I typically assume that ppl who spend a lot of times on forums as these have also ventured out and spent time on other forums figuring stuff out and getting away from other myths perpetuated to us as kids (about learning languages, health, US military/industrial-complex, etc) but I forget that doing so would take an insane amount of time and not everybody has the same interests.

So here's a primer that should help counter the brainwashing done to us about cholesterol. By no means is it exhaustive, I have more links to paint a more complete picture. My aim is to reach a broad enough audience and create the biggest oomph effect per word by poking the most holes in the theory. To that end, if you could comment on what tidbits are too jargony or confusing, that'd help greatly


Before you get scared by cholesterol, you should find someone to explain these facts that don't make sense.

I haven't found any good explanations, so I continue to eat my egg yolks, and enjoy my 230 cholesterol level life instead of thinking some "expert"'s opinion that <200 is ideal and proceeding to worry (worrying is more likely to kill you faster).

---"The Masai traditionally get almost 2/3 of their calories from milk fat, half of which is saturated. In 1964, Dr. George V. Mann published a paper showing that traditional Masai warriors eating nothing but very fatty milk, blood and meat had an average cholesterol of 115 mg/dL in the 20-24 year age group. For comparison, he published values for American men in the same age range: 198 mg/dL"
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...rting.html

"Now let's swim over to the island of Tokelau, where the traditional diet includes nearly 50% of calories from saturated fat from coconut. This is the highest saturated fat intake of any population I'm aware of. How's their cholesterol? Men in the age group 20-24 had a concentration of 168 mg/dL in 1976, which was lower than Americans in the same age group despite a four-fold higher saturated fat intake."
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...rting.html


---The Framingham study, the longest lasting, most respected study into the causes of heart disease (started in 1948) reported that
‘In Framingham, Massachusetts, the MORE saturated fat one ate, the MORE cholesterol one ate, the MORE calories one ate, the LOWER people's serum cholesterol.' Dr William Castelli - director of the Framingham study at the time - 1992."
“There is a direct association between falling cholesterol levels over the first 14 years and mortality over the following 18 years (11% overall and 14% CVD death rate increase per 1 mg/dL per year drop in cholesterol levels).” In other words, as cholesterol fell death rates went up!!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3560398

---" The U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) is a gov't org that educates physicians and the general public about the "dangers" of elevated cholesterol."
8 out of its 9 board members have financial ties to drug companies like Merck and Pfizer. How much more biased can it get?
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...erest.html

-----Ancel Keys was the inventor of the saturated fat/ cholesterol in the diet leads to more cholesterol in the blood leads to heart disease
Two decades later, he finally admitted "There's no connection whatsoever between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in blood. And we've known that all along. Cholesterol in the diet doesn't matter at all unless you happen to be a chicken or a rabbit."
http://www.spacedoc.net/saturated_fat_an...rt_disease

-------"The huge and lengthy MRFIT study (Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial) was designed to prove the links between diet, cholesterol, and other Framingham risk factors with heart disease. Cholesterol consumption was cut by 42 percent, and saturated fat consumption by 28 percent and on long-term follow-up, those adhering to this dietary fat restriction had slightly lower coronary heart disease death rates... However, this benefit was far outweighed by significantly increased total mortality rates, especially from hemorrhagic stroke, cancer, suicide, accidents and violence. ."
http://www.spacedoc.net/saturated_fat_an...rt_disease




----Do you still believe that saturated fat will clog your arteries? I guess you haven't read the research, which can be conveniently seen here. Now you have no excuse.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...heart.html

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...brief.html
here's one more
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2...d-with.htm
saturated fat doesn't even increase your blood cholesterol levels:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...rease.html


------things a crappy drug-obsessed doctor doesn't remember:
A standard bloodtest will show your levels of LDL (thought to be bad) and HDL cholesterol (thought to be good)
Here's the issue: There's actually many types of LDL cholesterol ranging from large and fluffy (safe) to small and dense (the actual baddies).
This division above doesn't show up on your standard blood test;that's why the standard bloodtest is almost meaningless (triglycerides level is important though- lower is better). you have to order a special test. But a bloodtest panel isn't required; you should be able to relatively gauge things because your bloodwork is a direct indication of what you are eating!


