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Health See other Health Articles Title: The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease Are butter, cheese and steak really bad for you? The dubious science behind the anti-fat crusade "Saturated fat does not cause heart disease"—or so concluded a big study published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. How could this be? The very cornerstone of dietary advice for generations has been that the saturated fats in butter, cheese and red meat should be avoided because they clog our arteries. For many diet-conscious Americans, it is simply second nature to opt for chicken over sirloin, canola oil over butter. The new study's conclusion shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with modern nutritional science, however. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics and bias. Our distrust of saturated fat can be traced back to the 1950s, to a man named Ancel Benjamin Keys, a scientist at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Keys was formidably persuasive and, through sheer force of will, rose to the top of the nutrition world—even gracing the cover of Time magazine—for relentlessly championing the idea that saturated fats raise cholesterol and, as a result, cause heart attacks. This idea fell on receptive ears because, at the time, Americans faced a fast-growing epidemic. Heart disease, a rarity only three decades earlier, had quickly become the nation's No. 1 killer. Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1955. Researchers were desperate for answers. As the director of the largest nutrition study to date, Dr. Keys was in an excellent position to promote his idea. The "Seven Countries" study that he conducted on nearly 13,000 men in the U.S., Japan and Europe ostensibly demonstrated that heart disease wasn't the inevitable result of aging but could be linked to poor nutrition. Critics have pointed out that Dr. Keys violated several basic scientific norms in his study. For one, he didn't choose countries randomly but instead selected only those likely to prove his beliefs, including Yugoslavia, Finland and Italy. Excluded were France, land of the famously healthy omelet eater, as well as other countries where people consumed a lot of fat yet didn't suffer from high rates of heart disease, such as Switzerland, Sweden and West Germany. The study's star subjects—upon whom much of our current understanding of the Mediterranean diet is based—were peasants from Crete, islanders who tilled their fields well into old age and who appeared to eat very little meat or cheese. As it turns out, Dr. Keys visited Crete during an unrepresentative period of extreme hardship after World War II. Furthermore, he made the mistake of measuring the islanders' diet partly during Lent, when they were forgoing meat and cheese. Dr. Keys therefore undercounted their consumption of saturated fat. Also, due to problems with the surveys, he ended up relying on data from just a few dozen men—far from the representative sample of 655 that he had initially selected. These flaws weren't revealed until much later, in a 2002 paper by scientists investigating the work on Crete—but by then, the misimpression left by his erroneous data had become international dogma. In 1961, Dr. Keys sealed saturated fat's fate by landing a position on the nutrition committee of the American Heart Association, whose dietary guidelines are considered the gold standard. Although the committee had originally been skeptical of his hypothesis, it issued, in that year, the country's first-ever guidelines targeting saturated fats. The U.S. Department of Agriculture followed in 1980. Other studies ensued. A half-dozen large, important trials pitted a diet high in vegetable oil—usually corn or soybean, but not olive oil—against one with more animal fats. But these trials, mainly from the 1970s, also had serious methodological problems. Some didn't control for smoking, for instance, or allowed men to wander in and out of the research group over the course of the experiment. The results were unreliable at best. The Saturday Essay The World's Resources Aren't Running Out (5/3/14) Dante's Path to Paradise (4/19/14) The New ABCs of Business (4/12/14) The Unemployment Puzzle: Where Have All the Workers Gone? (4/5/14) Rules for a Happy Life (3/29/14) The Case for Nationalism (3/22/14) The Future of Brain Implants (3/15/14) Sheryl Sandberg and Anna Maria Chávez on 'Bossy,' the Other B-word (3/8/14) But there was no turning back: Too much institutional energy and research money had already been spent trying to prove Dr. Keys's hypothesis. A bias in its favor had grown so strong that the idea just started to seem like common sense. As Harvard nutrition professor Mark Hegsted said in 1977, after successfully persuading the U.S. Senate to recommend Dr. Keys's diet for the entire nation, the question wasn't whether Americans should change their diets, but why not? Important benefits could be expected, he argued. And the risks? "None can be identified," he said. In fact, even back then, other scientists were warning about the diet's potential unintended consequences. Today, we are dealing with the reality that