitamins A and D), porridge oats (magnesium, zinc and B vitamins) and cocoa powder (magnesium and iron) and, hey presto, you’re provided with the full quota of every vitamin and mineral our bodies need.
In a long-awaited Public Health White Paper late last year, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said that only three in ten adults eat the recommended five-a-day.
Later in the same document, he asks how can we improve the use of evidence in public health. My suggestion is that he gets his own facts on five-a-day straight and saves himself the bother of worrying about fruit and veg.
The nation — and his budget — would thank him for it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1349960/5-day-fruit-vegetables-myth-claims-nutrition-expert.html
This cynical five-a-day myth: Nutrition expert claims we've all been duped
By ZOE HARCOMBE
With great fanfare, it was reported last week that the current health advice about eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day is outdated, and that scientists now believe that eight portions is more beneficial.
While many people grumbled about how on earth they would manage those extra portions, I allowed myself a wry smile.
For more than two years I’ve known that the ‘five-a-day’ mantra we’re all so familiar with is nothing but a fairytale.
Myth: The truth is that fruit and veg are pretty useless nutritionally
Of course, they are tasty, colourful additions to any meal. But in terms of health and nutrition, fruit and veg have little to offer, and telling us to eat eight portions a day is compounding one of the worst health fallacies in recent history.
Surprised? Many people will be, and no doubt some dieticians and nutritionists will reject my arguments. But science backs me up.
The latest findings come from a European study into diet and health looking at 300,000 people in eight countries.
It found that people who ate eight or more portions of fresh food a day had a 22 per cent lower chance of dying from heart disease. Yet just 1,636 participants died during the study from heart disease, which is about half of one per cent.
Out of that very small proportion, fewer people died from the group that ate more fruit and veg.
However, the researchers cautioned that these people may have healthier lifestyles generally. They may be less likely to smoke; they may eat less processed food; they may be more active.
What we should not do is to make the usual bad science leap from association to causation and say ‘eating more fruit and veg lowers the risk of dying from heart disease’.
Vegetables offer some vitamins, but your body will be able to absorb these only if you add some fat, such as butter or olive oil
This survey comes not long after another large study, which examined half a million people over eight years, reported that fruit and veg offer no protection against breast, prostate, bowel, lung or any other kind of tumour. Those eating the most fruit and veg showed no difference in cancer risk compared with those eating the least.
So how have we been duped for so long?
You might assume our five-a-day fixation is based on firm evidence. But you’d be wrong.
It started as a marketing campaign dreamt up by around 20 fruit and veg companies and the U.S. National Cancer Institute at a meeting in California in 1991. And it’s been remarkably successful.
People in 25 countries, across three continents, have been urged to eat more greens, and have done so in their millions, believing it was good for them.
No doubt it was set up with the best intentions — to improve the health of the nation and reduce the incidence of cancer. But there was no evidence that it was doing us any good at all.
The fact that our own government has spent £3.3 million over the past four years on the five-a-day message shows how pervasive this belief is.
People are convinced that fruit and vegetables are a particularly good source of vitamins and minerals.
For a long time, I too was a believer. I was a vegetarian for 20 years. It is only after nearly two decades of my own research — I am a Cambridge graduate and currently studying for a PhD in nutrition —that I have changed my views.
The message that fruit and veg are pretty useless, nutritionally, gradually dawned on me.
The facts are these. There are 13 vitamins and fruit is good for one of them, vitamin C.
Vegetables offer some vitamins — vitamin C and the vegetable form of the fat-soluble vitamins A and vitamin K1 — but your body will be able to absorb these only if you add some fat, such as butter or olive oil.
The useful forms of A and K — retinol and K2 respectively — are found only in animal foods. As for minerals, there are 16 and fruit is good for one of them, potassium, which is not a substance we are often short of, as it is found in water.
Vegetables can be OK for iron and calcium but the vitamins and minerals in animal foods (meat, fish, eggs and dairy products) beat those in fruit and vegetables hands down. There is far more vitamin A in liver than in an apple, for instance.
But surely, people ask, even if there is no evidence that increasing our intake of fruit and vegetables will help prevent disease, they remain good things to eat?
I don’t think so. If people try to add five portions of fruit and veg — let alone eight — a day to their diet, it can be counterproductive. Fruit contains high levels of fructose, or fruit sugar.
