Tag: Keys

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.
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3 September 2021
Dr James Muecke Australian of the Year in 2020

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.

He is trying to convince Australians to eat more meat, eggs and dairy. Australia is ranked number 2 in meat consumption, just behind United States but in front of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and New Zealand.

Muecke has declared that we need to “Declare war on type 2 diabetes and cut back on sugar” in order to reduce the incidence of blindness.

He believes that it is the introduction of sugary drinks and highly processed foods are the cause of diabetes – not a high-fat, high-protein diet as shown by numerous papers dating back to 1927.
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11 November 2020
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."
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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
Michael Mosley and Coconut Oil

Dr Michael Mosely (Trust Me, I’m a Doctor) instigated a trial to determine the impact of coconut oil on cardio-vascular health.

In a University of Cambridge study, 94 participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. They were asked to consume an additional 50g of fat – either coconut oil, butter or olive oil, daily for a period of four weeks.

The main measure was the change in total cholesterol.

Based on this study, Michael Mosley now thinks that coconut oil may be good for you. The study showed nothing to suggest that this could be true.
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1 April 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
The Pioppi Diet

The Pioppi Diet movie and book by Aseem Malhotra, a London cardiologist and Donal O’Neill, an Irish film-maker that receives a great deal of publicity. A review in the British Journal of General Practice quotes Professor Dame Sue Bailey, the Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, who describes the book as a “must have for every household and a must read for every medical student and doctor”.

Andy Burnham, current (2021) mayor of Greater Manchester and former UK Secretary of State for Health writes,

This book has the power to make millions of people healthier and happier.

Pioppi is a small village on the Tyrrhenian Sea which is located on the west coast of Italy. It is approximately 150 km (90 miles) south of Naples. Ancel and Margaret Keys resided here for over 25 years. Martii Karvonen of Finland and Jerimiah Stamler of the USA are other well-known medical researchers who resided in the village.

Malhotra is a keen high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet advocate and is desperately trying (unsuccessfully) to merge his opinion into a distorted view of the Mediterranean diet.
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3 October 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.
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8 July 2017