these have come to pass. One consequence is that in cutting back on fats, we are now eating a lot more carbohydrates—at least 25% more since the early 1970s. Consumption of saturated fat, meanwhile, has dropped by 11%, according to the best available government data. Translation: Instead of meat, eggs and cheese, we're eating more pasta, grains, fruit and starchy vegetables such as potatoes. Even seemingly healthy low-fat foods, such as yogurt, are stealth carb-delivery systems, since removing the fat often requires the addition of fillers to make up for lost texture—and these are usually carbohydrate-based. The problem is that carbohydrates break down into glucose, which causes the body to release insulin—a hormone that is fantastically efficient at storing fat. Meanwhile, fructose, the main sugar in fruit, causes the liver to generate triglycerides and other lipids in the blood that are altogether bad news. Excessive carbohydrates lead not only to obesity but also, over time, to Type 2 diabetes and, very likely, heart disease. The real surprise is that, according to the best science to date, people put themselves at higher risk for these conditions no matter what kind of carbohydrates they eat. Yes, even unrefined carbs. Too much whole-grain oatmeal for breakfast and whole-grain pasta for dinner, with fruit snacks in between, add up to a less healthy diet than one of eggs and bacon, followed by fish. The reality is that fat doesn't make you fat or diabetic. Scientific investigations going back to the 1950s suggest that actually, carbs do. The second big unintended consequence of our shift away from animal fats is that we're now consuming more vegetable oils. Butter and lard had long been staples of the American pantry until Crisco, introduced in 1911, became the first vegetable-based fat to win wide acceptance in U.S. kitchens. Then came margarines made from vegetable oil and then just plain vegetable oil in bottles. All of these got a boost from the American Heart Association—which Procter & Gamble, the maker of Crisco oil, coincidentally helped launch as a national organization. In 1948, P&G made the AHA the beneficiary of the popular "Walking Man" radio contest, which the company sponsored. The show raised $1.7 million for the group and transformed it (according to the AHA's official history) from a small, underfunded professional society into the powerhouse that it remains today. After the AHA advised the public to eat less saturated fat and switch to vegetable oils for a "healthy heart" in 1961, Americans changed their diets. Now these oils represent 7% to 8% of all calories in our diet, up from nearly zero in 1900, the biggest increase in consumption of any type of food over the past century. This shift seemed like a good idea at the time, but it brought many potential health problems in its wake. In those early clinical trials, people on diets high in vegetable oil were found to suffer higher rates not only of cancer but also of gallstones. And, strikingly, they were more likely to die from violent accidents and suicides. Alarmed by these findings, the National Institutes of Health convened researchers several times in the early 1980s to try to explain these "side effects," but they couldn't. (Experts now speculate that certain psychological problems might be related to changes in brain chemistry caused by diet, such as fatty-acid imbalances or the depletion of cholesterol.) We've also known since the 1940s that when heated, vegetable oils create oxidation products that, in experiments on animals, lead to cirrhosis of the liver and early death. For these reasons, some midcentury chemists warned against the consumption of these oils, but their concerns were allayed by a chemical fix: Oils could be rendered more stable through a process called hydrogenation, which used a catalyst to turn them from oils into solids. From the 1950s on, these hardened oils became the backbone of the entire food industry, used in cakes, cookies, chips, breads, frostings, fillings, and frozen and fried food. Unfortunately, hydrogenation also produced trans fats, which since the 1970s have been suspected of interfering with basic cellular functioning and were recently condemned by the Food and Drug Administration for their ability to raise our levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol. Yet paradoxically, the drive to get rid of trans fats has led some restaurants and food manufacturers to return to using regular liquid oils—with the same long-standing oxidation problems. These dangers are especially acute in restaurant fryers, where the oils are heated to high temperatures over long periods. The past decade of research on these oxidation products has produced a sizable body of evidence showing their dramatic inflammatory and oxidative effects, which implicates them in heart disease and other illnesses such as Alzheimer's. Other newly discovered potential toxins in vegetable oils, called monochloropropane diols and glycidol esters, are now causing concern among health authorities in Europe. In short, the track record of vegetable oils is highly worrisome—and not remotely what Americans bargained for when they gave up butter and lard. Cutting back on saturated