Dietary Cholesterol Concerns Reversed After 40 Years

DFW_M5 said:
Will this lead to the medical community easing up on blood cholesterol levels?
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No. This applies to dietary cholesterol - eggs and shrimp. They are still hell bent on reducing LDL in the blood.
 
clifp said:
I friend of mine gave me a DVD Fed Up, which basically calls for eliminating all process sugar and most process food from your diet. The one thing that it claims that conventional wisdom that a calorie in = calorie out and if you want to lose weight make sure the calories out > calories in. The DVD claims that sugar triggers the body to make fat cells, and the all the sugar tricks the brain into thinking we are still hungry.

I am thinking of doing the their 2 weeks with no sugar challenge next month when I return from the mainland. Now I doubt that cutting sugar from my diet will hurt, but will it help? I'd be interested in the opinion of doctors/nutritionist others is there some validity to this approach or is sugar just this years, fat, cholesterol fad ?
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(It seems like I have been preaching for six years now and nobody is listening, O woe is me. <chuckle>)

Calories don't count. Yes, that is counterintuitive but if rephrased as "It is the type of calories in that count," it becomes more meaningful.

Sugar is a "name" that has no meaning. You need to know the real name(s). You can start with everything that ends in "ose" -- glucose, lactose, fructose, etc. -- and I do mean everything. Only then can you discover there are few 'sugars" that are "friendly" -- raw honey, class B maple syrup, for example, are a couple of the very few.

And, yes, it does take a minimum of two weeks for your (everyone's) body to make the adjustment to a diet change -- good change or bad.
 
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athena53 said:
Remember the movie "Sleeper" with Woody Allen? The main character, who was owner of the Happy Carrot Health Food Store, wakes up after many years in a coma and is told that the things people used to believe were healthy are not, and vice versa. I remember when nuts were bad. Now I have a snack of 1 oz. of mixed nuts (no peanuts) every day.



A coworker in her 20s has familial high cholesterol; she's active and thin as a rail and watched her diet but it's just high. She told me she once tried to eat a cholesterol-free diet. She was miserable, of course, and it lowered her levels by a lousy 10 points.

Moderation in all things.
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Your coworker is the classic case for cholesterol lowering drugs. Those with untreated familial high cholesterol that's not controlled in their youth are very likely to develop heart disease in their 50s and 60s and sometimes earlier.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum
 
clifp said:
I friend of mine gave me a DVD Fed Up, which basically calls for eliminating all process sugar and most process food from your diet. The one thing that it claims that conventional wisdom that a calorie in = calorie out and if you want to lose weight make sure the calories out > calories in. The DVD claims that sugar triggers the body to make fat cells, and the all the sugar tricks the brain into thinking we are still hungry.

I am thinking of doing the their 2 weeks with no sugar challenge next month when I return from the mainland. Now I doubt that cutting sugar from my diet will hurt, but will it help? I'd be interested in the opinion of doctors/nutritionist others is there some validity to this approach or is sugar just this years, fat, cholesterol fad ?
Click to expand...

Fructose is the bad guy here. It basically doesn't trigger satiety in your system one tends to overeat more easily. Not sure about making fat cells thing though - first time I heard about that and frankly biologically speaking doesn't make sense to me.

Watch this lecture :

It's long but well worth watching in my opinion.

I've cut sugar almost completely and feel much healthier. Takes a week to adjust though, you'll get cravings. After that: more energy, less dips, weight loss. Don't really miss it now, unless I start eating it again.

Recently went to go low on carbs as well (so high fat, mid protein and fiber). Gave me another boost, and have to watch myself to make sure I eat enough even though I am trying to lose weight (!)
 
DFW_M5 said:
Will this lead to the medical community easing up on blood cholesterol levels?
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This is the second part of the diet heart hypothesis is, unfortunately still alive and kicking.

Finally they admit that dietary cholesterol doesn't cause atherosclerosis. Big deal. They still advise that lowering LDL is paramount. That's wrong. If you are older, higher blood lipids are protective of longevity! All the big money going to the studies sponsored by statin makers and still that fact emerges. Why is mortality data not reported? Because people don't live longer on a statin. Yes, there are exceptions, like people that already have heart disease and familial hypercholesterolemia. But if one removes those populations, statins do not aid people to live longer. Women would be nuts to take a statin if they got the facts straight. Older men too. Younger men, it's not as obvious since it appears they don't die of heart disease quite as often, but their mortality risk is not enhanced through statin use. And the fact that the mechanism of action of a statin, in the rare case they reduce cardiovascular events, is to reduce inflamation (not through lowering concentrations of any lipids in the blood) one must wonder why thought leaders have not come forth. I'll tell ya why. They get money and enhanced careers for doing what the drug pushers want!

