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What\u2019s more relevant to the discussion is this fact: During the time in which the prevalence of obesity in the U.S. nearly tripled, the percentage of calories Americans consumed from protein and fat actually dropped<\/a> whereas the percentage of calories Americans ingested from carbohydrates\u2014one of the nutrient groups Ornish says we should eat more of\u2014increased<\/a>. Could it be that our attempts to reduce fat have in fact been part of the problem? Some scientists think so. \u201cI believe the low-fat message promoted the obesity epidemic,\u201d says Lyn Steffen, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. That\u2019s in part because when we cut out fat, we began eating foods that were worse for us.<\/p>\n Ornish goes to argue that protein and saturated fat increase the risk of mortality and chronic disease. As evidence for these causal claims, he cites a handful of observational studies. He should know better. These types of studies\u2014which might report that people who eat a lot of animal protein tend to develop higher rates of disease\u2014\u201conly look at association, not causation,\u201d explains Christopher Gardner, a nutrition scientist at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. They should not be used to make claims about cause and effect; doing so is considered by nutrition scientists<\/a> to be \u201cinappropriate\u201d and \u201cmisleading.\u201d The reason: People who eat a lot of animal protein often make other lifestyle choices that increase their disease risk, and although researchers try to make statistical adjustments to control for these \u201cconfounding variables,\u201d as they\u2019re called, it\u2019s a very imperfect science. Other large observational studies<\/a> have found that diets high in fat and protein are not associated with disease and may even protect against it. The point is, it\u2019s possible to cherry-pick observational studies to support almost any nutritional argument.<\/p>\n Randomized controlled clinical trials, although certainly not perfect, are better tools for chipping away at causality, and they suggest that protein and fat don\u2019t deserve to be demonized. In a 2007 clinical trial<\/a> led by Gardner researchers randomly assigned 311 individuals to four groups: One group was assigned the high-fat, high-protein and low-carbohydrate Atkins diet; the second was assigned Ornish\u2019s very low-fat vegetarian diet, which requires consuming fewer than 10 percent of calories from fat; the third was assigned the Zone diet, which aims for a 40\/30\/30 percent distribution of carbohydrate, protein and fat; and the fourth was assigned the high-carbohydrate, low\u2013saturated fat LEARN (for: lifestyle, exercise, attitudes, relationships, nutrition) diet. The participants all had trouble adhering to their regimens, but all lost about the same statistically significant amounts of weight, and when compared head to head, the Atkins dieters saw greater improvements in blood pressure and HDL cholesterol than the Ornish dieters did.<\/p>\n The recent multicenter PREDIMED trial<\/a> also supports the notion that fat can be good rather than bad. It found that individuals assigned to eat high-fat (41 percent calories from fat), Mediterranean-style diets for nearly five years were about 30 percent less likely to experience serious heart-related problems compared with individuals who were told to avoid fat. (All groups consumed about the same amount of protein.) Protein, too, doesn\u2019t look so evil when one considers the 2010 trial<\/a> published in The New England Journal of Medicine<\/em> that found individuals who had recently lost weight were more likely to keep it off if they ate more protein, along with the 2005 OmniHeart trial<\/a> that reported individuals who substituted either protein or monounsaturated fat for some of their carbohydrates reduced their cardiovascular risk factors compared with individuals who did not.<\/p>\n The other problem with Ornish\u2019s antiprotein stance is that he lumps all animal proteins together. For instance, he wrote that animal proteins have been associated with higher disease<\/a> and mortality risks<\/a> in observational studies. But \u201cOrnish is conflating hot dogs and pepperoni with fresh, unprocessed meats,\u201d says Lydia Bazzano, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, \u201cand there\u2019s a big difference between them.