Disease Proof : Disease Proof : Health & Nutrition News & Commentary : Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Diet-Blog is pondering the information in Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions, which promotes the benefits of saturated fat. Here's more:

Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions has been in Australia promoting her book. Fallon promotes the benefits of saturated fats (from research undertaken by the Weston Price Foundation).

Fallon has come under heavy criticism from the Dietitians Association of Australia:

"She's basing her ideas on observations of primitive populations in isolated areas who eat traditional diets, and it's so far removed from Western civilisation," [...] "In a population that is sedentary there is no need to consume saturated fats." (The Age)

So what is the truth? Are there any real answers to this controversial and ongoing debate?

The truth? The truth is to ignore this book! Dr. Fuhrman believes Nourishing Traditions is a sad commentary on nutrition. He lays it on the line in Fanciful Folklore Is No Match For Modern Science, take a look:

Nourishing Traditions is full of bad science and illogical reasoning and its appeal is dependent on people’s ignorance about nutrition. Fallon and Enig perpetuate long-held nutritional myths by referencing the same people who started the myths in the first place.


Nutrition is a complicated subject, and it takes familiarity with a comprehensive body of scientific studies and articles to devise recommendations to prevent disease and promote longevity. Science is not perfect, but evidence builds on prior studies, and ongoing research attempts to test each hypothesis and check validity in an unbiased manner. Today, we have a comprehensive body of knowledge with over 15,000 articles written since the 1950s documenting the link between a diet high in saturated fat and low in fresh fruits, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and beans and the increased risk of cancer and heart disease.

While Nourishing Traditions has over 200 references, many are antiquated, with poor observations. For the most part, the authors reference their own articles and those of other Weston A. Price Foundation authors. Only fourteen of the references are from peer-reviewed journals published in the last ten years, and for most of those fourteen, the authors misrepresented what was stated in the articles. By contrast, my book Eat to Live contains over 1,000 medical references to peer-reviewed medical journals.

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In what warped reality would dairy actually be associated with weight-loss? Oh wait! Here, in this country. Well actually, not anymore. Kim Severson of The New York Times reports that the dairy industry’s national advertising campaign that links dairy consumption to weight-loss has been dumped. Why? Because the science doesn’t support the claim! Now that is some gangster-like lying right there, more from the report:

The assertion that there is a link between weight loss and dairy consumption has long been contested by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine [PCRM], an advocacy and research group that promotes a diet free of animal products.


The group petitioned the F.T.C. in 2005 to argue that the advertisements were misleading. In a May 3 letter to the group, Lydia Parnes, director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said Agriculture Department representatives and milk producers and processors had agreed to change the advertisements and related marketing materials “until further research provides stronger, more conclusive evidence of an association between dairy consumption and weight loss.”

As of Thursday, the National Dairy Council still had a section of its Web site devoted to the weight-loss claim. But the site, along with some of the advertisements, will be changed, said Greg Miller, who is executive vice president of the council and has a doctorate in nutrition.

It’s a good thing the PCRM has some sense—oh, and in case you didn’t know—Dr. Fuhrman is a member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. But truth be told, The PCRM is only doing a public service. Because according to Dr. Fuhrman dairy products and milk should never be confused as a health food. He explains in Disease-Proof Your Child:

The leading cause of digestive intolerance leading to stomach complaints is dairy products. Many kids have subtle allergies to cow's milk that perpetuate their nasal congestion, leading to ear infections.


Milk, which is designed by nature for the rapidly growing cow, has about half its calories supplied from fat. The fatty component is concentrated more to make cheese and butter. Milk and cheese are the foods Americans encourage their children to eat, believing them to be healthy foods. Fifty years of heavy advertising by an economically powerful industry has shaped the public's perception, illustrating the power of one-sided advertising, but the reality and true health effects on our children is a different story. Besides the link between high-saturated-fat foods (dairy fat) and cancer, there is a body of scientific literature linking the consumption of cow's milk to many other diseases. If we expect our children to resist many common illnesses, they simply must consume less milk, cheese, and butter. Dairy foods should be consumed in limited quantity or not at all.

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This country is weight-obsessed. Despite our staggering rate of obesity, it seems like everyone is scrambling for ways to keep the weight off. And so enters the landslide of fad diets. Take portion control for example—ever heard of it?