-----What Cholesterol Really is
"Cholesterol is a health-promoting substance. It is a critical component of cell membranes, the precursor to all steroid hormones, a precursor to vitamin D, and the limiting factor that brain cells need to make connections with one another called synapses, making it essential to learning and memory...Even though the brain only makes up 2% of the body's weight, it contains 25% of its cholesterol.4
" - Chris Masterjohn
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/ch...ealth.html


If you're still worried about your cholesterol after reading these things, you maybe should be. High cholesterol, among with MANY other factors does play a part in heart disease but cholesterol itself could be a sign of something going wrong in your food choices and lifestyles. To blame a whole disease on a certain number is simplistic and stupid. Look to correct your lifestyle choices. The following might help you realize it:

----Look at how easy you can improve your blood profile without statin drugs and this too
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2009/0...-life.html
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2009/0...pdate.html



If you're pissed and want to know why you've probably been lied to about cholesterol your whole life, blame it on the government who tries to act as a parent
-----
why the government hates cholesterol. read it if you wanna know where the misconception comes from and still exists
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/masterjohn1.html

I'm increasingly convinced that doctors really haven't got a clue what's going on in the body... At least, for anything they can't see happening.

There's a high correlation between cholesterol and heart problems... But they don't seem to know -why-. The links above prove that there is a 'why', not that it isn't true. There's some missing factor we don't understand as to why the situations above happen.

I've always been convinced that people pay too much attention to the details about food instead of just not stuffing one's face so much.

Here's the explanation: cholesterol in food has absolutely no correlation to cholesterol levels in the body, and eating foods high in cholesterol will not raise your own cholesterol levels.

It's a vast combination of things such as eating a diet high in processed foods, not exercising or being active, and not drinking a lot of water that lead to high cholesterol.

there is a correlation between BLOOD cholesterol and heart problems, but NO CORRELATION between FOOD cholesterol and heart disease.

The why for the first correlation has been researched, if you're interested i can send you more detailed articles but the main idea driver is that the oxidation/degeneration of your blood cholesterol causes the inflammatory response that results in heart disease. What causes this degeneration? Probably many factors, most notably western processed foods, stress, little exercise.

wccrawford Wrote:I'm increasingly convinced that doctors really haven't got a clue what's going on in the body... At least, for anything they can't see happening.

The problem is they study in university how to fix the body when it is already in bad shape rather than ways of avoiding getting sick in the first place. They then give (typically wrong) advice to patients in the area of prevention, something they know little about as they are too overworked to learn.

Your conclusion is that the common ideas about cholesterol are a myth. So what you did was take various examples of articles that confirm your conclusion.

In other words, basically you've written a very informal high-school type opinion essay. The reason you learn to do this kind of thing in high school is that it's a good way to convince people of your position. But, actually, it's a really really really bad way to write if you're actually interested in truth.

Someone with the opposite conclusion could easily do the same thing by collecting a bunch of articles that agree with his or her opinion. They're definitely out there.

So, the question is, why am I supposed to believe you rather than the status quo opinion? It's not so easy as posting a bunch of random articles that agree with your position.

the main point was to show GAPING holes in the hypothesis so that the conventional view can't be true as is. I don't tend to say what is true, just that the mainstream one isn't. There's a huge distinction between countering a point to say what isn't true versus what the mainstream does to confirm their hypothesis via confirmation bias. It's actually a really really really good way to write by pointing out inconsistencies and contradictions in a hypothesis. It's the persistent questioning of a hypothesis that moves science along. It's a really really bad way to write when you are confirming a hypothesis.

Enlighten us as to how you would prove a point as big as this in a space as little as this. You can't do it with a scientific study, because then I would question the methodology behind the studies. You'd need plenty of studies, and at that point it becomes beyond the scope of what most lay want to read and probably too long, and still probably meaningless, because as I stated previously in other threads, most ppl don't know anything about proper statistics.

