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Popular Belief That Saturated Fat Clogs Up Arteries Is a Myth, Experts Say (independent.ie)
schwit1 quotes a report from Irish Independent: The authors, led by Dr Aseem Malhotra, from Lister Hospital, Stevenage, wrote: "Despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong." Dr Malhotra and colleagues Professor Rita Redberg, from the University of California at San Francisco, and Pascal Meier from University Hospital Geneva in Switzerland and University College London, cited a "landmark" review of evidence that appeared to exonerate saturated fat. They said relative levels of "good" cholesterol, or high density lipoprotein (HDL), were a better predictor of heart disease risk than levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), also known as "bad" cholesterol. High consumption of foods rich in saturated fat such as butter, cakes and fatty meat has been shown to increase blood levels of LDL. The experts wrote: "It is time to shift the public health message in the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease away from measuring serum lipids (blood fats) and reducing dietary saturated fat. "Coronary artery disease is a chronic inflammatory disease and it can be reduced effectively by walking 22 minutes a day and eating real food." They pointed out that in clinical trials widening narrow arteries with stents -- stainless steel mesh devices -- failed to reduce the risk of heart attacks.
Eat all the Doritos and don't go outside and post about Linux
then you will be healthy
That will tell you the desired results without even looking.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
it is common, but not welcome.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/experts-headline-grabbing-editorial-on-saturated-fats-bizarre-misleading/
"The report was written secretly and released by the National Obesity Forum, for which Malhotra was also a senior advisor. The Forum is funded by the meat industry and drug companies."
It's no wonder we're seeing more and more average people question, if not stand against, science. From their perspective, it just isn't reliable any longer.
It doesn't matter if we're talking about nutrition or climate change. Time and time again average people have been told one thing based on scientific research, but then a short while later they're told that something totally contradictory to the first thing is now correct.
Science as a whole has a serious boy-who-cried-wolf problem. As scientists we need to be far more careful about the claims we're making, so that people continue to take us seriously.
We can't do what climate science did in the 1960s and 1970s, and predict imminent doom-and-gloom scenarios for the 1980s that don't come to pass, and haven't come to pass even 30 years after that.
We can't say today that some food or substance is unhealthy and we should avoid eating it, but then a few years from now say it's healthy, and in fact we need to eat more of it.
While we shouldn't be afraid to chance our conclusions as we do more research and continue to expand our knowledge, we also can't continue to make claims that fall apart so quickly. We need to be far more sure about the claims we make publicly.
Each time we contradict ourselves we only serve to make our research, our methods, our philosophy, and our entire field look like a joke. We have to stop being wrong so often if we want to be taken seriously.
That's pretty rich, given that government guidelines have been saying for years that saturated fat is bad:
Saturated fat can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The worst part isn't even that they falsely identified saturated fats as bad, but that for years governments told people to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet, which is pretty much a prescription for weight gain and diabetes.
... or at least a religion. In no other field can I find so much contradictory information and research. On the one hand you have Dr. Barnard saying fat is of the devil and on the other hand you have Dr. Eades saying it is perfectly fine. We used to fry foods in lard and tallow (saturated fats). Then the dietary scientists said that was going to kill us so we had to switch to non-saturated fats. Then the dietary scientists said that the trans fats that they recommended were worse than the saturated fats.
In the 80s and 90s the fat phobic nutritionists and diet gurus said that any kind of fat more than 10% of your total intake of calories was bad for you and they had "medical studies" to back it up. They said it was fat that made us fat. They came on TV and scared moms and the food industry started removing fat from their products. Now, the fat content of many foods is much less. But guess what? We are fatter than ever. They replaced the fat with sugar and other carbohydrates and said that the science showed that was ok because it is not carbohydrates that make us fat, but it is fat. Again, we are fatter than ever. Who is thinner than Americans? Well, practically everyone except Mexicans and Samoans. Who is thinner? Well, the French are. What do they eat? A lot more fat in their diets than us. Asians are thinner too and they supposedly eat a lot of rice which is a lot of carbs.
