Eating fat to stop cancer, heart disease, diabetes....
and wrinkles!
Scrutinizing cherished assumptions isn't fun. But it might save the life of someone
dear to you. One such assumption is that wheat, rice, and corn are the staff of life.
However, research shows that eating a lot of carbohydrates causes glycation.
The logical solution: cut out carbs and eat more (you’ll never guess) fat!
But wait, aren’t carbohydrates supposed to be 40% of our daily calories? No, that
“norm” is only based on what we have eaten for a few thousand years of agriculture,
instead of the prior 200,000 years as hunter-gatherers or, more “recently,” as herders.
Calculations of the pre-agriculture Paleolithic diet find that carbs were only about
10% of calories, while protein was 30%, and fat had the lion’s share, 60%.1 Yes,
sixty percent from fat! We can either change the USDA standards, or we can change
the human genome2-- which will be faster?! (Don’t fear cholesterol, new research
shows it is unrelated to heart disease.19)
The low-fat experiment has failed. We flocked to widely advertised, fat-free products,
only to gain more weight. That’s because the body converts any excess carbs into fat.3
But— it’s so unfair ! — any carbs over a small level prevent the body from going back
the other way, so we can’t convert our love handles into energy! That’s because body
fat can not be burned when insulin is present. A more ‘sciency’ way to say that: Insulin
stops the use of fat as an energy source by inhibiting the release of glucagon (4), the
hormone which releases sugar stored in the liver.
Whole grains are supposedly better for us, and General Mills brags that their products
are now totally whole grain. Amazingly, cereals and potatoes raise blood sugar even
faster than candy!5 Why do we ban candy in schools, even for birthday celebrations,
yet serve starchy, sugary foods in the cafeteria that are worse?
And while fresh produce is theoretically a good idea, in actuality, because kids prefer
fruits to veggies, they get a jolt of Mother Nature’s sugar on top of General Mills frosted
flakes. In fact, a Danish study in the British Journal of Nutrition, April 2002, reported:
"The overall effect of the 10-week period without fruit was a decrease in oxidative
damage to DNA, blood proteins, and plasma lipids... "6 In other words, something in
fruit (hint: what makes it sweet?) outweighs the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants,
meaning that a fruit-free diet just might be better.
Carbohydrates, both starch and sugar, cause glycation, which causes degenerative
diseases like diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, MS, cancer, Alzheimer’s, personality
disorders, and wrinkles. (Cancer cells thrive on sugar, but can’t use fat.7) That’s because
glycation (oxidation) causes inflammation, and inflammation is the root of these diseases.
Back in the 1930s, Weston Price, DDS, researched traditional diets that had maintained
excellent health in 17 cultures around the world. Those communities ate barely any starch,
and no sugar. His book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, shows the sharp increase
in disease when cultures switched to processed foods.8
“Primal” or “Paleolithic” diets have even less carbs because they are based on foods
consumed around the world over the past 200,000 years, before agriculture, when humans
relied on seafood or grazing animals, while minimizing foods that appeared in the last 12,000
years. Dr Natasha Campbell–McBride MD (doctor-natasha.com) gets excellent results
treating autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and depression with a similar approach, she
calls it Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS).
Only “recently” have humans bred produce, grains, fruits, and oil plants to suit our appetites.
Before that, we didn’t use olive, corn, or safflower oil. And before that, fruits were small,
fibrous, unsweet ! We evolved on diets very low in sugar, less than one teaspoon a day.
Two slices of bread has 6 teaspoons of glucose, while the average American starch-plus-sugar
intake is now 70 teaspoons, daily! 20
Is the Paleo diet the same thing as the Atkins diet? Sort of. Research shows that fats
provide high satiation and, therefore, less compulsive eating. However, the Atkins diet
didn’t distinguish between feed-lot-raised meat, which lacks the essential fatty acids DHA
and EPA, and pasture-raised meat, which contains ample DHA-EPA. (http://alt-health.weebly.com/joe.html
explains the importance of good fats like DHA and EPA for building healthy cells, especially
nerve cells, but this article is about the best fats for generating energy in our bodies.) Plus,
the Atkins diet often leads to excess consumption of protein, which also creates problems.
