Polish study: half of diabetics on HF LC diet declared themselves cured

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"The effects of so called 'optimal diet' on health status, physical activity
and selected civilization diseases", by Przemysław Fabijański et al., Hygeia Public Health 2011, 46(1): 51-56, www.h-ph.pl, 28.01.2011

"HF LC diet" = High Fat Low Carbohydrate diet (dr. Jan Kwasniewski's "Optimal Diet")

Quotes:

Introduction. So called “optimal diet” – a low-carbohydrate, high-fat
diet, different from Atkins diet – has become very popular in Poland
during the last 20 years. It is very controversial; official dietetics in
Poland claim it is extremely noxious.

Aim [Objectives]. To check what are the effects of so-called “optimal diet” on
health status, frame of mind of people, their physical activity and
diseases including type 2 diabetes.

Material and methods. 436 persons aged 20-75 years, both
women (247) and men (189) were examined. 231 of them applied
“optimal diet” and 205 did not. 86 confirmed they suffered from
type 2 diabetes. All examined persons were inquired with our own
questionnaire.

Results. Quite a lot of statistically significant dependencies were
found to exist. They show us that persons applying the “optimal
diet” might be physically active longer than the persons not applying
it. The majority of the “optimal diet” users claim they got rid of
overweight owing to this diet. Quite many of them claim they
cured themselves of the diabetes or at least the diabetes distress
has distinctly diminished.

Conclusions. The persons applying the “optimal diet” claim they
got rid of overweight or even cured themselves of the diabetes
owing to the diet. Our data do seem to confirm the last reports
(Al-Khalifa et al. 2009).

Fig.1 and Fig.2




Explanations to Fig.1:

"stosujący DO" = Using Optimal Diet,
"nie stosujący OD" = Not using Optimal Diet.

Horizontal axis:

Answers to the question: “Are you suffering from diabetes at present?”

 "Tak" = Yes,
 "Nie, ale kiedyś chorowałem/łam" =  No but I used to suffer from it.


Explanations to Fig.2:

"stan cukrzycy nie zmienił się" = diabetes status hasn't changed

"cukrzyca zaczęła spadać" = diabetes started to recede

"praktycznie cukrzyca zniknęła" = diabetes practically disappeared


Translation of the text between Fig.1 and Fig.2:

"Over half of the respondents were able (in their opinion)
to heal themselves of diabetes using the so-called optimal diet [OD], but it was not possible for anyone (according to respondents' opinions) who did not follow the OD."

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Denise Minger's different kinds of magic

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I love her presentation!

Probably not true!

Who is a bastard who wrote "why"?

Magic rocks!   :)

I highly recommend to listen to her video. She is reviewing some old studies showing therapeutic effects of the very low fat high carbohydrate diets (VLFHC). Low fat means well below 10% preferably about 2%. When I begun my high fat low carb experiment back in 1999, which grew into my ongoing lifestyle nutrition to this day, I was aware that the very low fat natural food diet has been successfully used in halting progression of coronary heart disease and MS. I was familiar about Pritikin and Dr. Swank work. Prior to 1999 I was experimenting with vegetarian nutrition but I found it unpalatable, unless a sufficient amount of fat was added. More than 10%. So for me finding dr. Kwasniewski's Optimal Diet was a "gift from God", or I should say a gift from a friend of mine (Andrew S.)! Kwasniewski's Optimal Diet is high animal fat low carb diet (HFLC). After noticing back then that the VLFHC diets have some therapeutic property, I had many questions (i.e. "question everything"). One of them is about the long term viability and the side effects. Like with every therapy, there may be side effects. Are there side effects of VLFHC diets? How do people do on such nutrition scheme fare in the long term? Longevity issue? Longevity with a robust health or not so well? The same question can also be asked about any other diet, including the HFLC diet.

Unlike most other low carb promoters at that time (1970-ties - 1990-ties), dr. Kwasniewski did acknowledge that a high carbohydrate diet may also be healthy, quoting Japanese rice based diet as an example. He also insisted that, on such a diet (1) fat intake must be limited to abut 10% and (2) a sufficient amount of (lean) protein must be consumed. Insulin sensitivity is very high on such a diet because the intake of fat is very low but the pancreatic insulin secretion is medium. Insulin cannot be too low, due to carbohydrate-based metabolism. Typically it amounts to about 20-30 iu per day, based on my understanding and from reports by t1 diabetics (quoting from memory so verify this before you requote me!)

Dr. Kwasniewski also noticed, based on his patients record, that a particular proportion of macronutrients, consisting of about 35-45% of fat (by calories) and about 45-35% of carbohydrates is particulary unhealthy and makes people prone to developing diabetes and atherosclerotic heart disease. Kwasniewski also noticed that it causes a peculiar form of neuro-degeneration for people in their 40-ties and 50-ties manifesting itself in form character disorder (psychopathy). He called that dietary zone "dangerous middle zone". Pancreatic insulin secretion has to be very high (typically 40-60 iu/day or more) on such a diet in order to overcome the insulin insensitivity induced by the high fat intake.

