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-   -   Low fat myth exposed (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=43872)

Jilly Wed, May-08-02 08:15

Low fat myth exposed
 
The Independent newspaper (Uk broadsheet) today ran this article:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/he...sp?story=293029


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Quote:

The myth of the low-fat diet

For years, we've been advised to eat a low-fat diet in order to help prevent heart attacks and promote weight loss. But, says Jerome Burn, the latest research suggests that such a diet may actually do more harm than good

08 May 2002
Looking for something healthy and non-fattening for your evening meal? How about a nice porterhouse steak, which is 50-50 fat and protein? It's a suggestion that comes about as close to heresy as we get these days, but there is increasing evidence that a low-fat diet is not the panacea we have been promised. For the past 30 years such a diet has been officially promoted, on both sides of the Atlantic, as the route to plaque-free arteries and a slim figure. A message that has propelled 15,000 low-fat products on to American supermarket shelves.

However, the campaign has had no obvious effect on the incidence of heart disease, nor have the pounds been falling off the national waists and hips. In fact, according to a recent report, we are getting fatter. Not only is a low-fat diet largely irrelevant to reducing heart disease but it may be responsible for the worrying rise of diabetes.

Praise for the fat-laden porterhouse steak came in an award-winning investigative article, published last year, on just how little evidence there is supporting the low-fat dogma (Science, 30 March 2001). Virtually ignored in the UK at the time, it should be required reading for anyone interested in diet. The problem with the low-fat message is that it is far too simple.

For instance, we've all been told to avoid animal fats because they are saturated and that saturated fat raises cholesterol levels in the blood. But half the fat in a steak is actually "monounsaturated" – the same type as found in "good for the heart" olive oil. The other half is, indeed, saturated but about a third of it is a type called stearic acid, which, like olive oil, raises the "good" HDL cholesterol in the blood. So just 30 per cent of the fat in a steak is the sort of saturated fat that can raise "bad" LDL cholesterol. However, even this demonised fat will simultaneously raise the "good" HDL. "All of this suggests," writes science journalist Gary Taubes, author of the Science article, "that eating a porterhouse steak rather than carbohydrates might actually improve heart disease risk".

The recommendation that dietary fat be reduced to 30 per cent of the total calorie intake is contained in a 1976 Senate report. Written by a journalist, who had only previously reported on labour relations, it drew on just two days of testimony, most from an eccentric Harvard nutritionist Mark Hegstead, who regarded dietary fat as the nutritional equivalent of cigarettes.

That would not have mattered had the evidence come in to support his recommendation – but, beyond a certain point, it hasn't. Undoubtedly if you are at high risk of having a heart attack – overweight, high blood pressure, no exercise, etcetera – and you have very high levels of cholesterol, then reducing them with diet or drugs can significantly reduce your chance of a heart attack. What has not been shown convincingly, however, is that someone who is not at risk will have their life cut short as a result of regularly eating more than the recommended level of dietary fat. As Taubes reports in his article, at least four large trials between 1980 and 1984 comparing disease rates and diet "showed no evidence that men who ate less fat lived longer or had fewer heart attacks".

Since the early Seventies Americans' fat consumption has dropped from an average of 40 per cent of the diet to 34 per cent, but the incidence of heart disease hasn't fallen too. In fact, between 1979 and 1996, largely reflecting the range of new developments, the number of medical procedures for heart disease increased from 1.2 million to 5.4 million. At the same time the proportion of obese Americans has soared from 14 per cent to 22 per cent.

A low-fat diet may be actively harmful. In the late Eighties, David Jacobs, from the University of Minnesota, did a study in Japan on the effects of cholesterol and, interestingly, found a link between low blood cholesterol levels and an increase in non-heart disease related deaths. He reported to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which hosted the American Heart Association conference in 1990. At that conference the results of 19 studies from around the world on the links between cholesterol levels and disease were pooled. Taubes writes: "The data were consistent. When investigators tracked all deaths instead of just heart disease, the cholesterol curves were U-shaped for men (both high and low increased the risk) and flat for women." He adds: "As for women, if anything, the higher their cholesterol the longer they lived."

Meanwhile, the link between low-fat diets and weight loss hasn't fared well either. The ongoing Women's Health Initiative – a $100m study on women's health – enrolled 50,000 women in a randomised trial, putting half of them on a draconian diet that provided only 20 per cent of their calories from fat. After three years they had lost, on average, just one kilogram.

