Lacking Nutrition Knowledge, 88 Million Inflamed

Americans are inflamed! From the campaigns and elections, social and news media anger, lockdowns, and the battered economy. But what if this inflammation is caused as much by poor nutrition as upsetting news? Studies find just 12 percent of Americans are metabolically healthy. Consuming foods with too much sugar and carbohydrates can cause glucose and insulin spikes, then over time insulin resistance followed by a host of chronic conditions.

Each of our genetics, internal biochemistry, microbiome, and metabolism are unique, with different nutritional responses and interactions. How can we discover how our body responds to macronutrients, food pairing, timing, and stress? Short answer: CGM, a Continuous Glucose Monitor, worn now by many monitoring type 1 and type 2 diabetes. But 90 million more, at least, should consider gathering CGM data. The CDC (though not recommending CGM) reports:

Prediabetes is a serious health condition where blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough yet to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes. Approximately 88 million American adults—more than 1 in 3—have prediabetes. Of those with prediabetes, more than 84% don’t know they have it. Prediabetes puts you at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Advice the CDC and other government websites promote to medical and nutritional professionals and to the general public is seen by nutrition researchers to make these conditions worse rather than better. Consider the USDA’s Choose My Plate website. It’s all about increasing fruit and fruit juice (so more sugar), plus carbs from grains and whole grains (so more sugar), and reducing fat: Choose My Plate says to choose lean (lower fat) meat and lower-fat dairy: ‘Dairy – Move to low-fat or fat-free milk or yogurt…” Alternate perspective from National Institutes of Health “People really should be encouraged to eat healthy fats…” and not “unhealthy fats” though these are hard to define. “Recent studies suggest that some full-fat dairy products, such as yogurt, may actually have benefits for the heart…” say NIH, but USDA Choose My Plate site still recommends low-fat and no-fat dairy.

But high quality peer-reviewed nutrition research finds little support for reducing fat in the diet. Critics say the federal government push for reducing fat actually led to surge in obesity and diabetes (plus cardiovascular disease and perhaps increased cancer too). The 2020 documentary Fat Fiction explains the history, nutritional science, and research.

I discuss and recommend organizations and websites in this video (prepared for debate students), Nutrition, Basic Needs, Migration, take two.

From Fit to Fat, Food Pyramid to Food Plate
Long-standing but misguided federal nutrition policies shifted western diets to the low-fat high-carb food pyramid. Federal agencies pushed the food industry to develop and market low-fat foods and snacks. It was a food emergency, so they thought. The feds called for a lockdown on fatty foods and promoted eating healthy with more fruits and veggies, whole grains, plus lots of high-carb snacks labeled “healthy” but not healthy for most. Frying with animal fats was replaced with frying with industrial seed oils (the negative description of vegetable oils). That’s why McDonald’s french fries used to taste much better. These processed high-carb foods cause insulin surges and eventually resistance, metabolic inflammation in body and brain.

Cooking oil nutritional research continues to be controversial. Animal Or Vegetable? The Debate About Healthy Fats Continues (Forbes, April 16, 2013), reviews the interesting history. The goal was to lower cholesterol, so the push was on to switch to cooking with vegetable oils. Results from the main government study on 9,400 starting in the late 60s were never released :

A team at the NIH, the University of North Carolina and several other universities uncovered the entire data set and ran the stats again, seeing that some had been omitted. The reconsidered results were strange: People who ate vegetable oils had lower cholesterol, but also had a significantly higher risk of heart attack. …
“Altogether, this research leads us to conclude that incomplete publication of important data has contributed to the overestimation of benefits–and the underestimation of potential risks–of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid,”

America’s SAD (Standard American Diet) followed misguided federal nutrition standards that pushed the public to low-fat, high sugar and high carb foods, which caused an increase in metabolic disease, increased cardiovascular syndrome, obesity, and diabetes. (Only 12 percent of American adults are metabolically healthy, study finds, Science Daily, November 28, 2018)

Some people can lose weight and get healthy on low-fat diets, but most studies find far more reduce weight by cutting carbs and sugar and increasing animal or plant fat in their diet. Eating fat doesn’t make you fat, but carbs and sugar can for a variety of interconnected metabolic reasons, most turning on the role of insulin and the development over time of insulin resistance. Medical researchers still disagree on the process of insulin resistance.  What you need to know about insulin resistance, (DietDoctor.com, updated July 7, 2020) explains the condition and notes:

On the basis of NHANES 2003-2006 data, the prevalence of the insulin resistance syndrome (AKA metabolic syndrome) in the United States is 34%.1 When we look at people with obesity, the numbers get worse. Insulin resistance can be found in over 50% of obese adolescents and 70% of obese women. Among adults with type 2 diabetes, the prevalence of insulin resistance rises to over 80%

People with inflamed metabolic systems, insulin-resistance, are far more likely to suffer severe and critical cases of Covid-19. See: Link found between metabolic syndrome and worse COVID-19 outcomes (Medical News Today, September 1, 2020)

Until recently most believed type 2 diabetes was a chronic condition that could not be reversed (or put into remission), but could only be controlled with an array of medications. However, over the last five years, thousands of doctors and patients have lost weight, reversed their diabetes (or put it into remission) and reduced or discontinued their diabetes medications by changing what they eat. Not starving themselves or suffering with strange and tasteless foods, but just eating more healthy fats and far less carbohydrates and sugar.

The Fat Fiction documentary (trailer below) introduces these growing nutrition and health advances. And broader research is compiled on the Nutrition Coalition website .

Mental Health Problems from Poor Nutrition Too
People metabolically inflamed from eating the wrong macronutrients suffer a range of physical and mental conditions. Americans who are metabolically unhealthy also have brains struggling to deal with poor nutrition. Many people are in pain physically and mentally from eating the wrong foods. Consider Dr Georgia Ede’s Psychology Today posts and YouTube video on “the growing global mental health crisis and the importance of nutrition in maintaining a healthy mind.” (link to DenverDietDoctor.com page).

Misguided Public Health Guidelines, from Diet to Lockdowns
Public health fears can be ramped up by claims, stories, and research emphasizing some risks but not including or measuring others. Is food safe enough? Air and water? How about leaving your house to work, shop, or vote?

States governed by the “better safe than sorry” party are masked and partly locked down. States governed by the other party (the better “sorry than safe” party?) are open and mostly rely on voluntary social measures. Texas, Florida, South Dakota, and other states run by the “sorry” party have mostly open economies (though with new restrictions now as hospitalizations rise in November). How do their Covid hospitalization and death rates compare to states run by the “safe” party? Their economies are stronger because residents enjoy more economic freedom, but are they risking their lives to work, socialize and shop, masked or not? (This research is left for the reader who will find advocates and critics on both sides.)

However the pandemic and lockdown realities and policies shift over time, Americans and Europeans remain metabolically unhealthy. Chronic conditions are causing vast suffering and most health care costs in the Americas and in Europe. Researching nutrition (discussed my nutrition and basic needs video above) led me to changes what what foods I ate and how often. Knowledge about nutrition influenced my behavior and my appetite. Though I never “went on a diet” my behavior was influenced by medical and nutritional videos, podcasts, and research. More information in other Economic Thinking posts on nutrition and public health.