The Path to Normal Nutrition

A challenge for modern medicine: Most accepted medical treatments and surgeries lack evidence for being effective:

According to the analysis, which analyzed evidence for thousands of medical treatments, there was “evidence of some benefit”  for slightly more than 40% of the treatments, while about 3% were ineffective or harmful, and 6% were found to be unlikely to be helpful.

We don’t know the effectiveness of a ‘whopping 50%’ of clinical treatments. So why do doctors use them? (Advisory Board, August 27, 2019)

Well, 40% getting on base is good in baseball, but you’d think medical treatments would have a higher batting average. Similar stories unfold in the world of nutrition and public health. People struggling with obesity and type 2 diabetes are told to “eat less and exercise more.” Those struggling to lose weight are told they are to blame (or “society” is). But this is so not true. Overweight people have a metabolic problem, and better advice would be to eat less of the wrong foods: carbohydrates in general, and especially sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and over-sweet fruits like oranges and bananas.

Federal dietary guidelines call for reducing saturated fat but this is misguided and outdated advice. Leading Scientists Agree: Current Limits on Saturated Fats No Longer Justified (Nutrition Coalition, February 25, 2020), reports:

Following a two-day, DC-based workshop entitled “Saturated Fats: A Food or Nutrient Approach?” a group of leading nutrition scientists, mainly from the U.S., released a consensus statement detailing their findings on the latest research regarding the intake of saturated-fats and heart disease. After reviewing the evidence, the expert group agreed that the most rigorous and current science fails to support a continuation of the government’s policy limiting consumption of saturated fats. 

Mainstream doctors and nutritionists seem to be batting well under 40% with off-base advice for Americans struggling with obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and many other chronic health conditions.

What good fortune, then, that you’ve stumbled upon some unknown blogger who knows all the experts are wrong! Well, that’s what the Internet is for… Just kidding. I don’t know all the answers and don’t have miracle diets to recommend. Instead, I recommend researching nutritional science and economics.

Special interest groups can gain control of government agencies and research funding and make it hard for new discoveries (or old discoveries) to compete on a level scientific research playing field. (To jump ahead in the story, see research documented on the Nutrition Coalition website. See the ongoing debates on The Science Behind the Dietary Guidelines: Is It Sound?)

Doctors on Vacation from Down Under Launch Low-Carb Conferences
Over the last five years tens of thousands have discovered get healthier by cutting sugar and other carbohydrates and turning instead to more healthy fats and protein. “Low-carb” might better be called “less carb” since today’s “low-carb” meals have the carb/fat balance American meals normally had before the federal government began the public health campaign to reduce fat, especially saturated fats. Decades of promoting low-fat foods, and pushing the food industry to roll out thousands of low-fat meals and snacks contributed to increased obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. These chronic conditions follow years of metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance.

Some years ago, doctors from “down under” on Colorado ski vacations launched a series of small then larger medical conferences in nutrition. Mixing education with vacations allows tax write-offs as well as fun learning adventures.

From its humble origins, Low Carb Conferences began as an educational winter event held up in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Due to continued growth and demand, these conferences moved to the Denver Metro area. Our annual educational event continues to address the latest in low carb nutrition.

Earlier Economic Thinkng posts link to the many “low-carb” conferences and associations, videos, and documentaries. These include Low Carb Down Under on YouTube, DietDoctor and Diet Doctor Podcast, Low Carb MD Podcast, Low Carb USA, Crossfit Health, Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners and many, many, others.

