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Butter nonsense: the rise of the cholesterol deniers

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Matt Cycle

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Butter is back. Saturated fat is good for you. Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. Claims along these lines keep finding their way into newspapers and mainstream websites – even though they contradict decades of medical advice. There is a battle going on for our hearts and minds.

According to a small group of dissident scientists, whose work usually first appears in minor medical journals, by far the greatest threat to our hearts and vascular systems comes from sugar, while saturated fat has been wrongly demonised. And because cholesterol levels don’t matter, they argue, we don’t need the statins that millions have been prescribed to lower them. A high-fat diet is the secret to a healthy life, they say. Enjoy your butter and other animal fats. Cheese is great. Meat is back on the menu.

This is more than bad science, according to leading scientists and medical authorities. It will cost lives. “Encouraging people to eat more saturated fat is dangerous and irresponsible,” is a typical verdict, in this case from Prof Louis Levy, the head of nutrition science at Public Health England (PHE). “There is good evidence that a high intake of saturated fat increases your risk of heart disease. We need to think about where the sources of saturated fat are and how we can reduce them. The largest contributions are dairy products, including butter, and meat and meat products.”

The advice from PHE, the World Health Organization, the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Heart UK and other institutions and top academics is consistent. Butter and cheese may be fine in modest amounts in a balanced diet, but the saturated fat that they contain is potentially risky. Too much of it causes the liver to overproduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, which is implicated in heart disease.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...-nonsense-the-rise-of-the-cholesterol-deniers

I don't know what's right and wrong but yes, it's always been a balanced diet for me. I've seen advice on here telling people it's fine to eat as much butter, cheese, cream and other fats as they want. Not according to this it isn't.
 
I enjoyed reading that this morning. Gave me a laugh. The complete demolition of the LCHF diet, as originally advised. Though the full article did emphasise the point that statins work best in those with already diagnosed heart disease, or post infarct, or with a strong family history. It didn’t persuade me of the statins for everyone argument.

I think most folk on here eat low carb and normal or even reduced fat diet. Except those who use coconut milk, which is loaded with saturated fat.🙂

(Anbody who tells you that coconut milk is good saturated fat is misinformed - or fibbing)
 
A little bit of what you fancy does you good. That’s my adage, in other words....a balanced diet! Too much of anything isn’t good for you.
 
The hook is LCHF is an all you can eat buffet.
No limits, because you get satiated by the good fats.

And cholesterol is good for you.

Me, I just need to stop eating, and no, I don't want my arteries pumping cholesterol like it's the new blood.

A balanced diet works very well for me.
 
The best, most detailed & clearest survey of the evidence I've seen: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000510

American Heart Association's Presidential Advisory on Dietary Fats and CV Disease, from last year.

Taking into consideration the totality of the scientific evidence, satisfying rigorous criteria for causality, we conclude strongly that lowering intake of saturated fat and replacing it with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats, will lower the incidence of CVD. This recommended shift from saturated to unsaturated fats should occur simultaneously in an overall healthful dietary pattern such as DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) or the Mediterranean diet as emphasized by the 2013 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology lifestyle guidelines and the 2015 to 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Includes a detailed discussion of coconut oil:

A recent survey reported that 72% of the American public rated coconut oil as a “healthy food” compared with 37% of nutritionists.94 This disconnect between lay and expert opinion can be attributed to the marketing of coconut oil in the popular press. ...

However, because coconut oil increases LDL cholesterol, a cause of CVD, and has no known offsetting favorable effects, we advise against the use of coconut oil.
 
Lurpak, Blue topped milk ( or full fat ). Don’t use any low fat, diet or any other of the mental trickery they use to buy their product. The new one I see that’s popping up is protein. Protein weetabix protein porridge. To much protein is excreted into expensive urine.
My cholesterol has always been fine. Thanks to this forum and my gp. I have rejected my diabetologist’s recomendation to use statins as a preventative measure.
 
As a diabetic I try to adapt my diet to my health requirements. The Dr asks me to achieve a lower hba1c, a test every 6 months measures my progress. Once a year I get diabetic mot which checks Kidney, liver, lipid and glucose. So I can follow the results of my own experiments with food. I can confirm that switching from margarine to butter increased my hdl cholesterol and improved my ratio. Swapping carbs for LCHF (so loads of butter, nuts, olives, oily fish, double cream and cheese) has lowered trigs and maintained a good cholesterol ratio and more importantly helped reduce my hba1c.
You can do your own experiments and share the results from your yearly blood work.

I am diabetic and carbs really are my enemy.

I'm not really interested in the "ratio".
That seems to be an ingenious way to move the goalposts, and ranks with the high cholesterol is good for you graph that gets rolled out occasionally.
I can raise my HDL eating fat too, but I'll raise my LDL an awful lot more.

I look at my actual numbers, if they are in the right place, that'll do me.
And by definition, the "ratios" must be in the right place too.
So it's win win.

Am a diabetic? (well reversed anyway)
I prefer to think I'm human, with diabetes.
And a lot more things to concentrate on then Hba1c.
Mine is good, I admit, but it's not the only thing in my life.
I can't really see the point of being a corpse with the best BG in the morgue.
 
