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Foreword
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by Dr Howel Buckland Jones MB, BS (London)
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Introduction
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PART ONE
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THE MISAPPROPRIATION OF HEALTH
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11
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Part One shows that the 'health industry' has a vested — financial — interest in us being ill. Looking at evidence for 'healthy eating' it details the unhealthy misinformation we are given
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Chap. 1:
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Trick to Treat
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19
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Medical care is one of the world's largest industries. This chapter sets the scene by detailing widespread corruption, fraud and mismanagement, largely for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry. Heavily influenced by the drug companies, doctors' training is seriously biased towards prescribing; medical research and publications are rarely independent. There is more interest in wealth than health.
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Chap. 2:
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What's behind the screens?
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37
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Screening for disease is promoted as a preventive measure. It is not: if a disease is found it hasn't been prevented. With considerable evidence of adverse effects, medical screening seems merely a pretext to increase the 'patient base' and identify a market for increased drug sales, with precious little evidence of benefit to the 'patients'.
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Chap. 3:
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How we got
to where we are
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56
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Since we were introduced to 'healthy eating' our health has deteriorated dramatically. How on earth did this sorry state of affairs come about? We look at how the battle against cholesterol and development of the 'diet/ heart' hypothesis radically changed dietary recommendations for the worse.
The roles of cholesterol are explained.
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Chap. 4:
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Learning from history
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77
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If we are to right the health of western societies, we could do worse than look at the way populations we call primitive manage to stay entirely healthy, despite (or because) they have none of our advanced scientific knowledge. The story of pemmican tells how nutritionists, even a century ago, consistently undermined traditional healthy dietary practices.
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Chap. 5:
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Fats: from tonic to toxic
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89
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For the sake of our hearts, we are told to replace traditional 'saturated' fats with processed, polyunsaturated vegetable oils.
There are three ways in which a substance can increase the risk of cancer: it can cause body cells to become cancerous; it can promote a cancer's growth; it can suppress the immune system. Polyunsaturated vegetable oils have been shown to do all three.
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Chap. 6:
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The seeds of ill health
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108
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Base meals on starches, we are told. Eat bread, pasta, rice, breakfast cereals. Indeed we eat more cereals than any other foodstuff. But all cereal grains pose significant health risks to humans. Wheat, on which we depend the most, is probably the worst of them all. And legumes (beans) are almost as bad.
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Chap. 7:
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Climb off the bran wagon
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118
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With cereals comes bran (cereal fibre). We have been urged for generations to eat fibre to prevent and cure many bowel and other health conditions. However, research shows that, while vegetable fibre may be relatively harmless, bran increases the risk of many of the conditions it is promoted to prevent and cure — and a lot more as well.
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Chap. 8:
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Why '5 portions'?
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129
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The mantra that everyone will know is 'eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day'. Yet it has no evidential basis; there is little evidence of benefit over about two portions a week; and eating as much as five a day could have serious adverse effects on health. Why growing them is also a wasteful use of land.
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Chap. 9:
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The phoney war on salt
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144
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Salt was so valuable that Roman soldiers were paid with it. Today, salt is the subject of the latest health scare. However, if the evidence against the 'diet/heart' hypothesis is flimsy, the evidence against salt is practically non-existent. While salt has been shown to increase blood pressure in a small proportion of people, in others it lowers blood pressure and in most it makes not the slightest difference. Current strictures against salt are increasing health problems
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Chap. 10:
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Soy, fluoride and the thyroid
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156 |
The thyroid gland controls many functions within the body, including the rate at which we use energy. When its action is suppressed, weight gain is an inevitable result. Soya and fluoride, widely promoted as 'healthy', both have such an effect.
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Chap. 11:
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Our irrational fear
of sunlight
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167
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Keep out of the midday sun, cover up and wear a sunscreen, we are told. But the sun is nature's great healer. Sunlight is our only reliable source of vitamin D. It is increasingly recognised that people who sunbathe have less cancer. Sun creams increase the risk of cancer.
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Chap. 12:
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Exercise care
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185
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Touted as a cure for obesity, heart disease and myriad other conditions, we are all told to exercise more. All that does is burn energy, necessitating increased consumption — of the wrong foods. While exercise may increase fitness, it seems to have little benefit for health. Types of exercise generally promoted can do harm.
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Chap. 13:
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Homo carnivorous
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196
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Having shown that the health regimes we are exhorted to undertake have little or no evidential support, that leaves the question of what constitutes a truly healthy diet for us as a species. This chapter looks at our evolutionary history to show that we really should eat a very different diet from that advocated today. It also looks at the basis for our 'love affair with fat'.
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Chap. 14:
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The metabolic syndrome
and the glycaemic index
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211
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Since we began to eat 'healthy' carbohydrate-rich foods, a constellation of serious degenerative diseases emerged. Scientists defined the 'metabolic syndrome', or syndrome X. This chapter looks at the causes and symptoms of the metabolic syndrome and of insulin resistance, and at the development and limited usefulness of the Glycaemic Index (GI).
