The Diet and Cancer Connection

Maimonides, the famous astronomer, philosopher, scholar, and physician, remarked about the importance of diet in medicine nearly 900 years ago. As rates of diabetes, obesity, and cancer continue to rise, it would appear that his insightful message has fallen on deaf ears.

The lack of diet and nutrition as part of cancer care irks me to no end as a radiation oncologist. About a year ago I submitted an article to a prominent medical journal describing the shortage of nutritional direction within the current state of cancer care. This article revealed that the vast majority of prominent cancer centers made no online nutritional recommendations for patients, while those that did largely contradicted each other. For instance, half recommended a high-calorie or even high-fat diet, while the other half recommended a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.

WEIGHTLOSS PROGRAM MADE FOR PEOPLE OVER 40



The latter remains interesting as it has been well established within the world of cancer research that cancer cells feed and thrive on sugar. In fact, we diagnose and track the progression of cancer cells by injecting a radioactive sugar dye into the veins of cancer patients and watching the cancer cells instantly eat it up!

Even more interesting was the response to my article. The first reply was that we do not know if nutrition has any effect on cancer occurrence or treatment. The second response was even worse; diet has no place in cancer care.

The article was eventually published in the journal Nutrition and Cancer.

While it's a respectable journal by all means, I considered this a failure after months of hard work and high hopes. That all changed when a reporter from Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s website called me to discuss the article. When she wrote about it, more calls followed. Before I knew it, the American Society of Clinical Oncology wrote an article on the research in its newspaper. It also received attention from the National Institute of Health, and most recently, the Boston Globe interviewed me for an article on nutrition and cancer care.

While some physicians felt as though diet and nutrition played no part in cancer care, apparently their patients and the general public had different views...

Returning to the first objection that we do not know if diet influences cancer treatment, I would agree that most physicians believe this statement. We have lab data and clinical trials revealing the benefits of chemotherapy and radiation therapy for curing cancer that fill popular journals like the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, but articles on diet and cancer are few and far between. Similar to my article, they get pushed to the back pages or relegated to lesser-known journals.

But is there really no data on the relationship between diet and cancer? According to these physicians, the data revealing the effect of diet on cancer has yet to occur. As any radiation oncologist would tell you, the treatment of cancer with radiation dates back to 1895 when Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays. One month later physicians began using X-rays to treat malignancies. Chemotherapy came much later and was one of the few positive occurrences in World War I. The first documented cancer patient to be treated with chemotherapy received treatment in 1943.

Yet, here we stand over a century after the first radiation treatment and we still have no significant data on the influence diet has on cancer?


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If we look back on the last century, we find that the history of diet’s effect on cancer is nearly double that of chemotherapy and can be traced back to around the first time irradiation was used to kill a tumor. The first recorded instance was in 1907, nearly 40 years before chemotherapy, when Dr. Moreschi showed that sarcomas grew more slowly in mice that were on a restricted diet. Countless studies over the next 50 years revealed the vital link between diet and cancer, when dietary changes, and most notably replacing carbohydrates with fat, led to slowing tumor growth by up to 80% and increasing survival times in animal studies. The actual cancer treatment in these studies was diet — no radiation or chemotherapy was used — yet the results were drastic. While the number of studies was large by the mid-20th century, similar studies have continued to this day.

I recently published an extensive article explaining the connection between radiation therapy and diet down to the finest detail with a considerable list of key scientific studies illustrating this relationship. There were so many studies that we actually had to reduce our references in order to fit within the word limits for the article. The number of studies to pick from was not in the tens or twenties, but hundreds. Studies that reveal the effect of diet on cancer not only exist, but they are rather plentiful. When dietary changes are combined with radiation therapy for breast cancer in animal studies, the results are even more significant.

There are several reasons why medical professionals fail to appropriately follow Maimonides’ words and unite diet with cancer care. The first is ego. As physicians, we invest a great deal of time and money into our educations...

Nutrition plays little to no role in this education and to admit its importance is to admit shortcomings in our training and as physicians. Secondly, nutrition takes some work and dedication from both physicians and patients. It is not as simple as taking a pill, or even driving in for radiation treatments. These are permanent lifestyle changes that take blood, sweat, and tears.