Hi fat is killing us--we have studies proving...
No it's high carbs that are killing us--we have studies proving... ...
No it's
Stop drinking that sugary soda, it's bad for your health. Drink a diet soda instead...oh, it will give you alzheimers...
Stop drinking coffee, the caffeine is bad for you--we have studies. Instead, drink coffee for your health because it contains lots of flavonoids--we have studies.
If you're a guy...maybe we should figure out the diets of guys like Mick Jagger and Anthony Quinn who fathered kids past the age of 70. For Jagger, maybe it's all the cocaine and other drugs... got to say that it's depressing being 52 and the plumbing not working like it used to.
Just as Woody Allen predicted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Cherry picked data can prove the moon is made of green cheese: arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/experts-headline-grabbing-editorial-on-saturated-fats-bizarre-misleading
Don't step on the baby.
It's a screwed up society in which we live where "scientist" falsify or out right lie to fuel an agenda, often funded by corporations and their lobbyists. We're all going to die. Fuck it, do what makes you happy as long as it does not infringe on others. Want an oreo, fucking eat it! Want a big gulp in NYC, fucking drinking it and flip the bird to socialist fear mongers.
I only eat free range sugar and non-conflict butter.
#DeleteChrome
While the submitted Slashdot story is highly suspect, I would also assume an ersatz science commentary posted to LinkedIn should be ignored with great prejudice.
#DeleteChrome
What's with Slashdot and the recent unbalanced biased snippets that are being posted all the time?
If you are going to publish a story about something, why not post both sides?
From the article:
Leading the the (sic) critics was Professor Alun Hughes, associate director of the Medical Research Council Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at University College London.
He said: "This editorial is muddled and adds to confusion on a contentious topic. The authors present no really new evidence, misrepresent some existing evidence, and fail to adequately acknowledge the limitations in the evidence that they use to support their point of view."
Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said the claims about saturated fat were "unhelpful and misleading".
He added: "Decades of research have proved that a diet rich in saturated fat increases 'bad' LDL cholesterol in your blood, which puts you at greater risk of a heart attack or stroke."
Dr Amitava Banerjee, honorary consultant cardiologist at University College London, said: "Unfortunately, the authors have reported evidence simplistically and selectively".
His view was echoed by cardiologist Dr Gavin Sandercock, director of research at the University of Essex, who said: "This editorial is not founded on good evidence. There is no such thing as 'real food' - the authors don't define what it is so it's meaningless."
Here's another take:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04...
You forgot why the shift to grain was considered important. Dr. Kellogg believed it would reduce masturbation, so he made his cereal and did everything he could to change breakfast from a meat/egg/bacon base to a grain base. He also pushed for and successful got American's genital mutilation industry up and running. It didn't take too long to get burning the clitoral hood off with acid labeled as a crime against humanity, but sadly we're still working on the corresponding treatment on males being outlawed (circumcision). The only goal of both procedures and the breakfast cereal was to reduce masturbation. Other reasons were later invented.
It's amazing how the aversion to sex has shaped the world.
"[Volunteers] given an oral choline supplement for 2 months have a more than tenfold increase in trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a metabolite derived from the gut microbiota that has previously been linked to the development of cardiovascular disease.
The increase in plasma TMAO levels is also associated with a corresponding increase in platelet aggregation."
"aspirin attenuated the rise in TMAO levels as well as reduced platelet hyperresponsiveness"
Experts Are Crackpots, Experts Say.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
As a circumcised male, I hardly find the claim that the presence, or lack there-of, of the foreskin encourages or discourages masturbation.