Critics of the low-fat hypothesis, such as Peter Ahrens of Rockerfeller University in New York City, have always been concerned that simply lowering fat intakes could have a range of unforeseen effects. Fat is a major component of cell membranes, the brain is 70 per cent fat, and changing fat ratios could affect all sorts of processes, from immune responses to hormone levels.

Just how much else is involved in determining the effect of fat levels in the diet was illustrated by the Lyons Diet Heart Study (16 February 1999). This involved two groups of heart attack survivors, one getting a typical low-fat diet and the other a Mediterranean diet with more bread, cereals, beans, vegetables, olive oil, fruit and fish. The total amount of fat and the type of fat type that each group ate were very different. Intriguingly, however, since high fat is supposed directly to affect cholesterol, the cholesterol levels in the blood of the two groups were very similar. After four years the Mediterranean group had had 14 heart attacks, compared with 44 for those on the "low-fat" diet. This suggests that reducing blood cholesterol is not simply a matter of reducing dietary fat. What is crucial, it turns out, is the type of fat and what you eat along with that fat.

A danger of the low-fat advice may be that it is encouraging us to eat too much of the wrong sort of food. Given the chance, people tend to eat about the same amount of calories, however varied their composition, and those who eat lots of meat and dairy products, like the Finns or Americans, tend not to eat lots of vegetables and fruits. So if you reduce fat, it is likely to be replaced with refined carbohydrates, and that seems to be the problem.

Troublingly, the evidence has been growing that diets high in carbohydrate can increase the blood level of dangerous fats called triglycerides and reduce the "good" or HDL cholesterol. Diets high in sugar and other carbohydrates may also lead to a condition called insulin resistance – the extra carbohydrates are turned into extra glucose, which makes the body produce extra insulin and after a while the body becomes less sensitive to insulin. This combination produces something that Stanford endocrinologist Gerald Reaven has called "syndrome X" (New Scientist, 1 September 2001).

In the United States an estimated 30 per cent of males and 10 per cent to 15 per cent of post-menopausal women have insulin resistance, which commonly leads to diabetes and is linked with a raised risk of heart disease. High-energy snacks are one way to expose the liver to damaging levels of insulin, although exercise can keep the level of harmful triglycerides down. Another element of the high-carbohydrate diet that has been linked with syndrome X is a high consumption of a type of sugar known as fructose. Fructose makes up half of ordinary sugar but corn syrup, now used to sweeten a vast range of foods – breakfast cereals, many low-fat snacks and fizzy drinks – is almost pure fructose. Rather than a high-fat diet, a major contributor to our creeping obesity epidemic could be increased consumption of carbohydrates, especially those coming from sugars.

What's very interesting is that researchers who are concerned about syndrome X come up with the same sort of dietary advice to avoid it as those who are studying fats and heart disease. One again, olive oil, fish oils, plenty of fruits and fresh vegetables and slow release carbohydrates like lentils, beans, brown rice and oats are recommended as a way of avoiding insulin resistance, as well as rendering saturated fats safe.

One reason for the survival of low fat as a recommended diet, which really only seems relevant to people at risk of a heart attack due to high cholesterol, is the difficulty of giving general dietary advice. Not only do fats and cholesterol levels interact in a variety of complicated ways but so also do the ways we lay down fat. The billions that a successful anti-fat pill would generate, means huge amounts of research effort are being put into research to uncover the multiple pathways controlling appetite and fat storage. The complexity of this emerging system suggests why the simple low-fat mantra has proved so unsuccessful as a weight loss programme, too.

A glimpse of just how complicated this system is came from a study by researchers at Rockerfeller University, using an extraordinary technique to trace the brain areas involved in appetite. A pseudo-rabies virus, which infects linked brain cells, genetically modified to produce green glowing jellyfish protein, was injected into rats' brains. Most hunger research concentrates on the appetite centre in the hypothalamus but tracing the green lines left by the virus revealed that brain centres that control the emotions, smell and the higher centres had all been infected. Our appetite seems very much part of who we are.

A similar programme to begin to tease out what is involved in the relationship between dietary fats and cholesterol should eventually yield more sophisticated and useful advice than the low-fat diet.

A longer version of this article appeared in the monthly newsletter 'Medicine Today'. www.medicine-today.co.uk

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agonycat Wed, May-08-02 08:41

Very good read!

