May 14, 2012

LCHF Diet Proving Naysayers Wrong


This could be one of the studies you want to shout “Extra, Extra, Read All About It!” It is a good thought, but for a small study with no controls, there is no way you can proclaim it worthy of shouting it from the roof tops. It is worthy of a mention and a hope that others will decide to take up the mantle and once and for all prove that saturated fat is good for us.

Ever since 1953, when a physiologist named Ancel Keys, Ph.D., stated that fat was not good for us and rigged the results of his study, slowly people are disproving this to be true and showing that saturated fat actually helps heart health. The medical establishment has carte blanche accepted Keys and still pronounces it as fact.

This is the reason studies of this type are not funded in the USA. At least Sweden has a small study we can at least point to and acknowledge. Many of us with type 2 diabetes know this is correct and can say with certainty that we believe the study, though small is correct. I am surprised that it even was published in the US.

The study is a two year dietary study at Linkoping University in Sweden and 61 participants were randomized into two groups. One group followed a low carbohydrate high fat diet and the other group a high carbohydrate low fat diet. Both groups lost approximately nine pounds. Since I am not able to find a conversion table for the blood glucose levels, I will have to assume they are correct.

The important fact that needs attention is that in the high fat diet, lipoproteins levels did not get worse. Instead, HDL (the good cholesterol) actually increased. In the low fat group, neither the blood glucose nor lipoproteins showed any improvement.

For the follow-up study, all 61 participants stayed in the study. This means or should indicate that the quality of the data is more dependable than most studies. How many more years are we going to have to wait to see the results of a larger study that can give further validity to this? Won't happen in the USA.

No comments: