I've wrote about my wife's experience with diabetes. Lately I've been thinking I really ought to add more of my own. I've been prediabetic but as I mentioned before, what really has done in so many males in my family is heart attacks - and as many of you might know, diabetes and heart attacks are closely linked! My Dad died at 44 and my brother at 50 - both from heart attacks. Another brother has six stents in him, and I had an attack 13 years ago. I don't make hdl cholesterol very easily for one thing.
I mention it again because those of us on a low carb diet have been criticized for the fat in our diets. I've addressed some of that already. And as I said before, if fat was going to kill somebody it would probably be me - I'm over a year out (make that 4 years out as of this update) since going low carb, still kicking. My triglycerides are down (which I worry more about) and my hdl cholesterol is up a bit, finally into the lower end of the acceptable range! My doctor's nurse was concerned about my LDL, but I let him know why I'm not concerned.
So I thought I would go more in-depth on why I don't worry about the fat anymore:
Q1: Regarding High Cholesterol - Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes University at 4:00 minutes he states we should be worrying more about things like lipoprotein small a, "Stop looking at cholesterol!"
Dr. Robert Lustig and friends Foodgate YouTube video 10:30 minute mark - dairy fat is protective against heart disease and diabetes (but stay away from lactose, a carbohydrate, which is normally in milk) 12:30 minute mark - we should be worrying about triglycerides 14:15 minute mark - we should be looking at the ldl particle number 16:00 minute mark - we should be worrying about our triglycerides (cause of ldl B’s?) AND hdl 17:30 minute mark - trials show statins aren’t much help and there might be a problem with rhabdomyolysis (edit 12/11/2022: also notable is he links heme iron in red meat to heart attacks at 7:00)
Low Carb Conferences Podcast with Dr. David Diamond: Statins, Cholesterol and Low Carb Diets I like this video that just recently came out. It points out statins may have their place if someone is out of shape and has been eating unhealthy, like I might have been when I had my heart attack. However the person being interviewed points out one side effect of statins might be contributing to dementia.
And if you dear reader want a history of how we got to where we are with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and yes kidney failure. Besides the documentary 'Fat Fiction' I might also suggest this article. One of the things it mentions is the epic 1950s' to the 1970s' battle between John Yudkin, a British professor of nutrition, and Ancel Keys a nutritionist at the University of Minnesota - the wrong person lost.
Some notable quotes: "France, the country with the highest intake of saturated fat, has the lowest rate of heart disease; Ukraine, the country with the lowest intake of saturated fat, has the highest"
"Years later, the (Ancel Keys's) Seven Countries study’s lead Italian researcher, Alessandro Menotti, went back to the data, and found that the food that correlated most closely with deaths from heart disease was not saturated fat, but sugar.
"A “fad” (as low-carb has been accused of) implies something new-fangled. But low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets had been popular for well over a century before Atkins (optimal protein low-carb diet), and were, until the 1960s, a method of weight loss endorsed by mainstream science."
Edit 10/8/2022: A modern day version of Ancel Keys looks to be Walter Willett of Harvard, mentioned in the documentary Fat: A Documentary 2.
