Two articles came out this week that coincide perfectly with much of the dietary-based topics I've previously blogged about extensively.
First up, The Great Cholesterol Myth which gives a great rundown on how and why saturated fats and cholesterol have been systematically demonized by so-called "scientific studies" and eventually became the official policy of the Government/media zeitgeist that trickled throughout society to eventually become "conventional wisdom." This has lead to a whole host of consumer choices whereby most people thought they were eating healthier but were in fact contributing to the very diseases they thought they were preventing by following the conventional wisdom.
As Michael Chrichton once said in a lecture - (I)n my experience, we all tend to put a lot of faith in science. We believe what we’re told. My father suffered a life filled with margarine, before he died of a heart attack anyway. Others of us have stuffed our colons with fiber to ward off cancer, only to learn later that it was all a waste of time, and fiber.
Here here. I can't believe people eat "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!"
Scientific hypotheses don’t get much simpler than this: the cholesterol, or diet-heart, hypothesis, which has broken free from the ivory towers of academia to impact with massive force on society.
It has driven a widespread change in the type of food we are told to eat, and consequently the food that lines the supermarket shelves. Many people view bacon and eggs as a dangerous killer, butter is shunned, and a multi-billion pound industry has sprung up providing ‘healthy’ low-fat alternatives.
At the same time, millions of people are prescribed statins to lower cholesterol levels, and each new set of guidelines suggests that ever-more lowering of cholesterol is needed. When it comes to explaining what causes heart disease, the cholesterol hypothesis reigns supreme.
But as the US editor and critic HL Mencken put it, ‘For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, direct, understandable and wrong.’ This is how we might view the diet-heart hypothesis: just because it is dominant does not mean it is right, and just because it looks simple does not mean that it actually is.
The second article gets into the details of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and it's role in causing hyperinsulimia, diabetes and obesity...and also ties in the role of sugars and carbohydrates in raising dense, artery clogging LDL cholesterol.
From my own anecdotal experience, I have a young 22 year old male relative who came down with a painful case of gout. He went to the Doctor, who simply prescribed him some maintenance medication and told him to take it whenever he had a flair up.
I told him to just cut out HFCS sodas and juices, and to read the labels of anything he ate and make sure it didn't have any HFCS in it, and I bet his gout would go away.
He listened to me, and it went away in 2 weeks.
That stuff really IS poison. Just because it's from a "plant" doesn't mean it's healthy!
1 comment:
I started on the Atkins Diet four or five years ago. I mm hypoglycemic, so I eventually realized I will be at phase one forever. But, do I feel great!!!
Actually, I don't recommend the diet, not because it doesn't work, but because it is so complex people are unable to follow it by reading a book. Any low carb diet should do pretty much the same thing.
My DIL bought me a book from the store in October, EAT FAT LOSE FAT. One of the authors is a diet researcher, and many years ago found that fats such as coconut oil and lard are much less likely to be connected with heart attacks. I eat lard every day; hot lard tastes great. I cook my egg in it (seriously) then eat the lard, too, and am not hungry for a long time.
Last time I checked my bp it was 104/63, though sometimes it gets as high as 117/?
I don't know how to state this intimate detail delicately, so will spit it out, with only modest euphemisms.
Old men need Viagra because high carbs clogs the arteries running to their male organ. After 4 years on low carb, my organ, when properly motivated, ahem, is perfectly level to the ground, as it was when I was in my youth. (My id. tells you my age.) If yours isn't, your arteries are clogged and you are probably at risk of both diabetes and infarctions.
Anonymous age 67
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