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

.
"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."

-----

Nuts against dementia

.

Study: A Daily Dose Of Nuts Could Be Key To Staying Sharp In Old Age

From Wiki Nut (fruit)-
By Sage Ross- Own work,
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30392736

Study release report (March 2019):

A nutty solution for improving brain health

Quote:

Long-term, high nut consumption could be the key to better cognitive health in older people according to new research from the University of South Australia.

In a study of 4822 Chinese adults aged 55+ years, researchers found that eating more than 10 grams of nuts a day was positively associated with better mental functioning, including improved thinking, reasoning and memory.

Lead researcher, UniSA’s Dr Ming Li, says the study is the first to report an association between cognition and nut intake in older Chinese adults, providing important insights into increasing mental health issues (including dementia) faced by an ageing population.

“Population aging is one of the most substantial challenges of the twenty-first century. Not only are people living longer, but as they age, they require additional health support which is placing unprecedented pressure on aged-care and health services,” Dr Li says.

Reference:

A Prospective Association of Nut Consumption with Cognitive Function in Chinese Adults Aged 55+ _ China Health and Nutrition Survey

We don't need no plants antioxidants!

.
- probably! As hinted in the following study:

Dietary (Poly)phenolics in Human Health: Structures, Bioavailability, and Evidence of Protective Effects Against Chronic Diseases", by
Daniele Del Rio, et al., Antioxid Redox Signal. 2013 May 10; 18(14): 1818–1892.

Very poor absorption of plants' poly-phenolic anti-oxidants! From milli-Mole in food down to nano-Mole concentration in the body! Quickly destroyed and eliminated by the body! After decades of hypothesizing and speculations - no direct evidence of health benefits!

Quotes:

...exist in planta, at concentrations in the low-μM-to-mM range. However, after ingestion, dietary (poly)phenolics appear in the circulatory system not as the parent compounds, but as phase II metabolites, and their presence in plasma after dietary intake rarely exceeds nM concentrations. Substantial quantities of both the parent compounds and their metabolites pass to the colon where they are degraded by the action of the local microbiota,
...
Evidence relating to the anticancer effects of (poly)phenols is limited. The majority of available clinical evidence has been with green tea/(poly)phenols in populations at a high risk of cancer development, with results proving inconclusive.
...
While a few of studies suggest that (poly)phenol-rich foods prevent lymphocyte DNA damage, no direct link with a decrease in cancer risk can be established from those studies.
...
As yet, it is too premature to consider the potential use of (poly)phenolic compounds as therapeutic agents.

Updated 22/12/2018

This is probably the main reason why dietary anti-oxidants don't work:

"Antioxidants prevent health-promoting effects of physical exercise in humans"
by Michael Ristow, et. al., PNAS May 26, 2009 106 (21) 8665-8670; March 31, 2009

...We evaluated the effects of a combination of vitamin C (1000 mg/day) and vitamin E (400 IU/day) on insulin sensitivity as measured by glucose infusion rates (GIR) during a hyperinsulinemic, euglycemic clamp in previously untrained (n = 19) and pretrained (n = 20) healthy young men. Before and after a 4 week intervention of physical exercise, GIR was determined, and muscle biopsies for gene expression analyses as well as plasma samples were obtained to compare changes over baseline and potential influences of vitamins on exercise effects. Exercise increased parameters of insulin sensitivity (GIR and plasma adiponectin) only in the absence of antioxidants...
...
Consistent with the concept of mitohormesis, exercise-induced oxidative stress ameliorates insulin resistance and causes an adaptive response promoting endogenous antioxidant defense capacity. Supplementation with antioxidants may preclude these health-promoting effects of exercise in humans.

To reduce nitrates eat less vegetables

.
5 times more dietary nitrates come from vegetables than from cured meats!

Not as bad ...  (Wiki - Saussage)

Not as healthy ...(Wiki Healthy_diet)

"Contribution of vegetables and cured meat to dietary nitrate and nitrite intake in Italian population: Safe level for cured meat and controversial role of vegetables"
Rossana Roila et al., Italian Journal of Food Safety, Vol 7, No 3 (2018)

Paper

Table 1 from the quoted paper.

The paper found that most nitrates in an average diet studied, come from vegetables not cured meats!


Quote:

The average consumption among population resulted 3.45 g/kg bw/die [gram per kg body per daily dietary intake] and 0.62 g/kg bw/die for vegetables and cured meat respectively. The obtained data confirm that nitrate ADI was higher than the limits of 3.7 mg/kg bw/die for infants and was the highest exposure level for people of all ages. Cured meat consumption did not contribute to nitrate ADI exceedance neither as a mean nor as 99th percentile of exposure.

Red meat halves the risk of depression

.

Recently announced study:

Red meat halves risk of depression

Wiki Red Meat 

Quote:

Experts admitted surprise at the findings because so many other studies have linked red meat to physical health risks. The team made the link after a study of 1000 Australian women. Professor Felice Jacka, who led the research by Deakin University, Victoria, said: "We had originally thought that red meat might not be good for mental health but it turns out that it actually may be quite important. "When we looked at women consuming less than the recommended amount of red meat in our study, we found that they were twice as likely to have a diagnosed depressive or anxiety disorder as those consuming the recommended amount. "Even when we took into account the overall healthiness of the women's diets, as well as other factors such as their socioeconomic status, physical activity levels, smoking, weight and age, the relationship between low red meat intake and mental health remained.

