Nama, you’re right. But this madness didn’t start with big business, it started with a huge ego and bad science by Ancel Keys in America. If you’re interested, the best book is ‘The Big Fat Surprise’ by Nina Teicholz. Keys was determined to be the man who found the answer to heart disease and he ‘found’ it in our most ancient food (fat). He didn’t even consider smoking. At the same time a British scientist called John Yudkin said the evidence against sugar was far stronger, but Keys viciously abused and silenced him.

Big business saw the marketing opportunity of low-fat and jumped onboard. I think vested interests now keeps the thing going. It’s the only explanation for what’s happening in Australia where doctors and sane nutritionists are silenced. Look at the list of sponsors of the Australian Dietary Association. What an appalling list!

This morning I was in Sainsbury’s looking at the sugar-added junk fest that is the modern supermarket. I have American friends who tell me it’s genuinely difficult there to buy a decent full-fat yoghurt or more than one decent butter. Fotunately, that’s not the case here, but I looked at display after display of packs and cans loaded with added sugar. Six spoons in a soup, seven in beans and so on. And the result is 5,000 new diabetics diagnosed each week, who will then be told to eat mostly carbohydrates (glucose). Medieval.

Hi AV,

Yes Ancel keys has a lot to answer for. Not sure if you have access to this article, try the link and see if it works.

Cristin Kearns is a dentist (I think??) and stumbled onto old documents held in a local library. It was letters going back and forwards between the American Sugar Association and a senior researcher at Harvard medical school. It was a targeted and sustained attack to discredit anyone that would say that sugar was to blame for the increasing health problems. Fascinating reading. They knew the science was bad even back in the 70s but there was no way they were going to lose market share and sales of sugar without a fight.

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2548255

Booty, It’s now known that the scientists who wrote a report casting doubt on the effect of sugar on ill health were paid and showed drafts to those paying their fee to ensure they were happy.

One of the many tragedies of the Ancel Keys affair is that I think he had real ability, but it was overtaken by a desperate desire to be proved right and a ruthless streak that he was willing to use against far more scrupulous scientists. Nina Teicholz describes a crucial conference where the senior scientists of the day openly mocked Keys’ idea that fat caused heart disease. Keys left absolutely detemined to be proved right and let nothing stand in his way. His treatment of the quiet, thorough and scholarly John Yudkin was a disgrace. The flawed and wrong connection with heart disease can still be seen in the low-fat sugar-packed rubbish on every supermarket shelf.

This nonsense has probably killed more people prematurely than half the wars of the twentieth century and the casualties are still coming in every day.

Nice link. Poor science is not just the domain of biology/medical research. It exists in all disciplines of science. Science is a sausage making machine. You just crank the handle and keep churning out the product. Its just that branch of science has a profound influence on human lives. Its become almost impossible for such societies to come out and say “Sorry, you know that advice we’ve been espousing for the last 40 years, well we got it wrong”. Not going to happen is it. Max Plank was right, science advances one death at a time.

Hi:

The reason why you really don’t want to drink too much water: http://www.aol.com/article/lifestyle/2016/10/13/why-drinking-water-when-youre-not-thirsty-can-kill-you/21582194/

Hi:

Another study, this one aimed at people over 65, that shows resistance training (like weight lifting) by itself does not cause weight loss or improvement in ‘metabolic markers’, but reduced calories causes both weight loss and material improvement in those markers: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/10/20/cutting-calories-may-dial-back-metabolic-syndrome-in-older-adults.html

Actually in relation to my above post, what I suspected about IF and ‘Tao’ appears to be correct according to this interview with Mark Mattson. What I heard as pronounced ‘Tao’ I think is actually ‘mTor’ protein… At 27:36 in the interview Mark Mattson explains, “During the bio-energetic challenge of exercising or fasting, autophagy is increased; in part by inhibiting mTOR. Cells go into a protective mode, reducing overall protein synthesis, and at the same time, improving their ability to remove “molecular garbage.”

28:55: The cells’ recovery period is important for increased protein synthesis, and the growth of muscle cells, dendrites and new synapses.

What I found most interesting in reading this interview with Mattson is what his own diet comprises of…

33:04: Mattson himself practices time-restricted feeding. For four to five days a week, he doesn’t eat breakfast or lunch. Then he will eat after working out and in the evening. “I think I’m more productive this way.” Following this regimen, he has also maintained the same body weight for thirty years.

37:00: Mattson’s diet includes fruits, veggies, nuts, fish, yogurt, whole grains, and beans. “At least half my calories are from complex carbohydrates.”

Here’s the link if you’d like to read the whole interview transcript:

https://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode007/

CLBetter, thanks for posting about inulin. I am wondering if there are any concerns about inulin products from China — even if marked “organic.” The article does not address this, but I’ve seen a lot of comments in Amazon.

I’ve also noted that some companies source from Belgium.

Here is an interesting page which explains the benefits of ‘resistant starch’ as found in cooled cooked potatoes. The beauty of resistant starch is that it doesn’t break down to glucose. It isn’t broken down at all in the body, but instead it becomes food for the gut microbiome in the colon. The gut bacteria digest the resistant starch into short-chain fatty acids, which are absorbed by the body.

Feeding the good gut bacteria – and the cells of the intestinal lining – seems to be able to affect hormone levels in the body (GLP-1 etc.), that in turn has an effect on blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/category/food/resistant-starch

Shifting what we remember shifts what we eat:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150121-a-memory-trick-to-lose-weight

I currently have some reservations about how this CSIRO study is presented, primarily because it might feed into unhelpful stereotyping. This study, as presented, verges on the type of finger pointing which the food manufacturers and marketers would love, because the pointed finger is aimed nowhere near them. This might be misdirected and even misleading science, and presentation of science? And this might come from requiring scientists (like CSIRO scientists) to fund themselves increasingly through associations with commercial organisations whose aim is to make us consume more? Coca Cola would love this study and how it is presented.

There are major physiological changes that occur to people on Western diets. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the evidence. These physiological changes impact on many things, including cravings. To simplistically classify people as (for example) cravers, and end there, is to ignore and dismiss these causes.

As a race, we have not transformed from non-obese (middle of last century) to obese (now) simply because of the strength of our willpower, or because natural selection has weeded out the non-cravers. A baby conceived in 2000 has a hugely greater risk of becoming obese compared to a baby conceived in 1900. This suggests studies (like this one) looking into inherent differences between the natures of people to explain obesity are missing the point. The changed environment is what has overwhelmingly driven this change. Surely.

If the CSIRO want to investigate cravings, I would hope they would focus on identifying the underlying causes of cravings. I fear that, increasingly, this investigation will not happen (or will be unpublished/buried) if their masters are food companies or the like.

Correction, I think it was Mark Mattson, another researcher interviewed, not Valter Longo, who suggested 5:2 to Michael.

Thanks I hope so too 🙂