A comment on a comment that was posted today on one of our blogs .

"I don't know anyone who eats a low fat high carb diet. It's virtually impossible to drop your fat intake below say 20% without some serious planning in this society and who the hell in the general public is doing that? The well off may spend their days eating expensive cuts of wild birds and game and lean meat and chicken breasts and fresh fish at every meal but most ordinary people are consuming loads of fat because thats integral to the food they can afford, mince beef, sausages, pies, pizzas, eggs, burgers, cheese, ready meals, fish and chips, cornish pasties sausage rolls etc. , god knows what in the way of chocolate, cakes,puddings etc. are you seriously saying the obesity epidemic is due to people cutting fat out of their diet, if they replaced most of that fat with veg and fruit instead of sugar what do you think would happen, apart from the fact they would be on a low fat diet?"

This comment raises some interesting points. I reckon most people are eating a fair amount of fats, maybe more than they realise. But they are also eating one hell of a lot of refined carbs/sugar. People are eating lots of "healthy" low fat foods such as desserts and yoghurt's very often with a very high added sugar content. Very often reading "low fat" on a product means high sugar. The question arises what sort of fats are people eating. In many countries products are laced with trans fats, which are a long term known health hazard. These fats are often used in margarine, factory made cakes and biscuits etc. You also have HFCS being put into just about every food and fizzy drink in some parts of the world. In recent times people are drinking huge amounts of concentrated orange juice etc, again we see a very high fructose intake.

To conclude, most people are not eating a high healthy fats diet, the bulk of their foods are highly processed carbohydrates, very often mixed with very un-healthy fats. Many are eating too much food together with minimal physical activity. I have never said anyone can eat whatever they like in terms of calories, whatever foods they eat, and lose or maintain a healthy weight.

That being said, a calorie is not just a calorie, for people who suffer from metabolic problems, the source of calories plays a huge roll in health outcomes. It is my opinion the combination of a high fat, a high, highly processed carb diet, is the worst possible and has contributed greatly to the epidemics of obesity and its often linked type two diabetes.

The low carb diabetic fight club blog can be found here http://thelowcarbdiabetic.blogspot.co.uk/

I often go back and look at older posts, there is some good reading on our Forum. In this post High Fructose Corn Syrup was mentioned, so when I also read Dr Steve Parkers post I thought why not adjoin the two .... so to speak.

I like the picture he uses to describe 'cubes of diabetes'?

Is Excessive Fructose Consumption The Cause Of The Type 2 Diabetes ? ......writes Dr Steve Parker at his Diabetic Mediterranean Blog link here http://diabeticmediterraneandiet.com/

All the best Jan

we know low carb, high fat helps overweight folks lose weight, and the combination of high carb high fat makes us gain weight, Obviously carbs push up blood sugar so bad for diabetes, but if not diabetic carbs are still bad as high blood sugars make our pancreas work overtime producing all that insulin, so if I'm grasping this seemingly simple information, we often hear that doctors teach HCLF because they are taught it by means of dogma, then some realise (Trudi deakin? Sorry if I'm remembering her name wrong) for example that this is bad advice and switch to LCHF, my question is why if it makes so much sense to someone as uneducated as me, would someone at university studying this stuff ever be able to swallow the HCLF message and accept the dogma at all? Assuming medical students aren't being back handed by Kellogg's, how could it ever or ever had seemed to make sense? I don't get it, I can understand people that have had success with ND or portion control or whatever method has worked for them being pro that, I even understand the people with the attitude that something's gotta kill them, it may as well be carbs, but for folks that have a basic grasp of medical stuff must surely see the the obvious? How can they not? How can one single person go through medical school and come out the other side not knowing that carbs are generally bad?

Presactly @Andy12345 I couldn't have said it better myself

My son shared a house at uni with 3 medical students. They refused to let him put the heating on even when there was snow on the ground. Every time he put it on, they turned it off. He got pneumonia and I brought him home. When he was well enough he commuted (180 miles round trip) to his exams and studied at home for 6 weeks. We brought his bed down to the lounge because it was warmer than his bedroom and he needed to remain in a constant temperature.

So I don't believe we are training the right people to be doctors. I don't think they care enough to look for the truth and question what they have been taught. They were adamant that asthma inhalers were provided free of charge for all asthmatics. They wouldn't believe my son when he said they weren't.

They don't want to learn by the time they come out of med school. They know it all already.

Andy wrote, "How can one single person go through medical school and come out the other side not knowing that carbs are generally bad?"

I have a young relative, who qualified as a doctor two or three years back.  While she was studying, I asked her what she had learnt about nutrition.  I got a shocked reply, "Aunt Sally, I'm studying to be a doctor, not a dietician!"  I pursued the matter and said that I thought diet was rather an important part of health, but was told, "you can't expect people to change their lifestyles".  

So there you have it.  Food is not their business, drugs are.  

Sally

Psychologically we seem to be programmed to resist changing our minds on anything, in other words true open-mindedness and objectivity is hard work. Most people can't be bothered or think they will be humiliated. The book 'Mistakes were made - but not by me' is quite entertaining.

Makes Trudi Deakin even more remarkable in some ways.

I think what doesn't help matters is the vast amounts of conflicting medical papers/studies etc. For every new study that concludes with an X result, you can generally find a similar study which may prefer a Y result. Take statins as an example. Some much conflicting information and doctors with very different opinions. The carb message is starting to be heard though. I really believe we are turning a corner and the low carb message will grow. Then you look at fats, again, so much conflicting information. We know good fats are fine but there are still studies out there that ( wrongly ) will give a different message. Depending on who sponsors the studies can have a big impact on the results.

Sure, but it's very simple

Carbs = sugar = high blood sugar = bad

No studies needed, how could any student not just know it

I think Sally has hit the nail on the head, so I switch my question to dieticians who I assume are expected to learn the basic biology x physics and wished doctors where taught the "food is medicine"

I am not knocking Trudi btw I think she's doing a very brave thing

Unfortunately most of the medical profession either see us, or find it easier to see us, as a bunch of ignorant incompetents, who cannot be trusted to understand or take responsibility for our own health.  To them, we are like herding cats, so the only way to try and sort out our health is to prescribe us drugs, which come in nice easy fixed quantities, and tell us to take them every morning.  They have then done their bit.  If we don't do ours, it's called "non-compliance" or "denial".

A few of us, probably most of us here, do take responsibility and can occasionally build up an intelligent relationship with a doctor, but, sadly, in the overstretched NHS, we are simply an input to a set of statistics, to be dealt with in the fastest and most efficient way.  Now shut up and swallow these.

Sally

Andy12345 wrote:Sure, but it's very simple

Carbs = sugar = high blood sugar = bad

No studies needed, how could any student not just know it

I think Sally has hit the nail on the head, so I switch my question to dieticians who I assume are expected to learn the basic biology x physics and wished doctors where taught the "food is medicine"

I am not knocking Trudi btw I think she's doing a very brave thing

I agree Andy. My opinion is the docs/dieticians etc are taught to treat the masses, not people like us who actively research our condition and are happy to adapt lifestyle rather than accept meds. We are very much a minority. Many diabetics won't give up the junk. Many won't do regular exercise. I think Sally is right though, we are seen as statistics and not treated individually. I'm just giving an opinion, not trying to justify it. I still think it's wrong.