Diets higher in protein are associated with lower adiposity and do not impair kidney function

.
Another myth bites the dust. It appears protein-kidney scare was a BS all along...

The recently published paper:

Diets higher in animal and plant protein are associated with lower adiposity and do not impair kidney function in US adults

Conclusions: Diets higher in plant and animal protein, independent of other dietary factors, are associated with cardiometabolic benefits, particularly improved central adiposity, with no apparent impairment of kidney function.

New Battle of Fat in the British media

.
British National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration have just issued a damning report accusing public health bodies of colluding with the food industry, blaming them for contributing to the obesity epidemics and calling for a complete overhaul of the present low fat dietary reccomendations.

Mainstream health "authorities" have fired their salvo accusing the authors of the report of irresponsibility.

(Illustration by Cecilia Bleszynski)

The report is described here, titled "'Eating fat does not make you fat,' says UK health report".

Quotes:

Focus on low fat diets fails to address obesity, return to whole foods like meat, dairy needed.
Urging people to follow low fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having "disastrous health consequences", a health charity has warned.
In a damning report that accuses major public health bodies of colluding with the food industry, the National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration call for a “major overhaul” of current dietary guidelines.
They say the focus on low fat diets is failing to address Britain’s obesity crisis, while snacking between meals is making people fat.
Instead, they call for a return to "whole foods" such as meat, fish and dairy, as well as high fat healthy foods including avocados, arguing that "eating fat does not make you fat".
The report — which has caused a huge backlash amongst the scientific community - also argues that saturated fat does not cause heart disease while full fat diary — including milk, yoghurt and cheese — can actually protect the heart.

Processed foods labelled "low fat", "lite", "low cholesterol" or "proven to lower cholesterol" should be avoided at all costs
and people with Type 2 diabetes should eat a fat-rich diet rather than one based on carbohydrates.
The report also said sugar should be avoided, people should stop counting calories and the idea that exercise can help you “outrun a bad diet” is a myth.

...
The authors of the report also argue that the science of food has also been “corrupted by commercial influences”.
Just as big tobacco companies bought the “loyalty of scientists” when a link was made between smoking and lung cancer, the influence of the food industry represents a “significant threat to public health”, they argued.
They said the recent Eatwell Guide from Public Health England (PHE) was produced with a large number of people from the food and drink industry.

Professor David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: “As a clinician, treating patients all day every day, I quickly realised that guidelines from on high, suggesting high carbohydrate, low fat diets were the universal panacea, were deeply flawed.
“Current efforts have failed — the proof being that obesity levels are higher than they have ever been, and show no chance of reducing despite the best efforts of Government and scientists.”
Dr Aseem Malhotra, consultant cardiologist and founding member of the Public Health Collaboration, a group of medics, said dietary guidelines promoting low fat foods “is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history resulting in devastating consequences for public health.
“Sadly this unhelpful advice continues to be perpetuated. The current Eatwell guide from Public Health England is in my view more like a metabolic timebomb than a dietary pattern conducive for good health.

Professor Iain Broom, from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, said: “The continuation of a food policy recommending high carbohydrate, low fat, low calorie intakes as ‘healthy eating’ is fatally flawed.
“Our populations for almost 40 years, have been subjected to an uncontrolled global experiment that has gone drastically wrong.”

A counterattack has been launched through the BBC by Public Health England "Advice to eat more fat 'irresponsible'":


Quotes:

Advice to eat more fat is irresponsible and potentially deadly, Public Health England's chief nutritionist has said.
Dr Alison Tedstone was responding to a report by the National Obesity Forum, which suggests eating fat could help cut obesity and type 2 diabetes.
The charity said promoting low-fat food had had "disastrous health consequences" and should be reversed.
Other experts have also criticised the report saying it cherry-picked and misquoted evidence.

But the report has been criticised for not going though scientific peer review.
Dr Tedstone responded to the publication by saying: "In the face of all the evidence, calling for people to eat more fat, cut out carbs and ignore calories is irresponsible."
She said thousands of scientific studies were considered as part of the official guidance adopted throughout the UK, whereas the National Obesity Forum quoted just 43 studies, some of which were comment pieces.

She praised the call to lower refined carbohydrates, but said the overall message to cut carbs ignored the issue of quality as "we do need wholegrain carbs and fibre in out diet".

Prof Tom Sanders from King's College London said: "It is not helpful to slag off the sensible dietary advice.
"The harsh criticism of current dietary guidelines meted out in this report is not justified as few people adhere to these guidelines anyway.

I need to help the readers who may have difficulty uderstanding or comprehending Prof Sanders statement. Let me translate it to a language that the working class people may understand.

According to Prof Sanders its OK to tell the public questionable theories bullshit because people don't listen anyway so there is no harm done.

On the side note, for people who did happen to listen, perhaps accidentally, who may have by a chance taken his dietary theories seriously, and got fat - please contact King's College London.

