Our fear of fat is melting
SueInAz
Posts: 6,592 Member
I didn't see this posted anywhere yet so my apologies if I'm re-posting the article.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/06/opinion/teicholz-fear-of-dietary-fat-melting/index.html
(CNN) -- Eating fat helps heart health and weight loss, concluded a widely reported clinical trial this week. The result did not surprise close followers of nutrition science since it echoed a decade's worth of similar studies. But, unlike its predecessors, the new trial was not ignored by nutrition experts and the media; that was the real news. It's a sign that a half-century-long fear of dietary fat might finally be melting away, exactly the breakthrough needed to start healing the nation's health.
When Americans were placed on a low-fat diet in the 1970s, the scientific evidence behind it was thin. Yet, desperate to combat the nation's epidemics of heart disease and cancer, the scientific establishment rallied behind the low-fat dogma. And the idea that eating fat makes you fat has long had a certain intuitive appeal.
Ever since, challenging the conventional wisdom on dietary fat has been a form of professional suicide for nutrition experts. Critics faced near-certain retribution: They had trouble getting papers published, lost research grants and were frozen out of expert panels.
"For a generation, research on heart disease has been more political than scientific," lamented George Mann, a professor of biochemistry and prominent expert throughout the 1970s. He himself had been warned by a secretary at the National Institutes of Health that if he kept up his sustained criticism of the low-fat diet, he would lose his research grant, which he did.
Skeptics pointed out that the low-fat diet had never been properly tested before being recommended to the public. A remarkable 30 years passed before trials were conducted, and then the results were entirely disappointing.
Indeed, in the largest-ever dietary trial in history, called the Women's Health Initiative on nearly 50,000 women, researchers found in 2006 that subjects who followed a low-fat diet for an average of seven years ended up only one pound lighter than those on a regular diet, and with hardly any advantage in preventing cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Robert Knopp, the now-deceased lipid specialist at the University of Washington who conducted some of the first low-fat trials, remarked to me that "there was a deafening lack of commentary" about these devastating findings.
Last year, an expert panel convened by the Swedish government reviewed the entire low-fat diet literature and determined that the universally recommended low-fat diet was ineffective as a tool for weight loss. If they had not been blinded by establishment bias, Americans would have come to the same conclusion based on our reality at home.
Over the past 30 years, we have dutifully reduced fat as a portion of total calorie intake by about 5% while increasing carbohydrates by about 25%—and yet we have only grown fatter and sicker.
Our own authorities have proven reluctant to investigate alternative ideas. The low-carb approach popularized by Robert C. Atkins in the early 1970s has been all but villainized for decades. The two main funders of nutrition science, the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have long deemed an Atkins diet an unhealthy fad.
Despite these obstacles, a growing number of scientists over the past decade have conducted dozens of rigorous clinical trials on altogether thousands of people that tell an increasingly clear and consistent story: A low-carb diet has consistently been shown to be more effective in combating heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
Some of the results have been dazzling. In one trial, diabetes patients on a low-carb diet improved so dramatically that they were able to drop their diabetes medication. In another trial, subjects' blood pressure fell far more than those on a low-fat diet who were also taking blood-pressure medication.
Unfortunately, this story has long been ignored by the nutrition establishment. For instance, in 2008, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that was twice as large and lasted twice as long as the one that appeared this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It produced similar results, with low-carb dieters performing far better than low-fat subjects. Yet this finding generated few headlines.
Moreover, there was no attempt to reckon with these successful low-carb trials in the expert report that informed the most recent Dietary Guidelines of the USDA, the body responsible for the nation's dietary health. The government maintains its longtime position that "healthy diets are high in carbohydrates."
Now, for the first time, the media and mainstream nutrition researchers are talking openly—and seriously—about the potential health benefits of a low-carb diet. If our error over the past half-century has been to shift too many of our calories from fat to carbohydrates, nutrition science, like any science, can correct itself—but only in this tentative new climate of open, unbiased debate.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/06/opinion/teicholz-fear-of-dietary-fat-melting/index.html
(CNN) -- Eating fat helps heart health and weight loss, concluded a widely reported clinical trial this week. The result did not surprise close followers of nutrition science since it echoed a decade's worth of similar studies. But, unlike its predecessors, the new trial was not ignored by nutrition experts and the media; that was the real news. It's a sign that a half-century-long fear of dietary fat might finally be melting away, exactly the breakthrough needed to start healing the nation's health.
When Americans were placed on a low-fat diet in the 1970s, the scientific evidence behind it was thin. Yet, desperate to combat the nation's epidemics of heart disease and cancer, the scientific establishment rallied behind the low-fat dogma. And the idea that eating fat makes you fat has long had a certain intuitive appeal.
