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Nifty link on Stamler. Impressive results. Thanks.
Hi Heretic,
Great to see you around. Great theories.
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Thanks for this post. I had seen earlier posts, and it was quite depressing, to see the absurd rancor that some people had, about DIET. This post is an upswing, and I thank you. Thank heavens the nation can at least deal with politics in a thoughtful civilized manner. Oh - what's wrong with me - I guess we can't. Both parties flunk for putting party above nation. But I digress.
I've seen posts on both Fuhrman and McDougall sites, by people who are doing better on one, than the other diet. I am familial type B lipid profile. I have high LDL, mostly the small dense LDL - the worst kind. And low HDL, mostly the small dense HDL, which is the only bad kind of HDL. I definitely do better on the Fuhrman program, than when I emphasized starches for calories, and had no nuts & seeds, on the Pritikin diet. I was identical to McDougall, except I ate sourdough bread, not realizing it made my diet high in salt. Ouch. I was lactose intolerant, so I was dairy free, so that's another item in agreement with McDougall.
Anyway, both diets are clearly excellent. If you attend a McDougall health center, you eat pretty much identically with Fuhrman, except McDougall has no nuts & seeds. Fuhrman does believe the McDougall diet, for some people, can lead to low omega 3, with serious problems.
I read Dr. McDougall's support for his no vitamin D recommendation, and his references better support Dr. Fuhrman's recommendation, of getting blood tested, and supplementing, if necessary, to reach 35 to 55.
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Here's an observation, for your consideration. If a diet drug is safe, it is not effective. If a diet drug is effective, it is not safe.
Some people see an improvement in ADHD, by carefully following a healthy program as mentioned by jc.
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Re: ...cut by 90%... : yes, me too, but the beans have provided a counterbalance, for net gain of zero. ^o^
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Hi Heretic,
Some of my thoughts, simply for your consideration...
A suggestion to try... if nuts give you heartburn, try them with salads or even fruit. But it is easy to eat too many nuts. I am not saying we have to eat lots of nuts and seeds. If you are happier limiting them, that's best.
I have to weigh out my foods for a few days, to see how many calories I get, and so forth, but I guess I get 600 calories of nuts and seeds most days. I am no longer on a low fat diet.
I think Fuhrman does villify white potatoes too much. I think they are fine, occasionally. I no longer eat 7 pounds a week, but we eat them occasionally. We all have different metabolisms.
Heretic, if you are pursuing a ketogenic diet, yes, potatoes are not at all what you want. Question - do you think pH paper would work on urine? I suppose it should. Having alkaline urine is very beneficial, I believe. Most people have acidic urine. It might be interesting to test one's self.
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Interesting about sodium. I attended the Pritikin Longevity Center, in Florida, a few years ago. They pointed out that there is a hormone change, about a week after going on a low sodium diet, to conserve the sodium in the body, and not sweat as much sodium into the sweat.
So, if someone is sweating profusely, from exercising, and suddenly cuts sodium intake, for a week they are taking in little sodium, and still sweating it out at a high level, because the hormone change has not kicked in yet. Then the person can get into trouble, and have heat stroke, which can be fatal.
So, when cutting out salt out of the diet, do not sweat a lot for the first week, and then build gradually.
Now that I have cut sodium out of my diet, except for lots of veggies and beans, I sweat much less. When I exercised with friends, I used to be the guy drenched in sweat, when others were just perspiring a bit. Now I sweat much less than most people.
So, give your body a week to adjust, and then increase perspiration gradually.
When I cut the salt, and stopped sweating profusely, I became much less susceptible to athletes foot, also.
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Check into Dr. Pekka Pushka, who has lead the effort in Finland. In the 1970's, Finland had the highest heart disease rate in the world. Today, they have lowered their heart disease rate by 75%. They are doing something right. And most of what they are doing is replacing whole milk with low fat and non-fat, working to reduce saturated fat content in manufactured foods, replace saturated fat with vegetable oil, cutting out trans fats, etc.
This is reality, and great results.
Re: "which means they have obviously excluded diabetics - the people who most benefit from a low-carb diet!" --Barry Groves
Obviously Barry Groves is not aware of the spectacular, published, results at the Pritikin Center, curing diabetes with a high carb low fat, mostly vegetable diet.
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Yes, it would be interesting to see the affect or role of exercise, and whether exercise differed between the groups.
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Good to see you around!
Re: "
The exercise is probably strengthening my heart, not the carbs."
These are 43,000 Swedish women. The study gets the result of an average person, and really does not measure the results of a very few untypical exercise enthusiasts. Just guessing, when they increased their carbs, it was more likely to enjoy a doughnut, rather than to help them run 5 miles.
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread

Dr. Fuhrman believes that the optimal diet has quite a range of proportions. As I apply it, I eat perhaps 5 oz nuts and seeds daily, making the fat % probably near 30%. I should weigh everything I eat for 3 to 5 days, to figure it out. Athletes will eat more whole grains. I no longer believe the proportions are a critical measurement of the diet. I believe the high phytochemical and antioxidant content, and the low calorie content, is the single most critical factor of the diet, of many important factors in a diet.
Some heart patients have difficulty with any avocado or nuts and seeds. You recall DMW said he had difficulty with avocados and nuts, except in the smallest portions.
Pritikin's books emphasized low fat, high complex carbohydrates. The diet he gave heart patients, who healed miraculously, emphasized veggies. Recall that in 1977, 60 Minutes was going to do an expose on the nut in California, who claimed to be curing heart disease. They attended the Pritikin Longevity Center with hidden cameras. The 60 minutes crew was amazed that people were getting better. They came out of hiding, and asked Pritikin how they could help him. 60 Minutes went the the Miami Heart Center, and got 3 patients who standard medical care could not help.
60 Minutes paid for the 3 to attend the Pritikin Center. 60 Minues interviewed the 3 patients, before attending Pritikin. One said he was afraid of crossing the street, for fear that he would get an angina attack, and not be able to get out of the street. After Pritikin, all 3 patients were much improved. Doctors wrote in, outraged that the show proved nothing, just because they felt better after a month stay at a resort. So, 60 minutes did a year followup, and all 3 had returned to work, and were feeling better than ever. (After 2 years, all 3 patients were off all medications.)
Best regards, EngineerGuyView Thread
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