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Science & Technology
'Carbohydrates are killing us'
2018-07-09
[Wash Times] This year, more than 610,000 Americans will die from heart disease. It’s the leading cause of death for both men and women.

For decades, doctors and nutritionists prescribed low-fat diets to people trying to lower their risk of heart disease. Saturated fats in meats and dairy products were thought to clog our arteries. Grains ‐ especially "whole" ones ‐ were thought to help everything from high cholesterol to digestion.

A growing body of research suggests this advice was wrong. For most people, it’s carbohydrates, not fats, that are the true cause of heart disease.

Consider a report published last year in The Lancet that studied nutrition among more than 135,000 people across 18 different countries ‐ making it the largest-ever observational study of its kind. The researchers found that people who ate the least saturated fat ‐ about the same amount currently recommended for heart patients ‐ had the highest rates of heart disease and mortality. Meanwhile, people who consumed the most saturated fat had the lowest rate of strokes.

Limiting intake of carbohydrates, rather than fats, is a surer way to decrease the risk of heart disease. An analysis of more than a dozen studies published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that patients on low-carb diets had healthier body weights and cardiovascular systems than those on conventional low-fat diets. I’m a cardiologist in Virginia and my own patients have seen the benefits of a low-carb, high-fat diet firsthand
Posted by:Besoeker

#29  Been low carb for 4 years now. Recently transitioned to zero carb / all meat. Laugh all you like. I've never looked or felt better.
Posted by: Iblis   2018-07-09 22:51  

#28  this low-fat bullshit was pushed by the government, and conveniently helped a lot of large corporate agriculture companies. High fructose corn syrup is metabolic poison. Its replacement of sugar in the 70's marks the beginning of the type 2 diabetes epidemic. Correlation is not causation, but there is certainly something there to look at.

Best theory I've heard goes like this:

Fructose is metabolized in the liver, and elevated liver enzymes a precursor to type 2 diabetes, as part of "syndrome X". It creates intestinal difficulties with altered grellin production in the stomach (meaning you stay hungry in spite of eating), and that in turn alters intestinal processes. By altering intestinal processes, it can cause the loss of production of GLP-1. GLP-1 initiates and governs the insulin secretion and response, as well as triggering satiety (fullness) signaling in the brain. Once that goes haywire, the body starts screwing up insulin, and then resistance grows. That means insulin is overproduced because there is not enough GLP-1 made to signal the pancreas to stop. Excess insulin over time reduces the body's sensitivity to it. That leaves insulin sitting around, unable to enter the cells - which leaves insulin AND glucose in excess in the blood. insulin sitting around unused picks up the extra glucose going unused and causes the body to store it as adipose (fat) tissue. And fat tissue aggravates insulin resistance, completing the nasty circle. You eat, you dont get full until you've over eaten, your body doesnt use up the carbs but stores them as fat.

This leaves you full but hungry, tired from not enough energy in the cells, getting fatter, and with high blood sugar that damages the fine arteries and capillaries of your organs, including the kidneys, eyes, and the heart.

It is a nasty cycle that's hard to break unless you ditch carbohydrates nearly completely and start living off ketones which brings its own set of problems.

FYI, from what I read genetic changes can occur in the span of a couple of generations. Go look up epigenetics. Behavior and environment can favor expression of certain genes, as well as activating them and passing them on. The "selfish gene" and its impact on those of Irish descent and how they handle carbohydrates.
Posted by: Injun Bucket8891   2018-07-09 21:53  

#27  DV may have something at #5. Have you ever seen an obese UPS driver ?
Posted by: Besoeker   2018-07-09 19:14  

#26  Carbs? I like carbs. I got a tombstone diet and am a dead man walking. Been getting on down the road for quite awhile now with my carb diet. Wonder if our resident poet could get a country song out of that?
Posted by: JohnQC   2018-07-09 19:13  

#25  Yeah, that di-hydrogen monoxide stuff. Not for me, man. Ever since I read what W.C. Fields said, I eshew it.
Posted by: DooDahMan   2018-07-09 18:21  

#24  Well I guess the hippies are SOL in terms of brown rice.
Posted by: Cheaderhead   2018-07-09 16:56  

#23  I recommend red meats, green vegetables and brown liqour.

Niet to brown liquor.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-07-09 16:53  

#22  Read

Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, by Gary Taubes.

All about carbs and insulin and their effects on yer body. American dietary recomendations make you chronically ill. Then the doctors prescribe all kinds of drugs to mask the symptoms.

I recommend red meats, green vegetables and brown liqour. Its all you need to be healthy. Oh, and get off your ass and move around.
Posted by: BrerRabbit   2018-07-09 16:50  

#21  #18 That's sexual selection Darth, and - with all due respect to Cavalli- Sforza - I'm not sure it took 3000, or even 30000, years.
Now about all this carbohydrate staff - everlooked on the changes hunter gathers' switch to agriculture brought
or what happened to Japanese after they became rich and started eating meat?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-07-09 16:50  

#20  If I have ANYTHING fermented (yeasts) such as bread, beer, vinegar or MSG. I get CFS.

Too much sugar makes me make yeast so i feel crap after.

I can have distilled spirits though so all is not lost.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2018-07-09 16:34  

#19  
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2018-07-09 16:31  

#18  Human genetics don't change in 3000 years, Darth.

