You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changing. – Bob Dylan.
The times are indeed a-changing, and I believe we’re going to see the anti-fat hysteria that led to so much bad dietary advice eventually sink like a stone. Perhaps even sooner than most of us thought. As evidence for my optimism, here’s some good news from around the world.
British cardiologist say saturated fat is good for you
Sure, other cardiologists have come out and said saturated fat and cholesterol in foods don’t cause heart disease. Dr. William Davis and Dr. Dwight Lundell, to name two examples. But the good news here is that major newspapers are starting to pay attention to the contrarians, as in this article from the U.K. Independent:
Four decades of medical wisdom that cutting down on saturated fats reduces our risk of heart disease may be wrong, a top cardiologist has said. Fatty foods that have not been processed – such as butter, cheese, eggs and yoghurt – can even be good for the heart, and repeated advice that we should cut our fat intake may have actually increased risks of heart disease, said Dr Aseem Malhotra.
He told The Independent: “From the analysis of the independent evidence that I have done, saturated fat from non-processed food is not harmful and probably beneficial. Butter, cheese, yoghurt and eggs are generally healthy and not detrimental. The food industry has profited from the low-fat mantra for decades because foods that are marketed as low-fat are often loaded with sugar. We are now learning that added sugar in food is driving the obesity epidemic and the rise in diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”
I suspect some people will read that article and feel frustrated by all the conflicting advice in the media … one article says saturated fat will kill you, another says it’s harmless, a third says nobody knows for sure, etc. I feel their pain. But if you’ve spent years believing something that simply isn’t true, being confused is a step in the right direction.
Anti-fat hysteria blasted on Australian TV
Some months ago, an Australian science reporter named Maryanne Demasi emailed me to ask where I found the news footage of the McGovern committee. I answered her and then forgot all about it … until some Australian readers sent me a link to an episode of ABC’s Catalyst that aired Down Under a couple of days ago. Check it out:
I love it. And from what I’ve heard through the internet grapevine, the Australian Heart Foundation has been swamped with complaints about their lousy advice since the program aired. (No surprise, since their representative in the Catalyst program admitted the evidence is “inconclusive.”) There’s even an online petition demanding that the Heart Foundation stop with all the anti-fat nonsense.
Swedish government changes its official position on saturated fat
Okay, I’ve made it pretty clear over the years that I want governments to get out of the dietary-advice business. We were better off before they started telling us what to eat. But if governments are going to give out dietary advice, they should at least get it right.
In Sweden, they’re finally getting it right. Swedish doctor Andreas Eenfeldt of course wrote about the change on his blog, but my favorite take on the news came from Dr. Malcolm Kendrick – because as you know if you’ve read his blog or his book The Great Cholesterol Con, the man does not mince words:
Now, I have been aware that there has been a movement towards a high fat low carb diet (HFLC) going on in Sweden for some years. This has been led recently by the heroic Dr Annika Dahlqvist, a General Practitioner who had been advising her diabetic patients to eat a low carb high fat diet (LCHF).
She was, of course, attacked by the idiots…sorry experts.
… In reality all that the Swedes really ‘discovered’ is the quite astonishing fact that eating a high carbohydrate diet is bad for you, and worse for you if you are a diabetic. Well, blow me down with a feather. They have found exactly what a working knowledge of human biology/physiology would tell you would happen.
But we live in a wold controlled by entrenched stupidity, dogma, and the financial interests of massive companies who are making billions selling tasteless low fat mush. These companies know that the only way you can make low fat food, e.g. low fat yoghurt, taste like anything half palatable is to stuff it with sugar. Cheap, nasty, and damaging to health – also driving the ever increasing weight gain and diabetes in the Western World.
In December, I’ll be giving a speech on how the Wisdom of Crowds effect is changing what people believe about diet and health. I think that’s exactly what we’re seeing here. Bloggers, independent filmmakers, podcasters, rebel doctors – heck, even people who leave blistering comments when online media articles promote anti-fat hysteria – are spreading the word and turning the tide. Major media outlets are paying attention, and more and more people are questioning what we’ve been told about saturated fat and cholesterol for the past 40 years.
The times they are a-changing.
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I know that we are making progress, but I just got a call from my middle daughter who is a senior at Georgia Tech. She has to take a health class to graduate. She is studying for the nutrition test. All whole grains, low fat and lots of fruit. She has been gluten free and paleo since her oldest sister was diagnosed with Celiac. She planned to regurgitate the crazy talk for the test, shaking her head and LOLing all the way to an A. I feel sorry for all the kids in her class who think that they have been taught cutting edge nutrition.