Among dieticians, fructose is known as ‘the fattening carbohydrate’. It is not metabolised by the body in the same way as glucose, which enters the bloodstream and has a chance to be used for energy before it heads to the liver.
Fructose goes straight to the liver and is stored as fat. Very few people understand or want to believe this biochemical fact.
Another argument that is often put forward by dieticians on behalf of fruit and vegetables is that they are ‘a source of antioxidants’.
They believe we need to have more antioxidants in our diet to counteract the oxidants that damage the body’s cells, either as a result of normal metabolic processes or as a reaction to environmental chemicals and pollutants.
But I would rather concentrate on not putting oxidants such as sugar, processed food, cigarette smoke or chemicals into my body.
Besides, fruit has a fraction of the antioxidants of coffee, though you rarely hear dieticians singing coffee’s praises.
Incidentally, the body’s natural antioxidant is vitamin E, which is found in seeds — and particularly sunflower seeds.
Another problem is that dieticians tell you to eat less fat. We’re told that fat is bad for us but this has not been proven at all.
Of course, man-made trans-fats such as those found in biscuits and cakes are very unhealthy and should be banned.
But natural fats such as those in eggs, meat and fish should not be demonised alongside trans-fats. They are essential to our wellbeing and they are what we’ve lived on for thousands of years.
According to a recent survey, the British people are deficient in vitamins A, D, E — all of which are fat-soluble. If we added a dollop of butter to our portion of vegetables, they would be better for us — not worse.
Essential minerals are absorbed while food is in the intestines, so why do we want to flush everything out? It is far better to concentrate on not putting bad foods into your body.
Then there is the issue of fibre. Again, I don’t agree with the prevailing view that we should all eat more fibre in order to help us feel full and keep our digestive systems moving.
The fact is, we can’t digest fibre. How can something we can’t even digest be so important to us, nutritionally?
We are told that we need to ‘flush out’ our digestive systems. But essential minerals are absorbed while food is in the intestines, so why do we want to flush everything out? It is far better to concentrate on not putting bad foods into your body.
The biggest tragedy of all is the lost opportunity from this misguided five-a-day campaign.
If only we had hand-picked the five foodstuffs that are actually most nutritious and spent what the Department of Health has spent on promoting fruit and vegetables over the past 20 years on recommending them, we could have made an enormous difference to the health and weight of our nation.
If you ask me, these foodstuffs are liver (good for all vitamins and packed with minerals), sardines (for vitamin D and calcium), eggs (all-round super-food with vitamins A, B, D, E and K, iron, zinc, calcium and more), sunflower seeds (magnesium, vitamin E and zinc) and dark-green vegetables such as broccoli or spinach (for vitamins C, K and iron).
Add milk (good for calcium, vitamins A and D), porridge oats (magnesium, zinc and B vitamins) and cocoa powder (magnesium and iron) and, hey presto, you’re provided with the full quota of every vitamin and mineral our bodies need.
In a long-awaited Public Health White Paper late last year, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said that only three in ten adults eat the recommended five-a-day.
Later in the same document, he asks how can we improve the use of evidence in public health. My suggestion is that he gets his own facts on five-a-day straight and saves himself the bother of worrying about fruit and veg.
The nation — and his budget — would thank him for it.
chickenbackside- Posts : 92
Join date : 2011-01-05
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
gz0707 Tue Mar 08, 2011 3:06 am
Hey guys, got this update from the Gary Taubes on Facebook! Here's the link too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-wartman/a-big-fat-debate_b_831332.html
The low-fat trend finally appears to be on its way out. The notion that saturated fats are detrimental to our health is deeply embedded in our Zeitgeist--but shockingly, the opposite just might be true. For over 50 years the medical establishment, public health officials, nutritionists, and dietitians have been telling the American people to eat a low-fat diet, and in particular, to avoid saturated fats. Only recently, have nutrition experts begun to encourage people to eat "healthy fats."
This past December, the Los Angeles Times reported that excess carbohydrates and sugar, not fat, are responsible for America's obesity and diabetes epidemics. One of the lead researchers in this field, Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said, "The country's big low-fat message backfired. The overemphasis on reducing fat caused the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar in our diets to soar. That shift may be linked to the biggest health problems in America today." Another expert, Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, said, "Fat is not the problem."
