Re: FITNESS: Diet and Exercise

From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 11:37:47 MDT

  • Next message: Damien Sullivan: "Re: FITNESS: Diet and Exercise"

    Damien Sullivan wrote:
    >
    > Oh, definitely. But you have to get calories too. And the link between
    > saturated fat and heart disease seems pretty strong, so I'd be careful with
    > the meat and fowl.

    Unfortunately I don't have time currently to do much more than skim this
    list, but I would like to chime in here and give my opinion that based
    on some reading I've been doing lately I am beginning to believe that,
    along with the "food pyramid", the "lipid hypothesis" is also going to
    end up being absolutely wrong. In fact, just like how all the refined
    carbs the food pyramid advised us to eat likely ended up causing
    rampaging obesity/diabetes/etc. in the US population, not getting enough
    natural saturated fats while eating likely harmful manufactured
    polyunsaturated and other fats is likely also causing multiple diseases.
    Some of these manufactured fats are likely carcinogenic/toxins, and many
    are pro-oxidants.

    If you actually go and look at the "research" purporting to show
    negative effects of saturated fats you find that for the most part the
    studies have such poor design/implementation that they are essentially
    worthless. In some cases it is so bad you wonder if they were trying on
    purpose to achieve a particular result. In fact this trend of very poor
    experimental design seems to run rampant through pretty much all areas
    of nutritional research. It appears that based on some jumping to
    conclusions and poorly done experiments a consesnsus formed early on
    among most scientists regarding the idea that "fat is bad", etc. Is it a
    coincidence that a lot of scientists in this area are backed by funds
    from the manufactured food industry? Why is it that in the early 20th
    century there were only a few thousand heart attacks in the USA, but
    later on when we began eliminating natural forms of fat from our diet
    and replacing it with manufactured fats and other foods that we suddenly
    had a crisis on our hands?

    What I can certainly also say however is that this area is so complex
    and nowhere near fully understood that no one can yet say for sure what
    is the best way to eat. We certainly would have better info at this
    point though if more people would have broken away over the last 30+
    years from the "regime" of the lipid hypothesis and performed more
    independent research IMO.

    >
    > And I'm on a budget. Grains and beans are cheap. (I miss Trader Joe's and
    > whole wheat pasta which wasn't a price ripoff.)
    >

    I've read the experiences of some people who have switched to eating a
    more primitive, high fat diet, and not only are things like liver, other
    organ meats, and high fat foods fairly cheap but they find that eating
    plenty of fat makes you naturally desire to eat less. So it ends up
    being not that expensive at all. Obviously if you do it the way many
    Atkins Dieters do and just eat filet mignon and other expensive forms of
    high protein meat you will have a different experience, but I don't
    think this is the meat with the best nutritional value- especially
    corn/grain fed meat.

    P.S. For those who say calories are calories are calories, I would say
    two things: 1) it has been shown that your GI tract can absorb fully
    100% of the protein and carbs you eat, but only can absorb fats at the
    rate of around 12 to 15 grams per hour. So there is a limit to how many
    fat calories you can absorb in a given time. 2) now that there are
    finally some studies going on comparing alternate diets with the "low
    fat paradigm" it appears that many of them show people lose
    significantly more weight on various low carb/high fat diets even when
    eating the same or higher amounts of calories.

    P.P.S. Three other interesting ideas worthy of researching: 1) normal
    cholesterol is actually an antioxidant and actual proof showing that
    moderately high (300 combined or below) levels of it has any negative
    effect on cardio health is extremely lacking. In fact, people with too
    little of it are more likely to have health problems. 2) studies appear
    to show that saturated fat consumption has no bearing on the amount of
    atherosclerosis detectable in post-mortem studies. In fact in areas such
    as Japan that are perceived to eat healthier diets they actually suffer
    more of this disease as they get older. 3) more recent research is
    beginning to show that what actually causes heart disease is an
    inflammation process, which actually has little if any relation to the
    particular fats and cholesterol that most doctors and individuals in the
    USA currently believe is the cause. What causes this inflammation is a
    very interesting topic...

    -- 
    Brian Atkins
    Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
    http://www.singinst.org/
    


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