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

A new study has determined that fad diets like Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and the Zone produced only modest weight-loss with limited sustainability. Ian Ayres of the Freakonomics blog has more:

A randomized control year-long study looked at the impact of four different diets (Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets) on a group of overweight and obese subjects who were looking to lose weight. The diets produced only “modest” average weight loss of about 6.4 lbs (2.3 percent of original body weight) and found no statistically significant difference in weight loss for the four different diets.


People do a pretty good job of losing weight for about half a year, and then their weight tends to drift back toward their pre-diet number. The difficulty of sustaining weight loss can be seen in this figure taken from a 2-year randomized study of the Weight Watchers program:

Now, news like this is rather redundant. Diets programs like Atkins and Weight Watchers are nothing but hype—BIG wastes of time! According to Dr. Fuhrman diets like these are doomed to fail. He explains:

All those second rate diets fail, because without addressing adequate micronutrient density, people crave more food than their body requires for good health.


In spite of the more than $110 million consumers spend every day on diets and “reducing” programs (more than $40 billion per year), Americans are the most obese people in history. To be considered obese, more than one-third of a person’s body must be made up of fat. A whopping 34 percent of all Americans are obese, and the problem is getting worse, not better.

Unfortunately, most weight-loss plans either don’t work or offer only minor, usually temporary, benefits. There are plenty of “rules and counting” diets, diet drugs, high-protein programs, canned shakes, and other fads that might enable you to lose some weight for a period of time. The problem is that you can’t stay on these programs forever.

Here’s my UNEXPERT opinion. Ditch the “diet” and change your lifestyle. Hey, it worked for me—Healthy, with a Vengeance!

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I’m not a sports drink guy, so all this hype surrounding vitamin waters is lost on me. The CBS Early Show explains why these designer waters come with a price. Check it out:

Registered dietician Keri Glassman cautioned Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Friday that, "You see all these waters out there loaded with vitamins and minerals. The problem is, they're also loaded with lots of sugar. A lot of these bottles of water have about 150 calories. We're over-consuming calories as a nation…


…As for the vitamins in the designer waters, many aren't water-soluble, Glassman points out, meaning the body won't retain them, anyhow. And it's not worth the added calories just to get the ones the body does retain.

Now, since we’re talking about sports drinks. Here’s my latest gripe, the brainlessness that is protein water. These "fitness experts" are rambling about it:


These protein-based magic potions make my eyes roll. Dr. Fuhrman thinks they’re a bunch of mumbo-jumbo too. His thoughts:

The average American consumes about fifty percent more protein than the recommended daily amount. Yet we often see—in addition to misinformed athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and bodybuilders—businessmen and women, homemakers, and those seeking to lose weight turning to protein powders, drinks, and nutritional bars in their quest for even more protein.


It is true that resistance training and endurance workouts can break down muscle protein and increase our need for protein to fuel repair and growth. But the increased need of protein is proportional to the increased need for calories burned with the exercise. As your appetite increases, you increase your caloric intake accordingly, and your protein intake increases proportionally. If you meet those increased caloric demands from heavy exercise with an ordinary assortment of natural plant foods—vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts, which contain more than 50 grams of protein per 1000 calories—you will get the precise amount of extra protein you need.

The worst is watching people finish up a grueling run and then stop to choke down some goopy gritty brownish mixture—YUCK!

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A lot of food producers now claim their products are “trans-fat free,” but health experts are still urging consumers to be leery of those nutrition facts. Amy Norton of Reuters explains:

In a sampling of packaged foods at a local Wal-Mart, researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that a majority of margarines and butters, cookies, cakes and snack foods had gone trans fat free.


However, a number of products still had substantial amounts of the fat, the researchers report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

For example, three of 40 brands of chips, crackers and popcorn contained at least 3 grams of trans fat per serving, according to the products' labels.

So, despite the food industry's move toward cutting trans fat, consumers still need to check labels, according to the researchers, led by graduate student Matthew J. Albers.

Trans fat has become notorious because it not only raises "bad" LDL cholesterol, but also lowers heart-protective HDL cholesterol. The main source of trans fat in the diet is the partially hydrogenated oil used in many commercially prepared baked and fried foods -- including cookies, crackers, chips, breads and french fries.

These shyster tactics are pretty typical, but don’t take my word for it—again, I’m just a dopey blogger—Dr. Fuhrman’s friend Jeff Novick, MS, RD explains. Watch and learn:


Don’t worry there’s not a lot of deceptive labeling going on in the produce isle.

