Low-fat diet could kill you, major study shows(telegraph.co.uk) |
Low-fat diet could kill you, major study shows(telegraph.co.uk) |
What a sensationalist and wrong headline. All it says is that "Total fat and saturated and unsaturated fats were not significantly associated with risk of myocardial infarction or cardiovascular disease mortality." So whether you have low or high fat in your diet, you could fill a good portion of that total caloric intake with protein instead of carbohydrates and that would still satisfy the claims that you can mitigate against "Higher carbohydrate intake was associated with an increased risk of total mortality".
They also don't define what "low" means in "low-fat" to define at what threshold would "kill you" (eyes roll). Doctors generally recommend 20-35% already[1] so I'm not sure how any of this is groundbreaking.
[1] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/reducing-fat-...
From the study:
> "Intake of total fat and each type of fat was associated with lower risk of total mortality (quintile 5 vs quintile 1, total fat: HR 0·77 [95% CI 0·67–0·87], ptrend<0·0001; saturated fat, HR 0·86 [0·76–0·99], ptrend=0·0088; monounsaturated fat: HR 0·81 [0·71–0·92], ptrend<0·0001; and polyunsaturated fat: HR 0·80 [0·71–0·89], ptrend<0·0001)"
This is the sentence immediately before the one you quoted, and I believe it is deceptive to quote the non-result on CVD in particular, rather than the positive result on all-cause mortality.
This doesn't contadict any of your points here, but: my understanding is that excess dietary protein is broken down into glucose via gluconeogenesis, in which case I suspect that the high-protein and high-carbohydrate diets wouldn't have significantly different results.
I did not know that. So it was useful at least for me. However, thanks for reading.
One my favorite blog posts summarizing some research on this point, on Butter vs Margarine, is 8 years old now, and it still hasn't penetrated the mainstream.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/10/butter-vs-marg...
Re: [comment] touting margarine as a healthier choice.
One thing I've learned is that looking at intermediary effects of food - for instance, lowering LDL cholesterol - is not a good indicator that something is good for you or prevents heart disease.
If you look only at intermediary effects, you might miss some other effects of the food/substance that are harmful. (Cancer lowers cholesterol, but no one advocates getting it.)
I feel like that touches upon one of the problems in diet studies pretty well.
The non-fat ones are the "healthy" single-serving cups advertised in commercials with skinny women eating them in really nice kitchens just before they go running, or whatever. Probiotics, yoghurt's supposed to be healthy I think, blah blah. They're fat-free sugary dessert cups. Candy.
My wife has a very hard time fining yogurt with normal fat content. We've settled on a product made with whole milk by Stonyfield that is available in most grocery stores in Colorado.
Are there things which you can do to reduce your risk of dying earlier than the average person born at the same time as you? Sure.
Are there things which you can do to definitely prolong your life? No.
Death is a statistics game and 1 out of every 1 people will die at some point in their life.
I don't begrudge anyone their interest in dietary/health news, but articles like this get tossed about as justifications for making huge swings in your diet or telling others to do the same. Whenever I see things like this, it strikes me the same as an article like "The next iphone will use transparent, flexible, waterproof plastic".
Like engineering, your diet involves making tradeoffs about the food you input into your body, optimizing for a desired result (in terms of longevity of life, physical capability while alive, enjoyment of food you are eating, scarcity of resources, environmental impact, cruelty to animals - perceived or otherwise, etc.). Also like engineering, there are hard constraints which hem in the possible solution space. Pick your desired result, and make the tradeoffs you want, just don't forget the hard constraint that death is coming, my friends.
Anecdotally, this might be more on-my-mind than usual because my 66-year-old uncle, who eats fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, and jogs every day, collapsed this weekend from a heart attack and is now in the hospital in a coma. I would have said the above regardless, but it's a rather poignant reminder for me at the moment.
After the title there isn't really any info about dietary fats but instead will read about how basically all this study may have found is that those doing "low fat diets" might end up eating really crappy carbs. I can't find the link to the study though so maybe they found something else..
I don't think people eating crappy carbs and drinking soda could really be considered "dieters" they seem more like "unhealthy eaters who happen to be eating low fat".
From the article: "Those doing so tended to eat far too much stodgy food like bread, pasta and rice, the experts said, while missing out on vital nutrients.
Participants eating the highest levels of carbohydrates – particularly refined sugars found in fizzy drinks and processed meals – faced a 28 per cent higher risk of early death."
Also their suggestion goes on to say a good balance is 35% of calories from fat which I would say is still fairly 'low-fat' of a diet IMO but I guess that's pretty subjective and I'm not a dietician.
It rubs me the wrong way. It feels a lot like: "We know better and can tell you what to think. We don't need to show our work."
That said, it has been getting better, especially for the tech savy younger generation with Twitter links (:P), but their editors are probably trying to keep the number of hyperlinks relatively low.
