CBN News ran this story a few days ago... - Cholesterol Support
CBN News ran this story a few days ago about cholesterol. Certainly worth viewing.
Wow - thanks for sharing this clip. I hope plenty of doctors get to see this!
Finally! Brilliant! Thank you Frank.
This is just too annoying. You really want to get your science news from the Christian broadcast network?
It takes a load of truisms about how the body needs some cholesterol and goes a bit far the other way, suggesting high levels don't matter. Not for some, maybe, but for many they seem to be correlated with ill health.
Thanks for posting this. The science has been around for a long time but wasn't listened to. Back in 1972 Professor Yudkin wrote a book called "Pure, White and Deadly" subtitled "how sugar is killing us and what to do about it". The book has been reprinted recently because mainstream science has finally caught up. Have a look for Robert Lustig's video on sugar called " Sugar - the deadly truth". (Another snappy title!)
The science of cholesterol is very complicated, but it's possible effects must be taken along with blood pressure, weight and family history. As a number on its own your cholesterol level is not very useful.
Thanks for that, very interesting indeed.
As mentioned above, while this is a very interesting piece and the info on trans fats sounds worth paying attention to, I would be very cautious about swallowing whole anything from CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network. There are underlying religious and political currents here that may well drive the information presented.
Yes, always question information, but these ideas are not confined to this Network. The science is appearing in journals such as Scientific American with no religious or political affiliations that I am aware of.
I think I should have written "mainstream science is beginning to catch up". Even the American Heart Association is recommending lowering your carb intake.
Maybe the reason why this information was posted on a Christian network was because the other mainstream media companies in the USA were worried about their sponsors, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nutrasweet, and all the other Companies that were mentioned plus the laboratories that produce all the chemicals in the foods that we eat both here in the UK and in the USA They rely on their advertisers and the piece slated many manufacturers!!!!!!!
There is nothing actually said that we are not aware of, the transfats in foods have been virtually removed in the UK due to concerns raised several years ago. The EU and the UK governments both legislated against adding it to foods and got manufacturers to try and change their recipes.
Sugar has always seen as an enemy. Diabetes, heart disease and stroke have, for some years now, been seen as the ultimate diagnosis if too much sugar is consumed. There is now an awareness of too much consumption of natural sugars such as smoothies and fruit juices and the advice that you should eat the fruit and not just drink the juice. The fibre in the fruit helps the correct absorbtion of the fruit sugar. The juice just gives you the fruit sugar and can ultimately cause the "inflammation" that was mentioned.
I have altered a lot in my and my family diet to "go back" to Grandma's day when all was cooked from scratch, (I am not perfect though - I slip when I "fancy" something!) - I don't buy the high sugar drinks, as a treat, (birthdays etc) low sugar lemonade rather than water or organic milk is allowed. The grandchildren are thriving and with the new school restrictions on food on school premises and the policing (somewhat overkill in some cases mind) of lunchboxes and school meals they don't want too much of the "rubbish" - .
They like my home cooked chocolate cake!!
You are spot on with your comment on sponsors and the effect they can have on the program content. Back in 1972 when Yudkin wrote about the dangers of sugar he was pressurised to withdraw from various conferences because of sponsors like Tate & Lyle. He sued the World Sugar Research Organisation for libel when they described his work as 'science fiction', eventually they published a retraction and paid his legal costs. The pressure is still there today from big business: the sugar lobby, the low fat lobby, etc.
I don't think there can be any disagreement about the danger of trans fats and sugar in our food. Trans fats or hydrogenated fats have not been banned in UK but manufacturers are being encouraged by the government to cut down on their use. A report by the Centre for Food Policy, City University, London on eating out in East London from 2010 found trans fats in nearly all fast foods.
