Failed low fat diets Archives

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It will get worse: the new “MyPlate” 18

What the Dangerous Low-Fat Diet Looked Like 61

Another Dreadful Low-Fat Product 27

Butter, Obesity and Eenfeldt’s Law 19

Swedes Consuming Low-Fat Dairy Products Gain More Weight! 9

Kids Drinking Low-Fat Milk Gain More Weight – Again! 23

“I Was Wrong, You Were Right” 22

The Death of the Low-Fat Diet 28

Good Night, Low-Fat Diet 11

Taubes & Attia Debunks Food Myths on The Stossel Show 23

Top 11 Biggest Lies of Mainstream Nutrition 20

Low Fat IRL 83

Another Dreadful Low-Fat Product

May 13 16:34 in Failed low fat diets, Why Americans are Obese

Now I’m back in Sweden again, with good access to the internet, after three weeks of travelling in America. Thus there’ll be more regular updates again.

Here’s a quick example of how bad low-fat products can be for your health. It’s nothing new, but even worse than what I’ve seen back home.

Here’s yogurt served at breakfast on the cruise last week. Notice that all of them except the plain one have the words “low fat” on the top. It sounds healthy – but it’s not. Have a look:

Yoghurt

The low-fat yogurt contains almost no fat. Instead it’s filled with sugar and modified starch, rapidly absorbed bad carbs. And not a little: 22 grams per 113 gram serving.

About 70 percent of the energy in the yogurt is pure sugar. And it’s very noticable: it tastes like eating candy for breakfast.

The reality is that the manufacturers have removed 2 grams of fat from the container of yogurt. Then they’ve added about 15 grams of sugar, seven times more, and they sell it implying that it’s healthy for you.

Is anyone surprised that there are three times more obese Americans today, compared to when the fear of fat took hold back in the 1980′s?

Earlier about failed low-fat diets

“I Was Wrong, You Were Right”

April 26 20:31 in Failed low fat diets, Gary Taubes, Saturated fat, Weight loss stories

Taubes

Not many things impress me more than a scientist who dares to change his opinion. An excellent example is the influential Danish scientist Arne Astrup.

After earlier believing that fat was bad and carbs (even high-GI carbs) were good Astrup has now changed his mind. One of the reasons is the large DIOGENES study that he published in The New England Journal of Medicine recently.

The study proved that a diet with more protein, less carbs and a lower GI is better for maintaining a weight loss. Advice similar to the official guidelines (with more carbs) made participants regain the most weight.

Carbs and obesity

Astrup used to be critical of Gary Taubes (who has long maintained that too much carbs is the villain behind the obesity epidemic). But now he did not mind admitting that he had changed his mind. I was there when they met at the ASBP obesity conference in San Diego yesterday. Astrup said “I was wrong, you were right” to Taubes, regarding carbs and obesity. He didn’t mind me quoting him on that either.

To clarify, Astrup does not believe that a strict low-carb diet is a good idea for the entire population. A little less carbs with a lower GI, and a bit more protein would be sufficient he believes. But Astrup had nothing against stricter low-carb diets for treating obesity etc.

Saturated fat

I thought that Astrup would still be afraid of natural saturated fat, but he has updated his position here as well. After all the recent studies showing that refined carbs are worse for the heart than saturated fat, and now even that polyunsaturated omega-6 fat is worse, Astrup believes that focusing on saturated fat is wrong.

If there’s any benefit in replacing saturated fat with monounsaturated or omega-3 fat it’s hardly of any major importance. There are much more important things to focus on, such as eating less refined carbs (sugar and white flour), enough protein and avoiding trans fats. Natural saturated fat is nothing to be afraid of.

When people like Astrup manage to update their opinions there’s plenty of hope for the future. Let’s hope more and more experts will follow in his footsteps.

Kids Drinking Low-Fat Milk Gain More Weight – Again!

March 20 8:47 in Failed low fat diets, Food for kids, Weight Loss

Big mistake?

Is low-fat milk good for you and your family? Yet another study says no.

