The low-carb movement needs your help
I received the following email from Dr. Richard Feinman today asking for help on behalf of the Metabolism Society and low-carbers everywhere.
Greetings!
Here’s a good topic for your blog.
The question bears on recommendations along the lines of the USDA meeting that is coming up. It arises from a seminar that Eric Westman gave at Downstate. The group at Downstate is not particularly doctrinaire and the talk was well received but Dr. Sheldon Landesman of the School of Public Health raised a good question: “the major focus of diets based on carbohydrate restriction are fundamentally therapeutic. How could the benefits that you presented be utilized in making recommendations to the population at large?” So while 20 g a day might be very beneficial for somebody with diabetes or somebody trying to make a big impact on weight loss, even the maintenance phase of people on low carbohydrate diets may be different than what would be recommended for everybody.
Also whereas the population at large has significant amount of overweight and obesity, a large part of the population is not overweight and even those who are, may not want to lose weight at the moment. The question is quite pressing in that the USDA has convened a panel to make new recommendations for 2010. Many of us are upset that there is no representation of the panel of people who have experience with carbohydrate restriction and some who are on the panel are probably actively antagonistic to such an approach. On the other hand, Brian Wansink [who is involved with] the committee is aware of the problem and open to suggestions on carbohydrate restriction.
So, the question is: how can the benefits of carbohydrate restriction that you have experienced personally or in your immediate environment be translated into reasonable recommendations that the USDA could put out? In other words, if you actually had your way what kind of recommendations would you like to see the USDA make? Recommendations should be short and to the point.
If you can encourage your readers to send their suggestions to your blog and also copy to Lauri Cagnassola (info@nmsociety.org) the Metabolism Society will organize them. We will publish the results in the scientific and popular literature and also communicate some of the main points to Brian.
I think they are right to call our bluff on what we would actually do if we had access to policy.
Best Regards,Richard Feinman, PhD
Metabolism Society
I draw your attention to the question that inspired Dr. Feinman’s email:
The major focus of diets based on carbohydrate restriction are fundamentally therapeutic. How could the benefits that you presented be utilized in making recommendations to the population at large?
I think this question is breathtaking in its inanity.
As you can see from the graph at the top of this post, obesity is galloping along and shows no signs of slowing down. According to the latest figures from the National Center for Health Statistics (from which the above graph was taken), almost 70 percent of Americans (between the ages of 20 and 74) are either overweight or obese. Despite the growing rates of childhood obesity, there is a much lower rate of childhood obesity than there is adult obesity. Since childhood precedes adulthood, one can only assume that most of the children who are not overweight now will ultimately become overweight or obese as they enter and progress through the ranks of adulthood.
Now we all know that the consensus of many studies published in the medical/scientific literature indicate that single best treatment for obesity is a low-carb diet. We also know that there are no diseases of carbohydrate deficiency while there are diseases of both fat and protein deficiency. Therefore a low-carb diet that provides plenty of good quality protein and fat should never lead to any diseases of nutritional insufficiency.
Finally, since a good quality low-carb diet reverses obesity and a host of other medical problems associated with obesity, doesn’t it make sense that this same diet would prevent these disorders? Dr. Feinman was himself a co-author of a brilliant paper positing that the Metabolic Syndrome can be defined as a constellation of symptoms that respond positively to carbohydrate restriction. If carb restriction improves these symptoms, then why wouldn’t carb restriction prevent them?
I find it extremely difficult to believe that if the entire population of the United States were to follow carbohydrate-restricted diets that the graph at the top of this post would look the way it does. Which is why I think the question asked at Dr. Westman’s presentation was inane. Especially if the questioner had just sat through a talk about the health benefits of low-carbohydrate dieting.
We’ve got a therapeutic modality – the carbohydrate-restricted diet – that causes no health problems in non-overweight people who follow it, reverses obesity in overweight people who do follow it, and improves every single defined component of the Metabolic Syndrome in those who have the syndrome and apply the diet. And someone wants to know the rationale for making these recommendations to the population at large?