However, where I find fault in the CBN clip is that no mention is made of the conclusions drawn from the China Study. For those who are not aware of this study, properly called the China-Cornell- Oxford Project, It was the most comprehensive study ever undertaken to examine the relationship of diet to disease. A joint venture of the Chinese Health Authorities, Cornell University N.Y. and Oxford University it studied 6,500 people for twenty years It began in 1983 in different regions of China. China was chosen because the people are genetically similar, tend to live in the same way, in the same place and eat diets specific to their region. The New York Times called it "the Grand Prix of epidemiology".
The conclusions were inescapable.
Amongst people in the most rural parts of China where they ate almostly beans,rice and vegetables the typical Western diseases of heart disease, cancer and diabetes were almost unknown. In the big cities like Shanghai, where Western diets including fast foods were the norm, the rates were similar to the rates in London and New York. These results would seem fly in the face of the message of the CBN clip. I would urge people to at least google The China Study or better still read the whole book by Dr T Colin Campbell Ph. D.
The China Study did not address the fact that China has one of the highest rates of stomach cancer in the world. The African Masai live (traditionally) on a diet of meat, milk and blood, and have low cholesterol and low rates of heart disease. The Inuit lived on a high protein and high fat diet (no veg available) and also had low rates of heart disease. The problem with a Western diet is that if it is full of white flour and white sugar, it will make you fat and ill. Some of the healthiest countries in Europe are Iceland, Switzerland and Scandinavia which consume a diet with a high animal content.
PubMed have published several papers comparing the health benefits of vegetarian, vegan and non-vegetarian diets, and found no particular benefit to leaving out animal products.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/130...
Hi Penel,
Thanks for your reply. I agree that white flour products and all forms of refined sugar (not just white) are very damaging to health. Native peoples, I would suggest, have completely different lifestyles to us here in the Western world and there could be many reasons for differences you mention.
A more worthwhile comparison might be a group such as the Seventh Day Adventists living in the USA. These people for religious reasons consume less and often no animal products and have been the subject of many respected studies. If you google some of these studies I think you will see that they agree with the results from The China Study. Best wishes, Chas.
Thank you for directing me to another interesting report. I have read the article published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition summerising the findings. The SDA certainly eat a better diet than the standard American diet! The Journal says that the most benefits to health came from having a lean body mass, eating nuts regularly, exercising regularly and not from being vegetarian. The article was a few years old, if there any more modern analyses I'd be interested to know.
ajcn.nutrition.org/content/...
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There are several descriptions of the effect on health of moving from a taditional native diet to a western diet. There is a good summary of these in Gary Taubes book 'The Diet Delusion' (UK) or 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' (US). Whether the native people had been vegetarian or meat eaters, once they adopted a western diet containing flour and sugar they developed health problems. Their lifestyles were different to each other and from the West, the common factor was the food.
I don't think it really matters whether you are vegan, vegetarian, a carnivore or a Jain, it all depends on how much you eat, what exercise you take and what lifestyle you are living. In a rural area of Africa, China or South America, the residents exercise more. No local transport, no buses, trains or cars. Most of those who live in the Chinese rural areas have very few motor vehicles, it is nearly all done on foot or by ox cart!! Physical activity is the norm as their farming is so basic. Very little mechanisation. We have come to rely so much on mechanisation to do our hard work for us that we have become "lazy" to the point of doing ourselves harm. I walk everywhere simply because I don't drive, but if I need to get to a certain place at a certain time it is by car, bus or train. Our modern life is regulated by time and we seem to always have very little of it to spare!!!!! The lifestyle of rural China or elsewhere is not determined by the clock but by the seasons. We need to look more at that. We have become so detached from our surroundings that we are living a blinkered life. Oh, oh, I've got on my hobby horse, again, apologies. All of this gets my mind revolving!!! All the best to you.
Nothing wrong with hobby horses! Exercise is very important to our health.
My hobby horse is the effect sugar can have on your body and how it is deliberately added by manufacturers to food and drink. Too much sugar affects your liver in a similar way to alcohol!
This article is a review of a book about the dangers of sugar telegraph.co.uk/culture/boo...
