Today I’m meandering off into the field of nutrition, as readers here know I do this sometimes – if I feel it’s very important.
Recently at Twitter I began following Tim Noakes, a specialist in nutrition. Tim recently posted a link to a video by Dr. Sarah Hallberg, who runs a clinic for treating obesity and diabetes in Indiana. If you have 20 minutes time, do take it to watch the video. It may add years to your life (and save our bank accounts).
Some time ago I became convinced that obesity, heart disease and nutrition-related diabetes were in fact all designed to profit what to me is increasingly looking like a very deceptive and evil group of industries. It wasn’t intended at first, but then a number of parties discovered how they could rig it to their benefit, and the rest morphed into the monster it has become today.
At least two generations of the human species have had the wool pulled over their eyes with the high-carb diet, junk-science-based nonsense. Just the most basic statistics tell the whole story:
* 50% of US adults (120 million) are either diabetic or pre-diabetic.
* Each patient pays thousands annually for diabetes medicine.
* Diabetes industry alone rakes in $250 billion every year.
Let’s recall that the high-carb diet, just like global science, was once backed up by a overwhelming “consensus of leading experts”. Today hundreds of millions of people are now paying a painful price. Hallberg says:
There’s a lot of money to be made keeping you sick.”
If I were Dr. Hallberg, I’d be watching my back very closely. There are a lot of powerful forces out there who don’t want her message to get out.
“Some time ago I became convinced that obesity, heart disease and nutrition-related diabetes were in fact all designed to profit what to me is increasingly looking like a very deceptive and evil group of industries.”
I just stumbled across Rockefeller’s influence on the AMA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6J_7PvWoMw
Looks like an accurate enough account of how “modern medicine” developed.
Also, don’t worry about Dr. Sarah Hallberg. When you’re allowed to speak at TED AND they don’t subsequently disappear your video you’re pretty much regime-affirmed.
I think the regime knows that the days of exploiting carbohydrate-caused diseases are over – and were not profitable enough anyway. They are now eager to push 1000 USD a pil antiviral drugs, which is a much better fraud.
Notice that ALL new disease scares are virii. This has a reason.
This low carb message is just beginning to come across in the UK, via a few books and TV programmes, but many people have been brainwashed by the low fat fad. One problem with diabetic medicine is that many people think it allows them to eat anything they want, there will be considerable resistance to suggesting they must change their diets rather than taking the easy option of popping pills.
Readers interested in this topic will also enjoy the blog written by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, a Scot. His main topic is cholesterol, but he has written a lot about diabetes. http://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2015/01/23/thinking-about-obesity-and-diabetes/
“When you first read about type I diabetes, one of the things that stands out is that those diagnosed with type I (at least in the past) lost weight very rapidly. They grew thinner and thinner, becoming almost like skeletons – before they all died. Why?
Why, is because insulin is the energy storage hormone. It does not just affect blood sugar levels. In fact, the almost obsessive focus on the interplay between insulin and blood sugar has blinded almost everyone to the fact that insulin does far more than just lower sugar levels. It affects fat, protein and sugar metabolism. It interacts with many different pathways in adipose tissue, muscle cells and the liver. Lowering blood sugar may be, in some ways, the least important thing that it does.
The reason why you die in type I diabetes has little to do with blood sugar levels. You die because, without insulin, fats escape from adipose tissue and travels to the liver as free fatty acids. In the liver these fatty acids are automatically converted into ketone bodies (which the body uses for energy in a fasting state).
The ketone bodies are, in turn, acidic, and in a high concentration they cause ‘acidosis’. This acidity overwhelms the alkali buffering systems, and you die in a keto-acidotic coma. To reiterate, it is not the high sugar that kills you in type I diabetes, it is the uncontrolled release of fats. This has nothing to do with sugar at all – except indirectly. Which, although you may not think it, returns us to the matter in hand. Namely, what is the association between obesity and diabetes?
As we have seen, without insulin, fats escape from fat cells at a high rate, so you lose weight. If we turn this though one hundred and eighty degrees, it should be clear that, if you have too much insulin in your bloodstream, fat can no longer escape from fat cells, and you will get fatter and fatter.
