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Doctor Insomnia · #1 02-07-2006, 11:01 PM

I've been away a while. I just saw this article on Huffingtonpost.com and went, whoa! I gotta go post this at lowcarbeating!

The short version: Low-fat diets don't lower your risk of getting cancer or heart disease, according to a half billion dollar study. Everything we were told about the health benefits of low-fat... all just blown away.

Think about that, the next time somebody tries to talk you out of your heavy cream.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/he...rtner=homepage

Quote:

Study Finds Low-Fat Diet Won't Stop Cancer or Heart Disease

The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet keeps women from getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet had no effect.

The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women aged 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer heart attack and stroke as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.

"These are three totally negative studies," said Dr. David Freedman, a statistician at the University of California at Berkeley, who is not connected with the study but has written books on clinical trial design and analysis. And, he said, the results should be taken seriously for what they are ? a rigorous attempt that failed to confirm a popular hypothesis that a low-fat diet can prevent three major diseases in women.

And the studies were so large and so expensive that they are "the Rolls Royce of studies," said Dr. Michael Thun, who directs epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society. As such, he said, they are likely to be the final word.

"We usually have only one shot at a very large scale trial on a particular issue," Dr. Thun said.

[...] For decades, many scientists have been saying, and many members of the public have been believing, that what you eat ? the composition of the diet ? determines how likely you are to get a chronic disease. But it has been hard to prove. Studies of dietary fiber and colon cancer failed to find that fiber was protective. Studies of vitamins thought to protect against cancer failed to show an effect.

Gradually, many cancer researchers began questioning the dietary fat-cancer hypothesis, but it has retained a hold on the public imagination.

[...] As for heart disease risk factors, the only one affected was LDL cholesterol, which increases heart disease risk. The levels were slightly higher in women eating the higher fat diet, but not enough to make a noticeable difference in their risk of heart disease.

Maggie · #2 02-07-2006, 11:37 PM

Thanks, Dr. I!

Glad you stopped in to visit! Hope all is well with you.

heykim · #3 02-08-2006, 02:06 AM

i heard about this on the radio today..
noticed it was on women aged 50 to 79 ...
seeing that i am 53 i figure its too late for me to do low fat *L*

seriously, i guess it shows that the way we eat when we are YOUNG can really have an impact reGARDless of what we do later..

all the more reason for all the whippersnappers here to pay attention

FrannyGlass · #4 02-08-2006, 09:24 AM

Wow...Dr. I beat me to this post!! Just finished reading the NYT article and had to rush over here to see if anyone else was talking about it.

Dean Ornish was NOT happy about the findings...go figure.

kina · #5 02-08-2006, 12:23 PM

I actually heard about this on the news last night! I can just see where this is leading to!

Squarecube · #6 02-08-2006, 03:07 PM

I hate the New York Times for many reasons, (mostly for its liberal spin) but the article is worth reading just to realize how thorough scientists believe the study is. And if you read the entire article, you see that the author chose to plant this, this, spin, in the middle of the text without any explanation.

Quote:

"The study found that women who were randomly assigned to follow a low-fat diet ate significantly less fat over the next eight years. But they had just as much breast and colon cancer and just as much heart disease. The women were not trying to lose weight, and their weights remained fairly steady. But their experiences with the diets allowed researchers to question some popular notions about diet and obesity.

There is a common belief that Americans get fat because they eat too many carbohydrates. The idea is that a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet leads to weight gain, higher insulin and blood glucose levels, and more diabetes, even if the calories are the same as in a higher-fat diet. That did not happen here."

Honestly, the study didn't show that Hitler was a murderous thug either because the study wasn't designed to investigate that. Basically they are comparing the results of two high carb diets (thier own high carb diet verses the population at large, which eats high carb) and saying there is no difference and therefore low carb is no good. It's a religion with these folks, and it will take a generation or more to change attitudes.

FrannyGlass · #7 02-08-2006, 10:23 PM

Thanks for noting that little aberrancy SquareCube!!

When I read over that portion of the report, I had to stop and think...Wha???

Neverending mind-games!

LouG · #8 02-09-2006, 10:53 AM

I saw this on tv... I been telling people for years it don't work like it was built up to. by the way, if ya see a blank post by me, lol, its because I didn't find this one right away, and I posted about the low fat diet, then went back and deleted it...

I got the following email from my sis... thought it was cute..and wanted to share it.

"When they got rid of Fat in food and replaced it with high fructose corn
syrup we all got fatter and more unhappy. The low-fat diet and all of the
processed foods it spawned was the start of America's Obesity epidemic.
Now we have proof.

Enjoy your butter and cream again!! Cook with lard..."

Maggie · #9 02-09-2006, 09:39 PM

LOL, Lou! You should go back and check your "almost deleted" post. You left one letter up there and a whole thread is growing around it.

TheRett · #10 02-14-2006, 08:40 AM

If you read the actual study in JAMA, you will notice that they compared two high-fat diets and not a low fat one. Both diets were close to 30% calories from fat, when a low fat diet should be less than 10% fat.

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NYTimes: Study Finds Low-Fat Diet Won't Stop Cancer or Heart Disease