Are You a Carboholic? Why Cutting Carbs Is So Tough

I’ve been eating a high-fat, carb-restricted diet for almost 20 years, since I started as an experiment when investigating nutrition research for the journal Science. I find it’s easy for me to maintain a healthy weight when I eat this way. But even after two decades, the sensation of being on the edge of a slippery slope is ever-present.

The holidays and family vacations are a particular problem. Desserts and sweets, it seems, will appear after every lunch and dinner, and I’m not particularly good at saying no when everyone else is partaking. The more sweets I eat, the more we eat as a family, the longer it takes upon returning home before that expectation of a daily treat fades away.

What I’ve realized is that eating a little of a tasty dessert or a little pasta or bread fails to satisfy me. Rather it ignites a fierce craving for more, to eat it all and then some. I find it easier to avoid sugar, grains and starches entirely, rather than to try to eat them in moderation. The question is why.

To begin to answer that question requires understanding that researchers are generally divided not only on what causes obesity, but also why we have cravings and often fail to stay on diets.

The conventional thinking, held by the large proportion of the many researchers and clinicians I’ve interviewed over the years, is that obesity is caused by caloric excess. They refer to it as an “energy balance” disorder, and so the treatment is to consume less energy (fewer calories) and expend more. When we fail to maintain this prescription, the implication is that we simply lack will power or self-discipline.

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“It’s viewed as a psychological issue or even a question of character,” says Dr. David Ludwig, who studies and treats obesity at Harvard MediSchool.

The minority position in this field — one that Dr. Ludwig holds, as do I after years of reporting — is that obesity is actually a hormonal regulatory disorder, and the hormone that dominates this process is insulin. It directly links what we eat to the accumulation of excess fat and that, in turn, is tied to the foods we crave and the hunger we experience. It’s been known since the 1960s that insulin signals fat cells to accumulate fat, while telling the other cells in our body to burn carbohydrates for fuel. By this thinking these carbohydrates are uniquely fattening.

Since insulin levels after meals are determined largely by the carbohydrates we eat — particularly easily digestible grains and starches, known as high glycemic index carbohydrates, as well as sugars like sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup — diets based on this approach specifically target these carbohydrates. If we don’t want to stay fat or get fatter, we don’t eat them.

This effect of insulin on fat and carbohydrate metabolism offers an explanation for why these same carbohydrates, as Dr. Ludwig says, are typically the foods we crave most; why a little “slip,” as addiction specialists would call it, could so easily lead to a binge.

Elevate insulin levels even a little, says Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and the body switches over from burning fat for fuel to burning carbohydrates, by necessity.

“The more insulin you release, the more you crave carbs,” he said. “Once you’re exposed to a little carbohydrate, and you get an insulin rise from it, that forces energy into fat cells and that deprives your other cells of the energy they would otherwise have utilized — in essence, starvation. So you compensate by getting hungry, particularly for more carbohydrate. High insulin drives carb-craving.”

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The result is that even a bite or a taste of carbohydrate-rich foods can stimulate insulin and create a hunger — a craving — for even more carbohydrates. “There’s no question in my mind,” says Dr. Lustig, “that once people who are ‘carboholics’ get their insulin levels down, they become less carboholic. And if they go off the wagon and start eating carbs, they go right back to where they were before. I’ve seen that in numerous patients.”

Sugar and sweets might be a particular problem because of several physiological responses that may be unique to sugar. Sugar cravings appear to be mediated through the brain reward center that is triggered by other addictive substances. Both sugar and addictive substances stimulate the release of a neurotransmitter called dopamine, producing an intensely pleasurable sensation that our brains crave to repeat. Whether this really is a significant player in sugar cravings is one of many areas of controversy in the field.

Researchers like Dr. Ludwig and Dr. Lustig who also see patients, and physicians, nutritionists and dietitians who promote carb-restricted diets, believe that a person can minimize these carbohydrate cravings by eating lots of healthful fats instead. Fat is satiating, says Dr. Ludwig, and it’s the one macronutrient that doesn’t stimulate insulin secretion. Eating fat-rich foods, “helps extinguish binge behavior,” Dr. Ludwig says, “as opposed to high-carb foods which exacerbate it.” (Although the definition of a “healthful” fat is another topic of debate.)

Whatever the mechanism involved, if the goal is to avoid the kind of slip that leads from a single forkful of rice to a doughnut binge or falling off your diet for good, then the same techniques that have been pioneered in the field of drug addiction for avoiding relapses also should work in this scenario as well. These basic principles have been developed over decades, says Laura Schmidt, an addiction specialist at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine who now studies sugar as well. They can “work for anyone who’s gotten clean and sober and wants to stay that way.”

The first and most obvious strategy is to stay away from the trigger. “Alcoholics who care about staying sober won’t get a job in a bar or even walk down the alcohol aisle in a grocery store,” says Dr. Schmidt. “It’s harder to avoid junk foods in the food environment around us, but we can certainly clean up our home environment and avoid situations where sugar and other treats are easily available.”

Changing our social networks may be necessary as well — convincing our families and our communities to be invested in eschewing these foods, just as they would help if we were trying to quit cigarettes or alcohol or a harder drug.