Last month, Martha Rose Shulman of the New York Times Recipes for Health section, wrote that she's taken the "no low-fat pledge." Shulman writes, "I took a pledge the other day that will surprise my longtime followers. It even surprised me. I pledged to drop the term 'low-fat' from my vocabulary."
Shulman, an influential food and recipe writer with over 25 books to her name, has long promoted low-fat and light cooking, but now writes, "There are many recipes in my cookbooks from the 90s that now look and taste dated to me. I've put back some of the oil and cheese that I took out when editors were telling me to keep total fat at 30 percent of total calories-a concept that is now obsolete even among policymakers."
She and a room full of "nutrition scientists, dietitians, doctors, chefs and food service titans" recently listened to experts on nutrition debunk some of the common fat myths. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, who co-directs the program in cardiovascular epidemiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and is an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, was also there and said, "No randomized trial looking at weight change has shown that people did better on a low-fat diet. For many people, low-fat diets are even worse than moderate or high-fat diets because they're often high in carbohydrates from rapidly digested foods such as white flour, white rice, potatoes, refined snacks and sugary drinks."
These are clear indications that an important tipping point in the mainstream understanding of fat and nutrition is underway. But it did take some time. Back in 2002, Gary Taubes wrote about it in the New York Times magazine, laying out a fine deconstruction of the low-fat premise presented to the American people. He pointed out that the science behind this recommendation was never proven and was actually based on "a leap of faith" (more on this here).
In 2001, Dr. Hu, writing in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, noted, "It is now increasingly recognized that the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health problems." Or, as Michael Pollan pithily puts it in his In Defense of Food, "The amount of saturated fat in the diet may have little if any bearing on the risk of heart disease, and the evidence that increasing polyunsaturated fats in the diet will reduce risk is slim to nil."
This brings up several important issues in the fat debate. It is still widely held that what matters are the types of fat we consume. Even in Shulman's article on her fat re-education, there are contradictions--it's clear she just can't get her head around the idea that saturated fats may indeed be healthy. She writes, "Saturated fat--the kind found in animals and dairy products, as well as in any hydrogenated fat--is also regarded as a less healthy fat because it raises LDL cholesterol, or 'bad' cholesterol in the blood, and this kind of cholesterol is related to heart disease. But even saturated fat is not so bad compared to refined carbohydrates, the doctors say, and if we were to eliminate it from our diet we would also be eliminating many foods that are also rich in healthy fats, like fish, whose omega-3 fatty acids are vital to good health."
But as Pollan points out, the idea that saturated fats are a less healthy fat just isn't true, as the picture is fairly complex. Indeed, most foods are composed of a many different types of fats. For example, half the fat found in beef is unsaturated and most of that fat is the same monounsaturated fat found in olive oil. Lard is 60 percent unsaturated and most of the fat in chicken fat is unsaturated as well, according to Taubes 2008 book Good Calories, Bad Calories. In his New York Times article he writes, "Even saturated fats-AKA, the bad fats--are not nearly as deleterious as you would think. True, they will elevate your bad cholesterol, but they will also elevate your good cholesterol. In other words, it's a virtual wash." Taubes continues, "Foods considered more or less deadly under the low-fat dogma turn out to be comparatively benign if you actually look at their fat content. More than two-thirds of the fat in a porterhouse steak, for instance, will definitively improve your cholesterol profile (at least in comparison with the baked potato next to it); it's true that the remainder will raise your L.D.L., the bad stuff, but it will also boost your H.D.L. The same is true for lard. If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease."
Nearly every day new research and studies come out debunking the popular fat myths; despite this, misinformation persists. On the Mayo Clinic's Web site, saturated fats are lumped in with trans-fats under the banner "harmful dietary fat" and the site claims that saturated fat can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
The link to cardiovascular disease is a tenuous one at best--the idea being that saturated fats raise your cholesterol and triglyceride levels which in turn leads to cardiovascular disease. But according to the most recent studies, including one reported in the Los Angeles Times article, this is not true. "Contrary to what many expect--dietary fat intake is not directly related to blood fat. Rather, the amount of carbohydrates in the diet appears to be a potent contributor," Marni Jameson writes.
And during a symposium called "The Great Fat Debate: Is There Validity In the Age-Old Dietary Guidance?" at the American Dietetic Association's Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo, four leading experts agreed that replacing saturated fat with carbohydrates is likely to raise the risk of cardiovascular disease. Dr. Walter Willett said, "If anything, the literature shows a slight advantage of the high fat diet."