I'm not really interested in the "ratio".
That seems to be an ingenious way to move the goalposts, and ranks with the high cholesterol is good for you graph that gets rolled out occasionally.
I can raise my HDL eating fat too, but I'll raise my LDL an awful lot more.

I look at my actual numbers, if they are in the right place, that'll do me.
And by definition, the "ratios" must be in the right place too.
So it's win win.

Am a diabetic? (well reversed anyway)
I prefer to think I'm human, with diabetes.
And a lot more things to concentrate on then Hba1c.
Mine is good, I admit, but it's not the only thing in my life.
I can't really see the point of being a corpse with the best BG in the morgue.

I agree. I think it's pretty clear from the studies that once yr BG is below a certain level (say HbA1c = 7.5%/58 or thereabouts), blood pressure and lipids become increasingly more important than BG for health.

For lipids, I don't have a very clear idea of which metrics are most important, but if I had to pick, from what I've seen, I'd guess that LDL and trigs are more important than HDL and ratios - could be wrong.
 
Goal posts? Aim for the back of the net. Are you talking about football?
The reason the cholesterol ratio is measured is because it is useful.
Are you a Hba1c denier? If you don't think it's important then you are in the minority.
We will all end up in the morgue and for the majority of diabetic people the cause will not be diabetes.

What on earth is a "Hba1c denier"?
 
"And a lot more things to concentrate on then Hba1c.
Mine is good, I admit, but it's not the only thing in my life.
I can't really see the point of being a corpse with the best BG in the morgue."

Someone with a balanced lifestyle?
Erm, ok.
 
A couple of figs from the AHA piece.

First, CVD risk changes associated with different substitutes for saturated fat. Monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, carbs from whole grains all good. Transfats bad, refined carbs pretty much a wash.

upload_2018-10-31_23-23-25.png

Second, impact on lipids. On the left: Unsaturated fats and unspecified carbs all better than satfats for LDL; unsaturated better for trigs but carbs worse, versus satfats; unsaturated a little bit worse and carbs more so for HDL, versus satfats.

On the right, looking at carbs versus various satfats in more detail.
upload_2018-10-31_23-24-27.png

In general: satfats bad; unsat good; carbs, especially whole grains, generally better than satfats.
 
I've been T1 for 32 years and my last HbA1c was 42 (6.0%), my best ever - achieved on a normal veggie plant based balanced diet. This includes carbs, protein and fat. My cholesterol levels have never changed much all the time I've been diabetic and total last time was 4.3 with ideal ratios without statins. I don't eat butter, I don't even like the stuff. My diet hasn't changed much throughout the years but better technology - Libre and pump and focusing on testing has fine tuned my control.

My issue with the LCHF gurus mentioned in the articles is most of them have as much relevant medical training as me i.e. the square root of f**k all. Harcombe is an economist and that clown Noakes clearly has no clue about T1. The empirical evidence is not there. One thing they all seem to have in common though is books to sell and websites to promote.
 
I've been T1 for 32 years and my last HbA1c was 42 (6.0%), my best ever - achieved on a normal veggie plant based balanced diet. This includes carbs, protein and fat. My cholesterol levels have never changed much all the time I've been diabetic and total last time was 4.3 with ideal ratios without statins. I don't eat butter, I don't even like the stuff. My diet hasn't changed much throughout the years but better technology - Libre and pump and focusing on testing has fine tuned my control.

My issue with the LCHF gurus mentioned in the articles is most of them have as much relevant medical training as me i.e. the square root of f**k all. Harcombe is an economist and that clown Noakes clearly has no clue about T1. The empirical evidence is not there. One thing they all seem to have in common though is books to sell and websites to promote.

My other issue is when you read all the "facts" and all the "peer" reviews, you realise it's a close circle of a same group engaging in a back patting exercise, with the same articles simply being circulated around and around to sell their new book, or website subscription.
 
I can't find where I read it now - I read in the last few days a report that 50 percent of the people recorded as dying from heart attacks had below average cholesterol levels.
The truth is out there - somewhere - I just seem to have mislaid the coordinated.
 
Indeed, I miss out on the get fit, stay fit, and get loads of exercise, and I certainly wouldn’t join a religious group, I’m a rational scientist. I do know how to relax, mind, and how to stay married. Consultations free🙂
 
Cholesterol is just one risk factor. Don't smoke or drink, don't be obese, eat well, get fit, stay fit, get loads of exercise, learn how to relax, get married, join an organised religious group.

It's 10 years since I had a hba1c below 7. At that time I used to cycle 200 to 300 miles a week and was very fit. Being fit cures many ills, but takes so much time and effort.

I find all good things take effort.
That's why I worry about the free passes that some people seem to be selling.
 
I am not sure which free passes you are talking about, but if you think they are too expensive, maybe save your money.
(Free passes are not really free, someone has to fund them)

We seem to be agreeing quite a bit today
 
Always used Lurpak & been T1 for over 52 years. Keep fit & active. Eat mountains of seafood 😎
 
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