Another valuable technique is to learn to identify, plan for, and avoid situations that weaken resolve or increase cravings. “If I know that at 3 p.m. I have a little slump and will want to go to the vending machine, then I can have food available that’s the equivalent but that won’t trigger a binge,” says Dr. Schmidt. “Instead of sugary soda, I can drink sparkling water with a lime in it.”

Ultimately, any successful diet is by definition a long-term commitment. We tend to think of diets as something we go on and off. And if we fall off, we think the diet failed. But if we buy into the logic of carb-restricted diets, then it implies acceptance of a lifetime of abstention. As with cigarettes or alcohol, if we fall off the wagon, we don’t give up; we get back on.

“It’s a very powerful system that has to be undone, whether it’s addiction or metabolic disease,” says Dr. Schmidt. “It is knitted into the body and mind over years, and getting healthy requires taking the long view as well.”

Top Cardiologist Blasts Nutrition Guidelines

Salim Yusuf says new evidence fails to support many major diet recommendations.

by Larry Husten, CardioBrief February 27, 2017 

One of the world's top cardiologists says that many of the major nutrition guidelines have no good basis in science.

"I'm not a nutrition scientist and that may be an advantage because every week in the newspaper we read something is good for you and the same thing the next week is bad for you," said Salim Yusuf, MD, DPhil, (McMaster University), at Cardiology Update 2017, a symposium presented by the European Society of Cardiology and the Zurich Heart House.

Yusuf presented evidence that many of the most significant and impactful nutrition recommendations regarding dietary fats, salt, carbohydrates, and even vegetables are not supported by evidence.

Yusuf's talk relied heavily on findings from the PURE study, a large ongoing epidemiological study of 140,000 people in 17 countries. Though PURE is an observational study, "its design and extensive data collection are geared toward addressing major questions on causation and development of the underlying determinants of cardiovascular disease."

Much of the data presented by Yusuf has not been published yet and should be considered preliminary, he said. In 2014 publication of the sodium results stirred considerable controversy.

The results from PURE will likely add fuel to the ongoing fiery debate over carbohydrates and fats. Yusuf displayed data showing that the incidence of cardiovascular disease in the PURE population increases as carbohydrate intake (as a percentage of total calories) rises.

"Previous guidelines said reduce fats and compensate for it by increasing carbohydrates ... and so essentially we've increased carbohydrate intake in most Western countries and this is likely damaging. We were in for a big surprise. We actually found that increasing fats was protective."

The PURE data show a steep increase in CV risk as carbohydrate intake increased beyond 55% of total energy. WHO guidelines state that up to 75% of energy can come from carbohydrates. "But that is wrong," said Yusuf.

Dietary Fat

"We actually found that increasing fats was protective," he said. Low consumption of total fat was associated with increased risk. Very high fat is also "probably bad," Yusuf said, based on earlier studies from Finland with people who had "extremely high fat levels, not the usual fat levels that populations consume."

No clear patterns emerged for different types of fats, Yusuf reported. Trends suggested that saturated fats were not harmful and perhaps even beneficial, while monounsaturated oils appeared beneficial. Polyunsaturated oils had a neutral effect, he said.

"You've got to think about the change in oils that have occurred in the world in the last 30 years," said Yusuf. "It was entirely industry driven. We went from natural fats, which are animal fats, to vegetable fats, because they [industry] can produce it and therefore charge for it, and this was swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the AHA, and the WHO just repeated it."

Yusuf also took aim at milk consumption trends in the US. "Even if you consume milk they want you to consume 2% or 1% of fat" but, he asked, "what is the evidence?" "A big, big, zero," he said. In fact, he said, there "really are no data at all to reduce the fat content of milk."

Yusuf came down squarely in favor of fats over carbohydrates: "Fundamentally, some fats are good, some fats may be neutral, but it's carbohydrates that are the worst thing." He offered a piece of advice: "so when you eat a hamburger throw away the bun and eat the meat."

Yusuf summarized the PURE findings, which found that saturated fats from dairy sources were protective and saturated fats from meats were neutral. White meat from chicken or fish appeared to have a beneficial effect, while red meat in moderate quantities was not associated with harm.

Yusuf volunteered a strong endorsement for Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise, who has been heavily criticized by the nutrition establishment for her defense of dietary fat. "She shook up the nutrition world but she got it right," said Yusuf.

"Why did we go wrong? We went wrong because of surrogate endpoints."

The demonization of fats -- saturated fats in particular -- stemmed from earlier observations linking saturated fat consumption to LDL levels. Yusuf reported that PURE confirmed this finding, but he also noted that the overall difference in LDL was small and that there was a large amount of variance. More importantly, randomized studies that have looked at fat reduction to reduce cardiovascular events have not shown benefit, except in cases where fat levels were extremely high, he said.

Yusuf said that the ApoB/ApoA ratio is a much more highly sensitive marker of risk. Data from PURE shows that this ratio goes up with carbohydrate consumption but is neutral with saturated fats or polyunsaturated fats and declines with monounsaturated fats.

Regarding salt consumption Yusuf restated findings from the previous published reports from PURE and the more recent report from a working paper from WHO. He said the low sodium position was based on the well-established relationship between sodium and blood pressure. But, he argued, the benefits of extremely low levels of sodium have never been tested in a randomized controlled trial. Further, since sodium is an essential nutrient it is inevitable that taking sodium levels too low will be harmful. He also pointed out that although reducing blood pressure through sodium reduction may turn out to be beneficial in people with hypertension, it is entirely possible that non-hypertensives will derive no benefits from sodium reduction but they may well be susceptible to the harms associated with low sodium levels.

