I need Help to Rebut a Canadian Nutritionist


#22

Bless, you for doing this Ian! My inclination would be not bother and move on, but I’m thankful there are people like you who would persist.

That’s a pretty skeptical view there, Murphy. I tend to agree, though. Hopefully, in this case, we’re both wrong. :slight_smile:

I understand what you’re saying Matrika, and I normally would feel the same. It’s like, “if I can understand this, and do even the slightest bit of research, then why can’t a professional?”

But I think the “forest for the trees” analogy applies here. Sometimes when you’re immersed in it, it’s hard to see the evidence that’s all around you. It’s easy to see the minutiae of the bark and the leaves and the branches of the trees, only to miss the evidence of the vast forest all around you.

Now that I think about it, maybe it was easier for me to accept the fundamentals of keto because I was never inundated by the nutritional dogma of the last several decades.

In the short time I’ve been keto, I think we’ve seen tremendous strides toward understanding the science behind it, and I think this amazing transition is primarily due to the truth behind the science. Could we be witnessing an actual biological scientific revolution?

However, when you compare it to the nutritional “science” of the last several decades, it’s just going to take some time to get people to come around. Fortunately there are people, like Ian and many other amazing members of this forum, who are willing to go the extra mile to convince that person.

I hope for the nutritionist’s sake, they are willing to look at the evidence Ian provides, instead of blowing it off as a “layman’s” point of view.


(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #23

I think this is a huge part of it. It can be hard to accept that something you’ve invested time, money and hope into is wrong. And you’re not likely to accept it the first time you hear a contradictory idea. But that doesn’t mean you are wasting your time. Understanding something the 50th time you hear something means the first 49 times are what got the job done.


(Cathy) #24

I find it difficult to read these types of ‘studies’ and generally don’t involve myself in discussions around diet because it is like religion to many (myself included). What I like to do is lead by example. When I first started keto almost 10 yrs. ago, my pcp thought it was ultimately all about calories in/out.

Having just had a visit and reviewing my progress in terms of weight loss, maintenance and blood work, I have done very, very well and he said so. This time, I reminded him I was keto and he seemed to acknowledge that was the ‘cause’. Progress in my mind.

I have also suffered ridiculous claims about supposed damage to my health by not consuming carbohydrates and/or not eating (fasting) and have to remind myself that I have done the research and know that this style of eating is proving itself and there will always be detractors. Just keto on!!


(Scott) #25

10 years, congratulations! I only wish I had started this ten years ago. Like you I have done the research and happy in my keto place. I will take my chances with this dangerous way of eating.


(Murphy Kismet) #26

Yeah I know :no_mouth:
I’ve developed quite the skeptical outlook lately. I try not to frustrate myself with others’ decisions. That might not be such a good tribal way of thinking…


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #27

Some major studies funded by the U.S. Government and intended to provide a scientific justification for Keys’s diet-heart hypothesis are the Women’s Health Initiative, the Framingham study, and the Minnesota coronary study (there are others, the names of which escape me at the moment), all of which not only failed to show a correlation between cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease, but actually showed a correlation between lower cholesterol levels and higher cardiovascular risk, plus higher all-cause mortality. Data on patients arriving in emergency rooms with their first heart attack show that somewhere around two-thirds or more have normal or low cholesterol levels. Diabetes and heart disease rates have increased greatly, even as the consumption of red meat has greatly declined. For more information, check out the bibliographies supplied in The Big Fat Surprise (Teicholz) and Good Calories, Bad Calories (Taubes).


#28

This is unacceptable @PaulL! I expect more from you then this. :wink:


(Ian) #29

Thanks everyone lots of food for thought here…:upside_down_face:


(Alec) #30

Age provides wisdom and a lovely loss of the need to prove anything to anybody. We all know Paul knows his stuff. He doesn’t need to remember it all every time! :joy::joy::joy:


#31

@PaulL could just search the forum for his own posts. That’s what I do when I’m having a senior moment. :wink:


(Bunny) #32

Not true!


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #33

MRFIT was another study that showed a negative correlation between cholesterol and cardiovascular disease.

If you take a look at the studies I mentioned, they show a negative correlation with either saturated fat intake, total cholesterol, or LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular disease or all-cause mortality. This is pretty solid evidence that saturated fat and/or cholesterol are not causes of cardiovascular disease.

Further evidence is found in statistics showing that well over fifty percent of patients presenting in emergency rooms with their first heart attack have either normal or low cholesterol levels, and by the fact that slightly more than half of people with familial hypercholesterolemia fail to develop cardiovascular disease, much less die from it. (They live to perfectly normal old age and die of other causes.)

The people with FH who do develop cardiovascular problems have been shown to have mutations that make their blood likelier to clot. Ravnskov and Diamond have, in fact, proposed clotting abnormalities (either genetic or from a diet that results in higher levels of glycated hemoglobin) as the mechanism that causes atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction. In their view cholesterol, far from being the cause of vascular damage, is part of the repair process.


(Alec) #34

Paul
They’ve been at this game for decades now of doing study after study after study trying to prove that cholesterol causes CVD, yet repeatedly they get the reverse study outcomes: that cholesterol is protective, not the cause; it is the fire truck at the scene of the fire. This has happened again and again and again.

At what point does the medical establishment accept that cholesterol does not cause CVD? How many more people need to die of what really causes CVD before we marshal our resources to address that real cause? Rhetorical questions.

First, do no harm… I see harm. Frustrated every time I see the evidence. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth:


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #35

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”—Upton Sinclair


(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #36

This is very true. But I think it is also true the most people in healthcare genuinely want to help people. And going against everything you were taught an how to best do that is hard. And involves acknowledging that instead of helping people you’ve been harming people your whole career. It’s an identity crisis.

Nor excusing anyone. But I think it helps to remember their point of view and realize most people aren’t being purposefully evil.


(Alec) #37

I have a harsher view: reviewing scientific evidence, and defining the right care protocols are these people’s jobs. And these are very smart people. So for me it is incompetence at best and corruption at worst.


(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #38

For researchers, absolutely. For practitioners I don’t think it is unreasonable For them to trust their education. Most of the luminaries of the keto world practiced for many years in the way they were taught.
And there are so many wacky theories out there, many of them dangerous, that I can understand resisting the idea of keto. That doesn’t make them right, and change does need to happen. I just don’t think treating health care workers as the enemy is a helpful or reasonable way to effect that change.


(Alec) #39

I’m talking about the people who define the standards of care. The folks that tell Doctors: “if you have a patient with LDL cholesterol over 150, you must prescribe a statin. Otherwise you will be in trouble.” I don’t blame the healthcare workers in any way at all. They are just abiding by the rules as they are given to them. It is the rule makers I have a problem with.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #40

That would be the statin manufacturers, and they’ve already lowered the level from 150 to 130.


(Andi loves space, bacon and fasting. ) #41

Perhaps not Newton, but Galileo would certainly recognize the marketing and politicization of science as being similar to his time.