Diet, Drugs and Diabetes - One Hundred Years of Missed Opportunities

[@bouncearizona2237]

About 6 months ago I was diabetic until I stopped dairy and poultry. I doubt anyone could love meat more than I. Within a month I lost over 60lbs by eating strictly vegetables and starches. Just recently I went back to eating meat and dairy. Within 2 weeks my weight and blood sugar climbed rapidly. I don't need any more proof that food choices make the difference between good health and poor health.

[@annemccarron2281]

Nathan Pritikan said the same about his cholesterol. You can't find any better research that what happens with your own body.

[@RiDankulous]

I'm telling people about your program, Dr. Mcdougall! I am paying you back for the wisdom you gave me, the good health and better mood, less pain, and less struggle, better self image with a good body-weight. Thank you!

[@kbdda]

I would like to thank Dr. McDougall because I gave my best friend who is a type 2 diabetic this and other videos by Dr. McDougall. My friend adopted a pure plant based diet, eliminated processed oils, and had such a dramatic shift in blood sugar levels that he had to cut back his medications during the first week. For myself, I have been inspired by Dr. McDougall and many of his colleagues to heed the overwhelming epidemiological evidence for plant based diets. I began in February 2016 with plant based, eliminated all oils at the end of June, and now, as of August, I have lost 28 lbs. and am going in for a blood test. Will be excited to see how my cholesterol looks!

[@WhiteKitta]

I love Dr John McDougall is one of the best doctors....he has helped so many people!

[@robynhope219]

Delusion

[@HopyHop1]

McDougall should start an all-you-can-eat buffet chain.

[@conceptbuilde]

John is my hero ONLY ONE TRUEFUL PERSON IN THE WORD

[@arizonabounce2195]

I was off the charts w/ readings of over 500 - I followed McDougal's recommendations and have normal blood sugar levels now -it took a few months but it worked. The weight did fall off - I do miss meat at times but my health dictates my choices.

[@jeffreydrhodes]

Thank you Dr. McDougall. You changed my life.

[@xflyingtiger]

Very good talk. I have listened to many of Dr. McDougall's talks. One "takeaway" that I get from Dr. McDougall's books and videos, as well as Dr. Ornish's, Dr. Klapper's, and many others is that it is what we TAKE AWAY from our diet that makes us healthier, if we take away the right things. We need to develop a subtraction paradigm for fixing Western health problems. But, paradoxically, when we change to a healthier way of eating we also find that there are so many new foods we can eat that we were never really aware of. So in a way, by becoming a healthy vegan we are actually adopting an addition paradigm. This really works, and I love all the new foods I have discovered.

[@joefenstenblow]

McDougal is epic! Love his talks.

[@theresaaberilla3612]

From this face to diabetes! I'm fighting it! I'm becomming a vegan!

[@MrBrendel99]

It isn't the potatoes and rice that make you fat, it's the fat on the potatoes and rice that makes you fat. Example, take a regular baked potato and then put cheese, sour cream, butter and then wash it down with a large glass of milk, right and of course when you gain weight make sure you blame the potato... How about rice, again add some cheese, milk and oh lets be health so add some broccoli, call it healthy. But again when you gain more fat blame the rice, make sure to forget about the fat.

[@francejohnjohn619]

The best Doctor in the planet, thanks for the super inspiration, knowledge and ideas🎊🎉❤️🍾🎈😘🙏🥰🤗😊😍🎁👍💝✅✅✅

[@NewAgeSuperPower]

what a great video! Dr. John McDougall is truly one of the smartest people out there...

[@jastern949]

I really enjoy Dr McDougall's talks. But publishing this video at only a maximum of 480p means that the slides are too blurry to view (I have a nice large workstation LCD flatscreen monitor). Would really help viewability of these slides to re-publish this talk in 720p or better yet 1080p, if those are available. Audio is excellent. Information, as always, is excellent.

[@MMT-786]

Lucky to the first to view this amazing information!

[@josestereo9312]

I also see a claim below that starchy foods are low in nutrients. A quick look at some nutrition labels tell us something else: Lentils, boiled. 70% of calories from carbohydrates. Nutrient content per 100 g (highlights): 9 g protein, 19% RDI iron, 32% RDI fiber, 45% RDI folate, 0% max cholesterol compare with: Chicken breast, skinless. 80% of calories from protein. Nutrient content per 100 g (highlights): 31 g protein, 6% RDI iron, 0% RDI fiber, 1% RDI folate, 28% max cholesterol

[@AMVayanefan]

As always, awesome lecture.