Fruits and Vegetables

Yusuf also raised questions about fundamental recommendations that are almost never subject to critical scrutiny. "Where on earth did the concept that we should eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables come from?" asked Yusuf.

"Why not 4, why not 3, why not 6, why not 7? Is it all fruits, is it all vegetables, is it what kinds of fruits, what kinds of vegetables?"

He reported that the PURE data found a neutral effect for vegetables, and that the literature is "really inconsistent." More importantly, he dismissed the idea that foods need to be judged based on their effect on health. "But I have to tell you, when it's regarding diet, neutral is good. You have to eat something. If you like it eat it. Not every food has to be good or bad."

Yusuf then pointed out that it is almost impossible for a large portion of the world to follow these fruit and vegetable recommendations. "Why are fruits and vegetables not consumed? All the guidelines are written by people sitting in Geneva or Dallas who are white, rich, and male. They are male, and so they don't know the cost of foods, they don't go do the grocery shopping. They're white and they only think of what happens in their countries." In high income countries like Canada and Sweden people spend only about 10% of their income on food. But in lower income countries like Pakistan, India, Zimbabwe, 65% of income is spent on food. It is then "no wonder that they're going to buy the cheapest food," he said. The cost of buying 2 servings of fruit and 3 servings of vegetables, as recommended by WHO, is completely unaffordable for many.

Why Doctors Finally Called A Truce On Cholesterol in Food

By: BULLETPROOF STAFF

Cholesterol is in every cell in your body. It’s an integral part of your cell membranes, helping good molecules pass into cells while keeping others out. It’s not well known, but most of your cells — and your liver in particular — make a lot of the cholesterol you use to function (about 1,000-1,500 mg per day). The rest you get from food.

After waging a 30-year war against cholesterol, the government and the American Heart Association are reversing their stance on this vital compound. A recent report from the US Department of Health’s Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee reversed its previous ruling on cholesterol, announcing that “cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.”[1] Health.gov’s new 2015 Dietary Guidelines have moved slightly closer to the recommendations in the Bulletproof Diet Roadmap.

Contrary to what we have read in the media for years, dietary cholesterol itself is not the bad guy. This post explains what cholesterol is, what the different types of cholesterol do, and how they help your body and brain.

Cholesterol keeps your brain running smoothly

Cholesterol is particularly important for cognitive function. Your brain makes up only 2% of body weight but contains 25% of the body’s cholesterol![2]

Why so much in such a small space? Cholesterol helps your neurons communicate with one another.

Many neurons are encased in fatty covers called myelin sheathes. Neurons are like electrical wires, and myelin sheathes are like the insulation around the wire – they keep electricity contained in your nerve pathways, allowing messages and signals to move much more quickly. Myelin is one-fifth cholesterol by weight, so eating plenty of cholesterol is crucial to maintaining your myelin and keeping your brain’s signaling both fast and efficient.

Cholesterol deficiency is linked to a decline in cognitive function and memory, especially for anyone following a Western Diet (i.e., eating lots of carbohydrates and dutifully limiting fat and cholesterol). According to a 2011 study in the European Journal of Internal Medicine: “an excess of dietary carbohydrates, particularly fructose, alongside a relative deficiency in dietary fats and cholesterol, may lead to the development of Alzheimer’s disease”.[3]

Yikes!

Cholesterol is the building block for sex hormones

Cholesterol is the building block for every single known sex hormone. That includes estrogen, testosterone, progesterone — the whole lot. Vitamin D is also essential for sex hormone production, and people who don’t eat enough fat or cholesterol are often vitamin D deficient.

Cholesterol is also a key player in bile acid production. Bile acid helps your body regulate fat, cholesterol, and glucose metabolism.[4] It’s also required for you to absorb fat soluble vitamins.

What exactly IS cholesterol? Why is it so controversial?

A common misconception is that cholesterol is a fat. Cholesterol is not a fat, although it travels through the bloodstream along with fats and it’s found in the fatty parts of foods.

Actually, cholesterol is a type of alcohol called a “sterol.” Sterols have two distinct parts: one that dissolves in water and one that dissolves in fat. The split allows sterols to travel in water-based compounds (like blood) while carrying fat-based products.

Cholesterol travels through the blood with packages called “lipoproteins”, which are like little containers full of fats, proteins, and other nutrients (like fat-soluble vitamins such as Vitamin D). These nutrients won’t dissolve fully in water, so they rely on lipoproteins to carry them through your system.

Cholesterol is controversial because it’s one of the first things we could separate out of blood, so we’ve been studying it for a long time. It’s been associated with all kinds of disorders, but the causal factors are still not determined. In other words, cholesterol can be a symptom, not a cause.

There is even an argument that cholesterol makes you stronger (you’ll survive poisoning better and put on muscle more easily when you have more cholesterol!). High cholesterol in conjunction with inflammation is bad news for sure – inflammation is a problem, but it’s harder to measure than cholesterol, and harder to control.

When we figured out cholesterol in food wasn’t a problem, the debate shifted to whether one type of cholesterol or another was the main problem, leading to the HDL vs. LDL debate.

What’s really going on in the HDL versus LDL debate?

Lipoproteins initially form in the intestines, where they gather and bind fat, cholesterol, and other nutrients. After they load up they move into the bloodstream to deliver those nutrients to various tissues.

During their journey, lipoproteins change form. There are a few different types, but the two most famous ones are: 

“high-density lipoprotein”, or HDL 

“low-density lipoprotein”, or LDL 

The media and the mainstream medical community like to talk about LDL as the “bad type of cholesterol”, and HDL as the “good type.” The common argument: LDL delivers cholesterol to tissues (supposedly a bad thing) while HDL takes cholesterol from tissues (supposedly a good thing).

Labeling lipoproteins as “good” and “bad” is both imprecise and misleading. This carelessness with language wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t have the consequence of causing people to avoid consuming cholesterol altogether— driving them away from healthful, fat-rich animal products and toward an inflammatory, carbohydrate-rich diet based mostly on flour, sugar, and toxic industrial (but cholesterol-free!) vegetable oils.

So if the cholesterol in food isn’t the cause of the cardiovascular problems far too common in the Western world, then what is?

Cholesterol itself does not cause heart disease: oxidized PUFAs do!

It’s not true that a lot of cholesterol in the blood causes heart disease. It’s actually the result of LDL particles depositing cholesterol inside artery walls, and that happens because of inflammation.

It matters if the LDL particles are carrying a lot damaged, oxidized fats, and that is more likely to happen if you eat a lot of polyunsaturated fats, or PUFAs, that are poorly processed and found in vegetable oils like soybean, corn, canola, cottonseed, and the like.

PUFAs are very fragile. They’re susceptible to oxidation by free radicals, and having too many of them (in cell membranes, LDL particles, and elsewhere) can trigger out-of-control inflammation and disease.

So now the question becomes not, “How much LDL cholesterol do you have?” but, “How oxidized is the LDL cholesterol you have?”

If you’re eating a Bulletproof Diet and staying away from kryptonite foods, you shouldn’t have much of a problem with excess PUFA intake. If you’re eating a typical American diet with processed foods high in vegetable oils, consider changing your routine and eating higher-quality fare.

The myth about cholesterol and plaque buildup

Also important is how long the damaged particles stay stuck where they don’t belong. Once inside the artery wall, these oxidized LDL particles attract macrophages and other well-intentioned white blood cells hoping to clear the obstruction; unfortunately, though, the white blood cell response leads to runaway inflammation and the production of a hard “plaque” that blocks blood flow.[5] Because cholesterol is stuck in these plaques, it’s often implicated as the “cause” of heart disease. But if you assay them, you find PUFAs.

Damage to the artery, which comes from inflammation and oxidized LDL, is the root cause of arterial plaque LDL buildup. HDL particles, which contain a good deal of the antioxidant vitamin E, can reduce the oxidation of particles in their place, thus lessening the inflammation and protecting the artery from plaque formation—which is why higher HDL levels predict a lower risk of heart disease.

HDL’s good deed is not so much that it removes cholesterol from these plaques. More accurate is that HDL protects and repairs LDL and fats from oxidative damage.

Boost Your Cholesterol Radar

One way to combat plaque formation and cholesterol-based inflammation is to eat a diet that’s rich in undamaged saturated and monounsaturated fats. Just as important is to avoid the poor quality PUFAs found in processed and packaged foods and low-quality restaurant meals!

Following a diet rich in high-quality, oxidation-resistant fat will raise HDL and reduce oxidized LDL (shameless plug: get the Bulletproof Diet Roadmap). It will also lessen oxidative damage and system-wide inflammation. Consume lots of coconut oil, grass-fed butter and animal fats from healthy animals (where you’ll also find cholesterol), fish, and avocado, and stay away from corn, soybean, vegetable, canola, and cottonseed oil and the like.

It is time to repair cholesterol’s good name once and for all. Consider too that the federal government—an entity harshly critical of cholesterol-containing foods for most of the last century—recently changed its mind. The government of Sweden went even further (perhaps because Sweden’s government is on the hook for the cost of healthcare) and is recommending a diet high in saturated fat. 

Now you can enjoy those yummy, pastured eggs even more!

[1] http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015-BINDER/meeting7/docs/DGAC-Meeting-7-SC-1.pdf

[2]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11264981?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn

[3] http://www.ejinme.com/article/S0953-6205(11)00004-5/fulltext

[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2811459/

[5] http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v13/n10/full/nri3520.html

Health Authorities Continue to Fail Us

We’re told to listen to doctors and qualified professionals—but they’ve been preaching the same advice for 50 years now

By Pete Ross • 02/16/17 9:00am

 
 
 
 

For example, there is no evidence to suggest that the cholesterol in eggs relates to blood cholesterol levels, but we are still advised to only eat up to two a day. PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

This year marks the 15th anniversary of Gary Taubes’ seminal The New York Times article, exposing the fraudulent research and advice from Ancel Keys, that saturated fats clog arteries and cause heart attacks. Titled “What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie,” Taubes documented the history of the health advice we’ve been dished since the 1950s, the fact that the low fat dogma was decided by the government, the low fat diet’s increasingly negative impact on the health of the population, and the backdoor deals that provided certain industries with huge profits at the expense of everyone else.

We have since discovered that much of the research demonizing saturated fat—and fat in general—was in fact funded by sugar and cereal companies looking to keep the conversation away from their commodity’s place in everyday diets. Research conducted over the last 30 or so years reveals there is no evidence the consumption of saturated fats causes heart attacks or strokes; cholesterol’s role in developing heart disease is actually much more complex than we’ve been led to believe. In fact, despite constant protests from nutritionists and government authorities, the research actually shows that low carb diets are significantly more effective than low fat diets. And yet, the government’s dietary recommendations have changed very little.

Now, health authorities have attempted to cover up the fact that they are ignoring current research in favor of dated advice. In 2015, science and nutrition journalist Nina Teicholtz penned an editorial in the British Medical Journal criticizing the USDA’s dietary guidelines for failing to reflect the current scientific literature. After a year of scathing criticism from academics and authorities demanding the article be retracted, independent reviewers stood in favor of Teicholtz and her editorial. One of the most damning paragraphs is as follows:

In conclusion, the recommended diets are supported by a minuscule quantity of rigorous evidence that only marginally supports claims that these diets can promote better health than alternatives. Furthermore, the NEL (Nutrition Evidence Library) reviews of the recommended diets discount or omit important data. There have been at a minimum, three National Institutes of Health funded trials on some 50 ,000 people showing that a diet low in fat and saturated fat is ineffective for fighting heart disease, obesity, diabetes, or cancer. Two of these trials are omitted from the NEL review. The third trial is included, but its results are ignored. This oversight is particularly striking because this trial, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), was the largest nutrition trial in history. Nearly 49, 000 women followed a diet low in fat and high in fruits, vegetables, and grains for an average of seven years, at the end of which investigators found no significant advantage of this diet for weight loss, diabetes, heart disease, or cancer of any kind. Critics dismiss this trial for various reasons, including the fact that fat consumption did not differ enough significantly between the intervention and control groups, but the percentage of calories from both fat and saturated fat were more than 25% lower in the intervention group than in the control group (26.7% v 36.2% for total fat and 8.8% v 12.1% for saturated fats). The WHI findings have been confirmed by other sizable studies and are therefore hard to dismiss. When the omitted findings from these three clinical trials are factored into the review, the overwhelming preponderance of rigorous evidence does not support any of the dietary committee’s health claims for its recommended diets.

Much of the nutrition research occurring even now is still muddying the waters. For example, we hear so often that red meat is bad, but it is almost always studied alongside processed meats and the results extrapolated for both. Look at any study and the actual line is “red and processed meats.” On what planet is it reasonable to consider a piece of salami, cured with nitrates and other preservatives, in the same category as unadulterated, grass-fed steak? Two entirely different meats, considered the same in most studies. That’s not to mention the number of studies relying on self-reporting diets, which is so far from accurate as to be pointless. Trusting someone to track their eating over a period of months, without fudging to make it look more healthy—for the purpose of scientific research no less—is ludicrously inadequate and a waste of funding.

It’s little wonder then that the general population, and anyone who has done a bit of reading, has trust issues when it comes to health advice.

We’re told to listen to the recommendations of doctors and qualified health professionals, but they’ve been preaching the same advice for 50 years with only minor changes over the last decade. Even Dr. Oz, the mainstream TV darling, has been touting that saturated fat “clogs arteries” because he says that sees it during his operations. All of the research contradicts this, and it isn’t surprising considering he is a heart surgeon—not an expert on nutrition or biochemistry. Yet that doesn’t stop Oz from using his platform to overstep his expertise and give advice that doesn’t align with evidence, which his viewers will take seriously because he’s one of the foremost cardiologists in the U.S.

The media certainly has their place in our current predicament as well. When it comes to nutrition, they don’t care what data and research is reliable—they care about what’s going to give them a great headline and arouse emotion in readers.

Who could forget in late 2015, when the WHO announced bacon and other processed meats as a level-one carcinogen in the same category as cigarettes? The news immediately broke everywhere that bacon was as bad for you as cigarettes, when the reality is that 50g of bacon a day is going to increase the absolute risk of cancer by a 0.01 percent—hardly something to get worked up over. Unfortunately, the headline, “Bacon isn’t too great for you as we all suspected, so don’t eat it too often,” isn’t as good as, “Bacon is in the same category of carcinogen as cigarettes, so eating it gives you cancer!”

But let’s get back to the boogeyman of the last four decades: saturated fats. We are still recommended to steer clear of them in favor of poly and monounsaturated fats. Yet some of of the foremost cancer researchers in the world, such as Dom D’Agostino, recommend ketogenic diets—20 percent protein, 70 percent fat and 10 percent carbs. Take a look at the below picture of multiple elite powerlifter Mark Bell, who has been on a ketogenic diet while continuing to train at a high level in his sport for a number of years. Are we to believe that the fat he eats is somehow eating away at his insides, clogging his arteries, and increasing his cancer risk, when his physique is better than 99 percent of the population? Health authorities keep telling us to keep the amount of fat in our diet low (RDI for saturated fat is 20g) despite the research showing that isn’t a good idea, yet we have living proof that it works just fine.

Multiple elite powerlifter Mark Bell Youtube/Omar Isuf

This raises the biggest question of all: what evidence is there for any of the current recommended daily intakes of food by health authorities? For instance, we now know there is no evidence to suggest that the cholesterol in eggs relates to blood cholesterol levels, but we are still advised to only eat up to two a day. Why? And why are these recommendations always so absolute? It makes no sense that regardless of whether one is a 50kg, slender female, or a 120kg male athlete that the recommended intake is the same. Whether it’s macronutrients, micronutrients, or vitamins and minerals, how is it that we have a single RDI (recommended daily intake) for the entire population? Is this really the state of nutritional science in 2017, that we can’t even distinguish between male and female, manual labour/white collar, and at least a couple of weight ranges as well? We deserve better.

The worst part is the fact that no one seems to want to admit their advice was wrong. Instead, dietitians and nutritionists now speak in a sort of code that voids any culpability for their mistake. I’ve heard nutritionists and dietitians on numerous TV shows saying things like “research is now showing us” when giving dietary advice, while disregarding the full extent of what the research actually shows. Fats are apparently okay now, but only monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Saturated fat should still be limited—for what reason is unclear. The National Heart Foundation of Australia, on their own website no less, states that they “maintain there is a clear link between saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease, despite ABC media reports questioning the vast evidence base.” So despite all credible research and meta analysis—which they admit is “vast”—showing that there is no evidence to suggest that saturated fat is linked with heart disease, the National Heart Foundation has done the equivalent of stick its head in the sand and act as though nothing has changed.

At the same time they have given their tick of approval to McDonalds.

Of course, no one in the USDA, the AHA, the AMA, or other such authority can admit they got it all wrong, can they? The backlash would be enormous—we’d have class action lawsuits and an entire body of professionals would lose their credibility instantly and completely. If that controversy over fat wasn’t bad enough, we’ve also got the continued push by authorities to have us consume less salt, despite the evidence being at best ambiguous as to its effects. The war on salt would appear to be yet another case of the health authorities giving us one size fits all recommendations without hard evidence, but based on a logical progression that if high blood pressure is a risk factor for heart disease, and salt increases blood pressure, then reducing salt intake would reduce the risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, the Cochrane review found actually found an increase in risk when following a low sodium diet such as that recommended by the American Heart Association.

There is, yet again, far more to the story. Fructose consumption increases the uptake of sodium by the kidneys, and by reducing consumption of fructose by 350ml (an average small bottle of soda or juice) blood pressure lowers. Potassium intake is also a factor, with research indicating that the ratio of potassium to sodium a more important marker than absolute level of sodium. So if you eat a diet that mostly consists of fresh, whole foods (not packaged or processed) and don’t eat fruit or drink fruit juice, the insistence that one must reduce salt intake is ludicrous. The take home message once again is that one size certainly does not fit all, and we need specialized recommendations based on our individual makeup, lifestyle, diet, and genetics instead of messages like “you must cut saturated fat to 20g and reduce sodium intake at all costs.”

Considering the above, no one in their right mind would take any kind of dietary advice provided by the authorities at face value. It’s little wonder then that so many are taking matters into their own hands. Thirty years ago, if the USDA, AHA, or AMA told you something was bad for you, you stopped eating it. You didn’t question, because they were the ones with credibility and years of study. It was simply too much trouble for the average person to find the information they needed. Thankfully with the internet, all of the information needed is now available to anyone who wants it. We no longer have to put blind trust in authority figures because we can sift through the information ourselves and ask the right questions. If anything, the glut of information shows that the public’s trust in nutrition advice given by the authorities and media was sorely misplaced.

So who are we to trust then? The list would appear to be getting smaller every day.

Now more than ever the message is clear: if you want to truly be healthy, it’s up to the individual to do their own research and come to their own conclusions. There is a mountain of information out there to go through, and you’ll need to sift through the bias of people selling you diets, fringe groups promoting their social agenda, and the media misinterpreting real research findings.

While it may sound like too much trouble, is your health really of that little importance that you’d trust it to anyone else but yourself?

Pete Ross deconstructs the psychology and philosophy of the business world, careers and everyday life. You can follow him on Twitter @prometheandrive.

Why Low-Fat Diets Make You Fat

by Natasha Longo
PreventDisease.com

Governments here and abroad have been cautioning the public for decades on the dangers of high fat diets. Their claims based on “their science” concluded that it’s best to avoid fat because of its extra calories – and saturated fats raise the risk of heart disease. You’ll still see this on most food pyramids regulated by government policy on diet and nutrition. However, just as mandated healthcare policies fail at the federal level, so do those related to nutrition. This low-fat mantra has been questioned for years by clinicians and nutritional scientists – not least because it has failed to halt the obesity epidemic. The fact is, contrary to official advice by our diet dictocrats, high-fat diets lower blood sugar, improve blood lipids, and reduce obesity.

High-Fat Diets Have Better Effects on Blood Sugar
One of the problems is that there is consistent inverse association in the percentage of energy coming from fats and sugars. Research published in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition shows why people find it hard to follow government guidelines to cut their fat and sugar intake at the same time — a phenomenon known as the sugar-fat seesaw.

