In study, low-fat diet not shown to have health benefits

From Jimmy's blog:

THIS IS AN HISTORIC DAY THAT YOU'LL WANT TO REMEMBER!

Mark down February 7, 2006 in the annals of history regarding health, diet, and nutrition because the uncovering of a three-decade long ruse begins today as we watch it unravel right before our eyes and it will change all conventional wisdom regarding what we consider healthy living forever.

This Washington Post story about the published results of an EIGHT-YEAR study on the low-fat diet shows that there was ZERO health improvements in the risk of getting cancer and heart disease.

For those of you playing along at home, yes, this is the SAME low-fat diet recommendation that we have heard from our doctors, government, and health "experts" since the early 1970's that they have so highly touted as the wave of the future for people to follow to ensure they live a long, healthy life relatively free from the diseases that "other" nutritional approaches offer. Guess what? That was ONE BIG FAT LIE!

The eight-year study of 48,835 women published in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the study participants failed to lose a measurable amount of weight on the low-fat diet. In fact, most of them even remained overweight which put them at an even greater risk for cardiovascular disease despite following their low-fat regimen.

This is the second major blow to the low-fat diet to come out in 2006 and the news just keeps getting worse as research reveals what so many of us have known for a long time -- the low-fat diet is a failure.

While advocates of restricting fat for weight control, disease prevention, and good overall health have long gotten a free pass by much of the media, health officials and physicians in the U.S. and around the world, studies like these cannot be ignored and the ramifications of dismissing them rather than making changes in the way we think about health and diet could be devastating. It is clear to everyone who has eyes to see that we must look at other nutritional approaches and stop monopolizing the public health message with an exclusive low-fat bent!

The study, which incidentally cost American taxpayers $415 million to conduct since 1998 (and worth every penny!), found there was NO difference in the rate of breast cancer, colon cancer and heart disease among those eating a low-fat diet and those who did not.

Rest of entry here. The entire piece is quite long and worth the read.

Dr. Michael Eades' piece - author of the "Protein Power" diet
Weight of the Evidence article - slightly more scientific than the other two blogs, this is a good choice, if a little hard to understand at times