Anyone here heard of John Yudkin? British scientist who was saying pretty much this in the 1970's - see https://goo.gl/vIR4Ju. Also more recently Robert Lustig: https://goo.gl/XBEQ3l Both rather long but well worth taking in. Sadly this was all known about years ago, but one way and another it was successfully suppressed. The constant, but wrong, message over the last 40 years to reduce fat intake has had and continues to have disastrous consequences.
and incapable of truly deriving the conclusion it suggests. An explanation of a similar study can be found here: https://nutritionfacts.org/vid...
Dietary science isn't as contradictory as it seems. A lot of industry-sponsored science just tries to manufacture doubt in order to make it harder for consumers to be decisive in their dietary choices.
Until some years ago nearly everyone believed that plaque forms due to high cholesterol levels in the blood. Therefore the simplified saying that the cholesterol blocks the arteries
There has never been sufficient evidence that eating fat clogs your arteries, aside from the logical conclusion that 'it makes sense'. I watched a lecture last year where this was being said, and the lecturer wasn't giving out new information. This is all left over fallout from the Ansel Keys (spelling) Seven Nation Study that was essentially debunked as soon as it was released.
Dir sir:
In which universe do you exist where fat and cholesterol are the same material?
42. And watch me be modded up for it too.
That's because you haven't seen us here in Europe masturbate like there's no tomorrow yet.
Ezekiel 23:20
As someone who suffered a heart attack in 2014 at the age of 45 due to clogged arterys and subsequently suffered 6 cardiac arrests on the way to and in the hospital (I still have the paddle burns to prove it) I can confirm that so far the stent they had to fit to allow my heart to continue working does appear to be doing its job. I was informed at the time that the main contributor to the artery clogging was smoking so I gave up there and then. As much as everyone would love to have a diet that required no excercise to keep healthy I think that is only available in a coma or stasis, the rest of us really need to think about what we eat and excersise enough to burn it off and stay fit. Stop being told what to and what not to eat and simply use a little common sense.... oh and stop smoking, it really is pointless.
I'll give you the secret: Foreskin means you don't need lube. Anybody with a foreskin can simply hold it in place and compare, but a person without it can't make that comparison. There is a huge difference in functionality.
This is why historically when circumcision was done by adult males it was a big act of religious devotion. You're giving up a major part of the hedonistic pleasures of life. This is also why it is done to children; in hopes they will grow to be more pious.
It really doesnt matter what you eat. All diet fads are bullshit.
The important thing is burning off what you consume. Farmer John could eat lots of fat and meat then work the fields for 12 hours, and be thin and healthy. But if Desk Jockey Julie does that she'll weigh 400 pounds and be sick.Common sense.
Swimmer Michael Phelps ate 12,000 calories a day, consisting of fried-egg sandwiches, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions, mayonnaise, coffee, omelets, grits, french toast, powdered sugar, pancakes, pasta, ham, 2,000 calories worth of energy drinks, and pizza.
I'm no doctor, but he seems pretty healthy.
This notion was firmly implanted by education health classes, media, and medical professionals for decades.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The belief is diets high in fat contribute to coronary artery disease, not necessarily because fat floats in the blood stream and sticks to your arteries.
Evidence suggests there are actually a lot of mechanisms at work there. Hypertension causes arteries to harden, salt may exacerbate this. Genetics are an underrated contributor. A cardiologist had explained to me some people are just more genetically predisposed for atheroma than others as he was cathing the coronaries of a former fighter pilot, now airliner pilot, in excellent health who ultimately needed coronary artery bypass grafting. This pilot had excellent HDL and LDL levels, no history of high blood pressure, just chest pain. His father had a heart attack before the age of 55: premature coronary artery disease.
Biggest problem is the high mortality of post MI patients even with stents. We don't want to talk about it, but it is almost a dirty secret about stents and MI that kills a lot of people. Why would we? It would make having an MI sound like a death sentence despite medical advances. They can die for a myriad of reasons: heart failure or in-stent re-stenosis. Post-MI sudden death can be due to ventricular arrhythmia that has NOTHING to do with the stent, but because of surviving, yet sick, cells in an area of MI scar.