However, as the rates of cancer and obesity continue to soar alongside healthcare costs, it appears that we have no choice but to endure these “hardships” of making meaningful lifestyle changes. In response to the first physician who commented on my article, the question of nutrition's effect on cancer can easily be answered through enlightenment and education. As for the second physician, it is clear to your patients that diet plays an integral part in cancer care, so when will it become clear to you?

Embracing diet and lifestyle is the new face of modern medicine, and it could not have come at a better moment. It’s time for physicians to remember the words of Maimonides and uphold them.

WEIGHTLOSS PROGRAM MADE FOR PEOPLE OVER 40

Are Gluten Allergies a Myth?

It's rare for mainstream media outlets to produce an accurate picture of medical stories. The hype surrounding gluten and gluten allergies is no exception...

The reason? Nutritionists and medical professionals spend a good deal of time and money on their education, so they don't want to believe that all those precious resources were wasted on learning outdated information.

When medical professionals and dieticians complain about diet "fads", they fail to see the difference between good fads and bad fads. Of course, they are right to be skeptical of fad diets, as they're often not just often ineffective, but they can be downright dangerous as well.

However, when a "fad" diet has proven itself in its ability to drastically improve the life of its practitioners, doctors and nutritionists alike should be more willing to scrutinize their dearly held beliefs.

What does this mean when it comes to "the gluten 'myth'"?

The title of the NBC article is "Allergy Myths Busted: Guess what you didn't know about gluten?"

Anyone reading it would think gluten allergies, then, are in the mind of the person consuming wheat.

A look beyond this sensationalist article will lead you to find that the quoted doctor isn't speaking about gluten sensitivity, but strictly about gluten allergies...

An allergy is defined as a specific bodily reaction to food, including (but not limited to) runny nose, itchy eyes, hives, swelling, and restricted breathing. Serious allergic reactions require immediate medical attention and are much more dangerous than uncomfortable digestive issues you may develop as a result of eating gluten.

The doctor recognizes a wheat allergy, but with this case, the reaction just doesn't come from gluten itself — and so the doctor concludes there is no recognized allergy to gluten.

However, that does not mean that there are not other conditions — including (but not limited to) discomfort and illness — that occur from eating this harmful plant protein...

The most serious one is Celiac disease, while more common conditions include gluten sensitivity and/or intolerance, which cause inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract that can lead to or worsen conditions such as Inflammatory Bowel Syndrome (IBS), food allergies, and a lack of beneficial gut bacteria.

Even if you digest gluten just fine, there are other reasons to avoid wheat. Primary among these is the fact that wheat is an inferior source of calories: It is low in nutrients, and its main source of energy comes from carbohydrates, which are the biggest cause of weight gain in the human diet.

If you're looking to lose weight and minimize the impact of wheat on your health, you're better of sticking with real unprocessed foods — like meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and eggs.

To summarize: Gluten (and wheat) may not cause allergies, but that does not mean it's not worth avoiding.

 The Natural Way to Melt Belly Fat

Yeast Infection and Cancer

Hello my friends.  I just wanted to share some important information with you about "Candida":  A parasite that is started through yeast infection.  It ultimately leads to cancer.  A doctor in Russia did a test on 100 patients who all had cancer.  100% of them had Candida.  It is also a proven fact that 70% women have "Candida".  You can find medicines for Candida in health stores but the only REAL way to cure it is to either get a blood test done and do a bicarbonate soda treatment, or change your diet.  It's not just women who can have it, but men also.

Here is a recommended book that will tell you all about Candida.  ♥♥♥

All About Yeast Infections and Candida

$2.99

Irregular Heartbeat Can Be Good For Your Health

Anyone who has ever had any kind of interaction with a medical professional has heard the term "heart rate" before...

Heart rate refers to the speed of the heartbeat, specifically the number of heartbeats per unit of time.

As you probably remember from high school biology, your heart rate is one of the most important measures of health. A heart pumping too fast will stress the heart muscles and cause it to fail. A rate that is too slow is unable to pump blood around the body, depriving your vital organs of oxygen. And a wildly fluctuating heart rate is a sign that something is very wrong.

Heart rates vary from person to person, depending on size, weight, and other factors.

