Stop Counting Calories! Focus on Nutritional Value of Food, Say Experts

According to an editorial recently published in the online journal Open Heart, it’s time to stop calorie counting and start focusing on the nutritional value of food.

Doctors James DiNicolantonio and Aseem Malhotra and professor Simon Capewell suggested that a change in dietary outlook could rapidly cut the incidences of cardiovascular disease. Researchers argued that dietary changes can rapidly improve health on a population level.

For instance, researchers explained that increasing omega-3 fatty acid intake from fatty fish, nuts, and olive oil has been associated with lower death rate from all causes, including cardiovascular disease, and a reduced risk of stroke and heart attack, within months of the diet change. On the other hand, daily consumption of a 150-calorie sugary drink is linked with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

The editorial suggests that clinicians have failed to switch their perception since there is an excessive focus on food calorie content from weight loss and food industries, despite the increasingly growing amount of evidence that promotes the importance of the overall nutritional content of food.

The article also cited the Action for Health in Diabetes trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013. The 13.5-year study revealed that a low-calorie diet that included high levels of physical activity could not decrease cardiovascular death risk, although lifestyle and diet changes resulted in weight loss.

Evidence suggests that poor diet is the cause of disease and death more than the combination of smoking, alcohol consumption, and the lack of physical activity. The researchers believe that certain policies might help achieve rapid disease reductions, such as government subsidies to allow for the affordability of vegetables, fruits, and nuts; tighter control on junk food marketing; and the request for taxing sugar drinks.

The researchers conclude that, “Recommending a high fat Mediterranean type diet and lifestyle to our patients, friends and families might be a good place to start.”

http://www.doctorshealthpress.com/health-news/stop-counting-calories-focus-on-nutritional-value-of-food-say-experts

Sources for Today’s Article:
Malhotra, A., et al., “It is time to stop counting calories, and time instead to promote dietary changes that substantially and rapidly reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality,” Open Heart 2015; 2: doi: 10.1136/openhrt-2015-000273

“Shift focus from calorie counting to nutritional value for heart health, say experts,” ScienceDaily web site, August 26, 2015; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150826204214.htm

The Look AHEAD Research Group, “Cardiovascular Effects of Intensive Lifestyle Intervention in Type 2 Diabetes,” The New England Journal of Medicine 2013; 369: 145–154, doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1212914.

Brilliant!

"The 13.5-year study revealed that a low-calorie diet that included high levels of physical activity could not decrease cardiovascular death risk, although lifestyle and diet changes resulted in weight loss."

Someone somewhere is thinking "if they'd continued for another six months they'd have nailed it"

lol Someone should tell Sid! Lord knows I've tried.

Honestly, they complain that low carb diets should not be attempted because they have never had a long term trial. (Apart from millions of years of evolution of course).

Then a 13 1/2 year study fails to come up with the goods but this doesn't stop them.

They are deluding themselves because they don't want to follow a low carb diet themselves! So they make excuses that it's not healthy. It would be more honest to say "I don't have the willpower" or whatever....but no, this way they feel justified in following whatever eating plan they favour. That's fine, but it's the people they are misleading that I feel sorry for.

Ever think they have noticed their diet isn't working, but instead of blaming the diet and trying something else like rational people, they blame the people who AREN'T following their diet for it not working for them . . .

chris c wrote:Ever think they have noticed their diet isn't working, but instead of blaming the diet and trying something else like rational people, they blame the people who AREN'T following their diet for it not working for them . . .

lol Surely no-one's that twisted?.....Oh wait ......I think I know one who is!

Only one? You were lucky . . .

 . . . the likes of dieticians are so unobservant that they completely failed to notice that all the dire consequences they predicted never occurred, yet it is only since low fat diets were invented that there have been the "epidemics" of metabolic disease, which were previously rare and partly/largely due to ageing. Someone like Aseem Malhotra comes along and points this out and they go on the defensive. You'd almost think they were being paid to be stupid. Oh, wait a minute . . .

chris c wrote:Only one? You were lucky . . .

 . . . the likes of dieticians are so unobservant that they completely failed to notice that all the dire consequences they predicted never occurred, yet it is only since low fat diets were invented that there have been the "epidemics" of metabolic disease, which were previously rare and partly/largely due to ageing. Someone like Aseem Malhotra comes along and points this out and they go on the defensive. You'd almost think they were being paid to be stupid. Oh, wait a minute . . .