--------------
Update 1/07/2016 - a follow-up study published:

US and UK dietary advice on fats “should not have been introduced” Part 2

Evidence from prospective cohort studies did not support the introduction of dietary fat guidelines in 1977 and 1983: a systematic review Zoë Harcombe1, Julien S Baker1, Bruce Davies2

Eating too little salt may increase your risk of a heart attack or stroke claims new research

.
Daily Mail On-Line article:

Eating too LITTLE salt may INCREASE your risk of a heart attack or stroke, claims controversial new research

Wiki Salt

Nutritional heresy strikes back, some quotes:

The research was carried out by investigators at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences.
They analyzed more than 130,000 people across 49 countries, focusing on whether the relationship between sodium (salt) intake and death, heart disease and stroke differs in people with high blood pressure compared to those with normal blood pressure.
Their findings showed that regardless of whether people have high blood pressure, low-salt intake is linked to a greater incidence of heart attacks, stroke, and deaths compared to average intake.
...

Dr Mente said that this suggests that the majority of individuals in Canada and most countries are consuming the right amount of salt.
He added that targeted salt reduction in those who are most susceptible because of hypertension and high salt consumption may be preferable to a population-wide approach to reducing sodium intake in most countries except those where the average sodium intake is very high, such as parts of central Asia or China.

He added that what is now generally recommended as a healthy daily ceiling for sodium consumption appears to be set too low, regardless of a person's blood pressure level.
'Low sodium intake reduces blood pressure modestly, compared to average intake, but low sodium intake also has other effects, including adverse elevations of certain hormones which may outweigh any benefits,' Dr Mente said.

'The key question is not whether blood pressure is lower with very low salt intake, instead it is whether it improves health.'

Dr Martin O'Donnell, a co-author on the study and an associate clinical professor at McMaster University and National University of Ireland Galway, said: 'This study adds to our understanding of the relationship between salt intake and health, and questions the appropriateness of current guidelines that recommend low sodium intake in the entire population.'

The study was funded from more than 50 sources, including the PHRI, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

-----

Reference:

A.Mente et al., The Lancet, 20/05/2016, "Associations of urinary sodium excretion with cardiovascular events in individuals with and without hypertension: a pooled analysis of data from four studies"


Please note that the medical authorities have again been caught issuing inaccurate, perhaps harmful nutritional guidelines for half a century based on what appears to be the "treating the numbers" paradigm and experts' opinions rather than based on science. Is nobody responsible for the misconduct?

The Skinny on Fat by Credit Suisse

.

A better title would have been "Money and greed trump medical lies and stupidity"
I shall better be kind to the bankers, some of them are on our side!
 8-:)

Credit Suisse Investor's report   (a short summary titled The Real Skinny on Fat is available on The Financialist page) concludes that saturated and monounsaturated animal fat is healthy and was unjustifiably blamed for the health problems that were in fact more likely caused by the overconsumption of vegetable polyunsaturated  oils and carbohydrates.  The institute's report is thus    advising to invest in natural food producers selling product rich in saturated fats.  

Low fat diets are useless - new study

.
... a recently published study has found.   The Telegraph article  on the same topic:
Cut out carbs, not fat if you want to lose weight, Harvard study finds

Wiki Cereal

 The analysis of 53 studies, involving 67,000 dieters found who cut back on fat were two and a half pounds heavier after a year than those who embraced a “low carb” approach.

...
Dr Deirdre Tobias at Bingham's Division of Preventive Medicine said: "Despite the pervasive dogma that one needs to cut fat from their diet in order to lose weight, the existing scientific evidence does not support low-fat diets over other dietary interventions for long-term weight loss." "In fact, we did not find evidence that is particularly supportive of any specific proportion of calories from fat for meaningful long-term weight loss.” The study found low carbohydrate diets were the most successful.

Bad science and politically motivated low fat dietary guidelines finally exposed and ditched!

.

Recent (20/02/2015) New York Times article by Nina Teicholz (**):

The Government’s Bad Diet Advice

Quotes

First, last fall, experts on the committee that develops the country’s dietary guidelines acknowledged that they had ditched the low-fat diet. On Thursday, that committee’s report was released, with an even bigger change: It lifted the longstanding caps on dietary cholesterol, saying there was “no appreciable relationship” between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol.
...
Instead of accepting that this evidence was inadequate to give sound advice, strong-willed scientists overstated the significance of their studies.
Much of the epidemiological data underpinning the government’s dietary advice comes from studies run by Harvard’s school of public health. In 2011, directors of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences analyzed many of Harvard’s most important findings and found that they could not be reproduced in clinical trials.
...
In 2013, government advice to reduce salt intake (which remains in the current report) was contradicted by an authoritative Institute of Medicine study[*]. And several recent meta-analyses have cast serious doubt on whether saturated fats are linked to heart disease, as the dietary guidelines continue to assert.

Uncertain science should no longer guide our nutrition policy. Indeed, cutting fat and cholesterol, as Americans have conscientiously done, may have even worsened our health. In clearing our plates of meat, eggs and cheese (fat and protein), we ate more grains, pasta and starchy vegetables (carbohydrates). Over the past 50 years, we cut fat intake by 25 percent and increased carbohydrates by more than 30 percent, according to a new analysis of government data. Yet recent science has increasingly shown that a high-carb diet rich in sugar and refined grains increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease — much more so than a diet high in fat and cholesterol.

