I watched a PBS documentary titled The Medicated Child a couple of nights ago.  It made me want to reach into the TV and strangle some of the doctors who are pumping kids full of drugs.  I don’t doubt that some people are born with true chemical imbalances that require medication, but when we’ve got literally millions of children being diagnosed as bipolar or suffering from ADHD and put on drug therapy, something is very, very wrong.

If you have a Netflix account that includes streaming and an internet-enabled TV, you can find the documentary there and watch it on the big screen.  If not, you can watch it below.  You’ll hear the word “nutrition” mentioned only once, if memory serves.  Meanwhile, you’ll see kids consuming ice cream, cookies, battered corn dogs, and Gatorade.  No wonder they have brain issues.

Watching shows like this, I’m thankful I’ve learned so much about nutrition.  My daughter Sara is highly intelligent, but also bouncy and energetic.  Put her on a lousy diet, and I can easily imagine her behavior changing enough that some well-meaning teacher would tell us she’s hyperactive or suffering from ADD and may need medication. 

As Dr. Barry Sears once wrote, every time you eat, you’re drugging yourself.  I can’t help but think most of these kids are taking prescription drugs to offset the effects of the “drugs” they eat.

I spent a good chunk of today dealing with computer issues — both PC and Mac, so while I agree that Macs are generally more stable, the belief that they’re trouble-free has more to do with good advertising than with reality. Anyway, because so much of my day was eaten up, this will be a brief post.

It was yet another bang-up Super Bowl. I love it when the game is in doubt until the very end … although as a Bears fan, I didn’t mind seeing them blow away the Patriots back in 1986. I like the pomp of the Super Bowl, the hype, the buzz, the commercials, the halftime shows, the whole experience. And of course I enjoy the game itself, watching athletes at the very top of their games giving it everything they’ve got.

As I was watching recaps of the game today, it occurred to me that I recently downloaded an article from the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology on how statins affect professional athletes. I think the title pretty much says it all:

Professional athletes suffering from familial hypercholesterolaemia rarely tolerate statin treatment because of muscular problems

The paper’s authors are from Austria and examined case histories of Austrian professional athletes who attempted to go on statin therapy to treat genetically high cholesterol. Out of 22 athletes, only three were able to tolerate the first statin they were prescribed. Three more were able to eventually tolerate a statin other than the first one prescribed. The remaining 16 — 72% of the total — ended up refusing statin therapy. You can probably guess what it was about statins that most of the athletes couldn’t tolerate: muscle pain and muscle weakness.

The authors noted that in reviews of multiple clinical trials, muscle problems were reported in 5% of those taking statins on average. They also noted that in a study of statin-takers who engage in strenuous exercise, muscle problems affected closer to 25%. Now in this study we’ve got 72% of professional athletes (in an admittedly small sample size) saying they can’t tolerate statins of any kind because of muscle problems, with 86% percent unable to tolerate the first statin prescribed.

So here’s what I think is happening: statins are probably causing at least some degree of muscle weakness in a large percentage of those taking them. But not everyone whose muscles are weakened will feel pain or even notice the damage, as Dr. Duane Graveline wrote in an article on his web site:

In the Journal of Pathology 210: 94-102, 2006, Draeger A and others of the University of Bern, Switzerland report: Statin therapy induces ultrastructural damage in skeletal muscle in patients without myalgia.

Draeger’s group did skeletal muscle biopsies from statin treated and non-statin treated patients and examined them using electron microscopy and biochemical approaches. They reported clear evidence of skeletal muscle damage in statin treated patients despite their being asymptomatic. Although the degree of overall damage was minimal, it was the characteristic pattern of damage, including rupture of critical structures that caught the attention of the investigators.

The more you depend on your muscles, the more likely you are to notice minor damage. Most people who sit for a living and aren’t dedicated to exercising could probably become a bit weaker without ever noticing, which would explain why only 5% percent of all statin-takers report muscle problems. But if you limit the study to people who engage in strenuous exercise — and are therefore more likely to track their speed or strength — the number goes up to 25%. Limit the study to professional athletes, and now you’re looking at 86% reporting muscle problems.