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Honestly, I hate using the word “carbs.” It’s a such a fad word, for fad diets, but carbs are in the news and this report caught my eye. One nutritionist claims carbs can actually help promote weight-loss. Check out this video from ABC News:

I don’t know about “resistant carbs.” Sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me, but fiber certainly isn’t and whole foods are loaded with fiber; like beans, bananas, green vegetables, and squash. And as Dr. Fuhrman explains, these foods/carbs do in fact encourage weight-loss:

When you eat high-carbohydrate foods, such as fresh fruits and beans, you eat more food and still keep your caloric intake relatively low. The high fiber content of (unrefined) carbohydrate-rich food is another crucial reason you will feel more satisfied and not crave more food when you make unrefined carbohydrates the main source of calories in your diet.


Don't fear eating foods rich in carbohydrates and don't be afraid of eating fruit because it contains sugar. Even the plant foods that are high in carbohydrate contain sufficient fiber and nutrients and are low enough in calories to be considered nutritious. As long as they are unrefined, they should not be excluded from your diet. In fact, it is impossible to glean all the nutrients needed for optimal health if your diet does no contain lots of carbohydrate-rich food.

Clearly, the taboo against carbohydrates is ill-informed. Refined junk—like white rice, bread, and sugar—are the “carbs” you want to avoid, but wholesome fiber-full foods like fruits and vegetables are the key to a healthy diet. More from Dr. Fuhrman’s Food Scoring Guide:

I urge you to start eating a diet that contains more high-nutrient plant foods today. Eat fewer animal products and fewer processed foods, and replace these calories with more fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and beans. At minimum, I recommend that you cut back on animal-product consumption from servings a day to one serving a day. Better yet, when you use animal products, add them to a dish in small amounts like condiments so that the total amount you consume each week will be even less. Eat vegetarian dinners frequently.


Make this dietary transition an exciting adventure where you learn new great-tasting recipes with high-nutrient plant foods. Design a food plan that uses large quantities of the most powerful anticancer, disease-fighting foods on the planet, make it taste, and then test it to see what kinds of results you get. I can tell you now that the results will astound you!

So, when you hear fad-terms like carbs, zone-diet, and south beach, just ignore them and focus on natural things like fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds—phooey to the hype!

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Here’s a good question, “Are those “whole-wheat” bagels really made from whole grain?” The answer might surprise you—but probably not—Dr. Fuhrman explains:

No. In most cases, it is primarily white flour. It is hard to tell sometimes. Ninety-nine percent of pastas, breads, cookies, pretzels, and other grain products are made from white flour.

It gets worse. That hearty brown color might not be from grain at all. Let’s just say it has a “caramel” complexion. More from Dr. Fuhrman:

Sometimes a little whole wheat or caramel color is added and the product is called whole wheat to make you think it is the real thing. It isn’t. Most brown bread is merely white bread with a fake tan.

Unreal! You talk about false advertising. These over-marketed “healthier” breads are nothing more than standard American junk food. Dr. Fuhrman again:

Wheat grown on American soil is not a nutrient-dense food to begin with, but then the food manufacturers remove the most valuable part of the food and then add bleach, preservatives, salt, sugar, and food coloring to make breads, breakfast cereals, and other convenience foods.

Now, Dr. Fuhrman isn’t the only wary of faux-wheat bread. On The CBS Saturday Early Show, Dr. Mallika Marshall, shares her thoughts on most “wheat” breads:

White bread, she continues, isn't the best choice because that means they took out the good stuff: They just left the starchy part of the grain, then they threw back in a couple B-vitamins and some iron. Also, there's little or no fiber, which you need for good digestive health, and for helping ward off heart disease and some cancers.


Still, Marshall cautions, don't just "go brown" with your bread: Not all brown breads are created equal.

Breads that look brown aren't necessarily good for you. It may simply have caramel coloring. What you want to see on the label is the term "whole wheat" or "whole grain," and you want that to be the first or second ingredient on the list. Other words to look out for are "whole mill," "whole barley," or "whole oats."

I once heard Dr. Fuhrman say, “Don’t eat a bread-based diet.” I think that pretty much sums up what you should do here—don’t you agree?

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And that’s the truth! If you’re looking to get healthy, lose weight, and prevent and reverse disease, DON’T even consider “low-carb” or high-protein diets. Here’s why in a nutshell. Dr. Fuhrman explains:

Americans already eat approximately 40 percent of their calories from animal products; we have seen a tragic skyrocketing in cancer and heart-disease rates in the past fifty years as a result of such nutritional extravagance.1 You can lose some weight on the low-carb diet, but you run the risk of losing your health at the same time.