Ever since, challenging the conventional wisdom on dietary fat has been a form of professional suicide for nutrition experts. Critics faced near-certain retribution: They had trouble getting papers published, lost research grants and were frozen out of expert panels.
"For a generation, research on heart disease has been more political than scientific," lamented George Mann, a professor of biochemistry and prominent expert throughout the 1970s. He himself had been warned by a secretary at the National Institutes of Health that if he kept up his sustained criticism of the low-fat diet, he would lose his research grant, which he did.
Skeptics pointed out that the low-fat diet had never been properly tested before being recommended to the public. A remarkable 30 years passed before trials were conducted, and then the results were entirely disappointing.
Indeed, in the largest-ever dietary trial in history, called the Women's Health Initiative on nearly 50,000 women, researchers found in 2006 that subjects who followed a low-fat diet for an average of seven years ended up only one pound lighter than those on a regular diet, and with hardly any advantage in preventing cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Robert Knopp, the now-deceased lipid specialist at the University of Washington who conducted some of the first low-fat trials, remarked to me that "there was a deafening lack of commentary" about these devastating findings.
Last year, an expert panel convened by the Swedish government reviewed the entire low-fat diet literature and determined that the universally recommended low-fat diet was ineffective as a tool for weight loss. If they had not been blinded by establishment bias, Americans would have come to the same conclusion based on our reality at home.
Over the past 30 years, we have dutifully reduced fat as a portion of total calorie intake by about 5% while increasing carbohydrates by about 25%—and yet we have only grown fatter and sicker.
Our own authorities have proven reluctant to investigate alternative ideas. The low-carb approach popularized by Robert C. Atkins in the early 1970s has been all but villainized for decades. The two main funders of nutrition science, the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have long deemed an Atkins diet an unhealthy fad.
Despite these obstacles, a growing number of scientists over the past decade have conducted dozens of rigorous clinical trials on altogether thousands of people that tell an increasingly clear and consistent story: A low-carb diet has consistently been shown to be more effective in combating heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
Some of the results have been dazzling. In one trial, diabetes patients on a low-carb diet improved so dramatically that they were able to drop their diabetes medication. In another trial, subjects' blood pressure fell far more than those on a low-fat diet who were also taking blood-pressure medication.
Unfortunately, this story has long been ignored by the nutrition establishment. For instance, in 2008, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that was twice as large and lasted twice as long as the one that appeared this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It produced similar results, with low-carb dieters performing far better than low-fat subjects. Yet this finding generated few headlines.
Moreover, there was no attempt to reckon with these successful low-carb trials in the expert report that informed the most recent Dietary Guidelines of the USDA, the body responsible for the nation's dietary health. The government maintains its longtime position that "healthy diets are high in carbohydrates."
Now, for the first time, the media and mainstream nutrition researchers are talking openly—and seriously—about the potential health benefits of a low-carb diet. If our error over the past half-century has been to shift too many of our calories from fat to carbohydrates, nutrition science, like any science, can correct itself—but only in this tentative new climate of open, unbiased debate.
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Replies
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Thanks for posting this. I was just speaking to a nutritionist/RN this weekend and she was mentioning how nutrition is one of the youngest sciences. We do have to be more open to accepting change as more and more research helps us understand it. There's a lot we still don't know.0
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anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.0
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I'm one of those people, thanks. It's just amazing how many people will still try to tell you that high carb, low fat is the way to lose weight, that dietary fat is evil and should be limited, that the only thing you're losing on a low carb diet is water and that you'll instantly re-gain all of the weight you lost if you eat carbs again.anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.0 -
anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.
LOL WUT???
Low carb =/= "whole food"???
what is "whole food"
My pizza only comes in one serving size- and that's "whole pizza" so I mean- that counts as a "whole food" also has meat- veggies and wheat... so it's pretty complete.0 -
BAHAHAHAHA YES!anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.
LOL WUT???
Low carb =/= "whole food"???
what is "whole food"
My pizza only comes in one serving size- and that's "whole pizza" so I mean- that counts as a "whole food" also has meat- veggies and wheat... so it's pretty complete.
Seriously, I just eat whatever I want, fit it into my macros. This equals copious amounts of PB and wine and I am a super happy camper. :drinker:0 -
Have been enjoying my Low Carb High Fat diet. Lost 55 pounds in just over 4 months. No longer need my diabetes injections or oral medications (Yeah!!). Lab work is most awesome it has ever been (HDL up, LDL down, Triglycerides perfect). Blood pressure has dropped to low normal range.......AND I WAS PUT ON THIS DIET BY AN ENDOCRINOLIGUST!!
