Dr. Furhman-Fat accelerates diabetes????

[mrfreddy]

could this possibly be true?

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diabetes-fat-is-the-chief-enemy-of-the-diabetic.html

Fat in the diet of the diabetic not only accelerates the disease process but also interferes with the uptake of glucose by the cells, thus further raising the blood glucose level.

Experiments described in the medical literature have tested the effects of high-fat diets on insulin intolerance. In one study, healthy young medical students were fed a very high fat diet containing egg yolks, heavy cream, and butter, and within two days all of the students had blood sugar levels high enough to be labeled diabetic.1 Complex carbohydrates have been shown to have the opposite effect.2

Fat in the food we eat prevents the proper utilization of insulin and more insulin is needed to process the glucose when fats are included in the meal. Additionally, the fat on one’s body makes the cells resistant to insulin, and the pancreas must produce more insulin to compensate. This is due not only to the additional insulin demanded by the extra body mass of fat cells, but also to the fact that the fat in and around normal tissue, like muscle and internal organs, interferes with insulin uptake into these tissues. The major contributors to fat in the American diet are animal source foods such as meat, fowl, fish, and dairy products, as well as cooking or salad oils.

1. Seeney J. Dietary factors that influence the dextrose tolerance test: A preliminary study. Archives of Internal Medicine 1927; 40:818.

2. Hollenbeck C, Doner CC, Williams RA, Reaven GM. The effects of variations in percent of naturally occurring complex and simple carbohydrates on plasma glucose and insulin response in individuals with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. Diabetes 1985; 34:151.

[Dodger]

You can reach weird conclusions by picking and choosing your data sources. Fuhrman uses two references, one from 1927 and the other from 1985.

[HairOnFire]

It's interesting that one of the studies was coauthored by Reaven at Stanford. This is the guy who's written about Syndrome X and metabolic disorder. I haven't read anything by him very recently, but last time I did (??early to mid-2000s), he was recommending that people replace carbohydrates in their diets with mono and poly fats and that simply eating a high-fiber carb diet didn't help people with insulin resistance. Reaven is still anti-saturated fat, but no way is he recommending a high-carb diet.

Maybe he's changed his tune recently (I doubt it), but like Dodger said, the above quoted study was from 22 years ago!

[FenwayGuy]

You can reach weird conclusions by picking and choosing your data sources. Fuhrman uses two references, one from 1927 and the other from 1985.

MrFreddy,

Dodger is correct. The following link is to an article that is somewhat technical, but one can pick up the gist of it.

After all, the original study that started the anti-fat, anti-cholestrol garbage was based on very flawed and selective date some 50 odd years ago. The researcher's name does not spring immediately to mind, but he violated some of the most basic tenets of research in order to support his hypothesis.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

[pauleo]

It's interesting that one of the studies was coauthored by Reaven at Stanford. This is the guy who's written about Syndrome X and metabolic disorder. I haven't read anything by him very recently, but last time I did (??early to mid-2000s), he was recommending that people replace carbohydrates in their diets with mono and poly fats and that simply eating a high-fiber carb diet didn't help people with insulin resistance. Reaven is still anti-saturated fat, but no way is he recommending a high-carb diet.

Maybe he's changed his tune recently (I doubt it), but like Dodger said, the above quoted study was from 22 years ago!

Reaven's objection to saturated fat seems to be that it raises LDL. I wonder what his position would be for someone with LDL already in the acceptable range, so that lowering LDL is not necessary. (It's known that lowering LDL too much causes an increase in mortality, so it's not the case that the lower the better).

[HairOnFire]

Reaven's objection to saturated fat seems to be that it raises LDL. I wonder what his position would be for someone with LDL already in the acceptable range, so that lowering LDL is not necessary. (It's known that lowering LDL too much causes an increase in mortality, so it's not the case that the lower the better).

