Throughout my internet travels, whilst looking up info on what happens to carbs when eaten and what Insulin does when blood sugar goes up, I come across an amazing revelation. Eating Saturated Fat is healthy for us! Who knew? Turns out a lot of people knew. Including those in a position of power when it comes to the advice given to people regarding what a nutritious diet actually is. Check out this Food Pyramid. We are told that grains should be the base of our diet. Ignoring the fact that grains, sugars and starches are all converted into glucose in the body. And that this raises blood sugar. And for diabetics needs medication to lower that blood sugar. You'll see the fatty food right there at the top. Fat doesn't clog the arteries, fat doesn't raise cholesterol. That's not how biology works. The thinking back in the day, around the 60s and chiefly by a guy called Ancel Keys and his 7 Countries Study, was that Heart Disease was caused by a high saturated fat diet. This was done by looking at the diets of these countries and coming to the conclusion that consumption of saturated fat in these countries was higher and thus had the greater number of heart disease cases, than countries that didn't have high amounts of saturated fat in their diet. The problem was that it was actually a 22 countries study. Out of the 22 countries it showed that there was no correlation between saturated fat and Heart Disease. He chose the 7 countries that gave the best graph. Money you see. What actually happens is that when consuming excess carbs your arteries can become enlarged. This as well as the carbs can cause inflammation due to the raising of blood sugar and the constant high doses of Insulin. When an artery is damaged Cholesterol comes along and repairs the damage, much like a scab on your skin. Because that scab can't simply come off (don't want that floating into the heart) the artery wall then grows over the scab. This narrows the artery over time which can lead to high blood pressure. I like this quote "Blaming Cholesterol is like blaming the firefighters who come and put out the fire". It's been shown that eating Saturated Fat, and cutting out the carbs, actually lowers LDL cholesterol which is often referred to as "bad cholesterol" and raises HDL cholesterol which is often referred to as “good cholesterol” because it is protective. That and you feel fuller for longer, fat is a cleaner longer burning fuel source. Glucose is converted to fat that is stored as a fuel in the body, and thus cutting the carbs will make our body switch to it's stored fuel source; Fat. I'd add a bunch of reference, but a simple google search on this topic will show you great results.
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Andrew CoyleI've been a Type 2 Diabetic for over 11 years, and now Insulin Dependant. I'm finally learning that the advice I've been given around nutrition and med management is wrong. Archives
September 2017
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