For professional athletes, an almost-imperceptible loss of muscular ability can mean the difference between winning and losing. Think about some of the key plays in last night’s Super Bowl, if you watched. A wide receiver catches a pass because he managed to outrun a cornerback by an extra six inches over the course of 30 yards. A linebacker misses a tackle because the tailback was a split-second quicker. “It’s a game of inches” is a cliché in sports, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. The professional athlete who loses a tiny fraction of his speed or strength can find himself sitting on the bench or looking for another job.

So I don’t think professional athletes are especially vulnerable to statin-induced muscle damage. I think they’re just far more likely to notice that damage is being done.

Statins in our drinking water?! 

I’ll never drink tap water again if this happens.  In fact, I won’t drink any water I don’t catch my own tank.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end for statins. The so-called wonder drugs have been a cash cow for pharmaceutical companies for decades now, mostly because doctors bought into the idea that high cholesterol causes heart disease, therefore any drug that reduces cholesterol must also reduce heart disease. I’ve lost count of the people I know who don’t have atherosclerosis, but were prescribed statins simply because their cholesterol was above the supposedly magic number of 200. Their doctors weren’t treating heart disease; they were treating a cholesterol score.

While researching Fat Head, I became aware of quite a few doctors who insist that giving statins to people who don’t already have heart disease simply to beat down their cholesterol is worse than worthless … Al Sears, Mike and Mary Dan Eades, Uffe Ravnskov, Malcolm Kendrick, etc. I found the evidence they presented quite convincing. Unfortunately, the medical establishment and the media have tended to either ignore the anti-statin doctors or write them off as a bunch of kooks.

Not anymore … at least I hope not. A new meta-analysis of the effectiveness of statins (and lack thereof) was just released by the Cochrane Collaboration, and it’s bad news for the statin-makers — partly because the analysis itself isn’t flattering, and partly because the Cochrane Collaboration is a highly-respected organization whose work is considered both thorough and unbiased. Consequently, their report has generated quite a bit of media coverage. I’ve already read articles in the UK Telegraph (two), TIME’s online version, the Los Angeles Times, Miller McCune, and Reuter’s Health, among others.

If we piece together quotes from the articles, we end up with a nice summary of the statin story. Let’s start with how and why they became the best-selling drugs of all time:

Back in 1975, Henry Gadsden, the chief executive of the drug company Merck, expressed his frustration that the market for his company’s products was limited to those with some treatable illness. Ideally, he said, he would like to “sell to everyone”.

Three decades later, his dream would seem to have come true – epitomised by the most profitable class of drugs ever discovered, the cholesterol-lowering statins that are taken by an estimated seven million people in Britain, and tens of millions worldwide.

Yup, Merck and the other pharmaceuticals wanted to sell drugs to healthy people, and by gosh, they finally figured out how to do it.

The story starts with the arrival of “cholesterol consciousness”: the thesis that those indulging in (for example) bacon and eggs for breakfast boosted the cholesterol level in the blood, causing the arteries to become narrow, and making a heart attack more likely.

Although this idea has its critics, there is no doubt that the small proportion of the population with a genetic predisposition towards high cholesterol levels are at greater risk of circulatory disorders. Encouraging them to switch to a healthy diet had failed to lower that risk – so the idea gained ground that cholesterol-lowering drugs might be the answer.

The small proportion of the population with a genetic predisposition are those with familial hyperlipidemia. Their LDL is extraordinarily high because their LDL receptors don’t work and therefore don’t remove LDL from the bloodstream. Cholesterol-lowering drugs were shown to reduce their rate of heart disease by a teeny, tiny bit. From that result, the medical community decided cholesterol is a killer and we should all stop eating bacon and eggs — even though low-fat diets didn’t do diddly for the people with hyperlipidemia. Go figure.

An even more important factor, especially in the US, was the drive to establish “clinical practice guidelines”, under which panels would set the optimal treatment for any given condition. Successive guidelines have forced the “normal” level of cholesterol ever lower, resulting in leaps in the numbers deemed eligible for treatment. In the US, the figure went from 15 million to 40 million.

