Diet Debate

H, It is no secret that you can be fat and sick on a vegan diet. It depends on exactly what non animal product foods you choose to eat. It must also not have escaped your attention that you can be fat and sick on a diet of animal food. Sounds like the writer was on an Atkins type diet. If Atkins ate his own diet then it certainly didn't do him any good. And he himself said in his second book that after a while diabetics didn't do well on his diet and he added grains. Unfortunately he didn't subtract the meat and fat. His one stab at honesty was short lived and we never hear again in subsequent books about the inadequacy of his diet for diabetics.

So the guy you quoted wrote a book. And he lost a lot of weight because the way he now eats is very satiating and he was eating lots fewer calories. There is lots of anecdotal evidence (which is what you presented to us from the former vegan) from McDougall, Esselstyn, Fuhrman patients too. They have never written books but a reference to their personal stories is easy to find.

I have chosen a way of eating totally different from yours. Evidently both seem to be working for both of us. In common I am guessing that---neither of us eats refined, processed food like sugar and flour or any of the tens of thousands of products on the supermarket shelves, neither of us consumes vegetable oils and, while I am not there yet, both of us know that weight loss and achieving a normal, healthy BMI is critical to achieving better health.

Dave Mendosa who has a website where he discusses diabetes has finally, after years as a diabetic on a low carb diet, lost all the weight he needed to lose with the help of Byetta and now at a normal weight and on a low carb diet, is no longer on drugs. Neither am I on a high carb low fat diet. And I am not yet at the weight I should be. You think, no doubt that he will maintain his good health. I think otherwise. Time will tell for both of us.

Dolores

Dolores,

If most of you eat are vegetables then you are most likely on a reduced carbohydrate diet, in comparison to SAD. Did you ever count the macronutrients in your diet over a few day to find out exactly how much carbohydrates, protein and fat you are consuming?

If your diet is still too-high in carbs, vegetables or not, it may be preventing you from fully recovering from your diabetes. I think it is conceivable that it may have even contributed to it.

May I ask, or would you like to tell us, what kind of diet were you eating throughout your life, and especially prior to developing diabetes?

Regards,
Heretic

H, the last time I looked, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, beans, oatmeal and corn were considered vegetables. Has something changed? I eat lots of these things. If you are referring to Fuhrman's diet, you are right, very little starches. I am mostly on what might be considered McDougall's maximum weight loss diet but with a little fish thrown in and an occasional piece of meat. (See, you are not the only Heretic)

What makes you think I am not fully recovering from diabetes? (Actually, unlike Fuhrman, I believe it can be controlled but not cured, unless by cured you mean that eating a certain way will insure low blood sugars, blood pressure, lipids etc.

Throughout most of my life--meat, potatoes, rice, vegetables and the staff of life, pasta, meatballs and sausage, brasciola, lasagna, manicotti. I have to admit to having used lots of cheese in cooking. While Sophia Loren once said all she is she owes to pasta, I have to say that my weight gain was mostly thanks to cheese. And volumes of orange juice which I no longer drink.

I think I mentioned before that there is no sign of retinopathy, cataracts, ARMD, glaucoma or any neuropathy. Blood sugars average around 80 but often are lower. EVerything else will have to wait on a doctor's visit. I try to stay away from doctors. Exactly what do you consider fully recovering?

Dolores

I know you are a heretic at heart too, otherwise you wouldn't be talking with me, but don't tell Dr. McDougall and his cop ...
There are two stages of recovery based on my personal understanding (a sort of a Heretic's personal theory of health recovery):

1) All the symptoms are gone.

That's probably where you are right now and when I was with my metabolic symptom after the first couple of weeks into my diet, in 1999.

Also, interestingly, at this stage some of the symptoms may come back for a short time for no apparent reason, although it happens less and less frequently. That is as if the disease were a dying "animal" that is trying to fight back for its survival.

2) When you can go back to eating the same things as in the past, for a short periods of time, and do not experience the return of the symptoms at all!

It took me about 7 years (not until 2006) to reach that stage!

