Is it just me, or do you too feel manipulated by all the "experts" in the world? Why do we bother to listen anymore? From the latest addition of Experience Life magazine from nutrition and health writer Jack Challem.
Is it possible – even imaginable – that nearly everyone has been wrong about saturated fat and its connection to heart disease? Brace yourself. Based on a wave of new research, all the dietary admonitions about saturated fat could end up being little more than a huge mistake.
“The question is whether saturated fat is harmful or is just a bystander,” says Ronald M. Krauss, MD, a lipid specialist and the director of atherosclerosis research at the Children”™s Hospital Oakland Research Institute. “Saturated fat may have an effect on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, but the effect is so small that we just can”™t detect it. We shouldn”™t be demonizing saturated fat.”
And what did the expert's mistake contribute to society?
Food manufacturers responded by creating thousands of products in which saturated fat and cholesterol were replaced with refined carbohydrates, sugars and trans fats. And therein lies the problem. Not only do trans fats drive bodywide inflammation, but foods rich in refined carbohydrates and sugars trigger sharp increases in blood-sugar and insulin levels, which then set the stage for weight and blood-sugar problems – the leading risk factors for type 2 diabetes and CVD. “Replacing saturated fat with refined carbohydrates and sugars does not decrease CVD risk,” says Krauss. “More and more, the evidence shows that eating more refined carbs and sugars increases CVD risk.”
The late Robert C. Atkins, MD, sounded the alarm about the increase in carb and sugar consumption in the 1980s, when he noticed a dramatic rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. But his solution, a diet rich in saturated fats, was roundly criticized – mostly because people believed that Atkins advised avoiding all carbs, including vegetables, when, in reality, he meant refined carbs. It took years of research before his approach was eventually vindicated.
This may sound like heresy, but the science behind it is solid. Sabina Sieri, PhD, of Italy”™s National Cancer Institute, for example, tracked almost 48,000 people over eight years and found that women who ate more refined carbs and sugars had a significantly greater risk of coronary heart disease than those with a lower refined-carb intake.
It's been easy to blame the food manufactures for the obesity epidemic... but they were simply responding to market forces... that started when the "experts" convinced us that eating eggs and red meat was going to kill us all.
My money is on some future study confirming that stress and anxiety, from from listening to "experts", is the real cause of CVD.
John is a member on the AFS (Association of Fitness Studios) Advisory Council.
Holding certifications from; Schwinn, Heart Zones, Team ICG and Life Time Fitness, John's held regularly scheduled cycling classes between 1998 and 2015 when he moved to Florida.
When the weather permits, you'll find him riding and leading outdoor groups by himself or with his Tandem partner (wife) Amy.
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We should just be smart and do what our grand parents were doing to eat and life; there were listening, respecting and living with mother nature and not controling and changing it.
Industrialisation have create those problem with the food but in other area too and now with people with less and less commun sence I am not suprice at all.
All research are payed by someone, someone with interest on the research, … there are no research made for nothing, there is always a “dark” reason …
In US transgentic food is more than commun, in Europe we try to resist but lobby are powerfull, do you really think trangenic is good.
People nowadays, in “industrialise” country, just have a too easy life.
Do you really think fat is bad ? Do you really think alcool is bad ? Do you really think energy drink are the best way to recover ? … Just have some commun sence …
The problem here John is that you’re asking the wrong question…..or at least, the right question but from the wrong perspective.
When you quote opinions from nutrition and health writers of the ilk of Jack Challem, you’re not actually getting information from the sort of resource that could be termed “expert”
I see from his rap sheet that he writes for such loony toon rags as Alternative And Complementary Therapies and The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. You should be aware that these are not valid sources of information such as you’d find “experts”….i.e. folk with expertise in the area they’re pontificating on.
To answer your question….it’s very worthwhile to listen to experts, if you can understand what they’re saying. Health and nutrition writers have a vested interest in creating controversy where it doesn’t exist however…THEY are the ones you should ignore.