It’s not that health authorities weren’t warned. “They are not acting on the basis of scientific evidence, but on the basis of a plausible but untested idea,” Dr. Edward H. Ahrens Jr., a top specialist at Rockefeller University and prominent critic of the growing doctrine on dietary fats and cholesterol, cautioned back in the ’80s.
...
Since the very first nutritional guidelines to restrict saturated fat and cholesterol were released by the American Heart Association in 1961, Americans have been the subjects of a vast, uncontrolled diet experiment with disastrous consequences. We have to start looking more skeptically at epidemiological studies and rethinking nutrition policy from the ground up.
Until then, we would be wise to return to what worked better for previous generations: a diet that included fewer grains, less sugar and more animal foods like meat, full-fat dairy and eggs.

Other links:

*) She probably meant this report: Sodium Intake in Populations: Assessment of Evidence (14/05/2015)

**) Nina Teicholz, author of “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.”

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2015/02/useless-low-fat-dietary-guidelines-by.html

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2015/01/salt-intake-not-correlated-with.html

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2015/01/are-some-diets-mass-murder.html

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2013/05/dietary-fats-undeserved-bad-reputation.html

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2013/10/lesson-from-medical-history-beware-of.html



.

Refined Grains & Desserts diet 50% worse than Fast Food diet!

.
50% more T2 diabetes in a group following the "Refined Grains and Desserts" dietary pattern (the highest carbohydrate consumption group) than in the followers of Fast Food dietary pattern (the highest fat consumption group) as showed in a new study on Lebanese. The latter group had in turn worse risk (four times as much) as the Traditional Lebanese dietary pattern, which had the lowest carbohydrate intake and medium fat intake (but the highest monounsaturated fat - olive oil, of all).

"Dietary patterns and odds of Type 2 diabetes in Beirut, Lebanon: a case-control study", Farah Naja et al., Nutrition & Metabolism 2012, 9:111

[added 6-Jan-2013]

Interestingly, when their correlation coefficients from Table 3 are plotted against the T2 diabetes odds ratio, it turns out that the only food related factor that has a positive strong linear trend with diabetes risk, is the dietary energy intake! See a blue line in the chart below. None of the macronutrients trended as strongly (if at all), with the T2 diabetes risk. There are only some weak non-significant trends with carbohydrates (positive, that is more carbs = more risk) and protein intake (negative, that is more protein = less risk). One can of course ask the question why exactly did the group with refined grains and desserts pattern tended also to overeat and whether that is caused by the diet itself, or is the propensity towards overeating the primary factor (caused by what?) while some particular dietary choice may be a response to that? I am not sure. I have to say, this results is somewhat surprising.

Another interesting conclusion one can draw, is that the study seems to support the mitochondrial damage hypothesis of T2 diabetes, since the energy overload is the primary trigger!

Click on this to view the spreadsheet.

The relatively low diabetes risk associated with the high meat (and eggs) and alcohol diet is also very revealing.  The Meat and Alcohol result does not really tell us what causes diabetes but it does tell us what does not cause it!

[7/01/2013]

Wheat seems to be a toxic plant!  

I think this study (alongside many others, for example China Study ) implicates wheat as the primary cause of diabetes, stronger than all the other dietary factors!  It probably acts through appetite enhancing or satiety suppressing, leading to overeating.  If true, this is a very important conclusion!   Worth probably a trillion dollars of American GDP!

Heretic

Low fat diets could increase heart disease risk...

... say nutrition experts.

Home-made(*) pork lard. Obviously, it has to be good!

Saw this article link on THE SPARK OF REASON blog (thanks!).

The article describes a symposium called "The Great Fat Debate: Is There Validity In the Age-Old Dietary Guidance?" at the American Dietetic Association’s (ADA) Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo. It would have been a usual boring scientific waffle following a vacuous hedge-all-bets type of philosophy, had it not been for some quotes of Dr. Walter Willett's presentation. He is one of the few prominent medical officials (director) not following the "speak but say nothing" strategy. At least not since a couple of years ago.

Quotes (of Dr.W.Willett):

"If anything, the literature shows a slight advantage of the high fat diet," he said. "The focus on fat in dietary guidelines has been a massive distraction. ... We should remove total fat from nutrition facts panels on the back of packs."

He added that while the pervasive dietary guidance given to consumers has been to eat fats sparingly, to load up on starch and eat non-fat products, "the food industry quickly realized sugar was cheaper than fat and laughed all the way to the bank."

And assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School Dr. Mozaffarian:

... agreed with the other speakers about a lack of evidence linking total fat consumption and cardiovascular disease risk.

___________________
Footnote:

*) Chop pork belly into finger-sized slices or mince, put in a slow-cooker overnight, sieve-out the cracklings from liquid lard, while hot. Pour to plastic tubs. Feed the cat.

.

red meat fights back

.
New meta study:

Red meat consumption: an overview of the risks and benefits.

