Sugar: the bitter truth

Some of the things that Robert Lustig is saying need to be widely understood and only 5.4 million have watched his you tube video so far.

Obese 6 month year olds

The story he tells is particularly relevant if you care about your children's health. They are the most in danger from the abuse by the industrialized food toxin producers and marketers. He advises of a current obesity epidemic in 6 month old babies and shows that baby formula is no more than sugar laden milkshake. He warns that adult cravings for sugar are set in infancy.

Atkins and Japan diet same difference

The high carb/low fat diet of Japan and high fat/low carb diet as per Atkins are diametrically opposed, but they both work. People will not be overweight by following either diet, what makes these diets work is that they both exclude added fructose.  In these diets fructose would only be consumed in smaller amounts and as part of whole fruits.

Dr Lustig asserts that fructose is in fact a poison to humans and similar to alcohol. In nature we are protected from the ill effects of fructose by the fibre in fruit, plus the fact that historically fruit was not available all year round.

Obesity rates in US have jumped since the 1960s despite people consuming less fat. The rise in obesity is due to Americans consuming more sugar and in particular from the 1970s increasing amounts of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  

Fat Consumption Down, Fat Bodies Up

Dr Lustig considers Ancel Keys' findings were mistaken regarding the correlation between high fat intake and high incidence of heart disease. He states that, the entire nutrition advice and policies in the US are wrong and are based on the erroneous findings of Ancel Keys.

Low Fat High Carb (Sugar) Diet is Causing Heart Disease

Dr Lustig accepts that eating a diet high in fat increases cholesterol, he explains that this is the harmless "LDLa" cholesterol which is large and buoyant and does not cause heart disease. However, eating a diet high in carbohydrates, and in particular sugars, increases the small dense cholesterol "LDLb", which damages the arteries and allows the plaque build up causing heart disease.

A major factor in the American diet leading to the obesity is consumption of excessive fructose contained in HFCS an ingredient in many processed foods, including soft drinks. He points out that fructose is actually toxic to our bodies and causes the following problems. 

• Fructose does not suppress the hunger hormone Ghrelin that stops us feeling hungry so we tend to overeat. 
• Fructose causes us to produce uric acid, which causes high blood pressure and also gout.
• Fructose causes high amounts vLDL (triglycerides) to be released into the blood stream causing obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.  
• Fructose damages the liver and causes non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and causes liver insulin resistance.
• The impact of fructose on the liver is similar to alcohol and leads to cirrhosis. There are reports of children requiring liver transplants and dying of cirrhosis due to NAFLD.  

By comparison he notes that glucose is the fuel of life and that the metabolism of glucose is not harmful to our liver.

Fructose on other hand is closely related to alcohol and similarly toxic and causes many of the same or similar diseases as alcohol. 

  

From an experiment on medical students eating the same amount of calories in glucose or fructose the amount of vLDL (triglycerides) released from consuming fructose was 20 to 30 times that of glucose.

He claims that the US Department of Agriculture won't do anything about excessive HFCS in our processed foods as this would harm the food producing industry and that food exports are important for the US economy. 

Dr. Jonny Bowden "The Great Cholesterol Myth"

This video presents the alleged fallacies regarding fats, cholesterol, weight loss and heart disease that continue to be perpetrated by our health authorities US government.

Key points are:-

The relationship between cholesterol and heart disease came from experiments on rabbits in the early 1900s in Russia. They fed the rabbits high cholesterol and they developed heart disease. However, what they didn't consider was rabbits are vegetarians and can't process animal foods, dogs may not have the same result. 23:34 in the video.

In the 1950s they started to observe more and more in US people suffering heart disease. A scientist called Ancel Keys then proposed the link between heart disease and high fat diets. He put forward data from 7 countries (USA, Canada, Australia, UK Italy and Japan) that showed increased fat intake the higher incidence of heart disease. 

One problem with Keys' findings was that was a data for 23 countries and he cherry picked the ones that showed the correlation increased fat intake increased heart disease. In countries like Norway, Sweden and Portugal eat as much as fat USA but have heart disease rates 40% that of USA. 25:04 in the video.

He points out that by eating saturated fat cholesterol levels go up. However, he argues that this is not causative of heart disease. He references a number of respected studies and leading scientist who have found increased saturated fat does not cause an increase in heart disease. They state that the nutrition advice promulgated in main stream is contrary to the scientific findings. In fact other studies have shown that increase carbohydrate consumption increases heart disease.

He quotes the Lyon Diet Heart Study which compared Mediterranean Diet to the Western Diet and the health outcomes of 605 middle aged men and women who had previously suffered heart attacks. There was significant reduction in deaths and heart problems with those who followed the Mediterranean Diet compared to the Western Diet. 

 extract from LDHS final report

The Mediterranean-style diet used in the Lyon Diet Heart Study included:

• More bread, more root vegetables and green vegetables, more fish.
• Less beef, lamb and pork (replaced with poultry).
• No day without fruit.
• Butter and cream were replaced with margarine high in alpha-linolenic acid.

The Mediterranean diet averaged 30 percent of calories from fat, 8 percent from saturated fat, 13 percent from monounsaturated fat, 5 percent from polyunsaturated fat and 203 mg/day of cholesterol. Compared to the control group, people in the experimental group consumed less Omega-6  and more oleic acid, alpha-linolenic acid and dietary fibre.

People in the control group (Western Style) consumed a diet with about 34 percent of calories from fat, 12 percent from saturated fat, 11 percent from monounsaturated fat, 6 percent polyunsaturated fat and 312 mg/day of cholesterol. This diet is comparable to what is typically consumed in the United States.

Comparison of daily nutrient between control "Western style" diet and experimental Mediterranean diet 

 extract from LDHS final report

 

 

Key differences in the diets appear to be ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 which was 18.27:1 for the Western diet and 4.29:1 for the Mediterranean diet in LDHS.

 

Another significant difference is that the amount of cholesterol consumed in Mediterranean diet was some 65% of that in the Western diet. However, blood cholesterol levels between the groups were no different. This would seem to concur with the belief that the body regulates cholesterol production depending on the amount consumed.  

 

Contrary to what Bowden states at 35:00, the Mediterranean Diet followed in the LDHS was lower in overall fat and red meat intake and so doesn't directly support his hypothesis that saturated fats are not causing heart problems. One big take away seems to be to cut back on red meat.

A key finding the Lyon Diet Heart Study was that all cholesterol level measures did not change for either group. However, despite this death rates and heart attacks were still substantially reduced for those on the Mediterranean diet, indicating cholesterol levels are not relevant.  

He states that the only reliable Cholesterol test is called the "Particle Test" and measures LDL A (harmless) and LDL B (killers).  He states that saturated fats only increase LDL A which is harmless. 42:00.

He states the real cause of heart disease is inflammation of the arteries caused by Omega-6 from (vegetable oils and eating grain fed beef) and sugar. Other sources state that inflammation is caused by LDL B cholesterol.  

Our diets contain too much Omega-6 and not enough Omega-3, the ratio in America is 16 to 1. The ratio should be 1 to 1.