[@fruitascension5089]

Wow. I wish I could have been there for this epic weekend.

[@cnasrq]

NOT ALWAYS!! My husband is 6' 3" and 178.... and has been diabetic for 21 years... he is 63... people always say that diabetes is a fat persons disease.... would love to talk to Dr. MDougall about it....

[@nfsusna]

I can help. T2 is a fat disease. The fat you eat is the fat you wear is a correct statement. However, you can be a skinny t2 diabetic. The fat on your gut is not the only fat we wear. The fat in the muscle cells is the true unseen fat we wear, not just the ol spare tire

[@MNveg]

Of course I'm familiar with the Bellevue all-meat trial, and if you actually looked at that study, you'd notice that both men had severe health issues. These included nausea, constipation lasting up to 10 days, and glycosuria (sugar in the urine). Both men went back to eating carbs, and their cholesterol improved, as did their glucose metabolism.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The AHA, ADA, and NIH make a pretty big deal about these "little things" too. And no long-term study has ever been done on the Atkins diet (longer than 12 months), so I obviously can't reference such a study. However I can reference the following: J Am Coll Cardiol 37:1929-35, 2001; Clin Positron Imaging. 2000 Jul;3(4):150; Circulation 29:874, 1964; Am J Med 26:68, 1959, all of which show that eating a high-fat meal severely lowers blood flow and arterial compliance.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook How about this one (which I reference earlier): Fleming RM. The effect of high-protein diets on coronary blood flow. Angiology. 2000 Oct;51(10):817-26. Your only objetion was that the Atkins diet isn't really a "high-protein" diet. However, the diets that the study is referring to are the Atkins and South Beach diets, so clearly the 39.7% increase in coronary artery disease is relevant to our discussion.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The slide at 23:25 is from one study. The study by Brunzell is separate, and has confirmed by studies that Neal Barnard and others have done. Simply put, the first study (with "less sugar" listed among the suggestions) was wrong on that one point.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook You missed my point completely. The study about the effects of a "high-protein" diet on coronary health were specifically about Atkins-style diets. The labelling is irrelevant.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Glucose does drop significantly. Indeed, another side effect was hypoglycemia. And you misread: acidosis was seen in "most patients", and the body of the study talks about the pains they went to to try and avoid this. The 6% number was of those who developed nephrolithiasis.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook 1) The weight loss on Atkins was levelling off. The researchers in that study and two of the others I mentioned said it is not long-term. 2) The Atkins diet kills through the blood flow reduction, kidney destruction, and bone dissolution you've already agreed to. 3) The researchers themselves said they were studying the diets themselves, so we dont' really get to say what their diet was intended for. 4) The mortality was the same FOR DIFFERENT FATS. You took me out of context.

[@RiDankulous]

I eat whole wheat bread I make with flour and yeast, and I then add salt to the surface of the food when I eat. I'm just as happy with this food as meats, dairy and processed foods. I am even happier because I don't get a crazy craving about a half hour later like I did on those old foods. I'm no miracle patient but I fixed all the usual health problems a 52 year old has due to their bad diet: blood pressure, high heart rate, high weight, high cholesterol, constipation, breathing heavy walking or going up stairs, acid reflux, bad snoring. Gone! 💪✌🎩😉

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I'm not sure what research has been done on the increase in glycation due to a high-carb diet. However, the Okinawa Program and the China Study (both very long-term studies) both showed that the longest-living, healthiest people (namely: Okinawans and rural Chinese) live on an almost all-starch diet.. On McDougall's website, click the "Medical Info" tab, then "Common Health Problems", then there is a drop down. Choose "atherosclerosis", and there are some references.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook But ketosis is something that only occurs in nature under two conditions: starvation and extreme sickness. Why should we induce a sick-state in order to lose weight, when we can do so on a diet that doesn't require simulating sickness? Especially when we also have to become constipated and run the risks associated with ketoacidosis *(i.e. kidney failure and osteoporosis) over the long-term?