Generally speaking, between 60 and 100 beats per minutes is about average for a resting adult (that number increases with exercise, of course).

The easiest way to measure heart rate is measuring your pulse.

A more accurate and precise measure used by doctors is the Electrocardiography (ECG or EKG). The EKG is a machine that uses electrodes attached to your skin to measure the electrical changes on your skin every time your heartbeats.

The electrical waves produced by a healthy heart will look like this on an EKG:

EKG

The wave you see consists of a small bump followed by a small drop and a large spike, then a sharp drop off and another small bump (this is just the electrical version of the "lub, dub, lub, dub" you hear when you put your ear to someone's chest), and that repeats over and over as your heart pumps.

If you were to attach an EKG to a person for a day, his or her resting heart rate wouldn't look much different from the picture above. The shape itself will be about the same for most people. It's the very picture of stability and reliability.

And for the longest time, that's what doctors have thought about the human heart rate...

However, with recent advances in EKG technology, researchers have found a whole new way to look at the heart called heart rate variability, a measure of the time gap between heartbeats.

What they found was startling...

The time between heartbeats (and we're talking milliseconds here) is not only inconsistent, but the degree to which they are inconsistent, the degree of their variability, can have huge implications for your health — and in a very surprising way.1

Cardiologists have found that a high heart rate variability is actually a sign of good health.

Therefore, the more stable your heartbeat intervals are (the lower your variability is), the more worried you should be.

I was fortunate enough to attend a talk on heart rate variability (HRV) given by cardiologist Dr. Grayson Wheatley at the Ancestral Health Symposium this month. Among some of the key points in his talk:

    HRV decreases with age (which would make sense, as our health tends to decline with age).

    Athletes and other physically fit individuals tend to have a high HRV.

    Omega-3 fatty acids, the heart, and brain-healthy compounds found in things like salmon and flax seeds increase HRV

    Sleep affects HRV (good sleep raises it, bad sleep lowers it); in fact, a low HRV can predict a night of poor sleep.

    Low HRV is a sign of illness and disease (including diabetes, heart disease, and an increased risk of death).


HOW TO SURVIVE A FOOD CRISIS OR DISASTER

This Spice Can Help Your Health in 150 Different Ways

Most spices have powerful medicinal properties, which is precisely why they've been used to promote healing for thousands of years prior to the advent of modern, synthetic drug-based medicine.
One such spice is turmeric, the yellow-pigmented "curry spice" often used in Indian cuisine. Turmeric contains curcumin, the polyphenol identified as its primary active component and which exhibits over 150 potentially therapeutic activities, which include antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.¹
Curcumin is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which is one reason why it holds promise as a neuroprotective agent in a wide range of neurological disorders. Researchers have investigated curcumin for its potential role in improving Parkinson's disease.

Preliminary results indicate that it may hold even more promise than the drugs currently used for this disorder, many of which (ironically) have serious neurotoxic side effects, including dyskinesia – a movement disorder identical to the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

Natural Curcumin Extract Outshines Parkinson's Drugs
Parkinson's is a neurodegenerative disease caused by a steady depletion of dopamine-producing nerve cells, particularly in the area of your brain referred to as the substantia nigra. Most of the current drug treatments for Parkinson's disease, known as dopamine agonists, focus on replenishing dopamine.
Although such treatments provide symptomatic relief during early Parkinson's disease, they are ineffective in the long term where they may actually increase symptoms such as tremor, postural instability and cognitive deficits that are common with this disease. They are also associated with motor complications and a laundry list of other strange and disturbing side effects, including:

Euphoria	Nausea
Hallucinations	Insomnia
Causing or worsening psychosis	Unusual tiredness or weakness
Orthostatic hypotension (a dizzy spell caused by a sudden drop in blood pressure)	Dizziness, drowsiness, lightheadedness, or fainting
Increased orgasmic intensity	Twitching, twisting, or other unusual body movements
Weight loss	Pathological addiction (gambling, shopping, internet pornography, hypersexuality)

As researchers noted in the journal Current Pharmaceutical Design:² 
"Most of the current pharmacotherapeutic approaches in PD [Parkinson's disease] are aimed at replenishing the striatal dopamine. Although these drugs provide symptomatic relief during early PD, many patients develop motor complications with long-term treatment. Further, PD medications do not effectively tackle tremor, postural instability and cognitive deficits.