The idea is you’ll lose weight by restricting the amount of food you eat. Sounds like a good idea—right? Although, if people were really capable of limiting how much they eat, then why do we have an obesity problem to begin with? Yeah, Dr. Fuhrman doesn’t buy this approach to maintaining a healthy bodyweight either. He talks about it in Eat to Live:

It is meaningless to compare foods by weight or portion size. Let me provide an example to explain why this is the case. Take one teaspoon of melted butter, which gets 100 percent of its calories from fat. If I take that teaspoon of butter and mix it in a glass of hot water, I can now say that it is 98 percent fat-free, by weight. One hundred percent of its calories are still from fat. It didn’t matter how much water or weight was added, did it?

Portion control sounds more like a clever marketing scheme than a legitimate weight-loss plan to me. Now, Dr. Fuhrman isn’t the only non-believer of portion control. A new study shows eating slower and in smaller portions is really nothing more than dietary busywork. Jeffrey Perkel of HealthDay News reports:

A team at Children's Hospital Boston gave 18 teens a fast-food meal comprising chicken nuggets, French fries and a cola delivered in one of three ways on three separate occasions: either as a single large serving; divided into four portions served at one time; or divided into four portions served every 15 minutes.


The authors found that the teens -- four males and 14 females, all of who were overweight -- ate the same amount of food (about 1,320 calories worth, nearly 50 percent of their daily energy requirement) regardless of how it was presented. Importantly, none of the subjects finished the meal they were given, suggesting they ate until they were full, not until they ran out of food.

"It didn't matter if we divided [the meal] into four smaller portions and gave it at the same time, or if we divided it into portions and distributed it at 15-minute intervals to slow down intake," said Cara Ebbeling, co-director of obesity research at the hospital. "They ate the same amount of total calories in each case. So, the conclusion is that portioning and eating rate did not affect calorie intake."

Talk about using people as guinea pigs. Did they have to use fast-food? Yuck! But the research does identify the critical flaw in this form of dieting. We’re a country of chronic overeaters. We simply eat way more than we should—clearly we lack will power—so how will reducing the amount of food we start with help us lose weight? Won’t we just seek out more food once we devour our tiny portions?

Again, Dr. Fuhrman isn’t buying it. In Eat to Live he points out that its not just about how much we put into our bodies, but also what we put into our bodies. Take a look:

If food’s weight were important, it would be easy to lose weight, we would just have to drink more water. The water would trigger the weight receptors in the digestive tract and our appetite would diminish. Unfortunately, this is not the way our body’s appetite—the brain center in the hypothalamus that controls food intake—is controlled. Bulk, calories, and nutrient fulfillment, not the weight of the food, turn off our appestat. Since the foods Americans consume are so calorie-rich, we have all been trying to diet by eating small portions of low-nutrient foods. We not only have to suffer hunger but also wind up with perverted cravings because we are nutrient-deficient to boot.

Dr. Fuhrman goes on to explain that giant portions of certain foods can actually contribute to weight-loss. Who would have thought? Eat more, lose weight. Back to Eat to Live:

We must consume a certain level of calories daily to feel satisfied. Now I ask you to completely rethink what you consider a typical portion size. To achieve superior health and a permanently thin physique, you should eat large portions of green foods. When considering any green plant food, remember to make the portion size huge by conventional standards. Eating large portions of these super healthy foods is the key to your success.

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Here’s a brief dialogue between Dr. Fuhrman and an Eat to Liver over at DrFuhrman.com’s member center. Yup, I love me some low-carb bashing. Take a look:

Member:
I am just finishing reading The China Study after the mention of that study in ETL. It brought up a couple of questions for me about the nutrition knowledge of doctors and nutritionists.

First, it mentioned again the small amount of nutrition information included in medical schools. It profiled two doctors who had learned through their experiences the power of nutrition as they used it to treat their patients, just like you have. I was wondering if you are aware of the number of other doctors in the U.S. that use nutrition like this. It seems like like-minded doctors would know of each other, but maybe not. Any idea of how many there are? And is there any medical school that seems to be teaching doctors this way?

Secondly, it mentions the greater number of hours of nutrition classes that nutrition majors get in their education - either undergrad or graduate. My question is do you think that their nutrition classes would echo what you have learned, so that they would agree with you and the other doctors who use nutrition to prevent and reverse disease? Many times doctors (who don't know much about nutrition) will refer patients who need to lose weight, etc., to nutritionists. I am just wondering if the information they supply would be accurate according to what you have found in your research and experience.