I am not sure if you are there or not yet. To test it: - you once double up your starch and sugar intake for a day and verify your blood glucose level. If it does not go beyond normal upper and lower limits (and no other symptoms) then you are at this stage.

Stage 2 I would consider to be the truly cured diabetes type 2 or fully cured metabolic syndrome.

Regards,
Heretic

well, I don't know how to answer this. The only symptoms I might experience are high post prandial numbers and they never worry me. I do not think I will eat all those good Italian dishes on a regular basis. I would like to say it is because I am noble and will not vary from the true path, but actually I don't want to be in the kitchen all day. I have been really lazy at times and had nothing to eat but potatoes and a little fruit for an entire day before I ventured out to the supermarket for more supplies. I did not test after meals but the next morning my fasting number was 70. (Are you old enough to remember the character Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine--"What? Me Worry?) A good philosophy.

Dolores

High postpradial BG numbers? Above 160mg/dl? Regularly or infrequently after a large meal only?

Low or very low fasting BG, is one of the sign of prediabetes and diabetes t2 in its less advanced stages. A good illustration is on this graph:

http://www.velsensor.com/ptbo/Heretical.htm

Scroll about one page down to a section titled: "Body Mind and Sugar" Author: Abrahamson, E.M. & Pezet, A.W.

Curves number 2 and 6 both represent diabetes type 2 cases. BG tends to fall dramatically after 6 hours from a meal due to hyperinsulinemia.


You wrote:

"Throughout most of my life--meat, potatoes, rice, vegetables and the staff of life, pasta, meatballs and sausage, brasciola, lasagna, manicotti. I have to admit to having used lots of cheese in cooking. ... I have to say that my weight gain was mostly thanks to cheese. And volumes of orange juice which I no longer drink."


You see, this is the problem in interpreting it. You have been mentioning meat and fat when criticizing diets, especially Atkins (oops I may have triggered another Anti-Atkins rant)

Yet out of 12 dishes you listed, 5 are clearly of animal origin and the remaining 7 are mostly carbohydrates. How can you tell that it is the 5 that hurt you not the other 7?

The first culprit that I would look at is orange juice. It is a well known trigger of obesity, high in glucose and fructose (typ more than 20% total). It is also very hard to stop, once you start drinking it throughout a day it can easily become a habit and you won't notice when a gallon of it is gone.


Regards,
Heretic

Hi Heretic,

Good to see you around and kicking.

Re: If your diet is still too-high in carbs, vegetables or not, it may be preventing you from fully recovering from your diabetes. I think it is conceivable that it may have even contributed to it.

Remember all the debates we had about this? Remember I pointed out the native societies, like the Tarahumara indians (150 mile kick ball races, etc) who live mostly on carbs (beans and corn), and have no heart disease or diabetes (back in the 1970's - not now). And all the times you ignored the stats from the Pritikin
Center, showing that our diabetics who return to this starch based diet, get healthy again? Rember you said Pritikin is really a low carb diet, because most of the starch is undigestible? I found a study of barley, the highest fiber food, showing in a metabolic lab in a 2 week study, that the digestible carbs in barley are utilized. You ignored it all. You postulate that a high starch diet, which cures diabetes, will also cause it. You are a brilliant guy, but only open to some ideas.

Best regards, EngineerGuy

Re: how can I tell it was the meat and cheese that hurt me not the carbs? First of all you are absolutely right about the orange juice. However, allowing myself to become very overweight and sedentary was probably much more detrimental to my health than the actual content of the the meals as far as the diabetes is concerned.

I mentioned Dave Mendosa who is no longer on any meds now that he is down to a low BMI. Yet, despite his very low carb diet, before he lost so much weight, he was on meds. I, on the other hand haven't used meds in almost twenty years and accomplished this while still very heavy. As I continue to lose more weight and up the exercise, my blood sugars remain normal and have dropped even more. I am probably even below what Bernstein considers the cut off point for normal (about 84).

The only experiment I have done on myself is to eliminate dairy all the time and meat most of the time. And to eat only whole foods. If I were to eat your way and lose weight then it is also likely that my blood sugar numbers would be low (as in Mr. Mendosa's case) But why would I mess with success?