Let’s review this terrible chain of events:
A Harvard Health Letter article, “Inflammation: A unifying theory of disease?” (April, 2006),
explains why eating low or no carbs is best.10 As for the financial perspective, Kaiser
Foundation finds that chronic disease treatment are over 75% of national health
expenditures.11 The potential savings are vast!
Tragically, this lethal and expensive addiction to carbs is hard to quit because sugar triggers
opioid brain systems as much as cocaine does.12 Furthermore, many people suffer celiac
disease due to an allergy to gluten.
Another surprising fact: protein can make us fat! That’s because protein has about the
same calories per gram as carbohydrates, and the body converts excess protein to glucose.
A 150-pound adult only needs 40-60 grams a day of protein, (7 eggs, 7 ounces of cheese,
6 cups of milk, 5 cups of yogurt, or two plain burgers) so any protein over that amount will
be treated like carbs.
If we shouldn’t eat a lot of carbs or protein every day, what’s left? Why, fat of course!! Mary
Enig, PhD, in Know Your Fats, cites many studies showing that cholesterol is good for us, for
instance “Mother's milk has a higher proportion of cholesterol than almost any other food,
because it is essential for brain growth.”13
Nora Gedgaudas, the author of Primal Body, Primal Mind— Empower Your Total Health
the Way Evolu-tion Intended, says, “Being fat doesn’t come from eating fat; being fat
comes from an inability to burn fat.”14 And flooding the body with carbs is what makes
it hard for the body to burn fat as we evolved to do.
Diabetes is now epidemic in America, and afflicts children more often than ever. One study
compared the Paleolithic diet with a commonly prescribed diet for type 2 diabetes. Guess
which diet resulted in lower average values of diastolic blood pressure, body mass index,
waist circumference, and higher values of high density lipoprotein (HDL—the good
cholesterol)? Right—the ancient diet that leaves out carbs.15
Sensible people will object that schools can’t afford Paleo foods in the cafeteria—i.e. pasture-
raised meat and eggs, bone broth, fermented foods, organ meats.
But farmer Joel Salatin, featured in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore's Dilemma, says not
only that we can, but we must, feed the world with sustainable ag. This “Christian libertarian
environmentalist capitalist lunatic,” (his self-description) explains it all at: http://www.westonaprice.org/journal/2096-journal-winter-2010-the-politics-of-food.html
When it comes to cognition, we assume that the brain needs glucose, but it turns out that
most of our cells, including brain cells, prefer energy from fat.16 And remember:
although burning sugar causes glycation, which causes inflammation, burning fat does
not. Some of the damage from glycation is reversible, but not all.
Incidentally, red blood cells are the only cells which must burn glucose instead of fat.
That’s because red blood cells carry oxygen and therefore must not use oxygen.17
Another benefit of burning fat is that aerobic energy is 15 times more efficient than
energy production from glucose, which is anaerobic.18 Note: ketosis (the energy
cycle of fat) is not ketoacidosis (a dangerous condition in type 1 diabetes or alcoholism).
Years ago I was revolted to hear that impoverished children in the South ate lard
sandwiches. But now I get it— kids are very active, so give them energy foods,
like coconut oil, olive oil, and lard. (However, avoid hydrogenated lard, and please,
no polyunsaturated oils, i.e. corn, soy, safflower, sunflower, but that’s another article).
Children need full fat milk and cheese, or they will eat more of the low-fat versions
to satisfy their need for fats, which would give them too much protein (remember,
excess protein converts to glucose).
We didn’t evolve on high amounts of carbohydrates so now we need all sorts of
complex coping mechanisms: ‘Eat many small meals,’ ‘Check each food’s glycemic
index,’ ‘Diabetics should carry a candy bar to raise their blood sugar’ — avoid all
this by returning to the low carb foods that made our pre-ag ancestors so healthy.