Thanks for sharing.

Lisa N Wed, May-08-02 16:25

Thanks for the post, Jilly....very informative and interesting. It's sounding more and more like Dr. Atkins is right on the money with his recommendations for weight control and better overall health!

Oldsalty Wed, May-08-02 20:23

Great article and sounds like a reporter who did a little homework for a change. I liked this piece of the article as an example.
"But half the fat in a steak is actually "monounsaturated" – the same type as found in "good for the heart" olive oil. The other half is, indeed, saturated but about a third of it is a type called stearic acid, which, like olive oil, raises the "good" HDL cholesterol in the blood."
Thanks for posting it

Patchouli Sun, May-12-02 02:00

Thanks Jilly
 
Very informative. Thanks for sharing it.

astinson Sun, May-12-02 09:15

It good and refreshing to see articles like this one.

k9dodo Sun, May-12-02 09:36

Low Fat Myth
 
This is a very good article. I am one of the people who fights high tryglycerides and staying low fat did nothing for me. Thank you for posting this. :thup:

PAMMYSUE Mon, May-13-02 11:11

article
 
THANK YOU FOR THE ARTICLE. BUT KNOW IAM STILL CONFUSED.
IAM ON THE ATKINS DIET, 5 WEEKS ( LOST 15 PDS, 8 INCHES).
BUT I WENT ON THE BFL WEBSITE THIS LAST WEEKEND AND TALKED TO A FEW PEOPLE THERE AND THEY WERE TRYING TO
CONVINCE ME THAT THE ADKINS DIET IS HARMFULL. THEY DIDNT
UNDERSTAND HOW YOU COULD CUT CARBS AND EAT ALL THE MEAT YOU WANT. ALSO STATING THAT TO EAT THAT MUCH IS
HARMFUL. I GUESS FOR MYSELF, IAM GOING TO START
EXCERCISING CLOSE TO THE ROUTINE OF THE BFL AND CONTINUE
TO DO THE ATKINS (AROUND 45 GMS OF CARBS A DAY) AND
STILL CUT BACK ON MY BREADS AND PASTAS.

ANYONE HAVE ANY OTHER IDEAS OR ARTICLES THAT MIGHT
MAKE ME FEEL A LITTLE MORE AT EASE.

I WISH THE POUNDS WILL JUST FALL OFF AND THEN I WOULD
NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT. HA HA

HAVE A GREAT WEEK ALL.

PAM :roll: :roll: :rolleyes: :confused:

Melberry Tue, May-14-02 03:42

Jilly, thank you so much for posting that information. It was very interesting.

PammySue, 15lbs in 5 weeks is fabulous and I would certainly class that as "falling off". Congratualtions!
In relation to the people rubbishing Atkins, chances are they haven't even read the book. It is a common misconception that it's all meat and fat whereas in actual fact it also includes more salad and vegetables than you've probably eaten before. The protein that you eat in the diet is actually what is required for the body to repair and create muscle, etc. There are many other people that are on this site than can tell you more about the technical side of it. There are also several people who follow BFL and I'm sure some of them will come along soon. In the meantime you could try looking at the BFL section of this website (under Exercise Forum section)

Melberry
:)

PAMMYSUE Tue, May-14-02 06:40

Thank you Melberry. I needed that little boost.
I was beginning to doubt the plan. Iam now
including exercising, now that I am starting to feel
better. Good Luck to all.

Pam :wave:

agonycat Tue, May-14-02 07:03

Pammysue, I have been following Atkin's for over a year now and my doctor says I am in better health now than I was before I started.

So *IF* eating all "this meat and fat" is bad for ones health I do believe I will keep eating this way :) Sounds like the people on that other board haven't even picked up a copy of DANDR to read. They are just going by the media hype which is ill informed to say the least.

PAMMYSUE Tue, May-14-02 14:56

THANK YOU
 
THANK YOU AGONY CAT FOR THE REPLY.

I BELIEVE THE WAY YOU DO. BUT I AM STILL NEW
AT THIS SO I AM STILL WONDERING ABOUT EVERYTHING.

