If you'll Google "metabolic syndrome" you'll
discover that it is now epidemic in the U. S.,
and puts one in major risk for diabetes and
heart disease. In fact, you probably have the
syndrome if you have three or more of these
risk factors: abdominal obesity, high triglyce-
rides, low HDL cholesterol, high blood pressure,
and/or elevated blood sugar.
A book by Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad
Calories presents abundant scientific evidence
that the standard American diet (SAD), which
is low-fat and high in carbohydrates feeds and
in fact accelerates the metabolic syndrome, and
with it, obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Those
three killers have, of course, kept increasing
steadily over the past 30 years that our government
and the commercial food giants have been pushing
the low-fat diet to fight heart disease. Taubes is a
science reporter who has spent years studying the
research on this subject. He convincingly challenges
the 40 year-old hypothesis (never proven) that cho-
lesterol itself is the critical component in heart dis-
ease, and cites research implicating triglycerides
and the kinds of molecules known as lipo-proteins
that carry cholesterol through the blood. Both of
these, he writes, are effectively regulated by the
carbohydrate content of the diet, rather than by
saturated fat.
Dr. Atkins (the cardiologist of diet fame) showed
that a low-carb diet can safely ignore saturated fats
and still lower triglycerides while raising HDL, the
healthy cholesterol. Atkins' views on that have now
been confirmed by studies at Duke, Stanford, the
Univ. of Pa., and by sixty four million Frenchmen
who love real butter, cheese and eggs, and cook in
lard. They have the same cholesterol level that we
do, but less than half as much coronary heart disease.
How is that possible, if cholesterol is a main cause
of heart disease? Oh, and it's not just the French:
Austrians, Belgians, and Finns show similar eating
habits with similar health results. And it's not
because the French drink a lot of wine. They do,
and die of liver cirrhosis twice as much as we do,
but the latest research shows that more than two
alcoholic drinks per day don't help your heart; it
hurts it. Incidentally, French consumption of
sugar is less than half the 160 lb.s per person that
we eat each year. Connect the dots!
The Inuits' diet is 60% saturated fat. They have high
cholesterol and zero heart disease until refined carbs
came to them in Cokes and Hershey bars. Now dia-
betes is rampant among them. The Masai (E. Africa)
diet is 90% animal products (an extreme Atkins), they
have the lowest cholesterol found anywhere, and no
heart disease. It's the same with at least thirteen
other preliterate tribal societies all over the world.
Remember our own Plains Indians?
If you'll google the cholesterol controversy, you'll
find there's a sizable time lag between medical
research and medical practice. Always has been.
Anywhere from ten to thirty years. Most research
points to inflammation and free radical damage
(oxidation) as the main causes of heart disease.
Cholesterol doesn't cause either of these, and in-
creasingly is seen by researchers as a marginal
risk factor. And only then when it is the small,
dense particles, and only when oxidized. (At least
seven different kinds of cholesterol have been
identified.) Antioxidants in your blood will prevent
free radical damage to the arterial walls that allows
plaque formation to build up. About 5% of that
plaque is cholesterol. The rest is calcium, lead,
cadmium, and several lipo-proteins, including
triglycerides. Has your doctor ever talked to you
about antioxidants, and which ones are needed,
and why? Mine hasn't. When asked, he said:
"not proven." That research has only been going
on for 60+ years! Still "not proven."
A medical doctor in Sweden named Uffe Ravnskov
(who also has a Ph. D. in bio-chemistry) has spent
his life researching and writing about the supposed
heart disease/cholesterol connection. He doesn't
find any, and has traced what only amounts to a
series of assumptions, back to defective research.
If you'll Google him you'll find his book: The Cho-
lesterol Myths and other writings. More and more
doctors critical of main-stream medicine are finding
the cholesterol scare may be based on bad science
and commercial hype. Lowering cholesterol is a
$30 billion a year take for drug companies, and a
huge source of TV revenue! It has done nothing to
reduce the number of heart attacks or metabolic
syndrome.
jgoodwin004@centurytel.net
