So there’s a study out claiming that a low-carb diet is better for weight loss and heart health than a low-fat diet.
It’s making major headlines, but apparently most folks haven’t actually studied the study.
In today’s vlog I discuss this hilariously bad piece of…scientific research.
One more thing I inadvertently left out. Dr Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn have both published studies demonstrating that a healthy, low-fat, plant-based, whole foods diet can clinically reverse advanced heart disease. To my knowledge, there are no comparable studies showing a reversal of advanced heart disease with a low-carb diet.
Watch my interview with Dr. Esselstyn here
Read Dr. Esselstyn’s heart disease reversal study here
And if you or someone you care about has heart disease, buy his book!
(It has over 700 5-star reviews on amazon)
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn MD
Here’s Dr. David Katz’s insightful commentary on the low fat vs low carb study
Am I biased toward a lower fat diet?
Yeah you could say that. For a few reasons. Fat only comprises about 23% of my daily caloric intake, and those are primarily fats from almonds, walnuts, flax, chia, hemp, avocados, the occasional coconut, and little to no oils. So I’m thriving on a diet that is pretty low in fat. Beyond that, the vast majority of people I know who healed cancer with nutrition did it with a whole foods plant-based diet that was low in fat as well. A prime example is The Gerson Therapy, which is one of the most effective time-tested nutrition protocols to heal cancer, and is also very low in fat. No oils are allowed except flax oil.
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This Post Has 22 Comments
Hey Chris – thanks for dissecting the research and making these great points. However, I think you missed a caveat at the end! I love that you pointed out that in order to have a high-quality evaluation of low-fat vs. low-carb, you would ideally have a low-fat diet that was whole-foods, plant-based, and high in natural carbs. You failed to mention that you should also have a whole-foods, plant-based low-carb diet based in natural sources as well! It should go both ways. :)
Absolutely!
I think this is also a matter of genetics. Some peoples are naturally healthier on a ketogenic-type diet, such as Eskimos, where there isn’t much vegetation to be had. On the other hand, some do better with completely plant-based. I think all of it is very individual. Also, when some people say not to eat low-fat, I think what they’re saying is don’t eat low-fat processed foods, because the fat on those is replaced by a ton of sugar.
Great job Chris! I love your frustration and passion! lol But yes this study was basically just more evidence that these “doctors” have no idea what they are doing. I dont trust most doctors as far as I can throw them. It’s frustrating how much weight these dumb studies carry with the American public.
Chris did you read The Perfect Health Diet by Paul Jaminet? If yes what do you think about it?
Yes I’d like to know his opinion on it also
Haven’t read it
What about a more plant based ketogenic diet? Low carb is about the only way I can ever lose weight. I currently eat lots of coconut oil, hemp hearts, avocadoes, walnuts, almonds and grass fed eggs and meats.
Not only did a ketogenic diet bring me to the healthiest place I have ever been in my 63 years – no inflammation, no migraines, no itchy skin, no arthritis, but it helped starve my tumors. Why so angry that there is another way to cure cancer? Just because it isn’t your way?
Actually – I was emboldened to write after reading David’s post. This is not a response to his post. Sorry.
I’m not sure who you think is angry, but I’m certainly not. Good for you Arita!
Hey David, in my opinion, the more plants the better. :) Just keep a close eye on your blood work. Once a year would be good.
Chris, can you please please do a similar hatchet job with the CHINA STUDY…you would bless a lot of people and ( rightly) upset even more..I can see the houmous hitting the fan already..
A real lack of integrity here. Which unfortunately clouds our trust in any medical study when given the true statistics. You’re absolutely right, you can eat a diet of twinkles and lose weight if your calories are less than normal. Of course you’ll feel like death but you’ll be thinner! I believe in a low carb eating habit but not altogeher. The refined, unnatural carbs I don’t eat. But the wonderful carbs in vegetables, pure grains and some fruits, nuts and seeds. If it is adulterated by man it’s most likely trash food.
Hi Chris,
While the study belongs in the junk category, your argument may confuse the average reader/listener. As Dr. David Katz suggests..there are certainly good, bad and ugly fats. There are also good, bad and ugly carbs. Low carb doesn’t automatically mean “high fat” and it certainly doesn’t mean high “bad” and/or “ugly” fat. Low carb is not outdated and I can produce a number of well-designed studies and articles by some very well respected peers explaining the premise. Implying that cutting fat and carbs by the same percentage will produce comparable results in fat loss is irresponsible. Implying the weight loss seen in the study is a calorie dependent issue and that the types of carbs consumed by someone trying to lose weight is irrelevant in weight loss is irresponsible also. It sounds like you may have made assumptions about what the subjects were eating on a daily basis too, which is information that is not known to us through the study.
Reversal of heart disease and prevention of heart disease are not the same. Low carb and ketogenic are also not the same. Low fat and plant based are not a package deal either. The only diet that is truly outdated is the one that is said to be best for all people. People may walk away from this thinking that low carb is somehow inferior to low fat for either prevention or reduction of heart risk, or for fat loss. None of the above are true for all or even most people.
