Diet Debate

Conclusions: A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD.


Note:this does not necessarily dismiss the positive effects from a Fuhrman/McDougall style diet but it does call into question whether reduction in saturated fat is effective in reducing cardio disease unless one is willing to go all the way.....to a healthy vegan diet.

and I still do not know if Dr Eeeelstyns study has ever been duplicated or verified.I can't find any indication in pubmed that it has other than a limited(in the scope of study and results)study by Dr Ornish.

In my personal opinion I doubt if any vegan diet can ever be truly healthy unless heavily supplemented with vitamins, essential fatty acid or animal produce!

Vegetarianism is for Homo Sapiens a mistake!

Let them admit it!

Heretic

You might be able to convince me that adding fat to the diet is heart healthy but it will be harder for you to convince me that lots of vegetables and the rice, corn and potatoes which are eaten by billions of people is not healthful.

If everyone were eating the way we did in the forties and fifties it would be easier to determine what is a healthful diet and what is not. Our moms cooked us three meals a day of meat, a starch and maybe a salad and a couple of green or yellow vegetables for dinner, cereal or eggs and toast for breakfast and a sandwich on useless white bread for lunch. We had a treat when we got home from school and I honestly don't remember eating anything after dinner except on Saturday night when mom went to the candy store on the corner and got us an icecream cone--one little scoop, thank you. We didn't have huge freezers and only freezer space for icecubes. So all our meals were prepared in the kitchen not in a factory.

How do we know as far as the general population is concerned which way of eating is best since everything is processed and filled with salt sugar and fat, food can be purchased cheaply outside your front door and you always see people eating on the streets, on public transportation and once while driving in the 10 mile an hour rush hour traffic in Phoenix, I saw someone holding a large bowl of something and eating it as she drove. Was it a fat or sugar laden food she was eating?

Dolores

Hi Dolores,

Don't get beaten down by some who simply ignore anything that does not support their beliefs.

There are thousands (literally) of animal experiments, where adding saturated fat to the diet increases LDL cholesterol, and causes atherosclerosis. Animals on their normal animal chow diets, do not develop atherosclerosis. But some people disregard these experiments, because, they are animal experiments, not human experiments. In this way, these people can ignore the support from animal experiments.

In the experience of Pritikin, Ornish, Esselstyn, etc., the people who do best, are those who are most strict on the diet. These are, of course, people working to recover lost health, and probably worse than average, from a heredity point of view.

The basic evidence is really simple. Native populations have no heart disease, diabetes, alzheimers, etc. These people are thin and fit, and live to old age, if they get past infectious diseases. When these same people adopt western diets, they develop the diseases of affluence. When people sick with the diseases of affluence, adopt the diets we advocate, which are similar to the native diets, these people generally become healthy again.

Sure, we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to believe that we can add back in some saturated fat, or sugar or salt, in a bit of moderation, and be healthy. Whether we can or not depends on a lot of things, such as heredity, health situation, luck. Luck as in, do we have diverticululosis pockets?, damage to organs, viruses held dormant in our cells (like shingles, left over from chicken pox or perhaps uncommon diseases?) etc etc.

My greatest motivation is to avoid alzheimer's disease. There is a terrific article in the Jan 2012 Scientific American on "The Pathway of Youth?". I am banking on autophagy, to remove damaged mitochondria, in brain cells. Autophagy (I had to look it up), only occurs in times of food scarcity. Or, perhaps, being very lean, which is easy when eating lots of vegetables. Also, maybe a bit of fasting. One theory of alzheimers is that damaged mitochondria start spewing out toxins, starting 30 years prior to symptoms. But guess what? Autophagy can removed damaged mitochondria. Guess what? In native populations, without alzheimers, they are lean and rarely have rich dinners, where they sit back in their seats in a stupor from overeating. Overeating promotes damaged mitochondria, and suppresses autophagy.

My point is that it looks like, to avoid alzheimers, we probably cannot have our cake and eat it too. We probably cannot lull ourselves into moderation (at least very often), and expect to have perfect health. I hope each person has perfect health, but, as Dr. Amen (the brain health guy) says, the people who are saying "Don't worry, be happy", don't do very well. He sees their brain scans.

More on that later.

Best regards, EngineerGuy

EG,

You yourself disregard experiments and publications that disprove your preconceived ideas and you seem to overemphasize those that do. Your post is the proof of it. Read my references (they are on my blog) and you will find plenty of data and studies (including China Study, and including Alzheimers' studies) that contradict your views! I do analyze and thrash your quotes by logic and science.

Adding saturated fat to herbivorous animals is bound to create anomalies just like adding plants to cats and dogs food. You are not proving anything quoting the monkey research. More and more research keeps contradicting the entire low fat high carb paradigm, that it is becoming less fun even to argue about it.

Heretic

Hi Heretic,

Ultimately, go with the program with the best results.

Best regards, EngineerGuy

I am, based on the last few hundreds thousands years of proven practice. Pass that broccoli.

Hi Heretic,

Re: "More and more research keeps contradicting the entire low fat high carb paradigm..."

You don't even realize that I am no longer on a low fat, high carb program.

Best regards, EngineerGuy

Re: You don't even realize that I am no longer on a low fat, high carb program.

What are proportions of macronutrients in your diet? protein/fat/carbs ?

Hi Heretic,

Dr. Fuhrman believes that the optimal diet has quite a range of proportions. As I apply it, I eat perhaps 5 oz nuts and seeds daily, making the fat % probably near 30%. I should weigh everything I eat for 3 to 5 days, to figure it out. Athletes will eat more whole grains. I no longer believe the proportions are a critical measurement of the diet. I believe the high phytochemical and antioxidant content, and the low calorie content, is the single most critical factor of the diet, of many important factors in a diet.

Some heart patients have difficulty with any avocado or nuts and seeds. You recall DMW said he had difficulty with avocados and nuts, except in the smallest portions.

Pritikin's books emphasized low fat, high complex carbohydrates. The diet he gave heart patients, who healed miraculously, emphasized veggies. Recall that in 1977, 60 Minutes was going to do an expose on the nut in California, who claimed to be curing heart disease. They attended the Pritikin Longevity Center with hidden cameras. The 60 minutes crew was amazed that people were getting better. They came out of hiding, and asked Pritikin how they could help him. 60 Minutes went the the Miami Heart Center, and got 3 patients who standard medical care could not help.

60 Minutes paid for the 3 to attend the Pritikin Center. 60 Minues interviewed the 3 patients, before attending Pritikin. One said he was afraid of crossing the street, for fear that he would get an angina attack, and not be able to get out of the street. After Pritikin, all 3 patients were much improved. Doctors wrote in, outraged that the show proved nothing, just because they felt better after a month stay at a resort. So, 60 minutes did a year followup, and all 3 had returned to work, and were feeling better than ever. (After 2 years, all 3 patients were off all medications.)

Best regards, EngineerGuy

Do you have any links to this or is it possible to watch a re-broadcast?