Abstract:

Red meat is long established as an important dietary source of protein and essential nutrients including iron, zinc and vitamin B12, yet recent reports that its consumption may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and colon cancer have led to a negative perception of the role of red meat in health. The aim of this paper is to review existing literature for both the risks and benefits of red meat consumption, focusing on case-control and prospective studies. Despite many studies reporting an association between red meat and the risk of CVD and colon cancer, several methodological limitations and inconsistencies were identified which may impact on the validity of their findings. Overall, there is no strong evidence to support the recent conclusion from the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) report that red meat has a convincing role to play in colon cancer. A substantial amount of evidence supports the role of lean red meat as a positive moderator of lipid profiles with recent studies identifying it as a dietary source of the anti-inflammatory long chain (LC) n-3 PUFAs and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). In conclusion, moderate consumption of lean red meat as part of a balanced diet is unlikely to increase risk for CVD or colon cancer, but may positively influence nutrient intakes and fatty acid profiles, thereby impacting positively on long-term health.

This blog article contains a long list of studies (with abstracts) on this topic.


.

China Study says animal fat is healthy!

.
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.  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.

China Study - Raw Data - more plant food = more heart disease!

.
At last! Finally the Raw Data behind the infamous "The China Study..." book by Dr. TC Campbell from Cornell University has emmerged out of some obscure "unobtainium" publication and became available on-line on the Clinical Trial Service Unit at Oxford University web site!

http://www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/~china/monograph/chdata.htm

Below are the links to blogs and sources.

#1. Denise Minger on China Study - long and in depth analysis of the raw data with graphs. See also her article on Tuoli county the only county in the China Study that consumed a high fat medium carb diet:

http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/

http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/06/23/tuoli-chinas-mysterious-milk-drinkers/

According to our prominent vegan theorists such as Drs Campbel, Ornish, McDougall, Esselstyne et al, the Tuoli people ought to have been very sick or dead. As you can read from Denise analysis nothing is farthest from truth. Tuoli seems to be healthier than in most other China counties!

#2. Fantastic comment by Richard Kroeker on Amazon forum,
- giving his own analyzis of the raw date similar to and corroborationg an analysis by Denise Minger.  Note: you should start reading from that post and then move on to #1 above, since Kroeker's article is much shorter.

http://www.amazon.com/Analyzing-the-China-Study-Dataset/forum/Fx1YJPR95OHW08P/TxY4S5EZD8Y2XE/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&s=books&asin=1932100660&store=books

Quote:

... This is not at all what Campbell's book implied the data said. As I said above, I am an engineer (with a PhD) with heart disease simply trying to find out what to eat. You do the math...

My day-job is analyzing hard drive failure statistics that result from usage and stress testing; I get paid to make the problems being studied "go away". I have also recently had a triple bypass, ...

For instance, the people who ate the most animal protein had 68.9% less heart disease (at 95% confidence) than those people who ate the least animal protein. The people who ate the most plant protein had 64.9% more heart disease (at 89% confidence) than those people who ate the least plant protein.

I am quoting here some interesting correlation (actually the risk ratio between the extreme sample bins for a given variable, '-' means improvement, '+' means harm) from Kroeker's post, the first column numbers are univariate (single-variable, uncorrected against possible confounders) risk ratios in %, the most negative numbers (blue) = low mortality, the most positive numbers (red) = high mortality. The second number in brackets are the "confidence" estimates in % as per Kroeker's definition (see here in his methodology document). This is for mortality of all vascular disease age 35-69.



RISK% (CONFIDENCE%) - INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

-70.7% (93%) - PERCENTAGE OF CALORIC INTAKE FROM FAT
-68.9% (95%) - PERCENTAGE ANIMAL PROTEIN INTAKE
-60.8% (92%) - HDLCHOL plasma HIGH DENSITY LIPOPROTEIN CHOLESTEROL (mg/dL)
-57.0% (89%) - PERCENTAGE OF CALORIC INTAKE FROM ANIMAL
-55.6% (90%) - ANIMAL FOOD INTAKE (g/day/ref)
-55.1% (94%) - FOLATE plasma FOLATE (ng/mL)
-54.8% (89%) - ANIMAL PROTEIN INTAKE (g/day/ref)
-54.1% (90%) - FISH INTAKE (g/day/ref)

-49.5% (84%) - TOTAL LIPID INTAKE (g/day/reference man)
-49.1% (87%) - PERCENTAGE ANIMAL FOOD INTAKE (for refere
-48.4% (83%) - MEAT INTAKE (red meat and poultry) (g/day
-48.0% (83%) - CHOLESTEROL INTAKE (mg/day/reference man)
-46.6% (81%) - RED MEAT (pork, beef, mutton) INTAKE (g/d
-42.2% (82%) - SATURATED FATTY ACID INTAKE (g/day/ref)
-40.7% (89%) - RICE INTAKE (g/day/reference man, air-dry
-38.0% (84%) - TOTAL CAROTENOID INTAKE (retinol equivale
-36.0% (84%) - POULTRY INTAKE (g/day/reference man, as-c
-42.9% (82%) - Se plasma SELENIUM (ug/dL)
-42.8% (85%) - TOTPROT plasma 1989 TOTAL PROTEIN (g/dL)
-42.6% (86%) - APOA1 plasma APOLIPOPROTEIN A1 (mg/dL) (non-pooled analysis
-40.7% (88%) - Zn plasma ZINC (mg/dL)
-38.7% (76%) - B-CAROT plasma BETA CAROTENE (ug/dL)
-38.0% (82%) - ANHYDLUT plasma ANHYDRO LUTEIN (ug/dL)
-34.6% (81%) - TOTCHOL plasma TOTAL CHOLESTEROL (mg/dL)
-34.1% (79%) - NON-HDL plasma CHOLEST.(mg/dL)[=LDL+Trig/5]

...

