Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
Dr. Dwight Lundell MD is a cardiologist who beat the drum of a low-fat diet and cholesterol-lowering drugs to prevent heart disease for over 25 years.
He has performed over 5,000 open heart surgeries and trained with prominent “opinion maker” physicians who considered any deviation from the recommended therapy of severely limited fat intake and cholesterol-lowering meds to reduce heart disease risk complete heresy that could possibly result in a malpractice lawsuit.
Dr. Lundell now admits that this long-held notion is wrong. Not only is it completely and utterly wrong, but it is also scientifically and morally indefensible.
Following the recommended mainstream diet low in saturated fat and high in grain-based carbohydrates has created an epidemic of obesity and diabetes “the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences”.
By following the recommended low-fat diet, Dr. Lundell says that people are unknowingly causing “repeated injury to their blood vessels”. This repeated injury, day in and day out, is what is causing rampant inflammation across all population groups which has resulted in the epidemic of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Inflammation the True Cause of Heart Disease
Dr. Lundell explains that a slow paradigm shift that identifies inflammation as the true cause of heart disease is occurring.
He goes on to say that the conventional low-fat diet which warns against saturated fats and promotes polyunsaturated vegetable oils as a healthier alternative is the biggest culprit in causing chronic and deadly inflammation.
Unless inflammation is present in the body, cholesterol is unable to accumulate in plaques in the blood vessels causing heart attacks and strokes. In an inflammation free body, cholesterol moves freely and causes no health problems.
In other words, it is inflammation caused by a low-fat diet that causes cholesterol to become trapped in the body. Cholesterol-lowering drugs have been a dismal failure to eliminate or reduce the problem as 25% of the population now takes statin drugs and yet more Americans than ever will die of heart disease this year.
In short, blaming cholesterol for heart disease is like blaming fire fighters for fires.
How One Innocent Donut Causes Deadly Inflammation
Dr. Lundell explains the deadly 3 step process of how eating a simple donut or sweet roll causes a cascade of inflammation in the body:
Step One: Refined Grains and Sugar Consumption Spike Blood Sugar
Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.
When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.
What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.
Step Two: Omega 6 Vegetable Oils Produce Cytokines
It’s not just the refined grains and sugar in the donut causing spiking and crashing blood sugar that is the problem. Dr. Lundell continues by describing additional inflammation caused by the rancid omega 6, polyunsaturated oils (usually soybean) in the donut:
That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential -they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell — they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.
If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.
Step Three: Excess Weight Pours Out Pro-Inflammatory Chemicals
The final nail in the coffin for producing exorbitant levels of inflammation when that innocent-looking donut is consumed is the excess weight that most Americans are carrying:
To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.
Ditch the Lowfat Diet and Get Off the Inflammation Freight Train
Dr. Lundell counsels that mainstream medicine has made “a terrible mistake” by advising people to avoid saturated fats in favor of grain-based foods containing vegetable oils. This flawed and dangerous recommendation is a direct contributor to the epidemic of inflammation that is plaguing the Western world in the form of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and numerous other ailments.
Dr. Lundell advises to leave manufactured vegetable oils and other processed foods behind and return to the whole, unprocessed diet of our ancestors.
As for the ideal fats in the diet, Dr. Lundell recommends olive oil and grass-fed butter. He says the science that saturated fat causes heart disease is non-existent and the science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol as very weak.
Given that inflammation and not cholesterol cause heart disease, any concern about saturated fats in the diet is nothing short of “absurd” according to Dr. Lundell.
Sources and More Information
Heart Surgeon Speaks Out on What Really Causes Heart Disease
The High Risks of Low Cholesterol
Cholesterol Myths to Wise Up About
What Oxidizes the Cholesterol in Eggs?
The 9 Irrefutable Benefits of Cholesterol in the Diet
Thank-you for your wonderful search feature and this older blog that I had read before! It provided the ready background info for me to refer to in discussion with a friend today. She is has been determined to believe in the low-fat paradigm in the past. But with being able to go directly to a source, hopefully I planted a seed of understanding.