Essentially, insulin is obesogenic. A fancy way of saying that if you produce too much insulin you will become obese. An amazing fact ‘discovered’ in August 2014
“DALLAS – August 25, 2014 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a crucial link between high levels of insulin and pathways that lead to obesity, a finding that may have important implications when treating diabetes.”[1]
Yes chaps, well done. You made a breakthrough discovery of the absolute bleeding obvious. You mean, insulin makes you fat? Well who’d a thunk?
Another person to follow on Twitter is Dr. Jason Fung, a diabetes specialist who’s enjoyed tremendous success with his patients using a low carb diet and fasting. Low carb is great because it keeps insulin low but you’ll still have an insulin response to protein and fat, just not nearly as much as carbs. But if you’re truly ill from disease associated with insulin resistance there’s nothing better to alleviate that resistance than eating nothing at all. A poular fasting protocol is to eat in an 8 hour window each day which gives you at least 16 hours where your body produces zero insulin. There are a number of other benefits to fasting as well – it’s a myth that your body will burn up lean tissue (why would it when even the leanest person has a hundred thousand calories of fat stored just for the purpose of providing energy.
Like you I also have no faith in the industries that only make money if people are sick. The pursuit of profits has led us to a system where cures aren’t actually the goal but the management of symptoms with procedures and drugs. Preventative medicine as it exists today puts people into the clutches of Big Medical/Big Pharma and once you’re in their clutches it’s tough to get away. Much better to do your own research (because what they’re pushing obviously isn’t working) and be your own health advocate. If you truly have an open mind you’ll most likely come to the conclusion that carbs and insulin resistance are the bases that make people sick with chronic disease like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc. Fortunately there’s a ton more info out there than when I first began wondering why I was getting fat and sick while following a low fat, high carb diet that health experts were (and still do) pushing. I get my own testing done (pristine – triglycerides @ 55, HDL at 66, insulin @ 5) and haven’t seen a doctor in nearly 10 years. And I have no plans to in the future).
I wish people would understand that they’re doctors probably know nothing at all about nutrition – they are trained in dispensing drugs and cutting out parts. I want no part of that. Eat the foods that will allow your body to operate to its potential and you can cut out all the health care worries and expense.
“I wish people would understand that they’re doctors probably know nothing at all about nutrition – they are trained in dispensing drugs and cutting out parts. ”
Yes, the Rockefeller training.
Pharmacies though still have a lot of knowledge about metabolism and nutrients. Ask your pharmacist. At least in Germany that works.
Don’t forget saturated fats. The switch from animal fats like lard and butter to vegetable oils, which are typically rich in omega-6 fats was not a good move. Omega-6 fats have been shown in numerous studies to be proinflammatory. They have also been shown to worsen alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Fatty Liver is not only found in alcoholics but in those with middle age spread. The beer-belly or apple gut. This is why ‘apple’ shape is much more dangerous than ‘pear shape. The body is storing fat in your internal organs where it does not belong. Fatty Liver leads to all sorts of problems including heart problems.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/804310
So the low fat, low protein, high refined sugar, high refined starch diet is “A real Killer’ Literally.
Interesting. I have no position on Omega 6, but, some more info: Linoleic acid is the name of the major Omega 6 fatty acid, and this page contains a list of oils and their respective omega 6 content.
Butter and Olive Oil, which are, accidentally, my two fav sources, have 2 and 10% respectively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleic_acid
While there is much truth to all of the above, the tone of a blanket condemnation of medicine and medical practitioners is, itself, not good.
There is much not known about the human animal and one of the realizations of recent times is how different individuals can be. Thus, an assumption of years ago that we are all much the same has led to many poor outcomes. So, while I agree with much of what is in the post and comments, there is another view.
What follows is not about nutrition, but I hope it is useful.