Most importantly, most of these drugs do not exhibit neuroprotective effects in patients. Consequently, novel therapies involving natural antioxidants and plant products/molecules with neuroprotective properties are being exploited for adjunctive therapy." 
Unlike Parkinson's drugs, curcumin is neuroprotective and several studies strongly support its use for the treatment of Parkinson's. For example: 

• Curcumin showed neuroprotective properties in an animal model of Parkinson's disease; the beneficial effect was thought to be related, in part, to its antioxidant capabilities and its ability to penetrate the brain.³
  
• Curcumin alleviated the effects of glutathione depletion, which causes oxidative stress, mitochondria dysfunction and cell death – and is a feature of early Parkinson's disease.⁴
  
• The c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway is involved in dopaminergic neuronal degeneration, which is in turn associated with Parkinson's. Curcumin prevents dopaminergic neuronal death through inhibition of the JNK pathway, and thereby offers a neuroprotective effect that may be beneficial for Parkinson's.⁵
  
• Slow-wriggling alpha-synuclein proteins can cause clumping, which is the first step for diseases such as Parkinson's. Curcumin helps prevent the proteins from clumping.⁶
  

Curcumin Is a Powerful Ally for Your Brain Health 
For years now turmeric, and its active ingredient curcumin, have shown powerful benefits to your brain health. One of the ways that it works, similar to vitamin D, is modulating large numbers of your genes; in fact, curcumin has been shown to influence more than 700 genes.
The potential healing power of this spice, which is an important part of Eastern cultural traditions including traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, perhaps first came about when it was noticed that the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease among older adults in India is more than four times lower than the rate in the United States.
Why such a significant difference?
Some researchers believe the answer for this drastic disparity in Alzheimer's disease prevalence is a direct result of curcumin. Research has shown that curcumin may help inhibit the accumulation of destructive beta amyloids in the brain of Alzheimer's patients, as well as break up existing plaques. People with Alzheimer's tend to have higher levels of inflammation in their brains, and curcumin is perhaps most known for its potent anti-inflammatory properties. The compound can inhibit both the activity and the inflammatory metabolic byproducts of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2) and 5-lipooxygenase (5-LOX) enzymes, as well as other enzymes and hormones that modulate inflammation.

And that's not all. The growing interest in curcumin over the past 50 years is understandable when you consider the many health benefits researchers have found when studying this spice. According to an ever-expanding clinical body of studies, curcumin may help:

Support healthy cholesterol levels	Prevent low-density lipoprotein oxidation	Inhibit platelet aggregation
Suppress thrombosis and myocardial infarction	Suppress symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes	Suppress symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis
Suppress symptoms of multiple sclerosis	Suppress symptoms of Alzheimer's disease	Inhibit HIV replication
Suppress tumor formation	Enhance wound healing	Protect against liver damage
Increase bile secretion	Protect against cataracts	Protect against pulmonary toxicity and fibrosis

Two More Important Tools for Parkinson's: Vitamin D and Omega-3
There is a correlation between insufficient levels of vitamin D and the development of early Parkinson's disease, and research has suggested that long-term deficiency may play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease. There are three major points you want to remember about vitamin D:

1. Your best source for this vitamin is exposure to the sun, without sunblock on your skin, until your skin turns the lightest shade of pink. While this isn't always possible due to the change of the seasons and your geographic location (and your skin color), this is the ideal to aim for. A safe tanning bed is the next best option, followed by oral vitamin D3 supplementation.
   
2. If you do supplement with vitamin D, you'll only want to supplement with natural vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol). Do NOT use the synthetic and highly inferior vitamin D2, which is the one most doctors will give you in a prescription most of the time unless you ask specifically for D3.
   
3. Get your vitamin D blood levels checked! The only way to determine the correct dose is to have your blood tested since there are so many variables that influence your vitamin D status. I recommend using Lab Corp in the U.S. Getting the correct test is the first step in this process, as there are TWO vitamin D tests currently being offered: 1,25(OH)D and 25(OH)D.
   

