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How Much Protein Should I Eat While Going SANE (Part 2 of 2)

In the last post reviewed a small sampling of the mass of research showing that getting a balanced amount of protein (about third of our calories) from natural sources is healthy and helpful for long-term fat loss. So how did the myth that protein is bad for us get started in the first place? The […]

2018-02-17/0 Comments/by SANE

One Of The Greatest And Most Harmful Misconceptions In The History Of Medicine: Lipophobia (The Fear of Fat)

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“Few public health messages are as powerful and as persistent as this one: Fat is bad…The average American has substantially reduced the percentage of calories that she or he gets from fat over the past three decades…But we are not any healthier for all of this effort. In fact, we are worse off for […]

2018-02-17/0 Comments/by SANE

How Much Protein Should I Eat While Going SANE (Part 2 of 2)

Uncategorized

2018-02-17/0 Comments/by SANE

One Of The Greatest And Most Harmful Misconceptions In The History Of Medicine: Lipophobia (The Fear of Fat)

Uncategorized

2018-02-17/0 Comments/by SANE

How Much Protein Should I Eat While Going SANE (Part 2 of 2)

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The Protein is Bad for You Myth Debunked

The myth came out of studies where animals that were fed extreme amounts of protein experienced problems. However, rather than proving more protein is harmful, these studies prove that until we exceed two grams of protein per pound of body weight per day, we will get only healthier and slimmer by upping our protein intake.

“The Nurses’ Health Study is the only large prospective study to have examined the link between dietary protein and cardiovascular disease….The group of women who ate the most protein…were 25% less likely to have had a heart attack or to have died of heart disease…eating a lot of protein doesn’t harm the heart.” – W.C. Willett, Harvard University

To put two grams of protein per pound of body weight into perspective, an inactive 150-pound person would not enter the protein danger zone until they ate eleven chicken breasts per day, every day. That would total two grams of protein per pound of body weight, and would mean that 60% of their total calories were coming from protein. That is a terribly imbalanced diet and an unnatural amount of protein.

Bad things happen if we eat too much of anything. Luckily, it is nearly impossible to eat too much high-Satietyprotein. Additionally, a natural increase in our protein intake will improve our cholesterol, triglycerides, and insulin regulation, while lowering our risk of cardiovascular disease. And it does not matter if the protein comes from lean meat. In fact, low levels of animal protein have been associated with an increased risk of strokes.

But The China Study Says Meat Is Deadly

Let’s focus on meat for a moment. There is nothing wrong with eating high-quality meat. Besides the fact that meat was a cornerstone of our diet for most of our evolutionary history, there is no clinical data showing that meat is unhealthy. TheJournal of the American Medical Association reviewed 147 studies on the impact of diet on health. They found zero correlation between meat consumption and cardiovascular disease. Separately, researchers found that people in England have eaten about the same amount of animal fat—the source of most of the concern with meat—since 1910. Meanwhile, the number of heart attacks increased 1,000% between 1930 and 1970. It looks like animal fat is not causing the climb.

Similarly, during basically the same period of time in the U.S., a similar increase in heart attacks occurred while the amount of animal fats being consumed dropped. Meat is not unhealthy. It is a fantastic source of protein and therefore a key part of a natural balanced diet.

But Doesn’t Protein Weaken Our Bones?

Last but not least, at some point one of your more annoying coworkers will bring up some misguided magazine article arguing that protein promotes osteoporosis. This myth comes from the fact that digesting protein requires more calcium than the digestion of fat or carbohydrates. Certain individuals claim this finding shows that eating a lot of protein will suck calcium from our bones. That is inaccurate.

“Controlled human studies show that commonly used complex dietary proteins, which have a high phosphorus content, do not cause calcium loss in adult humans.” –H. Spencer, Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Affairs Hospital

First, you will not be eating a lot of protein. You will be eating the amount humans evolved to eat. Second, you will have no need to grab calcium from your bones since a natural balanced diet provides at least 150% more calcium than the typical U.S. diet (for example, leafy green vegetables are excellent sources of calcium. Calorie for calorie, spinach provides nearly twice the calcium as reduced-fat milk.). Third, protein digestion does not negatively impact bones if intake of the mineral phosphorus is increased, and a natural balanced diet does that. Finally, while more protein increases the need for calcium, it also increases the body’s ability to absorb calcium. When more protein is taken in, the body automatically makes better use of calcium. Studies show that a natural level of protein increases bone density by raising levels of the protein IGF-1.

