Obesity, Heart Disease, Cancer, and Diet

The following are a few excerpts from an article entitled Illustrated History of Heart Disease 1825-2015. Click the link to read the whole thing. (The illustrations are in the original article.)

-1825: French lawyer and gourmand Brillant-Savarin publishes The Physiology of Taste, in which he says he has identified the cure for obesity: "More or less rigid abstinence from everything that is starchy or floury."


-1863: William Banting published Letter On Corpulence, Addressed to the Public. Banting had lost 85 pounds on a high fat, carbohydrate-restricted diet. The British Medical Journal and Lancet reported that Banting's diet could be dangerous: "We advise Mr Banting, and everyone of his kind, not to meddle with medical literature again, but be content to mind his own business."

-1910: Butter consumption = 18 pounds per capita. In the year 2000 butter consumption went below 4 pounds. When we were using high quality butter lavishly, mortality from heart disease was below 10 percent. (Infections killed a majority of people; a high percentage of infants and women of child-bearing age died during the birthing process.) Today as we consume our “Country Croak,” the mortality from heart disease is 40 to 45 percent. Both Dr. Andrew Weil and the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins agree: "Eat butter; not margarine, regardless of the claims the manufacturer is making for it!"




-1910: Lard, the rendered fat from pigs raised outdoors, was the #1 cooking fat - enjoying 70 percent of the market. Lard was the best source of Vitamin D and a good source of palmitoleic acid, a monounsaturated anti-microbial fatty acid that kills bacteria and viruses. Today highly processed soybean oil has 70 percent of the market; zero vitamin D. Now the same experts who told us not to eat lard are telling us we are deficient in Vitamin D! (Emphasis mine.)

-1937: Columbia University biochemists David Rittenberg & Rudolph Schoenheimer demonstrated that dietary cholesterol had very little effect on blood cholesterol. Although never refuted, for thirty years, the federal Dietary Guidelines have restricted dietary cholesterol to less than 300 milligrams a day.

-1950: Using a newly invented one-of-a-kind centrifuge, University of California medical scientist John Gofman discovered several fat-like substances circulating in the blood, including LDL and VLDL. At this time - 60 years ago - he reported that total cholesterol (TC) was a "dangerously poor predictor" of heart disease.

-1951: The Practise of Endocrinology, a textbook published by seven prominent British clinicians. The weight loss recommendations were almost identical to Banting's. Foods to be avoided: Bread and everything else made with flour; cereals, including breakfast cereals and milk puddings; potatoes and all other root vegetables; foods containing sugar and all sweets.



-1955: John Gofman reported that carbohydrates elevate VLDL - the lipoprotein that transports blood fats (triglycerides) made in the liver from excess carbohydrates. Gofman wrote, "Restricting carbohydrates would lower VLDL." Excess carbs = elevated triglycerides = more VLDL = increased risk of heart disease. John Peters, Yale School of Medicine, using a new analytical centrifuge, was able to quantify the triglyceride concentration in VLDL, confirming the work of Gofman.

-1970: Margaret Albrink, Peter Kuo, Lars Carlson, and Joseph Goldstein reported that elevated triglycerides (TG) were more common in heart disease patients than cholesterol. They confirmed that the majority of people with heart disease have what Gofman called "Carbohydrate Induced Lipemia."

-1974: Framingham Heart Study (24 years). Men with cholesterol levels below 190 mg/dl were three times more likely to get colon cancer as men with cholesterol over 220 mg/dl. In Framingham, there was a strong association between low cholesterol and premature death. Also, there was no relationship between elevated cholesterol and sudden death.

-1986: The same year the U.S. declared "War on Cholesterol," Japanese physicians warn that low blood cholesterol levels are strongly associated with strokes, the number one cause of death in Japan. As the percentage of fat in the Japanese diet increased, the incidence of deadly strokes declined.

-1988: After 20 years researching carbohydrate metabolism, Gerald Reavan, MD, University of California, announces his discovery of “Syndrome X,” now referred to as Metabolic Syndrome or diabetes-related heart disease. Syndrome X is a cluster of abnormalities, including high blood sugar, high insulin levels, elevated triglycerides, and depressed levels of protective HDL. In his book Syndrome X, Dr. Reaven said the culprit in heart disease is excess sugar and excess easily-digested carbohydrates - not red meat.

There's a lot more. It makes for interesting reading so do click on the link and read all of the article. But, with what I have included above, you should get the point. The low fat, high carbohydrate diet is an obesity-, heart disease-, and cancer-causing disaster.

When we ate more butter, lard, coconut oil, safely collected raw milk, less sugar, soft drinks, candy, white flour*, vegetable oils (polyunsaturated fatty acids, not natural monounsaturates like lard and olive oil) we were a healthier people. If we went back to that type of eating health care costs--yours, personally, and everyone else--could be reduce substantially. Of course, the big agricultural industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical-treating-not-curing industry will fight like crazy to keep you sick and dependent on them.
* In his book, Wheat Belly, Dr. William Davis, Cardiologist, explains how modern wheat is nearly the same as a genetically modified organism (GMO) due the intensive hybridization it has gone through in the last 50 years. He claims--and has proven it clinically--that by avoiding all wheat and products containing wheat, including "healthy whole wheat," we can avoid many of today's diseases. Buy the book. In the alternative go to  http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/ and check out what's there.

Other links for good, natural diets are:

http://www.westonaprice.org/

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/cholesterol-blog.html

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/#axzz1s1X8BYUM