LCHF - A way of life

LCHF against acne

2010-11-19T18:40:00.003+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on Nov 14 at 20:09, 2010

I often get email on the improvement of acne by LCHF. Here is one:

I started to eat LCHF due to obesity. Today I weigh 95 kg and have during 3 weeks lost 5 kg.

What I had not thought about was that something so drastic would happen to my skin.
I had real acne problems since my teens and have been on strong medications (among others Roaccutane). Have been to many doctors and nothing has helped me!
You could say that I have for many years accepted the position.

But after I started with LCHF has something magical happened to my skin. That nice it has not been in my entire life!

Certainly it is not quite perfect yet, but there is huge difference.
Even my husband commented on it and it doesn´t say a little bit)

Why has not anyone told me about this before, one wonders? Had I but known about this situation in my teens it could have been been quite different?

When I Googled around a bit, I see lots of people who got rid of their acne by LCHF.
So my tip is pretty much to spread this information and I hope that more people who suffer from acne should dare trying LCHF.
Sincerely
Veronica

Metabolic typing

2010-06-14T22:49:00.001+02:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 14 June, 2010 at 11:58

I think that I more often see the term ”Metabolic typing”.

I think that LCHF is right for us because it agrees with our basic physiology. Then everyone may try out exactly which foods to feel the best.

However,”Metabolic typing” I don’t know what the physiology is consistent with. For me it just sounds goofy, but maybe it’s me who don’t understand. Is there any science behind it?

Remedy against muscle cramps

2010-06-06T23:03:00.001+02:00

Remedy against muscle cramps
Written by Annika Dahlqvist in 04 February, 2010 at 14:18

Some have problems with muscle cramps, especially leg craps. It can affect both plate model eaters and LCHFs.

I now received a mail about a tip that one remedy against muscle cramp is Bio-Quinon, Q-10, 100 mg. Manufacturer Pharma Nord. Dosage was not specified, but perhaps it is on the package. Available on the Health store or on the Web.

A new light over the ACCORD study

2010-06-06T22:58:00.003+02:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 18 May, 2010 at 22:18

In February, 2008 the ACCORD study was presented http://www.lakartidningen.se/engine.php?articleId=8941 . They had studied two groups of type-2 diabetics, one with standard treatment, and the other with intensive blood glucose-lowering treatment for all possible pharmacological types. The result was increased mortality in the intensive group.

Then they encountered reading the recommendation that new onset type-2 diabetes should be treated intensively, but for those who have had the disease for many years they should accept a higher HbA1c (long sugar). Patients have been given by their doctors to know that it is dangerous to get low down in HbA1c to then increase the risk for death.

We LCHF representatives have consistently pointed out that by reducing their HbA1c by low carbohydrate diet, it can not be dangerous to come down to normal HbA1c, quite the opposite. But “no one” has listened to us, as usual.

Now it is a re-evaluation of the ACCORD study http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9318 . They have then looked at who died in the intensive treatment group, and saw that it was those with high HbA1c.

It must then be the high medication that caused the poorly adjusted to die in the intensive treatment group. Any or some of the drugs increased the risk of death. For instance the glitazones (Avandia and Actos) have been shown to increase the risk of myocardial infarction.

Again, we LCHFs are by saying that if you reduce the carbohydrate intake that can bring down long-term blood sugar by decreasing medical charts rather than increased.
Sometime in the future they may start listening to us. In particular, the patient’s stories to their doctors on how they have become healthier with LCHF that can provide a pressure from below that can provide insight even with the higher professors.

Don’t blame the burgers

2010-05-11T22:14:00.000+02:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 11 May, 2010 at 10:46
Article in The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/donrsquot-blame-it-on-the-burgers-1970487.html .

When”everybody” believes that they have found the killer the lone detective realizes that the real perpetrator is still out there – ready to strike again.
When you eat a ”healthy balanced diet”, according to nutritionist’s model, you take in corresponding 60 teaspoons of sugar every day, which is not good.
It seems that the detectives alone may continue to face a tough enemy in the dark alleys of the “nutritionism”.

Moderate low carbohydrate diet.

2010-05-08T20:03:00.001+02:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 07 May, 2009 at 07:02

The SBU report on the scientific basis of diabetic dietary advice and in dietician’s press release the term moderate low carbohydrate diet is mentioned. By that they mean about 40 E% carbohydrates.

I read somewhere that before it came to low lipid dietary recommendations people spontaneously ate an average of about 40 E% carbohydrates, 40 E% lipids and 20 E% protein. Viewed from that is 50-60 E% high carbohydrate diet and d 40 R% normal carbohydrate. Low carbohydrate is at least below 30 E% and strict low carbohydrate below 10 E%.

Randomized studies

2010-05-06T21:53:00.000+02:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 06 May, 2010 at 18:18

SBU and the National Board of course require large, long, expensive randomized trials before they are willing to chance the priority of dietary advice.

Now that more and more diabetics try and discover what health improvement they have with LCHF of the old fat-frightened carbohydrate-rich diet – how will they be able to get large studies with raffled groups who eat low lipid and low carbohydrate? And who are willing to get involved with this hazardous low lipid diet for many years?

Hopefully, they will only get put down and recognise that there are no remaining diabetics who agree to eat low lipid diet.

Mice were healthier by fatty breakfast

2010-05-03T17:42:00.001+02:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 28 April, 2010 at 15:12

Article in UAB Media Relations http://main.uab.edu/Sites/MediaRelations/articles/75217/
Fatty food after wakening started fat burning, while high carbohydrate food for breakfast started burning sugar.
Fatty breakfast decreased all aspects of the metabolic syndrome among the investigated mice. I did not understand it as whether it was better to eat high lipid foods during the rest of the day as well? They only write that that people eat ”mixed diet”.
De skriver bara att människor äter "blandad kost".
Dagens Medisin, Norway, also writes about this http://www.dagensmedisin.no/nyheter/2010/04/27/sunnere-med-kraftigere-fro/index.xml .

For our born and unborn children

2010-05-01T23:11:00.001+02:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 21 April, 2010 at 08:57

Letters to the officers of the Swedish National Food Administration

”In defence of our unborn children ” is the title of Stefan Jarl´s latest documentary, which you could read in –Dagens Nyheter yesterday 20 April and Svenska Dagbladet today. It is about all the thousands of chemicals that accumulate in our bodies during our lifetime. Toxic substances whose effects on health, fertility and life length you don’t know anything about. The concentration of chemicals increases every generation. I hope that this film will make us react. Both politicians and our health authorities have turned blind for a long time. One cannot help suspecting that there is something more than public health which is safeguarded. As individual it is very difficult to resist chemicals in the air, clothing, furnishing and toys.

In this context it is paradoxical to find out that you fill in the chemicals in children by serving them margarine at school.
A more chemicalized and hard processed product and marketed as food is hard to imagine. Speaking to the diet responsible for schools they state that they are just following the Food Administration’s recommendations. Some people don’t question at all, but many say that they would rather serve the children butter and they would never allow their own children margarine.

Here, there is something that the Food Administration can do directly to reduce the unwanted substances in the blood of our children, now that both the WHO and Ronald Krauss has torn the healthy saturated lipids as a risk factor.
Recommend that our children and the elderly in sheltered housing and our hospital patients get real butter! Butter with three known proven ingredients; cream, lactic acid and salt.

