From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Fri May 09 2003 - 12:22:41 MDT
gts wrote,
>
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> >> I would say that as long as total cholesterol does not rise
> >> significantly above ~200, any increase in HDL/LDL is a good
> >> thing even if LDL does not decline. Studies show that the
> >> risk of heart disease is inversely related to plasma HDL.
> >
> > I agree with the first part. Raising HDL while keeping LDL
> > the same does improve the ratio. This is good. But I think
> > the second part is oversimplified. Raising HDL is not
> > necessarily good by itself. If LDL is not kept even, but
> > increases as well, then the ratio is not improved. I think
> > this would be worse (or at least no improvement).
>
> I don't see where you are disagreeing with anything I wrote above, or why
> you believe that anything I wrote was "oversimplified."
Your entire paragraph taken as a whole is fine. I don't think your complete
viewpoint is oversimplified.
However, I do think that your last sentence is oversimplified and studies
that show this are inconclusive. "Studies show that the risk of heart
disease is inversely related to plasma HDL." I don't believe HDL alone is a
good predictor of heart disease risk. I believe both HDL and LDL must be
measured to determine the ratio which is a better predictor of heart disease
risk. As such, studies that measure total cholesterol or HDL alone are
inconclusive because they are oversimplified. You seem to understand this,
but that last sentence taken alone, or those studies which you indirectly
reference, represent an inaccurate and oversimplified conclusion.
> I worry though that many vegetarian diets are too low in fat. The low-fat
> diet described in that abstract which showed a negative effect on HDL was
> still something like 24% of calories from fat. That seems to be
> within range of the typical vegetarian diet.
True, but the "low fat" obsession is orthogonal to vegetarianism. There are
low-fat, high-fat, and other diets in both the vegetarian and carnivorous
realms. I don't see that either one is necessarily high-fat or low-fat by
default. Each would depend on what kinds of foods are chosen, and whether
the person also practices "low fat" dieting.
(The vegetarian diet is also orthogonal to animal rights, healthiness,
liberalism, religiosity and a whole host of other attributes that people
often stereotype into it.)
> > I think the only place where we would disagree on fats is
> > that I believe in a certain ratio of fats which prefers
> > essential fatty acids > monounsaturated > polyunsaturated >
> > saturated > hydrogenised. I am not sure if you have no
> > preference between different kinds of fats, or if you prefer
> > the reverse order than I do.
>
> I certainly don't prefer a reverse order! In fact I strive to avoid
> hydrogenised fats altogether.
Then we seem to be mostly agreed on nutrients and what should be in the
diet. We choose different dietary methods to achieve our goals, and we
choose different research methods by which we reach our conclusions, but we
seem to have converged onto basic agreement about macronutrients in the
diet.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, IAM, GSEC, IBMCP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> <www.Newstaff.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri May 09 2003 - 12:36:14 MDT