From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Apr 18 2003 - 12:36:42 MDT
Brian Atkins wrote:
> Harvey as gts tried to point out to you, historical evidence
> clearly shows some dramatic negative health changes- first back
> when agriculture came along, and more recently as I tried to point
> out here there was a very dramatic rise in heart disease (especially
> the new form-heart attacks), cancer, etc. during the first half of
> the 20th century.
I've been meaning to address this question of the recent blossom in the 20th
century of certain diseases before I run away for the Easter weekend...
In the early to mid 1900's nutritional scientists started to blame saturated
fat for heart disease. While such concerns are not totally without merit, it
triggered an irrational fear of natural animal-based food products and
inspired the explosion in highly unsaturated high omega-6 vegetable oils
(worsening the already unhealthy Omega-6/Omega-3 balance), extremely
unhealthy man-made trans-fatty acids (which make cell membranes less
permeable), and high-carb highly glycemic processed foods that bill
themselves as "low-fat" (which place a strain on the pancreas leading to
diabetes and other associated diseases including heart disease). As Brian
notes, it also led to the USDA high-carb grain-based "food pyramid". The
food pyramid in turn led to feeding school children junk food for their
school lunches. Kids in public schools started eating things like pizza and
high-fructose corn syrup sodas for lunch. Those kids are now adults but the
current generation of kids are still eating the same garbage. Many of their
parents feed them the same kinds of foods for breakfast and dinner, having
been brain-washed by the supposed wisdom of government sponsored nutrition
science.
These factors have placed us further away from the natural paleodiet than
ever in the past. Since then we've seen an explosion in certain types of
heart disease, obesity, type II diabetes, syndrome X (a pre-diabetic
syndrome marked by insulin resistance) and other health problems.
We are very fortunate that medical science has in many respects kept pace
with the problems that come from poor diet. Were it not for the tremendous
advances in medical science over the last century I think Americans would be
in danger of extinction. :-)
-gts
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