Diet Debate

Thanks for the article link. I have seen similar articles published over the years. See for example my old blog comments see [26 > or [27 >. Low (or normal for young age) insulin level was one of the factors,. high HDL another and the lack of metabolic syndrome in old age was yet another.

However, it is hard to say which was the cause and which was the effect. Is the high HDL a cause of longevity or is the high HDL only a consequence of the low insulin and the lack of metabolic syndrome, the last 2 being perhaps the primary factors?

I also agree with the researchers pointing out that calorie restriction (CR) is the only known way of increasing the attainable age limit. Less calories while still maintaining the required nutrient (i.e. high nutrient density) means less oxidative stress to the cells. My recently arrived understanding (see this ), inspired mostly by Hyperlipid blog (begin with this ) and see also this ) points to the overfeeding induced mitochondrial damage as one of the main culprits. Where does my low carb high fat belief system fits in to all of this?

Well, for one it is much easier to overeat with carbohydrate- rich produce than with the natural fatty food! The satiety factor is one important consideration. Satiety feedback works very reliably as long as you avoid putting in together high carb and high fat food in one bite. On the high animal fat low carb diet it is very easy to maintain my average caloric intake of 1300-1700kcal/day (I am 56, male, 5'8" 146lb).

Secondly, [more rant>
- as it happens almost all high fat natural unpackaged food is also very high in nutrients! I am not talking about meat. I am talking about entire animal, organ, skin etc the way Asian people eat it. [Digression: Ever seen Chineese pork belly (in soy) or Korean bacon cuts served with green veggies? So much pure fat than Western medics get shocked just by looking at it! 8- >

This is the Great Convergence: both the plant based diet and animal produce based diet are nutrient rich! That's why Indigenous people may live healhy on either diet, as long as they do not overeat and as long as they do not eliminate a particular food group out of their menus.

Be wary of extremism, for your own sake: - please notice that none of the native people are pure vegans! For the same reason, my low carb high fat nutirition is not zero carbs nor does it eliminate plants! Paleo nutrition does NOT advocate or practice a complete elimination of plant based food! Those are not extreme diets, unlike McDougall's pure vegan or raw fruitarian "811" etc.

Stan (Heretic)

(and more rant) Third important factor making a high fat low carb diet better for minimizing the insulin requirement:

- Any high carb diet will require a body to manufacture some insulin. In case of metabolic syndrome - a lot of it! In case of a young and healthy individual less so but there will always be a post-prandial insulin spike. It can be measured.

After a high fat low carb meal - there is almost no insulin spike while the overall base requirement for insulin is only about 6-10iu/day (J.Kwasniewski's book).

I have posted once here a link (long gone) to a story of a young type 1 diabetic who trecked through Antarctica on skis using only 10 insulin units per day, on a high fat pemmican diet! Normally a type 1 would need to inject 40-60 units a day. More so if he or she is insulin resistant and has metabolic syndrome.

Stan (Heretic)

Summary:
Longevity co-factors:

1. Low insulin
2. High HDL
3. Low triglycerides and lack of metabolic syndrome
4. Calorie restriction

High fat low carb diet results:

1. Low insulin (check!)
2. High HDL (check!)
3. Low Triglycerides (check!)
4. Automatic calorie restriction (check!)

Stan (Heretic)

Is lack of metabolic syndrome linked to carbs,fruit,or just HFCS?.......Dietary fructose and the metabolic syndrome. Miller A , Adeli K . SourceMolecular Structure & Function, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, and Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Fructose, a naturally found sugar in many fruits, is now commonly used as an industrial sweetener and is excessively consumed in Western diets. High fructose intake is increasingly recognized as causative in development of prediabetes and metabolic syndrome. The mechanisms underlying fructose-induced metabolic disturbances are unclear but are beginning to be unravelled. This review presents recent findings in this field and an overall mechanistic insight into the metabolic effects of dietary fructose and its role in metabolic syndrome.
RECENT FINDINGS: Recent animal studies have confirmed the link between fructose feeding and increased plasma uric acid, a potentially causative factor in metabolic syndrome. Advanced glycation end products are also implicated because of their direct protein modifications and indirect effects on inflammation and oxidative stress. Human studies have demonstrated fructose's ability to change metabolic hormonal response, possibly contributing to decreased satiety.
SUMMARY: There is much evidence from both animal models and human studies supporting the notion that fructose is a highly lipogenic nutrient that, when consumed in high quantities, contributes to tissue insulin insensitivity, metabolic defects, and the development of a prediabetic state. Recently evidence has helped to decipher the mechanisms involved in these metabolic changes.