Now, most health experts agree—even Dr. Fuhrman—that eating a lot of carbs is a bad idea, but Dr. Fuhrman’s criticisms focus on the refined and process carbohydrates. Here’s why he thinks this stuff is bad news:

Diets containing refined grains and refined sweets are consistently linked to stomach and colon cancer, and at least twelve breast cancer studies connect low-fiber diets with increased risks.2 Eating a diet that contains a significant quantity of sugar and refined flour does not just cause weight gain, it also leads to an earlier death.

Once you kick the refined junk to the curb, you’re left with the good stuff—the healthy carbs! In fact, these carbohydrates are important brain and muscle fuel. Let’s check back with Dr. Fuhrman:

Our bodies need carbohydrates more than any other substance. Our muscle cells and brains are designed to run on carbohydrates. Carbohydrate-rich foods, when consumed in their natural state, are low in calories and high in fiber compared with fatty foods, processed foods, or animal products.

You can find these healthy carbs in fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and legumes, and, as Dr. Fuhrman points out. Plant foods likes these are the benchmark of healthy living. Here Dr. Fuhrman talks about the power of plants:

Increasing your consumption of high-nutrient fruits and vegetables is the key to disease resistance, disease reversal, and a long, healthy life. The potential reduction in disease rates shows no threshold effect in the scientific studies. That means that as high-nutrient vegetables and high-nutrient fruits increase as a major portion of caloric intake, disease rates fall in a dose-dependent manner—the more the diet is comprised of these foods, the better your health will be.3

So, what’s wrong with “low-carb” diets—A LOT—Atkins-like diets dupe people into believing that increased consumption of animal products and decreased consumption of plant foods is healthy—WRONG! Dr. Fuhrman elaborates:

It is an interesting phenomenon to me low-carb dieters search to find small pearls of dissent in the scientific literature to support their views as they ignore thousands of well-performed studies, I wonder why they are so attached to their diets or views that they can’t accept the preponderance of evidence and modify their stance.

And when you exam the facts, you’ll quickly realize the profound link between eating too much animal products and saturated fat and diseases; like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Again, Dr. Fuhrman explains:

Today, the average American consumes 100-120 grams of protein per day, mostly in the form of animal products. This high level of animal product consumption has been linked to not just heart disease and strokes, but to higher rates of cancer, as well4…


…High-protein, carbohydrate-restricted diets also are heart unfriendly. One comprehensive study on the Atkins’ approach showed that after one year on the diet, blood flow to the heart diminished by an average of 40 percent and inflammatory markers that predict heart attacks increased.5 The low levels of plant fiber, phytochemicals, and antioxidant nutrients on these unbalanced, low produce diets expose the diabetic patient to additional risks.

Okay, by now we’ve worked up a good information-base—low-carb bad, veggies good—so let’s check out this study appearing in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It suggest that low-carb is better than low-fat for preventing diabetes. Amanda Gardner of HealthDay News is on it:

"One study is never enough to change a recommendation, but this study is interesting in that it shows that a low-fat diet is no better than a low-carbohydrate diet in preventing type 2 diabetes," said Thomas Halton, lead author of a study in the current issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "The one diet that did seem to show a protective effect was a vegetable-based, low-carb diet which consisted of higher amounts of vegetable fat and vegetable protein, and lower amounts of carbohydrate."


The findings, Halton added, were a bit surprising in that most doctors and nutritionists recommend a low-fat diet to prevent type 2 diabetes. "This study showed that a low-fat diet didn't really prevent type 2 diabetes in our cohort when compared to a low-carb diet. I was also surprised that total carbohydrate consumption was associated with type 2 diabetes, and that the relative risk for the glycemic load was so high."

Now, despite the dirty term “low-carb” the study is looking surprisingly good, but just to be safe, let’s look at the actual study, pay very close attention to the conclusion. From The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:

Background: Low-carbohydrate weight-loss diets remain popular; however, the long-term effects of these diets are not known.


Objective: The objective was to examine the association between low-carbohydrate-diet score and risk of type 2 diabetes

Design: We prospectively examined the association between low-carbohydrate-diet score (based on percentage of energy as carbohydrate, fat, and protein) and risk of diabetes among 85 059 women in the Nurses' Health Study.