It’s kind of like saying that since stopping smoking improves chronic bronchitis in only those people with smoking-induced chronic bronchitis, how can we make the recommendation not to smoke to the population at large, most of whom don’t have smoking-induced chronic bronchitis?
The annoying thing to me is that the people who ask these kinds of questions are probably the very ones who would vote to add statins to the drinking water if they could.
Now that my rant is over, let me encourage you to send in your answer to the question
how can the benefits of carbohydrate restriction that you have experienced personally or in your immediate environment be translated into reasonable recommendations that the USDA could put out? In other words, if you actually had your way what kind of recommendations would you like to see the USDA make? Recommendations should be short and to the point.
You can either send them as comments to this post, and I’ll pass them along. Or you can email them directly to Lauri Cagnassola (info@nmsociety.org), who will get them to the appropriate people to submit those who have some influence over the committee to set the nutritional guidelines for 2010. Or do both. If you send them through the comments section of this post, maybe you will inspire others to tell their story. A story of success in overcoming health problems from one of you will do more than a long letter from me, whom everyone will think is simply trying to sell a diet book.
And remember, where government committees are concerned, more is better. If you’re trying to get your point across, bombarding them always helps. As was confirmed by my interview with Bill O’Reilly most people don’t give a flip about however the nutritional guidelines turn out because they – just like Bill – figure these guidelines are just another bunch of government propaganda that doesn’t really mean squat to them. But with the nutritional guidelines it does mean something because the law mandates that all the people the government feeds must be fed according to these guidelines. And since many millions are fed, the food manufacturers take note. If we can get some low-carb influence into the nutritional guidelines, it will mean that many more products will begin showing up on grocer’s shelves carrying labels saying ‘low-carb’ or carb-restricted’ just like the multitude that say ‘low-fat.’ The low-fat mania was basically launched by the nutritional guidelines. There is no reason that low-carb can’t get its fair market share. If it does, it will make all of our lives a little easier, not to mention healthier.
So, write, write, write.
“So, the question is: how can the benefits of carbohydrate restriction that you have experienced personally or in your immediate environment be translated into reasonable recommendations that the USDA could put out?”
What would be considered “reasonable”? Something that the general population will go along with? Or nothing too far from what the USDA will accept? My concern is that by making compromises, the resulting carb level will still be too high for the benefits to be achieved, and then people will claim that low carb does not work, a la Oprah’s prior attempt to “do” low carb. What of the weight gain that’ll surely occur if people try to eat lots of fat while failing to cut carbs to a appropriate level? I’ve witnessed such complications when individuals within a family try to do low carb, and those still consuming lots of carbs then eat higher fat items, side dishes, etc. along with the low carbers. No, the rules of a low carb plan should not be modified to suit what the average person would prefer, or to appear “reasonable.”
I’ve noticed that some food labels list 0 grams of trans fats, but will list some “partially hydrogenated” oil in their ingredients. Others will say “not a significant source of trans fats…” According to one source, if the amount of trans fat is less than 1 gram per serving, the label is not legally required to list it. So, apparently, some foods whose labels don’t list it have very small amounts of trans fat.
Is consuming very small amounts of trans fat negligible, or is it so dangerous that consuming just a few molecules of it is enough to adversely affect your health?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer.
There has to be at least 1 gram of trans fat in something before it has to be labeled as containing it. The trans fats will have to be listed in the list of ingredients, but not on the Nutritional Facts label.
Consuming small amounts probably isn’t harmful. But if you consume under a gram from a bunch of different sources, the total is a lot more than a gram, so be careful.
I have been a low carber since Jan 00 and hit goal weight – a 90 lb wt loss, in 02. I have now been @ goal wt, or within 10lbs of goal wt, consistently for 7 years. (Loss was from 232 down to 145.) My original plan was Atkins, and along the way I basically rolled into “one” strategies/helpful knowledge from Protein Power, Sugar Busters, and Dr. Schwartzbein (sic) into my lifelong way of eating.