Followed low fat most of my life and did nothing but get diabetes and turn fat...because I was so hungry all the time, it led to binge eating.
People.....doctors......wake up!!
Thanks for the article0 -
Thanks for posting this, it is very well written and informative.
I am learning as I go, adjusting my diet/nutrition based on what feels good and keeps me going well.
I want to do lower carb, but I really struggle with it. I don't eat a lot of processed foods, but between my dairy and my favorite veg, I seem to eat a lot of carbs. But I am conscious of it and will continue to work on it.0 -
i've noticed a growing trend lately...
I'm one of those people, thanks. It's just amazing how many people will still try to tell you that high carb, low fat is the way to lose weight, that dietary fat is evil and should be limited, that the only thing you're losing on a low carb diet is water and that you'll instantly re-gain all of the weight you lost if you eat carbs again.anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.
since we as a society have vilified fat and made serious attempts to eliminate it from our diet (and our kids' diets), americans seem to have lost intelligence along the way. we have worsened our academic standing, we're coming up with stupider laws and processes (zero tolerance policies in schools in the 1990's, the tea party zealots today, our obsession with reality TV), and common sense has become one of the biggest oxymorons in our language today.
yet fat is crucial for brain development, especially for kids, but probably also for adults too. i'm convinced that there's a correlation there, but i don't know if anyone is doing that kind of research to see if there's a biomedical link as well.0 -
Excellent article. Personally, I am a firm believer in both common sense and everything in moderation. Carbs and dairy are the 2 things I cut down on in my diet and I've dropped the pounds pretty quickly. We eat all kinds of different stuff, whatever we want. I cook at home though and use those "whole foods". i.e., Foods that haven't been dissected and had their components taken out of them, in other words processed. Sometimes we do, but mostly fresh ingredients. Some of each food group everyday, even fat and carbs. :-)0
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Almost all the studies I've seen comparing low carb with low fat were for the most part not low carb or low fat but somewhere in between. I'm kinda tired of the media trying the compare the two to support some kind of theory when in fact the micronutrient that is always increased in the low carb arguement is protein.....can we have a big hug for the satiating and health effects of protein when comparing it to a high carb diet.....thanks everyone.I didn't see this posted anywhere yet so my apologies if I'm re-posting the article.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/06/opinion/teicholz-fear-of-dietary-fat-melting/index.html
(CNN) -- Eating fat helps heart health and weight loss, concluded a widely reported clinical trial this week. The result did not surprise close followers of nutrition science since it echoed a decade's worth of similar studies. But, unlike its predecessors, the new trial was not ignored by nutrition experts and the media; that was the real news. It's a sign that a half-century-long fear of dietary fat might finally be melting away, exactly the breakthrough needed to start healing the nation's health.
When Americans were placed on a low-fat diet in the 1970s, the scientific evidence behind it was thin. Yet, desperate to combat the nation's epidemics of heart disease and cancer, the scientific establishment rallied behind the low-fat dogma. And the idea that eating fat makes you fat has long had a certain intuitive appeal.
Ever since, challenging the conventional wisdom on dietary fat has been a form of professional suicide for nutrition experts. Critics faced near-certain retribution: They had trouble getting papers published, lost research grants and were frozen out of expert panels.
"For a generation, research on heart disease has been more political than scientific," lamented George Mann, a professor of biochemistry and prominent expert throughout the 1970s. He himself had been warned by a secretary at the National Institutes of Health that if he kept up his sustained criticism of the low-fat diet, he would lose his research grant, which he did.
Skeptics pointed out that the low-fat diet had never been properly tested before being recommended to the public. A remarkable 30 years passed before trials were conducted, and then the results were entirely disappointing.
Indeed, in the largest-ever dietary trial in history, called the Women's Health Initiative on nearly 50,000 women, researchers found in 2006 that subjects who followed a low-fat diet for an average of seven years ended up only one pound lighter than those on a regular diet, and with hardly any advantage in preventing cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Robert Knopp, the now-deceased lipid specialist at the University of Washington who conducted some of the first low-fat trials, remarked to me that "there was a deafening lack of commentary" about these devastating findings.
Last year, an expert panel convened by the Swedish government reviewed the entire low-fat diet literature and determined that the universally recommended low-fat diet was ineffective as a tool for weight loss. If they had not been blinded by establishment bias, Americans would have come to the same conclusion based on our reality at home.
Over the past 30 years, we have dutifully reduced fat as a portion of total calorie intake by about 5% while increasing carbohydrates by about 25%—and yet we have only grown fatter and sicker.