There are other parameters of health--not just blood sugar. Mr. Mendosa refuses to give other information about himself such as cholesterol numbers, blood pressure etc. so we do not know if losing weight and lowering sugars has improved his overall health. And other than the eye health and lack of neuropathy (which I did have twenty years ago) I do not have any recent numbers. So we don't know about me either. I hate to go to doctors. I don't like them telling me what to do when I know better.

Still have to check out those graphs. More later.

Dolores

Hi EG,

I remember that. I remember that I also calculated your own diet based on your data you posted and it came out lower in total carbs than your previous one. Pritikin diet is not low carb but is lower in carbs than SAD, and the lower the carb contents the better it worked! If you replace highly refined starch and sugar contents with green vegetables and root vegeteables then your total daily glycemic load must go down.
For example, one can easily ingest above 400g of pure carbs eating a pound of bread and a liter bottle of orange juice. To do the same on potatoes you would have to consume 2kg of them in a day, very hard to do.


Based on my unscientific observations and estimates, human body is capable of living healthy of about 200g of pure carbs (GL) per day, on a high carbohydrate diet, long term and for an average body weight of 70kg. I think that human body begins to break down around and above 400g/day. How soon it would break down and which disease pattern would manifest itself first, depends on an individial susceptability, genetics, micronutrients and environmental factors.

There is no mystery in the native diets - they are simply lower in total carbohydrate load (g per day) than the standard Western diet.

Regarding Tarahumara, I do not know what their famous long distance runners eat but I recently discovered that equally famous long distance Inca runners didn't quite live of potatoes. They seemed to consume llama's cream and small amount of some dried berries (can't prove it though, so you are welcome to disbelieve).

Regards,
Heretic

Re: barley digestability study

I don't have your original link but other studies show dehusked whole barley digestability of 64-82% in pigs and probably lower in humans (humans have shorter intestines).

On the other hand this study
http://www.ajcn.org/content/61/1/75.abstract

shows that the fine-milled barley is 98% digested in humans but flaked barley in 83%. That basically proves my point - the more processed grains the higher its glycemic index.

Finely milled grain floor (and bread, pasta etc) is digestable in almost 100% regardless what kind of grain, but that was precisely Pritikin's point of recommending NOT to eat finely processed flour food! Nor other popular vegan gurus recommend basing their diet on mostly bread and zero fat baked goods. They recommend green vegetables, root vegetables and fruit - all lower glycemic index stuff! That's why their diet may be helpful for some people (I would hesitate using the word "works"). It is not what they added (vegetables) that matters the most, but what they subtracted (refined starch and sugar)! Do you see the pattern?

Heretic

Hi Heretic,

Re: I don't have your original link but other studies show dehusked whole barley digestability of 64-82% in pigs and probably lower in humans (humans have shorter intestines).

and

Re: but flaked barley in 83%. That basically proves my point - the more processed grains the higher its glycemic index.

No, your point was that the Pritikin diet was beneficial because it was a low carb diet, because much of the carbs were not digested. But the carbs were all that were ingested. Your quotes above prove MY point. If a person is only eating barley, it's still a high carb diet, even if only 83% is digested.

You insist on ignoring the universe of data on the benefits of antioxidants and phytochemicals. Pomegranates improve blood flow to the heart; those taking a sports drink of same calories, color, taste, got worse (randomized double blind).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/16169367

This is one of thousands of studies. Sorry, you cannot attribute any benefit to subtracting carbs, in this case.

Best regards, EngineerGuy

Hi EngineerGuy,

No I do not ignore the Universe of Data coming from you, I only play it down or re-interpret.

Yes, plants do contain many nutrients, macro and micro. So do animal produce.

Yes you did "prove" your point, namely that people can also be healthy eating a diet relatively high in carbohydrate %. Thank you for reminding me about it.

After proving that, are you also going to "prove" that the higher the absolute intake of carbohydrates(*) the better? If so then I am all ears...

Best regards,
H.

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*) I mean only in form of vegetables and fruit of course, and in absolute Glycemic Load units (that is in grams of glucose equivalent). I exclude pasta and bread to make it easier.