One BIG deal is that we have made alot of progress with low carb products (but all that low fat awfulness STILL lines the grocery store shelves!) but I still have to order many low carb products from the excellent site: http://www.carbsmart.com Stores STILL do not consistently carry Dreamfields pasta, Pepperidge Farm low carb bread, and a host of other low carb cereal, grain and other excellent products. This continues to be very frustrating to me. When an abundance of lowcarb and no sugar/very low sugar products can be found easily in food stores, then we will have a chance @ impacting the public eating habits @ large.
When I started out, few of these products were available. Low carbers on internet sites got together and invented ways to make alternatives. And by the way, there is good research support now for the value of internet support groups. This was certainly true for me. Lord knows, I had to run from the local dieticians!
As for my recs, aside from “institutionalizing” low carb as low FAT has been hammered into the culture @ large, they are the following:
Easy things like what my brotherinlaws’s Int. Med MD tells patients: If it is WHITE, don’t eat it – ie., sugar, bread, potatoes, rice. This can be an excellent start.
Label foods into easy to read/learn categories – STARCHY vegetables vs
low starch/low carb vegetables. USE these terms in teaching and encourage the use of these terms on food package labeling.
Really push for no to drastically reduced sugar intake and TEACH people HOW to read labels and to recognize what constitutes a tiny to very HUGE amount of sugar in a product.
Also teach people strategies such as: IF you are going to eat a high sugar desert or high starch carb item in your meal, or both, and/or drink high sugar alcohol for a SINGLE meal, then do it thusly: Eat equal portions of protein along with your starchy carb and pie, and if you drink that sugary wine too, you must CONSUME IT ALL within 60 mins. This minimizes the damage and weight promoting properties of the sugar spike and attendant insulin spike you will experience. This enables you to experience ONE episode, rather than multiples – as in for fruity wine drinking, then for the baked potato and bread @ dinner and then yet again for the sugary desert.
People need very direct, simple teaching which is reinforced (coached) @ frequent intervals by a public healthcare provider, nurse, MD,internet support group, local support group, etc. And they need to have simple handouts to follow which spell out the basic “rules” and the basic “why” of the science behind them (very simply stated) and the biological consequences.
You must assume (and know!) that most people are NOT book readers. We book readers read Atkins, Eades, etc and “got it.”
Also divide fruits into HIGH sugar/glycemic fruits and LOW sugar/glycemic fruits. Always give plentiful examples.
Give inducements for companies to produce( and label appropriately and clearly!), and for companies to generally stock healthy, low carb/low sugar products. I think the biggest thing that sabotages even successful low carbers (or did alot in the past) was the lack of grain products and healthy low carb snack products and cereals as they progressed. Excellent ones are available, but not in stores, for the most part – Dixie Carb Counters Smaps cereal and Flax-Z hot cereals are wonderful, but I have never found them available on any store shelf. No matter what the food pyramid says, it will be the easy availability of carb-healthful products that will be the deciding factor for learning and adherence for the “masses.”
Additionally, there is alot of “unlearning” to be done, which of course makes it more difficult. The low-fat mantra…
I am a 55 year old woman.
Dr. Eades,
I wanted to let you know that after I sent Laurie an email testimony, and asked her “what next?”, she told me that the meeting will be held in Washington, DC next week where the written comments will be presented before the USDA committee as well as Oral Testimonies from the public. Since I live in the suburbs of DC, I have submitted an Oral Testimony and will rearrange my schedule to be present at the USDA meeting on Thursday, January 29th. I don’t know if it will make a difference or not (you get 3 minutes to present your testimony), but my reasoning is that if I DON’T go, I’m sure to make no difference, so it’s worth a try.
I’ll let you know what transpires. This is so important and can really make a life-or-death difference, I am happy to make a contribution to the fight you fight every day as your chosen profession. Thank you for all you do.