My point? It is still not fully understood. We have a lot of indicators in evidence that do a good job, but more work has to be done.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Whew, was afraid it might be C-137
With all this question authority and the dogma they spout, where will it end? Next thing we know people will be questioning things like whether the Minimum Wage actually helps people...
It appears that the study used cherry-picked data to achieve the results they wanted. So the question lingers, who wanted the study to come out in the way it did?
...is never really settled, it seems.
Hey! What about the huge consensus about fatty foods over the last 30 years?
Although 22 minutes seems like an awfully specific number so it must be true!
It is also the exact same time of a TV show minus commercials... coincidence? I think not!
Anyway I think common sense is more insightful that a lot of the rhetoric.
I've always subscribed that butter was better for you than margarine. I mean come on.
As for sugar, I've always thought that was by far the more dangerous dietary issue.
Bodies just not built to handle the amount of refined stuff we pump into it on a regular basis these days and it is hard to avoid.
As the saying goes, everything in moderation.
I have a long time friend who has been harping on the benefits of a low carb, high fat (LCHF) diet for over a year now. As skeptical as I am I dismissed him since he was selling a product that purported to induce ketosis (when the brain switches from sugar/carb for fuel to fats). After watching friend after friend start losing weight and proclaiming how much better they feel now I decided it was at least worth trying. That was a little over a month ago and I have lost 20 lbs. But even if I hadn't lost a single pound I would stick to this new lifestyle. The mental clarity and increased energy is amazing. And I haven't slept this well in years! I highly recommend it. The science behind it is solid and contradicts what we've been told for decades. Hopefully more doctors will do their due diligence and start helping their patients make the switch.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said the claims about saturated fat were "unhelpful and misleading".He added: "Decades of research have proved that a diet rich in saturated fat increases 'bad' LDL cholesterol in your blood, which puts you at greater risk of a heart attack or stroke." Knapton states a fact coupled with an assumption. It's a fact that three chain lengths of saturated fat (12, 14, and 16) raise LDL cholesterol somewhat. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/cont... It is also a fact that 18 carbon chain stearic acid, which has no affect on LDL cholesterol levels is the most prominent fatty acid in unstable arterial plaques. http://circgenetics.ahajournal... I mention unstable arterial plaques because of this. "Numerous studies have demonstrated that coronary atherosclerosis affects all eutherian animals with a body mass comparable to or larger than humans, regardless of diet specialization and LDL levels. Surprisingly, in these mammals, lipid accumulations in arterial walls were more common in herbivores than carnivores." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... So the debate should not be about LDL levels. It should center on what causes plaque build up and what generates unstable plaques. It's peculiar that nobody mentions mercury toxicity. Quite likely mercury toxicity contributed significantly to heart attack risk among middle aged men during the first half of the 20th Century. "Mercury activates phospholipase A2 (PLA-2) which increases the risk for coronary artery and cerebral plaque rupture with MI and CVA. In addition, mercury induces formation of arachidonic acid metabolites such as total prostaglandins, thromboxane B2 and 8 isoprostane in vascular endothelial cells and activates vascular endothelial cell phospholipase D. Even very low levels of chronic mercury exposure promote endothelial dysfunction (ED) as a result of increased inflammation, oxidative stress, immune dysfunction, reduced oxidative defense, reduction in nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability. Many of the cardiovascular consequences of mercury are mitigated by concomitant intake of fish containing omega 3 fatty acids and by the intake of selenium. All of these pathobiological findings will increase the risk of hypertension, CHD, MI, CVD and CVA." https://www.esciencecentral.or... Note the mention of arachidonic acid metabolites. Why it that important? "Arachidonic acid (AA) in the diet can be efficiently absorbed and incorporated into tissue membranes, resulting in an increased production of thromboxane A2 by platelets and increased ex vivo platelet aggregability. Results from previous studies have shown that AA is concentrated in the membrane phospholipids of lean meats." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... "The highest level of AA in lean meat was in duck (99 mg/100 g), whereas pork fat had the highest concentration for the visible fats (180 mg/100 g). The lean portions of beef and lamb contained the higher levels of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) compared with white meats which were high in AA and low in n-3 PUFA. The present data indicate that the visible meat fat can make a contribution to dietary intake of AA, particularly for consumers with high intakes of fat from pork or poultry meat." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... It is unfortunate that scientists debating the saturated fat issue ignore endocannabinoid system (ECS) research. "We now know that major changes have taken place in the food supply over the last 100years, when food technology and modern agriculture led to enormous production of vegetable oils high in -6 fatty acids, and changed a
You can't compare before and after with your sample size of one...