Thanks for the excellent commentary, Chris. It’s upsetting how much money is wasted on studies with no real point to make.
Another study to get people to drop the evil carbs and keep eating unhealthy fats! Thanks for breaking this down. Totally sharing.
Chris, Have you read Wheat Belly by William Davis or Grain Brain by Perlmutter?
I agree that this particular study was flawed but at the same time I read that you are not into high fat diets, but does that mean you are into to high Carb diets? I was at the San Diego Cancer conference and listened to your presentation:)
I admire your guts and determination in fighting colon cancer without chemo. Colon cancer is truly a very scary cancer.
I am new to your blog and so I need to first ask you some questions:) Do you include wheat which contains the carbohydrate amylopectin A group in your diet? Do you include potato starches, corn starches tapioca starches or rice starches from the amylopectin B carbohydrate group? What about legumes and beans from the amylopectin C group?
About what percentage of fruits,greens, and other veggies do you eat?
My research has shown that there is not a big question over the percentage of protein. I do not see any major disagreements over the need for cruciferous vegetables, What I do see is a major rift between two major schools of thought as far as fats versus carbohydrates.
For as long as I can remember I was told how bad fats were and how good whole grains were. In 1985 I was following the Rotation Diet by Dr. Martin Katahn whose basic motto was “Eat less fat and walk”. Whole wheat breads and other grains were given the green light by the USDA and anyone who has ever seen the food pyramid remembers that the bottom of the pyramid was devoted to whole grains. At the very tip top of the food pyramid were the fats and it was very small in size indicating of course that fats were to be consumed only in small amounts.
Ok, so now when we go into any grocery stores we see non-gluten breads, cookies, pastries and on and on so apparently something seems amiss with wheat.
So more than likely you have indeed read Davis’ book Wheat Belly and even Perlmutter’s book, Grain Brain. And both of these men absolutely agree that today’s dwarf wheat is extremely dangerous and not just because of Gliadin found in gluten which destroys the tight junctions that hold small intestine lining cells apart and contributes heavily to “leaky gut”. I am also sure that you know about the connection between celiac disease and gluten and perhaps you also know that gluten may even have adverse effects on everyone, whether they tested positive for gluten antibodies or not.
If gliadin in gluten, was not bad enough there is the fact that while whole wheat flour has a 72 glycemic Index, White flour has a 69 GI and sucrose table sugar has 59 GI. I have not idea where you stand on wheat so if you already agree with what I am laying out, my apologies:) The big deal of high glycemic indexes has to do with glucose spikes that arise because the higher the glycemic Index number, the faster the carbohydrate is broken down from its branched state to the individual glucose units that make up carbohydrates. Most of us already know that a diet with a lot of sugar in it is not good, but did we know that whole wheat or white wheat foods are broken down way faster than even foods with high sucrose or fructose sugars?
It is hard for people to wrap their mind around this. How can so called “healthy grained foods spike glucose based blood sugar levels faster than sugars?
Ok so what is the big deal with glucose spikes anyway? Well your body can not take high levels of glucose, so Insulin, the glucose gatekeeper for the cells allows glucose into the cells. Yeah insulin right? Insulin is indeed a master hormone that goes further that merely causing cell membranes to let glucose in. Insulin controls processes that turn glucose into fatty triglycerides. A triglyceride is what i call the 3 armed squid. On the tip is a glycerol and attached in 3 places are chains of fatty acids. Now you may have heard of the differences in long chained fatty acids and medium chained fatty acids that attach to the glycerol.
Triglycerides are given to VLDL’s (Very Low Density Lipids) and that VLDL’s act like an unwelcome obnoxious party guest and they go up to LDL’s (Low Density Lipids) who are carrying a small molecule of cholesterol on that it is probably going to be taken up to the brain where cholesterol is absolutely needed for proper brain functioning. But instead of traveling up to the brain with its cholesterol, this obnoxiuous party guest with all of its triglycerides first takes the cholesterol away from the poor innocent LDL but then dumps a load of trilycerides on LDL’s. After that a lipase from the liver takes all the triglycerides from the LDL and now it is smaller in diameter without its cholesterol and now called a small LDL.
Ok hang in there. These small LDL’s are what stick to the arterial walls and start the formation of what we call plaque. If enough of this plaque builds up then we call it atherosclerosis. As more and more glucose spikes occur, more and more triglycerides are made and then more and more small LDL’s are produced to add to the fatty gunk on your arterial walls.
How strange it is to find out that it is sugars and carbohydrates that put fat on our arterial walls. Fats seem to have gotten a bad rap. But I would like to specific. There are very bad fats indeed -fats trans fats and polyunsaturated fats for instance. Do stay away from liquid vegetable cooking oils like canola oil, grapeseed oil and safflower oil. In fact stop frying your foods at all, but especially not in liquid vegetable oils.