The start of the low-fat craze back in the 1980′s perfectly matches up with the start of the obesity epidemic. A coincidence? Probably not.

Low-fat products usually contain more sugar and more starches. If not you’ll probably end up eating more carbs anyway as you’ll be hungrier. This raises the levels of the fat-storing hormone insulin. Study after study prove that low-fat diets are worse for our weight than high-fat low-carb diets. The same is true for kids.

Not surprisingly, a recent Swedish study showed that people using low-fat dairy products end up gaining more weight. Now a new American study shows the same thing. Kids drinking low-fat milk are not only more often obese, they also tend to keep gaining more weight than kids drinking full-fat milk:

LA Times: Low-fat milk doesn’t help toddlers’ weight, study says

When will the disastrous low-fat craze end? How many more kids are going to get obese for no good reason?

What do you think?

What the Dangerous Low-Fat Diet Looked Like

February 26 8:00 in Failed low fat diets

Low fat

The low-fat diet just lost another huge trial, resulting in significantly more heart disease than a higher-fat Mediterranean diet. It lost badly enough that the trial was stopped in advance, as it was considered unethical to let the low-fat diet group continue to eat like that.

When I wrote about it yesterday I was criticized in the comments. Calling this study low fat was labeled “simply absurd and intellectualy inappropriate”. I disagree.

Above are the dietary guidelines for the low-fat group. It’s a regular low fat diet, like it’s been practiced and taught during the last few decades.

Is it a strict vegan-Ornish low-fat diet, that only a select few manage to actually eat long term? No. This is much worse. These are the common low-fat guidelines that hundreds of millions of people have been trying to follow for decades, as they’ve been told it would protect them from heart disease.

Unfortunately this is just the latest in a long line of studies proving that the regular low-fat diet is not only useless to people. It’s actually harmful.

More about failed low-fat diets

The Death of the Low-Fat Diet

February 25 21:16 in Diabetes, Failed low fat diets, Heart Disease

Healthy high-fat food

It’s February 25, 2013, and the low-fat diet is dead.

The low-fat diet has been on life support since 2006, when the failure of the WHI trial was published. A low-fat diet did not succeed in preventing heart disease. Instead people with pre-existing heart disease had a 30 percent increase in risk of heart disease!

Now it’s game over. Today the result of another large trial is published in the The New England Journal of Medicine, the most prestigeous scientific journal in the world for this type of research.

About 7,500 people were randomized to either get advice on a low-fat diet or a Mediterranean diet with more fat, specifically olive oil or nuts. After almost five years the trial was stopped in advance. The result was clear. The group getting the low-fat diet advice got significantly more heart disease, again.

NEJM: Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet

An earlier report from the same trial looked at the risk of diabetes. People exposed to low-fat diet advice had a much higher risk of getting diabetes. And study after study show that people have a harder time losing weight on a low-fat diet. So it’s more obesity, more diabetes and more heart disease on low fat.

R.I.P. low-fat diet. Welcome back, fat.

Continued: What the Dangerous Low-Fat Diet Looked Like

Top 11 Biggest Lies of Mainstream Nutrition

February 13 17:44 in Calorie Counting, Confused thinking, Failed low fat diets

What are the biggest lies mistakes of mainstream nutrition? The things that people believe about diet and health that just aren’t true? Here’s a great list:

Authority Nutrition: Top 11 Biggest Lies of Mainstream Nutrition

I would add two more silly mistakes:

A calorie is a calorie (false, different foods have different effects on the body)
Small changes in lifestyle, like eating a smaller cookie, has big long-term effects (a common myth)

Swedes Consuming Low-Fat Dairy Products Gain More Weight!

February 13 8:19 in Failed low fat diets, The Obesity Epidemic

The choice of people who later get fat

A newly published Swedish study has examined what Swedes eat and what happens to their weight. In the 90′s a few thousand middle aged men in rural Sweden participated in a baseline survey on their eating habits, and were followed up 12 years later in a study on how their weight had changed.

The results? People with a fear of fat (avoiding butter and drinking low-fat milk etc.) had a clearly increased risk of being obese twelve years later.