That’s no surprise as previous studies such as a two-year dietary studypublished in the journal Diabetologia showed that food with a lot of fat and few carbohydrates has a better effect on blood sugar levels and blood lipids. Despite the increased fat intake with a larger portion of saturated fatty acids, their lipoproteins did not get worse. Quite the contrary — the HDL, or ‘good’ cholesterol, content increased on the high fat diet.

Research from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem shows that a carefully scheduled high-fat diet can lead to a reduction in body weight and a unique metabolism in which ingested fats are not stored, but rather used for energy at times when no food is available. The results were published in The FASEB Journal under the title “Timed high-fat diet resets circadian metabolism and prevents obesity”.

Outdated Understanding of Science 

Professor David Lawrence, an expert in nutrition and obesity data analysis, said recently in the journal BMC Medicine that the idea the idea of all calories being equal is flawed and based ‘on an outdated understanding of the science’.

Calories from different sources have different effects on the body, with calories from carbohydrates more likely to encourage weight gain.

Calories from different sources have different effects on the body, with calories from carbohydrates more likely to encourage weight gain.

Not only is the calorie theory under attack, but evidence is also emerging to show that lowering fat might not cut heart-disease risk after all.

A major study published in the authoritative New England Journal of Medicine compared the clinical benefits of a conventional low-fat diet with two types of Mediterranean diet, which are naturally considerably higher in fat.

The study had to be stopped early because the heart attack and stroke rate in the Mediterranean options was so much lower it was deemed irresponsible to keep patients on the conventional diet.

Relevance of Glycemic Load 

A study led by Cara Ebbeling, PhD, associate director and David Ludwig, MD, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center Boston Children’s Hospital, found diets that reduce the surge in blood sugar after a meal–either low-glycemic index or very-low carbohydrate-may be preferable to a low-fat diet for those trying to achieve lasting weight loss. Furthermore, the study found that the low-glycemic index diet had similar metabolic benefits to the very low-carb diet without negative effects of stress and inflammation as seen by participants consuming the very low-carb diet.

Weight re-gain is often attributed to a decline in motivation or adherence to diet and exercise, but biology also plays an important role. After weight loss, the rate at which people burn calories (known as energy expenditure) decreases, reflecting slower metabolism. Lower energy expenditure adds to the difficulty of weight maintenance and helps explain why people tend to re-gain lost weight.

The study suggests that a low-glycemic load diet is more effective than conventional approaches at burning calories (and keeping energy expenditure) at a higher rate after weight loss.

“We’ve found that, contrary to nutritional dogma, all calories are not created equal,” says Ludwig, also director of the Optimal Weight for Life Clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Total calories burned plummeted by 300 calories on the low fat diet compared to the low carbohydrate diet, which would equal the number of calories typically burned in an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity,” he says. 

Though a low-fat diet is traditionally recommended by the U.S. Government and Heart Association, it caused the greatest decrease in energy expenditure, an unhealthy lipid pattern and insulin resistance.

“In addition to the benefits noted in this study, we believe that low-glycemic-index diets are easier to stick to on a day-to-day basis, compared to low-carb and low-fat diets, which many people find limiting,” says Ebbeling. “Unlike low-fat and very- low carbohydrate diets, a low-glycemic-index diet doesn’t eliminate entire classes of food, likely making it easier to follow and more sustainable.”

Some Governments Are Making a U-Turn

Faced with mounting evidence, Swedish dietary experts recently made a dramatic U-turn, recommending a low-carb, rather than low-fat, diet for weight loss.

The bombshell came from the Council on Health Technology Assessment, which advises the Swedish government. Based on a review of 16,000 studies, it said the best sorts of food for losing weight were high fat foods which could include anything oils like olive and coconut.

So the rules are being rewritten: to lose weight, cut down on carbs and eat more fat.

So what, precisely, is behind this new thinking? It comes down to the effect different foods have on your hormones.

The most important of these hormones, and the one that’s crucial for weight loss, is insulin.

Insulin is the hormone that controls fat storage. A high-carb diet increases the amount of glucose in the bloodstream, which in turn means you produce more insulin. The more insulin the body produces, the more fat gets stored. When the body is exposed to a high-carb low-fat meal, the pancreas works hard at overshooting the secretion of insulin which then causes the excess to be stored as fat. A low-carb and high-fat diet means less insulin, making it easier to lose weight because less fat is then stored.

More Calories But More Weight Loss

Dramatic new evidence for this has come from a unique experiment conducted by a personal trainer. As Sam Feltham explains: ‘My business is helping people to lose weight, and if all calories aren’t equal, that could make a real difference.’

A few months ago, Sam upped his intake to a massive 5,000 calories every day. For three weeks he got these calories from a low-fat, high-carb diet; for another three, he ate more fat and cut right back on carbs.

He did exactly the same, moderate exercise regimen each time.

Now, according to the conventional wisdom, the weight gain would be the same on both regimens. After all, a calorie is just a calorie.

In fact, on the low-fat diet Sam stacked on 16lbs around his waist.

But when he ate more fat and cut his carbs, he added just 2.5bs and lost 1in (2.5cm) from his waistline.

‘I’m sure I eat more calories than I burn, yet my weight and waist measurement normally remain the same.’

Sam, who survived childhood cancer (Hodgkin’s lymphoma), wondered if his usual low-carb diet was the key, and set about his experiment to find out.