I’m afraid that’s what nutrition students who know better will have to do until until all the misinformed professors die or retire.
Its great to read this! Still I haven’t had much luck convincing friends, family and colleagues. At first my efforts were amusing to them and they asked lots of questions and some even watched fat head, but now several months later where i have visibly lost 5.5 kilos (sorry, european) just through diet alone, its like they turn a blind eye. The only response i sometimes get is the “You shouldn’t think about it so much, everything kills you apparently” deal while they keep piling up on their grains, white rice and sugar… Knowing and be powerless to stop it hurts.
Good Calories Bad Calories should become a high school textbook if you ask me – also for history classes.
Heh-heh-heh … interesting rationalization on their part. Sure, we’re all going to die, but I’d rather not spend my time on earth being fat and sick.
Its great to read this! Still I haven’t had much luck convincing friends, family and colleagues. At first my efforts were amusing to them and they asked lots of questions and some even watched fat head, but now several months later where i have visibly lost 5.5 kilos (sorry, european) just through diet alone, its like they turn a blind eye. The only response i sometimes get is the “You shouldn’t think about it so much, everything kills you apparently” deal while they keep piling up on their grains, white rice and sugar… Knowing and be powerless to stop it hurts.
Good Calories Bad Calories should become a high school textbook if you ask me – also for history classes.
Heh-heh-heh … interesting rationalization on their part. Sure, we’re all going to die, but I’d rather not spend my time on earth being fat and sick.
You got another mention: http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/
Thanks for the heads-up.
“If you eat potatoes you might as well eat candy.”
When I was looking through my grandma’s old recipes a long time ago, I found one called mashed potato candy. ¾c cold mashed potatoes, vanilla, 4c coconut, 4c powdered sugar, pinch of salt, and some baking chocolate. The final product is a Mounds candy bar. The strangest part of making the recipe is when you add the powdered sugar to the potatoes. Looks like it would be tough to mix 4 cups of powdered sugar with a small lump of cold mashed potatoes, but the powdered sugar liquefies the potatoes as you stir. I won’t be making this ever again.
Doesn’t even sound very tasty to me.
We have a traditional christmas cookie recipe in my family that is pretty much the same thing. “potato cookies” sure don’t sound good but they’re actually really tasty. You can’t tell there’s potato in them. Too sweet for me these days though.
Just noticed another one today: http://www.cracked.com/article_20585_6-famous-documentaries-that-were-shockingly-full-crap.html
Yeah, I posted that one awhile back.
You got another mention: http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/
Thanks for the heads-up.
“If you eat potatoes you might as well eat candy.”
When I was looking through my grandma’s old recipes a long time ago, I found one called mashed potato candy. ¾c cold mashed potatoes, vanilla, 4c coconut, 4c powdered sugar, pinch of salt, and some baking chocolate. The final product is a Mounds candy bar. The strangest part of making the recipe is when you add the powdered sugar to the potatoes. Looks like it would be tough to mix 4 cups of powdered sugar with a small lump of cold mashed potatoes, but the powdered sugar liquefies the potatoes as you stir. I won’t be making this ever again.
Doesn’t even sound very tasty to me.
We have a traditional christmas cookie recipe in my family that is pretty much the same thing. “potato cookies” sure don’t sound good but they’re actually really tasty. You can’t tell there’s potato in them. Too sweet for me these days though.
Just noticed another one today: http://www.cracked.com/article_20585_6-famous-documentaries-that-were-shockingly-full-crap.html
Yeah, I posted that one awhile back.
This is a bit OT, but I wanted to ask, where did you find that information regarding wheat and LDL? I’ve looked around, and can’t find anything. I’ve even looked on the wheat belly blog, to no avail (in terms of sources). Also, when will you post on your other blog?
You’ll have to remind me what I said about wheat and LDL.
I haven’t even looked at the other blog in months. I work at BMI as a contract programmer, I’ve been designing and programming a new version of a software package I sell to law firms, I have a speech coming up in December I haven’t written yet, and I’m supposed to be working on that book for kids with Chareva. Plus there’s the usual stuff with family, the farm, etc. I decided to let the other blog go dormant until I wrap up a few things.