Here is what I submitted, in case you’re interested:
*******************************************************************
“I would like to submit my Oral Testimony for your consideration. I would like to discuss my own experience as well as that of my parents.
Self:
I am a healthy, active, 38 year old female. I have followed a restricted carbohydrate, sufficient protein way-of-eating with great since September 2007. I have restricted daily Effective Carbohydrate consumption to a maximum of 30 grams daily (after subtracting the fiber content from the total carbohydrate content in the diet). I eat saturated fat as it occurs naturally in the meat, chicken, fish, cheese, cream, butter and eggs I eat every day. I also eat olive oil, avocado, and nuts. I eat non-starchy vegetables and some fruit occasionally – mostly berries and citrus. Fat is typically about 60% of my daily intake, protein makes up about 20% and carbohydrate about 10%. I exercise 4-6 hours per week, usually a mix of strength training and cardiovascular exercises.
My results – I’ve lost 35 lbs. – probably more than that in fat and gained a great deal of lean muscle. I reduced from a size 16 to a size 6, from an ‘obese’ to a ‘normal’ body fat range. I ran my first 5k about 7 months after starting the regimen whereas when I began I could barely run for 5 minutes without becoming totally winded. I am the smallest I’ve been in my adult life, as well as strongest. I have a great deal of energy and am very happy.
When I followed the commonly recommended eating guidelines of low fat, high carbohydrate along with moderate exercise, I experienced consistent weight gain over many years. Only under a restricted carbohydrate – sufficient protein- abundant fat eating regimen was I able to reverse that pattern.
Mother:
My mother is 62 years old in good health. She is not, and has never been, obese or significantly overweight. However, she used to suffer from weekly yeast infections requiring medications 3-4 times per month. About six years ago, she and my father began following a restricted carbohydrate diet (prior they ate low fat, low meat, high fruit and complex carbohydrates). Within a week of changing her eating plan to the low carb way, her yeast infections completely stopped and have never recurred since – for six years now. She enjoys great health and an active lifestyle. She remains thin – the high carb/low fat diet did not make her fat, but it was having other symptoms of detrimental effects on her health. Low carb/sufficient protein/high fat completely fixed that.
Father:
My father is 61 years old, 5’5” and currently weighs 174lb. Other than losing close to 50lb in the first year of changing to low carbs (six years ago), his HDL cholesterol went from 40 to averaging 110, his triglyceride count went from 109 to 78, he is very physically active and feels great and healthy. He has a family background of severe diabetes and heart disease (both sides!), and since changing to this life style has enjoyed a clean bill of health and got rid of his chronic “heartburns”. He eats 10% of calories from carbohydrate, 30-40% from protein, and the rest is fat (not restricted, including saturated fat).
Conclusion
Thank you for collecting this information. I hope that significant changes will result in the recommendations to the American people to stop the horrendous obesity epidemic that is caused, I believe, by the consumption of processed sugar and starchy foods and excessive carbohydrates from grains. I would recommend Americans restrict carbohydrate consumption to no more than 20% of daily calories and vastly increase their healthy fats (including saturated fat) and protein consumption.”
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Awesome appearance on Bill O’Reilly, Dr. Eades. I bet Anthony Colpo is very jealous.
Take Care,
Razwell
Thanks.
I find it intensely compelling that the the starting year for the noted increased of obesity on the graph corresponds with the introduction of HFCS into the national diet (and the increase in diabetes).
I remember reading something along the lines that our bodies have a horrible time breaking down HFCS, requiring significantly more insulin to process (with obvious implications). Is this a well-studied issue?
I have a hard time imagining HFCS still being a legal sugar substitute 20 years from now, regardless of the strength of the corn lobby.
Thoughts?
HFCS isn’t all that much different that sucrose (table sugar). Sucrose contains 50 percent fructose; HFCS contains 55 percent fructose. The body treats them about the same. The problem with HFCS is that it works better for many food processing than does glucose, and, consequently, makes its way into many foods that weren’t sweetened before the advent of HFCS.