And the whole randomness article thing? Did you read the links even?
I'm guessing you missed this one where the blogger summarizes almost ALL RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED STUDIES (aka the actual meaningful studies) on this issue
----Do you still believe that saturated fat will clog your arteries? I guess you haven't read the research, which can be conveniently seen here. Now you have no excuse.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2 … heart.html

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2 … brief.html
here's one more
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/ … d-with.htm
saturated fat doesn't even increase your blood cholesterol levels:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2 … rease.html

If you want a basic summary about academic integrity, I've always thought that this was a pretty charming one. From the 1974 Caltech commencement address.

http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm

I don't really have a problem with what you're trying to prove--frankly I could care less about which side is right. I generally eat Japanese food, which is not high in cholesterol anyway. I'm also very aware of the fact that science has not come a long way in knowing about the non-medicinal side of health.

If you'd like me to address what I think was wrong with your post specifically, I could, but I won't have the time in the next couple of days.

I don't think I need a summary on academic integrity, but I think the researchers working for the government, the NIH, and pharmaceutical companies could!

I blame the government on a lot of things, especially due to its inefficiencies and stubborness to change. Almost any cholesterol research contradictory to its preconceived notions gets discounted and public funds get redistributed elsewhere, so universities and professors have to play by their games or get blacklisted. Same thing with pharmaceutical companies. Your research shows the drug is ineffective? I think the manager is going to tell you to rerun those stats til you get a good result. If you don't, I'm sure somebody else will. How many times have drug trials been cancelled midway through because they couldn't get the results they wanted? As feynman says, they should finish it and publish the negative results. However, the former rarely gets reported on while the latter would possibly be a marketing nightmare, so which do you think they'd rather do?

Tzadeck, I feel like you are always skeptical of the so-called pseudoscience, but you don't acknowledge how much pseudoscience or rather dishonest science is being done through these official methods. I understand completely there is a lot of bs in the alternative realm, and I'm also not going to deny some of the conveniences of modern technologies. My main goal is just pointing out implausibilities in the dominant paradigm, which is vastly different from pointing out implausibilities in the myriad of competing ones.

from the article
"He does work on cosmology
and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the
applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any."
He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of
this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're
representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to
the layman what you're doing--and if they don't want to support you
under those circumstances, then that's their decision."

Wouldn't that be great if we lived in an ideal world! While I agree with Feynman, we live in a world where
1) ppl aren't as devoted to their works as he is. Most people don't even know basic statistics, and I wouldn't say that these researchers are experts in stats either. Most ppl wanna go home and have a normal life, eating out, friends, relationships, fun, travel, etc.
2) ppl have egos so they're definitely looking to benefit themselves. They are inclined to bring themselves fame. Typically I find the more ignorant somebody is, the more they think they know about the world and become stubborn to learning. A decent sign of intelligence is humbleness, how you know that there is so much you don't know. I find a great majority of even college educated don't share this trait, that they are cocksure about so much due to an inflated sense of feeling educated from paying thousands of dollars for late night cram sessions (i.e learning) resulting in a piece of paper.
3) Ppl have children, so they'll do what it takes to provide food and shelter, so intellectual dishonesty is sacrificed so they don't have to take a lower paying job.

elhnad Wrote:Tzadeck, I feel like you are always skeptical of the so-called pseudoscience, but you don't acknowledge how much pseudoscience or rather dishonest science is being done through these official methods. I understand completely there is a lot of bs in the alternative realm, and I'm also not going to deny some of the conveniences of modern technologies. My main goal is just pointing out implausibilities in the dominant paradigm, which is vastly different from pointing out implausibilities in the myriad of competing ones.

Actually, you're completely wrong if you think that I ignore dishonest science and psuedo-science done via official channels. My problem in other threads has largely been when people criticize official channels, and they proceed to make up their own bullshit. The cure for dishonest science is honest science. When talking about depression, people criticized the official channels, but then completely made up a lot of bullshit about how they think depression should be cured. That's completely useless, and is actually quite harmful.

And, in general, the people who were making the claims about dishonest science in the pharmaceutical industry seem never to have read anything about how results get fudged. It's not nearly as straightforward as "They want money so they lie." Not that the companies wouldn't do that if they could. But the people who will read their studies are trained to understand research methods, so complete lies can be recognized too easily. They need to be much more subtle in their dishonesty. If you're going to criticize the pharmaceutical industry, you should have some understanding of the real problems and the real types of dishonesty that occur.