You had mentioned in your post, ‘I’m expecting a lecture from my doctor’, that Dr. Davis had mentioned that eating wheat causes an increased production of LDL for several days afterwards. Also, you sound super busy, so I guess I’ll be looking at Reason magazine (or anything by John Stossel) for the time being.
Ahh, okay. Dr. Davis mentioned that in his cruise lecture last year. I believe he also wrote about it in Wheat Belly, but I can’t find my copy of the book to confirm. (No doubt I lent it to someone and forgot who.)
Yes, a wee bit busy these days.
I’d have to recommend revising that to “anything by John Stossel as long as it doesn’t relate to nutrition.” He appears to be genetically thin and a CICO proponent, and pretty closed-minded about it.
Cheers
We’ll get to him eventually. I would think the angle of “the government screwed up the nutrition advice” would pique his interest.
Oh the irony that you should work at a company called BMI! 🙂
We’re dedicated to making assumptions based on everyone’s height and weight.
The great part about that is you can royally screw up the programming and nobody would even know the difference…you might even get yourself onto the cover of Time Magazine! 🙂
Or you get yourself a no-bid contract to develop a web site for HHS.
So happy to find this site. I am appalled at the medical profession and the government, that they can be bought by ‘Pharma and Farma’. Not new to me but needs to be exposed.
However, there is still more depth to the conversation about carbs. Not wanting to tell my grandma how to suck eggs, but I believe that wheat varieties now grown are bad, that processed grains are crap and these should be the smallest part of our diet.
So when speaking of carbs we should be careful to distinguish between good and bad, and to explain how to distinguish, the low GI varieties should be recommended. Veg and meat or fish, I am even wondering about the vegetarian diet and what bullshit is made up about it???
The food pyramid needs a radical overhaul, and food education in schools needs a giant overhaul, but so does the education of the general population. Thank you to this website, and Catalyst, and SBS (Michael Mosely the truth about exercise another eye opener).
God forbid, doctors may even want to use maggots to help treat wounds!!!!!
Overhauling the food pyramid would be an improvement, but I think we’d be better off if governments got out of the diet-advice business — or in the case of our schools, the diet-command business. Michael Pollan correctly described the school lunch program here as a disposal system for surplus crops subsidized by the USDA. Horrible? Yup. Inevitable? Also yup. Whenever a small group of people have the power to make decisions for millions of other people that result in billions of dollars changing hands, the big-money interests will eventually get their people in there to run the show. That’s the norm in government, not the exception. Take away the power, you take away the motivation for corruption.
I hope Tom doesn’t mind me chiming in but when I hear questions about Vegan lifestyles I recommend the following video free on Youtube.
http://youtu.be/rNON5iNf07o
When Humans developed grain agriculture the effects were tragic, anyone who takes a semester of Anthropology should learn this and it should be common knowledge among school teachers.
This is a bit OT, but I wanted to ask, where did you find that information regarding wheat and LDL? I’ve looked around, and can’t find anything. I’ve even looked on the wheat belly blog, to no avail (in terms of sources). Also, when will you post on your other blog?
You’ll have to remind me what I said about wheat and LDL.
I haven’t even looked at the other blog in months. I work at BMI as a contract programmer, I’ve been designing and programming a new version of a software package I sell to law firms, I have a speech coming up in December I haven’t written yet, and I’m supposed to be working on that book for kids with Chareva. Plus there’s the usual stuff with family, the farm, etc. I decided to let the other blog go dormant until I wrap up a few things.
You had mentioned in your post, ‘I’m expecting a lecture from my doctor’, that Dr. Davis had mentioned that eating wheat causes an increased production of LDL for several days afterwards. Also, you sound super busy, so I guess I’ll be looking at Reason magazine (or anything by John Stossel) for the time being.
Ahh, okay. Dr. Davis mentioned that in his cruise lecture last year. I believe he also wrote about it in Wheat Belly, but I can’t find my copy of the book to confirm. (No doubt I lent it to someone and forgot who.)
Yes, a wee bit busy these days.
I’d have to recommend revising that to “anything by John Stossel as long as it doesn’t relate to nutrition.” He appears to be genetically thin and a CICO proponent, and pretty closed-minded about it.
Cheers
We’ll get to him eventually. I would think the angle of “the government screwed up the nutrition advice” would pique his interest.
Oh the irony that you should work at a company called BMI! 🙂
We’re dedicated to making assumptions based on everyone’s height and weight.