fat has had especially harmful consequences for women, who, due to hormonal differences, contract heart disease later in life and in a way that is distinct from men. If anything, high total cholesterol levels in women over 50 were found early on to be associated with longer life. This counterintuitive result was first discovered by the famous Framingham study on heart-disease risk factors in 1971 and has since been confirmed by other research. Since women under 50 rarely get heart disease, the implication is that women of all ages have been worrying about their cholesterol levels needlessly. Yet the Framingham study's findings on women were omitted from the study's conclusions. And less than a decade later, government health officials pushed their advice about fat and cholesterol on all Americans over age 2—based exclusively on data from middle-aged men. Sticking to these guidelines has meant ignoring growing evidence that women on diets low in saturated fat actually increase their risk of having a heart attack. The "good" HDL cholesterol drops precipitously for women on this diet (it drops for men too, but less so). The sad irony is that women have been especially rigorous about ramping up on their fruits, vegetables and grains, but they now suffer from higher obesity rates than men, and their death rates from heart disease have reached parity. Seeing the U.S. population grow sicker and fatter while adhering to official dietary guidelines has put nutrition authorities in an awkward position. Recently, the response of many researchers has been to blame "Big Food" for bombarding Americans with sugar-laden products. No doubt these are bad for us, but it is also fair to say that the food industry has simply been responding to the dietary guidelines issued by the AHA and USDA, which have encouraged high-carbohydrate diets and until quite recently said next to nothing about the need to limit sugar. Indeed, up until 1999, the AHA was still advising Americans to reach for "soft drinks," and in 2001, the group was still recommending snacks of "gum-drops" and "hard candies made primarily with sugar" to avoid fatty foods. Our half-century effort to cut back on the consumption of meat, eggs and whole-fat dairy has a tragic quality. More than a billion dollars have been spent trying to prove Ancel Keys's hypothesis, but evidence of its benefits has never been produced. It is time to put the saturated-fat hypothesis to bed and to move on to test other possible culprits for our nation's health woes. Ms. Teicholz has been researching dietary fat and disease for nearly a decade. Her book, "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet," will be published by Simon & Schuster on May 13. Poster Comment: Richard Iaconelli Wrote: Big points are missed in this article and many comments. Not everyone processes fat and carbs the same way. Genes matter too. As does the puzzle of chronic inflammation. The fat couch potato can have clean arteries and the trim jogger drops dead from heart disease. We still don't have all the answers. Frustrating. Peter Gray Wrote: This reads like April's Fool piece, reminding us that relying on experts instead of common sense is never a good idea. And blindly following a religion, being it organic food or global warming, is bound to lead one astray. Btw, we get fat not because we eat the wrong food; we get fat because we eat to much.+7 Kevin Berman Replied: You get fat by eating the wrong foods, too much, and not exercising.+5 Thomas Webber Replied: Nope, you get fat by eating sugar and carbohydrates. Sorry. All carbs turn to blood sugar, which is stored by the insulin hormone in fat cells, and that's how you get fat. The body wants to remove the blood sugar quickly because too much of it is bad for the body, so it quickly produces insulin to store away what can't be used quickly. That is why people get a "sugar rush" from sugar - it is used quickly - and then get tired, because what can't be used is already stored away in fat cells. This way the body also learns to look only to sugar for energy. The body prefers sugar over protein because it's easier. But if you can stop stuffing yourself with bread and pasta for about four weeks, the body will switch to looking primarily to fat for energy. That way your body will burn body fat for energy all day long. You'll feel full and you will have more energy.+7 Twrecks Chrysostom Replied: Or rather, now where did I put that bacon... So, it appears my dairy farmer grandfather was right about the goodness of milk, cheese and butter vs the 'plastic spreads, etc. that he would not allow on his property. He ate lots of dairy, bacon, lard, etc. lived to be 86. Of course he was also a dairy farmer, got up at 4-5am and worked 12-18 hour days since he was about 5 years old. Hmmmm...