One? It may be small, but it's not THAT small!
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
The bitter truth is a nice 90 min lecture that touches the topic. Biochemistry and all.
Summary:
Fructose, and therefore sucrose, generates fat in the liver and blocks leptin recognition in the brain. Avoid all sugared beverages, and avoid products containing added sugar.
Nutrition information and guidelines are bad due to the LACK of scientific rigor in the supporting studies.
The lack of rigor isn't due to some vast conspiracy - it's just really hard to perform controlled experiments on large groups of people with regard to diet and lifestyle.
Does anyone here want to volunteer to be locked in a room for a few years while a group of researchers strictly controls what you eat, when you exercise, and how often you sleep?
Worse still, does anyone want to volunteer to be the control group that gets little to none of those things?
I'm afraid correlation studies are the best we can do here.
"They said relative levels of "good" cholesterol, or high density lipoprotein (HDL), were a better predictor of heart disease risk than levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), also known as "bad" cholesterol. High consumption of foods rich in saturated fat such as butter, cakes and fatty meat has been shown to increase blood levels of LDL."
"relative levels of 'good' cholesterol" means, the ratio of 'good' to 'bad' cholesterol, which doctors have known for ages... my doctor has been telling me this for a decade. Then the next sentence confirms what everyone knows, 'bad' foods increase 'bad' cholesterol, and hence worsen the ratio of 'good' to 'bad' cholesterol. How can they then conclude that 'bad' cholesterol isn't bad for you? It's insane...
How many people got in trouble by following a high fat AND high sugar diet, AKA the Western Diet, and then were told by their cardiologists that "you need to follow a low fat diet, low cholesterol and low salt" and then died of stroke and other problems because the human brain is MADE OF FAT AND CHOLESTEROL and our cells rely on salt?
Come on, this is a disaster. They were fattening people up like feed lot cattle for decades. A bowl of raisin bran cereal has the same glycemic index as a can of pepsi. (or coke, if that's your brand). But that box of raisin bran has a "heart healthy" logo doesn't it?
There needs to be lawsuits. How many of our grandparents and parents were killed by this lie?
People who go "low carb" or at least avoid blatant and hidden sugars but eat high fat foods see improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol ratios, weight, triglycerides and blood sugar levels.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
While some say you can eat a stick of butter and nothing will happen to your arteries. (I wouldn't try that much a day myself..) If you mix the butter with sugar the rules are thrown out the window, and plaque is created. You can't eat any sugar with fat. Sad part is, in restaurants and snacks, they mix those 2 ingredients and salt. Ends up being and addictive combo.
There's a video called: "Sugar: the bitter truth."
My take:
-Sugar and HFCS are virtually the same thing (bad)
-Glucose is the body's NATURAL sugar. Processed in your stomach.
-Fructose is processed by the liver because your body sees it as a poison. (Just like alcohol)
-Fructose is alcohol without the buzz
-Fructose with Fiber (aka real fruit) Good because of the fiber
-Fructose w/o Fiber (aka fruit juice) Bad (Fructose tells you body you ate nothing, so you eat more)
Meanwhile many studies are coming out that say ANY artificial sweetener is bad for you
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
It's not the donuts that are killing you, it's the stress of your jobs.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Otherwise people will eventually find out that sugar, not fat, makes people fat.