Just as we no longer paddle students, someday we will no longer wreck their health
with high carb school meals, which will be seen as child abuse. Get Alan Watson’s
well-researched, short survey Cereal Killer, The Unintended Consequences of the
Low Fat Diet. And this cookbook could save your life: Nourishing Traditions, by
Sally Fallon. Trend is not destiny!
Citations
1. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CHohtQ0NgdIJ:www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php%3Fthread%3D3909199+paleolithic+60+percentage+of+the+calories+from+fat&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com#ixzz1EGNSBVz8
2. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22116724/
3. http://thehealthadvantage.com/macronutrientmythsandfacts.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
5. http://www.glycemicedge.com, http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/heart/articles/2010/04/12/eating-the-wrong-kind-of-carbohydrates-increases-heart-disease-risk
6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=12064344&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
7. http://www.apjohncancerinstitute.org/doctor.htm
8. http://www.alternet.org/health/143505/could_a_high-fat_diet_make_you_healthy_and_prevent_cavities_/
9. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct10/ObesityCosts.html
10. http://www.teamcrazyformangosteen.com/uploads/2/6/9/3/2693073/c-reactive_protein_-_usa_today.pdf
11. http://www.kaiseredu.org/Issue-Modules/US-Health-Care-Costs/Background-Brief.aspx
12. http://chc.ucsf.edu/coast/news_dallman_symposium-feb2010.html
13. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/08/17/saturated-fat1.aspx
14 p.152, Primal Body, Primal Mind
15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index
16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate
17. http://www.soundformulas.com/page9.html
18. http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/faq/f/whatisketosis.htm
19. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110505142730.htm
http://drhyman.com/why-cholesterol-may-not-be-the-cause-of-heart-disease-485/
http://dietheartpublishing.com/diet-heart-news-1-5
20. http://www.livestrong.com/article/512044-normal-carbohydrate-intake-per-day/
dear to you. One such assumption is that wheat, rice, and corn are the staff of life.
However, research shows that eating a lot of carbohydrates causes glycation.
The logical solution: cut out carbs and eat more (you’ll never guess) fat!
But wait, aren’t carbohydrates supposed to be 40% of our daily calories? No, that
“norm” is only based on what we have eaten for a few thousand years of agriculture,
instead of the prior 200,000 years as hunter-gatherers or, more “recently,” as herders.
Calculations of the pre-agriculture Paleolithic diet find that carbs were only about
10% of calories, while protein was 30%, and fat had the lion’s share, 60%.1 Yes,
sixty percent from fat! We can either change the USDA standards, or we can change
the human genome2-- which will be faster?! (Don’t fear cholesterol, new research
shows it is unrelated to heart disease.19)
The low-fat experiment has failed. We flocked to widely advertised, fat-free products,
only to gain more weight. That’s because the body converts any excess carbs into fat.3
But— it’s so unfair ! — any carbs over a small level prevent the body from going back
the other way, so we can’t convert our love handles into energy! That’s because body
fat can not be burned when insulin is present. A more ‘sciency’ way to say that: Insulin
stops the use of fat as an energy source by inhibiting the release of glucagon (4), the
hormone which releases sugar stored in the liver.
Whole grains are supposedly better for us, and General Mills brags that their products
are now totally whole grain. Amazingly, cereals and potatoes raise blood sugar even
faster than candy!5 Why do we ban candy in schools, even for birthday celebrations,
yet serve starchy, sugary foods in the cafeteria that are worse?
And while fresh produce is theoretically a good idea, in actuality, because kids prefer
fruits to veggies, they get a jolt of Mother Nature’s sugar on top of General Mills frosted
flakes. In fact, a Danish study in the British Journal of Nutrition, April 2002, reported:
"The overall effect of the 10-week period without fruit was a decrease in oxidative
damage to DNA, blood proteins, and plasma lipids... "6 In other words, something in
fruit (hint: what makes it sweet?) outweighs the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants,
meaning that a fruit-free diet just might be better.