21 April, 2010
Margareta Lundström
Retired nurse
Göteborg

The Karlshamn study, 22 and 44 months report

2010-04-21T23:05:00.002+02:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 17 June, 2006 at 20:50

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/3/1/22
In Karlshamn study (by Jörgen Vesti Nielsen and others) a group of 16 people with Type-2 diabetes were to eat low carbohydrate diet by 20 % of carbohydrates, another group had to eat the recommended low lipid/high carbohydrate diet.

At 6 and 12 month follow-up the low carbohydrate group had much better result in body weight and blood sugar.

Now at 22 month follow-up, results are still much better for low carbohydrate group. Moreover, two thirds of high carbohydrate group also switched to low carbohydrate group, and then they have improved in their values. Accordingly, this long-term study which the dietary establishment demanded is here!
Regina Wilshire http://weightoftheevidence.blogspot.com/ tells in her blog today about an interview made with Daniel G Clark, spokesperson for the ADA (American Diabetes Association).

He admits there that low carbohydrate diet provides better blood sugar control in diabetics.

But then he says that ADA does not recommend low carbohydrate diet because diabetics do not like to eat the diet.
ADA will therefore continue to recommend high carbohydrate diet, although it is much worse for the diabetic’s health, because the ADA believes that the diabetics would not like to eat low carbohydrate diet. (Or fail to adhere to the diet, which for me means the same thing)
ADA:s mission is to be unlikely to guess what diabetics like to eat, but their role must be to tell what the best science shows to be the best diet for diabetics health!
This following article is also on the clinical outcome regarding heart disease and cardio vascular events can be prevented by low carbohydrate diet.

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 18 June, 2006 at 14:51
The article by Jörgen Vesti Nielsen and Eva Jönsson about 22 months follow up of Karlshamn study: http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-3-22.pdf you find a passage on the clinical outcome of the subject.

It is said that the 5 people in the control group who did not change from Low lipid to low carbohydrate diet has 3 had cardiovascular events (myocardial infarction or heart failure).

The 23 people who either were part of the original low carbohydrate group or shifted to low carbohydrate did not experience any cardiovascular events during the observation period.

These figures speak against the anticipated risk of heart disease if you eat more saturated lipid than the current low lipid diet recommendation.

And how they got kidney failure to reverse with low carbohydrate diet. http://blogg.passagen.se/dahlqvistannika/?anchor=l%C3%A5gkolhydratkost_kan_f%C3%B6rb%C3%A4ttra_njurfunktionen_hos:
A low-carbohydrate diet may prevent end-stage renal failure in type 2 diabetes. A case report by Jorgen Vesti Nielsen, Per Westerlund and Per G Bygren
Nutrition & Metabolism 2006, 3:23 doi:10.1186/1743-7075-3-23

Published 14 June, 2006
Abstract (provisional)
An obese patient with type 2 diabetes whose diet was changed from the recommended high-carbohydrate, low-fat type to a low-carbohydrate diet showed a significant reduction in bodyweight, improved glycemic control and a reversal of a six year long decline of renal function. The reversal of the renal function was likely caused by both improved glycemic control and elimination of the patient’s obesity. Insulin treatment in type 2 diabetes patients usually leads to weight increase which may cause further injury to the kidney.

Although other unknown metabolic mechanisms cannot be excluded, it is likely that the obesity caused by the combination of high-carbohydrate diet and insulin in this case contributed to the patients deteriorating kidney function. In such patients, where control of bodyweight and hyperglycaemia is vital, a trial with a low-carbohydrate diet may be appropriate to avoid the risk of adding obesity-associated renal failure to already failing kidneys.

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 22 May,2008
Now the results of 44 months have occurred.
Of the 23 people who ate low carbohydrate diet (20 %) two had heart disease.
Of 5 people who had eaten low lipid diet according to the dietician’s instructions 4 had had heart disease.
I have written more about the study in the following post:

Karlshamns study 44 months
Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 22 May, 2008 at 16:34

Now the report from the Karlshamn study 44 months has come. It is 3, 6 years. http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/5/1/14 .
Of the 23 people who ate low carbohydrate diet (20 %) two had had heart disease. There will be 8 %. Of the five people who ate according to the dietician’s instructions four had had heart disease. There will be 80 %.
One person in the low carbohydrate group has died. He had no known heart disease, and the autopsy did not show it. The cause of death was unknown.

Two persons have died in the low lipid group, they had known heart disease. The person who died and the two who had heart attacks, in the LC group, had according to a personal message from Jorgen not eaten lowcarb according to the program. It can of course as we all know be hard to keep low carbohydrate diet, there are so many temptations. When you give in to temptation once and the craving comes as a letter in the mail, and then it will be even more difficult.
«

Press comments on the 44 months report. Reuters reports from the Karlshamn study.
Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 29 May, 2008 at 13:19
Low-Carb diets work for overweight diabetics http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSCOL86412020080528?sp=true
In Dagens Nyheter about the study. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSCOL86412020080528?sp=true
Who does research?

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 29 May, 2008 at 10:18
Anna Ottosson writes in her blog http://www.annaottosson.se/blogg/?p=8#comments that LCHF is an interesting spin, but ”…….. I would like to see scientific evidence over the long term effects of LCHF from serious scientific journals.” Who should do this scientific documentation? Long term it should be. Is it the district doctor, who had to resign from her post due to dietary issue, which should make them?

Perhaps there are ongoing studies in Sweden’s country, or in another country, on this. It won’t be known until they are ready. Diabetics should accordingly wait until the established researchers have been inspired to make these studies, and made them long enough to be considered long term.

If you scrutinize scientific research it is considered that a dietary study to be comparative with as few variables as possible. An example would be to study different proportions of dietary lipids versus carbohydrates. Another example is to compare natural lipid with industrial grease.

Studies shall also be controlled, ie it should, as far as you can what subjects eat. This is usually done by food diaries. Otherwise, you must have the subjects confined in an institution and it is not practical and economically feasible on a larger scale and longer. It is also said to be deprived groups, so called randomization. The point is difficult because many people have an idea of what is healthy eating, and then it can be difficult for them to stick to a different diet.

Therefore, it will be more decisive on the choice of subjects for which diet program they should eat. Otherwise is that they continue to eat as they normally do. It is still just as interesting to see how it goes for those who eat a certain diet.
These unifactorial diet studies can usefully be made on the disease Type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular illness. Then you can get quick answers. For instance, the Karlshamn study gave significant difference to the advantage of the low carbohydrate diet already after six months.

After 44 months report there was still significant differences. 80% of low lipid group had heart disease, but only 8% of low carbohydrate group. The mortality was also higher in the low lipid group. This should give rise to many more similar studies.

In the meantime, diabetics should be advised to eat low carbohydrate diets, because the comparative studies are showing the benefit of it. There is yet no comparative study on low lipid versus low carbohydrate showing superior efficacy for low lipid diet. The establishment says that there is scientific evidence to recommend low lipid, and margarines, according to the plate model and keyhole label, but that is a lie. There is as yet no comparative studies that support it, how serious the journals these studies are published in.