Vivienne
I see also that Jack Challem also quotes another “health and science writer” with a penchant for creating his own Straw Man arguments, red herrings and with an impressive ability to ignore data that doesn’t comport with his own belief system….Gary Taubes.
Self publicists who insult the intelligence of anyone with a clue…..or else they’re clueless themselves. Take your pick.
Vivienne
Well well. You got Vivienne all fired up. I don’t know too much about nutrition but I do like to see writers cite their references. The purpose of writing is frequently simply to get readers. So let’s lift the lid on the headlines and read the original paper that’s being referred to. Check out PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ ) and then make up your own minds.
Cheers, Shayne
“Don’t believe the hype.” Chuck D.
There you go Shane…..there are plenty of things that fire me up. Self promotion and nitwittery masquerading as valid information is pretty close to the top of the list.
I remember back in the days before the internet (almost as far back as the days when you felt you could date someone without boiling them first, IYKWIM) my husband (a physician) and I (a dentist) would oftentimes lament that the general public……our patients in particular …..had absolutely know clue about how the respective parts of the body worked. Why didn’t they try to learn something, we wondered.
Fast forward to now…..the days when someone comes to your office armed with a stack of downloaded “studies” and print-outs from various web-sites in lieu of a checkbook or other “payment device” in order to “discuss” some crackpot’s idea that “doctors don’t know about”
What were we thinking????
Truth be told, if you (any *you*, that is) doesn’t have specific knowledge and expertise in any one area, even a PubMed trawl isn’t likely to advance your understanding. You need years of didactic study and solid textbook-type resources along with well developed critical thinking skills to accomplish that. Just like, say, civil engineers, physicists, opera singers etc. do about thgeir particular line of work. I wonder if they have the same sort of issues?
Vivienne
Like in every field what you need is commun sence.
Planing a training use comun sence, studies will help you to increase the effectiveness but it have to be adapted to YOUR body, without commun sence you miss it.
Nutrition is simple variety and natural products are the key anything else is not really “natural”, anything else will induce problems.
Modern or let say occidental medecine is not based anymore on the body as a all. It have divided the body in parts, physician nowadays do they own specific part and are totelly clueless about what is out of theyr field also sometime the therapy they propoce create another problem (just watch the overuse of antibiotic, orthopedic surgery “treating” the consequence and not the origin of the problem …).
Commun sence in everything you do, if you do not have it you will never find balance.
Hey John,
I am a Registered Dietitian and also represent the viewpoints from SCAN (the Sports, Cardiovascular and Wellness Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association).
Food fads will come and go and for the most part it’s big bu$iness. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines tell us to eat fewer calories from saturated fat by replacing them with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat while keeping dietary cholesterol low; below 300mg per day. Consuming LESS THAN 10% of calories from saturated fat and choosing mono and/or polyunsaturated fat is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Lowering Trans-fats in the diet should also be noted (trans fats have been noted to increase LDL-cholesterol AND more importantly, DECREASE the “good” HDL levels in blood).
Just a very brief explanation of what polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are: each has a chemical make-up of fatty acids that includes double bonds between carbon atoms. In Saturated fats, these have single bonds between the carbon atoms. Double bonds are good – these types of fats
lower blood (or serum) low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Trans fats are fatty acids rearranged during the process of hydrogenation- the adding of more hydrogen to carbon bonds to change the texture and to improve shelf life.
Some examples of polyunsaturated fats (oils): corn, peanut, safflower, soybean; mono-unsat fats (oils): olive or canola.
Foods high in trans-fats include margarine, shortening, most processed foods, commercially baked or fried foods,.
And finally, foods high in saturated fats include all animal fats; butter, lard, fat from meat, milk fat, cheeses, palm oil, coconut oil and palm kernel.
John,
Oh yes, it has been recognized that stress in one’s lifestyle is also a major contributor to disease (emotional stress
can be both cause/consequence to chronic illness).
This is where we are uniquely in the position to help folks:
keep doing what you do best indoor cycling instructors!!!!!
Michael Pollan sums it up pretty well:
Eat food.* Not too much. Mostly plants.
* Food means whole, fresh foods. not processed foods.