YOU SAID YOU HAVE BEEN ON THIS FOR ONE YEAR. HOW MUCH WEIGHT DO YOU LOOSE ON THE PROGRAM. (HOPE YOU DONT MIND ME ASKING) I HAVE LOST 15 PDS SO FAR AND ABOUT 7 INCHES (ONE MONTH) TO ME THATS GOOD, BUT IAM NOT SURE. DID YOU STICK TO THE PROGRAM RELIGIOUSLY OR DID YOU HAVE TIMES THAT YOU FELL OFF THE WAGON AS THEY SAY. THIS LAST WEEKEND I WANTED TO FALL OFF SO BAD AND ORDER A BIG OLD PIZZA. I WONDER IF I HAD, HOW MUCH HARM IT WOULD HAVE DONE.

QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS.

AGAIN THANKS EVEYONE FOR YOUR HELP. TALKING IS
MAKING MUCH EASIER.

PAM :wave:

PAMMYSUE Wed, May-15-02 07:00

CHAT
 
HI ALL - ANOTHER DAY....

THINGS ARE GETTING CRAZY NOW. 2 KIDS DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS FOR BASEBALL, NO TIME FOR FAMILY DINNERS ANYMORE. ANYONE ELSE GOT THAT PROBLEM. FIND MYSELF FORGETING TO EAT OR LOOSING TRACK OF TIME AND REALIZING ITS BEEN ALL DAY AND I HAVE NOT EATEN. JUST LIKE YESTERDAY, I HAD A PIECE OF SAUSAGE AND AN EGG FOR BREAKFAST AND BEFORE I KNEW IT IS WAS 8:00 PM AND HAD NO LUNCH OR DINNER. HUSBAND TOOK KIDS TO MCDONALDS BEFORE DROPPING THEM OFF TO ME. SO AT 8:00 I HAD SOME FRIED UP SOME SAUSAGE LINKS AND THEN MADE SOME TUNA SALAD.

NOW MY QUESTIONS, ON THE ATKINS, DO YOU HAVE TO EAT 3-4 MEALS A DAY? IF YOU DONT OR CANT DOES IT HURT WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO DO?

WHAT YA THINK?

PAM ARMSTRONG :wave:

agonycat Wed, May-15-02 07:08

Pammy as you can see by my stats I have lost around 47 pounds so far. I did stall out for 8 months due to not eating enough and didn't realize it.

I have slowed down my weight loss considerably so that I approach my goal at a more relaxed pace. I know that by taking it slow, I am learning what I can eat to keep my weight stable.

PAMMYSUE Wed, May-15-02 07:52

Hi Agonycat::

Congrats on you weight loss.

I hope i get be as successful. I just have to get past the point
of wanting the weight off yesterday.

I am going to start incorporating more exercise. I have had to take it very slow, I had back surgery 2 years ago and I do not want to hurt it again and have to be down again. Thats how I
put on the weight, because I could not exercise for 2 years.

Do you find that you can miss meals and still loose weight or do you have to eat 3-4 meals a day?

Hope I am not asking to many questions. Thanks for your help.

Pam :wave:

Lisa N Wed, May-15-02 15:12

Pammysue...

it's important for weight loss and general good health to give your body a steady supply of nutrients and calories. It also helps keep your metabolism revved up. So, no...please don't skip meals unless you absolutely can't avoid it. I know how it is to get busy and forget to eat, I've done it myself a time or two, but if you make a habit of it your metabolism and your weight loss will suffer for it. What helps for me is to cook ahead on the weekend and try to keep a supply of cooked meats in the refrigerator that can be quickly grabbed and reheated or eaten cold on the run. Hard boiled eggs are also handy for this purpose as well as cheese cubes. I also went to my local party supply store and bought a pack of small cups with lids (the kind that restaurants serve salad dressing in) so that I can pour some salad dressing in them myself to pack in a lunch with raw veggies for dipping. Very quick and easy!

alpmartin Fri, May-17-02 23:17

Jilly:

Thanks for the post. I have printed out the newspaper article and am trying to follow up on some of the references in the article. One of my problems is trying to convince my doctor that a Low Carb diet is a good diet to be on. He is a dedicated physician, and reads the latest articles, and really does keep up with the literature, as best as possible, However, the desk reference for physicians that he uses advocates the usual Low Fat, Low protein, high Carb diet that we all know and do not love ( I sorta take that back. We all love the sugar and the pasta and the donuts, but know that we cannot really eat that stuff without gaining weight and causing some other problems). Anyway, the article points to some newer articles in Science and other mags, which is giving me some additional scientific information useful in convincing my Doctor that a Low Carb life is the way to go.