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Weightloss among the diets was leveling of, but Ornish was not leveling off in general. Not if you look at the chart. As the other study I presented from the NEJM showed, weight loss on Atkins becomes insignificant at the 12 month mark (right where A-TO-Z stopped, which is probably why its researchers said a longer-term study was needed). Ornish has no such levelling off point.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Short-term, as in 8 weeks rather than years. The immediate effect after a meal actually was *not* tested here, though it was in all the other studies I sent you. So, they failed to see the damage that happens immediately, and their window was much too small to tell the long-term effect. There are long-term studies for lots of diets (e.g. one of my references was for 3 years on Ornish), just not for Atkins. I wonder why that is.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook It's the size of the study that you questioned. That's it. You are only now combining it with the (completely unrelated complaint) of the self-selected diet. These are two separate objections. My point is that, to avoid bias, if you believe that a small number of subjects invalidates a study, then you must apply that across the board, and reject a few of your 16. On the subject of self-selected diets: as long as the data collected is accurate, what difference does it make?

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The studies have to be testing the same hypotheses; apples to apples. A-TO-Z and Dansinger do not test the efficacy of the diets, nor the health risks (as does the NEJM study), since the adherents didn't actually adhere. And yes, blood flow is a completely separate matter from HDL/LDL/triglyceride numbers. And the LDL, I'll remind you, went up. They just explained it away with the enlarging of the molecule, but if your LDL goes up on a doctor's visit, he'll worry.

[@bloatedman]

I cut out carbs and followed Atkins for over ten years. Still have 300 BS. I am going to try this but I am afraid because nearly all experts Blame the carbs for raising blood sugar and thus this theory of insulin resistance. I do not understand insulin resistance. I have had no bread,potatoes, candy,sugar for over ten years and I still am 40 lbs overweight. I am afraid I am hopeless. Just turned down for another job because of diabetic.

[@CharlotteFairchild]

In the food pantry at the church where my husband goes, each person gets 35 pounds of food twice a month, including a lot of day old bread. This is from the Atlanta Food Bank and the USDA. The food should include any drink at all with nutritional content. Five pounds of food at Subway would mean 5 Footlong sandwiches. 5 pounds of food hasn't stopped VAT, visceral adipose tissue. Every week 9 kids in elementary school die of heart disease.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I'm not saying to believe everything people said in the Adventist study, I'm saying the correlation was shown between reducing meat in the diet and improving health. And that was over 10 years, not just 12 months (at the end of which the researchers were skeptical of their own results).

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I have addressed this "bulk", and showed where the differences lie (timeframe, composition of opposing diets, etc). This is not the "silly sidetrack" I was referring to (and I apologize for using that term at all). The side argument that threatens to bury my relevant responses is the one about whether they were "really low-fat" or not. They weren't, and the results would have been better if they had been, but that is not central to my argument, and has no effect on my other points.

[@josestereo9312]

I see a comment below which claims that protein-rich foods are more filling than carbohydrate-rich foods. A quick look at some nutrition labels tells us something different: Potato, boiled, with skin: 78 calories per 100 grams Chicken breast, roasted, skinless: 165 calories per 100 grams Per 100 grams, a boiled potato has less than 1/2 the calories of the roasted skinless chicken breast.

[@fundip43]

so do candy bars, though there may be compounds yet appreciated in a potato,the very apparent high starch content well offsets potato from a weight loss diet.

[@estherbunce3453]

Before trying harmful drugs, the needles, you should consider some all-natural treatment solution for diabetes.

[@valnaples]

plant-strong lifestyle REVERSES diabetes, Type 2 most notably and I'm just now seeing folks with Type 1 seeing great improvements on FB.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Not at all. That is why the chemotherapy and starvation examples are so good. They clearly show that something that decreases risk factors is not necessarily equivalent to a long-term, healthy way of life. On the other hand, a long-term healthy way of life would also reduce these risk factors, but not at the expense of a person's blood flow, digestion, kidneys, etc.

