Yes, what you eat definitely affects your health. Likewise, the type of gasoline or fuel you put in your car will affect how it runs. This is common sense, isn’t it? If you are a patient of Dr. Ilya, please READ the article below. It will help improve your health and enhance the effectiveness of the therapies Dr. Ilya is using with you.
I hope you find this helpful and can integrate the information into your daily life in a way that brings more love, joy, happiness, and truth into your life.
Was Atkins Right? Scientists Say Carbs — Not Fat — Are the Biggest Problem with America’s Diet.
There’s a growing body of scientific evidence that challenges long-held beliefs: fat is good, carbs are bad.
Just in time for the holiday season, with its abundance of baked goods, comes news that carbohydrates — not fat — are more likely responsible for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other ills of modern civilization.
The Los Angeles Times has a detailed report on this emerging scientific consensus: fat is good, carbs are bad.
“The country’s big low-fat message backfired,” Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, told the Times. “The overemphasis on reducing fat caused carbohydrate and sugar consumption to soar. That shift may be linked to the biggest health problems in America today.”
Remember Robert Atkins? He’s the doctor who was nearly ostracized from the medical community for suggesting that the key to slimming down and staying healthy was to eat plenty of meat and fat while avoiding bread and potatoes.
The Atkins diet struck many as pure madness. But study after study has shown that Atkins was more right than wrong. Carbohydrates — meaning plant-based foods high in complex sugars — have been directly linked to elevated triglycerides (fat) in the blood, suppression of HDL (the “good” cholesterol), increased production of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) that damage arteries, weight gain, and high blood pressure.
Eating carbs triggers insulin, the fat storage hormone. Overconsumption can lead to insulin resistance, a precursor to Type 2 diabetes.
Combine all these carb-related problems, and you have what medical researchers call “metabolic syndrome.” According to the Times, 25 percent of Americans now exhibit at least three of the major symptoms of this syndrome, which include elevated triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, fat bellies, and high blood pressure.
Of course, not all fats are “good.” The fat from feedlot beef and factory-farmed pork and chicken, which are fed loads of carbohydrates, has a different nutritional profile — higher in heart-disease-linked Omega-6 fatty acids — than the fat from animals that forage on pasture and eat their natural diets, which are rich in Omega-3s. (The Eat Wild website collects scientific literature on these differences.) And not all carbs are “bad.” Complex carbohydrates from whole, plant-based foods cause less of a spike in blood sugar than refined carbohydrates, such as processed foods.
Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, says: “If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice, and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight, diabetes, and other metabolic diseases.”
I can relate: I’ve lost a significant amount of weight in middle age and turned my cholesterol readings around by cutting carbs and embracing a diet rich in pastured meat, eggs, and cheese. I still enjoy salads and green vegetables from my garden. But I blow up like a balloon if I indulge in even a little dessert. I can’t eat bread, and beer is strictly off-limits.
I know it sounds strange, but fat keeps me slim — or as slim as I can be in my world.
It turns out the only two macronutrients essential for human survival are protein and fat. Carbs, in the form of grains and sugar, are a very recent innovation in evolutionary terms, yet Americans may be consuming twice as much as they should, thanks in part to decades of medical advice and food marketing urging us to cut back on fat.
Meanwhile, a growing movement advocates abstaining from meat to save the environment. Does this new science create a dilemma for those promoting a more plant-based diet? What does it mean for our Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which place carbohydrates at the foundation of healthy eating? And what about the orange juice, chocolate milk, and sugary cereals served to kids in schools every morning?
