Re: HOW WE CAME TO BELIEVE THAT THE LOW-FAT DIET IS GOOD AND CHOLESTEROL IS BAD

From: tcomeau (tunderbar_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: 28 Jul 2004 07:34:47 -0700

Harvard has been pushing against the low-carb woe since the very
beginning. And in very unscientific ways. I lump them in with Duke U
and the food and pharma industries. They are pushing agendas based on
profit and not science. Just another bastion in a long line of
bastions of higher education corrupted by grants from industry.

TC

markd@toad-net.com wrote in message news:<4106b29b$0$250$4d5ecec7@reader.city-net.com>...
> Consider this source for a review of the most recent research on the
> question:
>
> http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fats.html
>
>
> >http://www.medicalconsumers.org/pages/newsletter_articles.html#mentaldefecits
> >
> >Good balanced site for many medical and nutrition issues. Zee
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >HOW WE CAME TO BELIEVE THAT THE LOW-FAT DIET IS GOOD AND CHOLESTEROL
> >IS BAD
> >By Maryann Napoli
> >
> >Despite decades of effort and many thousands of people randomized
> >[into clinical trials], there is still only limited and inconclusive
> >evidence of the effects of modification of total, saturated,
> >monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated fats on cardiovascular morbidity
> >and mortality.
> >
> >British Medical Journal, March 31, 2001
> >
> >Yes, the low-fat message is yet-another overrated bit of medical
> >advice. Haven't we been hearing for years that a low-fat diet will
> >reduce your odds of dying of a heart attack? Yet those who assessed
> >all the relevant studies (like the reviewers quoted above) have
> >concluded that the evidence supporting the advice boils down to this:
> >Eating a low-fat diet will not help you live longer, but it may
> >slightly reduce the odds of having a non-fatal heart attack--if you
> >are a man.
> >
> >You may wonder why we have been led to believe otherwise. It's a long
> >story that begins with the Korean War. Autopsies done on the young
> >casualties, whose average age was 22 years, surprised physicians who
> >saw earlly evidence of heart disease in 77% of them. Next came the
> >Framingham Heart Study, which began in the early 1950s and followed
> >over 5,000 healthy men and women. High blood levels of cholesterol
> >emerged as a major risk factor for heart attack for young and
> >middle-aged men, but not for women or the elderly. It was, however,
> >only one of 240 risk factors identified by the Framingham Heart Study.
> >
> >Though dietary cholesterol was the assumed culprit in the development
> >of heart disease, this possibility was disproved early on, according
> >to an historical account by Thomas J. Moore for his 1989 book Heart
> >Failure. Moore notes that the Framingham researchers singled out over
> >900 men and women to compare their blood levels of cholesterol with
> >the amount of cholesterol in their diets. To their surprise, there was
> >no relationship. As so often happens in other areas of medicine,
> >opinions became fixed before definitive studies proved the hypothesis.
> >And in this case, a medical consensus had already developed: Everyone
> >should be concerned about the amount of cholesterol in their diets. In
> >time, the public was told to increase intake of polyunsaturated fats
> >(e.g., vegetable oils), reduce intake of saturated fats (e.g., meat
> >and dairy products), and severely restrict dietary cholesterol (e.g.,
> >egg yolks, beef, pork). Total fat intake was to be kept under 30% of
> >calories."
> >
> >more.....

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