[@MNveg]

No, it does not follow logically. It's perfectly possible for something to be non-essential, yet incredibly important. That's why the kidney analogy is relevant. Carbohydrates are needed for a healthy, normal metabolism. Ketosis carries a lot of extra baggage, including nausea, bad breath, fatigue, flatulence, vomiting, constipation, impaired organ function, and even coma or death. I don't want any of that, so I'll stick to my healthy carbs, thank you.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I understand what's wrong with a small sample size, Jack, I'm just asking if you're going to apply that across the board and withdraw support from those studies in your (16) which had comparably tiny sample sizes. This would only be a problem if their performance was what was in question. The artery in question did not "choose" a high-fat diet. ITS performance was being tested. And it would have performed the same way if a doctor had force-fed them the high-fat meal.

[@lindabohannon6441]

Please Please come to Bakersfield California. I would love to talk with you

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I don't see what its cost has to do with it. The simple fact is that people's blood flow slows down dramatically, and their arterial integrity is compromised every time they eat an Atkins meal. You can keep trying to work around this, but you already agreed with the studies I furnished, which showed this beyond doubt. The other risk factors you mention can easily be adjusted just by making someone sick (chemo, starvation, etc), so they are not a counter-argument.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The liver does not have an endless supply of glycogen, and gluconeogenesis at high levels is taxing to the liver. And dehydration was a problem *throughout* the diet in the study I referenced. Read the body of it, and they mention it numerous times. Dehydration is a serious problem that the American Dietetic Association mentions among its several reasons to be wary of the Atkins diet.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I can't speak for how expensive Ornish's diet is, but when I eat like a McDougaller, I spend about $4 per day on food. Not too bad, in my opinion. And it isn't hard to stay on at all. You just have to make an adjustment in your thinking, where starch is the center of your diet, with fruits and vegetables around it, and no animal products or oils. It's very easy after that, and there are hundreds of testimonials on McDougall's diet that show it's worked for them.

[@spiralinguniverse8159]

i am day 2 just made a bowl of mashed potatoes.

[@Goyim9]

Evidence for glucose being an immuno-suppressant please.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Dr. Atkins was severly overweight and had atherosclerosis. That is a long-term study, unless he didn't follow his own plan. From the American Heart Association: "Individuals who follow these diets are therefore at risk for compromised vitamin and mineral intake, as well as potential cardiac, renal [kidney], bone, and liver abnormalities overall."[254]

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook From the page I posted: Reversal of atherosclerosis has been demonstrated by angiograms and PET scans after following the Ornish Diet for 12 months and longer.11 The only study of patients on the Atkins Diet has shown a worsening of blood flow at one year from all that saturated fat and cholesterol with an overall cumulative progression of artery disease (atherosclerosis) of 39.7%.12 He cites his sources, I'll copy and paste them...

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook No, I pointed out the Dansinger study to show that non-compliant people can have all kinds of results, and that the ATOZ proved very little, if anything. And, by the way, the easiest diet to stick to is the McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Krispy Kreme diet. If that is the relevant measure "in the real world", then no one should change anything.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook As I've been saying since the very beginning, the studies of Atkins are never long-term enough to show the overall effect. The Shai study was the longest I've ever seen (all the others were a year or less), and it showed that blood pressure was better on a moderate fat, higher carb diet. The other studies are simply at two short a timeframe, which distorts the results, since the initial shock of ketosis has survival advantages, but was never meant to be long-term.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I'll concede that it is likely that larger LDL would be less likely to become LDL-OX, and thus less likely to be harmful. That being said, overall cholesterol scores were not checked. And, once again, even these risk factors were levelling off, and things may have changed in a longer-term study (as the paper's conclusion states quite clearly). The effects of a high-saturated fat, high-cholesterol diet can be seen only in the very long term (e.g. Dr. Atkins' own bad health).

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Dehydration is a common charge against the Atkins diet. 10lbs and 5lbs are both rather insignificant over a 12-month period. I certainly wouldn't be proud of it. I meant ketosis, though ketoacidosis is a common risk once one is in ketosis for any length of time.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I have not read the alleged 16, nor have you cited them (so far you've only cited a few studies, even if you count A-TO-Z, which did not examine the Atkins diet). But, if the one you mentioned where they only studied effects at 8 weeks is any indication, then the difference is clear: the studies (all 5) that I cited are longer-term studies with different objectives. Quick weight loss, and temporary reduction of risk factors are not the primary points of the studies I cited.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The fact remains, when the *study* referred to "high-protein diets", and their effect on coronary health, they had Atkins and South Beach in mind.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook If insulin is working correctly, sugars are processed in the cells, and they don't cause glycation-related damage. As to clinical trials proving the connection between meat and disease, I refer you to Dr. McDougall's website, where he cites several. However, the pathways are clearly documented in the literature (between, for example, high amounts of sulfur-containing amino acids and osteoporosis; and between high fat diets and intramyocellular lipids, which cause diabetes).

