Tag: Heart disease

• The PURE Study Myths

  Dr James Muecke is the Australian of the Year in 2020 which was awarded for his work as an eye-surgeon and his work in preventing blindness.

  Muecke believes that we should be eating more eggs, cheese, meat and dark chocolate to minimise diabetes, its associated blindness (diabetic retinopathy) and diabetic neuropathy. Peripheral diabetic neuropathy is nerve damage of the limbs that is caused by diabetes. 50% of adults with type 2 diabetes have peripheral neuropathy. It can result in pain, numbness and an increase in sensitivity. Diabetes account for more than 80% of amputations.

  Muecke cites the PURE Study to justify his low-carbohydrate, high-fat, animal-based diet.

  The PURE Study is an observational study in 27 countries that examined 225,000 people. The study period is 20 years.

  Read more ⇨

  3 September 2021

• Harvard Researchers Paid to Support Sugar

  A recent story that has been appearing on the internet is that Harvard Researchers Paid to Support Sugar and this is the reason why sugar and carbohydrates have been exonerated in their role of causing heart disease. Fats and saturated fats have unfairly blamed for the obesity and heart disease epidemic.

  The article states that, "Early warning signals of the coronary heart disease (CHD) risk of sugar (sucrose) emerged in the 1950s."

  "By the 1960s, 2 prominent physiologists were championing divergent causal hypotheses of CHD: John Yudkin identified added sugars as the primary agent, while Ancel Keys identified total fat, saturated fat, and dietary cholesterol. However, by the 1980s, few scientists believed that added sugars played a significant role in CHD, and the first 1980 Dietary Guidelines for Americans [4] focused on reducing total fat, saturated fat, and dietary cholesterol for CHD prevention."

  Read more ⇨

  6 March 2020

• How do Your Genes Affect Obesity and Diabetes

  The purpose of the DIETFITS Trial was "to determine the effect of a healthy low-fat (HLF) diet vs a healthy low-carbohydrate (HLC) diet on weight change and if genotype pattern or insulin secretion are related to the dietary effects on weight loss".

  It a popular area of research to determine if there are genetic causes of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disease, depression and any other illness or condition that is plaguing our society.

  This area of research ignores the fact that often our genetics does not determine health outcomes.  Ignoring this will not solve the problems of our society's rapidly failing health.

  The conclusions of this paper are:

  In the 12-month study, there was NO significant difference in weight change between a healthy low-fat diet compared with a healthy low-carbohydrate diet.

  Neither of the 2 hypothesized predisposing factors [genotypes] was helpful in identifying which diet was better for whom.

  Frequently the problem is not that complicated.

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  7 November 2018

• Eye Cataracts and Diet

  There are four eye disease in the US that accounts for 75% of the cases for blindness and 85% of cases of visual impairment for adults 40 years and older in the US.

  Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), cataracts, diabetic retinopathy – blood vessels in the retina leak fluid or bleed caused by diabetic complications and glaucoma - slow clogging of the drainage canals which results in increased eye pressure.

  The effect of diet on eye health is much greater than expected given the amount of attention paid to the effect of sunlight on both our eyes and our skin.

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  17 July 2018

• Foundations of Naturopathic Nutrition by Fay Paxton – a text book

  Fay Paxton (PhD) is an Australian-based naturopath and nutritionist. She has taught nutrition at the Southern School of Natural Therapies and has worked as a consultant for dietary and herbal supplement manufacturers.

  She is an author of a popular text book, Foundations of Naturopathic Nutrition.

  Unfortunately, she is an advocate for low-carbohydrate diets and paleo diets.

  Read more ➱

  14 June 2018

• Robert Lustig and The Men Who Made Us Fat

  Robert Lustig is a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease. He specializes in childhood obesity and studying the effects of sugar in the diet. He is the director of the UCSF Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health Program and a member of the Obesity Task Force of the Endocrine Society.

  Unfortunately, much of what he says is simply wrong, which given the amount of media exposure that he receives, is deeply worrying.

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  26 February 2018

• The A2 Milk Story

  The hypothesis that A2 milk was protective of type 1 diabetes originated with a paper published in 1992. Robert Elliott observed much lower rates of type 1 diabetes amongst Polynesian children that were raised on the Polynesian islands compared with those raised in Auckland. This was attributed to the differences in the β-casein profile.

  Elliott was the lead author of a conference paper that examined the effects of feeding casein to non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. The conclusion was that “the induction of diabetes by casein in the NOD mouse appears to be restricted to casein containing the A1 variant of beta-casein”.

  The marketing potential of such a discovery could be enormous.

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  27 December 2017

• Misconceptions of Denis Stewart

  Denis Stewart is a herbalist from the Hunter Valley (NSW, Australia). He is an associate professor at University of Newcastle since 2002. He founded the Southern Cross Herbal School in the late 1970s.

  He presents a weekly radio show on 2NUR FM, a Newcastle-based radio station, on health topics.

  I am concerned about some of his material. I posted Denis a (real) letter and sent an email without receiving a response. I also sent an email to 2NUR FM listing some concerns.

  Below is a list of some of the concerns that have not been addressed.

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  14 November 2017

• BMJ Editorial – Are Some Diets “Mass Murder”?

  Richard Smith’s wrote an article Are some diets “mass murder”? in The BMJ on 15 December 2014. He uses a work of a popular commentator to reach his conclusions in this article. Smith's claim that Nina Teicholz’s The Big Fat Surprise, demolishes the hypothesis that saturated fat is the cause of cardiovascular disease fails with just a little scrutiny.

  Richard Smith is a British medical doctor and a previous editor of the BMJ (previously the British Medical Journal). He worked for the BMJ for twenty-five years (from 1979 to 2004) and was editor from 1991 to 2004.

  Read more ⇛

  8 July 2017

• Liver Cleansing with Olive Oil

  The internet has numerous pages advocating an Olive Oil – Lemon Juice Liver Cleanse or Detox. The purpose of the exercise is eliminate gallstones from your gall bladder. The instructions vary but lemon juice and olive oil are featured. Apple juice and Epsom salts are sometimes involved.

  This procedure results in numerous green stones passed in the faeces in the following morning.

  Unfortunately, the exercise does not remove gallstones and has the potential to cause nausea, severe abdominal pain and may even lead to surgery to remove your gall bladder. It also leads to a false sense of security, giving rise to the belief that you have solved your gallstone problem.

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  13 May 2016