Carbohydrates, both starch and sugar, cause glycation, which causes degenerative
diseases like diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, MS, cancer, Alzheimer’s, personality
disorders, and wrinkles. (Cancer cells thrive on sugar, but can’t use fat.7) That’s because
glycation (oxidation) causes inflammation, and inflammation is the root of these diseases.
Back in the 1930s, Weston Price, DDS, researched traditional diets that had maintained
excellent health in 17 cultures around the world. Those communities ate barely any starch,
and no sugar. His book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, shows the sharp increase
in disease when cultures switched to processed foods.8
“Primal” or “Paleolithic” diets have even less carbs because they are based on foods
consumed around the world over the past 200,000 years, before agriculture, when humans
relied on seafood or grazing animals, while minimizing foods that appeared in the last 12,000
years. Dr Natasha Campbell–McBride MD (doctor-natasha.com) gets excellent results
treating autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and depression with a similar approach, she
calls it Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS).
Only “recently” have humans bred produce, grains, fruits, and oil plants to suit our appetites.
Before that, we didn’t use olive, corn, or safflower oil. And before that, fruits were small,
fibrous, unsweet ! We evolved on diets very low in sugar, less than one teaspoon a day.
Two slices of bread has 6 teaspoons of glucose, while the average American starch-plus-sugar
intake is now 70 teaspoons, daily! 20
Is the Paleo diet the same thing as the Atkins diet? Sort of. Research shows that fats
provide high satiation and, therefore, less compulsive eating. However, the Atkins diet
didn’t distinguish between feed-lot-raised meat, which lacks the essential fatty acids DHA
and EPA, and pasture-raised meat, which contains ample DHA-EPA. (http://alt-health.weebly.com/joe.html
explains the importance of good fats like DHA and EPA for building healthy cells, especially
nerve cells, but this article is about the best fats for generating energy in our bodies.) Plus,
the Atkins diet often leads to excess consumption of protein, which also creates problems.
Let’s review this terrible chain of events:
- Carbohydrates are converted to glucose
- Excess glucose in the blood causes auto-oxidation
- Which leads to free radicals
- Which cross-link with proteins, called glycation
- Which causes inflammation
- Which is the basis for degenerative diseases9
A Harvard Health Letter article, “Inflammation: A unifying theory of disease?” (April, 2006),
explains why eating low or no carbs is best.10 As for the financial perspective, Kaiser
Foundation finds that chronic disease treatment are over 75% of national health
expenditures.11 The potential savings are vast!
Tragically, this lethal and expensive addiction to carbs is hard to quit because sugar triggers
opioid brain systems as much as cocaine does.12 Furthermore, many people suffer celiac
disease due to an allergy to gluten.
Another surprising fact: protein can make us fat! That’s because protein has about the
same calories per gram as carbohydrates, and the body converts excess protein to glucose.
A 150-pound adult only needs 40-60 grams a day of protein, (7 eggs, 7 ounces of cheese,
6 cups of milk, 5 cups of yogurt, or two plain burgers) so any protein over that amount will
be treated like carbs.
If we shouldn’t eat a lot of carbs or protein every day, what’s left? Why, fat of course!! Mary
Enig, PhD, in Know Your Fats, cites many studies showing that cholesterol is good for us, for
instance “Mother's milk has a higher proportion of cholesterol than almost any other food,
because it is essential for brain growth.”13
Nora Gedgaudas, the author of Primal Body, Primal Mind— Empower Your Total Health
the Way Evolu-tion Intended, says, “Being fat doesn’t come from eating fat; being fat
comes from an inability to burn fat.”14 And flooding the body with carbs is what makes
it hard for the body to burn fat as we evolved to do.
