Tag: low-fat

Feb17201917th Feb 201917th Feb 20195Commentsby Marika

TRUMP: OFFICIALLY OBESE, SHORTER … AND MORE!

Posted in Food for Thought

By Marika Sboros 

It’s official. US President Donald Trump is obese and shorter than he claims to be.

Trump physician Sean Conley has released his patient’s latest physical exam results. Despite (or perhaps because of) the results, Conley declared Trump to be in rude, good health.

He also predicted that Trump’s “good” health would continue throughout his presidency. And forever after.

Conley is the first psychic physician to serve the White House incumbent. His medical crystal ball, however, is faulty.

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Aug0920189th Aug 201817th Aug 20185Commentsby Marika

Diet-heart hypothesis: zombie or written in scientific stone?

Posted in Heart Disease

By Marika Sboros

The diet-heart hypothesis is a curious creature. To some scientists and physicians, the hypothesis that saturated fat causes heart disease is a zombie. Despite all the stakes they drive deep into its heart, it just won’t die.

To others, it’s written in scientific stone. That’s even when supporters, such as Harvard nutrition and epidemiology professor Walter Willett, call it “incomplete” and “overly optimistic” in its classical form.

The hypothesis hovered in the wings at a groundbreaking conference in Zurich, Switzerland in June. That’s when it wasn’t taking centre stage. Willett and others vigorously dispute the notion of any terminal hole in the diet-heart hypothesis.

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May28201828th May 20184th Jun 201813Commentsby Marika

PHC FINALLY LAYS LOW-FAT DIETS TO REST! Part 2

Posted in LCHF

By Marika Sboros

Are you on a low-fat, high-carb diet because your doctor or dietitian says that it’s “healthy”?

That’s “fake news”, says Scottish professor of metabolic medicine Iain Broom.

You are part of an “uncontrolled global experiment” over 40 years.

It is one that has had “disastrous” results for people across the planet, Broom said.

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Feb13201813th Feb 201819th Feb 20185Commentsby Marika

NOAKES, NUTRITION NETWORK AND FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE

Posted in LCHF

Prof Tim Noakes with his sister, Mandy Ruysch van Dugteren

By Marika Sboros

You could say that Prof Tim Noakes is at it again, spreading the word about low-carb,high-fat (LCHF), ketogenic therapies, busily challenging orthodoxy. This time though, the vehicle is really his eponymous family-founded Noakes Foundation.

The Foundation launched its Nutrition Network in Cape Town at the weekend. It is a world’s first professional training in low-carb, high-fat therapies for patient treatment.

Foundation COO Jayne Bullen says the Nutrition Network has a specific aim: to support medical and allied health professionals in implementing LCHF and keto lifestyles in their practice.

The two-day conference featured an impressive line-up of speakers from a wide range of medical fields, including the founding Medical Board of the Nutrition Network. The Board includes Noakes, Cape Town GP Dr Neville Wellington and specialist physician Dr Hassina Kajee.

Bullen was suitably expansive. “This is the healthcare of the future,” she said.

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Oct0220172nd Oct 201715th Oct 20189Commentsby Marika

LOW-FAT: EXPERTS KEEP ZOMBIE MYTH ALIVE

Posted in LCHF

The low-fat diet for heart disease and other serious chronic diseases is a zombie myth, say the experts. Those who keep it alive remain devoted to the diet-heart hypothesis that saturated fat causes heart disease.

No one has yet proved the hypothesis. Thus, it is currently unscientific. 

You wouldn’t know it from the reaction of many doctors and dietitians to the PURE study. Although associational, PURE is yet another nail in the low-fat coffin. Yet many ‘experts’ have a vested interest in keeping the low-fat myth alive. 

Here, Australian GP Dr Joe Kosterich speculates on why. And shows why it’s time to give it a decent burial. – Marika Sboros

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Sep0120171st Sep 201711th Oct 201712Commentsby Marika

‘PURE’ PROOF FATS DON’T KILL, DIETARY GUIDELINES WRONG?

Posted in LCHF

By Marika Sboros

Major new research, the PURE study, is creating controversy about dietary guidelines globally. It shows that the more fat you eat, including saturated fat, the lower your risk of dying from heart disease.

And the more carbohydrates you eat, the higher your risk of premature death.

PURE (Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology) cohort study,  is the largest ever investigating links between carbs, fats, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death. Thirty-seven researchers looked at dietary habits of 135,335 people in 18 countries over five continents with an average follow-up of 7.4 years. They are calling for changes to the guidelines. They say that the much-disputed cap on dietary saturated fat (no more than 10% of energy intake) is wrong.