I found a book called The Great Cholesterol Con (www.free-energy-info.tuks.nl/Kendrick.pdf) and read it a few days ago. Using a bunch of references to studies, it lays out why both parts of the diet heart hypothesis are wrong, explains why they persist, and suggests an alternate idea surrounding cortisol. Not that I buy into the cortisol idea, but it's better than the debunked lipid theory.
 
I find it so encouraging that the government is finally getting the message, at least in part. I think the other errors will fall in the next ten years. Here's the order I see:

Past
All fats are bad, all grains are good, cholesterol is bad.
Don't worry too much about sugar.

USDA-old-food-pyramid.jpeg


A Little Later
No wait, unsaturated fats are good, saturated fats are bad.


Present
Cholesterol is not bad, but saturated fat is bad.
Refined grains are bad, but whole grains are good.
Sugar is a little bad.

Future (in this order)
2017? Sugar is really, really bad
2021? All grains are bad
2022? Saturated fat is not bad
2025? Saturated fat is good.

And here's TromboneAl's MyPlate:

CjPCYCF.jpg
 
The one thing that it claims that conventional wisdom that a calorie in = calorie out and if you want to lose weight make sure the calories out > calories in.
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Here's my standard response to the calories in/out thing:

You say that it's just "calories in/calories out," and you're 100% right. But I'm going to give you an example that I think will make you realize, that while true, that law is actually irrelevant to weight loss, and that all calories are not equivalent.

Let's say I gave you a pill to eat every morning. This pill contained only four calories. However, this pill affects your hormonal balance, and it makes you ravenously hungry all the time, and also quite lethargic. Perhaps it's related to your thyroid, but that doesn't matter for this example. What matters is that it makes you hungry and sedentary.

As a result, you are going to gain weight. The pill is only a few calories, but you have gained weight because it has made you to eat a lot more food and move around less.

Has your "calories in/calories out" thermodynamic law been violated? No, because, as a result of your extra eating, you have taken in a lot more calories, and expended fewer. But because of the nature of these calories that you've eaten, namely those four calories in the pill that affects your metabolism, you have gained weight. If you were to stop taking that four-calorie pill, you'd lose weight.

In other words, calories in/calories out is true, but not helpful in understanding weight gain or loss.

By the way, in a similar way, eating lots of carbohydrates can force your body to store energy in fat cells, which in turn forces you to eat more and expend less.

----------------------

Another simpler argument is this: If it's just as simple as calories in/calories out, why not just stop eating entirely until you reach your goal weight?
 
And here's TromboneAl's MyPlate:
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No high glycemic index crap, oops, I mean "crop" grains? How will the grain producers stay in business? All the world must be addicted to the insulin roller coaster and so consume more calories than they expend!
 
rodi said:
Glad to hear I have something to discuss with DH about. He's held fast to the "too many eggs will raise your cholesteral" meme... I eat eggs 4-5 days a week - and have low cholesteral.
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Would it be too personal to ask what is your low cholesterol? The actual number. I'm curious because another article I read today along with the comments someone said they had low cholesterol but provided no numbers.

In fact I'd be curious, what defines low cholesterol? What reason do we give to call it "low cholesterol" and what do we compare it with to call it low cholesterol?
 
Calories-in/calories-out reminds me of a guy who walks into a restaurant that is packed with people and has a 90 minute wait for a table. "Why are there so many people in here?",he asks. The answer is "because more people have entered than left in the last hour."

Well...... Duh!!!!!!! True, but not very useful.

What we really need to know is why so many people are seeking out this restaurant. A more meaningful answer might be, "it's their 10 year anniversary and every item on the menu is half price." Now you have some useful information.
 
jimbee said:
Really? I expect these links to be dismissed here, but check out the Twinkie diet and the McDonald's diet.
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That was a mistype... let me revise:

"It is the type of calories that count," (the "in" should not have been there)

Oops
 
Frankly, given all the confusing and sometimes conflicting and contradictory nutrition studies we see, I continue to swear by "all things in moderation". :)
 
jimbee said:
From the first article you quoted:
"Calories absolutely count. And if someone has lost weight, they have necessarily expended more calories than they consumed."

Your original statement was:
"Calories don't count."
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<smile> That's why this is so much fun.

This is somewhat out of context. I was referring to the blanket statement about counting calories. As long as you are eating the "right" calories, counting them is a waste of time.

In any event, I agree; an excess of calories is no way to lose weight.
 
ziggy29 said:
Frankly, given all the confusing and sometimes conflicting and contradictory nutrition studies we see, I continue to swear by "all things in moderation". :)
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But you have to jazz it up with a cool name, a book and a website. Something like "The Aristotelian Diet".
 
Chuckanut said:
Calories-in/calories-out reminds me of a guy who walks into a restaurant that is packed with people and has a 90 minute wait for a table. "Why are there so many people in here?",he asks. The answer is "because more people have entered than left in the last hour."

Well...... Duh!!!!!!! True, but not very useful.