Our own authorities have proven reluctant to investigate alternative ideas. The low-carb approach popularized by Robert C. Atkins in the early 1970s has been all but villainized for decades. The two main funders of nutrition science, the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have long deemed an Atkins diet an unhealthy fad.
Despite these obstacles, a growing number of scientists over the past decade have conducted dozens of rigorous clinical trials on altogether thousands of people that tell an increasingly clear and consistent story: A low-carb diet has consistently been shown to be more effective in combating heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
Some of the results have been dazzling. In one trial, diabetes patients on a low-carb diet improved so dramatically that they were able to drop their diabetes medication. In another trial, subjects' blood pressure fell far more than those on a low-fat diet who were also taking blood-pressure medication.
Unfortunately, this story has long been ignored by the nutrition establishment. For instance, in 2008, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that was twice as large and lasted twice as long as the one that appeared this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It produced similar results, with low-carb dieters performing far better than low-fat subjects. Yet this finding generated few headlines.
Moreover, there was no attempt to reckon with these successful low-carb trials in the expert report that informed the most recent Dietary Guidelines of the USDA, the body responsible for the nation's dietary health. The government maintains its longtime position that "healthy diets are high in carbohydrates."
Now, for the first time, the media and mainstream nutrition researchers are talking openly—and seriously—about the potential health benefits of a low-carb diet. If our error over the past half-century has been to shift too many of our calories from fat to carbohydrates, nutrition science, like any science, can correct itself—but only in this tentative new climate of open, unbiased debate.
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anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.
LOL WUT???
Low carb =/= "whole food"???
what is "whole food"
My pizza only comes in one serving size- and that's "whole pizza" so I mean- that counts as a "whole food" also has meat- veggies and wheat... so it's pretty complete.
If that is how you choose to define it that's cool with me. Enjoy your pizza0 -
anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.
LOL WUT???
Low carb =/= "whole food"???
what is "whole food"
My pizza only comes in one serving size- and that's "whole pizza" so I mean- that counts as a "whole food" also has meat- veggies and wheat... so it's pretty complete.
If that is how you choose to define it that's cool with me. Enjoy your pizza
sigh- I will- I do love me some pizza!!!!
But in a more serious note- you cannot just make blanket inaccurate statements like that and present it as fact.
First whole foods is a completely arbitrary and meaningless way to define foods. (so- not a fact)
Secondly- low carb does NOT mean "clean" "whole" or anything else. (again- nothing factual about low carb = anything)0 -
Nitpick much, JoRocka? Eating "whole foods" or whatever people want to call it is a lifestyle many people choose to lead that works well for them. Ease up, brah. It's also pretty obvious what that poster meant in his comments. You're just looking to jump on people, methinks.
In regards to the OP, I am glad that more and more positive attention is given to fat these days. It's my favorite macro!0 -
anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.
LOL WUT???
Low carb =/= "whole food"???
what is "whole food"
My pizza only comes in one serving size- and that's "whole pizza" so I mean- that counts as a "whole food" also has meat- veggies and wheat... so it's pretty complete.
If that is how you choose to define it that's cool with me. Enjoy your pizza
sigh- I will- I do love me some pizza!!!!
But in a more serious note- you cannot just make blanket inaccurate statements like that and present it as fact.
First whole foods is a completely arbitrary and meaningless way to define foods. (so- not a fact)
Secondly- low carb does NOT mean "clean" "whole" or anything else. (again- nothing factual about low carb = anything)
I can and will share my opinion as I see fit. But good luck on your endeavor as the as the enforcer of accuracy around here.0 -
Thanks for posting, OP. It's nice to see positive low carb articles in major publications for a change (regardless of the quality of the science behind them). Following a LCHF diet with an emphasis on whole foods and home cooking is the best thing I've ever done for my health.0
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The result did not surprise close followers of nutrition science since it echoed a decade's worth of similar studies.
This was going to be my response...glad it was already in the article. Really, it's old news. I by know means eat low carb, but I've never understood the totally irrational fear of dietary fat...the 80s were a long time ago but it seems like some people are just coming around to that fact or something.0 -
Nitpick much, JoRocka? Eating "whole foods" or whatever people want to call it is a lifestyle many people choose to lead that works well for them. Ease up, brah. It's also pretty obvious what that poster meant in his comments. You're just looking to jump on people, methinks.
In regards to the OP, I am glad that more and more positive attention is given to fat these days. It's my favorite macro!
It's not nitpicking...
but I agree- it IS as how people want to define it FOR THEM.