With respect to adverse effects, no protein-induced effects are observed on net bone balance or on calcium balance in young adults and elderly persons. Dietary protein even increases bone mineral mass and reduces incidence of osteoporotic fracture. – M.S. Westerterp-Plantenga, Maastricht University

The only drawback with protein is the misinformation about concentrated sources of protein. Let’s cover that in the next post.

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2018-02-17/0 Comments/by SANE

One Of The Greatest And Most Harmful Misconceptions In The History Of Medicine: Lipophobia (The Fear of Fat)

Uncategorized

“Few public health messages are as powerful and as persistent as this one: Fat is bad…The average American has substantially reduced the percentage of calories that she or he gets from fat over the past three decades…But we are not any healthier for all of this effort. In fact, we are worse off for it.” – W.C. Willett, Harvard Medical School

“[The ‘fear fat’ myth] is one of the greatest and most harmful misconceptions in the history of medicine.” – U. Ravnskov, MD, PhD

In the last post we covered a brief history of our government’s dietary guidelines (Food Guide Pyramid, MyPyramid, MyPlate, etc.). Looking at that disturbing past and our equally disturbing present, we have to ask: “What would cause our government to recommend we reduce our intake of natural foods so we can increase our intake of unnatural lower-fat foods?” Interestingly, the question is not “what” but “who?”

Before the Senate’s Dietary Goals (1976) that lead to the Dietary Guidelines (1980), the Food Guide Pyramid (1992), MyPyramid (2005), and finally MyPlate (2011), there was Ancel Keys (1950s).

Keys examined diet and heart disease trends in twenty-two countries. He was apparently more interested in headlines than science because he then published a study that included data from only the six countries that showed a scary link between diet and heart disease. Keys garnered a massive amount of press and then went on tour preaching that eating fat is deadly.

Here are the facts: When the data from all twenty-two countries in Keys’ study is examined, they show no relationship between fat intake and heart disease deaths. Keys selectively picked data and designed a headline-worthy conclusion. In the words of a fellow researcher:

“No information is given by Keys on how or why the six countries were selected.”

Further exposing the sketchiness of Keys’ methods, those same researchers revealed that by selectively choosing six different countries from Keys’ data, they could create a graph suggesting that eating more fat decreases the risk of dying from heart disease.

Heart Disease Deaths per 1,000 Men

(Finland, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands)

Finally, looking at Keys’ data a few years later, they concluded, “The examination of all available basic data…show that the association [between fat and heart disease] lacks validity.” They also discovered “a strong negative association…for both animal protein and fat with mortality from non-cardiac diseases.” Even the American Medical Association spoke up in protest:

“The anti-fat, anti-cholesterol fad is not just foolish and futile…it also carries some risk.”

No matter. A sensationalized myth gets more press than a common sense fact. The “fat is evil” myth spawned a nationwide campaign to replace natural foods containing fat with fat-free edible products and climaxed with the government’s Dietary Guidelines, Food Guide Pyramid, MyPyramid, and MyPlate diets. Those diets are high in starch because starch is low in fat. Unfortunately, over a billion dollars’ worth of studies have failed to prove these diets good for anything other than profits.

“It is now increasingly recognized that the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health consequences.” –F.B. Hu, Harvard University

“Current trends in health promotion emphasize reducing dietary fat intake. However, as dietary fat is reduced, the dietary carbohydrate content typically rises and…is frequently accompanied by an elevation of plasma triacylglycerol [a proven risk factor for heart disease]” – E.J. Parks, University of Minnesota

“Public health recommendations for the U.S. population in 1977 were to reduce fat intake to as low as 30% of calories to lower the incidence of coronary artery disease. These recommendations resulted in a compositional shift in food materials throughout the agricultural industry, and the fractional content of fats was replaced principally with carbohydrates. Subsequently, high-carbohydrate diets were recognized as contributing to the lipoprotein pattern that characterizes atherogenic dyslipidemia and hypertriacylglycerolemia [poor health].” – J.B. German, University of California

Let’s dig into that $1,000,000,000 of data in the next post. Until then, remember that when it comes to natural fats, the only thing we have to fear is the fear of fat itself.

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2018-02-17/0 Comments/by SANE

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