What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? (Is fat good for you)

NOTE: Article is EIGHT pages long, I am only posting the first page, feel free to add other pages as you see fit

f the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the above are true.

When Atkins first published his ''Diet Revolution'' in 1972, Americans were just coming to terms with the proposition that fat -- particularly the saturated fat of meat and dairy products -- was the primary nutritional evil in the American diet. Atkins managed to sell millions of copies of a book promising that we would lose weight eating steak, eggs and butter to our heart's desire, because it was the carbohydrates, the pasta, rice, bagels and sugar, that caused obesity and even heart disease. Fat, he said, was harmless.

Atkins allowed his readers to eat ''truly luxurious foods without limit,'' as he put it, ''lobster with butter sauce, steak with bearnaise sauce . . . bacon cheeseburgers,'' but allowed no starches or refined carbohydrates, which means no sugars or anything made from flour. Atkins banned even fruit juices, and permitted only a modicum of vegetables, although the latter were negotiable as the diet progressed.

Atkins was by no means the first to get rich pushing a high-fat diet that restricted carbohydrates, but he popularized it to an extent that the American Medical Association considered it a potential threat to our health. The A.M.A. attacked Atkins's diet as a ''bizarre regimen'' that advocated ''an unlimited intake of saturated fats and cholesterol-rich foods,'' and Atkins even had to defend his diet in Congressional hearings.

Thirty years later, America has become weirdly polarized on the subject of weight. On the one hand, we've been told with almost religious certainty by everyone from the surgeon general on down, and we have come to believe with almost religious certainty, that obesity is caused by the excessive consumption of fat, and that if we eat less fat we will lose weight and live longer. On the other, we have the ever-resilient message of Atkins and decades' worth of best-selling diet books, including ''The Zone,'' ''Sugar Busters'' and ''Protein Power'' to name a few. All push some variation of what scientists would call the alternative hypothesis: it's not the fat that makes us fat, but the carbohydrates, and if we eat less carbohydrates we will lose weight and live longer.

The perversity of this alternative hypothesis is that it identifies the cause of obesity as precisely those refined carbohydrates at the base of the famous Food Guide Pyramid -- the pasta, rice and bread -- that we are told should be the staple of our healthy low-fat diet, and then on the sugar or corn syrup in the soft drinks, fruit juices and sports drinks that we have taken to consuming in quantity if for no other reason than that they are fat free and so appear intrinsically healthy. While the low-fat-is-good-health dogma represents reality as we have come to know it, and the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in research trying to prove its worth, the low-carbohydrate message has been relegated to the realm of unscientific fantasy.

Over the past five years, however, there has been a subtle shift in the scientific consensus. It used to be that even considering the possibility of the alternative hypothesis, let alone researching it, was tantamount to quackery by association. Now a small but growing minority of establishment researchers have come to take seriously what the low-carb-diet doctors have been saying all along. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, may be the most visible proponent of testing this heretic hypothesis. Willett is the de facto spokesman of the longest-running, most comprehensive diet and health studies ever performed, which have already cost upward of $100 million and include data on nearly 300,000 individuals. Those data, says Willett, clearly contradict the low-fat-is-good-health message ''and the idea that all fat is bad for you; the exclusive focus on adverse effects of fat may have contributed to the obesity epidemic.''

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of time. In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980's, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma. (Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period.) They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failures, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades. Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected. ''That is very disconcerting,'' Willett says. ''It suggests that something else bad is happening.''

The science behind the alternative hypothesis can be called Endocrinology 101, which is how it's referred to by David Ludwig, a researcher at Harvard Medical School who runs the pediatric obesity clinic at Children's Hospital Boston, and who prescribes his own version of a carbohydrate-restricted diet to his patients. Endocrinology 101 requires an understanding of how carbohydrates affect insulin and blood sugar and in turn fat metabolism and appetite. This is basic endocrinology, Ludwig says, which is the study of hormones, and it is still considered radical because the low-fat dietary wisdom emerged in the 1960's from researchers almost exclusively concerned with the effect of fat on cholesterol and heart disease. At the time, Endocrinology 101 was still underdeveloped, and so it was ignored. Now that this science is becoming clear, it has to fight a quarter century of anti-fat prejudice.

Well here are some answers for every one out there.

As the saying goes you are what you eat, but more to the point you are what you used to eat, for a good indication on what I mean all one has to do is look at the way humans as a species have adapted with the food we have eaten.

on a better look we should study the three food consumption types for mammals.

Vegitarian, carnivorous, and omnivirous (probobly spelt them wrong) any way, the vegitarian side to mammals shows that fat is really what the animal is say producing?

I know there have been no studies into it and that is a shame because I can only speak about what I know and that is evolution and hence animal interaction with environment.

But it is a better indication that fat is produced and burnt before the food is in vegitarians, looking at all vegitarian mammels you would think that this would seem fairly logical right? well it is, vegitarian animals in the wild at times cover grounds where there is no food but it isn't the food they are living off, every one knows cammels do this but do not think of other mammels, must others have a hump for this task?