That’s how you sell drugs to healthy people: redefine normal cholesterol levels as dangerous. Among the un-medicated population, average total cholesterol was around 220 a few decades ago. Doctors rarely warned patients about heart disease unless their cholesterol was 250 or higher. But if 220 was the average, how did the new “normal” end up being 200?

After it was pointed out that those responsible for the most recent guidelines had failed to declare any potential conflicts of interest, it subsequently emerged that most of them had received research grants or consultancy fees from the drug companies involved in manufacturing statins.

That’s how. By declaring 200 to be the target level for cholesterol, the researchers (ahem, ahem) who wrote the guidelines guaranteed their paymasters millions of new customers.

Not surprisingly, quite a few clinical studies eventually concluded that statins prevent heart disease. I say “not surprisingly” because nearly all the studies were funded and conducted by the pharmaceutical companies. According to the Cochrane review, the studies might’ve been (surprise!) skewed to exaggerate the benefits and minimize the side effects:

In particular, while all the studies focused on benefits, only half provided information on the side effects of the drugs, said Dr. Shah Ebrahim, whose group’s findings are published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research.

“There is evidence that the reports cherry-picked the best outcomes for presentation,” he added, “which will tend to inflate apparent benefits of treatment.”

While there appeared to be no difference in side effects between trials participants taking dummy pills and statins, the researchers say those results aren’t credible.

“Any appraisal we can make of adverse events is biased by failure to report these events,” Ebrahim said in an e-mail to Reuters Health. “We believe that trial funders, investigators and journal editors have failed to provide adequate information to doctors and their patients to assess the benefits and harms of statins in primary prevention.”

The good news is that while Merck and Pfizer may not report on negative side effects, more media outlets are:

Dr. Greg Burns (not his real name) is a 72-year-old retired radiologist living in Connecticut. Until early last year, he ran with his dog at canine agility meets, skied, ice skated and played 18 holes of golf. He is now unable to walk and is taking a course of medication that will postpone, by a few months, his death.

Burns’ rapid decline began in December 2007 when he suffered a short-acting stroke from which he fully recovered. His cholesterol level was elevated and so as a preventative measure his doctor prescribed a 20mg daily dose of Crestor, a cholesterol-lowering drug in the “statin” class.

A few months after beginning Crestor, Burns developed muscle cramps. He was assured by his doctors that these were not serious side effects of taking the drug. But in December 2008 when tests showed that his creatine phosphokinase – an enzyme that is released into the blood stream when muscle cells are damaged – was elevated, Dr. Burns stopped taking Crestor. When his enzyme levels returned to normal, he began taking Pravachol, another statin drug. He quickly developed weakness in his lower legs and a right foot drop.

Mayo Clinic cardiologists acknowledge that the side effects of statin drugs can include muscle pain, extreme fatigue, liver damage, digestive problems and neurological damage including memory loss.

Of course, not everyone who takes statins will experience side effects, so it’s a question of balancing benefits and risks, just like with any other drug. So let’s look at the supposed benefits.

If you’ve seen Lipitor ads on TV (and if you haven’t, it means you don’t watch TV), you know Pfizer claims Lipitor reduces the rate of heart attacks by 36%. As I’ve explained in previous posts, that figure may sound impressive, but basically it means that during the clinical trials, three out of every 100 men who took a placebo had a heart attack, while slightly less than two out of every 100 men who took Lipitor had a heart attack. So for every 100 men treated for ten years, we’re preventing (in theory) one heart attack.  That’s one heart attack, not necessarily one death. 

But even those unimpressive results were found only among with men with existing heart disease or multiple risk factors for heart disease — not among women, and not among otherwise healthy people who happen to have high cholesterol.

But of course, statins didn’t become the most profitable drugs in history by being prescribed solely to men with existing heart disease. Nope, statins became a cash cow when doctors started prescribing them to pretty much everybody whose cholesterol is above 200.  (In the UK, you can even buy your future muscle or memory problems over the counter — yippee!)