+7 Jeff Marshall Wrote: A lot of the problems with figuring out what to believe as far as diets and nutrition goes is because of the INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA FROM SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. The American people just want THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH. Makes people wonder if these news reports on TV are just "spin" like on political talk shows ... people with an agenda, etc. Just tell us what the "good foods" are and what the "bad foods" are! People get sick and tired of the conflicting information. Then we can maybe get rid of government subsidies going to disease causing foods and increase subsidies going to healthy promoting foods. Make the "bad foods" more expensive and hard to get. Make the "good foods" as cheap and available as possible. We could start with a SUGAR TAX. Just about every scientific study will tell you that overeating all forms of sugar causes disease in the long run just like cigarettes do. I think the British are on the right track. At least they don't stick their heads in the sand and deny that things like the massive amounts of sugar in our diet isn't a MAJOR problem causing medical expenses to skyrocket. "Sugar tax may be necessary, England's chief medical officer says" http://www.bbc.com/news/health-26442420 Watch the video for this article. It has a Coca Cola executive on it. It shows you the HUGE amount of sugar that are in these "Big Gulp" sized cokes that you might get at a movie theater. FOURTY-FOUR packets of sugar are in them. I bet very few people realize it was that much. Jeff Marshall Replied: From what I have read, there is definitely a difference between good carbs and bad carbs. Table sugar and fructose are "bad carbs". It's all about how quickly the carb gets converted into blood sugar (glucose) in your body. All types of sugar cause a big insulin jolt to your system and signals your body to store it into fat. Especially if you eat a lot of sugar at a meal. The key thing with preventing obesity is to avoid those insulin spikes as much as possible. Everyone agrees that obesity is a huge risk factor for all sorts of diseases like diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, etc. Plus, sugar has been proven to increase LDL which clogs up your arteries over time, causes inflammation, etc. Bottom line, it is not just the calories. The type of food DOES matter. Thomas Webber Replied: Too bad you are too lazy to read up on the available information, Robert. Oh, it is easy to score a few points by sounding "down to earth" by saying "Just eat less!" Okay, that's the advice people have been hearing for decades. And still they have a big wheat belly in their middle age, when metabolism slows down. They try to go on a diet, and they get hungry while still not losing weight. Why is that? Because they know as little as you. They should be eating fat instead of carbs. All carbs turn to blood sugar, which is stored by the insulin hormone in fat cells, and that's how you get fat. The body wants to remove the blood sugar quickly because too much of it is bad for the body, so it quickly produces insulin to store away what can't be used quickly. That is why people get a "sugar rush" from sugar - it is used quickly - and then get tired, because what can't be used is already stored away in fat cells. This way the body also learns to look only to sugar for energy. The body prefers sugar over protein because it's easier. But if you can stop stuffing yourself with bread and pasta for about four weeks, the body will switch to looking primarily to fat for energy. That way your body will burn body fat for energy all day long. You'll feel full and you will have more energy.+7 JOE OLEARY Replied: . 2 years ago, after 20 years of trying all kinds of diets that excluded certain foods, I switched to just counting calories with a set daily limit (2500). I lost 40 lbs and my weight is now stable at 165, same weight as high school. Calories are everything. It amazes me how many diet books say "counting calories doesn't work." BS. It's the only diet that is SURE to work. Now I eat everything from donuts to organic carrots; it makes no difference as long as stay within my calorie limit. And there is zero struggle, zero complexity. Counting calories is easy, I have no cravings to cheat. Why this hasn't caught on just amazes me. Jerzy Sobon Replied: The calorie in, exercise out thought of weight is wrong. You have to understand nutrition down to the cellular level. If you eat mostly carbs, you are not going to be satisfied. Your blood sugar will spike and you will store excess calories as fat AND you will be hungry very soon. Think about it. You are a cave man. They didn't have many carbs. So when they found one, say a piece of fruit and ate it, it probably tasted like heaven. The sugar rush to fat storage was an evolutionary godsend. It allowed man to eat these season fruits (right before winter) so they could store fat to live off of in the lean times. We don't have lean times. We have enough food year round. We have no need to store grain or gorge on fruit or sugar so we can store fat. If you have a diet that is higher in fat you will be satisfied sooner, you will eat less, your blood sugar will not spike, you will not store fat, you will be healthier. So unless you are facing months of starvation diet, carbs are not your friend. It's simple evolution.+5 Felip D'Angelo Wrote: A pharmaceutical company that comes to mind is Atheronova Inc. - AHROD (U.S.: OTC). Amongst the compounds that the company is developing is a pharmacological compound for the treatment of atherosclerosis, which is the primary cause of various cardiovascular diseases. On the company's website is stated that "On November 6, 2012, AtheroNova received a Notice of Issuance from the USPTO for US Patent 8,304,383 for its patent application for Dissolution of Arterial Plaque". Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