On the other hand, those who consumed a lot of saturated dairy fat (butter, whole milk and heavy whipping cream) were significantly more likely to remain thin twelve years later.

As always, correlation does not prove causation, so this study should be taken with a grain of salt. However, Swedes following the failed low-fat guidelines, consuming low-fat products like low-fat milk and low-fat margarine, were more likely to become overweight. Possibly because they were left hungrier and ate more of other, worse things.

Is anyone surprised?

The result of this study is of course predicted by Eenfeldt’s law.

The study

Holmberg S, et al. High dairy fat intake related to less central obesity: A male cohort study with 12 year’s follow-up. Scand J Prim Health Care. 2013 Jan 15. [Epub ahead of print]

Good Night, Low-Fat Diet

February 7 10:18 in Failed low fat diets, Heart Disease, Industrial food-like products, Omega 6, Saturated fat

Omega-6 margarine spread might just kill you

The old fear of natural saturated fat (such as butter) has been on its way out for a long time. Repeated reviews of science have in recent years not shown any evidence that eating butter is anything but healthy. In Sweden (where I live) lots of people have understood this and sales of skim milk, low-fat margarine and other low-fat products have plummeted.

Here is another nail in the coffin for the fat-phobia and the low-fat hysteria. A review of previously unpublished (hidden) numbers from an older study shows that today’s margarines may not only be unnecessary. They may be directly harmful to the heart.

A disaster

The study involved nearly 500 men with heart disease. Half of them were randomly assigned to increase polyunsaturated omega-6-fat intake, including in the form of margarine (similar to Promise light spread* in the US), and were advised to reduce saturated fat (such as butter). The other half was left alone and allowed to continue eating as before.

When the study was stopped after three years there were significantly more deaths in the group that consumed omega-6-rich margarine. The risk of dying during the study was elevated by a whopping 62%. Those who escaped counseling on margarine clearly lived longer.

Now it’s revealed that the risk of death from heart disease also was significantly elevated, by as much as 74%(!), in the group that was given margarine.

Good night, fat phobia

When you add this previously hidden disastrous result to all other studies that have been done, there isn’t the slightest evidence that omega-6-rich margarine is good for your heart. On the contrary: The numbers are very close to (p=0.06) showing a statistically significant harmful effect from this margarine. A probable increased risk of dying from heart disease as a result of consuming margarine instead of butter.

Adults can of course avoid buying the junk. But not all get to choose. Where I live potentially heart damaging omega-6-rich margarine is the only alternative allowed in many day care centers and schools, citing official fat-fearing dietary advice.

Time to wake up, official dietary guideline authorities?

From the British Medical Journal

*/ Promise light spread contains 1900 mg of omega-6 and only 300 mg of omega-3 per serving.

Taubes & Attia Debunks Food Myths on The Stossel Show

December 3 2012 18:25 in Failed low fat diets, Gary Taubes, Saturated fat, The Obesity Epidemic

Here’s Gary Taubes and dr Peter Attia attempting to debunk food myths on The Stossel Show. A calorie is not a calorie and fat’s good for you – for example.

For more on the subject check out my recent video interviews with Taubes and Attia.

Butter, Obesity and Eenfeldt’s Law

April 8 2012 10:39 in Failed low fat diets, The Obesity Epidemic

We’ve all been told that avoiding calorie-rich fat, like butter, would lead to weight loss. But as far as I know the opposite has happened everywhere. In every single country where sales of butter has gone down in recent decades, obesity has gone up.

Can anyone find an example where this is not true? If not I propose that this (less butter, more obesity) is a useful rule of thumb. We could call it Eenfeldt’s law.

I also propose that the opposite will turn out to be true. When the sales of butter rise again, like in Scandinavia in the last few years, the obesity epidemic is about to be reversed. We’ll soon know.

PS

When people get frightened of fat (like butter) they get hungrier and they tend to eat more bad carbs. More bad carbs = more insulin = more fat storage.

Older posts

Another Dreadful Low-Fat Product