The theory, of course, was that statins could prevent heart disease from developing in the first place, otherwise known as “primary prevention.”  The Cochrane report casts more than a little doubt on that theory, as several media articles pointed out:

An authoritative review shows there is little evidence that the cholesterol-lowering drugs protect people who are not already at a high risk of heart disease.

Experts who advocate the use of statins say they have helped prolong thousands of lives by preventing heart attacks and other cardiovascular events. But a wide-ranging review of previous studies, published today in the journal The Cochrane Library, urges “caution” among GPs who prescribe them. It concludes that there is no “strong evidence” to suggest that statins reduce coronary heart disease deaths among those who have not suffered a heart attack or other cardiovascular event in the past.

Shah Ebrahim, a professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who co-wrote the report, called on doctors to stop giving patients the drugs unnecessarily.

Just one life is currently saved for every 1,000 people who take them each year, the report says.

Great … so to prevent (in theory) one fatal heart attack among every 1,000 people who take statins, we’ve created lord-only-knows-how-many cases of muscle degeneration, memory loss, kidney failure, erectile dysfunction and liver damage. Of course, that works out well for Big Pharma — they sell drugs to treat those conditions, too.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: statins are some of the worst drugs ever. I’m just happy to see more people in the news media are catching on.

My wife recently tore a page out of Scholastic Parent & Child magazine and left it on my desk. As I sipped my morning coffee, I read a headline — Is Sugar to Blame? — with the subtitle There are many misconceptions about type 2 diabetes.  Below that was a brief article in Myth vs. Truth format.

You already know what’s coming, don’t you? That’s right:  an article exonerating sugar, along with other nonsense. Look at these three Myth-Truth entries and ask yourself if perhaps they should’ve caused some cognitive dissonance in the writer’s brain:

Myth:  Type 2 diabetes only affects adults.
Truth:  The disease used to be called adult-onset diabetes because it mainly occurred in people over 40. Not anymore. In the past two decades, the number of children and adolescents diagnosed has been rising steadily.

Myth:  It’s caused by eating too much sugar.
Truth:  A combination of genetics and lifestyle factors cause type 2 diabetes. But many sugary foods can lead to being overweight, which increases risk.

Myth:  Only overweight people develop type 2 diabetes.
Truth:  People of normal weight can develop the disease.

So let’s see if we can follow the logic here:  This disease used to pretty much only show up in people over 40.  Now it’s rising rapidly among kids.  But it’s not caused by eating too much sugar; it’s caused by genetics and/or being overweight.  And by the way, plenty of people who aren’t overweight also develop the disease.

Conclusion:  Our genetics must’ve undergone one hell of a mutation in the past 20 years. Either that, or some mysterious change in “lifestyle factors” caused a rapid rise in diabetes among teens and adolescents. Perhaps we’ll eventually learn that video games or just-above-the-butt tattoos are to blame. Trouble is, I can’t imagine the biological mechanism by which either of those would cause diabetes, and I’m pretty sure the people running the genome project would’ve noticed a sudden genetic mutation.

So I believe if our brains are functioning, we’re stuck looking for an alternate conclusion.  Here’s mine:  whoever wrote this garbage for Scholastic Parent & Child doesn’t have a flippin’ clue.

Correlation doesn’t prove causation, but I sincerely doubt the fact that type 2 diabetes has risen right along with our consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is a mere coincidence.  (Oh, excuse me … it’s “corn sugar” now, not high-fructose corn syrup.)  And in this case, we can definitely imagine the biological mechanism that leads to diabetes. For that, we’ll turn to a paper co-authored by Dr. Richard Johnson. (See his speech on fructose and uric acid in this post.)  Here are a few quotes from the opening of the paper:

We propose that excessive fructose intake (>50 g/d) may be one of the underlying etiologies of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. The primary sources of fructose are sugar (sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup. First, fructose intake correlates closely with the rate of diabetes worldwide. Second, unlike other sugars, the ingestion of excessive fructose induces features of metabolic syndrome in both laboratory animals and humans.

Beginning with studies in the 1950s, it was recognized that diets high in sucrose can rapidly induce features of metabolic syndrome in rats, including hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, weight gain, and hyperuricemia. Further studies documented that these metabolic changes were due to the fructose content.

Later in the paper, Johnson and his co-authors present details on the biochemistry involved.  Don’t worry about wrapping your brain around all this stuff; the point is that they’re citing clinical evidence and chemistry, not simply blaming unspecified “lifestyle factors.”

Moreover, there is evidence that fructose-induced insulin resistance is mediated by fructose-induced hyperuricemia. Lowering uric acid using either xanthine oxidase inhibitors or uricosuric agents can prevent the development of metabolic syndrome induced by fructose. At least two mechanisms may account for these findings. First, it is known that insulin-mediated endothelial nitric oxide (NO) release can account for one third of insulin’s action possibly by increasing blood flow to skeletal muscle and peripheral tissues and enhancing glucose uptake. Mice incapable of generating endothelial NO develop full features of metabolic syndrome. Uric acid inhibits endothelial NO in cell culture and in the animal, and the mechanisms involve uric acid-induced oxidant production, C-reactive protein production, stimulation of arginase, and direct scavenging. Asymptomatic hyperuricemia in humans is also associated with endothelial dysfunction, and lowering uric acid with allopurinol improves endothelial function in diabetics. The second proposed mechanism is by a direct effect of uric acid on the adipocyte. There is evidence that insulin resistance is mediated in part by inflammation and oxidative stress within the adipocyte. Sautin et al. have recently shown that uric acid induces this phenotype in cultured adipocytes. In addition, Cheung et al. reported that xanthine oxidoreductase knockout mice fail to become fat due to a defect in adipogenesis. These studies therefore implicate xanthine oxidase and uric acid in metabolic syndrome.

Bottom line:  there’s strong evidence that excess fructose causes the body to produce excess uric acid, whicn in turn induces insulin resistance, among other horrors.

With all the research out there, Scholastic Parent & Child tells parents not to blame sugar (and HFCS) for the rise in childhood diabetes?  You’ve got to be kidding me.

My first thought was that they must’ve gotten their talking points from that creepy lady at the Corn Refiners Association.  Then I noticed the sources listed at the end of the article:  The American Diabetes Association the National Diabetes Education Program.

Well, of course … we’re talking about the same people who explain in their literature how carbohydrates rapidly turn into blood sugar, then tell diabetics to be sure to eat lots of carbohydrates.

The article also suggested that parents who are worried about diabetes should visit diabetes.com for more information. So I did. Here are a few gems from that site:

When you have type 2 diabetes, high levels of sugar build up in your blood. This can lead to serious health complications. That’s why controlling your blood sugar is key to managing diabetes.

Ah, very good so far. Of course, you’ll next explain to diabetics how to adopt a diet that will keep their blood sugar low, right?

There’s no such thing as a “diabetic diet.” Still, you may be confused about what to eat. Here’s the low-down on some common misunderstandings about foods:

Carbohydrates. Some meal plans want you to count grams of carbohydrates (sugar and starch). Your dietitian can help you learn to count carbohydrates.

Sugar. Most experts say small amounts of sugar are fine, as long as they are part of your meal plan.

Oh, I see … if you’re a diabetic and plan to eat sugar, it’s fine. Your body says to itself, “Well, looky here … this sugar was listed right there on the day’s schedule, so I won’t bother dumping it into the bloodstream. I only do that with sugar I didn’t expect.”

Healthy eating, along with medicine if prescribed and regular physical activity, can help lower your blood sugar. Eating healthy is key to reducing your risk of health complications from diabetes.

Changing the way you eat can be hard. So make changes slowly. Start by adding high-fiber foods including fruits and vegetables. These fiber-rich foods may help stop spikes in blood sugar. Eat less meat and fewer sweets.

Meat is bad (no explanation as to why), sweets are bad (unless you plan on eating them), but other foods that jack up your blood sugar are great:   In other sections, the diabetes.com site recommends six servings per day of low-fat breads, beans, crackers, tortillas or pretzels, plus two to four servings of fruit — those would be providing you with fructose, of course. 

So there you have it.  Sugar doesn’t cause diabetes, and if you develop diabetes, you should base your diet on foods that jack up your blood sugar … but be sure to check your blood-sugar level, and if it goes too high, see your doctor.  So say the experts at diabetes.com, the American Diabetes Association, and Scholastic Parent & Child magazine.

This is what we’re up against.  I feel sorry for well-intentioned parents who believe this nonsense.

The following is a transcript of an online debate between me and someone who works at a medical center and is either a nutritionist or has great respect for the advice they dole out.  This should give you an idea of what sick people are being told about diet.  My mom received the same advice from a nutrionist, but between my lectures and the books by Drs. Eades & Eades, she was persuaded otherwise.

Nutritionist comments are in italics, mine are plain text.

it’s not wise to cut grains out completely. your body needs varieties of different foods, grain included.

Humans lived without grains for 99% of their time on earth. Many native cultures still live without eating grains, which require processing to be edible. On what are you basing your claim that it’s “not wise” to cut out grains completely? (I have, and all that’s happened is several ailments have gone away.)

well good for your individual results. humans have been eating grains for at least 10,000 years, some evidence found it going way further back. granted it only seems like a blink of the eye, but it a significant amount of time nonetheless.

basically you need carbs to function. you need them for your brain and also to exercise. i’m not saying go out and eat a bunch of white bleached and enriched bread, just eat healthy grains.

Evolution doesn’t work that quickly. Some humans have adapted to grains, but many have not. No humans NEED grains to be healthy, and grains can have negative effects on health. The lectins in grains can lead to autoimmune diseases, to name just one. Nor do we need carbohydrates to exercise (I exercise frequently) or for brain function (I write, do standup comedy, and program software all without benefit of carbohydrates other than vegetables). Look up gluconeogenesis.

you actually do need carbs for lots of things, including the central nervous system, the kidneys, brain and muscles (including the heart). you need it cause it’s your main source of energy. without carbs your body will consume protein from your muscles. you also get carbs from fruit and veggies. and again, i’m not saying go eat a bunch of refined carbs, but brown rice, whole grain pasta, and multigrain breads should be a moderate part of your diet.

With all due respect, you’re simply stating an opinion with no facts to back it up. If you consume enough fat and protein, your body will not digest your muscles. I’ve gained quite a bit of muscle since cutting carbs. Carbs are the “main source of energy” as a matter of convenience in grain-growing societies, not as a biological necessity. Most of your body will happily burn fat for fuel — that’s why your body stores energy as fat. (Kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?)

your body will burn muscle and fat as a last resort, it’s a survival mechanism. and with all due respect, you don’t know my educational background, therefore are not qualified to call my opinion just that. an opinion, and with no facts nonetheless. i don’t know if you’re promoting this film for someone or if it’s your film, but arguing on youtube is not a good way to endorse a product.

What is your scientific basis for the “last resort” theory? Without fat or protein, you’ll die. Without carbs, you’ll live just fine, as many hunting and fishing tribes throughout history did. My ancestors lived in Ireland. Pre-agriculture, how did they manage to get all that “essential” carbohydrate? No potatoes, no grain farming, no wild fruits or vegetables except in season. The idea that we evolved to “need” grains and starches a mere few thousand years later is absurd.

it’s a well known medical fact in the order in which the body burns its resources. first carbs, then fat, then muscle. therefore, it’s a last resort. if you didn’t know that then i suggest you take a nutrition class.

Let’s see … biologically, we evolved to “need” foods that are new to the human diet, that were mostly unavailable before agriculture and transportation, and require extensive processing to be edible. (Try plucking wheat and eating it.) But the foods that were abundant and can be eaten immediately and raw — game meats and fish — are “last resort” sources of fuel, and our bodies chose a “last resort” form of storing calories, a.k.a. fat. Wow, evolution is strange indeed.

We burn carbs first to avoid the biological emergency of high blood sugar, which is toxic — therefore, it’s a survival mechanism — not because carbs are the body’s preferred fuel. If you didn’t know that, I suggest you take a biochemistry class.