LCHF, pregnancy, childbirth, breast-feeding and hypothyroidism

2010-03-30T14:07:00.006+02:00

Elisabeth:

Today I recieved this message from one of my readers:

"Anonymous said...
Hello! I am due to give birth in two weeks and I have put on quite a bit of weight... so I was thinking of starting the LCHF diet as soon as my baby is born.
Now, I have a thyroid problem (hypothyroidsm) and I am not sure this will work for me? Have you had any experience wuth people that have succeeded (or not) with the LCHF diet despite of their hormonal problems?

Thanks!

PPG

30/03/2010 11:36 "

My answer is that you don´t have to wait starting LCHF diet until you have given birth to your baby. You can even start LCHF diet immidiately because it is beneficial both for you and for your yet unborn baby. I don´t know if LCHF affects the taste of the breast milk negatively. You will probably notice if the baby would occur to refuse the breast. If so would be the circumstances, you can wait with LCHF until you have quit breast-feeding. If you find no problems with the breast-feeding when you are on LCHF you just can go on with it.

According to your hypothyroidism, LCHF is the best diet for you. I have hypotyroidism myself and have weight problems due to it but actually the LCHF diethas helped me to control the weight gain and now I am beginning to loose weight by LCHF.

I have another personal aspect on hypothyrodism. Normally people with this metabolic problem put on weight before they recieve adequate treatment for it. But a very few of them don´t put on weight before their treatment and instead put on weight when treatment has begun and one of these people I am. My weight was normal before my hypothyoidism was treated and instead I began to put on weight after having started the treatment. I also know people who have faced this same problem also.

The answer to it is probably that the most common treatment of hypothyrodism is supplement of syntetic T4 hormone (levothyroxine). It is not clearly explained why some patients put on weight by syntetic thyroid hormone T4.

My personal theory is due to the fact that the thyroid produces 4 hormones which are hormone T1, T2, T3 (liothyronine) and T4 (levothyroxine). I am certain about a possibility that supplying only one of 4 thyroid hormones is a too poor treatment for the body and therefore changes the bodily balance in a negative way.

To those patients who experience weight gain after having started treatment with syntetic T4 hormone are often helped by changing over to natural thyroid supplement made of thyroid from pigs.

The advantages with these natural thyroid supplements are that they are natural and the body "recognoises" them as if they were produced by the own body. They also supply with all the thyroid hormones T1, T2, T3 and T4 instead of T4 hormone only. Of course this treatment method obtains bodily balance instead of destroying it.

After a little more than 2½ year of treatment with syntetic t4 I gave it up and changed over to this natural hormone supplement called Armour Thyroid instead which was a big change for me.

As long as I was medicated on barely syntetic T4 hormone I went on gaining weight undependent on which kind of diet I was on. I even put on weight by LCHF. Then I changed over to natural thyroid hormones and the first thing which happened was that I stopped gaining weight. Thus with the combination of LCHF and natural thyroid hormones from pigs I began to get control over my weightgain and now after about 9 months on the natural hormones I am finally beginning to loose weight.

My advice to you, who wrote this message to me, is that you can control your weight with LCHF, maybe even successfully. Actually this kind of hormonal and metabolic disorder makes makes it hard for the body to tolerate carbohydrates without weight gain and other negative health consequences. Therefore, in such a case LCHF is the very best diet. In fact high level of carbohydrates in diet slows down the thyroid function which is not beneficial to hypothyrodism patients. On the contrary high level of lipids in the diet supports the thyroid function.

If you despite of LCHF would not succeed in losing weight, don´t blame the diet or yourself! In that case you should instead reflect over which treatment you have. Are you medicated on syntentetic thyroid hormons? If so, this can be the reason for not losing weight. So if weight loss problems would occur and if you are medicated with the syntetic hormones, try to persuade your doctor to prescribe natural hormone substitute instead. These supplements are laid with prescription from your doctor and in some countries (in all EU countries for instance) you must even have, beside your doctor´s prescrition, a license or allowance to bring the medicine into your country.

These natural thyroid substitutes from pigs are sold under some different brand names, for instant NaturThroid, Armour Thyroid, Erfa Thyroid and a brand from Thailand named Thiroyd.

These are the guidelines I can give you and I wish you good luck with your childbirth and your weight control!

http://www.digeus.com/products/snapit/snapit_screen_capture_3_5.html

The new flu

2010-03-17T22:54:00.000+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 16 March, 2010 at 17:20

Jewels of articles and links from Läkartidningen http://www.lakartidningen.se/07engine.php?articleId=11959

No increase in risk by Guillain-barré

In 1976 an increase of the number of cases of the neurological disease Guillain-Barré occurred after the mass immunization against swine flu. They have so far not seen such after the current immunization. It is good so far. But perhaps a ”second wave” of Guillain-Barré?

When I worked as a district doctor, I met many people who felt that they were sick of the vaccine against seasonal flu. I have also now received phone calls and mail from people who feel convinced that they or their children have become sick by the new vaccine. If they had not been vaccinated, they had not had to ponder whether the vaccine had caused their illness. It is also a side effect of the vaccine.

The quote was from Aftonbladet

2010-03-14T23:04:00.002+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 12 March, 2010 at 15:41

In the justification for the Confuser Award http://vof.se/visa-folkbildare , the board by Aija Sadurskis that the quotes against me are taken from my blog, because she is aware that the wordings in the press can be misquotes.

I e-mailed her and asked, therefore, where in my blog, she had picked up the quote:”If you eat a proper diet don’t get cancer.”
She e-mails me now that it is taken from the Aftonbladet article.
VoF board should now go out with press release that the Confuser Award is based on quotes from Aftonbladet.

A friend forwards an e-mail now from Aija, after having asked her about the justification for the nomination:

Hello!
Annika Dahlqvist´s statements in her own blog is a basis for our decision.
Friendly
Aija Sadurskis

LCHF on Tasteline

2010-03-13T23:23:00.000+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 09 March, 2010 11:34

Now Tasteline has come with a LCHF menu http://www.tasteline.com/Halsa/GI-Guiden/LCHF-till-vardags/

However, they write:
"The brain needs glucose and fruit that which are more or less forbidden if you follow LCHF contain many protective substances that we should have in us. They may be more appropriate to try the diet as a jump-start for a shorter period than top exclude carbohydrates for a long time.”

The brain does not need carbohydrates in the food. We produce blood sugar ourselves through”gluconeogenesis” if we don’t add carbohydrates. If insulin is low, the pancreas produces hormone Glucagon which stimulates the liver to produce glucose, blood sugar. It then uses the lipid and protein intake, primarily, for its glucose production. The brain then may always get the need for a stable normal blood sugar.

On the other hand, I think we can eat a normal amount of vegetables that give us vitamin C, and the flavour and colour to food. There is nothing beneficial in the fruit that is not also found in vegetables, which contain only a fraction of as much sugar as in fruit.

New Cholesterol-lowering drug in preparation

2010-03-13T22:57:00.002+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 11 March, 2010 at 09:20

New treatment lowers blood lipids, article in Dagens Nyheter http://www.dn.se/nyheter/vetenskap/ny-behandling-sanker-blodfetter-1.1059192

It is a”thyroid-like” substance that you intend to use.
Hypothyroidism, malfunction of the thyroid gland, usually goes with high Cholesterol. It is therefore logical that thyroid hormone drugs can lower Cholesterol.

