Video Concening an Experiment Comparing Diets

TromboneAl

TromboneAl

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SarahW let me know about this entertaining video that describes an experiment comparing four popular diets. I was impressed with the design, in which women were randomly assigned to one of four books (Atkins, Zone, LEARN, or Ornish), and followed for a year. Note that the LEARN diet is essentially the diet recommended by the government (limit fat, eat whole grains).

YouTube - The Battle of the Diets: Is Anyone Winning (At Losing?)

The results come at 20:30 and 23:00 if you are impatient.

Or you can read the investigator's conclusions:
 
TromboneAl said:
I hadn't realized that Sarah had posted this elsewhere.

Here's another interesting video concerning the obesity epidemic:
Click to expand...

This takes a while to get through, but is very interesting as it attempts to explain some of the science rather than just claiming that one or another diet is better. It was frustrating however because it is almost impossible to make out the reaction pathways in his diagrams. It woujld be fine ina lecture hall, or a large size TV.

I read that John Yudkin book years ago, and I was well enough convinced of the evils of fructose that I was able to help my brother's health by one simple suggestion- stop drinking so damn much juice!

He had moved to Florida and was drinking orange and grapefruit juice like it was about to disappear from earth. His triglycerides were around 1000. He cut way back and finally completely cut out drinking juice and his levels were soon back down to low normal.

Dr. Lustig mentioned problems with alcohol, but did not spend much time on it. It sounds like ethanol is a major bad-guy. We hear so much about wine is good for your health, but maybe not if it is the potent toxin that Dr. Lustig describes. I would hate to become convinced that booze in moderate doses is a health problem. So many social transactions go better with a little ethanol lube.

Ha
 
haha said:
Dr. Lustig mentioned problems with alcohol, but did not spend much time on it. It sounds like ethanol is a major bad-guy. We hear so much about wine is good for your health, but maybe not if it is the potent toxin that Dr. Lustig describes. I would hate to become convinced that booze in moderate doses is a health problem. So many social transactions go better with a little ethanol lube.
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My personal belief is that anything considered "edible" isn't likely to be as harmful to one's health -- sparingly or in moderation -- as obsessively stressing about every last thing we put into their body or the feeling of deprivation one may feel.

Could be rationalizing and wishful thinking, but as long as I'm not going overboard on anything and I try to get mostly "good" carbs and fats I'd just rather not worry about it or try to change it.
 
I found this video very interesting as well. It seems to make sense. In the video he mentions something that I thought was The Pale Yellow Stick Diet. I only watched the video once and my hearing is not the best. I tried googling it this morning and could not really come up with anything that sounds like the above. Did anyone else catch what he was saying?

I am another one who went to a health care free screening this month and my fasting glucose reading was 100. I was told that I had borderline gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with my DD 21 years ago. I was told by a nurse later that there is no such thing as being borderline for gestational diabetes. All I know is this is what I was told and I was sent to the hospital to see a dietician and given a diet to follow while I was pregnant, so I would not have a big baby. I followed it to a T and my DD was under 7lbs. I really do not want to be a diabetic ever!
 
The Pale Yellow Stick Diet
Click to expand...

The Paleolithic Diet -- guaranteed to improve your hearing! ;)
 
Dr. Lustig mentioned problems with alcohol, but did not spend much time on it. It sounds like ethanol is a major bad-guy. We hear so much about wine is good for your health, but maybe not if it is the potent toxin that Dr. Lustig describes.
Click to expand...
I think his point was this: fructose and especially sweet drinks are just as bad (for your liver) as alcohol. We wouldn't give our 4 year old a can of beer, but we would give him/her OJ or soda. I thought that that comparison was out of place, and didn't add to his point. It just complicates and dilutes the issue, since alcohol acts on the brain as well, and has health benefits.

His main point was that while glucose isn't so bad, fructose is a toxin (it can only be metabolized by the liver, as opposed to glucose which is both necessary and can be metabolized by any cell in the body).