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Jack Ritchie Wrote: This article may expose a problem, but it doesn't have a solution. In the absence of reliable nutrition science, what should people do? Note that this article mentions trends in the last 100 years (or less), but doesn't refer to the distant past. The thing that motivates some people to take the paleolithic style diet seriously is it makes logical sense in the absence of reliable science. The logic is that the human body and digestive system evolved in the distant past, pre-agriculture. So, the optimal diet today will most closely resemble the diet humans ate then. In practice this is impossible to do, but it does provide a principle to apply when choosing food. Generally avoid processed foods, and try to reduce grains and other by-products of agriculture that only appeared in human diets in the last 10000 years. Meat of all kinds is fine, but it should be lean meat. Cattle are raised to be fat now, but the wild animals that humans hunted then were not restricted in their movements and grain fed, so they were lean hardy beasts. GARY FIELD Wrote: It certainly seems like this article has made some responders rather defensive ("Where are the references?"). Newspaper articles are just that; the book will have the references. This is not the first time that the issue of fats has been addressed. Apart from some other books suggested on this forum, I recommend this one: "Know your fats: The complete primer for understanding the nutrition of fats, oils and cholesterol", by Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., published in 2000. The government, and many doctors, seem to be clueless when it comes to nutrition. The "food pyramid" is the classic example - many people are now diabetic because of following those guidelines (now withdrawn). The real culprit in many illnesses and and disease seems to be sugar. The manufacturers of "low fat" products typically substitute sugar for fat (just check the labels on products with low fat and regular versions) in order to improve the taste. The worst of both worlds! The training of MDs focuses upon the treatment of illness and injury, whereas the focus of NDs (naturopaths) focuses upon the prevention of illness. And when it comes to prescription medication, I would always talk to a pharmacist to learn what many doctors either don't know or forget to tell you about medications. Always keep in mind that "good science" is still rejected by many doctors. Research work once demonstrated that a bacterium was responsible for ulcers. Most doctors scoffed at this. I don't think they ever admitted they were wrong, much less apologized, when the original researchers eventually were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine. A "paradigm shift" will eventually happen once a critical mass accept facts. The "buy in" by some to an incorrect notion is so strong, however, that they can never admit their error. Seamus Collins Wrote: Following the sugar trail: One day in 1959 a geneticist named John Laughnan discovered something special about corn exposed to a-bomb radiation. Read about it in: “Effects of an Atomic Bomb Explosion on Corn Seeds.” The report was written in 1951, it was not declassified until 1997. ANNE PADDOCK Wrote: When I read, "The sad irony is that women have been especially rigorous about ramping up on their fruits, vegetables, and grains, but they now suffer from higher obesity rates than men, and their death rates from heart disease have reached parity," I questioned the integrity of both the author and the article. The author fails to consider the role of processed and fast food in this equation. Has Ms. Teicholz walked into a grocery store lately where 9 out of 10 aisles are devoted to processed and packaged food and where 1 aisle may be devoted to fruits, vegetables, and whole grains? And, what about the fast food chains - McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco bell, KFC....oh, and overabundance of sugary sodas in American's diets.....and, finally, where is the discussion of portion size, and the role of exercise in all this?+6 ray hibbarra Wrote: If you ask those responsible for fattening cattle in feed lots what the feed to the cattle, you will find it is a diet uncomfortably similar to what the government recommends for you. If we did not fatten cattle on grains the fat, we consume from them would be as healthy as eating salmon. Humans are carnivorous. They have been for 99.99% of their evolution. The idea we can be healthy eating a high-carbohydrate diet is insane in the extreme.