I wish links were provided for further reference. I agree with the conclusions, but it would help as I point others to this food philosophy.
This is fantastic! Thank you for writing this. I just blogged about “must have” fats and butter was first on my list, because there is so much misinformation about butter and it contains vitamins E, A &D,lecithin, selenium and iodine. Fresh coconut and its milk is delicious and healthy too.
Sarah does the grass fed butter have to be raw? We have been getting raw milk for a few weeks now but I am struggling to get the cream off to make butter. I can buy organic butter but it would bd pasterized, would this still give some health benefits or not really because the heat has destroyed them?
Who is this guy, Dr. Lundell? He does not seem very trustworthy by looking at his past. Sarah, you mentioned that you weight the same the day graduated from college by eating all those fat. How about your cholesterol level? Is it within healthy level? What is healthy level anyway if there is such a thing?
Don’t knock it ’til you try it. I am a registered dietitian and all health parameters improve when you feed your body the nutrition it needs. Fats are essential nutrients that help our bodies function properly.
All the issues we now face with vitamin D deficiency (a fat soluble vitamin), blood sugar, heart disease (especially triglycerides) and much more is likely due to the low fat (high carb) push by government and medical organizations
Why not low fat raw vegan? Why not ZERO animal protein and animal fat? We were not born with a stove on our backs, and we have opposable thumbs for picking fruit and veggies.
Great, stay away from processed anything – that’s how it should be. But unless you plan to buy a rabbit in a store, rip its head off and drink its blood while eating the whole dang thing, there is no point to eating any animal product at all (raw carnivorous diet of our ancestors). You can get everything you need from fruit, vegetables (starchy and fibrous) and legumes.
I’m not “one of those vegans,” but based on the information provided from The China Study and the film Forks Over Knives, one can reverse all diet-based disease solely by going vegan and eating clean. It’s pretty simple.
Uh huh. You might want to check out rawfoodsos.com where the author, Denise, who eats raw but not low-fat or vegan has pretty convincingly debunked The China Study.
No, you can’t get everything you need from plants. There are insufficient levels of vitamin A, D, K2, zinc, cholesterol, and B vitamins in plant foods. I don’t care how “balanced” or “well planned” a diet you eat. Not to mention how the only way to naturally get enough B12 and certain amino acids (don’t tell me supplements are natural) is to eat animal products.
A raw vegan diet is only beneficial if you are very toxic and need to cleanse, even then only for a short period of time. Also, your point about eating a whole rabbit (and, first of all, if you’re getting your meat from a grocery store, you’re already doing something wrong. You source your meat responsibly from a local farmer) is very important. You should not isolate one particular muscle meat from one animal. You SHOULD eat the whole thing, or most of it. When I eat an animal, I use not only the muscle meat, but also the liver, heart, bones, marrow, and other organs. Each part of the animal has a different nutritional profile, all essential to vibrant health, the way nature/G-d/the universe intended us to be.
The China Study is not a credible source of information. You really need to reevaluate your research on this one.
The China Study was featured in FoK, which was the first time I had ever heard about the study.
I had IBS for most of my adult life. I went vegan in July 2008, and have yet to suffer from anything other than fatigue – and that is due to getting off The Pill after being on it for 20+ years. With my hormones out of whack – I have had to relearn my approach to food and my workouts (P90X, P90X2, Insanity, etc.).
I’m not low fat raw vegan, but I AM vegan, and proud of it – I choose not to participate in the exploitation of any sentient beings. My cholesterol is about 130, I do NOT have low Vitamin D, and if I need B12, I can get it from my saliva. You see, like cholesterol, the body produces its own B12. B12 is added to your meat – it doesn’t come naturally to animal products. Recent blood tests also showed no lack of vitamin A or zinc, so I’m confused as to what it is that I’m missing.
I would prefer to be an 80/10/10 vegan (fruitarian), like the people I associate with – who are Cross Fit people, ultramarathoners, body builders, etc.