100% agree with that statement. Sugar is a known killer. I’ve cut it out of my diet. I agree with much of what you have said and I’m glad we are at least having the discussion. Thanks!
Most recent study showed that eating a low or no carb diet for 20 years reduced life expectancy by 4 years. To control blood glucose low Glycaemic index foods are reccommended.
I went on a low-carb way of eating in June of 2013 and have remained at 30 net carbs average per day ever since. There have been no observable adverse effects.
-Lost 80 lbs.
-A1C from 9% to 5%
-Eliminated insulin (3 times a day) and 2 orals.
-CKD controlled.
-Eliminated Prednisone for AIED. No dizziness for 4 years.
Everyone is different. In my case I believe that this WOE has extended my lifespan.
Do you have a cite for the study you referenced?
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https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(18)30135-X/fulltext
There are many ways to alter diet. The study looked at low carb/no carb diets. Management of conditions like diabetes and conditions needing steroids(which can exaccerbate diabetes) warrant specialist dietitian advise. Obviously out of control diabetes would not be a good thing.
Thanks for the link.
I agree with you that care must be taken when embarking on major dietary changes. I have eliminated carbs where there is not sufficient nutritional payoff. So this WOE still includes sufficient vegetables, nuts, berries, etc. But of course grains, starch, sugars, sweet fruits and the like are gone.
In my case the objective was to control diabetes without medication as the medication was not working. The weight loss and improvement in the AIED were a bonus.
As for the study, there was an opinion piece in WSJ about it:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/carbs-good-for-you-fat-chance-1536705397?mod=hp_opin_pos2
“The U.S. government’s nutrition advice since 1980 has mainly been to increase consumption of carbohydrates and avoid fats. Despite following this advice for nearly four decades, Americans are sicker and fatter than ever. Such a record of failure should have discredited the nutrition establishment. Yet defenders of the nutrition status quo continue to mislead the public and put Americans’ health at risk.”
…
“Diet questionnaires are inherently unreliable since people tend to under- and overestimate food quantities to make their diets look better. The Lancet authors’ treatment of the data also falls short. They make no mention of adjusting their results for alcohol consumption, for example, which is a critical factor in longevity.”
…
" The authors relied on data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study, or ARIC, which since 1987 has observed 15,000 middle-aged people in four U.S. communities. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, ARIC may seem robust study, but it is based on a thin data set. Researchers’ food questionnaires typically between 100 and 200 dietary items, but participants in this study were queried on only 66. Popular foods such as pizza and energy bars were left out, with undercounting of calories the inevitable result. ARIC calculated that participants ate only 1,500 calories a day—starvation rations for most."
…
“Lancet Public Health (a separate journal from its more prestigious parent, the Lancet) charges contributors an “article processing fee” of $5,000. The journal publishes papers that need to be distributed “quickly” to “advance public health policies.” What exactly was the rush here? Given the lack of rigor, it seems the paper’s purpose was not to help people eat better and live longer but rather to quash public interest in low-carb, high-fat diets. Needlessly scaring people away from diets with established health benefits could endanger the public.”
I think sweet fruits are fine - in moderation i.e. not daily.
Starch like potatoes from what I have read is necessary for a balanced diet. Again in moderation.
5 years on a diet is not long enough for the symptoms to become apparent. Very often it is only after a decade that people discover health issues such as kidneys etc. I feel that 30 grams is too low. But that is just my opinion.
I agree with your post about the government’s dietary advice. I am astonished that supermarkets continue to stock more and more low fat yoghurts, dairy free chocolate etc. People still think that fats make you fat. It’s unreal.
Do you really think the Wall Street Journal is source of independent health care Information? Think about that.
I am not saying you as an individual have not benefited from whatever diet you follow by losing weight etc. But that is a study of one person not science to be extrapolated to all.
I read everything of interest whatever the source. As I said, the article is an opinion piece. It points out certain deficiencies in the collection and evaluation of information used in the study. But back to the subject of this thread, I have noted improvement in my AIED condition after embarking on a low-carb diet. This may be due to reduction of inflammation.