Does anyone know why some things aren't sweetened with glucose? Is it just too expensive? Not sweet enough?

I try to get mostly "good" carbs and fats
Click to expand...
But what the first study is saying is that that is exactly the wrong thing to try to do. The subjects who did not eat good carbs and the subjects who ate "bad" fats were the ones that showed the best improvements in cholesterol and blood pressure.
 
Wow, maybe I should get my hearing checked. I had the tv on mute, but watching WVU playing basketball, at the same time I was listening to this, and actually listened to that section twice, because it did not make sense to me. The second time I thought he said Pale yellow thick diet. I went to one of the websites for the Paleolithic Diet and I am definitely not doing it. I eat legumes, whole grains and dairy. I then went to on to skim Low Glycemic Diets and think that I would do better on them. It is definitely confusing. I do know that I definitely need to get more exercise.
 
I went to one of the websites for the Paleolithic Diet and I am definitely not doing it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it probably beats eating pale yellow sticks. ;)
 
Two good vids - thanks to Sarah and T-Al.

I did Atkins about 8 years ago and once I got past the sugar and bread cravings I enjoyed eating that way. In this society it is a pain to stay on, especially if you travel or eat out very much. The lure of the convenience of eating a more modern diet is hard to fight, but it's all that modernity that has injected the toxins and removed the good stuff.
 
TromboneAl said:
I think his point was this: fructose and especially sweet drinks are just as bad (for your liver) as alcohol. We wouldn't give our 4 year old a can of beer, but we would give him/her OJ or soda. I thought that that comparison was out of place, and didn't add to his point. It just complicates and dilutes the issue, since alcohol acts on the brain as well, and has health benefits.

His main point was that while glucose isn't so bad, fructose is a toxin (it can only be metabolized by the liver, as opposed to glucose which is both necessary and can be metabolized by any cell in the body).

Does anyone know why some things aren't sweetened with glucose? Is it just too expensive? Not sweet enough?

But what the first study is saying is that that is exactly the wrong thing to try to do. The subjects who did not eat good carbs and the subjects who ate "bad" fats were the ones that showed the best improvements in cholesterol and blood pressure.
Click to expand...


Atkins--when he was alive, of course--specifically said to not try and cut any fat out of your diet. Fry that steak in butter, because if you try and cut out fat and do a low fat-low carb diet his diet will not work at all. You would be defeating the entire diet that way I understood.
 
Did the video mention the formula for loosing weight:
"Expend more calories than you consume"
or the corollary
"Consume fewer calories than you expend"
 
dex said:
Did the video mention the formula for loosing weight:
"Expend more calories than you consume"
or the corollary
"Consume fewer calories than you expend"
Click to expand...
You should watch Dr. Lustig's video and see what he says about the First Rule of Thermodynamics as it pertains to human biochemistry. The simple answer is yes he mentions it, and then he explains why that is wrong by showing how the liver processes the calories from the different sugars. We still have the same biochemistry that our ancient ancestors did, but we are ingesting sugars in form and quantities that are toxic.
 
He discusses that at 3:41.

The simple answer is yes he mentions it, and then he explains why that is wrong
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The more complex answer is that the first law of thermodynamics it is not wrong, but the usual interpretation of it is wrong. The usual interpretation is this: if you eat more than you expend you will gain weight. The entire lecture debunks this interpretation.

The correct interpretation is that what you eat can cause you to store the energy as fat rather than use it, and as a result, you need to eat more (because the energy is stored rather than used) just to live.

Specifically, if you consume a lot of fructose, much of it is metabolized (by the liver) into (eventually) fat. It's a straightforward biochemical pathway. So, instead of being used for your muscles or brain, the energy is unavailable. As a result you gain weight and you eat more.
 