Critics say PURE proves that low-fat diets are as lethal for hearts as low-carb experts claim. Others say PURE shows no need for change and doesn’t exonerate saturated fat.

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May18201718th May 201721st May 201711Commentsby Marika

RISE OF ‘MICROPOWERS’ – HOW TO EAT YOURSELF WELL

Posted in BOOKS

From Louise Stephen’s Eating Ourselves Sick blog

By Marika Sboros

Can you eat yourself sick? Of course, you can. But knowing that is liberating because if you can eat yourself sick, you can also eat yourself well. “Micropowers” show you the way. Ask Australian former corporate high-flyer Louise Stephen.

Stephen is author of Eating Ourselves Sick. The subtitle says it all: How modern food is destroying our health. She was just 33 when a life-threatening auto-immune disease abruptly ended her career. A kidney transplant allowed her to stick around to write this important book.

In it, Stephen documents the rise of “micropowers”. These are are “digital Davids” that challenge once-dominant mega-players in all fields of human endeavour. They also counteract the insidious influence of food and drug industries on dietary advice.

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May14201714th May 20173rd Jul 201725Commentsby Marika

NOAKES ‘ENERGISED, WRATHFUL’ AS HPCSA GOES AFTER HIM AGAIN

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

So, the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) has appealed the not guilty verdict for Prof Tim Noakes. His lawyers are furious and up for the fight ahead. Noakes is “strangely elated”. He says that it will “allow the exposure of much about which the South African public would otherwise have remained ignorant”.

Of course, an appeal was always on the cards. The HPCSA’s legal team has the right of appeal. However, even die-hard opponents of Noakes see it as a vindictive, stupid move. It may come back to haunt the HPCSA and the lone, “horrified” dietitian who started the case against Noakes. And her organisation, the Association for Dietetics in SA (ADSA). And the many other dietitians, doctors and assorted academics involved in his prosecution.

His lawyers call the case against him a persecution. The appeal lends more credence to that. It also feeds speculation of vested interests behind the HPCSA’s failed bid to silence him on low-carb, high-fat (LCHF). The case has lasted more than three years and cost many millions of rands. If the HPCSA pursues its path, as looks likely, it could go on for years and cost millions more. Noakes’  lawyers see it as “more waste of everyone’s time and money”.

All for a single tweet in which Noakes said that good first foods for infants are LCHF.

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May0820178th May 20177th May 201717Commentsby Marika

ADSA FACES GROWING BACKLASH FOR ‘RECORD 17 LIES’ ABOUT NOAKES

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

By Marika Sboros

The Association for Dietetics in SA (ADSA) is facing a global backlash for its role in the trial of scientist Prof Tim Noakes. The backlash has grown faster in the wake of an ambiguous statement that ADSA released after the comprehensive verdict of not guilty for Noakes on a charge of unprofessional conduct for his views on low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) foods.

American Ben Fury is one of many critics who has reacted with undisguised anger at ADSA’s statement. Along the way, he has identified “17 lies” that ADSA has told about its case against Noakes.

With so many lies in a single statement, Fury says that ADSA has set “a new record for being corporate stooges”.  He doesn’t stop there in a damning attack on ADSA’s executive, under current president Maryke Gallagher. He calls them “quislings”. Quisling is the word for a traitor, especially one who “collaborates with an enemy occupying force for personal gain”. It comes from the name of Norway’s pro-Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling during World War 2.

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May0420174th May 20174th May 20177Commentsby Marika

LIFE FOR ADSA AFTER NOAKES NOT GUILTY VERDICT?

Posted in LCHF

ADSA president Maryke Gallagher and ‘crisis manager’ Neeran Naidoo

By Marika Sboros

If defeat is best viewed as a life lesson, the Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA) doesn’t seem to want to learn anything from it. ADSA lost its bid to silence Prof Tim Noakes on the science for low-carb, high-fat (LCHF). However, it is sticking to its dietary guns and South Africa’s industry-led nutrition guidelines.

ADSA President Maryke Gallagher has made it clear that ADSA will continue to dish out the low-fat, high-carb dietary advice it has always dispensed, and that the guidelines recommend.

That’s despite the Health Professions Council of SA’s  (HPCSA) comprehensive vindication of Noakes and, ultimately, the science for LCHF. The HPCSA found Noakes not guilty on 10 points of the charge of unprofessional conduct against him.

ADSA’s reputation and credibility are in free fall after its former president, Claire Julsing Strydom, set off the HPCSA hearing against Noakes. She complained about a single tweet Noakes made in February 2014. In it, he said that food first foods for infants are LCHF. by complaining about his tweet.

