The low carbohydrate diet is an old diet. It was the choice of man for two million Stone Age years. He first departed from his meat-fat diet only a few thousand years ago.—The Stone Age Diet by Walter Voegtlin, M.D., pg.7

As I’ve eluded to in previous articles, modern physicians who study the phenomenon of fat loss via fat intake and lowered carbohydrates almost invariably find positive results—yet all of them insist on “the potential dangers” and “more time for testing”. Prudent, of course. Or is it?

These learned physicians are dismissing over two million years of human development, countless books and studies done over the course of 20, 30, even 50 years by physicians and researchers since the 1800s, and some common sense biochemistry to boot.

Let me say this: A high-fat diet can be dangerous to some, just as a low-fat diet is dangerous to more than a few people. Some people are extremely sensitive to fat intake. However, the vast majority of people are much more sensitive the effects of carbohydrate in the diet than dietary fat. Once again, these are my observations and the observations of many others, some of whom will be referenced in this article for your own reading.

So, if we are to dismiss some valid of research in favor of more clinical approaches, we must first look at what “clinical approaches” means and the actual validity of them.

The Problem With Clinical Studies

It’s hard to get people to do something, even in a clinical setting. Most people do not realize that those who conduct these studies are somewhat at the mercy of the participants. For example, the Such-and-Such study on dietary fat has XYZ guidelines to follow. The participants are free human beings, not lab animals, so a certain degree of trust is involved. Many participants will invariably cheat on their dietary protocols. Some will exercise more than others. Still others will simply rely on genetics and end up throwing off the bell curve.

In short, while clinical trials are beneficial, they are far from foolproof. In reality, unless all subjects are kept under lock and key, there’s no way to guarantee that any of them adhered to the protocols at hand.

Therefore, it makes more sense to me to look at different variables along with research: patterns in history, such as the advent of disease, the way we ate throughout time, etc. Also, long-term studies conducted on the authors of the studies themselves or in daily clinical practice seem more reliable. Finally, personal observation is critical. Without some degree of personalization, all dietary protocols, no matter how healthy, are useless.

With these facts in mind, let’s look at some studies. Some flawed, others hard to dispute.

Dr. Dean Ornish’s Heart Healthy Study

One of the most commonly sited studies on how evil fat is comes from Dr. Dean Ornish (not exactly lean himself, might I add.) Ornish was able to show a reversal of heart disease via an extremely low-fat diet. Plaque was reduced in arteries and total cholesterol was lowered.

What wasn’t initially revealed in the clinical results is what’s crucial: Almost EVERY patient ended up with extremely elevated triglyceride levels—now becoming even more important to the diagnosis of heart disease than total cholesterol. Also, the majority of patients had fasting glucose levels above 90, some above 110.

There are many physicians that dismiss cholesterol entirely as a factor in heart disease. Even I don’t go quite this far, but read The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD and, once again, draw your own conclusions. This is just one of the many books, written by physicians, that address this subject. Here’s a link (http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm) to Dr. Ravnskov’s material.

He does a wonderful job of reinterpreting Ornish’s data and showing it in the light it needs to be displayed in—and his book is mind-boggling.

Weston Price: Research Long Buried By Modern Medicine

Just read this stuff…it’s amazing. Dr. Price was a dentist in the 1920s who studied hundred of cultures, originally attempting to discover reasons for the massive amount of tooth decay he was seeing in his practice. What he discovered was something far more important. From his website:

“Dr. Weston Price studied nonindustrialized peoples to establish the parameters of human health and determine the optimum characteristics of human diets. Dr. Price’s research demonstrated that humans achieve perfect physical form and perfect health generation after generation only when they consume nutrient-dense whole foods and the vital fat-soluble activators found exclusively in animal fats.”

Here’s just one example of Dr. Price’s research, once again from the Foundation site link above:

“Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who spent many years living with the Eskimos and Indians of Northern Canada, reports that wild male ruminants like elk and caribou carry a large slab of back fat, weighing as much as 40 to 50 pounds. The Indians and Eskimo hunted older male animals preferentially because they wanted this backslab fat, as well as the highly saturated fat found around the kidneys. Other groups used blubber from sea mammals like seal and walrus.

Normally, according to Stefansson, the diet consisted of dried or cured meat “eaten with fat,” namely the highly saturated cavity and back slab fat that could be easily separated from the animal. Another Arctic explorer, Hugh Brody, reports that Eskimos ate raw liver mixed with small pieces of fat and that strips of dried or smoked meat were “spread with fat or lard.” Pemmican, a highly concentrated travel food, was a mixture of lean dried buffalo meat and highly saturated buffalo fat. (Buffalo fat, by the way, is more saturated than beef fat.) Less than two pounds of pemmican per day could sustain a man doing hard physical labor. The ratio of fat to protein in pemmican was 80% to 20%. As lean meat from game animals was often given to the dogs, there is no reason to suppose that everyday fare did not have the same proportions: 80% fat (mostly highly saturated fat) to 20% protein—in a population in which heart disease and cancer were nonexistent.”

Re-read that last sentence: “in a population where heart disease and cancer were nonexistent.”

This is far from the only bit of research done by both Price and Stefansson. In fact, if you can find Fat of the Land by Stefansson you’d be amazed at the thoroughness of his research.

Speaking of Stefansson…

The Year-long Meat Only Diet

One of my pet-peeves in my nutrition practice is that I’m labeled by many people, especially when they first hear of these dietary practices, as a practitioner of “the Atkins Diet.” While I respect Dr. Atkins for making a clear connection between insulin resistance, the primary cause of obesity, and carbohydrate consumption, I disagree with much of his writings. Once again, I tend to respect those who respect themselves. Like Ornish, Atkins is considerably overweight. His dietary protocols need to be tweaked to achieve both the best of health and leanness.

The other reason for the peeve is that this dietary approach is far from new, let alone only 30 years old as Atkins’ groundbreaking book is. This dates back millions of years practically, and at least to the 1700s in writing.

For example, in the early 1900s, Stefansson undertook what was thought to be the most radical diet in history at that time while under complete medical supervision. For one year Stefansson ate NOTHING but meat. No fruit, no vegetables, no fiber: Simply meat. Fatty meat at that. One year later, the physicians reported this:

“The most remarkable thing about this study is that nothing remarkable occurred.”

Stefansson himself reported dramatic fat loss, incredible energy and never looked back. Radical? Sure…but I dare anyone to try the same on brown rice or even broccoli. You’d probably die in the process. Starving children in third world countries often eat only starchy carbohydrates when they eat at all. The end-result is drastic malnourishment. Simply feeding them small amounts of meat restores their health in a matter of weeks after digestion is resumed.

This should tell us something. The fact that there are essential fats, essential proteins (amino acids), but NO essential carbohydrates should tell us something. The fact that obesity was virtually unheard of in early man should tell us something. But few are listening.