Back onto the topic vegitarians be them animal or human are constantly producing higher fat quantities, if it were not for an animals high metabolism thier cholestrol would be some where off the charts, on this note please keep in mind that a humans metabolism is ten times slower then most animals, take a look at your pet dog or cat and think about why they have such short life spans then take thier pulse and take your own, there is a good indication why.

On this note a cow would produce fat arround it's muscle as a direct food supply so if there was no food for say five days there would not be much way time for the cows metabolism, I would personaly speculate that it is the mentality of the animal which controls wether the creature is about to put it's body into starving mode, so to say it shuts down parts of it's bodies uneeded priorities so as it can survive longer.

humans in relation to this is an interesting one, we do not go through perriods of having no food arround and so should one choose to be a vegitarian they would be producing fat for a while, wich is why some people find it hard to loose fat even if they were to have the same ammount of fat as others they could have slower metabolisms hence lower chalory burning or more so the fat cells are full of stored protiene.

now a look at carnivors, to say that a carnivor does more moving arround then vegitarians in the wild is quite the rash statement, buffelo and such walk virtually thier whole lives, while most carnivors are territorial.

But there are several things which split carnivors from vegitarians, usually a carnivor would hunt only when it is hungry on this note it eats fairly regularly but is not set to times, vegitarians eat at any chance they can, which is a wise move for any wild vegitarian mammal as it does not know when there may not be food.

carnivors though do not need to produce as much fat, needless to say they do produce fat but it is not some thing one which has a good food supply needs, and the reason why they do not need to produce much fat is that they gain thier high fibre, fat, calcium and any thing else you may think of from the meat fat and bones from thier prey.

Fat and muscle cells are very much alike in many ways, both can be drained of thier minerals and protiene in an effort to support the life of the animal so for this both are high in protiene, keeping this in mind it only seems logical that high intakes of meat and fat would mean less need to produce fat for storage puroposes as all the requirements are met in the initial intake.

this also means the carnivor is going to keep slim and lighter for killing other prey.

and then we come to omivors, pretty much mix the two together vegitarians and carnivors and thats about as much an omnivor as you are going to get.

but when you look at the range of species which are omnivors you dont see a large range, usually they are carnivors until they absolutely NEED to eat vegitation to survive, funny about that right?

A human being is designed with omnivorous intentions, our stomachs are designed to cator for vegitation, infact some might say it acts more like a vegitarian stomach then a carnivorous one but then again most omniverous stomachs are like that as I am willing to bet most creatures which had to eat vegitation had to do so regularly enough to have it become an evolutionary stage ^_^ only logical right?

Back to the topic, on the inside we may seem vegitarian, on the outside we are as close a predator as one can get, take a good look in the mirror and then wonder about your eye's, why are they both facing forwards and why are they close together, the answer? so you can judge distance from yourself to your prey, what does this mean? well it means your designed to be able to focus better, should humans have been designed to eat only vegitation being able to judge distance between ourselfs and the next blade of grass would be FAR less important then say having our eyes on either side of our heads (like most vegitarians, cows, horses, elephants!) so we may have a better degree of seeing which would allow us better security from predators.

Next our teeth, perfect omniverous design, evolutions greatest might I say, our hind most teeth are designed to slice AND crush along with grind as well, evolution does not get much better then that, we have canine teeth for piercing though we moved along from using our teeth as our main weapon in hunting and we have the four main front plated teeth for ripping movements on plants and such, but for meat most would prefer to use thier mauler teeth to slice away at meat ^_^ ok imagin this, here you have a really tough piece of meat in your hands (finger food mmmm ^_^) and it's hard to bite a piece off from the front of your mouth.. what do we all find ourselfs doing? twisting our heads arround and giving our maulers a try at it, thier shape is great for slicing meat while being able to crush nuts and such too.

ok enough about the teeth, what else indicates what we are?

funnily enough the very thing which sets us apart from most animals, our two legs and how we walk on them sets us apart from both vegitarians and carnivors... why? because what do we gain when we only use two legs? the ability to carry food we have gathered in our hands!!

bassicaly humans can gether nuts and such and carry them along grounds, making us more then just vegitarians because we may be eating nuts but gatherers which are as different from most animals as grass is to a meat eater.

it's only natural that this ability also spawned the abiltiy for us to use tools as we moved as well..

but back to the topic at hand, humans are capable of eating any food type we wish, but remember that when your about to eat one of these food groups look at the other habitants of the food group.. it is a good indication where it will lead you, personally I eat what I feel like when ever I want, I have my own beliefe that if your body really wants some thing or lacks some thing it will let you know by giving you cravings for it ^_^, call it a faze or what not but lately I have been wanting fruites alot.

Oh yes, and for all the die hard vegitarians out there, did you know there is no vegitarian (the idea of a vegitarian is some one who does not lie and eat eggs, fish, butter, milk, cheese or any animal product) over the age of 90 in the US?

Research found this one out and I found it VERY interesting to hear.

Robert.S AKA KuRoKo

sorry for any spelling mistakes, revenge of the lazy person.

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