+7 Charles Palson Replied: It is said that Crestor is safer than Lipitor because it uses a two ways or ingredients to lower the side effects of the statin drugs. That may or may not be, but what I found most interesting is that the warnings included in the print ads about the side effects of Lipitor have changed. It is now admitted that muscle problems are not, as they claimed "rare"; it is now rated as a "common side effect". Furthermore, the last ads I saw are more explicit in saying that it should taken only by those with clear risk factors. Unfortunately, they include in these factors "aging". In fact there are plenty of seniors who are older but are in excellent health - often because of regular regular aerobically intense workouts. The "discuss with your doctor" advice hasn't really been helpful. Most doctors have trouble like the rest of us with addressing bad habits, and their drug salesmen are just sooooo friendly, why disappoint them (although that has changed quite a bit over the past few years). I myself stopped taking ANY cholesterol control drugs after discovering that it was interfering with my body's ability to recover from workouts. The drug pushers have known this at least since 2005, but chose to keep it secret. I'm 75 and I compete once a year in a time trial where I perform at the level of a the average guy in shape in his thirties. My athletic performance improved by an amazing 70% after six months without Lipitor ROBERT LAROCHE Wrote: Read "Wheat Belly", "Grain Brain", and "Fast Diet" then buy the wheat belly cookbook and take your life back. Since removing all wheat from my diet in mid December at age 57, I have lost 40 pounds and my A1C for now below pre-diabetic. I have never felt better physically or mentally. My cholesterol profile has astounded my primary care doctor and he is now adopting this lifestyle. Hopefully the American Diabetes Association will tweak it's doctrines to advise patients to move from carbs to fats.+6 Robert Pruitt Replied: We're not really living all that much longer due to better health though. In fact you can find plenty of records showing that people living into thei80's, 90's and even older going back to at least the 16th century. People get all excited about the increase in the "average" lifespan, not realizing that the average is just that, the average age of death. This average includes all the deaths by children and babies that used to happen before vaccines put an almost complete stop to these diseases. If, for example, 20% of the total number of children born every year die from childhood diseases(polio, measles, etc) then your "average" lifespan will drop...big-time, and our records are full of women from the pre-vaccine days giving birth to 5 or more children(even 10 was not uncommon) and having but a single child, or even none at all, make it to adulthood. Then you factor in the very high rates of occupational deaths due to absolutely no safety regulations(your family couldn't even sue your employer if you fell through a rotten floor that he knew was rotten for years and died) And after all those deaths are added to the "average" you will still need to figure in all the deaths from infections due tot he fact that antibiotics hadn't been invented yet. With no antibiotics you could literally die from a paper cut getting infected and causing blood poisoning, unless you chose to have your arm amputated, with no anesthetic to numb the pain that is. Tough decision indeed. But you know what was EXTREMELY rare back then? Heart disease diabetes(but the upper class, who could afford much larger quantities of the then very expensive sugar did suffer higher rates than the average American) stroke cancer obesity(and again the upper class, who could afford much larger quantities of the then very expensive sugar did suffer higher rates then the average American) lung disease(even among smokers) Know what the average American did do? Eat 4500 calories a day for men and 3500 calories a day for women. And consumed a much larger amount of all animal based foods. Don't let the average blind you to the reality. We aren't really living all that much longer do to our increased health, we simply increased the average by stopping millions of children and babies from dieing every year with vaccines, forced companies to make the workplace a LOT safer, and stopped simple infections from killing many thousands of people a year. And, thanks to the diabetes problem we are in, many scientists and Dr's now expect the "average" lifespan of Americans to start dropping for the very first time in our history not due to a war or an epidemic(like the bird flu). ROGER KIMBER Replied: I remember as a medical student reading some of the primary literature on diet, cholesterol, saturated fat and heart disease, and coming away totally confused, as there were studies on both sides of the argument. Then I went back and looked at the funding sources and the connections of the authors. Those that were connected to the American Heart Association came to one conclusion; those that were connected to the American Dairy Association came to the opposite conclusion. I came to the conclusion that we really didn't know and that each had an axe to grind. Now there are studies out showing that people on statins (cholesterol lowering medications) eat more calories and fat (not that that is a bad thing, according to this article ;-)). It is not clear that we know what we are doing. Apparently it is not nice to try to fool mother nature.