Sott.net We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.
I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled "opinion makers." Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice. (1)
It Is Not Working! (1)
Dr. Dwight Lundell is one of the many medical professionals who is speaking out against mainstream views on dietary fat and cholesterol. Dr. Lundell was a surgeon for more than 25 years and has performed more than 5000 open heart surgeries. He is also the author of the book The Great Cholesterol Lie.
In his viral letter he explains how the dietary guidelines are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The very guidelines that most Americans continue to follow have long since been debunked. I am talking about low fat, high carbohydrate diets. The same guidelines that told you to avoid saturated fats like red meat, dairy and eggs and to eat polyunsaturated fats like canola oil, to prevent heart disease.(1)
But there’s one major problem… It’s been over 40 years and we are sicker than ever. According to a new statistic from the American Heart Association one of every three U.S. deaths are caused by cardiovascular disease (2), with nearly every man in America (between the ages of 40 to 75) qualifying for statin drugs. (3)
The recommended method of defense against this problem isn't even designed to fix the problem. It's just meant to suppress the symptoms.
So what is the solution? What will actually prevent us from cardiovascular disease?
According to Dr. Lundell (and many many others), the answer isn't in the lowering of overall cholesterol, the answer is in avoiding inflammation:
In the absence of inflammation, cholesterol would pass freely through the body as intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to plaque up the artery walls.
Inflammation is your body's natural defense to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process,a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.(1)
Simply stated, without inflammation our cholesterol wouldn't ever reach a point where it would be in such an abundance that it would get "clogged." On top of that, by eating inflammatory foods on a regular basis you are reaching chronic inflammation.
Rub a piece of sandpaper against your skin for an hour… inflammation is that, but on the inside.
So what foods are inflammatory? Well, the very foods we were told to eat on the low fat high carbohydrate diet! Trans fats and refined carbohydrates (this includes “heart healthy” grains)
Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone(1)
The pantry items and low fat foods that you were told to buy as part of a heart healthy diet are really the ones making you sick. This information is very widely accepted in the scientific community. However, these findings haven't translated into the mainstream or into the medical community. This isn’t the fault of the medical professionals, they have a set of guidelines to follow and without those guidelines being updated they haven’t been instructed to prescribe otherwise.
**After reviewing my own blood work and DEXA body scan information from 10 months of a ketogenic diet, my doctor was more than thrilled with my health and interested to try this diet himself.
So this means it’s up to us...We can avoid the need for expensive pharmaceuticals or risk facing diabetic precautions by just eating whole foods and eliminating manufactured foods. It's as simple as that and no amount of prescription drug can change that fact.
Click here for a comprehensive look at the foods to eat and foods to avoid