Check out my latest observations on junk science and low-carb at my examiner column. Leave a comment (here or there..) and tell me what you think!

I’ve seen so many stupid headlines this morning that I’m not even sure where to start. So I guess I’ll just pick one and go with it.

How about this article on a website called ThirdAge. Initially I was just going ignore this piece of propaganda. It’s just the same old thing we always hear. Atkins is bad for your heart, blah, blah, blah. But the last couple of paragraphs had me duct taping my head to prevent it from exploding, so I had to share at least that part.

Supposedly there was a recent study done by the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore that concluded that the Atkins diet puts you at higher risk for heart disease after only one month. I say supposedly because they never actually provide the name of the study… or even a link to it.

Here’s the part that caught my attention:

The Maryland researchers didn’t let study participants actually lose weight for the study on diet’s impact on heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, because they said benefits of weight loss might initially mask other risk factors.

For the study, 18 healthy adults followed each of the low-carb diets for a month with a month on their normal diets in between. The Atkins diet, where 50 percent of calories come from fat, increased levels of bad LDL cholesterol. It had a negative impact on blood vessel dilation, which can cause increased blood pressure. It also produced an increase in markers for inflammation, which is a gauge of a potential heart attack.

The parts I put in bold might as well had flashing neon signs around them when I first read them. So I’m assuming since they didn’t want the participants of this study to lose weight, they kept their carbs high enough to keep them out of ketosis. They never tell us what the percentage of carbs/fat/protein are. If they didn’t apply Atkins the way it was meant to be utilized, that would affect the outcome of the study tremendously. Who’s to say that the participants weren’t given a diet of 100 carbs or more (which is still low by American standards)? How do we know the carbs used in the menu planning weren’t junk carbs? Sorry, I need more evidence to convince me they even tried to be objective here.

The second red flag was the fact that they were having people alternate their old diets with the Atkins diet every other month. How in the world do they expect to see results this way? Who’s hair-brained idea was that? Blood lipids don’t change over night. It takes time. Essentially they were using Atkins and improving lipid profiles, only to turn around the next month and undo all that was staring to change for the better. Then back to Atkins, then back to SAD (Standard American Diet). Do you see the idiocy of this? It makes absolutely no sense.

Then they insist that it raises bad LDL, blood pressure, and inflammation. This runs contradictory to every person I know who has had their lipid profile checked after the first few months on Atkins. I don’t know a single, solitary person who has had these results when properly following the Atkins diet, and I know a LOT of people doing Atkins.

Added: I just did a search on “diets impact on heart disease study” and found the study on the University of Maryland Medical Center website. They give a bit more detail than the above article:

It turns out they had the participants, which were 9 women and 9 men, try one of three diets for a month, then go on their regular diet for a month, then try one of the two remaining diets, then again on their regular diet, then try the last diet. If their weight fluctuated more than two pounds in their weekly weigh-ins, they then adjusted the diet to stop the weight loss. (Again they had to have made modifications to the Atkins diet… Most people lose more than two lbs the first week!)

From the UMMC website:

The researchers used blood tests to determine levels of blood fats, including cholesterol, and markers for inflammation. They used ultrasound equipment to measure whether blood vessels dilated after a month on each diet, which is a healthy response, or whether the vessels constricted, an unhealthy response.

Ok. Pop quiz! Who can tell me what’s wrong with this picture? They are still testing cholesterol. Cholesterol has no effect on heart health. Studies have never proven they do, yet they keep beating this dead horse.

Then there is always my favorite remark such as this:

Dr. Miller adds that many people on the Atkins Diet cannot stick to it, so the weight starts coming back. Because of that diet’s tendency for inflammation, he says weight gain on Atkins could be a double whammy.

Again, I know a lot of people who are sticking to the Atkins diet. Many of them have been doing it for years and not one of them have keeled over with a heart attack. In fact, they are in the best health of their lives! And does this statement imply that a low-fat diet is easier to stick to? I personally know more people, that have quit low-fat dieting, than I can count.

There are a few others articles of junk science I could share, but we’ll save those for later. Comments anyone?

I’m currently in chapter 4 of Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. This has so far been an amazing book. Some of my suspicions have been confirmed, as well as some of my worst fears. Then there are other things I didn’t dare dream could have taken place, yet they have. It’s just wild how little evidence and REAL scientific research went into today’s dietary recommendations. It seems to be founded more on politics and a couple of researchers who were determined to make a name for themselves regardless of the long term consequences.

As I was reading this morning, I found a particular point that I felt I should share here. If you aren’t currently reading this book, then you’ll see why it’s causing such a ruckus.

In chapter 4 Mr. Taubes gives us a backstage pass into the consensus that the dietary fat controversy was over. Low-fat was declared the winner and no one dared challenge that thinking for fear of losing their research funding. To quote the book “It was no longer about the validity of the underlying science, which was no less ambiguous than ever, but about whether Americans should be eating low-fat diets or very low-fat diets.”

Here’s the part that many people may never find out without reading this book: Low-fat diets were being recommended for an entire nation and had only been tested twice. That’s right, twice. Once in Hungary and once in Britain, which the subjects only consisted of a few hundred middle-aged men who had already suffered heart attacks. The results of both of these trials were contradictory. Other trials since have been exclusively cholesterol-lowering diets that replaced saturated fats with unsaturated fats.

Even more surprising is the fact that lowering cholesterol to extend your life is not as beneficial as the researchers would like us to think. A UCSF study, led by Warren Browner, was funded by the Surgeon General’s office. ” This study concluded that cutting fat consumption in America would delay forty-two thousand deaths each year, but the average life expectancy would increase by only three or four months. To be precise, a man who might otherwise die at sixty-five could expect to live an extra month if he avoided saturated fats for his entire adult life.” Amazing isn’t it? To eat a low-fat diet and only extend your life for a month?!? Doesn’t sell the point very well, does it. If you want to reduce your saturated fats to 8 percent of all calories it would allow you an increase of four days to two months. Makes you wanna go right out and fill the fridge with fat-free foods! Yeah. Right.

I could also go into how lowering cholesterol provides little benefit, which they knew as well. But we’ll stop here for today.

So there you have it. News about low-fat diets the media will not share with you. As always, and in all things, it pays to be your own investigator and advocate.