Our own experiences with doctors and hospitals has seemed like science fiction or magic. [“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.“; Arthur C. Clarke] Because my wife had rheumatic heart disease (heart valve damage that occurs after an episode of rheumatic fever) she eventually needed a replacement of the mitral valve. Unfortunately before this could be done she experienced a blockage of an artery and needed emergency care. The standard blood thinner used is called Heparin. For about 1 in 10,000 this works fine. Not for her: this resulted in Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT). She nearly died but was saved by immediate and deep sedation – 8 days later they began to bring her out of that. To me, and for her, magic and science fiction-like things occurred daily – and then the open-heart replacement of the mitral valve followed 4 weeks later, Dec. 29, 2009. She lived, and is now quite active but with a damaged heart from the initial artery blockage and death of heart muscle. I should mention, for Christmas she got a (replacement) shiny new implanted cardioverter-defibrillator. Each day we thank modern medicine.
The condemnation is for the blind spot that is nutrition. As Dr. Daily, my doctor when I was a teen said, for Doctors nutrition courses were (are?) optional.
Recently I was talking to a doctor, a cardiologist, at a party. He was Asian. When I mentioned Co-Q-10 he said don’t expect much research done on that, there is no money in it.
And that is the problem. If a drug company can not charge big bucks for the ‘cure’ you are not going to see research done.
Back in the late 1960s Dr Daily had contracted rheumatoid arthritis from an infection. She worked with a research doctor in Canada and her disease was completely arrested. Although both doctors tried to get the FDA to ALLOW trials for licensing in the USA every avenue was blocked. That cure died with those doctors.
In another instance I was at a seminar by a vet on horse health. Turns out the company he was working with wanted to work on a West Nile vaccine. Again the FDA said NO!
That is the problem. The careful channeling of medicine and medical research so it returns the most $$$.
9,999 of 10,000 — of course — it works fine
Interesting.
There are other disturbing facts about medication. Medication for high colesterol. And the disturbing recommendation to use poly unsaturated fats. I highly recommend to read Bruce Fife´s books on Coconut oil and Palm oil. Very interesting.
I only use 2 types of oil. Coconut and olive. And I stay away from grains
They are the main two I use (grapeseed has been another, although I’m beginning to rethink that one) along with real butter.
List of dietary sources by Omega 6 content (same link as in my comment above)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleic_acid
THANKS!
Watching it now. I also sent it to a friend who has Type2 Diabetes.
There is a parallel between the demonisation of carbohydrates and that of carbon dioxide. In each case it involves food. Without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere there would be no plants but, without plants there would be no food for animals.
Even carnivores obtain almost all of their protein, vitamins and minerals indirectly from plants through the prey which they eat.
The dry weight of vegetables and fruit is 95% carbohydrate, so, if you want a low carbohydrate diet cut out all fruit and vegetables.
If you want to lose weight remember that 1 gram of protein has 14 kilojoules of energy, 1 gram of carbohydrate 15 kilojoules of energy while 1 gram of fat has a whopping 37 kilojoules of energy.
“There is a parallel between the demonisation of carbohydrates and that of carbon dioxide. In each case it involves food. Without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere there would be no plants but, without plants there would be no food for animals.”
We don’t demonize plants.
Your weight gain is proportional to the amount of carbohydrates you eat. Want to gain weight? Add more carbohydrates. Want to lose it? Remove them.
Works for me.
You know, I need to keep my weight STABLE. Why? Well, just imagine I would have to replace my entire wardrobe! I couldn’t even afford that! And it would take me ages to find all those shirts, pants and suits in that quality and style all over again! What do you expect me to do? Go shopping for days on end? Do you even know how UGLY 99% of the clothes in the department stores are?
Nah, gaining weight is completely out of the question.
This would be the Harcombe Diet® it is all about eating real food and ditching fake food.
Really appreciate this post. I have to wonder if the low fat diet doesn’t have something to do with the “epidemic” of Alzheimer’s….
Most definitely! But no worries – Big Pharma will soon have a cocktail of drugs to “treat” the disease – until the day you die. Treatment will cost like $2500 a month…and actually have little effect, or big side effects, which of course will be treated with more drugs, which in turn will have side affects, which in turn…..