Diabetes is now epidemic in America, and afflicts children more often than ever. One study
compared the Paleolithic diet with a commonly prescribed diet for type 2 diabetes. Guess
which diet resulted in lower average values of diastolic blood pressure, body mass index,
waist circumference, and higher values of high density lipoprotein (HDL—the good
cholesterol)? Right—the ancient diet that leaves out carbs.15
Sensible people will object that schools can’t afford Paleo foods in the cafeteria—i.e. pasture-
raised meat and eggs, bone broth, fermented foods, organ meats.
But farmer Joel Salatin, featured in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore's Dilemma, says not
only that we can, but we must, feed the world with sustainable ag. This “Christian libertarian
environmentalist capitalist lunatic,” (his self-description) explains it all at: http://www.westonaprice.org/journal/2096-journal-winter-2010-the-politics-of-food.html
When it comes to cognition, we assume that the brain needs glucose, but it turns out that
most of our cells, including brain cells, prefer energy from fat.16 And remember:
although burning sugar causes glycation, which causes inflammation, burning fat does
not. Some of the damage from glycation is reversible, but not all.
Incidentally, red blood cells are the only cells which must burn glucose instead of fat.
That’s because red blood cells carry oxygen and therefore must not use oxygen.17
Another benefit of burning fat is that aerobic energy is 15 times more efficient than
energy production from glucose, which is anaerobic.18 Note: ketosis (the energy
cycle of fat) is not ketoacidosis (a dangerous condition in type 1 diabetes or alcoholism).
Years ago I was revolted to hear that impoverished children in the South ate lard
sandwiches. But now I get it— kids are very active, so give them energy foods,
like coconut oil, olive oil, and lard. (However, avoid hydrogenated lard, and please,
no polyunsaturated oils, i.e. corn, soy, safflower, sunflower, but that’s another article).
Children need full fat milk and cheese, or they will eat more of the low-fat versions
to satisfy their need for fats, which would give them too much protein (remember,
excess protein converts to glucose).
We didn’t evolve on high amounts of carbohydrates so now we need all sorts of
complex coping mechanisms: ‘Eat many small meals,’ ‘Check each food’s glycemic
index,’ ‘Diabetics should carry a candy bar to raise their blood sugar’ — avoid all
this by returning to the low carb foods that made our pre-ag ancestors so healthy.
Just as we no longer paddle students, someday we will no longer wreck their health
with high carb school meals, which will be seen as child abuse. Get Alan Watson’s
well-researched, short survey Cereal Killer, The Unintended Consequences of the
Low Fat Diet. And this cookbook could save your life: Nourishing Traditions, by
Sally Fallon. Trend is not destiny!
Citations
1. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CHohtQ0NgdIJ:www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php%3Fthread%3D3909199+paleolithic+60+percentage+of+the+calories+from+fat&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com#ixzz1EGNSBVz8
2. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22116724/
3. http://thehealthadvantage.com/macronutrientmythsandfacts.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
5. http://www.glycemicedge.com, http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/heart/articles/2010/04/12/eating-the-wrong-kind-of-carbohydrates-increases-heart-disease-risk
6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=12064344&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
7. http://www.apjohncancerinstitute.org/doctor.htm
8. http://www.alternet.org/health/143505/could_a_high-fat_diet_make_you_healthy_and_prevent_cavities_/
9. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct10/ObesityCosts.html
10. http://www.teamcrazyformangosteen.com/uploads/2/6/9/3/2693073/c-reactive_protein_-_usa_today.pdf
11. http://www.kaiseredu.org/Issue-Modules/US-Health-Care-Costs/Background-Brief.aspx
12. http://chc.ucsf.edu/coast/news_dallman_symposium-feb2010.html
13. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/08/17/saturated-fat1.aspx
14 p.152, Primal Body, Primal Mind
15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index
16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate
17. http://www.soundformulas.com/page9.html
18. http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/faq/f/whatisketosis.htm
19. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110505142730.htm
http://drhyman.com/why-cholesterol-may-not-be-the-cause-of-heart-disease-485/
http://dietheartpublishing.com/diet-heart-news-1-5
20. http://www.livestrong.com/article/512044-normal-carbohydrate-intake-per-day/