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The point he's making is that we shouldn't conclude a diet is better based on it's effect on those risk factors. If the Atkins diet really makes people sick (as that link I've posted actually goes on to show), then saying it helps you lower risk factors doesn't change the fact that it does so by making you sick.

[@CharlotteFairchild]

When people are tested, is the volume or weight of the food part of the study? What if people were given the 2 pounds a day instead of the large quantities many people think they are capable of eating?

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook It is a culture shock for Americans. An Asian would have no difficulty at all. Except in areas that have been more Westernized of late, the normal diet was right inside of Ornish's and McDougall's parameters. This was mostly because the people were too poor to afford the richer foods of an Atkins-style diet, but that poverty saved them from obesity and disease. Atkins diets do not lead to long-term weight loss: NEJM 348(2003):2082. 228 AoIM 140(2004):778.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Do which studies replicate which results? The results are different depending on timeframes, actual content of the "low-fat" group, adherence, etc. But which results were you hoping to replicate?

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The *study* of an effect can easily come long after the *study* of a cause. That is not the same thing as the effect itself coming after the cause. And clinical trials like the Adventist Health Study have at least shown that the increase in amount of animal products correlates with higher BMI and higher risk of type-2 diabetes. But, I am not a physician, and I don't have access to much more than what I've shared with you.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook How about the third option: A person actually follows the diet protocols of a particular program. A "locked up in a clinic" trial is, according to you, the only kind that can tell us whether that person will do well or not. If that is the case (and I don't think it is, since McDougall's 10-day Live-in program is hardly being "locked up in a clinic", nor have Barnard's studies involved actual clinics) then the A-TO-Z study is irrelevant.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Which "best adherers" are you referring to, that at 130g carb per day? I don't see what you're responding to. And yes, I argue that people who were eating 29% of their calories from fat, rather than 10% (as Ornish prescribes) were not actually on the Ornish diet.

[@spiralinguniverse8159]

how many potatoes should i eat each meal if the main part of the meal is the potato or how many cups of rice ? or corn ???

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook But the Atkins group was barely having less carbohydrate than the Zone group. As a percentage of calories, there was very little difference, since the Atkins group was non-compliant to the point of having almost as much carb as the Zone group. How can this be the relevant factor, when the Zone diet did the worst? Also, what do you say to the conclusion of the paper, which shows that things were levelling off, and that there wasn't enough time to see the long-term effect?

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The study I commented on that was antepenultimate in the list of 16, had 13 subjects. Is it also invalid because of sample size? Will you then change your number to 15, when you make the general statements? As to people choosing their own diet, that doesn't change the effect of that diet on the arteries, which were directly investigated. This is a study of what occurs each time these patients ate their high-fat meals, which can be seen directly.

[@Jester123ish]

Not quite right, when you eat carbs in a diet with lots of meat and dairy you do get fat, as you can't metabolise the carbs as your body wants to do. Dietary animal fat in your cells causes insulin insensitivity.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Observational studies yield a great deal of useful information, so I don't know why that's such a bad thing. But, beyond that, they did know what the people ate, and they directly measured the effect on the arteries. To say there's something wrong with that, because the doctor's hadn't pre-selected the meals is like saying that studying the effects of malaria in a person's body is invalid because we didn't personally infect them.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I didn't say all Atkins-style diets were the same, nor did I say they always contain 33% kcal from protein. I said that the studies on flow-mediated dilitation and such were considering Atkins and South Beach to be "high-protein". I got the 33% number from a separate source with regard to the induction phase, but the study on blood flow doesn't have anything to do with that. It was the fat content of the "high-protein fad diets" (their words) that caused the problems.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Better terms: Actually following a diet vs. claiming to follow it but doing something else. That is what is really at stake here: To determine whether a diet is better, one must actually have subjects who actually follow that diet. Isn't that obvious?

