Yes, we own the book. It is beautifully done.

The American diet actually isn’t too high in saturated fat (in fact, saturated fat intake has gone down over the past 40+ years or so. Furthermore it says that American’s don’t get enough complex carbohydrates. What?! If anything, we get too many complex carbohydrates, hence the world of hurt we’re in, health-wise.

Not enough fiber in the American diet? That premise is a flawed one, based on misguided observations, by people like Denis Burkett, a British physician, who missed the boat in his observations that people eating native diets in other parts of the world didn’t have GI disease rates that westernized countries had (they also squat to eliminate instead of sitting unnaturally on toilets, ferment many of their high fiber foods to increase digestibility, and in many cases, remove fiber if they can, to make the nutrients more absorbable and less likely to bind up minerals). It’s comparing apple to oranges to look at fiber rates in Africa and the US and come up with a meaningful comparison. There are too many other variables to consider.

Some big epidemiological studies might support the fiber theory, but intervention studies (when study subjects increased fiber and outcomes were compared to control subjects who did not) have not provided ANY support for the fiber theory. It’s also possible to tease out from some data that fiber from grains actually do more harm than good (the body works hard to get rid of toxic harsh grain fiber, hence the “movement”), but TBTB haven’t seriously considered that option enough to actually study it in depth, because everyone *knows* wheat bran is good for us, right?

Personally, my GI function improved tremendously when I dropped all sources of grain fiber and fiber supplements. Now I just get whatever fiber is in my non-starchy veggies and some fruit and would never go back to seeking fiber in my diet. I’m learning that the science actually supports what I’ve noticed myself, too.

In addition to the posts and comments on this blog, that I interpret as strongly stating that saturated fat consumption in the US is not “too high”, nor fiber intake “too low”, there are some good scientifically oriented posts on fat and fiber over at Whole Health Source and Hyperlipid blogs. Fiber, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

http://lowcarbconfidential.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/irvingia-letter-from-lef-010909.pdf

I’m no scientist, but citing a 29 year old study that included a cessation of smoking to make a recommendation for a low-fat diet is preposterous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/health/nutrition/14qna.html?_r=1

This one just happens to be a crappy study with holes in the data throughout, but there is nothing wrong with citing old studies when they are well done.

We are all aware by now that the press in this country has not only a bias but an agenda. It’s extreme and bizarre and the reason for it is obscure (to me anyway), but it exists. They almost never report truth or both sides of an issue, unless it promotes their agenda. No shocker there.

Hello to Marc Feel Good Eating. I too am a former Aikido practitioner.

Keep up the good work Dr. Mike.

Jim

Buried within the dumbed down data that were included was a tiny little mention that the folks eating more red meat had overall worser health habits (whatever that means) and higher BMIs – most certainly not addressed in this exercise, and neither was the utter lack of established causation between red meat & mortality (BTW according to their logic, increased ice cream consumption causes higher numbers of warm summer days and shark attacks)

The most infuriating things were the “take home points”, captured in two multy choice questions (answer them right and then self-report the time it took to complete the exercise to get continuing ed credit? this really gives me confidence in CME!) This one was my favorite: “Consumption of which of the following types of meat increased the risk for all-cause mortality in the current study by Sinha and colleagues?” (hint: it’s in the title!)

What does it say when continuing medical ed features this type of sensationalist crapp – oversimplified stuff based on an oversimplified study making unjustified leaps of logic and faith!?

My Name is Belinda. I think your web site gives great news on current healthcare market. As i am also into healthcare research. Its a good site with lots of information. Keep the good work on.

I will definitely bookmark your web site for my research work. You may also kindly visit my web site blog related to healthcare industry that is http://newsonheath.blogspot.com and i would appreciate if you could kindly have a look at my blog too. Its updated on a daily basis

Thanks & Regards,
Belinda

No, I don’t think grilling is a problem. I do it myself all the time.