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The subject of the thread implies that a low carb diet is good for people. Most people could control weight and related health problems by moving from a high fat, high carbohydrate, large portion diet to a balanced, portion controlled diet. It is very difficult to study the long term effects of diet because most people do not stay on a particular diet for 25 years. The study actually did a good job of looking at the available data. Opinion pieces are only as good as the person who writes the opinion.
There is certainly data linking hearing loss and diabetes and controlling diabetes could potentially limit hearing loss.
My experience has been precisely the opposite. I followed the Dr. Barnard diet and it totally cured me of diabetes 2. And I lost 60 lbs.
Frankly, nutrition/diet research is a quagmire and online communities zealously supporting particular diets are more religion than science.
It seems to me, at this point, that ANY diet that eschews modern processed foods will be beneficial to health, whether it be low carb/high fat or low fat/high carb. A nice benefit of being omnivorous is diet adaptability. The ears are a sensitive organ, and healthy living will probably be good for them generally.
I think a thing that tricks people with low carb diets is that carbs sequester water, and so when you drop carbs you lose a good chunk of weight very quickly through water loss, and when you increase carbs again that water weight comes back very quickly. People interpret this as faster weight loss on a low carb diet, and then later as unsustainable weight loss from a yo-yo diet, when it is neither. If you can ignore that bit of fluctuating water weight, fat loss on either diet is similar. The key is what is going to be sustainable for you in the long term. There are pitfalls on either side. Ketosis seems to cause a dramatic drop in hunger in some cases, and starvation diets appear to be a bad idea (particularly for women who seem to have a more sensitive hormonal interaction). You can manage low carb while consuming piles of processed meats and little else. You can manage low fat while consuming only crackers (or other “low-fat” products which tend to be higher in sugar and weird additives). I would also hypothesize that sudden changes in either direction can lead to dramatic changes in the gut biome, the outcomes of which we do not yet understand. I have personally concluded that the safest route towards heathly eating is a focus on traditional foods, avoidance of modern processed foods AND modern “health” foods. There is no magical macronutrient ratio; historically, communities have done well with various combinations.
I would also suggest, however (tangentially), that the idea people have that those who are morbidly obese simply need to eat less and exercise more is demonstrably incorrect. This theory has shown unsustainable the vast majority of cases. There are things that we still do not understand about obesity, and there are complex contributors in our bodies and in our environment. As such, we need to approach this issue with compassion and reject the societal idea that people struggling with weight are simply lazy or unconscientious.
I also try to maintain compassion towards people who are diet-militant, as avoidance of delicious modern treats (which often have piles of money in research in marketting behind them for the sole purpose of making them hyper-palatable) seems to sometimes require an odd trick of the mind, a weird sort of fundamentalism. If that’s what someone needs, so be it.
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I agree with your entire post as it reflects what I have felt for a very long time. I agree that people complicate things by trying to understand the effects of foods, diets, calories etc. Your sentence - Any diet that eschews modern processes foods - is the key point that people should be focusing on. Avoid processed foods of any form or description and many people’s health issues will go away.
Having said that, I would still avoid grain (even though we were using grain 10 000 years ago as flour has been mucked around with so much nowadays I just don’t think its healthy anymore. Given the rise of people who have gluten intolerance in the last two decades bears my statement out.
I don’t know where I fall on grains at this point. A lot of grain-based foods ARE high sugar confections, and I certainly think of puffy white bread as a modern processed food. I think of bread as generally less nutritions than vegetables (including the much malinged potato), and it can fill up a space in ones diet that should probably be given to more veggies. But I have a hard time looking at a dark, dense sourdough and thinking that it is bad.
Also, homemade cookies are delicious. 
LOTS of great info and inspiration here - many thanks to all for sharing your successes and dietary philosophies!
I have practiced the 5:2 calorie reduction (not total restriction) for 6 years now. Every M & Thu I try to keep total calories down to 700-800 for that day. I found this lifestyle change resulted in a dramatic, positive impact on my overall body health - as per the annual blood workup. By 2016, my numbers across the board (cholesterol, circulating calcium, blood sugar, inflammatory markers, etc.,) were better than they were 9 years previous!
