Sugar, Not Fat, Drives Heart Disease Many health experts now believe that if you are insulin or leptin resistant, as 85 percent of the US population is, you likely need anywhere from 50 to 85 percent of your daily calories in the form of healthful fats for optimal health. Research also increasingly points to refined carbohydrates (particularly processed fructose) as being the real culprit behind rising heart disease rates. In the 1960s, British physician John Yudkin was among the first to challenge Ancel Keys hypothesis that saturated fat caused heart disease by raising cholesterol, stating that SUGAR is the culprit in heart disease—not saturated fat. Unfortunately, Keys was a politically powerful figure, and it was his flawed cholesterol theory that ultimately gained firm traction within the medical establishment. By the 1970s, you were considered a total quack if you supported Yudkins sugar theory. In more recent years, Yudkins work has been proven prophetic—and far more accurate than Keys ever was. For example, a 2010 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition10 found that when you replace saturated fat with a higher carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate, you exacerbate insulin resistance and obesity, increase triglycerides and small LDL particles, and reduce beneficial HDL cholesterol. The authors state that dietary efforts to improve your cardiovascular disease risk should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intake and weight reduction. Courtesy of the low-fat myth taking firm hold, this is the polar opposite of what actually occurred over the past half century. While saturated fat consumption was dramatically reduced in most peoples diet, refined carbohydrate intake dramatically increased. Today, refined fructose is added to virtually every kind of processed food and beverage on the US market. One of the reasons for all this added sugar is because when you remove fat, you lose flavor. So sugar is used to add flavor back in. Consumption of harmful trans fat (which for decades was touted as a healthier alternative to saturated animal fat) also radically increased, starting in the mid-1950s.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 14:43:48 +0000
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