...nothing, or actually, slightly worse than nothing:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.c...ns-learned.html

This DART trial divided 2,200 guys with heart disease into 6 groups. 3 strategies were tried: Increasing Omega-3's, decreasing fat consumption and increasing PUFAs (aka decreasing saturated fat), increasing whole grain fiber.

The ONLY treatment that had a significant positive effect was the omega-3 one.

The PUFA/SF one was a bust. The whole grain one had a non-significant (wasn't big enough to make anyone go DOH!) trend towards increased death/MI rates.

Personally I think all these studies are based on one flawed concept ...

... all people are alike.

I don't think that low carb is the right path for everyone anymore than I think that the ADA diet is right for controlling my blood sugar, problem is medical science seems to think that the billions of people on this planet are all genetically and metabolically the same and whats right for one person, or one group of people is right for all, and until they get that flawed conceptual basis out of their collective skulls studies like this will continue ... especially since the study didn't give them the desired results so they will have to keep repeating it until they get a group of people that give them the result they want .. at which point the results of THAT study will be published in JAMA and splashed across headline news

Nice post! Must put that blog on my list of favourites!

And what a nice change to see an intervention study and not one of these silly epidemiological "studies".

The study reads like a re-run of the various intervention studies quoted by Malcolm Kendrick in "The Great Choleseterol Con", when groups of people were told to go on "healthy" diets containing less saturated fats. The result was that there were fewer deaths in the groups of people who stuck to their normal diets.

This is another example of so-called healthy eating producing premature death. I really feel for the families of the people who took part in these trials, though.

Have you got hold of "Trick and Treat: how 'healthy eating' is making us ill" by Barry Groves yet?

He has some interesting stuff on grains, too, mostly involving rat poo...

amanda

That's why they have to use large groups of people versus a few. So people with odd genetics don't skew the results.

it is true that there are genetic variants at play.... but there are some things that are becoming more prominent... as in omega 3's being a definite positive. A lot of my research has gone into the many good things that omega 3s do. Carbs/saturated fat can be a sticky topic... and I probably shouldn't get into my research with that right now.. haha

"The fiber group doubled their grain fiber intake, going from 9 to 17 grams by eating more whole grains. This group saw a non-significant trend toward increased mortality and MI compared to its control group. Deaths went up from 9.9% to 12.1%, a relative risk increase of 18%."

Yeah...that healthy, wonderful fiber. Sheesh. Makes you wonder if they are TRYING to kill people....maybe so they wont be around to collect social security. (Opps...looks like I put on the tinfoil hat today)

I think everybody is different. I also think everybody's body works the same way. What may differ is the amplitude. For instance, nobody packs on fat at the same speed or at the same place. Conversely, nobody sheds it as fast or from the same place either. Nobody gets as sick or gets as healthy equally on the same diet. But everybody gets fat and sick on a high carb diet. And everybody gets healthy and lean on a low carb diet. The physiology is the same, the differences lie in the amplitude.

So for the purpose of finding out if something affects us in some way, yes we are all the same.

Tell that to my 101 year old mother-in-law who eats a high carb diet and still isn't living in a nursing home. Or my step-grandmother who died at 105 after living only 2 years in an assisted care facility. Or my husband who can count the number of times he's been sick in his 52 years.

*I* get fat and sick on a high carb diet. They don't (or didn't, in the case of step-grandmother.)

Hell, not everyone gets cancer or has lung problems from smoking for 50 years.

In the last few years, something the French have known for years is taking place in certain studies - Men and women are different. Vive la difference! Both genders react differently to medications and situations. For example, more women than men die of heart attacks. But the women are usually older at the time, and the outcome is harder on the males at a younger age.
Moreover,there are people (poor souls) who are more adapted to eating carb foods than flesh foods. These make up those vegetarians who have lifelong success at vegetarianism. Many can handle both, but nowadays, it's a tossup which is worse for you - modified genetically engineered grains, or feedlot vegetarian animals fed animal parts. Modern foods are a killer!

We may be different but not so much that cutting carbs is useless for one yet effective for the other. It is effective for both. If there is a difference it's in the amplitude. The mechanisms remain the same for both men and women. We are after all built on the same mold but men start with a Y chromosome instead. We are more similar than we are different and where we are different (aside from the reproductive aspect) is almost insignificant, in my opinion.

Between frankencorn and frankencorn-fed cattle, I'll take the cattle any day. I would choose the meat because it's free of the carbs that frankencorn contains and because aside from the higher O-6 content it's full of everything else that frankencorn doesn't contain. If I'm not mistaken, feedlot cattle is fattened with grains only for a short time before slaughter but fed mostly grass before that. And now that grains are going up in price it's only normal to see more lean meat at the butcher. I prefer fatty meat so that's going to be a dilemma for me soon.

They're starting to look a lot more alike lately... men with big breasts and women with bellies! Perhaps carbs will finally equalize things between the sexes!

I'm actually starting to believe that there are some carb foods that are much worse than others. For instance, some primative people eat some pretty high carb diets with yams and roots and do pretty well. Like the Kitavans. But I bet they don't eat any grain.

I think maybe once you've hosed up your metabolism though it's a lot harder to eat a lot of carbs, no matter the sort, and do well.

[SIZE=5](quietly whispers from a dark corner of the room[/SIZE]

Why are so many people resistant to the idea that blood type could answer a lot of these questions about why some people do fine as lifelong vegetarians and others do best with lots of meat?

From my POV way over here, blood type difference is the elephant in the room.

Hi Girlbug2! Don't whisper, stand up straight and deliver your message with a loud voice, girl! So we can shoot it down.

I think if you actually got around to polling people of various blood types on this message forum you'd probably find there are patterns. Type O being most common it would be easy to assume that "Oh gosh, all these Type O's here therefore they respond well to low carb diets". When in reality, it's just that it is the distribution of the blood types. So if you make an accurate observation about Type O's (but it really applies to all blood types), then you look like a genius because it fits so many people. And if you looked at the blood types of the people who can live on sugar and thrive into their 100's then probably most of them are Type O's too. I've never heard of blood type being associated with metabolic disease, do you know of any studies out there?

But I suspect if you actually could poll ALL the people who are doing well on low carb you'd probably find it mimics the distribution of the blood types.

IMHO it's just a random association like the month you were born in or your shoe size. Although one difference is that it IS genetic but thus far in my life I haven't heard of any disease or conditions that are linked to one particular blood type. However, I don't know everything... yet.

I think that it is pretty difficult to paint anything with a broad brush. Yes - we have some basic things that are similar, but when it comes to diet and metabolism, we all bring our own unique history, genetic factors, emotions, belief systems into play. It is impossible to make broad statements such as "everybody gets fat and sick on a high carb diet" and have any credibility.

Really, I think at some point we need to understand that there are several things that may work in the whole health/weight loss battle for each of us as individuals. Some methods may work with all of the unique factors we bring to our health better than others. But to say that there is any one thing that is the panacea that improves our health - well I just can't imagine that to be true.

yep.

One size fits all doesn't work for pantyhose either.