Medical Diagnosis and Low Fat Diets

How did corn oil, the wiping out of infectious disease and medical diagnosis categories contributed to the “low fat diet prevents heart disease” hypothesis? Read on to find out.

Throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, America had begun developing a national health policy, and new health agencies like the American Heart Association and the National Heart Institute were founded. Medicine was growing into an organized industry, and more detailed medical diagnosis classifications were being established as diagnostic equipment like the electrocardiogram (ECG) became more sophisticated.

As doctors learned more about this new classification, they began using it to describe their cases involving heart disease and chest pain. The recorded cases of CHD suddenly shot up.

In 1948, the ICD added an even more detailed diagnosis category called “Arteriosclerotic Heart Disease, including coronary heart disease”, and in 1968, another classification of “acute myocardial infarction” (heart attack) was added.

Again, as doctors learned of these new classifications, they began using them almost exclusively.

In fact, between 1949 and 1968, the percentage of cases diagnosed as CHD went from 22% to 90%, while the diagnoses of other types of heart disease dropped from 78% to 10%. Again, the recorded cases of CHD shot up.

Hospitals had begun using these new diagnosis classifications as well. Between 1920 and 1930, the diagnosis of coronary heart disease at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital increased 400%. Since it is very unlikely that the actual rate of heart disease increased 400% in a single New York neighborhood, it is logical to assume the actual number of cases didn’t increase, just the diagnosis terminology that the hospital used.

Since researchers looked to the disease rate data from the ICD to determine research trends, they saw these sharp increases in the recorded cases of CHD related deaths, and became alarmed.

Corn Oil Consumption Rises

Meanwhile, in addition to better diagnosis standards, the American diet was changing. Refined corn oil and margarine consumption was on the rise. According to the Weston Price Foundation "Butter consumption was declining while the use of vegetable oils, especially oils that had been hardened to resemble butter by a process called hydrogenation, was increasing—dramatically increasing.

By 1950 butter consumption had dropped from eighteen pounds per person per year to just over ten. Margarine filled in the gap, rising from about two pounds per person at the turn of the century to about eight... vegetable oil consumption had more than tripled—from just under three pounds per person per year to more than ten. Many studies today link refined vegetable oils and hydrogenated fats to heart disease."

One more factor contributed to rise of coronary death rates during this time.

Infectious Disease Victories

By 1950, infectious diseases has been almost wiped out. The average life expectancy of Americans went from 48 years in 1900 to 67 years in 1950. People were living longer, and since 95% of coronary heart disease deaths occur after the age of 55, people were now living long enough to die of CHD, and this added to the perception of a surge in CHD deaths.

These three factors converged to make it seem that a heart disease "epidemic" had been born. War was declared on cholesterol and saturated fat and the medical community went into overdrive to get the word out about the benefits of a low fat diet.

Agencies such as the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health began to collect and allocate huge sums of money to combat this "epidemic" of heart disease mortality. They built multimillion dollar budgets and their reputations on the hypothesis that a low fat diet was best since "heart disease was caused by saturated fat intake and high cholesterol levels."

Repetition Makes a Lie Seem Real

Over the past 50 years, billions of dollars have been spent trying to prove this low fat diet hypothesis, and every dollar has been wasted.

No definitive evidence that a low fat diet lowers the risk of heart disease has ever been found.

Unfortunately, in 1977, even without the support of sound scientific evidence, the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, chaired by George McGovern published the "Dietary Goals for the United States". The report actively supported the consumption of vegetable oils. Citing USDA data on fat consumption, it stated that "the overconsumption of fat, generally, and saturated fat in particular. . . have been related to six of the ten leading causes of death. . ." in the United States.

The report was written not by a team of scientists using evidence from controlled studies, but by a young labor reporter who took his data from only one scientist, a nutritionist who believed fervently in the unproven “saturated fat causes heart disease” hypothesis.

The low fat diet is healthy idea took hold in the media and through repetition and deep financial dependence, it became fixed in the American psyche.

An Illogical Leap is Taken

In 1984, the results of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial (LRC-CPPT) were published. The trial studied the effects of a drug called Cholestyramine on cholesterol levels over a 7 year period. The researchers reported that the drug reduced cholesterol and heart disease mortality by a relative 24%. (Absolute reductions were much less impressive - a mere 1.6% in the experimental group). Nevertheless, the NIH, the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) and the American Heart Association used this DRUG trial result make a leap of logic: if reducing serum cholesterol by medication was effective against coronary heart disease, than lowering fat consumption should do the same thing. At that point, these agencies launched an aggressive advertising campaign to promote the low fat diet to the American public.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the NCEP, and the American Heart Association still recommend the questionable nutritional advice from the "Dietary Goals for the US":

• Consume less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fatty acids and less than 300 mg/day of cholesterol…
• Keep total fat intake between 20 to 35 percent of calories, with most fats coming from sources of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids...
• Sources of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids are liquid vegetable oils, including soybean oil, corn oil, and safflower oil.

They ignore the fact that studies have implicated polyunsaturated vegetable oil consumption in a host of health issues, including hypertriglyceridemia, a condition which is characterized by excessively high triglyceride levels in the blood.

High triglyceride levels are correlated with circulatory disorders and heart disease.

For example, a May, 1985 study titled ‘Reduction of Plasma liquids, Lipoproteins, and Apoproteins by Dietary Fish Oils published in the New England Journal of Medicine compared the effects of fish oil and polyunsaturated vegetables oils on blood triglycerides.

Here’s the conclusion from the study abstract:

The fish-oil diet led to decreases in both plasma cholesterol (-27 per cent) and triglyceride (-64 per cent), as compared with the control diet. Very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDLs) were also reduced markedly. The vegetable-oil diet had much less effect. With fish oil, the Type V group had marked decreases in total cholesterol and triglyceride levels (-45 and -79 per cent, respectively). VLDL levels were dramatically lowered, as were apoprotein E levels. The vegetable-oil diet (unlike the fish-oil diet) produced a rapid and significant rise in plasma triglyceride levels. We conclude that fish oils and fish may be useful components of diets for the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia.

Some of the patients in the vegetable oil group in this trial asked to be removed because their livers became inflamed and painful!

Get All the Facts

So listen closely the the advice you get about healthy eating and any diagnosis to lower your fat consumption and cholesterol levels. Remember that this advice is based NOT on scientific evidence, but on a rise in diagnosis categories, corn oil consumption, a report researched and written by a young labor reporter, and a illogical leap of faith.

Resources for Further Reading:

• The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo
• Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
• The Great Cholesterol Con by Malcolm McKendrick
• Know Your Fats by Sally Fallon

Done with Diagnosis, take me back to Diet Plans