41 replies to this topic

[Shepard]

Clips from an upcoming documentary:

[Shepard]

[MP11]

What's it about (didn't feel like watching the clips)

[Shepard]

Don't know. Don't feel like typing.

[MP11]

Don't know. Don't feel like typing.

Typed to say you didn't feel like typing. Seriously though, what's it about.

[Live Forever]

Still not going to convince me to eat fast food more often.

[Shepard]

Seriously though, what's it about.

Seems to be the anti-lipid hypothesis response to the anti-fat angle of Supersize Me. Although, they interview Eades, so there is potential for it to be anti-carb instead of anti-stupid.

[cyborgdreamer]

Okay, so I agree that people should make their own decisions about fast food. And I'll consider that Super Size Me may have been exaggerated (though it still isn't a good idea to eat 3500 calories a day). But it is really true that they don't have evidence linking saturated fat and cardiovascular disease?! :huh:

[Shepard]

But it is really true that they don't have evidence linking saturated fat and cardiovascular disease?! :huh:

There are several books and critiques of those books out there on the subject. It's become such a 'yes' or 'no' subject with circular arguments on both sides that it makes me nauseated to read through some of the filth out there. The best answer I can give to your question: it depends.

[niner]

OK, that's awesome, I can now do what I already do, but maybe have a teeny bit less concern about it. What I already do is have one slice of pretty decent pizza almost every day. The documentary was pretty good until it veered off into the CSPI guy anti-taxation paranoia. I've thought that Spurlock was kind of a phony for some while now, and this does tend to confirm that belief. Just as Spurlock exaggerated in one direction, however, this guy tends to exaggerate in the opposite direction. I guess that's "balance"... The part I take issue with is the "no one is forcing you to eat it" argument. If that argument is good, then we should have people selling heroin on street corners and giving out free syringes with popular movie marketing tie-ins. We could call them "happy shots". After all, no one would be forcing people to buy it...

[Shannon Vyff]

well if you are going to eat bacon, cook it lightly and get nitrate free

[s123]

But it is really true that they don't have evidence linking saturated fat and cardiovascular disease?! :huh:

Maybe you have to look at the kind of saturated fat.
Bv. stearic acid is healthier than palmitic acid because:
1) It's less likely to form cholesterol esters than palmitic acid
2) It's more converted into unsaturated fat than palmitic acid

The same is true for unsaturated fat.
Bv. trans fat is also unsaturated fat but not healthy

[caston]

I think there has also been some suggestions that heart disease is related to soft-tissue calcification.

Does anyone know what the relationship is between dietry calcium intake and soft-tissue calcification?

Edited by caston, 29 November 2007 - 03:40 PM.

[Shepard]

I think there has also been some suggestions that heart disease is related to soft-tissue calcification.

There are many risk factors for heart disease.

Does anyone know what the relationship is between dietry calcium intake and soft-tissue calcification?

The human body is pretty damn good in this regard and I've seen no reason to suspect any normal nutrient intake would accelerate this event. When you get into prolonged excessive calcium supplementation and other idiocy, you could be looking into trouble.

[caston]

I found this on the "heart foundations" website:

http://www.heartfoun...Cholesterol.htm


And this page which does implicate calcium in heart disease:

http://www.healingda...art-disease.htm

And it does talk about oral and
Intravenous chelation therapy with EDTA!

[lucid]

Well, the big strike about the documentary (I have watched all of the clips but haven't seen the rest of it) is that at the beginning they talk about how relating saturated fat intake to heart disease is dumb and interview a lot of experts, but they fail to actually go through and review highlights from medical studies.

The documentary also implies that eating at Mc Donalds may be a respectable life choice, which I really disagree with (though I don't feel it should be regulated).

[MP11]

I think there has also been some suggestions that heart disease is related to soft-tissue calcification.

Does anyone know what the relationship is between dietry calcium intake and soft-tissue calcification?

Definitely something that needs to be looked at further.

[Shepard]

And this page which does implicate calcium in heart disease:

Sure, lots of things can be linked one way or another: hyperlipidemia/cholesterolemia/glycemia along with others, and yes, ectopic calcification. Don't confuse the issue as dietary calcium = calcification, though. There are many things to consider, genetics among them.

[simon007]

I think there has also been some suggestions that heart disease is related to soft-tissue calcification.

Does anyone know what the relationship is between dietry calcium intake and soft-tissue calcification?

Definitely something that needs to be looked at further.

What's the title of the documentary? I never heard of it

Simon

[Shepard]

Well, the big strike about the documentary (I have watched all of the clips but haven't seen the rest of it) is that at the beginning they talk about how relating saturated fat intake to heart disease is dumb and interview a lot of experts, but they fail to actually go through and review highlights from medical studies.