This is news?
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
THIS is why science is important. The whole "eat less" or "eat less fat" or "exercise more" or "" needs to stop. There is actual science behind our bodies and how they work, but so many people are just looking for the quick answer. Empty your cup, forget what you know, and look at what the science tells you. That include doctors as well, they need to get back to science and rely less on what they were taught in medical school 50 years ago.
My father just had two stents put into one artery - it was 99 percent blocked and 50 percent blocked in another area. He is in his 70s, and has always been in pretty good health. I asked him to find out what his cholesterol levels were from the tests, and they were exactly what I expected - they were great. Just as they had been his whole life.
For four years now I have been following a paleo/primal diet. I have never felt better! I lost some weight and haven't even had to think about it since. That wasn't my goal, as I was about 173 at the time, I am right at 160 now, and have dipped to 155. I have learned so much about cholesterol, fat, and diet even though I thought I knew a lot before. I've read books by Mark Sisson, Gary Taubes, and some others, as well as articles/talks by Dr. Peter Attia. Attia had some really in-depth blog posts on cholesterol that were very enlightening, and his vimeo video on the limits of scientific evidence is really great. The other thing to be aware of around artery "hardening" is with oxidation. It's not really cholesterol clogging your arteries, it's is more like your arterial walls thickening, oxidizing and lesioning, and your body repairing them. So not clogging, more like spackling. :)
My diet has essentially been no calorie restrictions at all, but no grains (included corn) or grain based products (including oils, and beer), extremely low sugar, low carb, no legumes or legume products (soybean/peanuts), and high saturated fat. The only thing in my bloodwork that didn't improve drastically was my cholesterol. It is still high. However, what I've learned is that isn't a bad thing! My father has always had low cholesterol, and my mother's is high. After his near miss this year, my mother got a battery of tests too - she has no significant blockages, with her cholesterol nearing and sometimes over 300! They've tried to put her on meds, but they make her ill.
A couple of years ago I tracked what I ate for a week. Daily I was 2258 calories, 54 grams carbs (18 were sugars), and 186 grams of fat.
I have wanted to write down all of my experiences with this over the last few years. I know that this is all heresay and circumstantial, but to ME it's relevant and real. Here are some of the benefits I had:
- no nagging joint pain (less inflammation)
- skin was better (same)
- no bloating or tired feeling after eating - EVER
- no craving for sweets or that "blood sugar" high
- my teeth are better - I still brush and floss, but my semi-annual cleaning takes about 10 minutes.
- better lung capacity
-- there is a story here that I still find hard to believe. At the time I started this, we had a swimming pool (I lived in AZ). Every year when I first got in the pool in the spring, I would attempt to swim down and back under water. I could usually do it, but sometimes not. I started this diet in November, and when it got to May/June it was time to go swimming again. I went down, and back... and wasn't even wanting for air, so I went DOWN again. So 50% better than I had ever done before. And when I came up, I wasn't gasping either. I was baffled, and still am quite frankly. I think it has to do with less inflammation, and that my body overall is just more efficient because it's fighting less and less against what grains/carbs do you our bodies.
It's really about health. I had to break my body's physical addiction to the blood sugar roller coaster. Once that was done (about 3 weeks) it's effortless, and I am healthier for it. I am in my upper 40s, and have a 32" waist. I didn't consider myself unhealthy before, but I can feel a difference and it's all better.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Gee, without a stent I would be dead since your coronary collapses and without it your heart dies.
So I guess I and other stent recipients are alive for some other reason such as __ fill in the blank.
__LUCK__
Unfortunately, a stent is often kind of a stopgap which can be used in some situations to attempt to avoid bypass surgery. Your cardiologist should have told you that stents are primarily inserted to provide symptomatic relief from angina and chest pain related to coronary artery disease and blocked arteries. Medical studies like this one have not shown that they actual reduce the rate of Myocardial Infarction (aka heart attacks).
