What a brilliant piece you have written and it's very timely given what Dr James Muecke has written this week.
Eye surgeon Dr James Muecke was the Australian of the Year in 2020 & has written a very insightful piece that will challenge what a lot of people believe about eating red meat.
Those of you who are vegan, vegetarian or work in the medical fields need to consider what James has written here, what his motivations (we know what they are) are.
He is very well respected & all he wants to do is make the population well again.
The metabolic health issue deserves bipartisan support. But I doubt the pharma companies that advertise in mainstream media will be happy with the threat. I hope the truth will continue to break through.
Unfortunately, Harris is on the record for wanting to reduce meat consumption and the number of beef herds which would be terrible for our health and environment.
From the Neil Barsky Guardian article linked above:
“Contrary to recent claims by Donald Trump, JD Vance and Ted Cruz, Kamala Harris loves a good cheeseburger; she positively does not want to take our red meat away. She has cited sugars and sodas as major culprits in our poor health.”
With just a cursory search, from the 2020 election. During a town hall in 2019, while indeed stressing the role of sugar and sodas, she was specifically asked about red meat (and this is in the context of government policy, not personal choice):
And follow link to SJ Mercury News to see more statements in support of revising the dietary guide lines to reduce meat consumption. So framing it as "take our red meat away" is disingenuous at best. To paraphrase Bureaucrat one point zero, the author is "technically correct , the *worst* kind of correct"
Thx for finding that. The reason I know that’s what she really believes is it backs up what they have already stated in Europe. It fits into the WEF vision, no private property, no free will but all the vegan gruel you want ( well all you want up to 1500 calories/day but good news on your birthday you get a bug cake!).
One of the major impediments to a successful low carb diet is the reality of carbohydrate addiction. Breads and sugars have our society in thrall and this needs to be a main focus of a national campaign to make America healthy again.
Incredibly important and well-written post, thank you for writing it!
The co-morbidities of T2 like heart disease, kidney disease, chronic inflammation, and even Alzheimer's touch on nearly all diseases of civilization that contribute to our massive health burden.
And let's not forget that early T2 signs (leptin resistance) are often ignored in modern medicine.
Nina, you didn't mention intermittent fasting at all. Dr. Jason Fung tried recommending a keto diet to his patients, but found they could not maintain it. (Neither could I; it was too restrictive for me.) His patients could do intermittent fasting because it isn't as restrictive on food choices, and it is easier and cheaper to implement. I reversed my pre-diabetic condition with a low carb diet --about 60 to 80 grams of net carbs a day, instead of < 20 grams on a true keto diet.
Intermittant fasting also lacks the level of RCT evidence to recommend this as a population-wide public health intervention. But there's enough evidence for doctors to safely recommend this approach and for people to try it!
As I understand it, there is very good research available on Alternate Day Fasting from Dr. Krista Varady's group, and I believe is the most rigorous to date, but whether it includes enough data to be included in public policy may not be the case. It's interesting that her work is often overlooked, though Dr. Fung says on his website that it's the best-researched strategy (using RCTs) on fasting to date. Certainly enough evidence to safely recommend!
The Carnivore diet is a very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet. So from a type 2 diabetes perspective, Carnivore is simply a subset of the dietary pattern mentioned in this substack. From some non-T2-diabetes health perspectives (such as managing ulcerative colitis for instance), Carnivore is a distinct diet. But that is not the context of this discussion.
Who gets the $1B per day generated by diabetes? Beside pharma and big food, you left out the major recipent>>the "health care industry:" doctors, hospitals, surgical centers, dialysis centers, device suppliers. Pharma and food barely define who will fight ferociously to maintain people remain sick and that that $1B/day (or more) continues to be spent. Very sad, for very true.
Why don’t you have a hundred thousand followers?? You are an excellent writer and, in my opinion, always on the right side of things (no intent to suggest a political interpretation, in fact the opposite). I wish your messages, yours and Gary’s, could reach a much wider audience! Thank you!