I appreciate so much the knowledge I have gained since I was directed to your book and website. I must admit though that it is a strange feeling when I realize that I think I know more about preventing/reversing many diseases than the doctors I have seen. Thanks for all you do to educate us!

Dr. Fuhrman:
I agree with you. Just because the nutritional education might be increased by a few hours does not mean a doctor will be adequately trained or offer effective advice.

Look at all the terrible advice given by tons of so-called nutritionally aware doctors like Atkins and South Beach. Consider all the worthless advice given by most RD's.

Nevertheless, there are good nutritional programs at Cornell, Loma Linda and a few other places around the country and lots of physicians who have contacted me stating "you are the guy who finally got it right" But those number of really clear thinking and knowledgeable physicians and researchers are unfortunately relatively few.

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I admit. It’s easy to poke fun at the low-carb lifestyle. What can I say? I’m a sucker for low-hanging fruit. But truth be told, Dr. Fuhrman makes it pretty clear that carbohydrate restrictive diets—like the Atkins Diet—are no way to achieve optimal long-term health. You only have to check out these posts to see why:

• The Physician and The Student
• How a High-Protein Diet Works
• Increased Risk of Cancer Associated with The Atkins Diet
• Short and Long-Term Dangers of High-Fat Diets
• What Happens When You Tell The Truth About Atkins
• Examining Dr. Atkins' Death—UPDATED
• Dangers of High-Protein, Low-Carb Diets

But despite all this, millions of people pledge allegiance to a fad diet centered on animal fat. A huge concern for Dr. Fuhrman because—as he points out in the posts above—any diet where the majority of calories come from animal products increases your risk of cancer, heart disease, and a whole host of life-shortening maladies.


As you’ve seen, I’m quick to knock low-carb living. And so is Dr. Fuhrman, but, he’s smarter than me—yes, a little brownnosing here—so when he takes Atkins-type diets to task, he really exposes them for the over-hyped danger zones that they are.

Curious to hear what that sounds like? You’re in luck. Because it just so happens this week’s episode of Nutrition Wisdom is on that very subject. Here’s a bit I transcribed from the show. In it Dr. Fuhrman talks about how dangerous an Atkins-type diet can be for children and others. In fact, it can have deadly consequences. Take a look:

In recent years with the skyrocketing popularity of the Atkins Diet, there’s been a proportional skyrocketed increase in sudden cardiac death in young women. That parallels the increase in ketogenic diets. Right now we know that sudden cardiac death means irregular heart beat, as in cardiac arrhythmia. There has to be a warning on the Atkins Diet! There must be a warning that severe carbohydrate restriction—restricted ketosis—when you go into ketosis because of severe carbohydrate restriction, as a weight control method. There could be a traumatic increase in sudden death.


There was an important study in the Southern Medical Journal about a sixteen year-old girl who died after two weeks of following an Atkins Diet. They found that she was in profound acidosis, with about a twenty point base deficit because undeniably keto-acidosis caused acidosis in the blood. In other words, you can become highly acidic. We get dramatic lowering of potassium levels, especially when you first start out on the diet.

The continual denial of the dangers by the people who embrace and promote this ketogenic diet—it’s understandable why—because people are often economically invested with their egos and their food preferences into this diet. But, the risk of carbohydrate restriction ketosis is very powerful and with a lot of studies done on children who were put on ketogenic diets for seizure disorders and they use this for people who have seizures that are retractable—meaning they can’t be helped any other way—and they warn the parents of these children that it increases the risk of kidney stones, kidney failure, increases the rate of infection, and sudden cardiac death, including cardiomyopathy and cardiac-arrhythmias. For example, one study following children put on ketogenic diets—like an Atkins-type diet—they showed fifteen percent developed cardiac enlargement and dilated cardiomyopathy. Of course the diet had to be stopped.

Another study followed 129 children and found that seventeen developed severe complications and four people died out of the 129; two of sepsis because of the increased risk of infection, one of cardiomyopathy, and one of lipoid pneumonia. The point is when doctors are very careful they know these are dangerous diets, and they advise people of the dangers, but if a person wants to try it it’s their right. But the claims made by the Atkins people, for example, Atkins himself used say prevent breast cancer with butter, reverse heart disease with fillet mignon, it’s all the lying and misinformation and lack of telling people the risks of a diet that has such a great amount of dangers.