The great part about that is you can royally screw up the programming and nobody would even know the difference…you might even get yourself onto the cover of Time Magazine! 🙂
Or you get yourself a no-bid contract to develop a web site for HHS.
So happy to find this site. I am appalled at the medical profession and the government, that they can be bought by ‘Pharma and Farma’. Not new to me but needs to be exposed.
However, there is still more depth to the conversation about carbs. Not wanting to tell my grandma how to suck eggs, but I believe that wheat varieties now grown are bad, that processed grains are crap and these should be the smallest part of our diet.
So when speaking of carbs we should be careful to distinguish between good and bad, and to explain how to distinguish, the low GI varieties should be recommended. Veg and meat or fish, I am even wondering about the vegetarian diet and what bullshit is made up about it???
The food pyramid needs a radical overhaul, and food education in schools needs a giant overhaul, but so does the education of the general population. Thank you to this website, and Catalyst, and SBS (Michael Mosely the truth about exercise another eye opener).
God forbid, doctors may even want to use maggots to help treat wounds!!!!!
Overhauling the food pyramid would be an improvement, but I think we’d be better off if governments got out of the diet-advice business — or in the case of our schools, the diet-command business. Michael Pollan correctly described the school lunch program here as a disposal system for surplus crops subsidized by the USDA. Horrible? Yup. Inevitable? Also yup. Whenever a small group of people have the power to make decisions for millions of other people that result in billions of dollars changing hands, the big-money interests will eventually get their people in there to run the show. That’s the norm in government, not the exception. Take away the power, you take away the motivation for corruption.
I hope Tom doesn’t mind me chiming in but when I hear questions about Vegan lifestyles I recommend the following video free on Youtube.
http://youtu.be/rNON5iNf07o
When Humans developed grain agriculture the effects were tragic, anyone who takes a semester of Anthropology should learn this and it should be common knowledge among school teachers.
I sent the link to “Heart of the Matter” documentary to many of my family and friends. This is the response from one of them, a 65-yr-old male who would like to lose a few kilos but is not obviously overweight.
“This stuff fascinates and confuses me. I can see the sense in what they are saying, but I have finally worked out that if I have cream on my porridge, or fry things in butter, I put on weight. If I don’t, I don’t!
Whether there is something else I’m doing or not doing, I have not yet worked out.”
I don’t have any answers for him, but maybe someone else does. Thanks.
Mixing fats and refined carbohydrates is the worst combination as far as gaining weight. You’re giving your body a signal to store fat (insulin spike from the carbs) at the same time that you’re ingesting plenty of fat to store. So yes, porridge with cream is more fattening that porridge without cream.
Thanks Tom – I learn something new every day!
Thanks for reading.
Dr. Sears in his Zone Diet books valued the addition of fat to carbs because adding the fat would slow down the absorption rate of the carbs, thus staving off hunger while sustaining energy for longer periods of time. He rationalized that eating a potato chip or french fry was better for you than eating a plain baked potato.
I remember that. But I agree with Dr. Eades that fat and refined carbs together are the “killer combo.” I think there’s a reason people can eat a whole bag of potato chips.
I agree with Eades. The fact that fat slows down the absorption rate of carbs is immaterial. They still get absorbed and still get stored as fat.
I sent the link to “Heart of the Matter” documentary to many of my family and friends. This is the response from one of them, a 65-yr-old male who would like to lose a few kilos but is not obviously overweight.
“This stuff fascinates and confuses me. I can see the sense in what they are saying, but I have finally worked out that if I have cream on my porridge, or fry things in butter, I put on weight. If I don’t, I don’t!
Whether there is something else I’m doing or not doing, I have not yet worked out.”
I don’t have any answers for him, but maybe someone else does. Thanks.
Mixing fats and refined carbohydrates is the worst combination as far as gaining weight. You’re giving your body a signal to store fat (insulin spike from the carbs) at the same time that you’re ingesting plenty of fat to store. So yes, porridge with cream is more fattening that porridge without cream.
Thanks Tom – I learn something new every day!
Thanks for reading.
Dr. Sears in his Zone Diet books valued the addition of fat to carbs because adding the fat would slow down the absorption rate of the carbs, thus staving off hunger while sustaining energy for longer periods of time. He rationalized that eating a potato chip or french fry was better for you than eating a plain baked potato.
I remember that. But I agree with Dr. Eades that fat and refined carbs together are the “killer combo.” I think there’s a reason people can eat a whole bag of potato chips.