+2 Jack Winslow Wrote: After reading and watching you will wonder how Canola was ever touted a healthy oil authoritynutrition.com/canola-oil-good-or-bad/+3 Gerry Reiss Wrote: The wait for a simple solution to heart disease is like waiting for Godot. Bacteria that cause gum decay also can damage the tissue in the heart. Eat more sugar, you have a better chance of dental caries and gum disease. At the turn of the 20th century, heart disease was not as common as now but the rate increased as water supplies were chlorinated. Correlation or not? Eating food that has low level amounts of antibiotics in it (such as meat from cows fed antibiotic dosed feed) wipes out your intestinal flora. Stress, as from long commutes, damages your immune system. Radiation, whether from fallout or cancer therapy or whatever, can damage your heart. And then, of course, there is the role of genetics, the genes you inherit from your forebears. A tunnel-visioned approach like that of Ancel Keys or of Dr. Atkins is not science, just dogma.+5 Benedict Miceli Wrote: I'm actually all for eating more meat, etc, and fewer carbs and (especially) sugars. I lost 40 pounds on Atkins and have kept it off on my version of the "Paleo" diet (some whole grains, fruit, vegetables, meat, and limited full fat dairy). However, I find it very hard to believe that olive oil causes cancer. Or canola oil. Or that fresh fruit is bad for you. This needs more research, to say the least. Mediterranean people have been renowned for their longevity and good health for a very long time. But I can believe that superheating vegetable oils changes their chemical composition. Maybe that's why you don't deep fry in olive oil?+7 Jerzy Sobon Replied: Olive oil doesn't cause cancer, but it should not be heated because it will oxidize and you lose it's good qualities. Canola oil has a lot of Omega 6 in it. Omega 6 is fine, but it needs to be in ration to Omega 3. Too much causes inflammation. Most of us have diets way too high in Omega 6. A better fat is butter (from grass fed cows) or coconut oil. Fresh fruit is not 'bad for you' but fructose should be moderated. Juicing or eating excessive fruits can cause your triglycerides to go up. And of course HFCS will do that as well. You are right that superheating oil can change their composition. That is why olive oil is best added after the item is cooked or for very light saute. Coconut oil is very stable, can be super heated and is a medium chain fat that can be utilized immediately for fuel. If you eliminate processed foods you will be much better off. William Glasheen Wrote: I'm very happy that Nina Teicholz got her WSJ weekend article in just before the release of her new book. What a coup for her! This will give the publisher a nice boost. However... In all this villification of Benjamin Keys and a walk down Crisco lane, she fails to point out the following: 1) Iron is one of the big culprits for men. Where there is saturated fat, there is usually red meat and hence a lot of iron. Women need iron replacement. Adult men however suffer from oxidative effects from too many McBurgers. 2) She makes one (1) passing reference to olive oil, and doesn't even say why it was necessary to exclude it from her thesis. 3) She doesn't mention the benefits of nut oils. 4) She makes only a passing mention of fish (with beneficial omega-3 laden oils). 5) There's no mention of the glycemic index. You can't talk about insulin and any form of diabetes if you don't talk the language of food and its insulin-inducing properties. 6) Where's all the talk about preservatives in American meats? Germans don't suffer so much because they never put that garbage in their meats. Yes... they have to walk to the store once a day, but the exercise and good tasting meats are worth it. Me thinks this is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle fat. Good luck with your new book. But really... this is sensationalist to the point of irresponsible+19 online.wsj.com/news/artic...3678404579533760760481486 Paul Foote Wrote: In the 1970's, Dr. Alexander Leaf, of Harvard Medical School, started visiting places with the oldest living people: Caucasus Mountains (Eastern Europe), Himalaya Mountains (Pakistan), and the Andes Mountains (Ecuador). The diets in these regions were very different. Those who lived in the Caucasus Mountains consumed high fat diets and experienced heart disease. However, they were able to survive the heart disease because they worked hard in the mountains throughout their lives. My grandfathers worked hard from dawn to dusk on their farms and were thin. Should those who have desk jobs be consuming their diet? In India, there is considerable controversy among vegetarians about the relationship between ghee and heart disease. As usual, researchers need to include other variables in their studies. How do diets differ between high-income subjects and low-income subjects? What is the importance of physical labor occupations versus desk jobs? This author failed to explain the cases of people with severe heart disease who claim that they are alive today because they switched to low-fat diets. See, for example: Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.
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