What about the often mentioned contention that high levels of HDL are only needed when the LDL is high and that low LDL and TC does not require higher levels of HDL.

Does not automatic calorie restriction also come with a high crab diet as long as its the proper type of carbs and the same for low levels of triglycerides.There are bad carbs and good carbs just as there are bad fats and good fats,

H, so you would suggest that people who have blocked arteries and heart disease be put on a high fat diet like yours in order to reverse their heart disease and unblock their arteries? And that before they submit to bypass surgery they should try first eliminating most carbs especially starches like potatoes and rice, and consume a diet of mostly fat and meat? Instead of a no fat or meat plant based diet like Esselstyn's patients on whom the Cleveland Clinic had given up and to whom they could offer no more help and who showed reversal of heart disease and are alive twelve to twenty years after beginning the plant based diet?

Dolores

Dolores wrote: H, so you would suggest that people who have blocked arteries and heart disease be put on a high fat diet like yours in order to reverse their heart disease and unblock their arteries?


Yes!

And that before they submit to bypass surgery they should try first eliminating most carbs especially starches like potatoes and rice, and consume a diet of mostly fat and meat?


Yes!


Instead of a no fat or meat plant based diet like Esselstyn's patients on whom the Cleveland Clinic had given up and to whom they could offer no more help and who showed reversal of heart disease and are alive twelve to twenty years after beginning the plant based diet?

Not necessary. Try either one. Esselstyn's own _published_ paper showed that the low fat vegan stabilises or slightly reverses the plaque in some but not all patients! For some it doesn't work . Those would be strongly advised to try alternative approaches! There is more than one game in town. The worse thing is when people gave up decide that this is BS and that is BS therefore feel free to eat their usual SAD. Or they would only try one and only one approach doggedly out of loyalty to a particular person, ideology, or out of sheer rigidity, regardless whether it works for them or not. Not everyone is like that. For example JC, EG or I tried multiple methods. Did you?
Be careful. Be skeptical. Ornish demonstrated that his LF vegan meditation etc works (so and so) for some but not all. In his first often quoted trial the only cardiac death occured in the study group not in the control (untreated) group, while the overal degree of the "reversal" was tiny.
Stan (Heretic)

http://www.trackyourplaque.com/blog/2012/01/low-carb-is-heart-healthy.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A blogspot%2Ftpzx %28The Heart Scan Blog%29

P.S.

I used to have minor angina pain which disappeared after 1.5 years on my HF LC diet! If it worked for me it will work for some!

I have to agree with heretic on doing what works for you as an individual and not treating any diet plan as if it were written on stone tablets with fire.

I also believe there are some who thrive no matter what and live into their nineties on alcohol, tobacco and loose women (and diets that would kill the rest of us).

Here is the problem. While angina pain is a sure sign that something is wrong, mostly we go for years on whatever diet we have chosen before we say, "oops, that was a mistake." Unless you subject yourself to lots of tests you would not know that your arteries are clogging up. Risk factors don't count. Pritikin cites a study in which peanut oil lowered cholesterol, but the arteries became blocked anyway. (Are you sure it was angina pain you were having and not something gastrointestinal which can seem like chest pain?)

I am glad you said if it worked for you it will work for some, and not declare it will work across the board. I was under the impression you thought it would work for all. I always wonder about the studies which say --75% showed reversal, or some such numbers. What happened to the others? Was it not working or did they need more time on whatever the diet was they were using?

On the other hand, I think the diets of Asians who are heart healthy and on lower fat and animal protein diets has to say something about a plant based diet, as well as the results of (a majority) of the patients of Esselstyn, Ornish, McDougall, Barnard etc. (I saw a study on the BBC in which seven men with erectile dysfunction ate four cloves of raw garlic a day for a few weeks and blood flow (as measured by an ultra sound) increased and solved the problem for six of the men (one of whom put the garlic on a big fatty steak). If someone were watching this program and had ED I am sure he wouldn't say-- why try it, it didn't work for that one guy. No. Men who saw this would probably run out and buy all the garlic in the supermarket.)

I also think it is getting harder and harder to discover the best diet in our present processed and refined overly sugared and salted and prepackaged food environment.

I personally do not see how brussels sprouts and broccoli can cause blocked arteries. I do know that Esselstyn talks about a brachial artery test in which arteries do not expand after a high fat meal. I have to wonder why fat, which has been shown via actual pictures of blood flowing through the arteries, does not slow down the flow of your blood nor cause platelets to stick together.

It did not take overnight for those people in the studies to develop enough plaque in their arteries to cause damage. I would not expect any diet to reverse the damage overnight. Even halting the build up of plaque is a positive step and small reversals are victories. Whatever keeps you alive and functioning well.