Thanks for the article.

Thinny Sat, May-18-02 15:41

PammySue, you asked about skipping meals and whether it has any effect on weight loss. Yes - a negative one! The whole idea is really to manage your insulin levels by never overloading your system with fuel, or letting it dip too low for lack of fuel.Taking the amount of food eaten by one in 3 meals in a normal day, then dividing it into 6 equal mini-meals (with protein at every one) has been proven to reduce weight on non-dieters, get rid of both hypoglycemic and diabetic symptoms, reduce intestinal distress, and in general, have health enhancing effects. This included weight GAIN for the skinny, and weight LOSS for the plump. So I would have to say that you, by emulating starvation conditions in your body, have convinced your body to desperately hang on to every calorie, every ounce, and is nullifying your weight loss efforts. EAT MORE of good proteins, lc veggies and good fats - especially the good fats, and track what happens. And spread them out, not eating in one or 2 large meals per day.

tamarian Sat, May-18-02 20:08

Quote:
Originally posted by alpmartin
He is a dedicated physician, and reads the latest articles, and really does keep up with the literature, as best as possible


In that case, he may find this page very helpful:

http://www.lowcarb.ca/newsmenu/researchfor.html

It's a collection of scientific and clinical studies in support of low-carbing.

Wa'il

jujubaby Sun, May-19-02 15:09

finding new doctors
 
Nice article and makes me wonder, do any of the doctors ever read any of this stuff?

Since I have to reestablish with all new Dr's.the last one recongized the trend that no fat may not be the cure all it was touted to be. but then he claimed he was for a balanced diet. but didn't establish what balanced meant.

I think" balanced " as Dr Schwarsbein claims, is really low carb diet and she offers using half slice of bread and half bannana etc. while not measuring protein or fat. That is far from balanced in my mind.

I see people having results with many different programs, and yet after reading Schwarzbein, I still don't know where the weight loss is going to come from. I see the scale go down for a couple of days and then back up a few.

Also, I was curious and tested for ketones and sure enough I had a small amount showing indicating by severl drs. that my body was using fat for energy. But the scale just does the same thing every couple of days.

I keep thinking that I eat too much cheese even tho it is allowed on all low carb programs.
What do you guys think, should I cut out the cheese once again?

By the way where can I find the ORIGINAL ww diet that measures and weighs food?
Does anyone know? and also the free food recipes that seemed to go with that program.
I remember losing weight with that program and eating a lot of food. Now I seem to eat less of everything and nothing happens!!

And please, do not tell me I have to eat more and drink more water in order to lose. I can never comprehend those instructions.

thanks again for all the info.

Thinny Sun, May-19-02 18:26

Juju, just how much cheese ARE you eating? Dr. A. clamped a lid on cheese on Induction - think it was 4 oz max. A lot of people whose ratios and diet fall in line with the recommendations nevertheless still have to tweak for their own individuality. One of the most tweaked items is cheese, followed by all dairy. Some of us just can't handle large amounts of cream, butter and yogurt (and I just confirmed that I am intolerant to all cow dairy products. Thank goodness I can handle goatmilk dairy stuff. Have a couple quarts yogurt brewing right now.:)) I'm also allergic to wheat and most grains due to a celiac inheritance. So I pretty well have to stick to the absolute basics. (The funny thing is - I lost the majority of my weight chowing down on tons of cheese, cream cheese, and whipping cream.) Then I stalled big time. 5 months, not once but twice. Fruit is one culprit - a byproduct of living in the Okanagan. I didn't start losing again till the cream and cheese were curtailed. Now I'm stalled again by the scales, but my size is undergoing renovations; so I'm just riding it out. Apparently that's another thing we have to practice - patience. :rolleyes:

jujubaby Mon, May-20-02 03:34

AHA !! I knew it!!!
 
Hello Thinny:
Thank you for the confirmation! Even though I was throwing off ketones and no weight loss, I knew it had to be something I was doing besides not moving around.
My back was seriously hurting, from therapy in my spa. I was encouraged by Little Anne, who goes for swiming exercise every week.
But the exercises must have been too much even though I felt so good in the warm water.
Also I didn't know that Atkins curtailed the cheese intake on induction?
{when I wasn't looking Ha!}
and yes I know I have to find my own system and click on for a long time.and I thank you for the encouragement.


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