Lying? Of course they’re lying. There are millions of dollars at stake here. Can’t let unsightly truths get out—politicians have known this for years, but fortunately the truth does eek its way out every once and a while. For example, get a load of this study in European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Dr. Fuhrman emailed it to me the other day. Apparently prolonged consumption of a low-carbohydrate–high-protein diet is associated with an increase in total mortality. Read on:

Subjects methods:
Follow-up was performed from 1993 to 2003 in the context of the Greek component of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and nutrition. Participants were 22 944 healthy adults, whose diet was assessed through a validated questionnaire. Participants were distributed by increasing deciles according to protein intake or carbohydrate intake, as well as by an additive score generated by increasing decile intake of protein and decreasing decile intake of carbohydrates. Proportional hazards regression was used to assess the relation between high protein, high carbohydrate and the low carbohydrate–high protein score on the one hand and mortality on the other.


Results:
During 113 230 persons years of follow-up, there were 455 deaths. In models with energy adjustment, higher intake of carbohydrates was associated with significant reduction of total mortality, whereas higher intake of protein was associated with nonsignificant increase of total mortality (per decile, mortality ratios 0.94 with 95% CI 0.89 –0.99, and 1.02 with 95% CI 0.98 –1.07 respectively). Even more predictive of higher mortality were high values of the additive low carbohydrate–high protein score (per 5 units, mortality ratio 1.22 with 95% CI 1.09 –to 1.36). Positive associations of this score were noted with respect to both cardiovascular and cancer mortality.

But sadly, this won’t phase the low-carb lemmings of the world. They’ll just yammer on and on about how much weight they lost and how great it feels not to give up their emotional attachments to fatty foods. “Whaa-whaa-whaa! Why can’t I eat steak wrapped in bacon and fried in butter every night—but I want it!”

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Eye of newt, claw of monkey, dash of Worcestershire sauce—that’s what I start thinking when I hear about the “Master Cleanser.” Hocus pocus and double, double toil and trouble. Not familiar with the Master Cleanser diet? Well, Karen Matthews of the Associated Press has got a whole story on it. Take a look:

Devotees of the diet eat no solid food but drink up to 10 daily glasses of the lemon juice cocktail and round it off with saltwater in the morning and laxative tea at night. They are supposed to stay on the cleanse for at least 10 days, then ease back into normal eating with orange juice and vegetable soup.


The main drawback: You never want to be too far from a toilet. The cleanse produces very liquid and copious bowel movements. As for other side effects, some say they are always hungry.

Medical authorities say they have yet to see any evidence of harm from the Master Cleanse, though experts generally caution against extended fasting and other extreme diets.

They say those who try the Master Cleanse to lose weight will just gain it back. And they dispute the claim that the Master Cleanse or any other diet can "detoxify" the body from the effects of red meat, sugar, fried foods or alcohol -- or that the body needs to be detoxified at all.

Okay, we’ve talked about this before, but, Dr. Fuhrman doesn’t believe in magic potions either. Here’s what he had to say about the Master Cleanser. From Master Cleanser Redux:

Taking maple syrup (sugar) during a fast weakens and even removes the longevity benefits of fasting. Empty calories or low-nutrient calories prevent the cells from dumping lipofuchen and other toxins. It speeds up the utilization of glutathione in liver and retards detoxification. The Master Cleanse is a master farce. Using sugar and pepper as stimulants to give you energy, while fasting is robbing the body of its opportunity to maximally heal. The power in the battery is proportional to its charge and reduced by the utilization of its energy. These stimulants (irritants) rob the body of its healing powers and significantly reduce the healing and rejuvenating potential of fasting. Lemon is not much of a problem.

Now, Master Cleanser aside for the moment. Why would experts “caution against extended fasting?” In our modern gluttonous age, fasting gets a bad rap. But in Dr. Fuhrman’s book Fasting and Eating for Health, he contends fasting is an incredibly useful tool:

Therapeutic fasting accelerates the healing process and allows the body to recover from serious disease in a dramatically short period of time. In my practice I have seen fasting eliminate lupus and arthritis, remove chronic skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema, health the digestive tract in patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, and quickly eliminate cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure and angina.

For more on fasting and the Master Cleanser diet, check out these previous posts:

• Master Cleanser Starvation Diet
• Dr. Fuhrman on Fasting

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