If this is good for health or not, remains to be shown. The only way to prove it is through monitoring of hard endpoints, ie the frequency of illness and death in comparative studies. Cholesterol is of no values in this when they have no connection with health.

Preferably they should explore epritirome-treatment in comparison with LCHF diet, because it is the only diet that really has shown efficiency in the hard end-points of cardiovascular morbidity. “The Karlshamn study for 44 months” http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/5/1/14

The Vegetarian Myth

2010-03-13T21:35:00.000+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 13 March, 2010 at 20:27

I have now read”The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith. The author was a vegan for 20 years and became very ill due to malnutrition.

She writes about how agriculture depletes the soil. The vegetarian myths. The problem how to feed the world’s people without continuing to impoverish the soil.

It is a wonderful, interesting and thought-provoking book.

A dietician´s lament

2010-03-12T22:34:00.000+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 10 March, 2010 at 20:36

Anna JD Jacobsson has quoted a comment from a dietician in her blog http://annajdjacobsson.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/dn-dietists-klagan/ .

She writes” …stone-age man ate unsaturated lipids from wild animals”. Where has she found that wild animals contain more unsaturated lipids?

"To guzzle down lipids from dairy products”. Why writing that we are guzzling down lipids? We eat lipids from dairy products, but only in the quantity we need, not gluttony.

"Abandoning the carbohydrates your body becomes acidic and breaks down protein stores. In the beginning you feel high on toxins, but in the long run, it is deadly….risk of heart failure and impotence”.

Where did she find the scientific basis for the allegations?

Personalized dietary guidelines

2010-03-10T21:50:00.002+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 05 March, 2010 at 13:21

On a lecture the other day I had a dietician in the audience. She claimed, among other things that nutritionists are giving patients “individually tailored dietary guidelines”. We have heard that like a mantra from other sources. One wonders then: Who should be advised to eat Becel and who should be advised to eat butter? Who should eat low lipid and who should eat more lipids?

I also provide personalized dietary guidelines. Everyone should eat a generous amount of natural lipids. Those who work very physically should it more lipids than those who do not. Everyone should neither too much nor too little, those who work physically need even more protein. Everyone should eat neither too much nor too little of vegetables.

Those who suffer from obesity, metabolic syndrome, Type-2 diabetes, Type-1 diabetes, IBS with several diet-related diseases will pull down the carbohydrate intake as low as reasonably possible. This means only the carbohydrates contained in a moderate amount of above-ground vegetables.

Those who are healthy, slim and physically active can eat more carbohydrates, but the important thing is that they have most of the energy intake in the form of natural lipids. Then they are not running the same risk of metabolic disease in the future. No one should eat junk food, including additives, Omega-6 oils and margarines.

Vegetable and/or animal Omega-3?

2010-03-08T21:02:00.001+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 08 March, 2010 at 08:52

I have been taught that it is the animal long-chain Omega-3 that we need to get out more. Mainly through lipids from grass-grazing animals and wild-caught fish. Among other things Jenny Reimers http://www.matfrisk.nu/images/naturligmat_jennyreimers.pdf has taught me this.

Kenn Hallstensen wrote in an article in ”Mat og helse (Nov -08) http://www.matoghelse.no/helse/2008/10/22/bortglemt-omega-3-fettsyre.aspxom that we need more of ALS short-chain plant, for example from flax seed. What is true?

It should then undertake a study to compare the health effects of long-term effects of flaxseed oil and fish oil. Biopsies of adipose tissue does not feel like sufficient evidence.

Of course it agrees best to the evolution that we shall have lipids from grass-grazing animals and fish, as it is our original food. Not flax seed oil. I received a reply in another forum:

Studies show that the body can convert a decent amount (at least enough) of short Omega-3 to long (EPA) if you are not charged with a lot of Omega-6 – but the transformation to the really important lipid, DHA, is clearly inadequate for some unknown reason. We can’t live healthily on short Omega-3, or at least not until someone shows that we somehow can fix the conversion with adequate quantities.

New cooking oil is on the way.

2010-03-06T19:55:00.006+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 6 March, 2010 at 14:39

In a press release from the University of Lund, http://www.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=1383&visa=pm&pm_id=1313 , one can read about Julia Svensson´s new cooking oil.

She will mix and randomize rapeseed oil and flax seed oil, and thinks that there should be useful new cooking oil to the people.

Flax seed oil contains high percentage of vegetable short-chain Omea-3. Rapeseed oil also contains a relatively high proportion of short-chain Omega-3. There is grass grazing animals which can transform into animal long chain. Then we eat herbivores, and have access to an animal Omega-3 that we need. Short-chain Omega-3 is only aggressively oxidizing, which is inflammation-inducing for us.

Moreover, we do not know what the randomization process biologically affects the human body. So one can only hope that they are testing the new oil in humans for many years with regards to disease and death before they start selling it to the public*. They may not live in the notion that Cholesterol is the only thing that matters for health.

* Elisabeth: This new cooking oil is already for sale over here. I actually saw it the other day. However, this cooking oil is only sold in Sweden as far as I know but I advise you readers in other countries to be on your guard against similar products because we don’t know yet about their effects on the human body.

Obesity day in Gothenburg

2010-03-06T19:13:00.002+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on 11 February, at 13:52

Margareta Lundström, Gothenburg, has written an abstract:

”Doomsday is near”
A summary report of a public lecture on 2010-02-08 organized by the Sahlgrenska´s
”Center for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research”

”Doomsday is near” someone bent forwards behind me and whispered in my ear when I left a lecture yesterday.” If we are to follow these advice, he continued. It was not a religious fundamentalist, but someone who became as excited as I am of what we just heard.
Carl-Johan Behre Chief of Obesity Clinic at Sahlgrenska University Hospital spoke on the subject “The risks of obesity and how do you do to reduce them”.

Ingrid Larsson, Clinical nutritionist, Ph. D., at the same Medical Health Center spoke on the subject ”Good and healthy food – what science says and how to avoid getting lost in the jungle of dietary guidelines”.

Behre began by saying that the WHO classified obesity as a disease. He also stressed about how strong force hunger is and how difficult it is to master. After then came an account of increase of obesity and sprawl in the U.S. and in Sweden. All diseases and complications which caused by obesity were described. In this context the alarming increase in the U.S. by non-alcohol related fatty liver also was mentioned.

He rejected, in principle, the following treatment options as long term unsustainable; life style changes, diet, diet powder, cognitive behavioural therapy, drugs with some exceptions for Xenical. The only treatment that was described as sustainable in the long run and that was perceived as positive for the patient was Gastric Bypass surgery – the amputation of parts of the digestive tracts. Gastric Bypass was the main option for obese patients with various obesity-related diseases.

How they would do who just wanted to loose and where not sick was unclear.
Operation method was demonstrated in pictures and there was no doubt that this was what the lecturer saw as the best solution. He said it was a way to shorten the sufferings of the patients and provides a lasting improvement. He said that if he had been in some of his patient’s situation, he had not hesitated to undergo the operation. Not a hint about trying a low carbohydrate-high lipid diet.

