Dietary Fat DOES NOT cause Cardiovascular Disease
I know it may seem "obvious" to most: DIETARY FAT=HEART DISEASE, right? WRONG. So why do all of us, innately, believe this? This is all due to the work of ONE person and ONE study done in the 50's and 60's. This man was Ancel Keys, and the study was "The Seven Country" Study. Problem is, this study in today's standards (and even back then), was flawed. He excluded all countries and all data that went against his theory...
Consequently, "the research of Ancel Keys led not only to poor dietary guidelines which have fooled people for decades, but it also led to the development of the most lucrative class of drugs ever sold in the history of mankind: cholesterol-lowering statin drugs." I'm not the one saying this, it's Time Magazine! They retracted their original article from 1961, where they had Ancel Keys on the cover, and apologized because ever since that story came out, it completely changed the way people looked at REAL FOOD and began making detrimental dietary choices. As the magazine stated, the Pharmaceutical company came out winning...but that's a whole other story, and I am not going to get into that ...right now...think $$$.
So, this is why you and I, and our mothers and even grandmothers, believed that eating butter, or eggs was "bad" for you. Sadly, and dangerously, many will probably go on to believe this for years to come.
People like me have a COLOSSAL job ahead of us. It is an uphill battle. We have to reverse the damage of over half a century of myths and bad choices. But someone's gotta do it. Something so ingrained in people's brains that it will probably take another 5 decades to really undo. "How Many Lives have the Bogus Research of Ancel Keys Ruined?" It's like trying to learn a whole new language as an adult. But again, it has to be done. What's the alternative? - Further generations subject to the same damage and consequences?!?
A whole lot of doctors, including myself, won't stop talking about this, not until it becomes just as normal as it was before Keys came along. EATING FAT DOES NOT CAUSE HEART DISEASE. Not the fat we are talking about, anyway. Cholesterol, most of the time, does not lead to heart disease (another important topic for another time).
This one person's influential study*, changed the way the food industry made food, and how people ate. It started the industrial production of MARGARINE: the most damaging "non-food", anti-nutrient product, and trans fat that has caused an enormous amount of heart damage. At this point many people know this and now the industries are trying to make adjustments...
Another consequence of "..the low-fat advice that ensued from Keys’ research ... (was that)It caused a rise in our consumption of refined carbohydrates and added sugars". Basically, as people stopped consuming fats, they increased their consumption of carbs. Adopting then, a LOW FAT HIGH CARB lifestyle. Keys was not only influential in the rise of heart disease and medically-induced damage (from the cholesterol lowering drugs) but also in the increased incidence of Diabetes. More on all of these topics in later Blogs.
So what now? What can we eat? If you are thinking LOW CARB and LOW FAT, think again. That is not an option. It is not possible to thrive on a LCLF diet as nutritional deficiencies shortly ensue. What's left? BINGO! LOWER CARB HIGHER FAT. As you see, all roads do lead to the LCHF diet.
Which begs the question: If it wasn't the consumption of fat that caused all of the health issues that became epidemic at the turn of the last century, what was it? Yes, you guessed it: it was SUGAR, and the over-consumption of carbs.
References
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/time-magazine-we-were-wrong-about-saturated-fats/
http://www.sevencountriesstudy.com/
*Notes:
The Seven Country Study did find a lot of substantiated risk factors, still held today, for CVD such as obesity, cigarette smoking, inactive lifestyle, lack of dietary fiber, and hypertension. Furthermore, Ancel Keys was a pioneer for modern scientific research.