Conclusion: These data suggest that diets lower in carbohydrate and higher in fat and protein do not increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in women. In fact, diets rich in vegetable sources of fat and protein may modestly reduce the risk of diabetes.

Vegetable fat and vegetable protein—not the high animal fat fallacy perpetuated by Atkins and his ilk. In fact, when you strictly limit all the meat, dairy, and oil in the typical Atkins menu and upgrade the fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and legumes, you’re left with a diet naturally free of refined carbohydrates and packed with nature’s best foods! One more quote from Dr. Fuhrman:

Knowing that the right micronutrients in the right proportions are easily available to us in whole, natural foods is wonderful. But we no longer get our foods in natural form from the wild. Most of the food we eat is concocted in factories. These processed foods do not contain the level and diversity of the vitamins and minerals we get in natural foods. For example, the fruits and vegetables that primates eat in the wild are loaded with micronutrients, giving these primates a diet far richer in many essential vitamins and minerals than the diets consumed by any humans in the modern world.

Clearly these primates are eating the right kind of low-fat diet and NOT monkeying with dangerous high-protein diets. For more on this topic, be sure to check out Standard American Low-Fat—JUNK—Diet.

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New research claims some people are born wired to be obese. Jeffrey Perkel of HealthDay News reports:

The brain circuitry that controls appetite might be wired differently in some people, and that could predispose them to obesity, California researchers suggest.


The study was conducted in rats, not humans, and yet it could ultimately lead to novel obesity treatments, said Philip Smith, director of the Office of Obesity Research at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

"It is not just about drugs that modify short-term appetite," he said, "there may be drugs that stimulate development of the appropriate neural pathways. So, it is an exciting, but very early, time in this field."

The study was published in the February issue of Cell Metabolism.

Don’t let your genetics stop you from living healthfully. Here’s a great quote from Dr. Fuhrman. Have a look:

We all have genetic weaknesses, but those weaknesses never get a chance to express themselves until we abuse our body with many, many years of mistreatment. Never forget, 99 percent of your genes are programmed to keep you healthy. The problem is that we never let them do their job.

Hey, my genetics mean I should be an ox-minded hot-tempered Italian guy, but, I’m really as cuddly as a teddy bear—wink-wink.

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I found this great quote about vegetable protein over at Jugalbandi—a site powdered by plant protein—take a look:

All of these proteins can be obtained from plant based sources. The body is agnostic to the source, as long as the sufficiency and balance requirements of amino acids (the building blocks of protein) are met.

Vegetable protein is the real deal. “Complete protein” is just a myth. Dr. Fuhrman’s buddy Jeff Novick, MS, RD has explained it countless times:

Unfortunately, the “incomplete protein” myth seems unwilling to die. In an October 2001 article in the medical journal Circulation on the hazards of high-protein diets, the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association wrote, “Although plant proteins form a large part of the human diet, most are deficient in one or more essential amino acids and are therefore regarded as incomplete proteins.”1 Oops!


Medical doctor and writer John McDougall wrote to the editor pointing out the mistake. But in a stunning example of avoiding science for convenience, instead of acknowledging their mistake, Barbara Howard, Ph.D., head of the Nutrition Committee, replied on June 25, 2002 to Dr. McDougall’s letter and stated (without a single scientific reference) that the committee was right and “most (plant foods) are deficient in one or more essential amino acids.” Clearly, the committee did not want to be confused by the facts.

Dr. Fuhrman knows there are plenty of protein-building amino acids in vegetables. He talks about it in the new Food Scoring Guide. Here’s a bit:

Amino acids are the building blocks that make proteins. All vegetables and grains contain all eight of the essential amino acids (as well as the twelve other non-essential). While some vegetables have higher or lower proportion of certain amino acids than others, when eaten in amounts to satisfy your caloric needs, a sufficient amount of all essential amino acids is provided. Today’s nutritional science has deemphasized the importance of protein because we now know that it is easy to get enough, and that too much is not good.

Hey, just think. Rhinosauruses and Gorillas, big beefy animals, both, mainly eat plants—a lot of plants!
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This is certainly a unique take on dieting. Blackmail yourself. “Dear self, if I don’t lose weight, I will donate money to the American Nazi Party or my car to Ku Klux Klan.” You’ve go see it, to believe it. Bill Toland of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more:

Dr. Bear wrote the farcical "Blackmail Diet" more than two decades ago -- if you want to shed those stubborn pounds, sign a legally binding contract mandating a certain weight loss. And if you don't satisfy the contract's requirements, you must fork over, say, $5,000 to the American Nazi Party, which happens to be the precise deal Dr. Bear struck with himself.