The survival rates after a Gastric Bypass surgery was said to be in the medium 20 years and the risk of dying was 1-4/1 000. Nothing was mentioned about sequelae, side effects or other problems.
Many different factors were involved in obesity, among other things a number of both old and newly discovered hormones. Insulin was not mentioned. Behre described the fatty tissue of a gland with its functions and its hormones. The energy balance was emphasized, that is calories in and calories out. More out than in, if one is to lose weight. If you want to keep the weight it is Mediterranean diet which applies, without further definition. Free for everyone to form their own opinion.
In the next part of the lecture, we saw many fine bar graphs of exercise impact of survival. Summary of the message is that you live longer if you exercise and that it is better to be to be over weight and exercise than to be thin and not exercise. One needs not to exaggerate the exercise for it to have beneficial effects on survival. I would add that it is neither fun nor safe to exercise when you are severely overweight. The summary of Behre´s message was that overweight and obesity and its sequelae increase epidemically and that the only solution in the long term seems to be Gastric Bypass surgery. Moderate exercise, and “Mediterranean diet” is good and do not eat more than you use up.

Then Ingrid Larsson spoke.
She began by telling us that she fully understood that we were lost in the jungle of diets. But now she would lead us right.

I know about where Ingrid Larsson and her colleagues are in the diet debate, so I had no great expectations. But I was a little curious if she took to herself a bit of diet debate and as a good researcher questioned some of her own dogmas. But no, here all the old mantras were hammered convincingly and uncompromisingly, stacked on each other; lean, fibres, one pound of ”fruits and vegetables”, margarine, oils, regular meals, heavy porridge for breakfast, wholemeal bread, lean cold cuts.

One thing that nutritionists have a fondness of is to show picture after picture of candies, sweets and chocolate and tell us show many calories they contain. This is what you eat rather than to obey our dietary guidelines do I interpret it.
We are going to a lecture on diet and health and are already aware and want a bit more intellectual level of a lecture and not being treated like day nursery children. Images of how pastries being steadily growing in size was illustrated. It was the increasing fat content which was commented on – not a word about sugar, not a word about hydrogenated lipids, not a word about carbohydrates.

In a timid question from the audience about if Larsson could explain why we have become so ill during the last 30-40 years she replied that it depended on many factors as car use, industrialization and prosperity!

Ingrid Larsson said explicitly that we must increase the carbohydrates and reduce the lipids. When a lady asked if we are allowed to eat a little butter because she had heard it would be beneficial. She got the answer: “Is it vitamin A you are after it goes well with carrots:”

Calorie term return again and again. Ingrid Larsson had an interesting theory that one should follow a defined medium intake of calories a week. If it becomes a bit too much on Friday evening, so one can eat a little less the next day, so it evens itself out. But you should not eat the remains of the fatty Sunday dinner on Monday, because it increases the calorie level that day. The main thing is the average intake.

Both speakers returned again and again about the energy balance. You have to make rid of more calories than you add to lose weight. In the statement a reference to scientific studies was interjected now and then.

In the case of successful diets to lose weight, Larson claimed that there was no difference. All diets worked, if you only are persistent. The problem was that people could not manage to hold out in the long run.

The lecture ended with a reference to the National Food Administration and the confirmation that it is still their advice and instructions that apply.

From the SBU report”Obesity problems and measures” Larsson quoted the following:
”Any treatment that gives a negative energy balance, that the consumption of energy (calories) exceeds the food supply leads to weight loss. If consumption is equal to the intake body weight remains constant. This is absolute the nature of science-based truths that need not to be proved further. The studying of dietary treatment studies are rather methods to achieve this negative energy balance”.

So Larsson did get this inevitable question.

“What do you think about Annika Dahlqvist?” Ingrid Larsson then looked very worried, looked down and waited a bit with the answer. But the answer seemed something like this:
When the National Board approved Annika Dahlqvist´s dietary guidelines they did not know/did not realize that it was such a small content of carbohydrates in Annika Dahlqvist´s dietary guidelines. “It was believed then that this was much higher proportion of carbohydrates, “Larsson said. Perceived 30-40? Against 5-10? Do not guarantee that the numbers are correct. But the difference was significant.
The conclusion then must be that the National Board, according to Ingrid Larsson, has approved Annika Dahlqvist´s dietary guidelines on false assumptions!

I respect the difficulty to lecture on such a large topic during one and an half hour. It must necessarily be superficial and hard haul. We can not let in issues on Glutamate and E-numbers, but have to provide”No response answers” – which it did. But we had a clear agenda and the message was crystal clear. The message follows the official line, something else was not to be expected.
I think open lectures are exemplary. Good to hear even if you have to question. But one must not underestimate their audience.

I m not so dogmatic that I don’t think there are people who can follow Ingrid Larsson’s dietary guidelines and adhere both slim and healthy. Ingrid Larsson is an attributable sight of tradition. But the problem is all those who can’t do it, those who become obese and sick. I an also imagine that there could be overweight people, where nothing but a Gastric Bypass Surgery helps. But it should never be a general method or a commercial interest.

Now it is said.

If moreover, can be said that the hall was crowded with an estimated 250-300 persons. Most of the audience was middle-aged and senior citizens, but also many of these who took notes frantically (dieticians and medical students?)
The speakers represented a radar couple in the sense that Ingrid Larsson with her dietary advice provided Carl- Johan Behre with patients, he can pass on to the amputation of parts of the digestive tracts. Two speakers with prestigious titles and positions who obviously for our tax money representing nothing more than public health. It is frightening to think of the financial resources and the platforms available to them.

You can choose to ignore their advice, but you will still not be excluded, because that is the message which has influence on what is served in school and hospital.

I think it is frightening that obesity is explained as a disease (even though it in some cases can be so). It opens of course another huge market for the pharmaceutical industry to experiment with, giving people false hope, and we our learned belief in strengthened.
Referring to repeated allegations of energy out and energy in so it would be noted that both speakers master the law of thermodynamics, but they need to be informed about the second law of thermodynamics.

Then I wonder how did the lady who asked if she may eat some butter? Did she cook a delicious Mediterranean meal when she came home? Did she throw her butter away and ate a carrot instead? Did she calculate how many calories she ate today in order to adjust the day after?

Today I received an e-mail.

2010-02-10T19:22:00.005+01:00

Today, on 10 February, 2010 I received this e-mail from a reader who had interesting reflections concerning Omega-6 lipid acid and its harmful effects to the human body. The reflections were so relevant that I publish them on my blog:

"Hello Elizabeth,

By way of introduction, I am a carpenter residing in Kalispell, Montana. I like being healthy so I analyze nutritional issues and controversies. Given the quality of our modern food environment and the debate over what constitutes healthy eating, I think it wise not to trust to luck. Your blog came to my attention because you mentioned Gary Taubes in your most recent blog post. I have on Google Alert for that name.

As you know, the idea that saturated fats clog arteries has been relentlessly hammered into the public mind for decades. At the same time, there's seldom been mention of the omega-6 hazard. So, when you've got about 37 minutes available, I urge you to watch this videocast: http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=8108 Biochemist William Lands explains in plain language why excessive omega-6 fat intake is to be avoided. He says we could have been preventing a lot of chronic inflammatory disease these past forty years if scientists hadn't gotten so distracted with bio markers such as cholesterol levels and obesity. His presentation starts at minute 12. Just move the time control button at the bottom slightly to the right to skip the preliminaries.