I would be surprised if the film goes too deep into the literature. It will probably skirt the same arguments that Taubes has made in some interviews like this one:

The documentary also implies that eating at Mc Donalds may be a respectable life choice, which I really disagree with (though I don't feel it should be regulated).

I hope the documentarian is pushing the idea that fast food does not equal automatic weight gain, which I completely agree with and think was a big negative of Supersize Me.

[Shepard]

What's the title of the documentary? I never heard of it

Simon

Fat Head, I think. It hasn't been released yet.

[senseix]

Thanks Shepard, i watched all the video's very interesting to say the least.

[cyborgdreamer]

OK, that's awesome, I can now do what I already do, but maybe have a teeny bit less concern about it. What I already do is have one slice of pretty decent pizza almost every day. The documentary was pretty good until it veered off into the CSPI guy anti-taxation paranoia. I've thought that Spurlock was kind of a phony for some while now, and this does tend to confirm that belief. Just as Spurlock exaggerated in one direction, however, this guy tends to exaggerate in the opposite direction. I guess that's "balance"... The part I take issue with is the "no one is forcing you to eat it" argument. If that argument is good, then we should have people selling heroin on street corners and giving out free syringes with popular movie marketing tie-ins. We could call them "happy shots". After all, no one would be forcing people to buy it...

Heroin is extremely addictive, though. So if you try it once or twice, you pretty much are forced buy it again. Also, I doubt there are many rational people who decide that heroin is worthwhile for them. While there are lots of rational people who decide a cheeseburger is worth the risk.

[lucid]

Nice second Vid there shep. Certainly much better information content than the clips before. IMO, the Harvard research scientist cleaned up, and the journalist had a very weak position. Whole grains high in fiber, fruits, veggies, and lean meats are the way to go.

[forever freedom]

Nice clips. I thought the subject of saturated fat was over already and it was clear that it was bad for us. Thanks for opening my eyes a bit more. Anyways, i'll still be cautious about saturated fat (i virtually never eat fast food and i will keep not eating it). Seems like not eating much saturated fat won't be bad for us, so i'll stick to what's certain to not damage my health.

[niner]

OK, that's awesome, I can now do what I already do, but maybe have a teeny bit less concern about it. What I already do is have one slice of pretty decent pizza almost every day. The documentary was pretty good until it veered off into the CSPI guy anti-taxation paranoia. I've thought that Spurlock was kind of a phony for some while now, and this does tend to confirm that belief. Just as Spurlock exaggerated in one direction, however, this guy tends to exaggerate in the opposite direction. I guess that's "balance"... The part I take issue with is the "no one is forcing you to eat it" argument. If that argument is good, then we should have people selling heroin on street corners and giving out free syringes with popular movie marketing tie-ins. We could call them "happy shots". After all, no one would be forcing people to buy it...

Heroin is extremely addictive, though. So if you try it once or twice, you pretty much are forced buy it again. Also, I doubt there are many rational people who decide that heroin is worthwhile for them. While there are lots of rational people who decide a cheeseburger is worth the risk.

Those are legitimate points, although one could argue that high fructose corn syrup was addictive too, though obviously it's no opiate. Maybe I just run with a bad crowd, but I've known more than a few rational people (several of them were really intelligent, in fact) that decided heroin was worthwhile for them. At least two of them are dead now.

[wydell]

Okay, so I agree that people should make their own decisions about fast food. And I'll consider that Super Size Me may have been exaggerated (though it still isn't a good idea to eat 3500 calories a day). But it is really true that they don't have evidence linking saturated fat and cardiovascular disease?! :huh:

It seems like Sally Fallon, Weston Price and Dr. Mercola, argue for more inclusion of high quality saturated fat in the diet. They urge people to eat grass fed beef and dairy, and suggest that such foods have higher CLA content and a better Omega 3 balance. Mercola is very big on high quality coconut oil. So that's their perspective. The mainstream and much of the not so mainstream argue against saturated fat.

I do include some saturated fat in my diet in the form of raw milk cheese, grass feed beef and chocolate. But the majority of my diet is vegetables, fruit, whey, and nuts.

[HighDesertWizard]

Nice second Vid there shep. Certainly much better information content than the clips before. IMO, the Harvard research scientist cleaned up, and the journalist had a very weak position. Whole grains high in fiber, fruits, veggies, and lean meats are the way to go.

A few things...

1 Dr. William Davis, MD, FACC

The guy that I consider to be the world's leading expert on coronary plaque regression is adamant about the necessity for reducing carbs from the diet, including ALL wheat products if you have certain and specific lipoprotein subfraction abnormalities (low HDL, high Small Dense LDL, etc.). I've posted about him before here at ImmInst.org. He's Dr. William Davis (writes for LEF on Heart Disease issues and a few miscellaneous supplement topics). His sites:

http://www.trackyourplaque.com
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/

What about Pauling/Rath, etc... Forget them. That's so the 1990s. Really!