From my perspective, the preferred test your doctor needs to order is 25(OH)D, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which is the better marker of overall D status. This is the marker that is most strongly associated with overall health. You'll want to optimize your levels according to the chart below. If you currently have Parkinson's disease you will want to keep your vitamin D level in the higher 70-100 ng/ml range to help fight the disease.


Animal-based omega-3 fats are also a powerful defense against Parkinson's, as they contain two fatty acids crucial to human health, DHA and EPA. Most of the neurological benefits of omega-3 oils are derived from the DHA component rather than the EPA component.
In fact, DHA is one of the major building blocks of your brain. About half of your brain and eyes are made up of fat, much of which is DHA -- making it an essential nutrient for optimal brain and eye function. Your brain activity actually depends greatly upon the functions provided by its outer, fatty waxy membrane to act as an electrical nerve-conduction cable. In your brain alone, DHA may help to ward off Parkinson's by:

• Reducing brain inflammation
  
• Stimulating neuron growth, and development and repair of synapses. (Your brain is a vast complex system of nerve cells sending and receiving electrical impulses across junctions called synapses. The small space between the two cells is where the action occurs. One neuron may synapse with as many as 1,000 other neurons.)
  
• DHA protects your brain's function by supporting optimal glutamate function. Glutamate and GABA are considered your brain's 'workhorse' neurotransmitters. They work together to control your brain's overall level of excitability, which controls many body processes.
  

I believe krill oil is your best option for getting animal-based omega-3 fats because of the fact that the omega-3 is attached to phospholipids that dramatically increase its absorption, especially into brain tissue.
Lifestyle Changes to Help Prevent Parkinson's
Parkinson's disease is related to lifestyle factors, including the following:

Environmental toxins and pesticides	Aspartame consumption
Petroleum-based hydrocarbon solvents, like paint and glue	Deficiencies in vitamin D and vitamin B folate
Excess iron in your body	Pasteurized milk

In addition to avoiding these toxic exposures, I recommend lifestyle adjustments including:

• Exercise regularly, including high-intensity exercise like Peak Fitness. It's one of the best ways to protect against the onset of symptoms of Parkinson's disease
  
• Get plenty of sunshine to optimize your vitamin D levels
  
• Avoid pesticide and insecticide exposure (as well as exposure to other environmental toxins like solvents)
  
• Eat more organic vegetables, which are high in folate, the natural form of folic acid (folate after all comes from foliage)
  
• Make sure your body has healthy levels of iron and manganese (neither too much nor too little of either)
  
• Consider supplementing coenzyme Q10, which may help to fight the disease. But remember, the oxidized form of coenzyme Q10 called ubiquinone or plain CoQ10 is actually found in elevated levels in neurodegenerative conditions involving enhanced oxidative stress, as it is a residual marker of lipid peroxidation (brain rancidity). This is why ubiquinol, the reduced form that is capable of donating electrons to quench brain-damaging free radicals, while at the same time providing a boost to brain mitochondrial function, is the only logical choice in Parkinson's disease and related neurodegenerative conditions.
  

As for getting the full benefits that curcumin has to offer, look for a turmeric extract that contains 100 percent certified organic ingredients, with at least 95 percent curcuminoids. The formula should be free of fillers, additives and excipients (a substance added to the supplement as a processing or stability aid), and the manufacturer should use safe production practices at all stages: planting, cultivation, selective harvesting, and then producing and packaging the final product.

Unfortunately, at the present time there really are no formulations available for the use against cancer. This is because relatively high doses are required and curcumin is not absorbed that well. There is much work being done to provide a bioavailable formulation in the near future.

In the event you need higher doses (such as in the case of treating cancer), use the curcumin powder and make a microemulsion of it by combining a tablespoon of the powder and mixing it into 1-2 egg yolks and a teaspoon or two of melted coconut oil. Then use a high-speed hand blender to emulsify the powder (be careful when doing so as curcumin is a very potent yellow pigment and can permanently discolor surfaces if you aren't careful).