He also noticed that as soon as you up the total fat intake to above 50% of calories then these pathological effects gradually subside and the diet becomes healthy again, even therapeutically healthy. The widely popular diet he publicized in the 1980-ties, arrived at the macronutrient proportions P:F:C (Protein to Fat to Carbohydrates) in gram per day per 1kg of ideal body weight of 1:3-3.5:0.8 to 1:2-2.5:0.5 . This typically works out at way over 60% (typ about 85%) of fat by calories. Notice that fat has 9kcal/g, glucose 4.5kcal/g and protein 3.5kcal/g (or less if used anabolically). Interestingly, Kwasniewski also found that his patients with coronary heart disease begun reversing and recovering. So his patients with many autoimmune disease such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, MS, IBS, and other - also recovered on his diet! Even though the HFLC diet is the exact opposite of the VLFHC diet, it nevertheless produced surprisingly similar (if not greater) therapeutic effects! Notice that the insulin sensitivity (and the effect of fat upon it) becomes irrelevant due to very low intake of carbohydrates. Kwasniewski quoted insulin requirement at this point, to be about 6-10 iu/day. How did he measured it? By observing his type 1 diabetic patients!

What Denise Minger has done, is rediscovering and publicizing that fact that there are 2 dietary zones that have therapeutic properties, not just one diet!

What I would disagree with, is her presumption that the VLFHC diet would:

- "results in healthier gut microbiome long term"

There is not proof or comparison studies done for VLFHC vs HFLC on that, while there is enough reports indicating the long term gut flora deterioration among vegans (I would put refs to Dr. Stanley Bass and Dr. Gian-Cursio reports on Natural Hygienists).

- "may do best for ApoE4 carriers"

No proof either, other than high serum cholesterol which does not always translate to a health risk, except for people eating in the dangerous middle zone.

- "may be able to restore and heal glucose tolerance which does not happen on the high fat..."

This is not true based on my personal observation. Initially yes, HFLC diet did not restore my glucose tolerance, it only allowed my body to bypass the issue by not showering my body with the excess carbohydrates. Whenever I tried to eat a little bit more than 50g of carbohydrates in a day, I would inevitably come to regret it! Carb-headache and nausea. Beer was especially bad for me. However, after about 2 years I noticed that I was able to increase that limit and add more than previously and after about 6-7 years I noticed that my carbohydrates tolerance has been totally restored! For example I can now consume a high carb dinner if I have no other choice without any adverse side effects. I don't do it often, but it is nice to know that my metabolism has completely been restored. I suspect it has to do with the mitochondrial regeneration. It takes about 7 years to regrow and renew most of our muscular tissues from our stem cells. I also found it that initially I had to watch not only the total carbohydrates intake, but I also had to limit the overall caloric intake from fat as well. Initially the total limit was about 1800kcal. Believe it or not that is actually perfectly sufficient for an adult leading an active life on the high fat diet, without any problems (I was 43 in 1999 when I begun HFLC and I weigh 64k, 173cm height) It was as if my metabolic channels were impaired for both macronutrients, for carbs as well as for fat, except the metabolism of fat, being more effective, allowed me to live better and have more energy in spite of the limitations. Again, that restriction is no longer applicable and lifted itself after about 7 years.

Stan (Heretic) Bleszynski

High fat diet appears to regenerate diabetic pancreas

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Is this possibly a cure for diabetes type 1 ?    According to this BBC article and the quoted study, it may be so!

Interestingly, dr. Jan Kwasniewski , creator of the "Optimal Diet" has always claimed that such diet can virtually cure about 9 out of 10 of diabetes type 1, based on his personal patient's records from his own medical practice during 1970-ties and 1980-ties. The reason, according to him, is that in most cases, there are at least residual 10% of the pancreatic beta cells still intact allowing the patient to survive on the high fat diet, on about 6 insulin units per day, which is about 10% of the normal (on a high carb diet) insulin production. Such low insulin requirements is only attainable on a diet that is very low in carbohydrates, low in protein and therefore - high in fat. Dr. Kwasniewski always recommended to eat mostly animal fat and saturated fats, with a minimal to none contents of polyunsaturated vegetable oils. This is interesting because that was back in the days when the  negative impact of polyunsaturated oils upon health was not as widely known as it is now. I always admired his medical insights ever since I learned about and adopted his diet in 1999. Since I don't normally trust opinions and always try to "touch the wound", so to speak, I always made efforts to verify and test all his claims. Every time when I thought he may have been wrong about some details such as vegetable fats issue or his preference on saturated fats, or insistence that cholesterol is a good thing and egg yolks are the best food (back in the 1970-ties!) - sooner or later he turned out to have been correct!

Heretic

The China Study corroborates Kwasniewski's diet

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The data seem to corroborate Dr. Kwasniewski's Optimal Diet, to some extent, in terms of the trend.  That is, a higher fat shows a trend towards better health, where as the more protein and more carbs tend towards higher mortalities. At the same time the raw data I have seen so far do not seem to support an idea that plant based very low fat nutrition is healthier!

Dr. Kwasniewski's diet is high in animal fat, low in protein (unlike Atkins) and low in carbohydrates. Similar to Atkins but puts a restriction on protein (1g/kg of ideal body weight, per day) and does not advocate an "induction" stage followed by an increase in carbohydrates.

The following graphs are based on the Raw China Study data  , using 1989 part of the study, total M+F, 3-rd "xiang".  My original spreadsheet is here in OpenOffice 3.2 Calc format.  (Sorry, no Excel, got tired of loosing data).  The following graphs represent raw scatter plots for specific disease mortality (all vascular or all cancer)  against each of the independent variables, with no data processing of any kind.  You be the judge!   :)

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VASCULAR DISEASE MORTALITY VERSUS MACRONUTRIENTS AND TOTAL BLOOD CHOLESTEROL

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ALL CANCER MORTALITY VERSUS MACRONUTRIENTS AND TOTAL BLOOD CHOLESTEROL

"..The ‘Grand Prix’...the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease....tantalizing findings"
The New York Times