32.4% (79%) - plasma LDL to HDL ratio
35.6% (75%) - PLANT FOOD INTAKE (g/day/reference man)
37.5% (82%) - POTASSIUM INTAKE (mg/day/ref)
39.3% (76%) - SPICE INTAKE (g/day/ref)
39.6% (84%) - TOTAL NEUTRAL DETERGENT FIBRE INTAKE (g/d/ref)
40.0% (84%) - MAGNESIUM INTAKE (mg/day/ref)
42.2% (80%) - MANGANESE INTAKE (mg/day/ref)
43.0% (90%) - OTHER CEREAL INTAKE (g/day/ref)
46.4% (93%) - TOTAL PROTEIN INTAKE (g/day/ref)
47.7% (91%) - COPPER INTAKE (mg/day/ref)

50.5% (87%) - IRON INTAKE (mg/day/ref)
54.3% (91%) - PERCENTAGE OF CALORIC INTAKE FROM CARBOHYDRATES
56.0% (87%) - PERCENTAGE PLANT FOOD INTAKE
58.9% (95%) - PLANT PROTEIN INTAKE (g/day/reference man)
62.4% (97%) - WHEAT FLOUR INTAKE (g/day/reference man)
64.9% (89%) - PERCENTAGE PLANT PROTEIN INTAKE (for ref)
65.7% (95%) - PERCENTAGE OF CALORIC INTAKE FROM PLANT PROTEIN

#3. Richard Nikoley's blog where I found the original links (thanks):

http://freetheanimal.com/2010/07/t-colin-campbells-the-china-study-finally-exhaustively-discredited.html

Stan (Heretic)

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Update 13-July-2010


HILLARIOUS response (and also the comment #505 here (*) that is  http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/#comment-505   ) by Dr. TC Campbell of Cornell University to Denise Minger!

No discussion of the data, instead plenty of ad-hominem attacks, pointing out her age, questioning her character integrity and weaving some conspiracy theory implying backing by some lobbying organization having "untold financial resources" such as Weston A. Price Foundation!   :)

Dr. TC Campbell of Cornell U. (probably) wrote:

"I find it very puzzling that someone with virtually no training in this science can do such a lengthy and detailed analysis in their supposedly spare time. I know how agricultural lobbying organizations do it–like the Weston A Price Foundation with many chapters around the country and untold amounts of financial resources. Someone takes the lead in doing a draft of an article, then has access to a large number of commentators to check out the details, technical and literal, of the drafts as they are produced. I have no proof, of course, whether this young girl is anything other than who she says she is, but I find it very difficult to accept her statement that this was her innocent and objective reasoning, and hers alone. If she did this alone, based on her personal experiences from age 7 (as she describes it), I am more than impressed."

- I am not!
H.

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*) If someone figured it out how to link to a comment by its number, on wordpress blog please let me know. Nothing obvious such as ?comment=505 etc seems to work.

Update 17-July-2010

Reordering and reformatting. It is interesting to notice that in China Study the higher total cholesterol, and the higher LDL+Triglycerides correlated with LOWER cardiovascular mortality; while higher HDL level correlated very strongly with lower cardiovascular mortality!

Update 29-July-2010

Added confidence levels in brackets (%) and a link to Rich Kroeker's methodology document.

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Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart - Official!!

.

(From Wikipedia)

Spot the junk bits!

Scientific American Magazine - April 27, 2010

Title: "Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart"

Quotes:

...compared the reported daily food intake of nearly 350,000 people against their risk of developing cardiovascular disease over a period of five to 23 years. The analysis, overseen by Ronald M. Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, found no association between the amount of saturated fat consumed and the risk of heart disease.

... Stampfer’s findings do not merely suggest that saturated fats are not so bad; they indicate that carbohydrates could be worse. A 1997 study he co-authored in the Journal of the American Medical Association evaluated 65,000 women and found that the quintile of women who ate the most easily digestible and readily absorbed carbohydrates—that is, those with the highest glycemic index—were 47 percent more likely to acquire type 2 diabetes than those in the quintile with the lowest average glycemic-index score. (The amount of fat the women ate did not affect diabetes risk.)  And a 2007 Dutch study of 15,000 women ... who were overweight and in the quartile that consumed meals with the highest average glycemic load, a metric that incorporates portion size, were 79 percent more likely to develop coronary vascular disease ...

Another issue facing regulatory agencies, notes Harvard’s Stampfer, is that “the sugared beverage industry   [and vegetarians, my comment - H.]  is lobbying very hard and trying to cast doubt on all these studies.”

... Some monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, such as those found in fish and olive oil, can protect against heart disease. What is more, some high-fiber carbohydrates are unquestionably good for the body. But saturated fats may ultimately be neutral compared with processed carbs and sugars such as those found in cereals, breads, pasta and cookies.


“If you reduce saturated fat and replace it with high glycemic-index carbohydrates, you may not only not get benefits—you might actually produce harm,” Ludwig argues. The next time you eat a piece of buttered toast, he says, consider that “butter is actually the more healthful component.”