As I understand it, Davis is presenting some data about all this in April of 2008.


2 Not convinced?

Check out this discussion of coronary artery disease at WebMD. You'll need to register. I registered there as a medical media person.

http://www.theheart....o?threadID=7818

Watch for the posts by Dr. William Blanchet, MD there. Note that both Davis and Blanchet are adamant about Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) score imaging for "caulking the boat" (i.e., detecting cardiac event risk in asymptomatic individuals).

There ARE physicians who are dramatically reducing patient risk so much so that their colleagues are unbelieving. And they are measuring that reduction in risk empirically.


3 Still not convinced?

Seems to me that Gary Taubes is weak on panel discussions. That doesn't mean he doesn't have an argument. It just means the significance of his argument is lost in a 1 hour debate format.

Get the new Gary Taubes book at Amazon.

Again, a low carb, somewhat higher fat diet is different than splurging at a fast food joint. Let's not set up that straw man argument against lower carb, higher fat diets.

Seems to me that the proponents of low fat diets have a tough go to counter Taubes. If you haven't looked at his book then you don't really have a handle on what he's saying...


4 I'm convinced

I started Doc Davis' Track Your Plaque program (including a modified Atkins diet if you can believe it as well as the recommended supplements) and my standard lipid panel numbers improved dramatically. So much so that I can begin to think about someday reducing my statin drug intake.

So, here's how I put the picture together...

Doc Davis (at the link above) notes that the low fat diet fixation gets in the way of the actual goal of reducing coronary plaque. AND, I double dog dare you to prove me wrong when I say that he's a (if not THE) leading expert in the world on measuring and achieving coronary plaque regression.

And now Taubes comes along and argues that "it's all a big fat lie".

I'm not a doctor, nor am I a scientist. But I understand what Doc Davis is saying. And I even can understand most of the science that Taubes describes. And now I've got standard lipid panel results that are completely consistent with what they both are saying.

Because I'm not a doctor or a scientist, I don't get the scientific phraseology right all the time. But it sure seems to me that the science of diet landscape is changing.

[HighDesertWizard]

And then there's this study.

Comparison of Low Fat and Low Carbohydrate Diets on Circulating Fatty Acid Composition and Markers of Inflammation.
Forsythe CE, Phinney SD, Fernandez ML, Quann EE, Wood RJ, Bibus DM, Kraemer WJ, Feinman RD, Volek JS.

Department of Kinesiology, University of Connecticut, 2095 Hillside Road, Unit 1110, Storrs, CT, 06269-1110, USA.

Abnormal distribution of plasma fatty acids and increased inflammation are prominent features of metabolic syndrome. We tested whether these components of metabolic syndrome, like dyslipidemia and glycemia, are responsive to carbohydrate restriction. Overweight men and women with atherogenic dyslipidemia consumed ad libitum diets very low in carbohydrate (VLCKD) (1504 kcal:%CHO:fat:protein = 12:59:28) or low in fat (LFD) (1478 kcal:%CHO:fat:protein = 56:24:20) for 12 weeks. In comparison to the LFD, the VLCKD resulted in an increased proportion of serum total n-6 PUFA, mainly attributed to a marked increase in arachidonate (20:4n-6), while its biosynthetic metabolic intermediates were decreased. The n-6/n-3 and arachidonic/eicosapentaenoic acid ratio also increased sharply. Total saturated fatty acids and 16:1n-7 were consistently decreased following the VLCKD. Both diets significantly decreased the concentration of several serum inflammatory markers, but there was an overall greater anti-inflammatory effect associated with the VLCKD, as evidenced by greater decreases in TNF-alpha, IL-6, IL-8, MCP-1, E-selectin, I-CAM, and PAI-1. Increased 20:4n-6 and the ratios of 20:4n-6/20:5n-3 and n-6/n-3 are commonly viewed as pro-inflammatory, but unexpectedly were consistently inversely associated with responses in inflammatory proteins. In summary, a very low carbohydrate diet resulted in profound alterations in fatty acid composition and reduced inflammation compared to a low fat diet.

[Shepard]

Seems to me that the proponents of low fat diets have a tough go to counter Taubes. If you haven't looked at his book then you don't really have a handle on what he's saying...

He told me fat wouldn't make me fat. I supplemented my meat diet with four sticks of butter a day. I got fat. Taubes thinks that is the source of Calories that matter, not the number. The human body is quite capable of storing fat in the absence of insulin, which I haven't seen him acknowledge.

You see a pendulum effect throughout the diet/fitness industry. Ornish is at one extreme. Taubes is at the other. I'd say Taubes is closer to the truth, just because I do think it's much easier for your average person to maintain a normal weight on a low-carb diet than a low-fat one.

And, there is no one correct diet for everyone. A person might have grains in their diet and still take in fewer carbs than someone eating fruit. Which is preferred?