Dr. Eades has an excellent analysis of two diet studies on his blog today. A lot of it repeats what I’ve said about low-carb, weight loss, and cholesterol; but he has put it in handy, easy-to-read charts.
Jason wrote a very good article on being fat and losing weight, so that brings up something I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while.
I’m continuing to low-carb, but I haven’t been very strict about it lately. I haven’t had any more carb pig-outs like I wrote about the other day, but it’s remarkably easy for too many carbs to slip into your diet when you aren’t careful. Some low-carb cheesecake here, some breaded fried chicken there, some sweet potatoes over here on the side, and suddenly I’m often close to double my daily limit of 30 grams of carbohydrate a day—even though I’m sticking to foods that can be okay on a low-carb diet if the portions are small enough and you count everything. Not surprisingly, my weight loss has stalled. Read more »
I know I’ve posted a lot about low-carbing and diet lately, and I don’t want my blog to be all about that, but I ran across another very good article today. This one is all about the cholesterol myth: where it came from, why it has such a stranglehold on us, and why it’s wrong. Money quote:
The MR-FIT trial in the USA was the most determined effort to prove the case. This was a massive study in which over 350,000 men at high risk of heart disease were recruited. In one set of participants, cholesterol consumption was cut by 42 percent, saturated fat consumption by 28 percent and total calories by 21 percent. This should have made a noticeable dent in heart disease rates.
But nothing happened. The originators of the MR-FIT trials refer to the results as ‘disappointing’, and say in their conclusions: ‘The overall results do not show a beneficial effect on Coronary Heart Disease or total mortality from this multifactor intervention.’ [my emphasis]
That’s an enormous study, and there are plenty of others like it, but they go against conventional wisdom and billions of dollars invested in food and health marketing, so they’re ignored. Here’s the link!
The studies in support of cutting carbs seem to be coming faster these days. Here’s a good one, if you’re worried about cholesterol — especially if your doctor is telling you the only way to lower it is with low-fat foods, loads of exercise, and the latest drugs. The payoff paragraph:
“Differences in HDL and triacylglycerols observed in different ethnic groups may be due in part to carbohydrate intake,” the researchers write. “Reducing the frequency of intake of sugar-containing soft drinks, juices and snacks may be beneficial.”
Gee, sweets are bad for you. How did we forget that?
Read the whole thing here; it’s fairly short. (By the way, for reference on cholesterol: HDL is the good kind, LDL is the bad kind, and triglycerides are the extra-bad kind. Also, the ratio of HDL to LDL is more important than the total, so if your total cholesterol goes up because your HDL increased more than your LDL decreased, that’s a good thing.)