But what about saturated fats? Well saturated fats got a bum rap some time ago because they were like people riding in a car during a drive by shooting. Saturated fats were riding in hamburgers, red meats and chicken meat with molecules called AGE’s. Huh? AGE’s are glycoprotein junk. We can from them in our bodies when glucose bumps into a protein in the blood and form glycoproteins. We call them endogenous AGE’s, but you can also get them from cooking meats over 350 degrees F. AGE’s indeed are dangerous and can ruin organs. So all the time people were blaming saturated fats for damage to our circulatory system, we should have been blaming AGE’s caused by overcooking your meats and having too high glucose levels caused by too many carbs.
We have also given cholesterol a bad rap as well. So now we have to rethink a lot.
I keep hearing about Ketogenic diets. I am not from the strict Ketogenic group. I do not think living entirely on Ketones is the way to go either. So I do have some differences of opinion with strict ketogenic diet supporters, but neither am I on nothing but plants. I have no problem with eating fruits raw, vegetables raw or even mean a bit raw. I eat raw fish meat a lot but without the rice in sushi. I cook my red meats so they are not overcooked and pink inside and even medium rare. I do not know if I am ready to run down an animal and eat the raw meat yet:) lol
I do understand that fats can be turned into glucose but it is the slow speed of the conversion that is important. It is why eating beans is not as bad as eating wheat carbohydrate amylopectin A or amylopectin B carbohydrates like corn, rice, tapioca,, potato starches and even bananas. In fact bean breakdown is so slow that the bacteria in your gut starts to break them down before your body can and that is why you get gas. “Beans beans the magical fruit etc etc.”
I also want to say that too much fruit also causes glucose spikes. You do not want to ride on the glucose, insulin roller coaster ride. Its a killer.
Yes I’ve have Dr. Davis’s book Lose the Weight Lose the Weight, which was rereleased as Wheat Belly, and am familiar with Grain Brain. I eat oats, rice and beans and potatoes along with 8-10 servings of fruits (bananas, berries, apples, oranges, melons, etc.) every day. It works really well for me. I’ll be posting my blood work soon. Stay tuned!
Chris, you did such a great job critiquing this study. At first I thought you were just going to dog the low carb folks. You are so right that it is really the quality of what we are eating, whether it be low carb, low fat or balanced, it is fresh, quality food that we need to feed ourselves. Any diet that squeezes out junk quality food, either junk oils or junk carbs is going to improve people’s health. Preferable would be to eliminate all junk oils and junk carbs, and also junk proteins! From there it is up to that particular body’s needs. I don’t look to other people to see what I should eat, but I do look at them to see what I SHOULDN’T eat. My body doesn’t do well with beans and rice, so I eat some meat; but others don’t do well with meat and dairy and thrive on beans and rice. I don’t need a scientific study to tell me how I feel after a rice or bean meal. I certainly don’t think others should eat like me, we are way too individual. Our body’s needs even change over time. But thank you for your great critique, it seemed very balanced and fair.
Hi Chris,I dont know if you are aware that Dr Atkins was reversing heart disease as one of his ‘specialties’ using the lo-carb diet and some supplementation…Dean Ornish recently said that the one thing he did learn from Dr Atkins was the danger of refined carbs (he said he underestimated the negative impact of them in his earlier writing).Dr Atkins was gracious enough to observe that, yes, Ornish and the lo fat bods were cleary reversing heart disease..BUT SO WAS HE USING THE OPPOSITE METHOD.This, I think brings us to the heart of the problem. It seems that the ketogenic, paleo people are far more likely to acknowledge ‘the other way’ working than the vegan ‘mafia’.This is what upsets so many people about the likes of Pam Popper and Dr Mcdougall ( the starch man)and the Campbell ‘clan’ (china stady)..they just refuse to believe that eating a load of animal products can keep someone in good health ( organic or not, for them it is a religion).I notice recently that Dr Vickers from the Gerson centre gave a thumbs down to the ketogenic diet for cancer. Ok, fair enough.But he did not say ‘the ketogenic diet can treat disease where the gerson therapy can’t..like with lou gehrig’s disease and parkinsons and alzheimers..dont you think that we need to accept that there is more than ONE WAY to skin a monkey.I think that is why Dr Kelly’s protocol followed by Dr Gonzalez seems more successful then any other cancer treatment…it treats us all as individuals and individualises the treatment..including diet.On a personal note Chris, I would rather let nature take its course then follow Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s diet..if you go to the forums of real people following it, they are, some of them, ready to commit suicide.Why did nobody say that maybe their ‘type’ is such that it will respond better by eliminating the other energy group ( I.E carbohydrates)and massively incresing fat just as Dr atkins pioneered ( he never said that EVERONE should follow his diet)..
Diet & exercise can help but the ONLY true advancement in arteriosclerosis treatment is the statin class & newer type drugs.
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