Only a handful of scientists in the World have identified the cause of the global obesity/diabetes epidemic. Perdue University researchers have begun looking into the matter. "The amounts of chicken and total poultry consumed in the US have more than tripled over the last six decades. This narrative review describes nutritional profiles of commonly consumed chicken/poultry products, consumption trends, and dietary recommendations in the US. Overviews of the scientific literature pertaining to associations between, and effects of consuming chicken/poultry on, body weight and body composition, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are provided. Limited evidence from randomized controlled trials indicates the consumption of lean unprocessed chicken as a primary dietary protein source has either beneficial or neutral effects on body weight and body composition and risk factors for CVD and T2DM. Apparently, zero randomized controlled feeding trials have specifically assessed the effects of consuming processed chicken/poultry on these health outcomes." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37630747/
(2016) "The ω-6 series of fatty acids, which includes arachidonic acid (ARA, C20:4) and its precursor linoleic acid (LA), constitute a growing part of the lipid intake in western diets for the last 40 years. The first cause of this trend is the higher consumption of animal products. White meat especially provides the highest quantities of dietary ARA." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27473185/
Excerpt from Page 56 of 'Omega Balance' by Australian zoologist Anthony Hulbert, PhD (2023) "The contribution of 'pork and poultry' to animal-sourced foods was 20 percent in 1961 and 41 percent in 2018…Between 1961 and 2018 there was a dramatic worldwide increase in the supply of fats from sources that have very low omega balances. Fat from “pork and poultry” was greatest in North America for the entire 1961-2018 period, while for Australia and South America, the contribution from 'pork and poultry' was the World average level in 1961 and showed the greatest absolute increases (about 16 g) over this period to be similar to North America and Europe in 2018. There was negligible change in Africa over this period."
In a 2021 article Hulbert noted that "...we are only beginning to understand the implications of the balance between omega-3 and omega-6 fats in the human diet. Although most animals have a relatively constant diet, we humans are especially diverse (both between individuals and over time) in the types of food we consume. Over the last half-century, the modern human food chain has emphasised omega-6 and diminished omega-3 intake, largely because of: (i) a shift from animal fats to vegetable oils, (ii) an increase in grain-fed meat and dairy, and (iii) a decline in full-fat dairy products from grass-fed livestock (an important source of omega-3). In the opinion of the current author and others, these diet trends are likely to be responsible for the increased incidence of obesity and other modern epidemics of chronic disease..." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33914036/#
As far back as 2011 Norwegian animal science researchers were saying, "... an unnaturally high omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid concentration ratio in meat, offal and eggs (because the omega-6/omega-3 ratio of the animal diet is unnaturally high) directly leads to exacerbation of pain conditions, cardiovascular disease and probably most cancers. It should be technologically easy and fairly inexpensive to produce poultry and pork meat with much more long-chain omega-3 fatty acids and less arachidonic acid than now, at the same time as they could also have a similar selenium concentration as is common in marine fish. The health economic benefits of such products for society as a whole must be expected vastly to outweigh the direct costs for the farming sector." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3031257/
In a 2013 article the authors said, "Endocannabinoids and their G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) are a current research focus in the area of obesity due to the system's role in food intake and glucose and lipid metabolism. Overweight and obese individuals often have higher circulating levels of the arachidonic acid-derived endocannabinoids…” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677644/
My personal experience. In 2009, when I learned that peanuts are rich in linoleic acid, I swapped the peanut butter (previously included in sandwiches) for 99% fat-free Hillshire farms turkey. My leg pain subsided but a new set of symptoms developed; shoulder pain, chronic winter cough, and about 25 pounds weight gain during the cold months when I was more sedentary. In 2016 I read a BMJ article that said, "We now know that major changes have taken place in the food supply over the last 100 years, when food technology and modern agriculture led to enormous production of vegetable oils high in ω-6 fatty acids, and changed animal feeds from grass to grains, thus increasing the amount of ω-6 fatty acids at the level of linoleic acid (LA) (from oils) and arachidonic acid (AA) (from meat, eggs, dairy)." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093368/
After I swapped the turkey for cheese, the symptoms subsided. I now remain at my baseline weight no matter how active I am or how much I eat.
This is enlightening and you are appreciated. Unfortunately, the next president will do its best to ensure that the population at large never believes that diabetes is reversible. We have enough history to know this is true, even if there's no RCT.
What a brilliant piece you have written and it's very timely given what Dr James Muecke has written this week.
Eye surgeon Dr James Muecke was the Australian of the Year in 2020 & has written a very insightful piece that will challenge what a lot of people believe about eating red meat.
Those of you who are vegan, vegetarian or work in the medical fields need to consider what James has written here, what his motivations (we know what they are) are.
He is very well respected & all he wants to do is make the population well again.
https://www.northweststar.com.au/story/8724002/the-benefits-of-red-meat-for-your-health-and-the-planet/
Cholesterol is not toxin.