I agree with Eades. The fact that fat slows down the absorption rate of carbs is immaterial. They still get absorbed and still get stored as fat.
I couldn’t help but smile when I noticed that the advocates of Low fat and low cholesterol diets offered no scientific explanations for their arguments, simply stating that it just is. While Dr. Eades and the others actually explained why it wasn’t true.
At least they didn’t fall back on the line about how there are thousands of studies backing them up — without actually naming any.
I had that exact conversation with a cardiac surgeon two years ago. When I asked him to name one, he said he couldn’t remember any specific studies, but he “knew” they existed. I kept the discussion going by asking “why would you need to do thousands of studies to prove a point? You would think they would have stopped after the first 900 or so…” He didn’t get my point at all. I had to spell it out to him that just because he memorized that line in medical school does not mean that those studies actually existed.
I couldn’t help but smile when I noticed that the advocates of Low fat and low cholesterol diets offered no scientific explanations for their arguments, simply stating that it just is. While Dr. Eades and the others actually explained why it wasn’t true.
At least they didn’t fall back on the line about how there are thousands of studies backing them up — without actually naming any.
I had that exact conversation with a cardiac surgeon two years ago. When I asked him to name one, he said he couldn’t remember any specific studies, but he “knew” they existed. I kept the discussion going by asking “why would you need to do thousands of studies to prove a point? You would think they would have stopped after the first 900 or so…” He didn’t get my point at all. I had to spell it out to him that just because he memorized that line in medical school does not mean that those studies actually existed.
I was going to email you the Australian links Tom!
An epidemiologist was so concerned about the first part of the 2 part program she actually wrote a letter to them to not air Part 2!! For fear people would not take their statins!!
Oh the amusement…;)
One of the rare occasions the Aust. ABC pay attention to actual science.
Unfortunately they are complete and corrupt pushers of the human-induced-climate-change myth and constantly preach the “need” for a carbon tax.
I guess nobody’s perfect.
I was going to email you the Australian links Tom!
An epidemiologist was so concerned about the first part of the 2 part program she actually wrote a letter to them to not air Part 2!! For fear people would not take their statins!!
Oh the amusement…;)
One of the rare occasions the Aust. ABC pay attention to actual science.
Unfortunately they are complete and corrupt pushers of the human-induced-climate-change myth and constantly preach the “need” for a carbon tax.
I guess nobody’s perfect.
I watched part one last night. That Aussie doctor was awfully smug. His attitude that saturated fat causes heart disease is a factor was pretty much “Because we say so.” The idea that THEIR studies say it is conclusive but other studies that say it’s not are labeled as “there’s no way of knowing” is incredibly pompous and arrogant.
My TV will only take so much more physical abuse from me throwing things at it before it walks out and leaves me for good.
There’s no way of knowing … so just accept what we tell you.
Shades of the TV series “Dinosaurs” where a major player was the “We Say So.” corporation.
I watched part one last night. That Aussie doctor was awfully smug. His attitude that saturated fat causes heart disease is a factor was pretty much “Because we say so.” The idea that THEIR studies say it is conclusive but other studies that say it’s not are labeled as “there’s no way of knowing” is incredibly pompous and arrogant.
My TV will only take so much more physical abuse from me throwing things at it before it walks out and leaves me for good.
There’s no way of knowing … so just accept what we tell you.
Shades of the TV series “Dinosaurs” where a major player was the “We Say So.” corporation.
RE: Wheat raising LDL.
Pierson: It is my understanding that wheat causes inflammation, which in turn raises LDL, because the LDL works to heal the inflammation. So yeah, it will go up for a few days. LDL is not bad cholesterol. It serves a huge purpose. Dr. Perlmutter in “Grain Brain” has some good stuff about that.
If that is true, our “health” establishment is putting out the firemen and not the fire.
Ah, okay. If so, then I have a better idea of what to avoid. Thank you
RE: Wheat raising LDL.
Pierson: It is my understanding that wheat causes inflammation, which in turn raises LDL, because the LDL works to heal the inflammation. So yeah, it will go up for a few days. LDL is not bad cholesterol. It serves a huge purpose. Dr. Perlmutter in “Grain Brain” has some good stuff about that.
If that is true, our “health” establishment is putting out the firemen and not the fire.
Ah, okay. If so, then I have a better idea of what to avoid. Thank you
Tom, thanks for using your website to keep the conversation going about health, diet, and self-education. I watched “Fat Head” some time ago, and since then, my family and I have watched it multiple times.