Another strategy that can help increase absorption is to put one tablespoon of the curcumin powder into a quart of boiling water. It must be boiling when you add the powder; it will not work as well if you put it in room temperature water and heat the water and curcumin. After boiling it for 10 minutes you will have created a 12 percent solution that you can drink once it has cooled down. It will have a woody taste. The curcumin will gradually fall out of the solution, however. In about six hours it will be a 6 percent solution, so it's best to drink the water within four hours.

The Natural Way to Melt Belly Fat

The Value of Cucumbers

“1. Fat busting: Do you ever wonder why women put cucumbers on their eyes to relieve puffiness? The photochemical in cucumbers makes the collagen in your skin tighten, thus the lack of puffiness. Did you know that you can rub a cucumber on a problematic spot of cellulite anywhere on your body to lessen the visibility of it? Did you also know that it has the same effect on wrinkles? Wow, it makes purchasing those fifty dollar creams seem a little silly, doesn’t it? You can also rub a little bit under your kiddo’s eyes after a long bout of crying to avoid that puffy ‘I cried for an hour straight’ look.

2. Defogger: Do you get annoyed when you get out of the shower and you have to fight the fog on the mirror? Who has time for that when the kids will be awake at any moment? Try rubbing a slice of cucumber on the mirror before you hop in and not only will you get a fog-free mirror, but you’ll have a nice smell that will boost your mood.

3. Headaches: If you suffer from headaches from chasing your babies all day, or had a little too much wine with dinner and want to avoid a hangover, eat half of a cucumber before bed. Cucumbers are high in B vitamins, sugar, and electrolytes, and they replenish the nutrients missing in your body to help you avoid a hang over or to beat that headache that’s been threatening to take over.

4. WD-40 replacement: Did you know you can get rid of a squeak by rubbing a cucumber on the hinge? Wow, now you don’t have to tear your garage apart looking for that little can with the red straw, and the baby won’t wake up when you slowly open the nursery door to check on him.

5. Crayon on the walls: Take an unpeeled cucumber and rub the crayon off of the walls in the event that your kiddo left you some art. You can also use this technique to erase a pen mistake.

6. Halitosis killer: Take a slice of cucumber and put it on the roof of your mouth. Hold it there with your tongue for 30 seconds. The photochemical that you love for cellulite and puff reduction will also kill the bacteria that is causing your bad breath.

7. Tarnish remover: If you’re finding tarnish on your stainless steel kitchen faucets and appliances? Rub it off with a cucumber slice. Not only will it remove years of tarnish, it will leave it streak free and your hands will thank you, and your kids won’t be put at risk from a dangerous chemical.

8. Energy booster: If you’re feeling tired in the afternoon, don’t give Starbucks your five bucks. Instead, grab a cucumber. There are just enough carbohydrates and B vitamins to give you a longer-lasting and healthier boost of energy than soda, coffee, or those health hazard energy drinks.

9. Munchy madness: Did you know that European trappers ate cucumbers for energy and to keep from starving to death? If those big burly manly men can eat a cucumber to keep from starving, you can eat one as a healthy choice when the munchies hit. Slice some up and take them in a small plastic container to the movies if your theater doesn’t offer healthy alternatives to munching on butter soaked popcorn.

10. Frugal facial: Slice up a cucumber and boil it in a pot of water. The chemicals inside of the cucumber will mix with the steam. Remove the pot from heat and lean over it, letting the steam hit you. Your skin will be more radiant and healthy, and you will feel relaxed and rejuvenated.

11. Shoe polish: Cut a slice off of your cucumber and rub it on your shoe. It will not only shine it up, but it will repel water.

12. Pest control: Put three or four slices of cucumber in a small pie tin and place them in your garden. The chemicals in the cucumber have a reaction that pests hate. You won’t smell it, but it will drive them from your garden all year long. Replace them periodically.

13. Sunburn: Sometimes sun block doesn’t always protect your little ones from sunburn. If you have burnt little kiddos you don’t have any aloe, rub some cucumber on them. Many doctors even use cucumber to treat patients with irritated skin and sunburns.

14. Blood pressure: Cucumber has been long used to treat high blood pressure. If you have it, add cucumbers to your daily diet. There is also ongoing research into the use of cucumbers for lowering cholesterol.

15. Constipation remedy: The seeds of a cucumber are a diuretic. If you’re constipated, try eating a cucumber. If you suffer from chronic constipation, add cucumber to your daily diet.”

