High Fat Diet WINS!

September 08, 2014

The High Fat Diet Wins!


ReferenceAnnals of Internal MedicineNew York Times 


 The first-ever, randomized diet study that does not restrict calories (which no one can do) and simply compares a low fat diet to a high fat diet is now published and in the books.   The low fat folks were told to cut fat to below 30 % of calories and eat more fruit and vegetables and whole grains.   The participants were racially diverse and ended up with 60 in the low fat group and 59 in the low carbohydrate group.  Those are good numbers to create statistical significance.   


At the end of the study, the low carb folks had lost 8 pounds more than the low fat group.   More importantly, the low carb group lost body fat and increased lean muscle mass.  The low fat group did the opposite, losing muscle and gaining fat.  The high-fat group was encouraged to eat more meat, mostly chicken and fish, but butter and red meat was allowed.  An analysis of their food intake showed that they got to about 13% of their calories from saturated fat,  more than double what our “health leadership” advises. (<6%). But, wait, it gets even better!  The low-carb folks saw their blood markers of inflammation and their triglycerides plunge.  Their HDL’s (good cholesterol) rose.   Blood pressure, total cholesterol and LDLs didn’t change significantly between the two groups.   But the low carb group did so well overall that their actually lowered their cardiac risk scores according to the Framingham Criteria


 My interpretation of this data is very simple.   Here is the context I believe it fits in.   Carbohydrates are foods that become available to eat only at the end of the growing season (fall).  The fall precedes winter, the starvation season.  Throughout human history, we have had to adapt to long stretches of lean food times, during which we had to eat meat or die.  Our metabolism had to learn to adjust to diets high in fat and protein.  Carbohydrates, on the other hand were always short term affairs.  When they became available, we would eat whatever we could get our hands on (quickly before someone else ate them, or their rotted, or frost came).   


When you eat lots of carbs, your blood sugar rises, your insulin rises turning on fat production,you're your blood fats rise.   All in tandem.  Our blood fats simply represent the transport of fat from our liver, where they are made, to our fat stores, like our bellies, hips, thighs, underarms….  Our LDLs are essentially semi-trucks, the bodies 18 wheelers, if you will, moving our fats along our body's interstate arteries to their destination.  When you stop eating carbs, you stop producing LDL fats and triglycerides.  You reduce the need to transport those calories to their destination warehouses, fat cells. That interpretation is exactly opposite to what our current health system teaches.  It says you get fat because you eat fat.   


That is now disproved by this study.   We need to recognize that our body makes it’s own fat for its own purposes.  Eating carbs turns on endocrine responses that then drive how our body handles those calories.   Same effect with fats.  When you eat fat, you feel full.  And effortlessly and smoothly, your body gets the message, “It’s fat eating season, must be winter.  Time for our fat cells to open up and share so that we can make it through the winter”. 


 WWW. What will work for me?  I just had three eggs and a sausage made in butter for breakfast.  I won’t be hungry till lunchtime.  It was yummy.  And my Framingham score just got better by doing that.  Lunch…..hmm, a burger with no bun? And no fries! 


 Pop Quiz

  1. Eating a high fat diet will make you fat.  T or F                       Answer:   This is a trick question.  If you eat high fat and high carb, you will get fat because of your response to the carbs and subsequent turning on of insulin, which will make you store both the fat and the carbs.  But if you lower your carbs, and eat fat, you feel full.
  1. If you want to lose weight, you will lose more with a low fat diet.  T or F                   Answer:  False. Go back and read this study. Backward.  You lose weight much better with low carb
  1. Eating a high fat diet can lower your Framingham risk scores.  T or F                       Answer:  True
  1. Your HDLs (good fats) will improve better if you eat less red meat.  T or F                  Answer:   False, false, false.  It’s backward again
  1. You have to count calories to lose weight.  T or F                Answer:False.  You eat till full with a low carb diet, and you will lose fat weight.

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