Boy this can really get complicated, and by listening to Professor Gardener it seems impossible to orchestrate a study to investigate the question. And is the question of weight loss the important one? For the moment at least, I'll have to stick to eating food (mostly vegetable and as unindustrialized and unprocessed as possible), slowly(for digestion and enjoyment), and as early in the day as possible(because it helps my stomach rest and I sleep better).
 
I wish he had shut down the questioners a little better. He has more to say than they do; they should just shut up and let him talk.

Ha
 
More information on how we were led down the garden path to the low-fat/high-carb/high-fructrose diet that is turning Americans into unhealthy blimps in this week's Time magazine: The Skinny on Fats: What the Latest Research Says About What You Should Be Eating - US News and World Report

When the surgeon general issued the first report on nutrition and health in 1988 and the National Academy of Sciences issued its own report in 1989, public health authorities felt that a message to reduce total fat would be best understood by the public. The thought was... that since saturated fats from meat and dairy products were the main sources of fat in the American diet, lowering total fat would automatically reduce consumption of saturated fat. That's certainly true, in theory. But here's the rub in practice: "If you take out saturated fat, and you assume someone is in energy balance [i.e. their total calories haven't changed], what do you put in?

..."People reduced fat and replaced that fat with simple carbohydrates and refined sugar,"

That switch was aided by food companies, with their lines of "low-fat," yet sugar-filled products. A review published online in January in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition said that research actually shows that subbing in a higher carbohydrate intake, especially refined carbs like white bread and sugary cereals, can actually "exacerbate" blood cholesterol problems, including elevated triglycerides and reduced HDL ("good") cholesterol levels. To improve cholesterol, people should focus on limiting those refined carbs and reducing excess body weight, the review said. So much for unlimited SnackWells....
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The AJCN report can be found here: Saturated fat, carbohydrate, and cardiovascular disease -- Siri-Tarino et al. 91 (3): 502 -- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

While browsing the AJCN site, I found a more recent article that seems to substantiate Dr. Lustig's claims: Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity -- Bray et al. 79 (4): 537 -- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

The increased use of HFCS in the United States mirrors the rapid increase in obesity. The digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose. Hepatic metabolism of fructose favors de novo lipogenesis. In addition, unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin production. Because insulin and leptin act as key afferent signals in the regulation of food intake and body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased energy intake and weight gain. Furthermore, calorically sweetened beverages may enhance caloric overconsumption. Thus, the increase in consumption of HFCS has a temporal relation to the epidemic of obesity, and the overconsumption of HFCS in calorically sweetened beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity.
Click to expand...
 
I could be wrong......

But all the advertisements n TV for statins and other cholesterol and trigliceride reducing meds always state that the use of these medications has never been shown to reduce stokes, heart attacks, or other death factors.

Listening to those comments on the products(as well as the incredible yucky side effects which reduce the quality of life) makes me wonder if any studies have shown that reducing cholesterol etc has ever been proven the reduce strokes or heart attacks.

The drug companies want you to buy, and they spend huge amounts of time brain-washing doctors who have never had any training in nutrition.

Quite honestly for all the medical considtions that I have( hypertrophy of the prostate, fibromyalgia, nearsightness, loss of cartilage and effects on running) I have never been able to get a docotr to properly diagnose it or to provide any safe treatment.

I take a combination of high levels of zinc picolinate(50-75 mg a day) and saw palmetto extract and green tea for the prostate issue, and guifennesin for the fibro. Both of these treatment regimins work great and have zero side affects, and neither was recommended by my doctor. He recommended proscription meds which have massive delibilatating side effects.
 
Zarathu said:
Listening to those comments on the products(as well as the incredible yucky side effects which reduce the quality of life) makes me wonder if any studies have shown that reducing cholesterol etc has ever been proven the reduce strokes or heart attacks.
Click to expand...
That's an interesting question.

I'm still reading and learning, but I'm going down the same path you are in my questioning. What I've learned is that much of this controversy goes back to the work of Ancel Keys, who studied the effects of fat and cholesterol on health and cardio-vascular disease. He was the creator of the K-ration field meals used by the US military during the Korean war and the Mediterranean diet.