Based on dozens of nutritionists I've talked to, focusing on macronutrients as the primary metric is not great. Personally, I look at these things before macros: is it plant-based, is it whole (not refined/processed).
Yeah it is. Well, it would be, if people ever talked about amino acids in headlines.
People die of malnutrition, but good luck finding a population where people dying because they missed out on a specific amino acid is even remotely commonplace. Seriously, to whom does that happen?
True, but counting macros isn't a practical framework for eating well. Empirically, the US obesity epidemic is not about people missing macronutrient goals; it comes from eating low-quality processed pseudo-foods.
Problem is of course, privacy.. if Ltd create a PDA which monitors you, then it is Ltd who are doing that for their own purposes. If the PDA is owned by the people who use it, that is better.. but thats unlikely to happen I fear.
Oats and nuts, maybe some fruit for breakfast. Lentils, potatoes, or rice; frozen veggies and some protein for lunch. Sandwiches or eggs with some veggies for dinner. It might not be perfect, but it's certainly not terribly unhealthy.
Exercise, diet, just so much easier when you're single. Stupid-easy. And before kids, especially the exercise part.
https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-reg...
"Loosening the restriction on total fat and saturated fat and imposing limits on carbohydrates when high to reduce intake to moderate levels would be optimal."
Emphasis mine. What...?
Dietary fat has been shown to be healthy over and over again. There's nothing controversial about saying dietary fat is good for you; it is established science at this point.
I believe what the quote was trying to say about saturated fat is that they feel it is less dangerous than carbohydrates and sugars, and while the UK food industry has been busy trying to reduce the amount of saturated fat, they've sometimes been replacing them with sugar/carbohydrate ingredients which could be even worse for your health.
It is frankly disappointing that even thirty years later, many people still believe that dietary fat is unhealthy.
early death
...risk
...heart attack
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canadian-researchers-fat-carbo...
You can get glucose through glucogenesis of fats AND proteins not just carbs.
I've seen it recommended but with all the damage carbs can do I'm thinking high fat is still the way to go?
There are fads of forsaking entire categories of macronutrient because this is the simplest thing to explain after counting calories.
There may be some selection bias.
It seems like every other day some counter study is released.
I gave up and just decided to eat whatever the fuck I want.
At our household we just got rid of bread and starch/carb sides and serve more vegetables to make up for it.
Basically, what I learned is that Western diet is designed to kill you. There's just no way all that carb and sugar is healthy.
Now that I'm on a low-carb high-fat diet, I find myself eating until I'm full, and at that point I simply have too much fat and protein in my stomach for my body to even want any more food, so I stop. Then I wake up the next morning to find yet another half-pound of body fat has mysteriously vanished and my clothes fit better.
Saturated fat is my friend.
Though really, the sentence works regardless /s.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Food-Pyramid-Politics-Interests...
With this kind of "science" in our history it isn't surprising that many don't believe today's climate scientists.
The usual pattern of research is for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to be performed to confirm or deny trends identified in observational studies. In the case of SFAs however, there have already been a number of RCTs performed; and even a number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses pooling their outcomes (e.g. 6-11). This raises the immediate question, why are observational studies still being produced on the subject? It is notable that the evidence from these RCT’s and meta-analyses does not support the conclusions of the Harvard Group’s observational data. For example, a recent Cochrane review (the gold-standard of evidence) found that there was no statistical difference in all-cause or cardiovascular disease mortality in participants with higher SFA intake (12).
Also, http://m.med-health.net/protein-deficiency-diseases.html
French vegan baby dead (2008) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/29/vegans-trial-d...
Belgian vegan baby dead (2014) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40274493
Italian vegan baby almost dies (2016) https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/4xkk3n/couple-lose-cu...
Another Italian vegan baby almost dies (2016) https://www.thelocal.it/20160629/two-year-old-in-serious-con...
Futhermore, malnutrition - divided into a)protein deficiency, which is the biggest component, and b)micronutrient deficiency - is globally the most important risk factor for illness and death. Over 19% of young children in India have a protein deficiency[1] and over 41% of young children in rural Nigeria[2]. It's obviously worse in undeveloped nations but check the dead babies above if you think it can't happen in the developed world too.
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4005205/ [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10768411
(promulgating the myth that "complete proteins" are an important idea is still bothersome, but now I'm not sure that's what you were doing)
Kwashiorkor is the condition of not enough protein while actually getting "enough" total calories. What's more, low overall protein intake actually increase your need for essential aminos, due to the body synthesizing non-essentials from its supply of essentials.
There are also serious health effects (eventually leading to death) associated with deficiencies in specific essential aminos. Lysine deficiency is one. You only need 28mg a day but if you are eating mostly wheat it can happen.[1] If you are lysine deficient it comes with its own disorders and it also leads to micronutrient deficiency.