European's ability to tolerate lactose and the rapid spread of light colored eyes and hair beg to differ.

I would argue some of the modern issues with wheat/gluten/carbs has more to do with the types we now use and what we spray on them. Ancient grains like Spelt are no longer used. We use a drought resistant mutant that also has more gluten for a softer, springy bread. This is a fairly recent change in our diets. That with whatever crap they spray on it I believe does more harm than the carb itself.

My wife has serious reactions to modern gluten, joint inflammation and severe bloating, but can eat a sandwich made with organic Spelt just fine.
Posted by: DarthVader   2018-07-09 15:35  

#17  If you want to cite genetic changes in Amerindians, magpie, cite resistance to alcohol.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-07-09 14:09  

#16  Why, yes, they do, every time under severe evolutionary selection. The Current generation of American Indians have genetic resistances to the "Old World Diseases" far different from pre-Contact.

That's not genetics, it's environment - what an immune system exposed to from early age.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-07-09 14:05  

#15  Humanity were hunter gatherers for a long time. But with agriculture came cities and civilization (or with cities and civilization came agriculture).

The problems with that agriculture were not manifested for a long time because of the busting your ass effect Darth mentioned.

The real problem in the USA is the food pyramid that guided the 'healthy diet' is all carbs and it was created to please farm states because they vote early in the primaries.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2018-07-09 13:52  

#14  William Hardy Williams' Plagues and Peoples was particularly chilling on his description that the initial generation exposed to a "killer" disease would have symptoms, bizarre lethal symptoms, that made it almost impossible to determine the pathogens from the records...
Posted by: magpie   2018-07-09 13:34  

#13  #10 Human genetics don't change in 3000 years, Darth. --g(r)omgoru
Why, yes, they do, every time under severe evolutionary selection. The Current generation of American Indians have genetic resistances to the "Old World Diseases" far different from pre-Contact. All the people that were highly susceptible died and failed to pass on their genes...
Posted by: magpie   2018-07-09 13:29  

#12  Been doing straight up Atkins for a while. Definitely losing belly fat but weight not changing much. Pants are not tight and I like grilled meat so I'm going with it.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2018-07-09 13:25  

#11  Human genetics don't change in 3000 years, Darth.

An interesting observation which goes well beyond 'carbohydrates.'
Posted by: Besoeker   2018-07-09 12:18  

#10  Human genetics don't change in 3000 years, Darth.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-07-09 11:31  

#9  That and Official Government Guidelines™ offering dietary advice based on that mythical "Average Person" can be life threatening to the individual -- and we are all individuals!
Posted by: magpie   2018-07-09 11:30  

#8  You are talking before there was a huge farming culture. After full farming took over in most of the world, around 2500-3000 years ago carbs were the dominate food.
It isn't propaganda, it is backed by archaeology. Bread and flat cakes are easy to make, have a nice calorie boost and can be stored for a long, long time.

Yes, for modern humans that don't burn 3000 calories a day, carbs can be deadly. But for our ancestors they were a vital and necessary foodstuff and demonizing them because we are fat lazy bastards doesn't tell the whole story.
Posted by: DarthVader   2018-07-09 11:22  

#7  Darth,

Up until the birth of agriculture 6,000 years ago, the majority of early man's diet was meat and fat. One dead buffalo could feed a tribe for weeks whereas waiting for the "crop" to come in takes months.

Looking in a site, the artifacts are not muffin tins and cookie sheets, it is knives, hide scrapers and pieces of bone.

This propaganda about man being mostly whole grains etc, is wrong. Most agriculture went to producing beer which was a cheap safe means of purifying water.

I'm on a ketogenic diet because of the Warburg effect. Cancer can only process glucose whereas normal cells can process fat through ketosis or glucose.

Just remember that insulin is your enemy and the lower your carb intake the less likely you are to develop type II diabetes or high levels of cholesterol...interestingly most people when they go high fat have their cholesterol go down.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom   2018-07-09 11:04  

#6  Yes in modern man those carbs sit there unused in the gut where the microbiota party and you get the hangover.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2018-07-09 09:28  

#5  Humans have been eating carbs in large quantities for thousands of years. 80-85% of the daily caloric intake was wheat or other grains and those people actually had a greater daily intake than modern humans as they ate closer to 3000 calories a day.

The major difference is, they busted their asses from dawn to dusk and burned off those 3000 calories. Most modern humans sit on their ass and don't to the physical labor our ancestors did. Combine that with the easy calories of carbs and you have a perfect recipe for heart disease.
Posted by: DarthVader   2018-07-09 09:09  

#4  Don't forget the impact of di-hydrogen monoxide, the worlds most deadly compound.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike   2018-07-09 08:25  

#3  A takes 'x' years off your life.
B takes 'y' years off your life.
C takes 'z' years off your life.
etc etc

By calculations of all the 'takes years off your life', we're born dead.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2018-07-09 08:17  

#2  Gee BP, does that mean that Leftists do a lot of carb loading?
Posted by: AlanC   2018-07-09 08:08  

#1  Cabs + microbiota => nasty microbiata + toxins => general inflammation => heart disease + CFS + PCOS + mental illness.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2018-07-09 06:57  

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