First and foremost carbohydrates are not…NOT essential for the human diet to provide energy.
The fuel that our body cells use for energy is actually neither glucose nor fat, it is a chemical called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). A typical human cell may contain nearly one billion molecules of ATP at any one moment, and those may be used and re-supplied every three minutes. This huge demand for ATP, and our evolutionary history, has resulted in our bodies’ developing several different pathways for its manufacture. (Alberts B. Molecular Biology of the Cell, edn 4. New York: Garland Science; 2002: p 93.)
All energy requirements can be met by fat and protein intake without stressing the insulin system. Because of this the food chart SHOULD NOT have grains and cereals at it’s base. Also 98% of these foods are highly refined empty calories bulked up with corn products which leads to its on problems.
The food guide should have meats, fats,eggs and oil as the base. Veg, nuts for the second level. legumes/starchy veg and cheese/dairy for the third.
Cereals and grains fourth and sweets the top.
Finally since you were notified by someone on the committee concerned enough to ask I will take this moment to forewarn which is forearmed.
I belong to a group a of Americans and Canadians formed to take on the FDA and Health Canada for irresponsibility in promoting a carbohydrate based diet in the face of proven evidence that it would lead to food cravings and obesity.
We realize that we will need to be a very large group before going public so at this time I can not post a link.
Correcting the food guide would save us all a lot of trouble.
What is the name of your group?
A glucose meter will show what happens to your blood sugar minutes after eating an individual food.
Diabetic nutritionists recommend cereal and milk or toast and jam and orange juice for breakfast — with maybe an ounce of cheese being alright. (Eat the cheese and leave the rest.)
Sticking to the diet long term while sometimes craving starch/sugar is the same as alcoholics craving alcohol, drug addicts craving drugs and smokers craving nicotine — we would expect to resist once we’ve kicked the nasty habit.
I am T2 diabetic now for 8 years. NO family history at all. Was going to the gym 4-5 days a week doing 40 carido and heavy weights, super low fat diet, 6 small meals a day, the whole “super healthy living thing”
Ya right. I took a couple months off and my blood sugar peaked at 27mmol when I finally got tested.
Cholesterol was found to be all out of wack as well.
Now on low carb everything is back to normal BETTER THAN NORMAL.
I no longer sweat like I use to, remarkably less.
Arthritis in my toe…. gone.
never get a hunger headache.
IBS gone.
All this with out medication and with out cortisone shots are any other nonsense the doctors want to use.
The truth of the matter is this will never bee adopted by the FDA who surely is controlled by or influenced by drug companies and the various marketing boards.
Can you imagine the fall out to the US and Canadian economies if we don’t eat corn or wheat to the same degree. What happens to the millions employed by the drug companies if we don’t need their products.
When a report on sugar was going to be released by the WHO the US gov’t declared it would pull out its 30 million dollars of funding. The report was not released through the WHO but did make it out in other ways.
I think a class action suit should be brought against the gov’t for it’s current food guide. NOT FOR MONEY but to force it to admit the truth about carbs,
Ever look at when the first food guide came out……what was the gov’t doing at the same time to promote agriculture in the US??? Very interesting indeed.
I am a 57 year old female who has eaten “healthy” for the past 25 years. Healthy was defined as:
- Lots of fruits and vegetables
- Whole grains – whole wheat, oatmeal, brown rice, etc.
- Legumes
- Lean meats – primarily chicken and fish
- Low fat – Only healthy oils – olive and canola, minimal saturated fats
- Low fat milk, very little cheese
- Minimal processed foods
- Minimal sweets
Despite this “healthy” diet, my weight crept up from 120# to almost 190 over the past 32 years. Not only did my weight creep up, but so did my cholesterol levels.