I'm so pleased I got to listen to this lecture because, despite what I thought was a healthy diet, I've been slowly losing muscular strength for a number of years. I'm only 63 and shouldn't have deteriorated this quickly. It turns out I've been consuming too much omega-6 fat in the form of peanut butter sandwiches. I've been eating them for lunch 5 to 6 times a week for most of my adult life. About 8 or 9 weeks after I switched to eating meat or cheese for lunch, the pain in my shoulders and legs has subsided and strength is returning to my limbs. Once again, I can get up out of a chair without thinking about it.

For a short historical sketch delineating the technological events that led up to the insertion of omega-6 into our food supply: http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2010/01/david-brown-on-omega-6-fats.html

Regards,
David Brown
1925 Belmar Dr
Kalispell, MT 59901
Ph/406-257-5123
Nutrition Education Project"

The history of the lipid fear.

2010-02-09T21:24:00.002+01:00

Elisabeth: This post from Annika Dahlqvist´s Swedish blog is not her own composition. Instead the text comes from literary references by G Taubes on the lipid issue and is about the history of the lipid fear.

"Dietary Goals for the United States in 1977.

"After World War II lipids were suspected to cause heart diseases."

"Politicians suggested that fewer lipids would result in less obesity."

"Media mixed this together – the advice turned out to be this – Eat fewer lipids, live longer."

Below the background for today’s nourishing recommendations, which at first were formulated in USA, is discussed. The content is brought from the science journalist Gary Taubes´s article “The soft science of dietary lipids” in the journal Science from 2001.

The reasons for the lipid fear:

Cardiovascular diseases. In the beginning of the 19th century the nourishment matters concerned undernourishment rather than over intake. After World War II, however, the mortality in heart attack increased in USA in an alarming manner. ”Middle-aged men, apparently completely healthy, suddenly fell down dead”, the American bio chemist Ancel Keys noticed. He indicated, among the first that the fat in the diet could be the reason, and in 1952 suggested the Americans to reduce their lipid intake to less than 30 %. However he noticed that among evidences which the diet evoked, arteriosclerosis was missing and couldn’t be brought out during the near future.

Cholesterol. In the famous Seven Countries study Keys and collaborators noted that the quantity of lipids in the diet seemed to be the most obvious difference between countries like Japan and Crete where cardiovascular diseases were uncommon, and Finland where they were very common. The Framingham study which surveyed the inhabitants in a little town in USA succeeded in 1961 to connect cholesterol with cardiovascular diseases.

Keys became famous and American Heart Association, AHA, recommended due to his advice a diet low on lipids to men with high cholesterol levels. Moreover, Keys was one of the first Americans who adopted this type of diet himself, the TIME journal wrote. He and his wife did not eat pure meat (steaks, chops, beefs and similar of the kind) more than three times a week.

In spite of certain research the position in 1969 be summarized in a one and only sentence by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NHLBI: "It is not made clear yet whether changes of diet has any effect on coronary heart disease".

Studies are needed. The chairman in the panel which analysed the question was E.H. Ahrens from Rockefeller University in New York. While spokesmen for low fat diets where mostly bent on the cholesterol’s effect on heart diseases , Ahrens and collaborators engaged themselves in the question whether a reduced fat intake could impair other bodily functions. The brain consists of about 70 % of lipids which principal task is to isolate the nerve cells. A changed fat intake could at worst change the cell membrane’s properties and disturb the transports of glucose, hormones and protection against bacteria, virus, tumour evoking substances and similar of the kind.

Whether the possible benefits due to a low fat diet could exceed the possible disadvantages could of course be determined by a scientific study by investigating whether a low fat diet really prolonged one’s life, but such a study in that case would be enormous. The cholesterol level has in the real life a very small significance to the most people, so ten thousands of experimental subjects tin that case will have to change over to a low fat diet and be compared with approximately just as many who have been on an ordinary diet. All these people have to be followed up for a number of years, until many death cases enough have occurred in order to get a statistically valid material. Ahrens did not consider such a big and expensive study would be possible to realize.

The American Health and Welfare Authority (National Institutes of Health, NIH) estimated in 1971 that such a study would cost about one billion dollar. This amount they were not willing to spend. Instead they suggested a number of smaller studies of which two would cost about 255 million dollar. But of greater importance was that these would take abort ten years to accomplish. Neither the public media nor the American Congress were willing to wait that long.

THE DIETARY ADVICE OF USA IN 1977.

Anti-lipid forces and politics. Simultaneously with a flourishing interest of alternative medicine in the USA an”alternative” anti-lipid movement was developed during the 1960ies. It was nourished by distrust against the establishment and the food industry – and by a backlash against mass consumption. The distrust was severe independent whether it concerned gasoline consuming cars or the classic American cookery with bacon, eggs and marbled steaks. And while the science disputed about the fat and the health the deadlock was solved. Not by new scientific results but by politicians. It was the Senator George McGoverns and some of his employees who in a committee almost all by them changed the nourishment recommendations in the country, and turned all assumptions about fat into dogmas.

McGovern’s´ Committee was founded in 1968 with the task of overcoming malnutrition in the USA and instituted a number of political programmes. But when the programs began to take effect in the middle of the 1970s, the committee was not dissolved. Instead two of the Committee’s lawyers, Marshall Matz and Alan Stone, recommended the Committee to take up the case concerning the “over nutrition”, that is the Americans gormandizing of food. “It was a rather haphazard approach”, Matz said. “We really were totally naïve, a bunch of kids, who just thought, 'Hell, we should say something on this subject before we go out of business.” And McGovern and his colleagues in the Senate, middle-age men who began to worry about the growing waistlines and declining health, subscribed.

McGovern and his wife had previously acceded to the dietary guru Nathan Pritikin´s low fat diet and exercise programme. McGovern quit the programme early, but Pritikin affected his way of thinking for a long time. Mottern, who had no scientific background and had no experience of writing abort science, nutrition and health, imagined that his dietary guide lines would start a revolution in diet and agriculture in the country.

He avoided the scientific and medical controversies by almost exclusively using the nutrition researcher Mark Hegsted, Harvard School of Public Health as an expert. Hegsted had studied lipids and cholesterol during the early 1961s and believed unconditionally in the benefits of reducing lipid intake, although he later said he was aware that this was an extreme view.

With Hegsted as a beacon Mottern began considering lipids as nutritional equivalent of cigarettes, and food industry as akin to the tobacco industry with the same eagerness to conceal the research findings in its pursuit of profit. For Mottern, were scientists who spoke against lipids, scientists who were willing to embark on the industry.

“It took back bones”, said Mottern, “to talk about that, in account of the economic interests in stake”. Mottern´s report recommended that Americans reduced their lipid intake to 30 % of energy, and intake of saturated lipids to 10 %. Everything was according to AHAs recommendations for men at high risk for cardiovascular disease. The report acknowledged that there was a controversy, but insisted that the Americans didn’t have anything to lose by following the advice. “The question is not why we should change our eating habits, but why not? Hegsted said in the introduction. “No known risks, but many important benefits to achieve.”