What we really need to know is why so many people are seeking out this restaurant. A more meaningful answer might be, "it's their 10 year anniversary and every item on the menu is half price." Now you have some useful information.
Click to expand...

That is one point that I agree with, but there are more...

My problems with "calories in calories out" are:

1) Two diets, both the same number of calories, one with high glycemic foods, one with low glycemic foods. I think most folks realize that high glycemic diets will generate stronger appetite urges. So same calories, but not the same effect on appetite. In order for people on both diets to generate the same "calories out" the high glycemic group is going to need a hell of a lot more willpower. And we know what will happen...the high GI group will add calories in or reduce calories out from the force of appetite.

2) Genetically identical mice, same food, same number of calories in. One group of mice has one set of gut microbiota introduced, the other group has a different set of microbiota introduced. One group of mice gets obese, the other group stays normal weight. Same food in, they all just sat around the cage (same calories out). How would one account for the obesity if a calorie was a calorie?
 
sengsational said:
1) Two diets, both the same number of calories, one with high glycemic foods, one with low glycemic foods. I think most folks realize that high glycemic diets will generate stronger appetite urges. So same calories, but not the same effect on appetite. In order for people on both diets to generate the same "calories out" the high glycemic group is going to need a hell of a lot more willpower. And we know what will happen...the high GI group will add calories in or reduce calories out from the force of appetite.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that most folks do realize that high glycemic diets will generate stronger appetite urges. This is because that is an over-generalization. Actually, I doubt that most people even know about high and low glycemic.

I agree that this may be the case for some people. But, it isn't that simple. Here is an article that basically says it isn't that simple:

Is glycemic index of food a feasible predictor of appetite, hunger, and satiety?

There is a lot of controversy about how useful glycemic index really is in helping people know what to eat.

Another point is that some people are more sensitive to carbs and they raise their blood sugar more than carbs raise the blood sugar of other people. Jenny Ruhl talks about this in her book:

Diet 101: The Truth About Low Carb Diets

She is not hostile to low carb and actually advocates low carb diets for many people. But, she points out that they really aren't necessary for everyone. Some people eat carbs and their blood sugar spikes up and then it plummets back down and they eat intense hunger pangs. For those people eating carbs, particularly refined carbs that are more likely to cause such a swing, may cause them to feel more hungry and then to overeat. If they go low carb, they may have fewer swings of blood sugar and don't get that intense hunger and might find it easier to lose weight.

On the other hand, for some people their blood sugar really doesn't go all that high and their body handles the carbs just fine. There is no big swing and no big hunger as a result of that swing. She points out that if carbs don't cause you large blood sugar swings and you don't get overly hungry from them, you may not have a particularly pressing reason to eat low carb. She points out that hunger pangs from blood sugar spikes isn't the only reason that people overeat. People with perfectly normal blood sugar can overeat for reasons that have nothing to do with carbs.

I think the important thing is to find out which group you belong in. (I don't recommend a lot of refined carbs for anyone though).
 
Yep, agreed, we're all different to some degree, and I'm sure the impact of high glycemic foods is different between people. It's a complicated problem because GI is measured on one food at a time, but that's not the way we eat. The GI spike of a meal is blunted significantly by throwing in some fat, fiber and protien.

I couldn't tell who paid for that 2008 study in that Japanese journal that you found. Studies can be designed in a way to not produce a result (like that one), but since there's a lot of money floating around from grain producers, it's hard to know if an alternative designed study that might have shown a result was not done, or done and not published. We have a messed-up system where too many studies are funded by corporations who have an ax to grind. And the scientists that perform the studies only get grants if they tow the line. That's not to say I dismiss every study that's tained like that, it's just that one must back away and ask (if one has the expertise, which I don't), "Could this study have been constructed differently such that it might have shown a different result?"

I'd say, though, that if someone recommends more of one or less of the other macronutrient, they are implicitly stating that "a calorie is NOT a calorie". Right? If they all were the same, it wouldn't matter if they got 100 calories from white flour, whole wheat flour, or olive oil. I know if I ate the flour, I'd be clamoring for a Snickers bar in an hour and a half, and if I had the olive oil, I'd not even think about eating, much less be ravenous.
 
sengsational said:
I know if I ate the flour, I'd be clamoring for a Snickers bar in an hour and a half, and if I had the olive oil, I'd not even think about eating, much less be ravenous.
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Me also, even though I don't think I am as sensitive to carbs as many people are. I remember reading about the food pyramid years ago in the 80's. It was quite clear from the article that carbs and even sugar were much less harmful than fat. I can't imagine how much harm this advice caused many people.
 
sengsational said:
2) Genetically identical mice, same food, same number of calories in. One group of mice has one set of gut microbiota introduced, the other group has a different set of microbiota introduced. One group of mice gets obese, the other group stays normal weight.
Click to expand...

I wonder if this means that someday, every neighborhood will have a Bob's Fecal Transplant Store.
 
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