Stan (not-so-Heretic)

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Carbohydrates increase women's heart risk

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New large Italian study published in Archives of Internal Medicine is described on the BBC Health web site.

A study of over 47,000 Italian adults found that women alone whose diets contained a lot of bread, pizza and rice doubled their heart disease risk.

After seven years, 463 participants had developed coronary heart disease.

The researchers found that the women whose diet had the highest glycaemic load had more than double the risk of heart disease compared with those women with the lowest glycaemic load. 

The authors concluded: "Thus, a high consumption of carbohydrates from high-glycaemic index foods, rather than the overall quantity of carbohydrates consumed, appears to influence the risk of developing coronary heart disease."

  This is somewhat contradictory since the GlycemicLoad concept being a product of Glycemic Index times daily intake in grams, does include all types of carbohydrates not just those of the highest glycemic index.   Also, the fact that the correlation showed up among women but not men is a bit suspicious.

Last but not least, there is no mention of "artery-clogging" fat!  I wonder why?

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High plasma AGE and platelet hyperaggregability in vegans

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More deficiencies have been shown (than just B12,A,D3,K2,EPA,DHA) to be inherent in vegan diets. Taurine supplementation may be necessary for some vegans. Taurine is amino-acid not present in plants, and can only be obtained from animal produce.

1) Sub-optimal taurine status may promote platelet hyperaggregability in vegetarians.

Quote:

Plasma taurine levels are lower, and urinary taurine excretion is substantially lower, in vegetarians than in omnivores. Platelets are rich in taurine, which functions physiologically to dampen the calcium influx evoked by aggregating agonists--thereby down-regulating platelet aggregation. Supplemental intakes of taurine as low as 400 mg daily have been reported to markedly decrease the sensitivity of platelets to aggregating agonists ex vivo.

2) The low-AGE content of low-fat vegan diets could benefit diabetics - though concurrent taurine supplementation may be needed to minimize endogenous AGE production.

Quote:

Nonetheless, the plasma AGE content of healthy vegetarians has been reported to be higher than that of omnivores - suggesting that something about vegetarian diets may promote endogenous AGE production. Some researchers have proposed that the relatively high-fructose content of vegetarian diets may explain this phenomenon, but there so far is no clinical evidence that normal intakes of fructose have an important impact on AGE production. An alternative or additional possibility is that the relatively poor taurine status of vegetarians up-regulates the physiological role of myeloperoxidase-derived oxidants in the generation of AGEs - in which case, taurine supplementation might be expected to suppress elevated AGE production in vegetarians.

3) A taurine-supplemented vegan diet may blunt the contribution of neutrophil activation to acute coronary events.

Quote:

Taurine has anti-atherosclerotic activity in animal models, possibly reflecting a role for macrophage-derived myeloperoxidase in the atherogenic process. Taurine also has platelet-stabilizing and anti-hypertensive effects that presumably could reduce coronary risk.

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Beware of Okinawa Diet scam!

I thought Okinawa Diet case has been rightfully forgotten a few years ago but a recent post on webmd Diet Debate board tries to revive it by linking this article , quote:

...Okinawa Centenarian Study. Okinawa, a chain of islands in southern Japan, has the highest concentration of centenarians. Uniformly these old folks have a vegetable-based, low-calorie, low-fat diet and exercise daily. They eat on average seven servings of vegetables and seven servings of grain per day, several servings of soy products, fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and little dairy or red meat.

My comment: I have come across Okinawa Study and the popular books by Willcox et al. a few years ago and came to a conclusion that it is totally bogus and a scam designed to sell their books, diet plans, supplements etc.

Here is what what do Okinawans probably eat, from WAPF web article :

And what do Okinawans eat? The main meat of the diet is pork, and not the lean cuts only. Okinawan cuisine, according to gerontologist Kazuhiko Taira, "is very healthy-and very, very greasy," in a 1996 article that appeared in Health Magazine.19 And the whole pig is eaten-everything from "tails to nails." Local menus offer boiled pigs feet, entrail soup and shredded ears. Pork is cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, kelp and small amounts of sugar, then sliced and chopped up for stir fry dishes. Okinawans eat about 100 grams of meat per day-compared to 70 in Japan and just over 20 in China-and at least an equal amount of fish, for a total of about 200 grams per day, compared to 280 grams per person per day of meat and fish in America. Lard-not vegetable oil-is used in cooking. Okinawans also eat plenty of fibrous root crops such as taro and sweet potatoes. They consume rice and noodles, but not as the main component of the diet. They eat a variety of vegetables such as carrots, white radish, cabbage and greens, both fresh and pickled. Bland tofu is part of the diet, consumed in traditional ways, but on the whole Okinawan cuisine is spicy. Pork dishes are flavored with a mixture of ginger and brown sugar, with chili oil and with "the wicked bite of bitter melon."
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19. Deborah Franklyn, "Take a Lesson from the
People of Okinawa," Health, September 1996, pp 57-63

I also found my old post containing some information from Barry Groves (private communication), see what he had to say:

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Okinawa (by Heretic on Aug-08-06, webmd)

I am trying to get hold of some papers on the subject. So far I found, surprisingly (or may be not...) that there is just as much confusion about it and contradictions in the literature, as about infamous "The China Study"(*). When I get the article text I will post some quotations. It will require a trip to the local uni library and paying some $$$. Let me quote after Barry Groves (private communication), the following citation:

