Weight Reduction

It always amazes me how only certain studies get brought to our attention. I guess it all depends on what the medical community wants us to know. Heaven forbid if everything they have been teaching us over the years might actually be wrong. What am I talking about? I’ll tell you. In February 2006, the Journal of the American Medical Association published the findings of an 8 year study on Low-Fat diets and women. It is believed that the findings of the study will apply to men as well.

The study found that following a low-fat diet did not protect women from breast cancer, colon cancer, strokes or heart attacks. Yes, that is right…there is not a protection against cancer or cardiovascular problems from following a low-fat diet.

Now considering that a low-fat diet has been promoted as the best way to protect us against these things, I find those results to be quite shocking. The study was conducted among 50,000 women who were middle aged and elderly. The evidence was very clear that cutting fat from their diet did not reduce these risks to their health. This essentially undermines the advice we have been receiving from the medical community for more than a decade.

Now, it should be noted that while the study discounts what we have always been told, it does hint that there may still be some benefits to reducing the total amount of fat that we consume in our diets. So don’t go sucking down the fat. This study as well as other several other studies have given us clear evidence that certain fats, such as saturated fats and trans fats are not to be considered healthy and should be avoided.

I also want you to know that the women on the low-fat diet in the study did have levels of LDL or “Bad” cholesterol that were slightly lower, as well as a lower blood pressure. However, the risk of stroke, heart attack and heart disease was not affected. But the women who lowered their intake of saturated fat and also ate more fruits and vegetables did have a lower risk overall.

So what does this study mean for you and me? Well, it means that what we knew about diet previously just may be wrong. We may need to look at things differently. However, before you load on the butter, sour cream, bacon, and cheese on that baked potato, you need to be cautious. There will probably be another study soon that will discount this one. There always seem to be new studies to discount previous ones. Until then, I’m going to continue to watch those bad fats, consume the healthy ones and load up on those fruits and veggies. Anyone want to join me?

Photo by (c) forwardcom, www.sxc.hu

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