As for cholesterol, as I've said, I'm not arguing that you're wrong. Science done about long term health has been done very sloppy. Ben Goldacre once wrote a list of things we know that we know about being healthy long term, and it was extremely short. It was something like "Exercise sometimes, don't be obese, don't smoke, don't drink too much." (I believe it was in the book Bad Science, though it could have been his column or website. I don't have the book with me at the moment)

My point was that you said this was a primer for people who don't have time to do all the research themselves. But actually, we have no reason to believe that what you've posted isn't misleading and cherry-picked. Especially because you posted in the style of a high school opinion piece. So you're not succeeding in your goal. If I want to get to know about cholesterol, I still ultimately have to do the research myself.

(By the way, because of the way you worded your first post, it sounds like you're someone that is not to be taken seriously. Over-the-top phrases like "brainwashing", "now you have no excuse", or "crappy drug-obsessed doctor", which you have a ton of in your post, will automatically get me to not take you seriously. So if you want some advice to improve your 'primer', that's a good place to start.)

Tzadeck Wrote:As for cholesterol, as I've said, I'm not arguing that you're wrong. Science done about long term health has been done very sloppy. Ben Goldacre once wrote a list of things we know that we know about being healthy long term, and it was extremely short. It was something like "Exercise sometimes, don't be obese, don't smoke, don't drink too much." (I believe it was in the book Bad Science, though it could have been his column or website. I don't have the book with me at the moment)

My point was that you said this was a primer for people who don't have time to do all the research themselves. But actually, we have no reason to believe that what you've posted isn't misleading and cherry-picked. Especially because you posted in the style of a high school opinion piece. So you're not succeeding in your goal. If I want to get to know about cholesterol, I still ultimately have to do the research myself.

We have no reason to believe anything Ben Goldacre's done isn't cherry picked either or misleading. I read most of the book Bad Science. Here's my 2 star review if you care
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Science-Quacks...addTwoStar
In general i share the opinions of the 3 stars reviews, too much ad hominem attacks.

Again it's funny you say i cherry-picked because this is the second time i posted this to which you've not responded.


I'm guessing you missed this one where unlike Goldacre, the blogger summarizes almost ALL RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED STUDIES (aka the actual meaningful studies) on this issue.
obviously it's his summary is his opinion but he's the most truthful/level headed blogger i've encountered.
----Do you still believe that saturated fat will clog your arteries? I guess you haven't read the research, which can be conveniently seen here. Now you have no excuse.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...heart.html

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...brief.html
here's one more
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2...d-with.htm
saturated fat doesn't even increase your blood cholesterol levels:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/20...rease.html

Tzadeck Wrote:(By the way, because of the way you worded your first post, it sounds like you're someone that is not to be taken seriously. Over-the-top phrases like "brainwashing", "now you have no excuse", or "crappy drug-obsessed doctor", which you have a ton of in your post, will automatically get me to not take you seriously. So if you want some advice to improve your 'primer', that's a good place to start.)

I appreciate the advice. I think you have above average intelligence when it comes to these things so I'll edit the post for when I'm aiming it towards that populace, but i think the normal populace responds to over-the-top phrases

Elhnad, I think you should carefully consider for whose benefit you wrote all of this. The OP is a series of over-simplifying statements which sometimes, IMO, grossly misrepresent the articles being linked because of the stark contrast in tone. If your intent was to add more 'oomph' to the articles, I believe you did not do a very good job as you made them sound more childish and narrowminded than they seem to be (though I think some of them, like the spacedoc site article, are seriously lacking in the sources department). For example, if you check the article wholehealthsource blog article's comments, there's one comment from the author himself responding to a commenter who said that he's convinced that subgroups do have increases in cholesterol from high-fat diets:

"Hi Lars,

I think you're right. Anecdotally, there are certain people whose LDL shoots through the roof on high-fat diets. Interestingly, it also seems to decrease in certain people."