But presenting an opinion as blanket fact "low carb = whole food" is wrong. and it doesn't help anyone.
at no point did I say/or imply you couldn't.... but you're opinion =/= fact.I can and will share my opinion as I see fit. But good luck on your endeavor as the as the enforcer of accuracy around here
and what you said was presented as a fact. Had you presented as such- it would have been a none issue.0 -
The problem is we're replacing a mainstream irrational fear of fat with an irrational fear of carbs.0
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It definitely works for me and I love the fact that my use of butter is backed up by science
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Yep, protein is next on the list to be demonizedThe problem is we're replacing a mainstream irrational fear of fat with an irrational fear of carbs.0 -
Yep, protein is next on the list to be demonizedThe problem is we're replacing a mainstream irrational fear of fat with an irrational fear of carbs.
The MFP Recipe Section in 2025: "Amazing Low Protein Chili!!!"0 -
Lab meat replacement without the amino acids that cause weight gain and kidney disease.
Yep, protein is next on the list to be demonizedThe problem is we're replacing a mainstream irrational fear of fat with an irrational fear of carbs.
The MFP Recipe Section in 2025: "Amazing Low Protein Chili!!!"0 -
Yep, protein is next on the list to be demonizedThe problem is we're replacing a mainstream irrational fear of fat with an irrational fear of carbs.
I'm just waiting for the day they tell us lettuce causes weight gain. One day...
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Thanks for posting this. I was just speaking to a nutritionist/RN this weekend and she was mentioning how nutrition is one of the youngest sciences. We do have to be more open to accepting change as more and more research helps us understand it. There's a lot we still don't know.
Totally agree with this. The body is a complex thing. And when you insert the almighty $$ into the research equation, well, it's no wonder "expert" opinions are all over the place.
On a similar note, I have definitely noticed a growing trend in food commercials emphasizing protein. It probably won't be long before we are hearing that the average person should be consuming 2+ grams of protein per pound of body weight...
ETA-looks like I was a little late to the party on the protein comments...0 -
Nitpick much, JoRocka? Eating "whole foods" or whatever people want to call it is a lifestyle many people choose to lead that works well for them. Ease up, brah. It's also pretty obvious what that poster meant in his comments. You're just looking to jump on people, methinks.
In regards to the OP, I am glad that more and more positive attention is given to fat these days. It's my favorite macro!
It's not nitpicking...
but I agree- it IS as how people want to define it FOR THEM.
But presenting an opinion as blanket fact "low carb = whole food" is wrong. and it doesn't help anyone.
at no point did I say/or imply you couldn't.... but you're opinion =/= fact.I can and will share my opinion as I see fit. But good luck on your endeavor as the as the enforcer of accuracy around here
and what you said was presented as a fact. Had you presented as such- it would have been a none issue.
Perhaps you choose to interpret it as fact ?
I was implying I achieve my low carb way of eating by consuming whole foods and not packaged "low carb" products..0 -
anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.
I don't eat low carb and I could have told you that. Really, is this news? Don't most people know that we need fat? This isn't 1980, is it?
You don't have to eat low carb to get enough fat.0 -
anybody who has researched and lives low carb lifestyle could have told you this. And by low carb I mean whole foods. Cut out the processed, canned and packaged factory stuff.
I don't eat low carb and I could have told you that. Really, is this news? Don't most people know that we need fat? This isn't 1980, is it?
You don't have to eat low carb to get enough fat.
I would have included you in my generalization but I wasn't sure what you knew or studied. But certainly there are many folks who are hip to the info and not stuck in the 80's0 -
Instead of beans and meat it will just be liquified cauliflower mixed with tomato and chili powder
Yep, protein is next on the list to be demonizedThe problem is we're replacing a mainstream irrational fear of fat with an irrational fear of carbs.
The MFP Recipe Section in 2025: "Amazing Low Protein Chili!!!"0 -
Instead of beans and meat it will just be liquified cauliflower mixed with tomato and chili powder
Yep, protein is next on the list to be demonizedThe problem is we're replacing a mainstream irrational fear of fat with an irrational fear of carbs.
The MFP Recipe Section in 2025: "Amazing Low Protein Chili!!!"
Lol, that sounds terrible0 -
Instead of beans and meat it will just be liquified cauliflower mixed with tomato and chili powder
Yep, protein is next on the list to be demonizedThe problem is we're replacing a mainstream irrational fear of fat with an irrational fear of carbs.
The MFP Recipe Section in 2025: "Amazing Low Protein Chili!!!"
you made me sad.
But I'm going home to eat a boat load of steak- so - now I'm happy again.0
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