Pigging Out Is Okay, Study Says

[+ Lucky]

A low fat diet won't help a lick towards preventing heart disease or similar naughty things, so go ahead and enjoy life. That's what the "Rolls-Royce" of health studies revealed:

 

Low-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Report Says

 

 

By GINA KOLATA

Published: February 8, 2006

The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.

 

 

The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.

 

"These studies are revolutionary," said Dr. Jules Hirsch, physician in chief emeritus at Rockefeller University in New York City, who has spent a lifetime studying the effects of diets on weight and health. "They should put a stop to this era of thinking that we have all the information we need to change the whole national diet and make everybody healthy."

 

The study, published in today's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, was not just an ordinary study, said Dr. Michael Thun, who directs epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society. It was so large and so expensive, Dr. Thun said, that it was "the Rolls-Royce of studies." As such, he added, it is likely to be the final word.

 

"We usually have only one shot at a very large-scale trial on a particular issue," he said.

 

The results, the study investigators agreed, do not justify recommending low-fat diets to the public to reduce their heart disease and cancer risk. Given the lack of benefit found in the study, many medical researchers said that the best dietary advice, for now, was to follow federal guidelines for healthy eating, with less saturated and trans fats, more grains, and more fruits and vegetables.

 

Not everyone was convinced. Some, like Dr. Dean Ornish, a longtime promoter of low-fat diets and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., said that the women did not reduce their fat to low enough levels or eat enough fruits and vegetables, and that the study, even at eight years, did not give the diets enough time.

 

Others said that diet could still make a difference, at least with heart disease, if people were to eat the so-called Mediterranean diet, low in saturated fats like butter and high in oils like olive oil. The women in the study reduced all kinds of fat.

 

The diets studied "had an antique patina," said Dr. Peter Libby, a cardiologist and professor at Harvard Medical School. These days, Dr. Libby said, most people have moved on from the idea of controlling total fat to the idea that people should eat different kinds of fat.

 

But the Mediterranean diet has not been subjected to a study of this scope, researchers said.

 

And Barbara V. Howard, an epidemiologist at MedStar Research Institute, a nonprofit hospital group, and a principle investigator in the study, said people should realize that diet alone was not enough to stay healthy.

 

"We are not going to reverse any of the chronic diseases in this country by changing the composition of the diet," Dr. Howard said. "People are always thinking it's what they ate. They are not looking at how much they ate or that they smoke or that they are sedentary."

 

Except for not smoking, the advice for a healthy lifestyle is based largely on indirect evidence, Dr. Howard said, but most medical researchers agree that it makes sense to eat well, control weight and get regular exercise.

 

That is also what the cancer society recommends. Dr. Thun, who described the study's results as "completely null over the eight-year follow-up for both cancers and heart disease," said his group had no plans to suggest that low-fat diets were going to protect against cancer.

 

Others cautioned against being too certain that a particular diet would markedly improve health, and said that whether someone developed a chronic disease might not be entirely under their control — genetics also plays a role.

 

David A. Freedman, a statistician at the University of California, Berkeley, who is not connected with the study but has written books on the design and analysis of clinical trials, said the results should be taken seriously.

 

"The studies were well designed," Dr. Freedman said, "and the investigators tried to confirm popular hypotheses about the protective effect of diet against three major diseases in women."

 

"But," he added, "the diet studied here turned out not to be protective after all."

 

The study was part of the Women's Health Initiative of the National Institutes of Health, the same program that showed that hormone therapy after menopause might have more risks than benefits.

 

In this case, the study addressed a tricky problem. For decades, many scientists have said, and many members of the public have believed, that what people eat — the composition of the diet — determines how likely they are to get a chronic disease. But that has been hard to prove. Studies of dietary fiber and colon cancer failed to find that fiber was protective, and studies of vitamins thought to protect against cancer failed to show an effect.

 

Many cancer researchers have questioned large parts of the diet-cancer hypothesis, but it has kept a hold on the public imagination. "Nothing fascinates the American public so much as the notion that what you eat rather than how much you eat affects your health," said Dr. Libby, the Harvard professor.

 

The study found that women who were randomly assigned to follow a low-fat diet ate significantly less fat over the next eight years. But they had just as much breast and colon cancer and just as much heart disease. The women were not trying to lose weight, and their weights remained fairly steady. But their experiences with the diets allowed researchers to question some popular notions about diet and obesity.

 

There is a common belief that Americans get fat because they eat too many carbohydrates. The idea is that a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet leads to weight gain, higher insulin and blood glucose levels, and more diabetes, even if the calories are the same as in a higher-fat diet. That did not happen here.

 

Others have said the opposite: that low-fat diets enable people to lose weight naturally. But that belief was not supported by this study.

 

As for heart disease risk factors, the only one affected was LDL cholesterol, which increases heart disease risk. The levels were slightly higher in women eating the higher-fat diet, but not high enough to make a noticeable difference in their risk of heart disease.

 

Although all the study participants were women, the colon cancer and heart disease results should also apply to men, said Dr. Jacques Rossouw, the project officer for the Women's Health Initiative.

[Samai139]

It's possible that low-fat diets may not PREVENT any diseases, but when this particular study was designed, the researchers, to my knowledge, made no distinction between the types of fat consumed. Now, it is known that trans-fats are better or more healthy than saturated fats. It is also possible that the beneficial effects of a low-fat diet, of any sort, may take longer than eight years to be observed, and you may need to begin at a younger age.

Bottom Line for me? I'm not a woman, not obese, don't smoke and try to to eat healthy, but not a fanatic. Will I stick to my dietary regimen? Yes, and I'll stay male, thank you very much.

[+ Lucky]

A nude blogger can't wait to spread the news of this study to all of his readers!

 

http://photos11.flickr.com/13249369_6d043bb371_m.jpg

[+ Charlie]

Wow! That photo is HOT!!

[londonbear]

Several aspects of the study are unsatisfactory to deaw any conclusion. The study reduced all fats and not specifically the saturated and trans fats that are currently recommended you reduce (and for which there is strong evidence) The women in the study were all already over 50 when the experiment started so this is no indication of the long term benefits if such a diet is adopted at an earlier age. For most of the women in the study, the benefits may have also been affected by the menopause. These is also no evidence that a similar trial would geive the same result in men. The assertion to the contrary in the article is rediculous. Women and children are not in the test groups for most new prescription durgs and they now complain that there is insufficient information about the proper levels and effectiveness. The same applies to studies conducted on women being directly comparable in men.

[Guest]

I'm looking forward to getting a copy of the article. If, as it seems from the above statements, the goal was to reduce total fat rather than saturated and/or trans-fats, the study was incredibly stupid and useless. The medical community has had ample evidence for many years that certain fats (i.e. saturated and trans) increase morbidity and mortality, while other fats (i.e. monounsaturated mainly, and probably polyunsaturated) reduce morbidity and mortality. It is by the same token that I have the hardest time explaining to patients that their "total cholesterol" number is unimportant. What are important are the levels of "good" (HDL) and "bad" (LDL) cholesterols. In fact, increasing the HDL by one does as much good as decreasing the LDL by three.

The role of carbohydrates and proteins are still up for debate. But the vast majority of the medical community agree that one's health is improved by eating more "good fats" (i.e. nuts, canola oil, olive oil, fish oils, and so on), and fewer "bad fats" (i.e. fats of land animals, partially hydrogenated oils, fried food, and so on).