\u201d A 2010 systematic review and meta-analysis<\/a> of 20 studies found consumption of processed meat was associated with an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease but eating unprocessed red meat was not. A 2014 meta-analysis<\/a> similarly reported much higher mortality risks associated with processed meat compared with red meat consumption and found no problems associated with white meat. The March 2014 study that Ornish cites as finding \u201ca 75 percent increase in premature deaths from all causes<\/a> and a 400 percent increase in deaths from cancer and type 2 diabetes among heavy consumers of animal protein under the age of 65,\u201d also did not distinguish between types of animal protein. And it is worth noting that among people in the study over 65, heavy consumption of animal protein actually protected<\/em> against cancer and mortality. (Also: the heavy protein consumers in the study were consuming nearly 30 percent more protein than the average American does.) \u201cWhole foods\u2014such as whole grain products and fruits and veggies\u2014are healthy, but I think that dairy products, fish and lean cuts of meat or poultry can also be part of a healthy diet,\u201d Steffen says.<\/p>\n So there\u2019s little evidence to suggest that we need to avoid protein and fat. But what about the claims Ornish makes about the success of his own diet\u2014do they hold up to scrutiny? Not exactly. His famous 1990 Lifestyle Heart trial<\/a> involved a total of 48 patients with heart disease. Twenty-eight were assigned to his low-fat, plant-based diet and 20 were given usual cardiac care. After one year those following his diet were more likely to see a regression in their atherosclerosis.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing: The patients who followed his diet also quit smoking, started exercising and attended stress management training. The people in the control group were told to do none of these things. It\u2019s hardly surprising that quitting smoking, exercising, reducing stress and dieting\u2014when done together\u2014improves heart health. But fact that the participants were making all of these lifestyle changes means that we cannot make any inferences about the effect of the diet alone.<\/p>\n So when Ornish wrote in his op\u2013ed that \u201cfor reversing disease, a whole-foods, plant-based diet seems to be necessary,\u201d he is incorrect. It\u2019s possible that quitting smoking, exercising and stress management, without the dieting, would have had the same effect\u2014but we don\u2019t know; it\u2019s also possible that his diet alone would not reverse heart disease symptoms. Again, we don\u2019t know because his studies have not been designed in a way that can tell us anything about the effect of his diet alone. There\u2019s also another issue to consider: Although Ornish emphasizes that his diet is low in fat and animal protein, it also eliminates refined carbohydrates. If his diet works\u2014and again, we don\u2019t know for sure that it does\u2014is that because it reduces protein or fat or refined carbohydrates?<\/p>\n The point here is not that Ornish\u2019s diet\u2014a low-fat, whole food, plant-based approach\u2014is necessarily bad. It\u2019s almost certainly healthier than the highly processed, refined-carbohydrate-rich diet most Americans consume today. But Ornish\u2019s arguments against protein and fat are weak, simplistic and, in a way, irrelevant. A food or nutrient can be healthy without requiring that all other foods or nutrients be unhealthy. And categorizing entire nutrient groups as \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad\u201d is facile. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to move the science forward when there are so many stakeholders who say \u2018this is the right diet and no other one could possibly be right,\u2019\u201d Bazzano says. Plus, discouraging the intake of entire macronutrient groups can backfire. When people dutifully cut down on fat in the 1980s and 1990s, they replaced much of it with high-sugar and high-calorie processed foods (think: Snackwell\u2019s). If we start fearing protein, too, what will we fill our plates with instead? History tells us it\u2019s not going to be spinach.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Article referred to me by Mauricio Flores at P4Mi. Still think it is a precious position, yet more argument vs discussion. Who is right vs what is right. http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/why-almost-everything-dean-ornish-says-about-nutrition-is-wrong\/ Why Almost Everything Dean Ornish Says about Nutrition Is Wrong When it comes to good eating habits, protein and fat are not your dietary enemies April … Continue reading SciAm smashing Ornish<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interventions","category-reference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ef.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Why Almost Everything Dean Ornish Says about Nutrition Is Wrong<\/h1>\n\nWhen it comes to good eating habits, protein and fat are not your dietary enemies<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
When it comes to good eating habits, protein and fat are not your dietary enemies<\/p>\n<\/div>\n