"sounds good... until you have a heart attack at 35..." page

[tanyahk]

this is what my best friend said to me when I described the delish bacon I made, then the eggs/sausage/spince/mushroom dish I made using the bacon fat....

I've only been here a very short time so I don't know or have all the answers, but I didn't quite know what to say to that. I understand the grains issue and why eating them are bad for you, but I didn't know how to answer her when she said that all that fat would clog my arteries! Then she mentioned that the founder of Atkins died of a heart attack and if that wasn't proof right there, well what else did she have to say?

A friend let me borrow a copy of the book and I gave it back so I couldn't refer to that and couldn't find it on Primal 101 (there are alot of links!!) so if anyone can help me I would appreciate it!

[ennasirk]

Well, you can put the "Atkins died of a heart attack" myth to rest with this info: http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/atk...tkinsdeath.htm

[vh67]

The founder of Atkins died from head injuries sustained after slipping on the ice and hitting his head. Kind of hard to take someone who doesn't have her facts straight serious.

[Velocity]

Atkins didn't die of a heart attack, much less a diet-related disease. It is a myth. His death was caused by cardiomyopathy.

Further, refer your friend to the Drs. Eades, the book Good Calories, Bad Calories, as well as a slew of other links that are sure to be blizzarded upon you in short order.

[Minxxa]

Yeah that's a tough one. I'd check out mark's 101 post on fats... and then watch "Fathead" (you can see it on hulu anytime right now). Those two will help give you a "basic" understanding of how arteries are ACTUALLY clogged.

Oh, and Atkins died when he slipped on ice, fell and hit his head. The "heart attack" thing is an urban myth perpetuated by people who don't want to give up their carbs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_..._(nutritionist)

Your friend is like most people, just spitting out something they heard somewhere and have no backing, research, science, about. You'll get used to it... but having the right information to give them may shut them up a bit.

ETA: there are a ton of other books you can read, too like good calories, bad calories... but I was trying to toss out a couple that were super easy to get and give you the basics.

[Diana Renata]

Four words...

Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Great book by Gary Taubes.

[jammies]

I just tell people that the data used to support the lipid/cholesterol hypothesis is very poor and that there is increasing evidence demonstrating that saturated fat is healthy.

[Velocity]

Oh, and ask your friend how humans survived millennia before the advent of agriculture. Guarantee they were eating a ton of animal flesh, fat, organs, as well as the greens, fruits, nuts, etc., they could find via foraging... they weren't dying of heart attacks...

[DarthFriendly]

I just tell them that I'll be seeing them in hell if that's the case.

[peril]

Dietary fat does not equal blood fat
Dietary cholesterol does not equal blood cholesterol
Dietary sugar does not equal blood sugar

The human endocrine system is incredibly complex and has many mechanisms for regulating nutrient and metabolite levels within various parts of the body (blood, organs, muscle etc). It works particularly well if you eat an anti-inflammatory diet - no grains, no sugars, no bad PUFAs. Unfortunately, that system is not robust to a sustained inflammatory diet, which will cause the regulation mechanisms to fail. Saturated fat is not inflammatory. Indeed, it appears to mitigate the affect of inflammatory foods. Google studies done on full fat versus low fat dairy diets - low fat dairy kills more than high fat dairy