Chapter 9 centered itself around the idea of the over simplification of the cholesterol issue in the dominant nutritional and health research of the 20th century. Many of the same issues were brought up that were dealt with in this article (yes, you should read it if you haven’t already) that I posted the other day. Essentially there are two types of LDL cholesterol and the bad type is raised by excessive carbohydrates in the diet. Your traditional cholesterol test does not break LDL cholesterol into these two categories rendering it much less useful than first thought. The two blood lipid readings that do appear to have some bearing on heart disease are HDL cholesterol (higher is better) and triglycerides (lower is better).
Chapter 10 took a good look at the role of insulin in the heart disease picture. Insulin had for many years been seen only as a “diabetic issue” and not of concern in the role of heart disease. Interestingly, however, many of the same risk factors that present in heart disease patients are also present in type 2 diabetics. Elevated triglycerides, high blood pressure, obesity, elevated small-dense LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, glucose intolerance, hyper insulinemia, and insulin resistance are all risk factors for the heart disease patient and are all commonly seen in Type 2 diabetics. Type 2 diabetes is when your body’s tissues become resistant to normal levels of insulin and require excessive levels to be created by the pancreas to operate properly. This condition is brought on by years of excessive carbohydrate intake (this fact is rarely disputed). These same people who have been consuming excessive carbohydrates usually have all of the above listed heart disease risk factors. Interesting.
As complicated as these chapters were they really tied a lot of things together for me. Everyone agrees that high triglycerides, low HDL, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and glucose intolerance are bad. They all lead toward heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes, and stroke. The only mechanism that can physiologically lead to all of these conditions is excessive carbohydrates and especially refined carbs. Excessive dietary fat doesn’t explain them all. Removing saturated fat doesn’t solve the problem. Excessive carbohydrates are the only explanation that can be given for all of these conditions that so often occur simultaneously. Taubes makes the issue abundantly clear. That, for me, was the take home message of these two chapters. The reason you have never been told this by the mainstream medical establishment is because lowering carbohydrates in the diet inevitably causes increased fat in the diet and Keys’ hypothesis regarding fat and heart disease has been seen as the indisputable truth for so many years that the idea of increased dietary fat scares them to death.
All Classes
Happy rest day!
Filed under: Nutrition | Tagged: Good Calories-Bad Calories
I found it interesting that our total cholesterol count doesn’t really mean anything as an indicator of health but that its actually specific types of cholesterol that really matter.
I was at a BBQ last year where I asked for extra cheese on my buger and someone there asked me seriously if I knew that that would raise my cholesterol. If I knew what I know now I could have had a conversation wih that person asking them which specific type of cholesterol would have been raised and how would that have affected my trygliceride level
Also triglyceride count as a much stronger indicator of health was good to know.