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Chap. 15:
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Unhealthy dogma
means unhealthy food
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228
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Food manufacturers jump on the lucrative 'healthy' bandwagon, making foods that are lacking in important nutrients such as the many 'low-fat' dairy products. These have been shown to raise the risk of some cancers. 'Improving' foods has not only made them more hazardous for us to eat, but has also compromised the health of food animals'.
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Chap. 16:
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So what should we eat?
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236
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We have seen that the healthiest diet for us is one low in carbohydrates, but there is little agreement on what we should eat instead. This chapter looks at proteins, fats and carbohydrates, their uses in the body and the amounts we need to each. The overwhelming conclusion is we should eat real, fresh food and avoid what is processed and artificial.
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Chap. 17:
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Why low-carb diets must be high-fat, not high-protein
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252
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If we reduce the carbohydrate content of our diet, we either go hungry or replace the carbs lost with something else. There is currently a great deal of debate about what this should be. This chapter explains why carbs should be replaced with fats — and which fats they should be.
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Chap. 18:
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Prevention is better
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258
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Prevention is better than cure, but this means starting with a healthy baby. This chapter looks at how to prepare in advance for healthy children, including eating the right things before conception and through pregnancy. It also looks at what constitutes a truly healthy diet for children up to the age of about seven years.
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PART TWO
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NEW DIET: NEW EPIDEMICS
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271
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Part Two looks at the wide range of diseases that are caused or exacerbated by our unhealthy 'healthy' diet
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Chap. 19:
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'Healthy eating' is fattening
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273
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Since the introduction in the 1980s of 'healthy eating', with its emphasis on low-fat, carbohydrate-rich foods, the number of overweight and obese people has risen exponentially. This chapter demonstrates that this is not a coincidence but a prime example of cause and effect and looks at why conventional advice on weight loss is totally at variance with both real life studies and clinical trials.
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Chap. 20:
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Diabetes deceit
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288
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Because diabetics are more prone to heart disease, they too are advised to eat a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. But this is what caused their condition in the first place. This chapter looks at how conventional dietary treatment makes diabetes worse and suggests an alternative diet that both helps and prevents diabetes.
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Chap. 21:
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Diseases of the heart
and blood vessels
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302
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Most cardiovascular diseases are attributed to dietary fats and cholesterol. This chapter looks at alternative, evidence-based possibilities and finds the case for carbohydrates and consequent high blood insulin levels being to blame more persuasive.
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Chap. 22:
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The dangers of low
blood cholesterol
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314
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We are told incessantly that high cholesterol is bad for us. But low cho-lesterol is far more serious. Cholesterol is an essential compound in our bodies. Low levels of cholesterol are associated with increased total mor-tality, cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, antisocial behaviour, depression, suicide, increased susceptibility to infections and other conditions.
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Chap. 23:
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Cancer:
disease of civilization
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330
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Populations eating traditional diets are remarkably free of cancer, but they soon succumb when they eat our diet. Numbers of cases of cancer have tripled since 'healthy eating' was introduced. This could be because cancers rely on a ready supply of glucose. And that comes from dietary carbohydrates.
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Chap. 24:
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Gut reaction
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345
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Being in the front line, the gastrointestinal tract is exposed to the greatest danger if the diet we eat is not suited to us. This chapter looks at how our 'healthy diet' can be harmful and the health problems it can cause.
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Chap. 25:
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Deficiency diseases
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362
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I have suggested that reducing our intake of carbs is advantageous. But might cutting out carbohydrate-rich foods like bread, pasta, breakfast cereals and rice and reducing our intake of other plant foods might put you at risk of deficiency diseases? The evidence suggests that the opposite could be true.
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Chap. 26:
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Diet and the brain
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371
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The food we eat has a wide range of effects on our body systems. As the brain uses one fifth of all the energy used by the body, it seems logical to suppose that it could be affected by incorrect diet. This chapter looks at the deleterious effects of 'healthy eating' on many brain functions and at the mental health problems that can result.
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Chap. 27:
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Multiple sclerosis
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388
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This chapter looks exclusively at one of the most distressing conditions to afflict us. Although the causes of MS are unknown, we discuss compelling evidence that our 'healthy' lifestyle may be a major contributory factor.
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Chap. 28:
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The signs of 'healthy eating'
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399
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There are many other signs of 'healthy eating', including acne, bad teeth and short sight. This chapter looks at this wide range of conditions, many of which are clearly visible as they affect the face, and gives evidence for 'healthy eating' being the culprit.
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Chap. 29:
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And, finally . . .
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416
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Changes have already been made within medical schools to break the shackles of the pharmaceutical industry on health. It is time we took a stand against the misinformation that is making us ill by taking responsibility for our own health.
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REFERENCES
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429
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This book is fully supported by over 1,100 references from peer-reviewed medical journals and learned works
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GLOSSARY
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483
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Explaining acronyms and technical words used in the book
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APPENDIX: RESOURCES
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489
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How to check references; useful books, websites and other sources of further information
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INDEX
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491
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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498
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Brief history; Barry Groves' other books
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