No surely not? You mean they lie to us ...because they are paid to do so? Who would have thought that, eh?

Their sponsors

chris c wrote:because they have never had a long term trial. (Apart from millions of years of evolution of course).

Nice one, I must remember that line 

Some of the Ancestral Health people, from Weston A Price to Loren Cordain, and many others, have found various cultures which still remain healthy on relatively high carb diets. But just like the Inuit they are made ill by modern diets, so a big question becomes "what are they eating now that they weren't eating then?"

This gives rise to the "Neolithic Agents of Disease" mainly wheat, sugar/HFCS, Omega 6 oils in excess, especially when laced with trans fats, and probably soy.

No prizes for guessing what agricultural crops most governments subsidise.

Interesting study from 1956

"CALORIE INTAKE IN RELATION TO
BODY-WEIGHT CHANGES IN THE OBESE"

http://www.paunchiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Kekwick-Pawan-1956-Lancet.pdf

Graham, Thank you for posting the link to the 1956 article from The Lancet - fascinating reading in more ways than one.
To think that it had all been worked out and demonstrated, before many here were even out of nappies and probably not born.  Quite simply, cutting down on carbs, rather than fats or protein helps with weight loss.
But another aspect, which I found fascinating, was the style of writing and presentation.  Everything was plainly and simply expressed, none of the obfuscation, twisting and turning and bending over backwards which makes modern papers so difficult to get to the bottom of.  I did also rather like, or was at least amused by the plain speaking.  I don't think BMI had been invented then and an insurance company definition of obesity was used, but was further qualified by, "…. all the persons chosen …… were manifestly obese, and this description could not have been questioned either by skilled or by lay observers.".  In other words, "anyone would look at this lot and agree they were fat"!
The other remark, which had me ROFLOL, was,
"In such a study the difficulties are formidable.  the first and main hazard was that many of these patients had inadequate personalities.  At worst they would cheat and lie, obtaining food from visitors …….."   How refreshing, compared with the prissy, "non-compliant" of current parlance.  Call a spade a spade, I say!
Despite changes in attitude, and also partly because of them, I would strongly recommend reading this piece.
Sally

Sally wrote:Graham, Thank you for posting the link to the 1956 article from The Lancet - fascinating reading in more ways than one.
To think that it had all been worked out and demonstrated, before many here were even out of nappies and probably not born.  Quite simply, cutting down on carbs, rather than fats or protein helps with weight loss.
But another aspect, which I found fascinating, was the style of writing and presentation.  Everything was plainly and simply expressed, none of the obfuscation, twisting and turning and bending over backwards which makes modern papers so difficult to get to the bottom of.  I did also rather like, or was at least amused by the plain speaking.  I don't think BMI had been invented then and an insurance company definition of obesity was used, but was further qualified by, "…. all the persons chosen …… were manifestly obese, and this description could not have been questioned either by skilled or by lay observers.".  In other words, "anyone would look at this lot and agree they were fat"!
The other remark, which had me ROFLOL, was,
"In such a study the difficulties are formidable.  the first and main hazard was that many of these patients had inadequate personalities.  At worst they would cheat and lie, obtaining food from visitors …….."   How refreshing, compared with the prissy, "non-compliant" of current parlance.  Call a spade a spade, I say!
Despite changes in attitude, and also partly because of them, I would strongly recommend reading this piece.
Sally

Indeed, and the benefits  of lower carb goes back much further.

"The first low-carbohydrate diet book was written in 1863 by William Banting as a service to his fellow Man. His name passed into the language as the verb 'to bant'.

That the 'Banting diet' works has been attested to by 140 years of epidemiological studies and clinical trials.

For the sake of our health, it is time we started 'banting' again."

More on this item here http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/banting.html#.VegqqCgViko

Of course back in those days there were was not a multitude of drugs and get rich quick merchants to contend with. People were dumb enough to believe in good old common sense and dumped the foods that made them over weight or ill.

Check out Diabetic Cookery Recipes And Menus by Rebecca W Oppenheimer printed 1917

Free to read on line here http://archive.org/stream/diabeticcookeryr00oppeiala#page/12/mode/2up

Yes so much stuff which was well known in the past has been forgotten in the meantime.

John Yudkin's Pure White And Deadly and T L (Peter) Cleave's The Saccharine Disease are available in full on the internet should you wish to read entire books. Who is it that Eddie quotes from back then?

All bulldozed out of sight by Ancel Keys and the low fat bollocks.