Critics say that ADSA’s involvement in the HPCSA’s protracted prosecution of Noakes simply his scientific views has drained it of life and turned it into a dietary dinosaur. It’s probably no surprise that ADSA has employed the services of a crisis manager, Hewers Communications CEO Neeran Naidoo, for some judicious reputation rehabilitation. ADSA released a public statement straight after the HPCSA’s not guilty verdict on April 21, 2017. Naidoo has asked Foodmed.net to run the statement in full. We have agreed. (Scroll down to see it below.)

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Mar22201722nd Mar 20177th Aug 20199Commentsby Marika

ALZHEIMER’S – FAT PATH TO PREVENTION, ‘REVERSAL’

Posted in LCHF

By Marika Sboros

Alzheimer’s disease – the words are enough to strike terror in the hardiest of hearts and minds. Doctors call Alzheimer’s the “thief of the mind” because it steals its victims from their family, their friends and themselves.

The Alzheimer’s Antidote, by US nutrition specialist Amy Berger, is a game-changer. It is also a possible “miracle” thief-blocker. It is an antidote to the medical profession’s pervasive pessimism about age and declining brain function.

Between the pages of this book is also a prescription against dogma on diet. It’s dogma that doctors and dietitians still spread with a devotion bordering on religious.

Berger draws on an exciting, relatively new path of scientific research. Best of all, she offers safe, effective and cheap dietary and lifestyle changes to prevent Alzheimer’s. And if it has already taken hold, Bergers offers hope for ways to reverse the worst of its symptoms.

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Sep29201629th Sep 20168th Jul 20184Commentsby Marika

Don’t just swallow what doctors say on statins: Kosterich

Posted in Heart Disease

Photo credit: psyberartist via Foter.com / CC BY

Statins are blockbuster drugs that make billions for pharmaceutical companies. Research shows these drugs do little to make patients’ lives longer or better. Read The Truth About Statins by Dr Barbara Roberts, for another view.

Here, Australian physician Dr Joe Kosterich looks at conflicting research in two  British medical journals, He says it is confusing enough for doctors, never mind patients.

Kosterich calls for patients to do research, question what their doctors say about statins, and not just to swallow any prescription whole. I second that. – Marika Sboros

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Sep0420164th Sep 20169th Oct 20161Commentby Marika

NOAKES IN HIS OWN WORDS: ‘WHY I CHOOSE TO GO ON TRIAL – Part 2

Posted in LCHF, noakestrial

Tim NoakesUniversity of Cape Town emeritus professor Tim Noakes loves challenging convention and being challenged.  ‘It’s when I learn,’ he says. Noakes has challenged conventional ‘wisdom’ seven times in his distinguished career. He has been proved right six times. He expects the same to happen when he goes back on trial in October 2016 in his latest challenge: to conventional ‘wisdom’ on diet. In the second of a 2-part series,  he reveals what really drives him. – Marika Sboros

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Aug31201631st Aug 201631st Aug 20162Commentsby Marika

Always hungry? Ludwig on feeling full without getting fat

Posted in BOOKS

HungerWhen it comes to nutrition, Harvard professor Dr David Ludwig restores flagging faith in that  formerly revered research institution. Ludwig’s latest book, Always Hungry? is a weight loss game-changer. Or should be, all things being equal. In nutrition science, all things are not equal. Food and drug companies still have undue influence on official dietary guidelines. They are one reason the influential US dietary guidelines survive despite little science to prop them up. Ditto for the dietary advice in the many countries that follow the US guidelines slavishly.

Ludwig is that rare species: a medical doctor who is also a nutrition expert. He is also not afraid to go up against conventional high-carb, low-fat ‘wisdom’. For weight loss and to beat hunger pangs, Ludwig is not on the extreme end of the low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) spectrum. Here, US physician and world-renowned LCHF pioneer Dr Michael Eades explains why Ludwig’s book is ‘the most comprehensive on low-carb dieting published to date’. And if you have a friend or family member struggling with weight, why it’s quite simply ‘the best book you could give them’. – Marika Sboros

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Aug20201620th Aug 201620th Aug 20162Commentsby Marika

Harvard’s hungry voice of nutrition sanity – David Ludwig!

Posted in LCHF
Dr David Ludwig

Dr David Ludwig

Like many people, I used to be in awe of Harvard University Medical School. Until increasingly odd science began emanating from luminaries Harvard’s hallowed research halls. In 2009 the New York Times published reports on the ties of Harvard professors and lecturers to drug companies. Time magazine picked it up in how drug industry money is tainting medical education. Harvard appears increasingly impervious to dodgy behaviour of some professors. They seem to think it’s in their job description to muzzle scientific debate that opposes powerful vested interests.