Having had Type I Diabetes for almost 40 years, I’m very conscious of effects of diet on physiology. After watching your documentary, I did what the scientist in me always does. I began my own footwork to prove or disprove it.
Although the Internet seems to contain far more misinformation overall than useful, correct information, I encourage folks who are interested in pursuing the topics you present to use it anyway. The various research papers about cholesterol, saturated fats, CHD, etc, may be dry reading to some, but almost all of those I’ve found on-line and have read so far are in agreement: the Lipid Hypothesis doesn’t hold up.
I wrote all that just to write this next bit. My recent reading uncovered this article from 2012:
http://www.tbiomed.com/content/9/1/11
which proposes that coronary atherosclerosis may not begin with inflammation. Based on the morphology of the arterial wall and where the “plaque” actually begins to accumulate, another factor may be at work. I’ve not finished digesting it all (HA! Cracked myself up…), but it makes for intriguing reading and shows that researchers are still digging into this health problem.
More personally, my doctor recognizes that I’ve had success experimenting on myself, diet-wise. The first VAP lipid panel he recommended years ago reported that my LDL had a higher percentage of Type B, the denser type. He ordered the same panel about 1.5 years later, and my LDL had shifted to a higher percentage of Type A. I managed that change by significantly reducing carb intake but not saturated fat or cholesterol intake. He’s still scratching his head over that. I enjoy bucking the so-called “conventional wisdom”. 🙂
Keep up the good work.
Interesting. That’s the hypothesis Dr. Uffe Ravnskov has been working on lately as well: some kind of infection triggers the process.
Tom, thanks for using your website to keep the conversation going about health, diet, and self-education. I watched “Fat Head” some time ago, and since then, my family and I have watched it multiple times.
Having had Type I Diabetes for almost 40 years, I’m very conscious of effects of diet on physiology. After watching your documentary, I did what the scientist in me always does. I began my own footwork to prove or disprove it.
Although the Internet seems to contain far more misinformation overall than useful, correct information, I encourage folks who are interested in pursuing the topics you present to use it anyway. The various research papers about cholesterol, saturated fats, CHD, etc, may be dry reading to some, but almost all of those I’ve found on-line and have read so far are in agreement: the Lipid Hypothesis doesn’t hold up.
I wrote all that just to write this next bit. My recent reading uncovered this article from 2012:
http://www.tbiomed.com/content/9/1/11
which proposes that coronary atherosclerosis may not begin with inflammation. Based on the morphology of the arterial wall and where the “plaque” actually begins to accumulate, another factor may be at work. I’ve not finished digesting it all (HA! Cracked myself up…), but it makes for intriguing reading and shows that researchers are still digging into this health problem.
More personally, my doctor recognizes that I’ve had success experimenting on myself, diet-wise. The first VAP lipid panel he recommended years ago reported that my LDL had a higher percentage of Type B, the denser type. He ordered the same panel about 1.5 years later, and my LDL had shifted to a higher percentage of Type A. I managed that change by significantly reducing carb intake but not saturated fat or cholesterol intake. He’s still scratching his head over that. I enjoy bucking the so-called “conventional wisdom”. 🙂
Keep up the good work.
Interesting. That’s the hypothesis Dr. Uffe Ravnskov has been working on lately as well: some kind of infection triggers the process.
Bodybuilding pioneer Dan Lurie died yesterday at the age of 90. Lurie was a big meat eater. I guess it finally caught up to him.
Bodybuilding pioneer Dan Lurie died yesterday at the age of 90. Lurie was a big meat eater. I guess it finally caught up to him.
Hey Tom. Do you feel a bit of goose by vilifying Ancel keys by accusing him of scientific fraud without even looking into whether or not it was true?
Someone actually took the time to do the research which I think you could learn a lot from.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv3QDzdxan_IVgksyJDGR_PO6noKU0r_1
Do I feel like a goose because a vegan group rushed in to defend the lipid hypothesis with faulty logic worthy of Ancel Keys? Uh, no. Notice the association they hyped between animal protein (egads!) and heart disease across various countries. Once again, that’s nothing more than a proxy for rich nations vs. poorer nations. People in rich nations ate more sugar, smoked more cigarettes, drank more soda, etc.
Hey Tom. Do you feel a bit of goose by vilifying Ancel keys by accusing him of scientific fraud without even looking into whether or not it was true?