[@MickScarborough]

The jury is still out on that. Logically speaking the more sugar your body has to deal with, the more overworked your pancreas is. This can lead to diabetes. Carbs, being sugars would presumably be harmful in large quantities. I went on the 80 10 10 diet and my glucose levels became pre-diabetic for the first time in my life. I stopped the diet and they returned to normal.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I skipped the second one from the bottom, since you already referenced that, and I already showed you all of its flaws. The third one up just showed that diabetics lose more weight on low-carb diets than they do on the UK guidelines diet for diabetics, in 3 months. Still not long enough, and the UK guidelines are not low-fat.

[@facelessfatloss]

What I love about McDougall is his analysis of the low carb diet's results as it relates to "improvement of the signs"...lowered blood sugar, lower triglycerides, etc...how this erroneously declares the patient "healthier." People need to apply this reasoning to *everything* western medicine is promoting, and then QUESTION the use of prescriptions for the alleged condition as compared to dietary change. Great video.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook You missed the point. Atkins-style diets caused constipation and decalcification, as well as coronary problems. And for the weight loss, you cannot use the ATOZ study, since the ones on the Ornish-style diet *didn't follow an Ornish diet*! If they had, their %CFF would have been 10, not 29.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I'm not debating the fact that we need to get away from all the processed foods, and extra sugar. Nor is McDougall. Nor are Bernard or Ornish. They all suggest getting away from all the processed, refined foods and sugars. But that says nothing against the *whole* grains and starches.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I think you mean "exaggeration". I wasn't using a hyperbole. But, I also was not exaggerating, when you consider a 27% decrease in arterial compliance, and 20% reduction in oxygen levels in the blood. It is no exaggeration to call this "horrific". And, by the way, if we do take a year as a good enough sample to check the long-term effects (it's certainly better than 8 weeks), you're right back to: Angiology. 2000 Oct;51(10):817-26, which showed a 39.7% reduction of blood flow...

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook No, read the study I posted from Ornish. In a short while (with actual compliance, of course), his diet cured people completely of heart disease completely. He did not slow their blood flow, wreck their kidneys, or dissolve their bones (all legitimate accusations of the Atkins diet, and all increasing risk of death). As to the various fatty acids, too many new studies (like Robert Vogel's work with olive oil, and the Rudel study I mentioned) show that mortality is the same.

[@MNveg]

Glycosuria is a sign of impaired glucose metabolism and diabetes. It was noted that their glucose metabolism returned to normal after returning to a mixed diet. Anderson also came down with pneumonia at the end of the study, which I don't think is a coincidence. How they could say there was "no evidence that any ill effects had occurred" is beyond me. The study was, of course, funded by the Institute of American Meat Packers.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook All 5 references I gave before showed FMD being impared **immediately after each high-fat meal**. Your study just shows that after fasting 8 weeks on a high fat diet, and then fasting for two days, a person's FMD isn't different than a person who had been on a lower fat (not "low-fat", by the way, it was still a third of calories) diet for the 8 weeks, and fasted for the two days. Unrelated to my point.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook The studies measured the effect of a high-fat meal, such as Atkins would prescribe. The number of carbs wasn't the relevant factor. And you keep saying Atkins did better in the A-TO-Z study, but the actual researchers said the numbers were levelling off, and that a longer-term study was needed. And according to this study: New England Journal of Medicine 348(2003):2082, weight loss was only greater in the low-carb group at 3 and 6 months, but was stalled by 12.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I hope you had a good weekend :-) Honestly, I think we'll just go round and round at this point. As I've said, there are serious problems with short-term studies of Atkins (since ketosis is a survival mechanism with some short-term survival benefits), and the only long-term study (Shai, et al) showed lots of problems and unimpressive weight loss and compliance. Also the natural pathways toward disease on a high-fat diet are well documented, and none of your studies refutes this.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Studies show the *immediate* effects on FMD: Horrific. Significant slowing of blood flow and lessening of arterial comliance. A study that only went on for 8 weeks (and for which neither group was on a low-fat diet) showed no visible difference in that tiny window. I'm talking YEARS, which the natural pathways I've outlined predict would the be actual timeframe for disastrous effects. Studies only showed benefit in the short term on those risk factors.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I do not know of any long-term study done on Dr. Atkins, but you yourself said that should not be central to this debate. Granted, McDougall and Barnard LOOK like they're in a lot better shape than Atkins seemed to be in, but all we know about his actual health was that he suffered a heart attack in 2002. He claimed it was due to an infection, but leaked medical records indicated he had suffered congestive heart failure and hypertension before his death. Who knows?