The metabolic health issue deserves bipartisan support. But I doubt the pharma companies that advertise in mainstream media will be happy with the threat. I hope the truth will continue to break through.
Unfortunately, Harris is on the record for wanting to reduce meat consumption and the number of beef herds which would be terrible for our health and environment.
From the Neil Barsky Guardian article linked above:
“Contrary to recent claims by Donald Trump, JD Vance and Ted Cruz, Kamala Harris loves a good cheeseburger; she positively does not want to take our red meat away. She has cited sugars and sodas as major culprits in our poor health.”
With just a cursory search, from the 2020 election. During a town hall in 2019, while indeed stressing the role of sugar and sodas, she was specifically asked about red meat (and this is in the context of government policy, not personal choice):
"Would you reduce red meat, specifically?"
"Yes, I would," Harris answered.
Ref:
https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-urges-americans-reduce-red-meat-help-save-earth-despite-saying-i-love-1457770
And follow link to SJ Mercury News to see more statements in support of revising the dietary guide lines to reduce meat consumption. So framing it as "take our red meat away" is disingenuous at best. To paraphrase Bureaucrat one point zero, the author is "technically correct , the *worst* kind of correct"
Thx for finding that. The reason I know that’s what she really believes is it backs up what they have already stated in Europe. It fits into the WEF vision, no private property, no free will but all the vegan gruel you want ( well all you want up to 1500 calories/day but good news on your birthday you get a bug cake!).
She is on record wanting to reduce the number of cows cuz climate change. She was lying then or now, another flip flop at the worst.
One of the major impediments to a successful low carb diet is the reality of carbohydrate addiction. Breads and sugars have our society in thrall and this needs to be a main focus of a national campaign to make America healthy again.
10y 9m on low carb diet. 38lb off. Frequent depression gone for that period of time. Good article Nina.
An insightful piece, thank you for this!
Incredibly important and well-written post, thank you for writing it!
The co-morbidities of T2 like heart disease, kidney disease, chronic inflammation, and even Alzheimer's touch on nearly all diseases of civilization that contribute to our massive health burden.
And let's not forget that early T2 signs (leptin resistance) are often ignored in modern medicine.
This post deserves a Pulitzer, in all seriousness.
Politics aside. . . Very well done
Nina, you didn't mention intermittent fasting at all. Dr. Jason Fung tried recommending a keto diet to his patients, but found they could not maintain it. (Neither could I; it was too restrictive for me.) His patients could do intermittent fasting because it isn't as restrictive on food choices, and it is easier and cheaper to implement. I reversed my pre-diabetic condition with a low carb diet --about 60 to 80 grams of net carbs a day, instead of < 20 grams on a true keto diet.
Intermittant fasting also lacks the level of RCT evidence to recommend this as a population-wide public health intervention. But there's enough evidence for doctors to safely recommend this approach and for people to try it!
As I understand it, there is very good research available on Alternate Day Fasting from Dr. Krista Varady's group, and I believe is the most rigorous to date, but whether it includes enough data to be included in public policy may not be the case. It's interesting that her work is often overlooked, though Dr. Fung says on his website that it's the best-researched strategy (using RCTs) on fasting to date. Certainly enough evidence to safely recommend!
And what about the fourth solution, known as the proper human diet ?
Carnivore.
Eliminate everything except animal products.
I will not accept that all those who speak of the benefits of the proper human diet are pretending.
The Carnivore diet is a very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet. So from a type 2 diabetes perspective, Carnivore is simply a subset of the dietary pattern mentioned in this substack. From some non-T2-diabetes health perspectives (such as managing ulcerative colitis for instance), Carnivore is a distinct diet. But that is not the context of this discussion.
Goodness ! - I'd like to say I stand corrected; but frankly, calling carnivore "a subset" is a bit silly.
Who gets the $1B per day generated by diabetes? Beside pharma and big food, you left out the major recipent>>the "health care industry:" doctors, hospitals, surgical centers, dialysis centers, device suppliers. Pharma and food barely define who will fight ferociously to maintain people remain sick and that that $1B/day (or more) continues to be spent. Very sad, for very true.
And we need that 21st Century hero NOW.
Or there won't be a 22nd Century.
At least with Humans on it.
Why don’t you have a hundred thousand followers?? You are an excellent writer and, in my opinion, always on the right side of things (no intent to suggest a political interpretation, in fact the opposite). I wish your messages, yours and Gary’s, could reach a much wider audience! Thank you!