Getting some Harvard professors to understand how iffy that is appears extraordinarily difficult. A quote by the late US investigative journalist and author Upton Sinclair springs unbidden mind. ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!’ Medical doctor and Harvard nutrition specialist Dr David Ludwig helps to restore faith in Harvard. Here, blogger and ‘reluctant nutritionist’ Sammy Pepys looks at how Ludwig maintains his influential independent thought and mind on nutrition. – Marika Sboros

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Aug0420164th Aug 20169th Dec 20161Commentby Marika

Dietary guidelines: why they make you fatter, sicker

Posted in LCHF

overweightGovernments, doctors and dietitians use dietary guidelines to dish up advice to you on what to eat and what not to eat. You’d expect that advice to be  evidence-based. Your expectations are not always realistic. 

The US dietary guidelines are hugely influential. All English-speaking countries embraced the guidelines when the US government  launched them in 1977. These guidelines were without much solid science to back them up then. They remain so today.

Here,  in Part 1 of a 2-part series, US physician  Dr Michael Eades explains why the dietary guidelines are making us all fatter and sicker. It’s a sobering read. – Marika Sboros

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Jul11201611th Jul 201611th Jul 20160Commentby Marika

Will pasta make you thin? Fat chance!

Posted in LCHF

PASTABy Marika Sboros

Italian scientists say they have proved that eating pasta won’t make you fat. That it actually helps you to get thin.

That’s how media across the globe heralded a new study published in Nutrition and Diabetes. That’s how the researchers themselves have happily punted it .

Can a pizza study be far behind? 

The research is grist to the anti-low-carb mill. A knock-out blow to the low-carb side of the UK “fat wars”. It sabotages a powerful “Martin Luther moment”. It supports Public Health England’s much maligned Eatwell Guide. 

Or does it? Is this just Big Carb fighting back – and losing? Here’s look at what the researchers really say and what their data really show: 

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Jun16201616th Jun 20161st Jul 20160Commentby Marika

Low Carb USA 2016: rumble in the nutrition science jungle!

Posted in LCHF

By Marika Sboros

food pyramidThe US government’s dietary guidelines have made people fatter and sicker over the past 40 years and need a complete overhaul, say scientists. They say the guidelines are unscientific and their effects catastropic for public health: epidemics of diet-related illnesses including obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. They say the guidelines have contribute to unnecessary suffering and deaths, while contributing to skyrocketing healthcare costs.

Next month, 25 of the world’s top medical and scientific minds will gather at the Low Carb San Diego 2016 conference, the largest of its kind to date, to be held  from July 29 – 31 to examine what can be done to turn that situation around:

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Jun13201613th Jun 201613th Jun 20165Commentsby Marika

All seed oils safe to eat? Fat chance!

Posted in LCHF

By Marika Sboros

Seeds are sometimes called vegetable oils, though not strictly correctly

Seed oils are sometimes called vegetable oils, though not strictly correctly

Globally, scientists say growing and compelling evidence reveals significant health risks associated with use of seed oils such as canola and sunflower – unless you live in South Africa. Scientists in that country say their research proves these oils are perfectly safe, will protect you from heart disease, and are free from “Frankenfood” genetic modifications to boot.

That ringing endorsement comes in a recent study published in the South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition (SAJCN). It’s enough to warm the cockles of the heart of the seed oil industry that makes billions from these products, even though concerns about serious health risks continue: 

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Jun0820168th Jun 20168th Jun 20160Commentby Marika

UK ‘FAT WARS’: MARTIN LUTHER MOMENT FOR MEDICINE?

Posted in LCHF
health

The moment in medicine when sick care becomes health care?

It began with a powerful public statement in May 2016 by leading British doctors, dietitians and scientists demanding that orthodoxy in medicine confronts its terminal weaknesses. In particular, they demand change in official guidelines that are heavily influenced by vested interests in food and drug companies. They say the guidelines are probably the ‘biggest error in the history of modern medicine’, with catastrophic effects on people’s health globally. The backlash was expected – and swift. The ‘rebels’ were denounced. There were resignations from the National Obesity Forum that issued the statement. The rebels remain undeterred. Award-winning British journalist Jerome Burne believes the fat wars herald a much-needed ‘Martin Luther moment’ for medicine. He explains why in a shortened version of his blog on the topic (for a full version, scroll down below). It’s a riveting read. – Marika Sboros

By Jerome Burne*

Last week the front page of The Times carried a story that was an opening shot in a revolution:

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