Then I went vegan in Dec 2016. At my annual checkup last year, my total numbers improved even MORE - yes, to the point where all those critical, age- and inflammatory-related numbers were better than a decade previous (and topped the 2016 results). My doc even asked, “So WHY are you here?” I said I wanted to test the hypothesis of calorie restriction plus vegan diet.
I just gave up ALL alcohol a month ago, and will be curious to see if this has any benefit on my annual checkup results - which I’ll probably postpone to 2019.
While practicing the 5:2 plan and being vegan have delivered PROVEN results for my body’s health, I have to guffaw: nuthin’ - no matter what I abstain from! - has had the slightest impact on my senso-neural hearing loss. I’m grateful that my hearing has declined maybe 5 db in 14 years, but it appears to follow the typical, age-related decline - perhaps slowed down a bit by healthy lifestyle, but in NO way dramatically improved like the blood workup results.
Yup. DEAF is simply going to be a part of who and what I am forever, and I feel very lucky to have a decent pair of aids (Phonak Audeo B-Direct) to keep me in a state of “normalcy”.
I don’t understand the hate for potatoes and rice either. All my research indicates that starch is very important too in a balanced diet, but a lot of people avoid any starch primarily to lose weight I guess.
Yes Sourdough bread is a good type of bread (if you make it yourself), but the actual flour has been processed so its not what it used to be 50 years ago. So my view on this is to try and limit the grains almost to like treats as it were. Historically speaking we ate far less grain. They did not have bread everyday like we do now.
Glad that your diet is going well for you. I would agree with cutting out any processed meat like bacon, salami, hamburgers etc, but I am not sure that I necessarily agree with cutting out chicken, lean beef and fish etc. I think what’s important about meat is quality - organic style type of thing and getting a local farmer if possible. Also fish is very good for you.
The one thing that I will say about meat is that we eat too much meat and this is a big factor in many health issues as well when people have a large piece of meat and in comparison tiny portion of vegetables. This may be why going vegan for you and many others has worked so well. You cut out processed meat and by cutting out that big piece of meat you are replacing it with more vegetables.
For me I will stick with three quarters vegetables on my plate and one quarter meat or fish.
I would not worry about reducing calories. If you are eating vegetables and you have gone meat free, unless you are eating processed stuff like sweets, its almost impossible to overdo on the calories as vegetables are low in calories.
Adding to the discussion here … I believe people have a certain “set point” to which they gravitate. This body weight is largely hereditary, based on one’s basic propensity to eat certain foods and even to exercise. It’s extremely tough to fight our basic, inherent tendencies and not drift right back to our “set point”.
Also, certain body types will naturally pack on visceral fat in the tissues around key organs - even tho they may look slim from the outside! This is far more unhealthy than a person who has “love handles” or “muffin top” made up of subcutaneous fat that can be worked off with healthy eating and exercise.
What works for one person in terms of what foods to give up, or how much to exercise, simply can not be extended to all people - thus the frustration and sense of failure of those who TRY to reduce weight to little avail. On top of which, our gov’t-backed Food Pyramid seems to serve the big food companies and subsidized industries more than our increasingly unhealthy population, and its reliance on drugs to fix isolated problems. Sometimes, it’s the combination of these toxic drugs that leave people fat and sick and nearly dead.
I have a suspicion that this has a relationship with increased cortisol, but I cannot remember the source of that thought. But if there turns out to be a strong relationship between this pattern of fat gain and chronic stress, I will not be surprised.
Do you realize that where a food is grown and what type of fertilizer is used to produce the same item of food has no impact on its nutritional value? A tomato is a tomato no matter how it was grown. A lot of people would have to die for everyone in the world to eat organic foods. And local does not always mean freshest or most efficiently grown and transported - it may defy your logic but it is true.
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^^^ While I agree that “local” does not always mean freshest or efficiently grown, there actually is a difference in organic vs chemical fertilizers!
That’s the “poop” on the subject! 