This is an attitude which is way more sensible and composed than the OP you wrote. It's a well known fact that most health research is still at a very general level and its results can't be applied to every individual. Moreover, if you consider the meta-analyses to be the most important sources of information (I don't like calling studies "evidence"...) it would have made sense to include direct links to them and perhaps a bit of a not-too-angled summary of both. Especially the one from Mente et al. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995). I'm pretty used to reading abstracts but that one is just badly written, as far as I understand, because I tried reading it multiple times but I still can't make sense of what's associated with positive effects and what's associated with negative effects.

Moreover, from what I'm reading in both these abstracts, they are saying that it seems foolish at this point, and ever more so in the past, to reccommend at a general population level, decreased intake of saturated fats. They draw this conclusion because the research so far doesn't point with very high probability to saturated fat consumption being definitely linked to bad health. However, they don't sound quite so enthusiastic about saturated fats as the OP here, although Ravnskov could be said to imply that he doesn't think the people who created the health guidelines didn't do a very good job (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9635993

If you try googling Ravnskov, though, you find this page which makes it very clear just what his stance: http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm
It looks to be (a bit too tired to check in detail now, this took longer than I thought it would) highly relevant and well-made.
Edit: Hmm. Not as good as it looked like at first glance; it is too one-sided IMO.


I find your reply to Tzadeck:
"I appreciate the advice. I think you have above average intelligence when it comes to these things so I'll edit the post for when I'm aiming it towards that populace, but i think the normal populace responds to over-the-top phrases"
highly disrespectful and plainly mistaken. All adult citizens without any significant mental impairments (which I think is important to emphasize; it is a fact that some of our fellow humans simply do not have the faculties to grasp what the majority might consider "normal" despite some people's utopian fantasies) are able to think critically and consider different viewpoints if given the chance at the right time in the right way. To think that you should try to sway people in a question about their own personal health by countering arguments basically consisting of "science said it is so" with the exact same type of arguments while appealing to their emotions by using harsh, direct language is, in my humble opinion, foolish. Not everyone will be want/have the time to analyze scientific findings but the best you can do, in a long-term perspective, is give the readers who want to the chance to do so. If you want to change people's habits without giving them a real understanding it's probably best for everyone if you try to influence the people with authority who will be entrusted with giving guidelines for people to simply follow without questioning them.

If you have an honest interest in science, what makes science science and how to serve people by helping them perceive the world in a more curious and complex way, I warmly recommend Richard Feynman's speeches and writings on science and teaching. This is probably one of the best speeches to start with http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html

All that said, while I take issue with the way you presented it, the debate itself is interesting and some of your links were good so I thank you for that.

Edit: Just one more thing... When I was reading about all this I suddenly thought "hang on... what is cholesterol, like, really?" and I'd say wikipedia is worth checking out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol ... I was stupid not to think of looking it up sooner. Anyway, seems it can do a lot of things and so depending on other factors a higher or lower cholesterol level might be better. Maybe people needs extra much of it during wintertime, when they're not exposed to as much sunlight, for vitamin D production? Perhaps we have a higher need of it for hormone production during adolescence? Who knows.

DISCLAIMER FOR WORRIED READERS OF THIS THREAD: Don't make any drastic changes to your diet after reading about scientific findings on your own, always seek the counsel of a licensed doctor/dietician/etc. before doing anything like that. If there's one thing to take away from this thread it's that you should take all "food health crises" or "miracle diets" published in newspapers or anywhere with a huge chunk of salt. If you're not feeling terribly ill from what you're eating and it seems pretty balanced overall, you'll do yourself a favor by not worrying too much about it. In general, if you want to change your weight etc it's usually best to simply change the amount of exercise you're doing, change your sleeping schedule gradually or eat less/more while keeping the ratios between the foods you eat pretty much the same.

Surreal Wrote:if you consider the meta-analyses to be the most important sources of information (I don't like calling studies "evidence"...) it would have made sense to include direct links to them and perhaps a bit of a not-too-angled summary of both. Especially the one from Mente et al. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19364995). I'm pretty used to reading abstracts but that one is just badly written, as far as I understand, because I tried reading it multiple times but I still can't make sense of what's associated with positive effects and what's associated with negative effects.