For the low-carb, high-fat part of the experiment, Sam got his 5,000 calories from foods such as eggs, mackerel (which is very fatty), steak, green veg and coconut oil, interspersed with three snacks of nuts – walnuts, pecans or almonds (which are naturally high in fat).

While 72 percent of his total calorie intake came from fats, 22 percent came from protein and just 5.9 percent from carbs. Each meal was exactly the same every day.

With the high-carb diet, most of his calories (63 percent) came from carbohydrates, 13 percent from protein, and 22 percent from fat.

He ate garlic bread, low-fat lasagna, crumpets, low-fat yogurts and rice pudding, chocolate muffins and wholewheat bread.

Admittedly the types of fat on his high-fat diet weren’t your usual fatty foods, such as cream and butter. And his high-carb diet wasn’t exactly ‘healthy’.

But the point was not comparing the health benefits of the two, says Sam. ‘It was an experiment to test the idea that different foods affect your body’s biochemistry differently. ‘If it is true that cutting calories is the key to weight loss, then excess calories should put on the same amount of weight whether they come from a “healthy” diet full of fat or a poor diet full of carbs.’

He says he was ‘really surprised’ at how little weight he put on with the low-carb/high-fat diet, while on the high-carb/low-fat diet his body fat increased from 12.7 percent of his body weight to 16.9 percent.

Degrading Health On Low-Fat High Carb Diets

While Sam’s experiment was by no means a scientific one, as well as the weight gain, what was even more striking was what an unhealthy effect the high carbohydrate regimen had on standard markers for heart health.

For when Sam had his blood tested after his three weeks on high carbs, ‘the diet effectively gave him metabolic syndrome which is a precursor to heart disease and diabetes.

Particularly worrying was that his triglycerides (fats in his blood) had gone up four times, while his so-called ‘good’ (HDL) cholesterol had dropped.

What’s more, a level of inflammation in his liver had doubled, which is also linked with diabetes and heart disease. “If someone came into my clinic in that state, I’d make it clear they needed to make some serious changes to their diet and start eating a diet low in carbs. I was really surprised that the damaging changes had happened so quickly,” stated Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

Did the fact that, as a personal trainer, Sam was obviously very fit at the start of his trial make a difference?

“Absolutely,” says Dr Malhotra. “It is alarming to think that if a high-carb diet can have that effect on him in three weeks, what is it doing to people who don’t exercise and eat like that for years?” 

Standard Dietary Advice is Wrong!

“This is a vivid illustration of the fact that the conventional idea of what causes weight gain is back to front,” says Dr Malhotra. “We’ve been told for years that eating fat will make you fat because it contains twice the calories that are in carbohydrates. That is to misunderstand how fat storage works.”

Research has already shown that if you are eating a high-carb diet, and so have high levels of insulin, you are likely to have more fat in your blood than someone on a high-fat diet.

“This is what happened to Sam.”

Fat Does Not Clog Up Arteries

But doesn’t eating extra fat clog up your arteries? No, insists Dr Malhotra. In fact, he says, it’s too many carbs that are the problem.

He argues that – as seen with Sam – a high-carb diet tends to lower the good HDL cholesterol that helps keep arteries clear.

At the same time, as glucose from carbs is turned into fat for storage in the body, fatty acids are also produced.

It is this combination of fatty acids and low HDL, not saturated fat, that “clogs your arteries,” says Dr Malhotra.

Recent research supports the idea that warning about saturated fat in the diet has probably been a mistake.

“The influence of dietary fats on serum cholesterol has been overstated,” say the authors of a review in Advances In Nutrition in May. “The lack of any clear evidence that high-fat foods lead to adverse health effects makes one wonder how they got such a bad name.”

Demonizing fat and encouraging people to eat more carbs can be harmful to people with heart disease, says Dr Malhotra. “I see patients who have had a heart attack and are trying to lose weight on a low-fat diet and are puzzled because they are gaining weight.”

“When I investigate, it is usually because they are eating lots of low-fat supermarket foods which are also high in carbs such as sugar.” 

“When I get them eating real foods and not worrying about fat, their weight starts to come down.”

Those eating low-carb these days are much more flexible about the amount of fat they get. Research is still needed to sort out the best ratio of carbs to fat.

Western governments have yet to acknowledge the Swedish style U-turn in healthy eating advice. I’ve personally been on many of these public policy and procurement programs investing hundreds of hours of my time trying to convince officials that food pyramids have to be thrown out the window along with many recommended foods they hold praise to. As soon as these recommendations are forwarded to the highest levels, they are dismissed.

We are spending billions trying to cope with metabolic diseases such as diabetes, cancer and obesity and the emphasis on low-fat diets is only promoting the metabolic pathways which encourage these diseases.

The bottom line is to commit to educating yourself on the healthiest nutritional strategies for your health and not follow any recommendations by government, unless perhaps if you live in Sweden.

Read the full article here: http://preventdisease.com/news/13/101713_Why-Low-Fat-Diets-Make-You-Fat.shtml

Natasha Longo has a master’s degree in nutrition and is a certified fitness and nutritional counselor. She has consulted on public health policy and procurement in Canada, Australia, Spain, Ireland, England and Germany.

Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You!
What REALLY Causes Heart Disease
by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD

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