In 1992 scientists at the Department of Community Health, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan published a paper which examined the relationship of nutritional status to further life expectancy and health status in the Japanese elderly[1]. It was based on three epidemiological studies. In the first, nutrient intakes in ninety-four Japanese centenarians investigated between 1972 and 1973 showed a higher proportion of animal protein to total proteins than in contemporary average Japanese. The second demonstrated that high intakes of milk and fats and oils had favourable effects on ten-year survivorship in 422 urban residents aged sixty-nine to seventy-one. The survivors revealed a longitudinal increase in intakes of animal foods such as eggs, milk, fish and meat over the ten years. In the third study, nutrient intakes were compared between a sample from Okinawa Prefecture where life expectancies at birth and sixty-five were the longest in Japan, and a sample from Akita Prefecture where the life expectancies were much shorter. It found that the proportion of energy from proteins and fats were significantly higher in the former than in the latter.


Reference
1. Shibata H., Nagai H., Haga H., Yasumura S., Suzuki T., Suyama Y. Nutrition for the Japanese elderly. Nutr & Health. 1992; 8(2-3): 165-75.

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Update 9-Nov-2009

Description of Okinawa food:

http://stanford.wellsphere.com/healthy-eating-article/hara-hachi-bu-lessons-from-okinawa/845480
Quote:

Animal Foods, Seafoods, Fat and Okinawa Cuisine
Traditional foods of Okinawa are extremely varied, remarkably nutrient-dense as are all traditional foods and strictly moderated with the philosophy of hara hachi bu. While the diet of Okinawa is, indeed, plant-based it is most certainly not “low fat” as has been posited by some writer-researchers about the native foods of Okinawa. Indeed, all those stirfries of bittermelon and fresh vegetables found in Okinawan bowls are fried in lard and seasoned with sesame oil. I remember fondly that a slab of salt pork graced every bowl of udon I slurped up while living on the island. Pig fat is not, as you can imagine, a low-fat food yet the Okinawans are fond of it. Much of the fat consumed is pastured as pigs are commonly raised at home in the gardens of Okinawan homes. Pork and lard, like avocado and olive oil, are a remarkably good source of monounsaturated fatty acid and, if that pig roots around on sunny days, it is also a remarkably source of vitamin D.
The diet of Okinawa also includes considerably more animal products and meat – usually in the form of pork – than that of the mainland Japanese or even the Chinese. Goat and chicken play a lesser, but still important, role in Okinawan cuisine. Okinawans average about 100 grams or one modest portion of meat per person per day. Animal foods are important on Okinawa and, like all food, play a role in the population’s general health, well-being and longevity.
Fish plays an important role in the cooking of Okinawa as well. Seafoods eaten are various and numerous – with Okinawans averaging about 200 grams of fish per day.

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More links (07/06/2010): Okinawa - The Island of Pork

Note (updated 18/12/2011):  Unfortunately the link above with its lovely photo of a market stall filled with pork to the roof, has gone kaput. Enjoy okinawa-information.com instead.   Quote:

 Pork is a very important ingredient, and every part of the pig is used, from pig's feet and pig's ears to pork tripe. Other ingredients include local seafood and native tropical vegetables and fruits.

Update 21-Oct-2010 (from Denise Minger comments on her blog)

Nutr Health. 1992;8(2-3):165-75. Nutrition for the Japanese elderly., Shibata H,et al.

Abstract quote:

The present paper examines the relationship of nutritional status to further life expectancy and health status in the Japanese elderly based on 3 epidemiological studies. 1. Nutrient intakes in 94 Japanese centenarians investigated between 1972 and 1973 showed a higher proportion of animal protein to total proteins than in contemporary average Japanese. 2. High intakes of milk and fats and oils had favorable effects on 10-year (1976-1986) survivorship in 422 urban residents aged 69-71. The survivors revealed a longitudinal increase in intakes of animal foods such as eggs, milk, fish and meat over the 10 years. 3. Nutrient intakes were compared, based on 24-hour dietary records, between a sample from Okinawa Prefecture where life expectancies at birth and 65 were the longest in Japan, and a sample from Akita Prefecture where the life expectancies were much shorter. Intakes of Ca, Fe, vitamins A, B1, B2, C, and the proportion of energy from proteins and fats were significantly higher in the former than in the latter. Intakes of carbohydrates and NaCl were lower.

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Added 24-Jan-2013 (thanks for the paper, Anonymous!):

More quotes from Shibata's paper:


Quotes:

The food intake pattern in Okinawa has been different from that in other regions  of  Japan.  The people  there  have  never  been  influenced  by Buddhism. Hence, there has been no taboo regarding eating habits. Eating meat was not  stygmatised, and consumption of pork and goat was historically high.  It was exceptional among Japanese food consumption.
The intake of meat was higher in  Okinawa... On the other hand, the intake of fish was lower... Intake of NaCl was lower... Deep colored vegetables were taken more in Okinawa... These characteristics of dietary status are thought to be among the crucial factors  which convey longevity and good health to the elderly in Okinawa Prefecture. ....

and the "kicker":

Unexpectedly, we  did not find any vegetarians among the centenarians.

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