Question: Why do you recommend a low-fat diet over the low-carb diets that are all the rage?
Answer: Let’s start by looking at what medical research, rather than trendy diet books, show as the cause of aging and death. In “Prescription for Life” I demonstrate with numerous medical findings that the aging process depends primarily on the condition of your arteries. As your arteries become damaged by LDL cholesterol particles, blood flow may be stopped or markedly decreased. Over 50% of Americans die from this war raging in their arteries.
A glaring fact (and proof that LDL cholesterol should be our main concern) is that statins, used to bring LDL cholesterol down, are the number one class of drugs sold in America and around the world. LDL cholesterol is the biggest killer – and this culprit is found in fat, not carbohydrates.
Some of the things people do thinking they are promoting good health is similar to placing one ounce of truth on one side of the scale and a hundred-pound bag of medical reality on the other. There are books now being written about sugar contributing to high cholesterol, but what they conclude is about half true. Sugar does cause diabetes and can harm our arteries. However, if you don’t have diabetes, you have enough insulin in your pancreas to control your sugar intake. We do not have anything naturally in our body to control the excess LDL cholesterol. We must control LDL cholesterol levels purposely by avoiding the six foods that are killing us (see Chapter 9 in “Prescription for Life”).
I remind you that not all fats are bad. Monounsaturated, Polyunsaturated and Omega-3 fats are the “good threes” that actually help raise the HDL cholesterol in our blood. When we say “low fat” diet, we are speaking of saturated fat and trans fat, plus dietary cholesterol. “Prescription for Life” expounds upon the principles of exercise, losing weight healthfully, and eating the right foods to keep your heart operating at maximum capacity. The additional benefit to the “Prescription for Life” plan is that these three strategies combat dementia and some cancers as well.
The worst trick you can play on yourself is to believe you are doing something significant to protect your health when at the same time you are doing tenfold harm to your body without realizing it. The basic problem with so many diet trends is that you are experiencing only a temporary fix. Or worse, you are giving yourself a false sense of security. You think you are hunting elephants, but in reality you are only killing gnats!
“Blood cells’ photo courtesy of DreamDesign at www.freedigitalphotos.net