Moreover, from what I'm reading in both these abstracts, they are saying that it seems foolish at this point, and ever more so in the past, to reccommend at a general population level, decreased intake of saturated fats. They draw this conclusion because the research so far doesn't point with very high probability to saturated fat consumption being definitely linked to bad health. However, they don't sound quite so enthusiastic about saturated fats as the OP here, although Ravnskov could be said to imply that he doesn't think the people who created the health guidelines didn't do a very good job (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9635993

I don't consider meta-analyses to be the most important sources of info. Here's why: Meta-analyses if done improperly and done without very indepth research into the underlying studies that they are based off of will include low quality, improperly done studies. Because it weighted averages the results of these studies though, reviews typically should provide the correct result assuming most studies are done properly, but I think ppl rely on the review summaries too much rather than looking into the actual research itself.
That's why bloggers like the one i linked are better than directly linking to the abstract. At least this blogger i believe have read the actual review and the underlying studies that make up the review. Their commentary is invaluable to understanding how well a study was properly performed. You can't get that from reading an abstract. It's too bad most of these papers are inaccessible for most of the populace.

Another reason I don't link to abstracts is perfectly illustrated by your commentary on the abstract. No offense, as I'm no expert either, but I think that was one of the easier abstracts I've read. The only bad things they found were Transfat and High glycemic foods, everything else was either benign or no association. So if that was difficult to read, imagine linking articles that have terms like Interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor alpha, DHA, linolenic acid, linoleic acid, etc. Nobody would read these articles due to jargon. It took me a while to get used to this jargon and I'm actually interested in this stuff. Unless your a huge nerd which is less than 1% of the population, you won't get through these articles. Abstracts really don't count as research since you can't see the methodology of the study. So These bloggers do a huge service although they are gatekeeping the information, which is bad, so you have to try to go back and forth and find commentary on the same study from different sources.


I'm glad you're optimistic about the intelligence of most of the population of this country. I certainly don't share that...well if your conditions are fulfilled, then maybe, but i'm too skeptical and think that "the right time and the right way" occur with infinitesimal probability. Too many tv, games, sports, partying to get in the way.

Again not my intention to say what is true, that is not my intention to say eat all the saturated fat and cholesterol as possible. did it really come across as that? i just want to point out the inconsistencies of the dominant paradigm and show ppl not to be afraid of sat fat and chol

elhnad Wrote:No offense, as I'm no expert either, but I think that was one of the easier abstracts I've read. The only bad things they found were Transfat and High glycemic foods, everything else was either benign or no association.

I think you have to assume quite a bit when reading the abstract to think it only says what you interpreted it as saying. I missed it yesterday but I noticed now that there's actually a link to the full text(http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/169/7/659) on the abstract page. Two things from the results section I'd like to point out:
"There is also strong evidence supporting a valid association for monounsaturated fatty acid intake and a prudent diet (protective factors) as well as a western diet (harmful factor) among studies of high methodologic quality. "

and
"Weak evidence (≤2 criteria) is present for protective factors, including intake of supplementary vitamin E and ascorbic acid, polyunsaturated fatty acids, {alpha}-linolenic acid, eggs, and milk, and for harmful factors, including intake of meat, saturated fatty acids, and total fat."

So if you want to point in either direction just from reading this article, it would probably be that it's generally good to replace some of the saturated fat intake with monounsaturated fat. This is because the probability that unsaturated fat does the body good is pretty high while there's not much saying that a high consumption of saturated fat, while seemingly not like, really bad for you, can't be said to be good at this point either.

Now, I'm not saying anyone actually SHOULD start to do that just because of this one article, only that it shows how the article can be interpreted quite differently from how the blogger chose to. I think a very interesting question is how the human body's optimal diet is changed depending on what we eat while growing up; it seems reasonable that strong changes in diet during adulthood, even if they are supposed to be "good" diets, could be very harmful to a body brought up with and accustomed to something entirely different.

elhnad Wrote:I'm glad you're optimistic about the intelligence of most of the population of this country. I certainly don't share that...well if your conditions are fulfilled, then maybe, but i'm too skeptical and think that "the right time and the right way" occur with infinitesimal probability. Too many tv, games, sports, partying to get in the way.

