Re: High Cholesterol & Weight Gain (Jodi)

[Guest guest]

Hi Jodi,

Before I address your doctor friend's comments, I want to first

ensure that the important part of my message is not lost in all this

discussion. The message I want to convey is that changing my

daughter's diet to one which is high in good fats and protein,

and reduced complex carbohydrates has done wonders for her. She is

no longer on any drugs, is feeling great, growing extremely well and

with " real " muscles, and doing much better emotionally. The

added benefit has been the results for everyone else in our family

who switched to this diet. For instance, my husband who has always

been fighting the battle of the bulge has lost a lot of weight,

blood pressure declined and so did his high cholesterol, which is

now in the normal range. For me, I feel much better, I have not

been sick in a year and my anxiety level has dropped markedly.

I guess what I am trying to convey is that we have experienced hands-

on this diet and in no way have we encountered any major negatives,

so this has been real life experience rather than some clinical test

that could be manipulated by some third party in order to be able to

profit off its results. Also, I want to note that our diet has not

been solely red meats. It is well balanced, including such proteins

as chicken, fish, beef, pork, eggs, and cheeses.

Now to you friend's comments, she said: " The results of the

study she referred to in the 80's ONLY includes foods rich in

natural cholesterol eg eggs and shell fish. It does NOT include

foods that are high in saturated fats (animal fats). " As I

mentioned in my original post, I just included a very small

sample of clinical tests that support the diet our doctor has us

on. I could have including more but did not want to overwhelm

people (as if I don't already). Another study that is more

current was recently completed by Duke University. This year long

study examined the Atkins diet, which was an independent study that

was not influenced by outside interests. The study appeared in the

May 18, 2004 issue of the " ls of Internal Medicine " . One

of its researchers, Will Yancy MD, commented that " The weight loss

surprised me, to be honest with you. We also found cholesterol

levels seemed to improve more on a low-carb diet compared to a low-

fat diet. "

The study is the first randomized, controlled trial of an Atkins-

style diet approach, which includes vitamin and nutritional

supplements. " Along with losing an average of 26 pounds, dieters

assigned to the low-carbohydrate plan lost more body fat, and

lowered their triglyceride levels and raised their HDL, or good

cholesterol, more than the low-fat dieters. The low-fat dieters lost

an average of 14 pounds. Though the low-fat diet group lowered their

total cholesterol more than the low-carb dieters, the latter group

nearly halved their triglycerides and their HDL jumped five

points " .

I must say that our doctor would not reduce carbohydrates as rapidly

or to the extent as the Atkins diet recommends. Instead he follows

the diet espoused in the book, Life Without Bread, with some minor

modifications. This book actually comments about the Atkins's

diet stating that " In principle, Atkins's diet is the same as

ours, however, his suggested procedure differs from the one used by

us: Atkins initially withdrew all carbohydrates and relaxed the

restriction afterward, whereas we never go below 6 BUs (72 grams of

carbohydrates) out of caution, and hold the rains rather loosely at

the beginning…….We are confident in saying this because it is

based on data from thousands of patients with diseases who have been

treated by Dr. Lutz since the late 1950's " .

One of the many experiments that Dr. Lutz completed, while not based

on human clinical results, gives some basis of knowledge to rely

on. A relative simple experiment involved chickens, who were chosen

for many reasons. " An animal was needed that fulfilled numerous

criteria for nutritional experiments. First, it had to known to

exhibit some type of arteriosclerosis in old age that was similar to

humans. It also had to be easy to maintain and also live

long…….Both histologically and biochemically, arteriosclerosis

in chickens resembles that in humans. Chickens eat insects and

other small creatures in the wild. They are not grain eaters,

unless they are in captivity " .

One group of his chickens was " Fed mostly milk, eggs, dried

shrimp, pork meat, and beef bone meal, as a replacement of

carbohydrate. Very little unsaturated fat was eaten. Most of the

fat was saturated fat. The carbohydrate was wheat grain……The

results of these animal studies showed that the worst cases of

arteriosclerosis in chickens were in those that ate the largest

percentage of their food as carbohydrates " .

" The chickens fed the lowest amounts of carbohydrate produced the

fewest eggs. This indicates that carbohydrates do have a direct

effect on HORMONES, as we have already shown in chapters 2 and 3.

It is not normal for wild animals to produce as many eggs as farm

chickens do. They are fed large amounts of grain and corn products,

and this is responsible for the high egg production " .

Beth