Am I Smarter then Researchers in Sweden?

I came across a very interesting article on Yahoo today. Many people have seen the documentary "Super Size Me" by now and some have heard of the movie "Fat Head" which shows you can lose weight on a fast food diet. Well, finally some researchers in Sweden put the whole fast food diet to the test. The study can be found here. Let's look at the study briefly.

Researchers in Sweden asked 12 men and six women in their twenties, all slim and in good health, to eat two meals per day at McDonalds, Burger King or other fast-food restaurants over four weeks.

The volunteers were also told to refrain from exercising. The goal was to increase body weight by 10 to 15 percent to measure the impact of an abrupt surge in calorie intake.

If you like that kind of food, it sounds like fun! But what happened wasn't so much fun. There is an enzyme known as ALT which is an indicator of liver damage, often seen in alcoholics and patients with Hepatitis C.

Levels of ALT increased sharply after only one week, and quadrupled on average over the entire period, said lead researcher Frederik Nystrom, a doctor at the University Hospital of Linkoping.

"The results scared me," he told AFP. "One of the subjects had to be withdrawn from the study because he had 10 times the normal ALT levels."

What could possibly be causing liver damage in the crappy food served by fast food chains? The Yahoo article reports:

Published in the British Medical Association's journal Gut, the study "proves that high ALT levels can be caused by food alone," said Nystrom.

That signs of liver damage were linked to carbohydrates was another key finding, he said.

"It was not the fat in the hamburgers, it was rather the sugar in the coke," he said.

What did he say? It was the sugar? OH MY GOD! Who would have thought that? Just a few million people who understand the difference between the "lipid hypothesis" and the "sugar hypothesis" of disease. I happen to be one of those people. So does this amaze and astonish you, would it surprise anyone you know? I will admit I was happy about the direction this article was going, then they drop a bit of a bomb 0n me:

But the most startling result implies that an intensive fast food diet might have some health benefits too, apparently from fat.

"We found that healthy HDL cholesterol actually increased over the four-week period -- this was very counter-intuitive," Nystrom said.

Not counter-intuitive to me or any of my readers who believe me. Also, the author of the Yahoo article has rolled right over the whole "sugar causes liver damage" thing by stating the increased HDL was the most startling result of this study. Again, the main stream media thinks cholesterol is the story and it isn't, EVER!

So what did the mainstream media have to say about this? I checked in at a blog I frequently read called The Weight if the Evidence to see if I could steal her quotes. I could... And I thank her.

MedPage (A Daily email to practicing physicians)today says: Explain to interested patients that this small study suggested that overdoing it on high-fat foods, even during a short holiday period, for instance, and a failure to exercise can cause liver damage.

What? Did MedPage read the same article I did? What else could have been said?

NHS Choices says: The study does provide a further reason to avoid overeating (especially food high in saturated fat) if one is needed.

Hmmmm... Somehow saturated fat is found the be the culprit again? I am confused.

CBS News reoprts:

The study, published in the advance online edition of Gut, doesn't show which was more damaging - bingeing on fatty food or being sedentary.

Of course it doesn't! It was the CARBS! Was ABC any smarter?

"The extra fat is the big enchilada here, the equivalent of about three sticks of butter daily,"

Huh? Some days I just want to give up. Who are these reporters holden to? How could they possibly misreport the essential facts of this simple little study? Wouldn't the bigger story actually be that the medical community as well as the media and the government has had it wrong for the 50 years or so. I guess not.

More Dummies in "Science"

I have been away for a bit and a LOT has happened for me to blog about. I am planning a sizable blog about statins and how they not only provide no protection from heart disease, they probably make it worse (plus all the side effects!).

But I just read a little article about gout and something made me laugh so I thought I would share. The article can be found here at sciencedaily.com, billed as "Your source for the latest research news." So I stop by their often for a good laugh. It says that high intake of sweetened soft drinks increase a man's risk for getting gout.

First they tell us the usual method to reverse gout:

Conventional dietary recommendations for gout have focused on the restriction of purines (found in high levels in meat and meat products, especially liver and kidney) and alcohol but with no restriction of sugar sweetened soft drinks.

That makes sense, sugar has never been reported to cause any medical problems, right? Obviously the problem lies with meat, a source of food for all animals for millions of years. OK, a little sarcasm there, but it just shows how little the medical industry actually knows.

The study tells us:

The risk of gout increased with increasing intake of sugar sweetened soft drinks. The risk was significantly increased with an intake level of 5-6 servings per week and the risk was 85% higher among men who consumed two or more servings of sugar-sweetened soft drinks per day compared to those who consumed less than one serving per month.

Not really a surprise here, soda has a negative nutritional value so it should cause health problems.

But what about fruit juices, they are considered to be "healthful" because of the fruit in their name. No one really mentions the high amount of sugar, added or not, it is "fruit sugars" and if they have fruit in their name then they must be good for you! But wait! The study gets something right here... Almost:

Fruit juice and fructose rich fruits (apples and oranges) were associated with a higher risk of gout. However, the authors stress that this finding needs to be balanced against the benefit of fruit and vegetable intake to prevent other chronic disorders like high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke and certain types of cancer.

Like I said, they almost got it right. Somehow the authors have mistaken "fruit juice" for "fruit and vegetable intake." So they take an apple and squeeze out all the liquid and sugar, leaving all the important nutrients behind, then add high fructose corn syrup to it, pasteurize it and bottle it and call that a serving of fruit. They actually believe a glass of orange juice is the equivalent of eating an orange. AND they combine that in the same sentence with "vegetable" making a glass of juice the same as a serving of broccoli! I haven't finished grad school, hell, I haven't even started grad school... I don't even plan on taking my education any further then my BS in biology, but I think I know more then these idiots. Or am I having visions of grandeur?