Upgrades to the new food guidelines….

Today's Post:  Thursday, 1-21-2016

Dr Katz had an article on Linkedin on the new food guidelines that basically said industry had watered them down although they were better than the old ones.

Then he provided a link to the actual research paper that was done.  It’s huge and hard to navigate without a hard copy.

But I was able to find most of their most important findings.

This is the comment I left for people reading his article.

The research report shows the researchers got some things exactly right; and the recent research I’ve read strongly supports their findings.  And, I say so.

But they failed to read the recent research on saturated fats and whole grains – or they didn’t include it in hopes industry would allow much of what they got right to make it to the guidelines.

This post has that too in detail!

1.  I read through the main conclusions of the actual report and found they clearly got a great deal right:

They found that people have been getting too little of vitamins A, both provitamin A in carotenes from plants and retinol from animal sources, vitamin D3, real natural forms of vitamin E from foods, vitamin C, & Folate from foods (NOT folic acid); and too little magnesium, fiber, and potassium.

They found that to reach these goals people need to eat far more vegetables and more fruit.

They also found, as other research suggests, that the Mediterranean, DASH, and vegetarian diets in versions with lots of vegetables and fruit, legumes (beans & lentils), raw nuts for those not allergic, and seafood including fish except for the vegan vegetarians -- are best able to provide the foods needed but not enough people eat that way now.

They found that people eat far too much sugar and refined grains, which tends to cause obesity and disease. In particular, they found sugar sweetened drinks to be a big contributor to this.

And, they found that the average person consumes too much salt.

They found the scientific evidence strongly supported more vegetables and fruit and less sugar.

(The evidence is that eating 6 or more vegetables other than potatoes a day and at least one whole fruit prevents heart disease and strokes AND cuts the death rate from any cause by a significant amount.  So, eating more of them than most people do now IS very strongly supported!)

(Sugar higher than 5% of calories and even more so ANY high fructose corn syrup is now a known cause of heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases as well as obesity and diabetes. So eating way less sugar than now and no high fructose corn syrup is very strongly supported also.)

Despite missing that they cause obesity as well, they note that artificial sweeteners do increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

2.  They missed or totally got wrong many of the things they state unfortunately. 

This may be in part to avoid the political interference established industries would throw up to getting the points through that they did get right.

But part of it is they have not read the new information that shows much of the rest is simply not so or leaves out critically important and known studies.

This means that they are perpetuating many myths now proven wrong in a way likely to harm the health of the people who follow what are otherwise good guidelines.

a) They missed that the monosaturated oils in nuts provide the several forms of vitamin E they say are undersupplied. 

But more importantly, they missed that these oils from nuts AND extra virgin olive oil have been shown to be health protective directly as a major source of the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet.

Worse, they do not cover at all that using extra virgin olive oil enables NOT using the high omega 6 oils from corn, soy, safflower, and canola that cause chronic high inflammation implicated as a significant cause of heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and many cancers.

b) Similarly they do not say that even whole grains should be consumed very little due to their extremely high and pro-inflammatory omega 6 oil content and lack of the potassium that is even more under-supplied than they suggest.

They don’t say that even whole grains tend to cause obesity and diabetes because they spike blood sugar more than sugars!

Worse, they do not say that hybrid wheat also DOES cause gluten problems in many people and, much worse, tends to cause obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in everyone.

(They do say people eat way too much refined grains; and most of those ARE wheat.)

c) They note that adults can drink alcohol in light moderation. 

But they miss that the red wine in the Mediterranean diet is the most heart protective alcoholic drink AND provides nutrients that have been found to mostly turn off the carcinogenic effect of alcohol in other drinks.

d) It is true that the fat in meats and dairy most people have access to are harmful which explains the good record of the DASH diet recommending things like very lowfat dairy such as no fat cottage cheese and Greek yogurt and skinless chicken breast.

BUT the report says that is because of the saturated fat not eaten.  We now know this is false.

The reason is that factory farmed animals are fed grains that are conventionally grown with herbicides and pesticides AND are sky high in the very pro-inflammatory omega 6 oils AND contain bioconcentrated herbicides and pesticide as well.

Animal protein sources such as whole milk, cheese, butter, meat, poultry, and eggs where the animals are fed only unpolluted sources of their natural diet such as ONLY grass and organic hay and sprouts or fed on pasture where they move around instead of being penned up have saturated fat to be sure;

-- but their fat and saturated fats have been shown to be heart healthy and prevent obesity BETTER than the nonfat and super low fat versions.  (Naturally fed animals ARE naturally leaner than factory farmed animals.)

It is true that monosaturated oils and the foods they are from may be even better for you; and such naturally fed animal foods should be minimized a bit for cost and environmental reasons. 

But their saturated fat is quite safe to eat on its own. And when eaten with lots of organic vegetables and some fruit and legumes and nuts, it creates a diet that tends to keep people healthy and NOT obese.

Bottom line: fats from factory farmed animals overfed grains ARE harmful due to their extremely high and pro-inflammatory omega 6 oils. 

Saturated fat from animals that are only naturally fed is NOT harmful. It even has some benefits!

e) One kind of fat they do say is harmful and to be avoided, sometimes classifying it with saturated fat, is hydrogenated oils.

Hydrogenated oils are a direct cause of heart disease and other blood vessel diseases that cut circulation all over the body not just in the heart.

They are so harmful that no one should ever eat any of them.  The research is quite clear on that and his been for many years.

But it’s far worse than that, because eating less hydrogenated oils instead of none, is just as harmful because they are processed so slowly in the body that they have a half life of several days.

That means that after a few weeks of eating a small amount of hydrogenated oils every day the amount causing harm builds up enough in the body to be extremely harmful.

That means that the only safe intake of hydrogenated oils is zero!

That’s critically important to know.  And, if they had it in the report at all, for sure they DID NOT put it with the other guidelines of that much importance.

Overall their report is a big step forward; but it could have been much better if it included more of the recent and even older science instead of the old conventional wisdom that has been proven wrong!