Controversies. This was an optimistic but still debatable position. When the dietary recommendations were released in January 1977, “crashed hell loose”, remembered Hegsted. “Virtually no one supported the McGovern recommendations.” McGovern responded with three follow-up seminars, which clearly foreshadowed the controversies to come. Among those who objected was Robert Levy, the head of NHLBI.

He explained that nobody knew about a reduction in lipid intake and decreased cholesterol levels actually resulted in fewer heart attacks, and it was by just this very reason that NHLBI had received 300 million US dollars to study the issue.

Levy’s position was precarious, he remembered. “The good gentlemen of the Senate went first out with the guidelines, and then we were called in to give good advice.” He was supported by many prominent scientists, including Ahrens, who testified that a piece of advice to all Americans to eat less lipids, based on such weak evidence, which was pushing ahead with experiments with the entire US population as guinea pigs.

Although American Medical Association, AMA, commented that the guidelines could provide potentially damaging side effects. Along with the scientist’s statement, strong protests came from the dairy, egg and meat industry for obvious reasons. In this mode, however, eroded the common position of Science and Industry, the scientific credibility – the scientists who objected to the Committee of guidelines were either (according to Hegsted) hopelessly retarded or (according to Mottern) or industry prophets.

Although the Committee published a revised version of the dietary recommendations later that year, the message remained unchanged. As a concession to the industry a reduction of the recommendation was discussed, to eat less meat. Mottern said that he thought this would be a disservice to the American public, refused to revise the test and then ended his work on the Committee. Mottern was in the process of dietary advice vegetarian and devoted his time to food trade in New York.

Nutritional recommendations become policy: Nutritional recommendations would have been able to die a quiet death in 1977 When McGovern COMMITTEE dissolved, had it not been for that two federal agencies had felt compelled to respond to them. Although they took opposing positions, it was one of the messages and – with the media’s help – were looking into the American consciousness.

Ministry of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines. First came the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in where the Consumer Ombudsman Carol Tucker Foreman recently had received a post. Foreman experienced a very heavy obligation of the Ministry of Agriculture to convert McGovern’s recommendations into official policy. Like Mottern, she was not particularly disturbed that the dietary advice was scientifically controversial. “Tell me what you know, and say that this is not the final answer,” she would say to the scientists. "I have to give my children food three times a day, and I want your best image of current research”.

As the science area was controversial, “the best image of research” depended of course on who was asked among the researchers. The Board of nutrition issues at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which decided the recommended daily rations, should have been the natural choice. NAS President Philip Handler, an expert on metabolism, however, expressed to Foreman that he considered Mottern´s dietary recommendations to be pure nonsense.

Foreman then turned to the McGovern group for advice. They recommended her to turn to Hegsted, which she did. Hegsted in turn, relied on a report on the stat of science published by a committee of experts from the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, a Committee which however, had very scattered opinions. “They were not even close to anything resembling a consensus,” said Hegsted, “but most of them supported well something like McGovern’s Committee report. The resulting document became the first edition of “Using the Dietary Guidelines for Americans”. Although the report was open to it was controversial, and stressed that a single nutrient recommendation might not suit everyone in a population with so much diversity, so was the advice to avoid lipids and saturated lipids, substantially identical to McGovern’s dietary recommendations.

Academy of Science’s dietary guidelines. Three months later, the National Academy of Science’s Board on Food and Nutrition Policy, which released its own recommendations: “Towards Healthful Diets?” The Board, consisting of a dozen nutrition experts, concluded that the only reliable advice to support American’s health was to keep an eye on the weight. Everything else, including lipids in the diet, were matters of secondary importance.

This advice was not very favourable, at least not by the media. The first of them commented – “rather suspiciously”, said Handler – which the National Acedemy of Science’s dietary guide lines created a conflict with the Ministry of Acriculture and the McGovern dietary guide lines, and this was seen as irresponsible. Subsequent comments insinuated (with Jane Brady’s words, who wrote the article for New York Times) that the board members were sitting in the lap of the industry affected. To be precise it was the President and one of the members who had been consulting for the food industry, while the financing of the board itself came from industry donations. Hints to the press abort their ties to industry were leaked from the Ministry of Agriculture.
Hegsted later defended Academy of Science’s board, which, however, he did first, and called the conflict”an issue of hell”. "Some complained that the industry did not do anything abort food, but all who were involved were frozen out because their approach was influenced by the industry." Hegsted went back to Harvard in 1981 and his research was funded by Frito-Lay (company that manufactures chips, snacks, cookies, etc).

The press had mixed feelings, and argued that that the bonds had soiled the Academy’s reputation for”considerate and careful scientific advice” (Washington Post) and that the Board’s objectivity and skill that went into question” (New York Times). Anyway, Academy of Science Board had been publically discredited.

Hegsteds Dietary Guidelines for Americans became the official U.S. policy with regard to dietary content of lipids: Eat fewer lipids. Live longer.

Building consensus:
The studies. Now when the politicians, the media and the public agreed on a policy about content of lipids in the diet, it was only the science that needed to catch up. During the 1970s, when NIH opted out of the study of one billion dollars, which would give a definite answer, and instead chose half-dozen small studies for one third of the cost, all hoped that the results would provide sufficient basis to conclude that low lipid diets prolonged life.

The results were published between 1980 and 1984. Four of these studies – which compared the incidence of cardiovascular disease between Honolulu, Puerto Rico, Chicago, and Framingham – gave no evidence that men who ate fewer lipids lived longer or had fewer heart attacks.

A fifth study, The Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT), cost 115 million dollars and tried to strengthen diets modest impact on health by persuading subjects to avoid lipids while simultaneously quit smoking and took medication for high blood pressure. The study indicated if anything, to decrease lipid intake decreased length of life.

In each survey, however, the researchers concluded that the reason for the negative results were due to methodological error. The never came to a conclusion, at least not publically, that the results were due to that the bad lipids were not quite as bad as believed.

The link between cholesterol and heart attacks. The sixth study was the Clinics (LRC) Coronary Primary Prevention Trial which cost 140 million dollars. It was headed by an administrator on NHLBI named Rifkind, and biochemist Daniel Steinberg from University of California, San Diego.

LRC study was a drug study and not a dietary study, but the NHLBI felt that the results could presage the end of the debate about lipids in the diet. In January 1984 LRCs researchers reported that a preparation called Cholestyramine and which decreased cholesterol levels in men with abnormally high cholesterol levels also resulted in a modest reduction in heart disease. The probability of getting a heart attack during the more than seven years of the study decreased from 8, 6 % to 7, 0 % in the experimental group. The risk of dying from heart attacks decreased from 2, 0 % to 1, 6 %.

The researchers then concluded, without having used the dietary data, the utility of Cholestyramine also covered the diet. Although the study only included middle-age men with cholesterol levels higher than 95 % of the population had, the researchers concluded that the benefits “could and should include other age groups and women… and other more modestly elevated cholesterol levels.”

But why were the results hard to cover these conclusions?

