Active Low-Carber Forums
Atkins diet and low carb discussion provided free for information only, not as medical advice.
Home Plans Tips Recipes Tools Stories Studies Products
Active Low-Carber Forums
A sugar-free zone


Welcome to the Active Low-Carber Forums.
Support for Atkins diet, Protein Power, Neanderthin (Paleo Diet), CAD/CALP, Dr. Bernstein Diabetes Solution and any other healthy low-carb diet or plan, all are welcome in our lowcarb community. Forget starvation and fad diets -- join the healthy eating crowd! You may register by clicking here, it's free!

Go Back   Active Low-Carber Forums > Main Low-Carb Diets Forums & Support > Low-Carb Studies & Research / Media Watch > LC Research/Media
User Name
Password
FAQ Members Calendar Mark Forums Read Search Gallery My P.L.A.N. Survey


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1   ^
Old Sat, May-30-20, 03:24
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
Default A Low-Carb Strategy for Fighting the Pandemic’s Toll

A Low-Carb Strategy for Fighting the Pandemic’s Toll

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-low-...oll-11590811260

Quote:
Federal dietary guidelines don’t reflect the evidence that eating fewer carbohydrates can help to reduce obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

By Nina Teicholz

The coronavirus has added a brutal exclamation point to America’s pervasive ill health. Americans with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related diseases are about three times more likely to suffer worsened outcomes from Covid-19, including death. Had we flattened the still-rising curves of these conditions, it’s quite possible that our fight against the virus would today look very different.


Unfortunately the article is subscriber only
Reply With Quote
Sponsored Links
  #2   ^
Old Sat, May-30-20, 04:57
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
Posts: 13,371
 
Plan: P:E/DDF
Stats: 225/150/169 Female 5' 9"
BF:45%/28%/25%
Progress: 134%
Location: NC
Default

Quote:
A Low-Carb Strategy for Fighting the Pandemic’s Toll
Federal dietary guidelines don’t reflect the evidence that eating fewer carbohydrates can help to reduce obesity, diabetes and heart disease.


The coronavirus has added a brutal exclamation point to America’s pervasive ill health. Americans with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related diseases are about three times more likely to suffer worsened outcomes from Covid-19, including death. Had we flattened the still-rising curves of these conditions, it’s quite possible that our fight against the virus would today look very different.

To combat this and future pandemics, we need to talk about not only the masks that go over our mouths but the food that goes into them. Next month, an expert committee will issue its advisory report on the federal government’s official dietary guidelines for the next five years. First published in 1980, the guidelines are meant to encourage healthy eating, but they have self-evidently failed to stem the ever-rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases in the U.S.

Pills and surgery can treat the symptoms of such conditions, but diet-related problems require diet-related solutions. The good news is that changes in diet can start to reverse these conditions in a matter of weeks. In one controlled trial at the University of Indiana involving 262 adults with Type 2 diabetes, 56% were able to reverse their diagnosis by following a very low-carbohydrate diet, with support from a mobile app, in just 10 weeks. The results of this continuing study have been sustained for two years, with more than half the study population remaining free of a diabetes diagnosis.

Other studies have found that dietary changes can rapidly and substantially improve cardiovascular risk factors, including conditions like hypertension that are major risk factors for worsened Covid-19 outcomes. A 2011 study in the journal Obesity on 300 clinic patients eating a very low-carbohydrate diet saw blood pressure quickly drop and remain low for years. And a 2014 trial on 148 subjects, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found a low-carb diet to be “more effective for weight loss and cardiovascular risk factor reduction” than a low-fat control diet at the end of the 1-year experiment.

Since 2018, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and its European counterpart have considered a low-carb diet as one standard of care for people with Type 2 diabetes, in part because it lowers blood pressure and improves HDL, the “good” cholesterol. A 2019 ADA report stated that a low-carbohydrate diet “has demonstrated the most evidence for improving glycemia,” that is, for keeping blood sugars in check. This could be a crucial factor for avoiding Covid-19’s worst outcomes: In a paper just published in the journal Cell Metabolism, researchers found that among 7,337 Chinese patients diagnosed with Covid-19, well-controlled blood sugar was correlated with “markedly lower mortality” among those with Type 2 diabetes.

The federal government’s dietary guidelines stand in the way of making low-carb diets a viable option for the 60% of Americans with at least one chronic disease.


Yet the federal government’s dietary guidelines themselves stand in the way of making low-carb diets a viable option for the 60% of Americans with at least one chronic disease. That’s because the guidelines call for a diet high in grains, with more than 50% of calories coming from carbohydrates. The guidelines aren’t mere advice: They drive the National School Lunch Program, feeding programs for the elderly and the poor, and military food. Many patients learn about the guidelines from their doctors and dietitians.