That makes sense. But Eades has said that a rise in LDL isn't bad if it's the large fluffy kind and not the small dense kind (I may have that backwards, I forget now which is the good kind and the bad kind). Eades says that sat fat raises LDL fluffy and increases HDL, which are both good.

I hope I'm getting that right. :confused:

There's so much more information coming out now on the dangers of insulin resistance across the board; it would be interesting to know where Reaven stands these days.

[Nancy LC]

Yeah, you've got it right. I have proof on my NMR lipoprotein test. I have lots of LDL but it is big.

[LoveMyGSDs]

Considering there's no information given on the level of carbs and protein being eaten, I'm not sure you can conclude anything from that. For example, was it a high fat/high carb/low protein diet, or what? To me, that type of diet set-up would make sense of the results. On my high fat/high protein/low carb diet, my blood sugar remains normal and stable. If I decreased the protein and increased the carbs, I'm sure my blood sugar would respond in a similar manner to the study.

[pauleo]

This doesn't anyway look a very believable statement to me

---------------------------------------
"Experiments described in the medical literature have tested the effects of high-fat diets on insulin intolerance. In one study, healthy young medical students were fed a very high fat diet containing egg yolks, heavy cream, and butter, and within two days all of the students had blood sugar levels high enough to be labeled diabetic."
---------------------------------

Of course Fuhrman has provided the reference so one should read it before commenting, but my excuse is that 1927 papers are not so easy to get hold of.

What does it mean they could be labelled diabetic? - that their fasting blood glucose had shot up to > 126mg/dl, or post-prandial to > 200 mg/dl? Hardly credible that any diet could do that to healthy young students with good BG control within two days (unless it were raw sugar).

[mrfreddy]

so, in other words, Fuhrman is a quack, right?

[K Walt]

Fuhrman is personally and philosophically anti-fat, so he reads everything through that lens.

High fat AND high carb will tend to raise glucose somewhat.

High fat, even high saturated fat, with severely restricted carbs typicall LOWERS blood glucose to normal levels in Type 2 diabetics. Insulin sensitivity INCREASES on a high-fat, restricted carb dies. That is the basis of the highly effective treatment regimes of Drs. Bernstein, James Hays, Mary Vernon, and many others.

Eating lots of 'complex' carbs -- whole grain or otherwise will virtually ALWAYS keep glucose in the diabetic range in Type 2 diabetics. That's what you'll see ALL OVER the diabetic boards.

[Coryat]

After all, the original study that started the anti-fat, anti-cholestrol garbage was based on very flawed and selective date some 50 odd years ago. The researcher's name does not spring immediately to mind, but he violated some of the most basic tenets of research in order to support his hypothesis.
This would be Ancel Keys and his Seven Countries study.

[pauleo]

This would be Ancel Keys and his Seven Countries study.

he lived to be a 100 - not bad given that he handicapped himself with a low-fat diet :)

[eryalen]

he lived to be a 100 - not bad given that he handicapped himself with a low-fat diet :)
On another post - "George Rene Francis of Sacramento, California, turned 110 on 4 June 2007"
High fat wins!!!!

[LilithD]

Reaven's book on Syndrome X rescued me from the hypoglycemic almost narcoleptic after-lunch symptoms I was having, and set me off the on the whole low-carb WOE. There's no way he'd have suddenly become anti-fat.

[FenwayGuy]

This would be Ancel Keys and his Seven Countries study.

Thanks Coryat. That would be the man.

I first read of Keys in "The Cholestrol Con", excellent book by Australian author Anthony Colpo. One can only shake their heads at what this fellow started. Arguably the greatest medical/health lie of them all.

[renegadiab]

I know that this is a crock of you-know-what by personal experience. I tried to follow the low fat dogma for several years, but was unsuccessful. I only got fatter and ended up diabetic. Now that I cut out the sugar & starch and DON'T worry about fat, I'm getting better. Natural fats, even saturated, don't raise my blood sugar, but carbs do. Even many so called "complex carbs."