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I'm not saying that lowering these risk factors isn't a good thing. I'm saying that if, while doing that, you are also ruining a person's arterial compliance and blood flow (which has wide-ranging effects from heart disease to macular degeneration to impotence), and you are ruining their kidneys and bones, then maybe we should go with a plan that lowers risk factors AND doesn't kill us.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I agreed with you up the last sentence. At first you were saying "If people complied, they'd see the actual results of the dietary plans." And you mentioned someone who ACTUALLY followed Ornish, and lost 50lbs.... And then somehow your conclusion is that the group results give more relevant data?? All they tell us is that people aren't good at following dietary plans. How is that relevant to which diet is better??

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook You are missing the point. The improvements in risk factors can be done MANY different ways. Starvation, chemotherapy, and healthy diet are among these ways. McDougall's point is that these risk factors should not be what guide us in determining a healthy diet. A diet that leads to dehydration, constipation, and decreased blood flow should be rejected, DESPITE the fact that it can do a few things that chemo, starvation, and a HEALTHY diet can also do.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I change my mind when confronted with contradictory evidence, or sound argument. I have yet to see such here. FMD is sometimes positively associated with other risk factors, but it would be logically fallacious to deduce from that that FMD and, say, HDL/LDL will always improve or deteriorate together. They have very different pathologies. The *researchers* in the NEJM paper said that the weight loss at 12 months was irrelevant; not me.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I think we can agree to disagree, then. The abstract and conclusion of the the A-TO-Z paper specifically says they intended to test these different diets (not just diet books, and people doing what they want), to see what spectrum of carb and protein ratio was best for weight loss. But, if you feel they still succeeded, that's fine. As to the broader issue, even if a plant-based diet were slower at lowering my risk factors, at least I get to keep my blood flowing and my kidneys.

[@ewelinajiao1906]

About China- there are overweight and obese people in China- especially in Shanghai. Their cuisine is significantally different to other 7 types of chinese cuisines. They use plenty of table sugar and they have access to refined food. Sugar is in everything there. And let's not confuse sugar from fruit- healthy sugar with table sugar (no fiber).

[@ewelinajiao1906]

I am a huge fan of fr Mc Dougall and I would like to ask him to explore the Shanghaiese diet further.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook I just showed that, in the Shai study (the only one of all the ones you've ever referenced that was longer than a year) blood pressure was better on the "low"-fat diet, vs. the low carb one. That's a "conventional factor", no?

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook In fact, if I recall correctly, since the A-TO-Z study didn't actually test the diets in question at all, you said its main merit might be in showing us which diet was easiest to adhere to. You then asked why Atkins is so much easier to adhere to. Well, it turns out that it isn't, in the long run. Shai et al disproves that, during a timespan that the A-TO-Z researchers themselves would agree is better than their study.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook And finally, on the initial point (about whether sugar makes insulin work better), the fact is that Sweeney's study is valid, and has been repeated with the same results. Neal Barnard's long-term study had some in the group who decided that Twizzlers were within the parameters of the study, and they still got better (their insulin resistance decreased, as did their weight). So, regardless of what seems more likely to us, the facts of these studies remain.

[@CharlotteFairchild]

So what happens when people eat their greens?

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook It doesn't suggest anything of the kind. There could be any number of permutations. And, once again, it doesn't say anything about the efficacy of the actual dietary approach espoused in the books themselves.

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook One year is not "years". The researchers in your favourite study agreed with me on this(A-TO-Z).

[@sallymeyer12]

useful post

[@sofiariley66]

+Sally Meyer *>>I feel worried about constantly checking blood levels being a former diabetes sufferer imagined I would undoubtedly die with diabetes>>* gethealthsolution.com/best-10-diabetes-product-3/

[@Mentat1231]

@JackFook Then Barnard's study was certainly a clinical trial, and you can find the results in the KZbin video "Breaking the Food Seduction", where Barnard lectures on the topic, and then references his work and the work of others. In the A-to-Z study, what were the parameters of success? After all, I know that a ketogenic diet can lower many risk factors, but as McDougall mentions in this video, so can chemotherapy.