And as for diabetes, there is no data to support the notion that a high-fat diet increases the risk for diabetes. Again, if anything, the opposite appears to be true. In a 2008 study reported in the Los Angeles Times article, obese men and women with metabolic syndrome (a precursor to diabetes) that went on a high saturated-fat, low-carb diet saw their triglycerides drop by 50 percent and their levels of "good" H.D.L. cholesterol increase by 15 percent.
But old dietary habits die hard and convincing people that what they've been told for the past 50 years is just plain wrong, is a hard sell. Not only that, but the continued recommendations to eat low-fat versions of foods (as in the USDA's latest dietary guidelines and on the Mayo Clinic's Web site) don't help. Americans are confused about nutrition and disease and it's only getting more complex with corporations claiming to make healthier foods (see Mark Bittman's take on McDonald's oatmeal and my take on Wal-Mart's health washing).
Keep in mind, there is one type of fat that is implicated in high cholesterol, atherosclerosis, heart disease, and diabetes: Trans-fat. Trans-fats raise bad cholesterol, lower good cholesterol, and increase triglycerides, they also promotes inflammation and insulin resistance, according to a 2000 article in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. This points to the one basic axiom that always hold true: Eat real, whole foods and nothing else--now, if we could only just all agree on what those are.
This post originally appeared on Civil Eats
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-wartman/a-big-fat-debate_b_831332.html
The low-fat trend finally appears to be on its way out. The notion that saturated fats are detrimental to our health is deeply embedded in our Zeitgeist--but shockingly, the opposite just might be true. For over 50 years the medical establishment, public health officials, nutritionists, and dietitians have been telling the American people to eat a low-fat diet, and in particular, to avoid saturated fats. Only recently, have nutrition experts begun to encourage people to eat "healthy fats."
This past December, the Los Angeles Times reported that excess carbohydrates and sugar, not fat, are responsible for America's obesity and diabetes epidemics. One of the lead researchers in this field, Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said, "The country's big low-fat message backfired. The overemphasis on reducing fat caused the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar in our diets to soar. That shift may be linked to the biggest health problems in America today." Another expert, Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, said, "Fat is not the problem."
Last month, Martha Rose Shulman of the New York Times Recipes for Health section, wrote that she's taken the "no low-fat pledge." Shulman writes, "I took a pledge the other day that will surprise my longtime followers. It even surprised me. I pledged to drop the term 'low-fat' from my vocabulary."
Shulman, an influential food and recipe writer with over 25 books to her name, has long promoted low-fat and light cooking, but now writes, "There are many recipes in my cookbooks from the 90s that now look and taste dated to me. I've put back some of the oil and cheese that I took out when editors were telling me to keep total fat at 30 percent of total calories-a concept that is now obsolete even among policymakers."
She and a room full of "nutrition scientists, dietitians, doctors, chefs and food service titans" recently listened to experts on nutrition debunk some of the common fat myths. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, who co-directs the program in cardiovascular epidemiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and is an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, was also there and said, "No randomized trial looking at weight change has shown that people did better on a low-fat diet. For many people, low-fat diets are even worse than moderate or high-fat diets because they're often high in carbohydrates from rapidly digested foods such as white flour, white rice, potatoes, refined snacks and sugary drinks."
These are clear indications that an important tipping point in the mainstream understanding of fat and nutrition is underway. But it did take some time. Back in 2002, Gary Taubes wrote about it in the New York Times magazine, laying out a fine deconstruction of the low-fat premise presented to the American people. He pointed out that the science behind this recommendation was never proven and was actually based on "a leap of faith" (more on this here).
In 2001, Dr. Hu, writing in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, noted, "It is now increasingly recognized that the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health problems." Or, as Michael Pollan pithily puts it in his In Defense of Food, "The amount of saturated fat in the diet may have little if any bearing on the risk of heart disease, and the evidence that increasing polyunsaturated fats in the diet will reduce risk is slim to nil."
This brings up several important issues in the fat debate. It is still widely held that what matters are the types of fat we consume. Even in Shulman's article on her fat re-education, there are contradictions--it's clear she just can't get her head around the idea that saturated fats may indeed be healthy. She writes, "Saturated fat--the kind found in animals and dairy products, as well as in any hydrogenated fat--is also regarded as a less healthy fat because it raises LDL cholesterol, or 'bad' cholesterol in the blood, and this kind of cholesterol is related to heart disease. But even saturated fat is not so bad compared to refined carbohydrates, the doctors say, and if we were to eliminate it from our diet we would also be eliminating many foods that are also rich in healthy fats, like fish, whose omega-3 fatty acids are vital to good health."