Keys' study on cardio-vascular disease and diet, called the Seven Country Study, alleged correlations between high cholesterol rates and CVD using American business executives. It was one of the first, if not the first, study on CVD. His study blamed high rates of serum cholesterol, caused by high intake of saturated fatty acids, was to blame for the increased incidence of CVD in America as compared to several other countries. Coronary Heart Disease among Minnesota Business and Professional Men Followed Fifteen Years -- KEYS et al. 28 (3): 381 -- Circulation

Keys seems to be the father of the low-fat diet and lifestyle that eventually opened the door to all of the sugary carbs that we've been talking about here. If we believe that dietary fat is not the completely evil substance that it has been characterized as - and we've been fooled into making ourselves fatter and sicker - Keys wouldn't deserve all of the blame, but he should get credit as the progenitor.

I don't claim that Keys was completely misguided - I don't have the expertise to claim that. But a lot of other scientists have been calling Keys everything from "just plain wrong" to a liar who manipulated his findings. The criticism ranges from claims that the correlations Keys found becomes very weak once data from more countries is introduced into the statistical study, to accusations that he cherry-picked data to the point that the Seven Country study is worthless.

Google "Ancel Keys was wrong" and look at some of the results.

Anyway, I found this comparison that was fun and interesting. It's anecdotal, but thought provoking.

Keys nearly lived to 101 years of age. Here he is the month before he died:

Keys-2004-web-body.jpg


Jack LaLanne is five years younger than Keys in this picture taken recently:

4th-072-300x225.jpg


Which guy do I want to look like if I live to age 90+?

I want to be Jack, baby!

I remember seeing Jack LaLanne's exercise show in black and white years ago when I was a kid. Here is what Jack preached on diet. The first couple of minutes are about alcohol, interestingly enough, and then he goes in on sugar and it's effects on health. Interesting to hear what he says about the food companies and added sugar.

YouTube - Jack Lalanne - Sugarholics


Did Keys lie to us while LaLanne has been preaching the gospel? I'm not sure, but at the very least Keys studies have been used to create the low-fat high-carbohydrate diet that seems to be fattening people up for the slaughter. Good cholesterol lowering medication can help with the CVD issue (and I suspect much high-cholesterol problems are caused by hereditary factors and aggravated by diet) while we work on reducing the obesity and diabetes caused by the low-fat high-carb diet.
 
Zarathu said:
I could be wrong......

But all the advertisements n TV for statins and other cholesterol and trigliceride reducing meds always state that the use of these medications has never been shown to reduce stokes, heart attacks, or other death factors.
Click to expand...

Also read about other side effects such as muscle weakening and depression.
 
It is a fairly wel known fact that in the heyday of anatomy of the 1880's, before sugar was a regular part of the American diet, hardening and clogged arteries was almost unknown. But by 1930, when everyone ate lots of sugar, it was everywhere.

In any society where sugar was introduced, clogged arteries followed.

Traditional eskimos ate almost a 80% fat diet, and no one died of heart attacks and strokes, but as soon as sugar was added to the fat, they died just like everyone else.

Z
 
Zarathu said:
Traditional eskimos ate almost a 80% fat diet, and no one died of heart attacks and strokes, but as soon as sugar was added to the fat, they died just like everyone else.
Click to expand...

Lifespan of an Inuit in the early 1800's: 43.5 years. It appears they have no dietary secret to immortality either.

From "Cancer, Disease of Civilization."


 
eridanus said:
Lifespan of an Inuit in the early 1800's: 43.5 years. It appears they have no dietary secret to immortality either.

From "Cancer, Disease of Civilization."
Click to expand...

IIRC, that is the naturalistic fallacy. Assuming that anything that is 'natural' is good/better. Maybe it is, but let's see the proof/evidence/studies.
 
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