Wouldn't ya know it? Those 70 pounds melted right off. (Although one poor reader, having failed to lose the weight, reported that he'd be donating his car to the Ku Klux Klan.)

"We have known this since the earliest times," he said when contacted in his California home. "The bigger the incentive, either positive or negative, the more likely it is to work." Behavioral scientists know it. Prophets in the Bible knew it -- screw up, and you'll go to hell. The penalties don't get much bigger than that.

Dr. Bear's creepy vision has arrived, and not just in the form of "The Biggest Loser," NBC's grotesque of a hit, featuring obese men and women trying to get in shape for a cash prize. Clinical studies and economists are more or less on his side. In recent months, health insurers, city mayors, British politicians and university professors have all come up with their own versions of plans that dangle dollar bills in front of clients and customers, hoping the carrot -- or a stiff penalty -- will be enough incentive to shape up.

I don’t like this one bit. Here’s why. Just look at all the dollars Americans spend on weight-loss, I don’t want either one of these despicable “organizations” getting a single dime. From Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live:

In spite of the more than $110 million consumers spend every day on diets and “reducing” programs (more than $40 billion per year), Americans are the most obese people in history. To be considered obese, more than one-third of a person’s body must be made up of fat. A whopping 34 percent of all Americans are obese, and the problem is getting worse, not better.

Here’s an idea, don’t blackmail yourself—love yourself! In my opinion—and mind you, I’m just a smart-aleck—I think this is a disgusting premise.

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Kudos to Diet Blog for finding this one. Apparently some researchers think all these low-fat health guidelines we have been force-fed for years are doing more harm than good. Here’s an excerpt from ScienceDaily, take a look:

In 2000, the Dietary Guideline Advisory Committee suggested that the recommendation to lower fat, advised in the 1995 guidelines, had perhaps been ill-advised and might actually have some potential harm. The committee noted concern that "the previous priority given to a 'low-fat intake' may lead people to believe that, as long as fat intake is low, the diet will be entirely healthful. This belief could engender an overconsumption of total calories in the form of carbohydrates, resulting in the adverse metabolic consequences of high-carbohydrate diets," the committee wrote, while also noting that "an increasing prevalence of obesity in the United States has corresponded roughly with an absolute increase in carbohydrate consumption.

Okay, to better understand this quote, let’s talk about these age-old dietary recommendations. Perhaps nothing better illustrates them than the infamous United States food pyramid. Check it out via The University of Pennsylvania Health System:


Yeah, cause eating that way makes sense—tisk-tisk. Now, we all know that people eat too much refined and processed foods, but despite the carbophobia, Americans are still eating way too much fat. Dr. Fuhrman explains:

The claim that Americans have dramatically cut their fat intake is incorrect. In fact, nationally recognized food surveys, such as the National Food Consumption Survey and the National Health and Nutrition Survey, indicate that Americans consume somewhere between 34 and 37 percent of their calories from fat.1 Americans are still eating a very high fat diet. The reason for the rise in obesity in America is no mystery: we eat a high-calorie, high-fat diet.

Now, in the Food Scoring Guide Dr. Fuhrman’s describes what the typical American diet is made of—a lot junk! More from Dr. Fuhrman:

Americans have access to a greater abundance of affordable high-nutrient, low-calorie fruits and vegetables than any other people on the face of the earth. But a shocking 93% of the typical American diet consists of low-nutrient, high-calorie processed foods, animal foods, and dairy products, and only 7% of the calories we consume come from healthful fruits and vegetables. Sweet desserts, and soft drinks now comprise 25% of all calories consumed in America.

This chart should paint an even clearer picture for you. Have a look:


Neither of these graphics demonstrate that Americans understand the importance of eating mostly plant-foods. Okay, I’m no fan of idol worship, but here’s an image we can all get behind. It simply screams, “Eat your fruits and veggies!” Don’t you agree? Enjoy:


When you start eating as described in Dr. Fuhrman’s food pyramid you’ll avoid nasty fat and refined carbohydrates and that’s a good thing! Because as he explains, they are a deadly duo. Here’s why:

The combination of fat and refined carbohydrates has an extremely powerful effect on driving the signals that promote fat accumulation on the body. Refined foods cause a swift and excessive rise in blood sugar, which in turn triggers insulin surges to drive the sugar out of the blood and into our cells. Unfortunately, insulin also promotes the storage of fat on the body and encourages your fat cells to swell.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my fat cells to swell—EEK!
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