Rifkind told that his logic was simple: For 20 years he and his colleagues argued that lowering cholesterol levels could prevent heart attacks, and they had made off with huge sums to prove it. They had reached the realization that they actually could never come to show that low lipid diets prolonged life – that would be too expensive. Now they had at least been able to establish an important link in the chain – from reducing Cholesterol to increase cardiovascular health. With this link, they could take the”Leap of Faith” from the Cholesterol-lowering medicines and health to diet and health. After all efforts they were eager – for now not to say pressured from Congress – to formulate useful guide lines. "There comes a point when the consequences can be just as big even if they do not take a decision,” said Rifkind. "If you just allow Americans to continue eating 40 % of calories in lipids, so this will result in something.”

Media went astray. While printing presses rustled up LRCs results, NHLBI launched what Levy called a”massive public health campaign.” Media was accommodating but completely lost. TIME, for example, commented LRCs results under the heading”Sorry, it is true.” The article about a drug study began:”No standard milk. No butter. No fat meat ….”. TIME followed up three months later with a review article: "And Cholesterol, and now to the bad news. …”. Cover photograph was a grim face: a breakfast plate with two fried eggs for eyes and a bacon slice mouth. Rifkind was quoted when he said that the results”strongly suggest that the more you lower cholesterol and lipids in your diet, the more reduced the risk of heart disease”, a claim that there is still no scientific support.

Concensus Conference 1984. In December 1984, NIH effectively ended the debate with a Concensus Conference. The idea of such a conference is a panel of experts, preferably unaffected, listening to two days of requests and from this comes to a conclusion that everyone agrees on. In this case, Rifkind was chairman of the planning committee, which chose LRCs second researcher Steinberg to lead the expert panel. The twenty speakers included a handful of sceptics, including Ahrens, and cardiologist Michael Oliver from Imperial College in London, which argued that it was unscientific to equate the effects of a drug with effects of a diet. However, the members of Steinberg’s panel were, which Oliver later complained in The Lancet, selected so that they only consisted of experts who could be predicted assert that all levels of blood Cholesterol in the U.S. were too high and should be reduced. And, of course, this was exactly what was claimed.

Conference report, written by Steinberg and his panel, revealed certainly not the least absence of discord. There was”no doubt”, held on, that low-lipid diets”will offer a significant protection against coronary heart disease” for all Americans over the age of two.

Consensus Conference formally gave the impression of consensus where none exists. After all, as Steinberg put it in the journal Science,”if there had been a true consensus a consensus conference had not been necessary.
Simple relationship more convenient than the complex one.

"Wishful science?” To the outside observer, it is a great challenge to turning on such a lengthy scientific controversy. The main task is to find out if the sceptics are simply on the wrong side of the new paradigm, or whether scepticism is justified.

In other words, is the science in question, based on sound scientific thinking and unambiguous data, or is it what Sir Francis Bacon (1561-16265) would have called wishful science, based on fancies, opinions, or concealment of challenging or inconsistent results? Bacon proposed a method for distinguishing the two: They let time give the

Good science is rooted in reality, it grows and develops evidence and produces less and less room for doubts. Wishful Science blooms up shortly after the drafting of their authors, and then it goes out. So here was the example with the idea that lipids in the diet cause cancer, which was part of the concern in the late 1970.

They hade the idea that there was such a strong connection, and the NAS wrote 1982 in a report that those who did not believe in a connection between lipids and cancer ere compared with those who formerly did not believe in a connection between smoking and lung cancer.

Fifteen years and hundreds of millions of dollars later struck a thick expert report from the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research determined that that they have not found anything convincing, or even reasonable, to believe that lipids in the diet caused cancer. Time gave its answer.

Low lipid diet – Time has given the answer. With the idea that a low lipid diet is a way out of obesity, it has also gone out. The last resort for the recommendations to reduce lipid intake was based on energy balance: Lipid has nine calories per 0, 04 ounce, while carbohydrates and protein have four calories per 0, 04 ounce, so by eliminating lipids from the diet would crumble pounds. This has been regarded almost as a religious truth, says Walter Willett at Harvard. A substantial body of data suggests something else entirely. The results from well-.controlled clinical trials are consistent: People who eat a low lipid diet drop a few pounds in the beginning, as they would on any diet whatsoever, but then usually the weight goes back. After one or two years, almost none of the weight loss was maintained.

Take for example the 50 000 women who engaged in the ongoing study Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) for one hundred million U.S. dollars. Half of theses women have been fully allocated to eating only 20 % of energy from lipids. After three years of this horror diet, said sources in the WHI, every woman has lost an average of two pounds.

Also here, time has given its answer.

No simple relationship. Since Ancel Keys began advocating low lipid diets fifty years ago, the science of lipids and health has developed from an assumption to fairly simple relationship in an extremely complicated problem. The snag was that few involved were prepared to address a complex problem.

Scientists preferred to believe that it was a simple relationship, that the effect of a single unwholesome nutrient could be isolated fro diversity and richness of the human diet. Public health bureaucrats preferred a simple connection to serve Congress and the public. The press preferred a simple relationship - at least in each article – to give their editors and readers of a few tens of column inches.

It is now clear to many that the simple relationship never existed.
________________________________________

References.
1. Taubes G. The Soft Science of Dietary Fat. Science (2001); vol 291, issue 5513: p2536-2545. 30 March 2001.
2005-12-30
________________________________________

www.Brejka.se

2010-02-03T20:26:00.000+01:00

Elisabeth: Today on 03 February, 2010 I received a mail from Peter Gestrup. He is PR Manager for a web service named Brejka.se . He asked me if I could spread information about his web page on my blog. A short summarizing description follows below:

“Brejka helps you breaking an unhealthy habit!
Brejka.se is a free service offering people help to quit smoking, stop using snuff, take a white period or consume less sweets. At the service, use your social network to get assistance with your personal challenge.

The point of Brejka is that you put social pressure on your ambition to lead a better life. The friends you invited get a chance to give their support and rewards, with functions as both carrot and stick.

Brejka´s ambition is taking a holistic approach to the galloping health problem. Too often health problems are considered equal with weight problems. Not as often they highlight the dangers of nicotine and alcohol. Therefore we have decided to launch Brejka.

Please return if you have any questions about the service.

Your sincerely,

Peter

Peter Gestrup
Web: www.Brejka.se
Email: peter@brejka.se
Cell: +46 707 53 72 52
----------------------------------
Your friends will help you!”

Two children died in Canada. Becel induced death?

2010-01-28T21:17:00.002+01:00

Written by Annika Dahlqvist on21 February, 2009 at 09:56

I have every few weeks a call from the two journalists who told us they had an article on their desk that says two epileptic children in Canada have died after eating the ”ketogenic diet”. Ketogenic diet is a high percentage of lipids and low carbohydrates. The ketogenic diet is used successfully as a treatment for epilepsy.

Since LCHF in our Swedish model is a modern equivalent of the original hunter’s diet, it is inconceivable that children could die from it. If children have died from the diet, humanity would not have survived in history.

I therefore believe that the children in Canada were not allowed to eat natural animal lipids, but that they instead probably had got unnatural lipids like margarine, such as Becel and Omega-6 oils, such as corn- and sunflower oil.

Does anyone know about the article and its origin?

Piltson notifies in a comment, a reference to the article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19027591
The children had apparently Selenium deficiency. It may be well to impoverished soils. Is there a difference in low lipid and high lipid eaters?

According to Andreas Ehnfeldt is the largest source of Selenium in animal foods.