To date, government experts overseeing the dietary guidelines have refused to publicly consider low-carbohydrate alternatives. The expert committee that drafted the current guidelines in 2015 conducted a formal review of the science on low-carbohydrate diets but didn’t publish their findings, as revealed by emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. By not publishing the low-carb analysis alongside the other diet reviews in the principal part of the report, low-carb diets were effectively excluded.

Harvard professor Frank Hu, a committee member, questioned this approach: “Given the popularity of [a low-carb] pattern and enormous amount of research that has been generated in the past several years, I was wondering if we should have a separate section on low-carb diets rather than burying it in the Methodology section.” He added, “People who are familiar with the field may complain that we gloss over recent evidence and don’t give low-carb diets…sufficient attention that they deserve.”

Looking back at the committee’s work, chair Barbara Millen says that it reported on an outside paper listing 15 dietary approaches “as options for effective weight loss,” including low-fat, Mediterranean-style and low-carb regimes. But “none of these dietary approaches was shown to be superior in terms of effective long-term weight loss and none was elaborated upon in specific detail in our 2015 report.”

Congress mandated in 1990 that the guidelines should address the ‘general public,’ and in that year, most Americans did not have diet-related conditions. Now a majority of them do.


Five years later, there has been far more research about low-carb diets, yet the current committee, whose report is due in June, stated recently that it couldn't find a single study with carbohydrates below 25% of calories. In response, an advocacy group called the Low-Carb Action Network published a list of 52 such trials. One reason that the committee missed these studies is that it decided to exclude all trials on weight loss, even though two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese.

The reason is that the dietary guidelines focus solely on disease prevention in healthy people. Congress mandated in 1990 that the guidelines should address the “general public,” and in that year, most Americans did not have diet-related conditions. Now a majority of them do, yet federal officials have stated their reluctance to expand the scope of the guidelines.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) warned, in a 2017 report mandated by Congress, that “it will…be essential for the [dietary guidelines]…to include all Americans whose health can benefit by improving their diet…. Without these changes, present and future dietary guidance will not be applicable to a large majority of the general population.”

I direct a nonprofit group that advocates for our national guidelines to be based on a rigorous scientific process—one that does not exclude evidence and employs a recognized methodology for reviewing the science, a system to manage bias and greater transparency. These are all reforms urged by the NASEM, yet so far they have not been adopted by the agencies overseeing our dietary guidelines.

In 2010, a group of retired generals published “Too Fat to Fight,” a report sounding the alarm on how diet-related conditions threaten America’s fitness on the battlefield. As we search for treatments and a vaccine for the coronavirus, we should also be talking about making Americans more fit to fight this and future pandemics at home.


Ms. Teicholz is a science journalist and the executive director of the Nutrition Coalition.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-low-...oll-11590811260


[Article is a full across, almost 3/4 page in Review, with the large, full-color "bread" graphic centered]

Last edited by JEY100 : Sat, May-30-20 at 06:49.
Reply With Quote
  #3   ^
Old Sat, May-30-20, 05:15
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
Default

Thanks Janet!
Reply With Quote
  #4   ^
Old Mon, Jun-01-20, 02:58
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
Default

Nina has now posted the article with full links on The Nutrition Coalition, and with a request to share:

Op-ed: To be less vulnerable to this + future pandemics, we must talk about "not only the masks that go over our mouths but the food that goes into them" Obesity, diabetes, etc. inc. vulnerability to #Covid, yet the gov't is ignoring the latest science

https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/n...-pandemics-toll
Reply With Quote
  #5   ^
Old Tue, Jun-02-20, 02:09
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
Default

Quote:
Nutrition the best medicine to safeguard from pandemics

Nina Teicholz addresses the elephant in the room during the COVID-19 crisis — good nutrition boosts immune systems and wards off chronic illnesses.


For months, we’ve been asked to stay in our homes, reduce contact with others, avoid touching our faces, wipe down surfaces, wear masks (or don’t wear masks?), shutter businesses, close down schools and more, all in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, as our country seeks lift some of these restrictions and look ahead to what the “new normal” might be, I have found myself wondering why has diet and nutrition not come into the conversation about how we can protect ourselves from illness?

Now it has, thanks to Nina Teicholz. She has never been afraid to take on the medical and nutritional community and challenge the well-indoctrinated notion that plant-based diets are king and animal fats and proteins are bad.

As the executive director of the Nutrition Coalition, Teicholz recently published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled, “A low-carb strategy for fighting the pandemic’s toll.”

This article is the antidote to the activist op-eds which cite meat-eating and animal agriculture as the causes for pandemics like this one. I believe it should be shared far and wide to help educate consumers about the benefits of meat-centered diets.

Teicholz writes, “The coronavirus has added a brutal exclamation point to America’s pervasive ill health. Americans with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related diseases are about three times more likely to suffer worsened outcomes from Covid-19, including death.