Dolores

Re: " What about the often mentioned contention that high levels of HDL are only needed when the LDL is high and that low LDL and TC does not require higher levels of HDL. "


You may want to ask those that claim so to give you some proof. Anybody can say anything. If a guy has an MD title it does not automatically make it true.


Re: "Does not automatic calorie restriction also come with a high carb diet as long as its the proper type of carbs and the same for low levels of triglycerides."


Yes it does! But most people will always feel hungry! That's why CR diet has never become popular, even though it does work (except for dr. Walford but his version was probably too extreme). On the other hand on a high animal fat low carb the CR effect come automatic, without hunger.

Re: "There are bad carbs and good carbs just as there are bad fats and good fats,"
Yes but the so-called "good carbs" produce are only good because they contain less carbs per volume and per weight! The main ingredient in vegetables is water.
Stan (Heretic)

Re: "I have to agree with heretic..."


I am shocked!


I do not have a proof that it was heart related but it did feel in the heart, not in the stomach. In addition, I had episodes of tachycardia which went away on the HF LC diet. This is also mentioned by Fuhrman in one of his newsletters. He is advising now to consume essential fatty acid supplements (EPA, DHA) for that reason.


Re: "I personally do not see how brussels sprouts and broccoli can cause blocked arteries."


It can cause arteriosclerosis for some people. Those particular vegetables are goitrogenic. Untreated hypothyroidism is a strong heart risk.


Re: " I do know that Esselstyn talks about a brachial artery test in which arteries do not expand after a high fat meal."


He is most likely wrong. This effect is due tot insulin spike and is present after any high caloric meal, including high refined carbohydrate meal, or a high caloric meal with both fat and carbs. It does not follow a vegetable meal because the insulin spike is washed-out over a long time and vegetables contains much less carbs than a SAD meal. This would not happen after a meal containing pure fat and no or very little carbs.


Vegetables work just like high fat LC not because there is anything particularly healthy in vegetables but because vegetables are low carb!


Stan (Heretic)

Read the papers linked in this article.

Hi Heretic,

Glad to see you around and kicking.

Re: "Vegetables work just like high fat LC not because there is anything particularly healthy in vegetables but because vegetables are low carb!"

I remember years ago, when I was a very enthusiastic Pritikinite. If you went to the Pritikin center at the time, you ate mostly vegetables, fruit, and whole grains. But Pritikin's books emphasized low fat - low fat - low fat (contrary to his actual diet, which ALSO emphasized veggies). Anyway, when I read of studies which showed less heart disease, etc when people ate veggies, I said to myself "that's because it's low fat, not because of the vegetables." I guess I got stuck with one expananation, and was unwilling to accept new ideas, pretty much regardless of how well supported they were. I got shaken out of this, only when I failed to meet my health goals (reversal of atherosclerosis) on the strict Pritikin program. Happily, I am reversing my atherosclerosis, on the Fuhrman program.

IMT (Intermedial Thickness test) readings were the safe, inexpensive test (~ $200), that tracked my progress.

Best regards, EngineerGuy

H--are you aware of Atkins second book, Dr. Atkins Nutrition Breakthrough, in which, contrary to what he said in his first book about his diet being absolutely the best for diabetics, he said that his diabetic patients did not continue with their low blood sugar numbers. So he says in this book that he devised his "meat and millet" diet for diabetics which he then called the best diet for them and added grains to his program. He does not mention this in succeeding books. I guess there was no money in it.

The consensus is that fat in the diet (and probably also on the body) prevents the insulin from "unlocking the cell" so that the sugar can enter the cell. Thus people on a high fat diet become insulin resistant which is possibly responsible for other features of metabolic syndrome. I believe that in the absence of fat even a diet of pure sugar will not prevent insulin from allowing sugar to enter the cells. Unless you know different?

Re the pemmican eating trekker: He was eating about 50 per cent meat and 50 percent fat. No carbs unless the pemmican was the kind that also contained berries. I am not surprised that he only used 10 units of insulin because he ate no carbs and was exercising. So what happened the rest of his life? The inuit on a similar fat and meat diet will first, after a kill of deer, rip open the stomach and eat the contents of grasses (carbs) that the deer have eaten. Knowing instinctively that they need carbs. Remind me not to be an Inuit..

The only time I know of that the brain does not need glucose as its fuel is when ketones are produced due to starvation, (or voluntarily starving yourself via an Atkins type diet.)

I also read that the main fuel for the heart is fat. Hmmm. So do you think the tachycardia was resolved when you added fat into your diet? So many questions. So little time.

Dolores