But as Pollan points out, the idea that saturated fats are a less healthy fat just isn't true, as the picture is fairly complex. Indeed, most foods are composed of a many different types of fats. For example, half the fat found in beef is unsaturated and most of that fat is the same monounsaturated fat found in olive oil. Lard is 60 percent unsaturated and most of the fat in chicken fat is unsaturated as well, according to Taubes 2008 book Good Calories, Bad Calories. In his New York Times article he writes, "Even saturated fats-AKA, the bad fats--are not nearly as deleterious as you would think. True, they will elevate your bad cholesterol, but they will also elevate your good cholesterol. In other words, it's a virtual wash." Taubes continues, "Foods considered more or less deadly under the low-fat dogma turn out to be comparatively benign if you actually look at their fat content. More than two-thirds of the fat in a porterhouse steak, for instance, will definitively improve your cholesterol profile (at least in comparison with the baked potato next to it); it's true that the remainder will raise your L.D.L., the bad stuff, but it will also boost your H.D.L. The same is true for lard. If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease."
Nearly every day new research and studies come out debunking the popular fat myths; despite this, misinformation persists. On the Mayo Clinic's Web site, saturated fats are lumped in with trans-fats under the banner "harmful dietary fat" and the site claims that saturated fat can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
The link to cardiovascular disease is a tenuous one at best--the idea being that saturated fats raise your cholesterol and triglyceride levels which in turn leads to cardiovascular disease. But according to the most recent studies, including one reported in the Los Angeles Times article, this is not true. "Contrary to what many expect--dietary fat intake is not directly related to blood fat. Rather, the amount of carbohydrates in the diet appears to be a potent contributor," Marni Jameson writes.
And during a symposium called "The Great Fat Debate: Is There Validity In the Age-Old Dietary Guidance?" at the American Dietetic Association's Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo, four leading experts agreed that replacing saturated fat with carbohydrates is likely to raise the risk of cardiovascular disease. Dr. Walter Willett said, "If anything, the literature shows a slight advantage of the high fat diet."
And as for diabetes, there is no data to support the notion that a high-fat diet increases the risk for diabetes. Again, if anything, the opposite appears to be true. In a 2008 study reported in the Los Angeles Times article, obese men and women with metabolic syndrome (a precursor to diabetes) that went on a high saturated-fat, low-carb diet saw their triglycerides drop by 50 percent and their levels of "good" H.D.L. cholesterol increase by 15 percent.
But old dietary habits die hard and convincing people that what they've been told for the past 50 years is just plain wrong, is a hard sell. Not only that, but the continued recommendations to eat low-fat versions of foods (as in the USDA's latest dietary guidelines and on the Mayo Clinic's Web site) don't help. Americans are confused about nutrition and disease and it's only getting more complex with corporations claiming to make healthier foods (see Mark Bittman's take on McDonald's oatmeal and my take on Wal-Mart's health washing).
Keep in mind, there is one type of fat that is implicated in high cholesterol, atherosclerosis, heart disease, and diabetes: Trans-fat. Trans-fats raise bad cholesterol, lower good cholesterol, and increase triglycerides, they also promotes inflammation and insulin resistance, according to a 2000 article in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. This points to the one basic axiom that always hold true: Eat real, whole foods and nothing else--now, if we could only just all agree on what those are.
This post originally appeared on Civil Eats
gz0707- Posts : 70
Join date : 2011-02-25
Re: Paleo/Low Carb write up postings.
xtrocious Tue Mar 08, 2011 7:28 am
Thanks GZ
But I think it's so hard to convince people these days...
They rather be ignorant and happy with the blue pill than take the red pill to learn about the truth...
Oh well, at the end of the day, we are improving our own health...let them have their cakes
But I think it's so hard to convince people these days...
They rather be ignorant and happy with the blue pill than take the red pill to learn about the truth...
Oh well, at the end of the day, we are improving our own health...let them have their cakes
xtrocious- Posts : 161
Join date : 2010-12-30
Age : 55
Location : West Singapore
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