In 2013 the “Low Carb Diet News” site keyed me in to another
blogger who was new to me and who thinks along the same lines as I do. He is a
New Zealander named Professor Grant Schofield, and his blog is “The Science of
Human Potential.” He is also an academic (Psychology) at the Auckland
University of Technology, NZ, which leads to an interesting digression in his post.
I liked it well enough to repost it here. To quote “Professor Grant” (as he is
known):
“A second excellent review article
was also published in Nutrition
Today by Volek
(again!) and Phinney, the low carb gurus. This one is called “A New Look at
Carbohydrate-Restricted Diets: Separating Fact From Fiction.” Again this is an
excellent scientific review paper. What I should be doing in this blog is
simply drawing your attention to this good work, and you can go and check it
out for yourself. Except I’m aware that unless you work at a university, you’d
have to buy the paper, which means that most of the people who would benefit
from the knowledge won’t.”
How true. The new Volek
and Phinney paper that the good professor was referring to is published in
“Nutrition Today,” for the journal’s pecuniary benefit alone, and is available
for $48 plus tax for this one article or $99 for an annual subscription. I
passed on this offer, and am grateful that the professor reviewed the piece for
us. But just think of all the practitioners out there, the very clinicians who
would benefit from this the most, who will never see it for lack of an academic
appointment. What impediments we make to the advancement of learning!
Anyway, Professor Grant
goes on to list his takeaway of the main points of the Volek and Phinney
article. He does get a bit in the weeds so, as J. Stanton says, “CAUTION:
CONTAINS SCIENCE.” The Professor Grant
article makes these points:
1.
Saturated
fat levels in the blood are not associated with dietary saturated fat intake,
but dietary carbohydrate intake. They show evidence from both randomized
controlled trials and population data for this.
2.
They
discuss in detail what the keto-adapted (fat adapted) state is; how this comes
about, including increased beta oxidation of fat, decreased hyperinsulinemia,
and a re-orchestration of substrate utilization in the body, including the use
of ketones to fuel brain function. It is interesting that the majority of
practicing dietitians, endocrinologists, cardiologists, and public health
physicians have never heard any of this.
3.
They
point out what is an…obvious set of outcomes, which are well documented in the
scientific literature; that treating a patient with insulin resistance with a
low fat/high carb diet is palliative and going to make the problem worse. If
you are having trouble getting glucose into your cells, then reduce the glucose
load stupid!
4.
They
show a nice little diagram to show the role of dietary carbohydrate in
metabolic (dys)function. To quote the authors “The major point is that SFA
(saturated fatty acids), and the response to eggs, has a totally different
metabolic behavior when consumed in the context of a low carbohydrate diet.”
The interesting aspect of
Volek and Phinney’s thesis to me is that first sentence in bullet Number 1
above, as illustrated in the diagram. They are showing with “both randomized
controlled trials and population data for this,” that “high dietary
carbohydrates” (symbol: CHO) results in “SFA synthesis up” and “SFA storage up”
(we make and store more body fat in the form of triglycerides). That in turn,
in the “metabolic health continuum” leads to “plasma SFA up” (high blood fat,
i.e. triglycerides), “insulin resistance up,” and “dyslipidemia up.” The other
side of the diagram shows that the inverse is true with lower dietary
carbohydrate intake. But this is getting perhaps a little heavy on the science.
My wife likes to simplify it
all by telling our friends and acquaintances that “Eating fat doesn’t make you
fat; carbs make you fat.” I like that. Most people just look at her in
wonderment and disbelief. Some say, politely, “I never heard that before.” I
secretly wonder if they think she is crazy. She’s not a scientist or a doctor,
and doesn’t even play one on TV. Where does she get these crazy ideas? Maybe
she reads my blog. Maybe – just maybe – the word is gradually seeping out there
that “the conventional wisdom,” that we have been following for the last 50
years, has been dead wrong.
Maybe it HAS all
been a big fat lie, as
Gary Taubes suggested in his seminal New York Times Sunday magazine
cover story on July 7, 2002. If you’ve never read it, Google it. It re-started
the low carb revolution 17 years ago.
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