HOW TO SURVIVE A FOOD CRISIS OR DISASTER

7 Ways Low-Fat Diets Destroy Your Health

7 Ways Low-Fat Diets Destroy Your Health

In the beginning, the conventional low-fat diet was based on very weak scientific evidence, which has since been thoroughly disproven.

In the past few decades, many massive, long-term studies have shown that this diet is a very poor choice.

Not only is it proven to be ineffective, it can also be downright harmful for a lot of people.

Here are 7 ways the low-fat diet can harm your health.
1. The Low-Fat Diet Encourages Consumption of Harmful Foods

When the low-fat guidelines first came out, food manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon.

They wanted to bring a whole bunch of “heart healthy” low-fat foods to the market, in order to sell to the health conscious crowd.

However, there is one big problem with foods that have had the fat removed from them… they taste like crap.

For this reason, the food manufacturers added sugar instead. Sugar is not a fat, it’s a carbohydrate. Therefore, a product can be labelled “low fat” even though it is loaded with sugar.

(I should point out that the low-fat guidelines DO recommend that we reduce refined sugars, but not nearly as enthusiastically as they warn us about the “dangerous” fats).

The conventional low-fat diet (brought to you by the United States Department ofAgriculture) also advocates increased consumption of certain foods:

    Vegetable Oils: Vegetable oils can reduce cholesterol in the short term, but in the long term they cause harm and are significantly associated with inflammation and heart disease (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
    Whole Wheat: A significant portion of the population may be sensitive towheat gluten, experiencing symptoms like pain, stool inconsistency, tiredness, among various other symptoms (6, 7, 8, 9, 10).

Basically, since the low-fat guidelines came out, people have increased their consumption of harmful foods like sugar, wheat and vegetable oils.

    Bottom Line: Many high sugar junk foods with a low-fat label have flooded the market. The low-fat diet also advocates consumption of foods now known to cause harm.

2. The Low-Fat Diet Can Raise Your Triglycerides

Having elevated triglycerides in the blood is a well known risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

It is also one of the features of the metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms believed to play a causal role in cardiovascular disease, obesity and type II diabetes.

When blood triglycerides are eleveted, it is usually because the liver is turning excess carbohydrates (especially fructose) into fat (11, 12, 13, 14).

Because the low-fat diet is also a high-carb diet, this diet can lead to an increase in blood triglycerides, potentially elevating the risk of cardiovascular disease (15, 16).

The best way to lower triglycerides is to eat in the exact opposite way, a low-carb, high-fat diet. Such a diet consistently leads to reductions in blood triglycerides (17,18, 19).

    Bottom Line: The low-fat diet is very high in carbohydrates. Excess carbohydrates are turned into fats in the liver, which raise blood levels of triglycerides, an important cardiovascular risk factor.

3. The Low-Fat Diet Discourages Consumption of Healthy Foods

Animal foods that are naturally high in fat tend to be healthy and nutritious.

While I agree that factory farmed, grain-fed animal products aren’t an optimal choice, foods from animals that have been properly raised and fed are very healthy.

The low-fat diet discourages people from consuming these foods because they contain saturated fat and cholesterol.

Here’s a newsflash: Neither saturated fat or cholesterol have ever been proven to cause harm.

It was a myth all along, they have now been proven to be perfectly safe in multiple large, long-term studies (20, 21, 22, 23).

Blaming the epidemics of obesity, diabetes or heart disease on fatty animal foods makes absolutely no sense, because the diseases are relatively new, while the foods have been with us all along.

Plenty of populations throughout the world, for example the Inuit and the Masai, have consumed almost all of their calories from animal foods and remained in excellent health.

Here are 4 examples of foods that have been demonized due to the misguided war on saturated fat:

    Meat: Naturally fed meat is an excellent source of Omega-3 fatty acids, CLA, vitamins and minerals along with important nutrients like Carnosine and Creatine (24, 25, 26).
    Eggs: Eggs are among the healthiest foods on the planet. They are loaded with vitamins and minerals, along with Choline and powerful antioxidants that protect the eyes (27, 28).
    High-fat dairy products: Grass-fed dairy products are the best source of Vitamin K2 in the diet. Also loaded with Calcium, CLA and plenty of other nutrients (29, 30, 31).
    Coconut: Coconut products contain fats that are associated with powerfulhealth benefits, including increased fat burning, better blood lipids and improved brain function (32, 33, 34).