What country, now? Please remember that this is an international forum and that the research your sources refer to is also international. And again, if you're not really an expert in this field or anything, why did you choose to write the way you did? If you yourself cannot properly understand the background of the advice that is given, I think it's irresponsible to be hard-driving and sensationalizing when writing about health issues, even if you think it's just to get publicity for the sources. If you think that it's OK because the actual message ("don't worry so much") is quite mild, I disagree since very harsh comments like "your doctor's been lying to you!" can be harmful and aren't really helping anyone. If you don't have the competence, just link some stuff without saying too much about it yourself, or gain the competence by studying for some time and THEN start saying things on your own.

elhnad Wrote:Again not my intention to say what is true, that is not my intention to say eat all the saturated fat and cholesterol as possible. did it really come across as that? i just want to point out the inconsistencies of the dominant paradigm and show ppl not to be afraid of sat fat and chol

If you're referring to my disclaimer part, I only wrote that because I thought my post and this thread got pretty long and some readers, especially younger ones who haven't experienced so many waves of media onslaught about health issues, are prone to overthink things and feel overwhelmed by all these messages and things to read. Moreover, from what I understand from the comments in the blog you linked to, there's some kind of community of high fat-dieting going on with some of the people reading it so I guess I wanted to remind anyone who sees that that most of the time it's good to be moderate. Some of the commenters were reporting bad health following it, too, and well, it's not so surprising since even if we suppose the fat itself isn't bad in itself, the food you replace with fat might have been very good for you.

I hope that clears everything up.

Clinton endorsement of a vegan diet

I can't imagine a Republican would ever take such a stance as pharmaceuticals would become obsolete within a generation if people stopped believing the lie that meat/dairy is beneficial to our health.

I'm too young to be worrying about this stuff.

If you suffer from the typical hormonal highs and lows caused by the Western diet, you are not too young.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Clinton endorsement of a vegan diet

I can't imagine a Republican would ever take such a stance as pharmaceuticals would become obsolete within a generation if people stopped believing the lie that meat/dairy is beneficial to our health.

You're kidding right? So a Vegan diet would cure Cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, epilepsy, all heart diseases, all infections, etc?

Seriously?

Sounds like you're all about the Black and White propaganda and very little about facts.

It would prevent the vast majority of all those diseases from ever occurring.

bodhisamaya Wrote:It would prevent the vast majority of all those diseases from ever occurring.

This is 100% wrong.

It is absolutely 100% true. I have been exposed to people most of my adult life who enjoyed plant-based diets and never ever got sick. I have been a vegetarian for almost two decades now and have been to the doctor only once in that period, for a dental issue. All of the men in my family died of heart disease in their 30s and I assumed that would happen to me as well. This diet overcame hereditary influences. There is mounting evidence that food from animal sources is the cause of most of our preventable diseases.

You're just offering anecdotal evidence. It doesn't mean anything. You're still wrong.

What is the evidence I am wrong?

Let me wikipedia that for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism#Longevity

Nowhere in there is there a large-scale study that found any extreme positive effects of vegetarianism and after a bit of googling I could not find any highly reliable source that would show that vegetarianism is very likely to be as amazingly good as you claim. It is not, as I see it, so much a matter of finding evidence that you are mistaken as it is a matter of you having to find something to back up what sounds like near-miraculous stuff.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that it does indeed seem likely that a lot of people would be better off changing their diet to a vegetarian one and that it would be better for society. However, we really can't make sweeping statements like "Everyone should stop eating meat!" because there's too much we don't know and it's definitely possible (in fact I would be surprised if it wasn't the case) that some, maybe the majority who knows?, people benefit from eating some meat now and then. Moreover, we definitely shouldn't have too high hopes for it - there will still be plenty of diseases of all sorts and I've certainly met vegetarians who weren't feeling as super as your acquaintances. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but there's plenty of meat-eaters who are in excellent health so yeah. Be wary of confirmation bias.