Someone actually took the time to do the research which I think you could learn a lot from.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv3QDzdxan_IVgksyJDGR_PO6noKU0r_1
Do I feel like a goose because a vegan group rushed in to defend the lipid hypothesis with faulty logic worthy of Ancel Keys? Uh, no. Notice the association they hyped between animal protein (egads!) and heart disease across various countries. Once again, that’s nothing more than a proxy for rich nations vs. poorer nations. People in rich nations ate more sugar, smoked more cigarettes, drank more soda, etc.
Wow really? So it’s ok to make stuff up and accuse dead scientist of fraud and manipulation if it suits your agenda?
Your DVD was extremely influential in propagating this myth. I actually own a copy. And I’m defintely not a vegan but I find this kind of agenda driven sloppyness and you’re lack of willing to correct the issue kind of shocking.
Uh … what exactly did I make up?
The dead scientist cherry-picked his data. Denise Minger has a long chapter about him in her latest book. She points out that as a result of his cherry-picking, he didn’t create a correlation that otherwise wouldn’t have existed — I was under the impression from books I’d read that he did create a non-existent correlation — but he certainly made the correlation appear much stronger and more linear than it was. So yes, that’s fraud and manipulation in my book. Tossing out data to strengthen your results isn’t far removed from making up your results.
I presume “sloppyness” = “sloppiness” and “you’re lack of willing to correct the issue” = “your lack of willingness to correct the issue”? Just making sure I’m interpreting correctly.
Wow really? So it’s ok to make stuff up and accuse dead scientist of fraud and manipulation if it suits your agenda?
Your DVD was extremely influential in propagating this myth. I actually own a copy. And I’m defintely not a vegan but I find this kind of agenda driven sloppyness and you’re lack of willing to correct the issue kind of shocking.
Uh … what exactly did I make up?
The dead scientist cherry-picked his data. Denise Minger has a long chapter about him in her latest book. She points out that as a result of his cherry-picking, he didn’t create a correlation that otherwise wouldn’t have existed — I was under the impression from books I’d read that he did create a non-existent correlation — but he certainly made the correlation appear much stronger and more linear than it was. So yes, that’s fraud and manipulation in my book. Tossing out data to strengthen your results isn’t far removed from making up your results.
I presume “sloppyness” = “sloppiness” and “you’re lack of willing to correct the issue” = “your lack of willingness to correct the issue”? Just making sure I’m interpreting correctly.
I suppose in your mind, disregarding countries with inadequate mortality data and uneven food supply due to the war, including countries that would of best supported his hypothesis constitutes cherry picking. This is comical for anyone who takes a look at your blog roll.
Tom, I also truly can’t understand how someone can write a blog post about The True Believer and see these characteristics in militant vegans but not within yourself or the rest of the low carb world. I understand when your personally and professionally invested your own bias can blind you, but it’s still strange you seemingly haven’t picked up on it and woken up after following the low carb diet and blogs for years.
See if you can spot the inconsistency:
The argument the vegans are making is that we mustn’t accuse Keys of cherry-picking because he offered an explanation for the cherry-picking. The data wasn’t reliable, and we must accept that it wasn’t reliable because Keys said so.
A few minutes later, the vegans say Keys missed the real culprit, which is animal protein. Animal protein causes heart disease, and we know this because if you look at all 22 countries, that’s the correlation you find.
Have you spotted it yet? Go on, take a minute …
… Okay, here it is in case you don’t have it: The data from most of those countries wasn’t reliable. We know this because Keys said so. (How nice that the “reliable” countries produced a nearly perfect correlation.) But the real problem is animal protein. We know this because we’ve spotted a correlation in the data for 22 countries — most of which we just declared unreliable based on the word of Ancel Keys.
If you think the Plant Positive people are taking an objective look at the science, you’re dreaming. They are far more agenda-driven than I am. They want to convince everyone — EVERYONE — that animal foods will kill them and the only way to be healthy is to be a vegetarian. That’s a True Believer mindset. I want to convince people that a low-carb diet might be the key for them if they’re having difficulty losing weight and/or controlling blood sugar. I don’t try to convince people that the only way to be healthy is to go low-carb. It’s an option, and a great option for many people including me, but not the only option.
Did you happen to catch the part in my most recent speech where I said that the diet that works for me might not be the diet that works for you and vice versa? Is that a True Believer talking? If you can find a post where I wrote that anyone who doesn’t go low-carb is going to get sick and die prematurely, or that a low-carb diet is the only healthy diet out there, please send me a link.
