Hirondelle made it to Verona, where I live, and we had vegan pizza. :)
I keep seeing the keto & low-carb 'throw down the gauntlet' thread pop up and occasionally I peek in and I just don't get it.
This whole 'all carbs are bad' thing is out of hand. Also - unless you're modeling your keto regimen after the inuit, I don't think you would be eating such a high percentage of meat, and you certainly wouldn't be consuming dairy. At least that's my understanding based off of various readings of history.
There is a lot of conflicting information out there.
I recently listened to this podcast which addresses some of the clashing perspectives between whole food/plant-base & keto/high meat viewpoints.
Of course, everyone has to come to their own conclusion and live the life that feels right for them.. but for me, the Blue Zone studies of longevity are good indicators that high plant based diets are a key to long & healthy lives, regardless of short-term effects of Keto..can also do plant-based keto/intermittent fasting for similar weight-loss results (which they address toward the end of the podcast)
http://www.richroll.com/podcast/joel-kahn-349/ (have to skip 10-12 minutes in to jump over the ad portion!)
Thanks for sharing the podcast. I'm trying to get serious about my health (I'm almost 40) and have been confused with diet. My gut tells me Dr. Greger, Dr. Furman and the plant based people are right, but there are doctors and scientists who promote the zero carb, high animal product diet.
I listened to the first hour of the podcast and took notes. the guest was Dr. Joel Kahn, a vegan cardiologist:
All foods have protein, fat and carbs
Zero carb diets have been shown to age the body (bad). You may lose weight and gain energy but you increase mortality.
People in Okinawa are 90% plant based and are considered some of the healthiest people on earth
Animal products (beef, chicken, fish, dairy) age you. They contain Lucien (bad).
One patient of the guest cardiologist went zero carb and his cholesterol went from 250 to 750.
Keto has been shown to be beneficial for epileptic people
Virta Health is making noise - it promotes a Keto diet and claims the diet can reverse type II diabetes. Dr. Kahn said their data is junk science - a 10 week study printed in a bad journal. Dr. Kahn said the main 6 or 7 big health studies that covered 100,000s of people show low carb, high fat diets increase mortality.
Dr. Kahn doesn't recommend the keto diet and there isn't a keto death rate study yet.
Dr. Kahn recommended the Longevity Diet by Dr. Longo.
Increased protein consumption leads to increased mortality. Protein becomes more important when we age - bad to be frail and old (more fractures and pneumonia).
The American diet - everything in moderation - is dangerous. Animal products are dangerous.
It is a myth that sugar causes diabetes. Excess calories which leads to weight gain causes diabetes.
Refined sugar is bad. Fruit sugar is fine. May want to limit fruits to three per day. Fruit doesn't cause diabetes.
If you're going to cheat on your diet, cheat with desserts (sugar) and not fats, oils, dairy
Heart disease is still the #1 killer in USA (#2 in Canada). Cancer is #2 in USA and #1 in Canada.
This part is scary:
Some seemingly healthy people drop dead of heart attacks when young. Many have high Lipo Protein A (LPA/sticky cholesterol). This isn't checked on your routine lipid blood test when you get a physical. 20% of Americans have high Lipo Protein A. It's genetic and can't be reduced by diet. Niacin helps. It's not a bad idea to ask your doctor for a LPA blood test - it's only $25.
Additionally, Dr. Kahn recommends everyone over 40 to get a prescription and go to the local hospital for a heart cat scan to get a calcium score that measures hardening of the arteries. People can have high cholesterol numbers but low calcium scores and vice versa. High calcium scores are another scary silent killer.
There are about 19 things that can lead to heart disease - Lipo Protein A, cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, excess weight, genetics, age, smoking, etc. The cat scan mentioned above cuts to the chase.
Ironically, ultra endurance exercise can make hardening of the arteries worse.
I will post the second half of the podcast later on....
EDIT:
30 minutes to go, but here is what else I picked up:
Ultra endurance exercise (marathons) may be worse than moderate exercise or even no exercise at all
10 minutes of exercise is better than 0 minutes of exercise
Heart and blood metrics post marathon aren't good but they may snap back in 24 hours.
It is false and dangerous to say that consuming saturated fats is okay and consuming saturated fats do not impact cholesterol levels. Dr. Kahn wants everyone to limit saturated fats - including olive oil. Saturated fats are associated with hardening of the arteries and heart disease. This has been known since the 1950s - early studies that cardiology patients who cut saturated fats did better than those that didn't.
Since 2014 it has been confirmed that butter and lard are bad (again)
It's hard to find pure food scientists who do not receive funding from food companies/industries
Completely remove coconut and palm oil from your diet
They chatted about this movie called "What the Health" - it is recommended
Processed meats (pepperoni, salami, sausage, hot dogs) increase risk of getting colon cancer.
If you're going to eat a "bad food" (e.g. hamburger) eat it with "antidotes" (leafy greens, avocado).
A bunch of stuff on fasting that I didn't really pay attention to
I will post the rest tomorrow!