Doesn’t Anyone Know What’s Good for US?

By Sheryl McCarthy
Newsday.com

July 11, 2002

The federal government has shocked millions of women by announcing that it's halting a study of hormone replacement therapy for middle-aged women, after concluding that the therapy does more harm than good.

For decades, American women have been urged by their doctors to take estrogen or a combination of estrogen and progestin to reduce the symptoms of menopause and to prevent bone loss in old age. Now we're being told that not only are these hormones not doing us much good; they are also increasing our risk of heart attacks, breast cancer, strokes and blood clots.

The news has sent millions of women into a tizzy. Should they stay on the hormones or toss them in the garbage?

Only days before, the New York Times Magazine published a riveting story about the debate over what constitutes a healthy diet. Since the 1960s, doctors, researchers and public-health officials have told us that a low-fat diet with lots of carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables is the way to stay healthy and ward off heart disease and cancer. But evidence is emerging that the low-fat, high- carb diet is in fact making Americans fatter and more prone to diabetes.

According to the alternate theory, cutting out fatty foods - including beef, butter and eggs - in favor of low-fat carbohydrates leaves us hungry and unsatisfied. We compensate by eating more carbohydrates and drinking sugary drinks, which are full of calories and make us gain weight. And because we crave fat, we keep slipping off the low-fat diets, so our weight goes up and down.

According to the alternate theory, due to the complex way that the insulin in our bodies interacts with fat, carbohydrates and sugar, eating more greasy meat, eggs and butter makes us less hungry, allows us to consume fewer calories, lowers the bad fat and cholesterol in our bodies, and keeps us slimmer and healthier.

This goes against everything we've been taught about healthy eating, with the exception of the theories a few much-maligned, but highly successful renegades like Dr. Robert Atkins of The Atkins Diet fame. Could he be right after all? The idea is mind-boggling.

But seesawing back and forth on health news is routine. A study out of Harvard University last month concluded that taking a multivitamin pill every day helps prevent cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis. But a study released by Oxford University scientists last week found that taking vitamin pills is of no benefit whatsoever.

I've taken the disputed hormones for a few years, secure in the belief that they are preserving my bones and that at age 65 I won't be a frail, hunched-over old lady. Now I'm told that the same hormones could be nudging me toward a blood clot.

I've also accepted the low-fat diet as gospel, even when I didn't always follow it. The official adherence to this diet turns out to be partly political. A Senate committee that studied the subject embraced the low-fat doctrine in the late 1970s, and the National Institutes of Health signed off on it in the 1980s, even though its own studies couldn't establish a link between eating fat and developing heart disease.

The food industry started producing thousands of reduced-fat and low-fat products, and physicians didn't dare dispute the official doctrine, despite a number of studies to the contrary.

My own experience certainly suggests that the diet doctrine is flawed. During several stints on a popular weight-loss program that embraces the low-fat approach, I always lost weight. I also gained it back. Trying the program again recently, I realized I was sick of peeling the skin off my chicken, eating daily breakfasts of dry cereal and skim milk, and pretending to be excited about vegetables.

Since reading the diet story, I've had sausage, bacon and eggs for breakfast every day. I feel less hungry, snack less, and I don't spend my days dreaming of cinnamon buns and Häagen-Dazs. There could be something to this.

Meanwhile, the maligned hormones remain in my closet, but I've stopped taking them for the time-being, and I may stop altogether. The jury is still out on the vitamins.

Email: mccart731~aol.com
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

Teri,
Nice find! Nicely written. I think it sums it up in a nutshell. People are very confused out there. But finally science and medicine are as they should be. That is making room for the alternative argument.

Indeed! This is a great find.

I am really glad journalist are starting to give both sides instead of going with the flow.

I hope one day, we can actually get the truth of what is good for us and what isn't without having some lobbist in Washington swaying the opinions in favor of whatever it is he is marketing as "truth".

In the meantime I do believe I will go fix myself some sausage and eggs for breakfast.