    Bottom Line: Foods that are naturally high in saturated fat and cholesterol tend to be highly nutritious and perfectly healthy. The low-fat diet discourages consumption of these foods.

4. The Low-Fat Diet Can Lower HDL (The “Good”) Cholesterol

High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) is often referred to as the “good” cholesterol.

It is well established that having high levels of HDL is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease (35, 36).

Eating more fat can raise HDL levels, while a high carbohydrate intake can lead to a reduction (37, 38, 39).

Therefore, it is not surprising to see studies where a low-fat, high-carb diet leads to reductions in HDL, which may lead to an increased risk of heart disease (40,41, 42).

One of many good ways to raise HDL levels is to eat a low-carb diet (43, 44).

    Bottom Line: HDL is known as the “good” cholesterol and is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease. Studies show that the low-fat diet reduces blood levels of HDL.

5. The Low-Fat Diet Lowers Testosterone Levels

Testosterone is the main sex hormone in males, but women have small amounts of it too.

Like other steroid hormones, testosterone is produced out of cholesterol.

Having adequate testosterone levels is important for various aspects of health in both men and women.

Having low testosterone levels can lead to decreased muscle mass, increased body fat, osteoporosis, depression, decreased libido, among others.

One of the side effects of a low-fat diet is significantly reduced testosterone levels, one study showing a reduction of 12% after 8 weeks on a low-fat diet (45, 46).

    Bottom Line: Testosterone is a very important hormone in both men and women. Low-fat diets can significantly reduce testosterone levels.

6. The Low-Fat Diet Can Harm The Pattern of LDL (The “Bad”) Cholesterol

Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL) is often referred to as the “bad” cholesterol.

It is well established that elevated LDL levels are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (47).

However, new data is showing that there are subtypes of LDL. We have small, dense LDL (called pattern B) and Large LDL (called pattern A).

The small, dense particles (sdLDL) contribute to heart disease, NOT the large ones (48, 49, 50).

A high intake of carbohydrates (especially refined carbohydrates) increases sdLDL, while saturated fat and cholesterol change the LDL particles from the small, dense (bad) subtype to the large (benign) subtype (51, 52, 53).

Studies show that low-fat diets shift the LDL pattern towards small, dense particles, while low-carb, high-fat diets shift them towards large particles (54, 55,56, 57).

    Bottom Line: Even though low-fat diets may cause mild reductions in LDL cholesterol, at the same time they shift the pattern of LDL cholesterol from Large LDL (which is benign) towards small, dense LDL (which is very harmful).

7. The Low-Fat Diet Gives You Heart Disease

Heart disease is the most common cause of death in middle- and high income countries (58).

It is known that traditional populations that don’t eat a Western diet have very little heart disease (59, 60,61).

When these populations adopt a western diet, they rapidly become obese, diabetic and start dying from heart disease (62).

Therefore, it seems pretty clear that the western diet is a significant contributor.

There have been several massive, long-term randomized controlled trials (which are the gold standard of science) that have examined the effects of low-fat diets on the risk of heart disease.

    The Women’s Health Initiative: In a study of 48,835 women, the low-fat diet produced weight loss of only 0.4 kg (1 lb) over a period of 7.5 years. The diet did not lower the risk of heart disease or cancer (63, 64, 65,67).
    MRFIT: A low-fat diet did not reduce heart disease in a group of 12,866 men at a high risk of having a heart attack, despite the fact that many of the men quit smoking (68).
    Look AHEAD: A 9.6 year study of 5,145 diabetics revealed that the low-fat diet did not reduce heart disease, despite the fact that they managed to lose weight by forced calorie restriction (69, 70).

Be aware that they are comparing the low-fat diet to the standard western diet, which is pretty much as bad as a diet can get.

Another way to consider these results… The low-fat diet is just as effective at causing heart disease as the standard Western diet.
Take Home Message

It is time to retire the low-fat fad. Period.

The Natural Way to Melt Belly Fat