LOL. Send to your friends :)
Only a handful of scientists in the World have identified the cause of the global obesity/diabetes epidemic. Perdue University researchers have begun looking into the matter. "The amounts of chicken and total poultry consumed in the US have more than tripled over the last six decades. This narrative review describes nutritional profiles of commonly consumed chicken/poultry products, consumption trends, and dietary recommendations in the US. Overviews of the scientific literature pertaining to associations between, and effects of consuming chicken/poultry on, body weight and body composition, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are provided. Limited evidence from randomized controlled trials indicates the consumption of lean unprocessed chicken as a primary dietary protein source has either beneficial or neutral effects on body weight and body composition and risk factors for CVD and T2DM. Apparently, zero randomized controlled feeding trials have specifically assessed the effects of consuming processed chicken/poultry on these health outcomes." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37630747/
(2016) "The ω-6 series of fatty acids, which includes arachidonic acid (ARA, C20:4) and its precursor linoleic acid (LA), constitute a growing part of the lipid intake in western diets for the last 40 years. The first cause of this trend is the higher consumption of animal products. White meat especially provides the highest quantities of dietary ARA." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27473185/
Excerpt from Page 56 of 'Omega Balance' by Australian zoologist Anthony Hulbert, PhD (2023) "The contribution of 'pork and poultry' to animal-sourced foods was 20 percent in 1961 and 41 percent in 2018…Between 1961 and 2018 there was a dramatic worldwide increase in the supply of fats from sources that have very low omega balances. Fat from “pork and poultry” was greatest in North America for the entire 1961-2018 period, while for Australia and South America, the contribution from 'pork and poultry' was the World average level in 1961 and showed the greatest absolute increases (about 16 g) over this period to be similar to North America and Europe in 2018. There was negligible change in Africa over this period."
In a 2021 article Hulbert noted that "...we are only beginning to understand the implications of the balance between omega-3 and omega-6 fats in the human diet. Although most animals have a relatively constant diet, we humans are especially diverse (both between individuals and over time) in the types of food we consume. Over the last half-century, the modern human food chain has emphasised omega-6 and diminished omega-3 intake, largely because of: (i) a shift from animal fats to vegetable oils, (ii) an increase in grain-fed meat and dairy, and (iii) a decline in full-fat dairy products from grass-fed livestock (an important source of omega-3). In the opinion of the current author and others, these diet trends are likely to be responsible for the increased incidence of obesity and other modern epidemics of chronic disease..." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33914036/#
As far back as 2011 Norwegian animal science researchers were saying, "... an unnaturally high omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid concentration ratio in meat, offal and eggs (because the omega-6/omega-3 ratio of the animal diet is unnaturally high) directly leads to exacerbation of pain conditions, cardiovascular disease and probably most cancers. It should be technologically easy and fairly inexpensive to produce poultry and pork meat with much more long-chain omega-3 fatty acids and less arachidonic acid than now, at the same time as they could also have a similar selenium concentration as is common in marine fish. The health economic benefits of such products for society as a whole must be expected vastly to outweigh the direct costs for the farming sector." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3031257/
In a 2013 article the authors said, "Endocannabinoids and their G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) are a current research focus in the area of obesity due to the system's role in food intake and glucose and lipid metabolism. Overweight and obese individuals often have higher circulating levels of the arachidonic acid-derived endocannabinoids…” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677644/
My personal experience. In 2009, when I learned that peanuts are rich in linoleic acid, I swapped the peanut butter (previously included in sandwiches) for 99% fat-free Hillshire farms turkey. My leg pain subsided but a new set of symptoms developed; shoulder pain, chronic winter cough, and about 25 pounds weight gain during the cold months when I was more sedentary. In 2016 I read a BMJ article that said, "We now know that major changes have taken place in the food supply over the last 100 years, when food technology and modern agriculture led to enormous production of vegetable oils high in ω-6 fatty acids, and changed animal feeds from grass to grains, thus increasing the amount of ω-6 fatty acids at the level of linoleic acid (LA) (from oils) and arachidonic acid (AA) (from meat, eggs, dairy)." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093368/
After I swapped the turkey for cheese, the symptoms subsided. I now remain at my baseline weight no matter how active I am or how much I eat.
This is enlightening and you are appreciated. Unfortunately, the next president will do its best to ensure that the population at large never believes that diabetes is reversible. We have enough history to know this is true, even if there's no RCT.