On at least 4 different occasions over the past 30 years I have lost 30 to 40 pounds following a variety of diets – low fat AND low-carb – Scarsdale, South Beach, LA Weight Loss,Ornish and Weight Watchers. As soon as I stopped “dieting” and went back to my “healthy” diet which exceeded the the FDA guidelines of the day, the weight would start creeping up. The only way to keep the weight off is to be a slave to the treadmill, etc…creating a host of other problems.
Eight months ago I embarked on yet another diet, this time I followed Weight Watchers. I successfully lost 30 pounds over a 5-month period bringing my BMI out of the “obese” range and into the “overweight”. Imagine my surprise to find that my cholesterol numbers had not budged, and my doctor was insisting I take statins!
It was at this point that I decided to do extensive research on diet, cholesterol and fat metabolism. Among the most valuable sources of information are pioneers like Drs. Eades, Atkins, Agatston and Gary Taubes.
Obviously, there is either a flaw in my metabolism and that of 70% of Americans who are overweight or obese, or there is a flaw in the dietary recommendations being promulgated by the public health authorities or the medical establishment..
It is time for the FDA and the medical establishment to recognize the fraud that is being promulgated on the American people, with a huge current and future cost in terms of health and medical costs for the consequences of the obesity epidemic and other diseases related to the high consumption of carbohydrates. What we are doing now is not working! New guidelines should include:
- Minimal sweets
- Minimal starches
- High protein – red meat, white meat, fish
- Leafy greens and fibrous vegetables
- Limited fruit
- Healthy oils and saturated fats
It’s time to turn the pyramid up side down!
I wholeheartedly agree with you Adriana but the question is how?
Every single day there is something new in the news in some form of media still spouting the old line.
The media seems willing to spout the latest anything as long as it does not go against general consensus making them a target for possible ridicule.
Its the same thing with global warming. There is several good sites re-evaluating the data and showing how it is wrong, how the science was done wrong and yet the media will not cover it.
Both of these cases, the carb issue and the global warming, are almost religions in their own right and you know how that is going to turn out if you try to get folks to change their mind.
Then there is the whole economic issue. What happens if we don’t need the grains for bread, no more rice or potatoes etc, the sugar industry as well If our mest uptake increases as a population what happens to the size of the already disgusting feed lots….
I know economics does not come before health I’m just pointing out a few of the major stumbling blocks that politicians will not want to deal with.
So the question remains how?
[...] low-carb blogger Dr. Michael Eades (he of Protein Power) posted a message from his friend and fellow low-carb guru Richard Feinman as sort of a call-to-action in public policy-making for upcoming 2010 USDA guidelines. Dr. Eades [...]
[...] low-carb blogger Dr. Michael Eades (he of Protein Power) posted a message from his friend and fellow low-carb guru Richard Feinman as sort of a call-to-action in public policy-making for upcoming 2010 USDA guidelines. Dr. Eades [...]
Dr. Eades I was 40 lbs overweight and continuing to gain weight following the heart healthy diet recommended by the AHA after being diagnosed with high blood pressure. Frustrated I started researching nutritional info on the internet and fortunately found the answers I was looking for in your blog, Gary Taubes book and other great sites. Since my enlightenment I have lost the 40 lbs and my weight is now stable, I am feeling great and regained the energy of my youth by following a healthy low carb diet. I have also successfully indoctrinated my neighbor (an MD) who is now a believer.
[...] low-carb blogger Dr. Michael Eades (he of Protein Power) posted a message from his friend and fellow low-carb guru Richard Feinman as sort of a call-to-action in public policy-making for upcoming 2010 USDA guidelines. Dr. Eades [...]
[...] habe einen interessanten Artikel gefunden (der leider schon zwei Jahre alt ist. Aber da sieht man mal, das nicht nur schlechte Dinge [...]
[...] low-carb blogger Dr. Michael Eades (he of Protein Power) posted a message from his friend and fellow low-carb guru Richard Feinman as sort of a call-to-action in public policy-making for upcoming 2010 USDA guidelines. Dr. Eades [...]