Also, long term studies of stents show that 35-40% suffer restenosis (a bit better with a drug-eluting stent). The jury is out if a stent will actually save your life in the future or not relative to this risk.
Almost any controlled diet (short of rice-cakes and water) improves health outcomes over what people eat when they're paying less attention.
Almost every controlled diet excludes most of the same extremely suspect foods (high-fructose bonbons, anything out of the smokey, rarely replenished deep-fat frier from hell).
It probably is true that inflammation is the underlying malady. High LDL levels probably exacerbate the negative effects of inflammation. Refined-carbohydrate–rich diets combined with a sedentary lifestyle are known to be inflammatory.
As I recall, studies of hard-working farmers who ate six eggs a day (with bacon) and not much sugar haven't shown unusually high rates of coronary heart disease. Thus I've begun to suspect that the problem comes from overloading the metabolism on two axes at the same time (lipids and carbohydrates) while also tying one-hand to the sedentary-lifestyle bed post.
In paleolithic times, it was possible to gorge yourself (from time to time) on one food group or another (bananas or bison), but rarely both at the same time (and certainly not without taking a long hike at some point either before, during, or afterwards, plus there's no shortage of labour involved in harvesting a side of bison with a stone axe, or spending an entire day climbing banana trees). These days we hang around in coffee shops playing chess, and the forty-move time control rarely elapses without inducing yet another mocha frappe and a "small" serving of cheesecake (it sure looks small beside that sugary 20-ounce drink).
It seems like any one of three corrective actions: elimination of excess sugar (rice cakes are 100% sugar), elimination of excess fat, or a vigorous physical lifestyle has an enormously beneficial effect. I suspect that any change will do, just so long as your metabolism is not confronting the triple-risk zone on a regular basis.
Of course, if they convince you to stay out of all three risk zones at the same time (carbs from green vegetables only, no animal fat, high exercise) your risk of crossing through the triple-risk zone at any point in time goes almost to zero. I tend to think of that as the belt and suspenders and sneakers approach. Or, if you convince someone to achieve a half-hearted three days of out seven compliance on each of those, he or she is probably mostly out of the weeds, as well.
Evolution tends to make us pretty adaptive. Two out of three stress factors poses only a moderate problem. Three out of three stress factors (a condition almost impossible to achieve in our evolutionary history) and now you have a big problem.
Pure approach to at-worst two-out-of-three:
* farming with ox and plow (always work hard, eat whatever you damn well want)
* total elimination of refined carbs (it's not easy to get or stay fat on this diet, unless you've already got metabolic syndrome)
* total elimination of animal fat (combining balanced nutrition with a green lifestyle is now your biggest challenge; almond production requires six-times more water than industrial chicken meat, per delivered ounce)
Impure approach to mostly at-worst two-out-of-three:
* vigorous exercise two days a week (with sustained spurts of 8-10 METs, ya lazy yoga-pant moron)
* complete elimination of sugary beverages (requires moderation of alcohol, too)
* plenty of animal fat, but not in the form of steak and cheesecake dinners (bad fat+ sugar), or all-you-can-eat fettuccine Alfredo buffets (also bad-fat Hoover Dam + sugar Niagara)
Of course, in any controlled study, interventions that ask for the moon have more margin for non-compliance, and that effect will definitely be measured, and found statistically significant.
That doesn't mean that impure moderation doesn't provide 80% of the benefits for 20% of the religious conviction.
But our research is never geared to tell us this.
That's what *you* think real food is, but what did the authors of the study mean by it? They're the ones that need to define it as they're the ones reporting on its effects.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
There are probably people who masturbate by putting cereal inside their foreskin. Kellogg would be spinning in his grave.
Man, you really need that seminar!
The current claim being "sugar is bad".
I remember 20 years ago, nutritionists proclaiming "fat is bad", so everyone switched to sugar. I'm glad I didn't climb on that bandwagon.
I've never heard anyone say "eat more sugar to be healthy" in my life.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it