[NOTE:  It occurred to me later that our bodies will burn alcohol before anything else.  According to the nutritionist's logic, that makes alcohol our preferred fuel.  All in favor a 60% alcohol diet, raise your hands.]

funny, i always though eating meat raw was dangerous as well. believe what you must, but stop telling everyone to alter their diet when you’re obviously not a doctor nor a nutritionist.

Your lack of knowledge is becoming more apparent. Eating a fresh kill isn’t dangerous, and humans did it for ages. Bear Grylls does it on Man vs. Wild and lives to tell. Cooking provided an advantage by allowing meat to be kept longer without spoiling.

No, I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist, which is why I don’t offer lousy, unscientific, because-my-nutrition-textbook-­said-so advice such as “you need grains.” (Works for doctors … then they can prescribe arthritis drugs.)

“No, I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist” then stop pretending you know what people need. what works for you may not work for someone else.

Gosh, yes, because only a doctor — who is trained to prescribe drugs and spends a scant few hours in nutrition classes during all of medical school — can talk intelligently about nutrition. Certainly people who merely read dozens of books and hundreds of academic papers and regularly interview researchers aren’t qualified. As for not telling other people what to eat, you’re the one who felt compelled to encourage people to eat grains — which will make many of them ill.

but a nutritionist is specifically trained to be able to tell certain people how they should eat, unlike you who bunch everyone together and say no grain for you. asians are the healthiest people on earth, what is one of the staples in their diet? rice. hello. it’s a grain. if you would pay attention to what i said at the beginning you would understand that i’m not saying people should eat refined carbs, but veggies, fruits and beans, and whole wheat are needed in your diet.

Nutritionists are trained to follow the food pyramid, which isn’t based on science. It’s based on the USDA’s desire to sell grains.

Rice is the least problematic grain, but can still cause blood-sugar spikes for people whose ancestors didn’t come from rice-eating areas. Nobody “needs” rice or especially whole wheat, which can be disastrous. Read Loren Cordain’s paper on grains, lectins and diseases or Dr. William Davis’ posts on wheat … then tell me we need whole wheat.

they do not only follow the food pyramid, they use common sense. you wouldn’t give everyone 6-7 servings of grain. the USDA isn’t out to get us, neither are the majority of doctors and by encouraging people by saying eating tons of fast food isn’t bad for you is ridiculous. come work where i do at a dialysis center for one day and you’ll figure out why.

It isn’t common sense to promote a food pyramid with a base built on a food — grains — that cause health problems for many people. It isn’t common sense to tell people in a population where insulin resistance is rampant to consume 300 carbs per day. That’s partly why dialysis centers are necessary.

High blood sugar damages kidneys. High-carb diets spike blood sugar. The last thing people with kidney problems need is advice from carb-promoting nutritionists.

dialysis patients don’t need to limit grains, and some are encouraged because they need to gain weight. however, because of levels of phosphorus, whole wheat shouldn’t be consumed. but they’re encouraged to eat white, rye and sourdough bread. continue to argue if you must. it’s not the way to win customers.

So you encourage dialysis patients to eat white bread, a sure-fire way to spike blood sugar?!!  Lord help us.  Business must be booming.

white bread doesn’t have as much phosphorus, therefore better for them then whole wheat. again, don’t try to understand something you have no education in.

I see … because “don’t eat bread or other foods that raise your blood sugar” would kill them outright.

High blood sugar damages kidneys. White bread spikes blood sugar. Which part of this equation am I failing to understand because I did’t attend nutritionist school?

too much carbohydrates can result in high blood sugar levels, and too little can result in low blood sugar levels. you need to go to your nutritionist to see the amount you need. dialysis patients can’t eat a lot of foods as it is, so moderately eating white bread is needed to keep their weight up. that’s what you’re failing to understand.

Well, that make sense. After damaging their kidneys with foods that spike blood sugar, dialysis patients need white bread to raise their blood sugar and keep their weight up. And this therefore proves your original contention that all humans require grains in their diets, especially the whole grains that dialysis patients can’t eat because it would further damage their kidneys.

I stand corrected.