Poor Metabolic Health, Chronic Conditions, an Open Door for Severe Covid
Critics of government restrictions on testing, equipment, and treatments for the virus note nearly all with severe symptoms suffer from poor metabolic health. Their metabolic systems are already inflamed (by insulin resistance) allowing infections to set off a series of damaging responses by the immune system. Nina Teicholz of the Nutrition Coalition discusses the connection in A Low-Carb Strategy for Fighting the Pandemic’s Toll (WSJ, May 30, 2020) and more recently Dr. Georgia Ede explains in Nutrition Can Strengthen the Immune System to Fight COVID-19 (Psychology Today, March 12, 2021):

• Obesity, high blood pressure, and type two diabetes may raise the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19, research suggests.
• Eating a whole foods diet and monitoring blood sugar may help maintain metabolic health.
• Diet and metabolic health can strengthen the immune system to fight COVID-19 and other viral infections.

Reducing carbohydrates can be part of any diet:

Carbohydrate restriction is safe for almost everyone, but do not start a low-carbohydrate diet without learning more and discussing it with your doctor first, especially if you take prescription medications, have health problems, or are currently ill with COVID-19 or any other infection. The good news is that Mediterranean, paleo, vegan, and vegetarian diets can all be modified to be lower in carbohydrate, so you can tailor this approach to your personal dietary preferences.

Nutrition Can Strengthen the Immune System to Fight COVID-19 (Psychology Today, March 12, 2021)

Again, a “low-carb diet” is not so much a diet (since people eat until full), and the “diet” is more a return to normal: to the eggs, butter, whole fat milk and other foods Americans consumed before politicians and public health officials launched the low-fat crusade of the 1970s and 80s.

We were slender then and metabolically healthy from normal nutrition. People ate less often–two or three meals and few snacks. (Before snack industry advertising dollars and funded studies promoted benefits from more small meals and snacks.) With less carbs and fewer promoted salted and sugared snacks, people felt fewer cravings (though children and teenagers then as now would impatiently insist they were “starving!”)

Recent nutritional research and clinical experience is helping thousands lose weight and reverse (or put into remission) their Type 2 diabetes. This is very good news, since the majority of Americans and Europeans now have or are on the path to diabetes and other chronic health conditions. These conditions–cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes–follow decades of poor metabolic health. For an overview see, LCHF treatment of obesity and metabolic syndrome (DietDoctor, February 3, 2016)

Insulin resistance develops in many people from eating too many carbohydrates too often. Eating less often doesn’t require will power (though will power can be handy). Instead, appetite is naturally satisfied by foods rich in healthy fats. Low-carb healthy fat meals are more nutrient dense and filling than low-fat high-carb diets that tend to bring cravings.

Which is healthier: oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast or bacon and eggs? Well maybe it’s a trick question because it might also be better to lengthen the “fast” and wait until afternoon. Breakfast bars, sugary cereals, pop tarts, and other sweet high-carb snacks can taste good but make most people soon crave more. These snacks and high-carb meals cause glucose spikes in the bloodstream which are quickly sequestered as fat by an insulin surge. Unlike the slow process of metabolizing healthy fat, people feel famished not long after sugar and carb meals and snacks.

Snack cravings can be good business for companies making and marketing snacks, but not good for metabolic health. A cup of black coffee is enough for some in the morning (or coffee with some half and half or coconut oil). There’s No Real Reason to Eat 3 Meals a Day (The Atlantic, March 5, 2021) notes:

Industrialized food processing began to provide an array of products marketed as quick-and-easy breakfast foods—products that had never previously existed but whose ubiquity accelerated after World War II. Industrialized breakfasts such as cornflakes and instant oatmeal make for meals that are generally small and nutritionally hollow, which meant that people then needed to eat again during the day before commuting home for a later dinner, which was—and often still is—important for its role in family social life.

We are each biochemically unique. Just as we look different on the outside, and are different inside, though similar (for example, our hearts are not all in the same place and our intestines are different lengths). Our internal microbiomes (gut bacteria and other microbes) are also unique and respond to nutrients differently. So the quest for a “normal” nutrition or even “amazing” nutrition will be an individualized project of research as well as trial and error. What I’m recommending in the above paragraphs of notes and links is to research nutritional claims and studies. Trust the experts, but verify too.

Recent overview video: Notes on Monitoring Metabolic Health