“Had we flattened the still-rising curves of these conditions, it’s quite possible that our fight against the virus would today look very different. To combat this and future pandemics, we need to talk about not only the masks that go over our mouths, but the food that goes into them.”

Teicholz criticizes the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, saying, “Next month, an expert committee will issue its advisory report on the federal government’s official dietary guidelines for the next five years. First published in 1980, the guidelines are meant to encourage healthy eating, but they have self-evidently failed to stem the ever-rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases in the U.S.”

Her suggestion to addressing our nation’s expanding waistline — eat more meat, dairy and eggs.

She says, “Pills and surgery can treat the symptoms of such conditions, but diet-related problems require diet-related solutions. The good news is that changes in diet can start to reverse these conditions in a matter of weeks.

“In one controlled trial at the University of Indiana involving 262 adults with Type 2 diabetes, 56% were able to reverse their diagnosis by following a very low-carbohydrate diet, with support from a mobile app, in just 10 weeks. The results of this continuing study have been sustained for two years, with more than half the study population remaining free of a diabetes diagnosis.”

Yet, despite the growing evidence to support animal proteins in the diet, Teicholz says the federal government’s dietary guidelines stand in the way of making low carb diets a viable option for the 60% of Americans with at least one chronic disease.

She explains, “That’s because the guidelines call for a diet high in grains, with more than 50% of calories coming from carbohydrates. The guidelines aren’t mere advice: They drive the National School Lunch Program, feeding programs for the elderly and the poor, and military food. Many patients learn about the guidelines from their doctors and dietitians.”

This issue isn’t new, and although it might pale in comparison when looking at some larger, much more divisive issues facing our nation right now, I am certain a well-fed and well-nourished America is a more peaceful, content and healthier America.

And to achieve that, it starts with nutrient-dense beef.


https://www.beefmagazine.com/farm-l...guard-pandemics
Reply With Quote
  #6   ^
Old Tue, Jun-02-20, 04:26
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 14,608
 
Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150 Female 67
BF:
Progress: 136%
Location: USA
Default

This is great, and I expect more experts to weigh in moving forward.
Reply With Quote
  #7   ^
Old Tue, Jun-02-20, 08:20
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
Posts: 13,371
 
Plan: P:E/DDF
Stats: 225/150/169 Female 5' 9"
BF:45%/28%/25%
Progress: 134%
Location: NC
Default

Email received from the Nutrition Coalition. (They do not send many, but this is a worthwhile call to action.)

Quote:
In case you missed it this weekend, the Nutrition Coalition’s Executive Director, Nina Teicholz, had an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal about how, in confronting Covid-19 and future pandemics, there's a "need to talk about not only the masks that go over our mouths but the food that goes into them."

Americans with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related diseases are approximately three times more likely to suffer worsened outcomes from Coronavirus, including death.

As Teicholz writes, the way to combat diet-related diseases is through diet-related solutions. This means better nutrition—which can start to reverse conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and hypertension in a matter of weeks. Yet U.S. federal policy on nutrition currently stands in the way.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) has consistently ignored the most up-to-date, rigorous science. Currently, the expert report for the 2020 DGA is due out in a matter of weeks, and work to date has excluded hundreds of clinical trials.

Nearly all studies on weight loss have been excluded. Virtually all the scientific literature on low-carb diets has been excluded. This violates basic scientific standards, and Americans are therefore facing yet another iteration of the DGA that is not based on the most current science—and is unlikely to make them healthier.

Nutrition has yet to become a point of discussion in the fight against the coronavirus, yet in the absence of treatment or a vaccine, it is one of the most powerful levers we have to combat the Covid-19’s severity and better protect Americans against future pandemics.


Read the full op-ed below, on TNC’s website here,
or on the Wall Street Journal website here.

Also, please share posts from TNC and WSJ on social media.

If this issue is important to you and you would like to take further action, please click here to contact your U.S. Congressional representative, and consider making a tax-deductible donation to The Nutrition Coalition.

Reply With Quote
  #8   ^
Old Tue, Jun-02-20, 09:03
GRB5111's Avatar
GRB5111 GRB5111 is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 4,036
 
Plan: Very LC, Higher Protein
Stats: 227/186/185 Male 6' 0"
BF:
Progress: 98%
Location: Herndon, VA
Default

From the Nutrition Coalition's Email (bold added for emphasis):
Quote:
Nutrition has yet to become a point of discussion in the fight against the coronavirus, yet in the absence of treatment or a vaccine, it is one of the most powerful levers we have to combat the Covid-19’s severity and better protect Americans against future pandemics.

This is the key, as people improve their metabolic health by nutritional means, they are protecting themselves for now and the future. This statement should be riveting enough to stimulate the thinking that it's not a temporary fix; rather, it's a lifestyle change with benefits for life.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:31.


Copyright © 2000-2024 Active Low-Carber Forums @ forum.lowcarber.org
Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.