Oh, I see … it’s my blogroll that makes me a True Believer? Um … because I link to blogs that fit the general theme of this blog? Because if people want to learn more about low-carb or paleo diets, I provide links to sites where they can find more information? Yes, you’ve got me there. A non-True Believer would link to vegan blogs warning them that a low-carb diet will kill them. Moron.
I suppose in your mind, disregarding countries with inadequate mortality data and uneven food supply due to the war, including countries that would of best supported his hypothesis constitutes cherry picking. This is comical for anyone who takes a look at your blog roll.
Tom, I also truly can’t understand how someone can write a blog post about The True Believer and see these characteristics in militant vegans but not within yourself or the rest of the low carb world. I understand when your personally and professionally invested your own bias can blind you, but it’s still strange you seemingly haven’t picked up on it and woken up after following the low carb diet and blogs for years.
See if you can spot the inconsistency:
The argument the vegans are making is that we mustn’t accuse Keys of cherry-picking because he offered an explanation for the cherry-picking. The data wasn’t reliable, and we must accept that it wasn’t reliable because Keys said so.
A few minutes later, the vegans say Keys missed the real culprit, which is animal protein. Animal protein causes heart disease, and we know this because if you look at all 22 countries, that’s the correlation you find.
Have you spotted it yet? Go on, take a minute …
… Okay, here it is in case you don’t have it: The data from most of those countries wasn’t reliable. We know this because Keys said so. (How nice that the “reliable” countries produced a nearly perfect correlation.) But the real problem is animal protein. We know this because we’ve spotted a correlation in the data for 22 countries — most of which we just declared unreliable based on the word of Ancel Keys.
If you think the Plant Positive people are taking an objective look at the science, you’re dreaming. They are far more agenda-driven than I am. They want to convince everyone — EVERYONE — that animal foods will kill them and the only way to be healthy is to be a vegetarian. That’s a True Believer mindset. I want to convince people that a low-carb diet might be the key for them if they’re having difficulty losing weight and/or controlling blood sugar. I don’t try to convince people that the only way to be healthy is to go low-carb. It’s an option, and a great option for many people including me, but not the only option.
Did you happen to catch the part in my most recent speech where I said that the diet that works for me might not be the diet that works for you and vice versa? Is that a True Believer talking? If you can find a post where I wrote that anyone who doesn’t go low-carb is going to get sick and die prematurely, or that a low-carb diet is the only healthy diet out there, please send me a link.
Oh, I see … it’s my blogroll that makes me a True Believer? Um … because I link to blogs that fit the general theme of this blog? Because if people want to learn more about low-carb or paleo diets, I provide links to sites where they can find more information? Yes, you’ve got me there. A non-True Believer would link to vegan blogs warning them that a low-carb diet will kill them. Moron.
Tom, this week has been trouly remarkable and might go down to history as the week the dietary paradigm shift really took of. However there are some overoptimistic interpretations of what has actually happened in Sweden.
The Swedish dietery guidelines to the general public (based on the new edition of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations) haven’t changed much at all. The only change is that we are now allowed to eat 5 % more MUFA and 5 % less carbs. Recommended carb intake is now 45-60 % of calories, Before it was 40-60 %. Maximun SFA intake ist still 10 %. And our USDA, the Swedish National Food Administration is campaigning to ban schools from serving butter and whole milk.
http://www.norden.org/sv/aktuellt/nyheter/new-nordic-nutrition-recommendations-focus-on-quality-and-the-whole-diet
The SBU ( Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment)-report on the other hand is indeed revolutionary but restricted to the treatment of obesity in the health care system. It´s states that low carb is better at least in the short term for weight loss, that it has benificial effects on bloodsugar, HDL and triaglycerides. The most revolutionary aspect of this SBU-report is that they say that the scientific base for the warnings against saturated fats is “fragile”.
So we how have two different government authorities with very differnts stands on saturated fat. One warning against artery clogging saturated fat, the other one basically saying that warning is based on crappy science. We will have to see what comes out in the future of this controvercy. It might at least produce some good entertainment (so let´s not shut down government).
Well, it’s a good start.
Correction: Recommended carb intake is now 45-60 % of calories, before it was 50-60 %. (So I am now only need to eat 45 % carbs, thats a whopping 5 % less carbs than before)
2.5% less, if you compare the two ranges by their medians. 😉