The Diet That Cardiologists Are Being Urged to Recommend
What would you do if you were a researcher and you realized that a diet that had been accepted for years is all wrong? Would you write letters and more letters, urging your colleagues to be aware that research is showing the need for a change? That is exactly what some of the country’s top researchers have been doing, including Dr. Walter Willett (who chairs Harvard’s Department of Nutrition) and Dr. Frank B. Hu.
Research has clearly shown that the low-fat and low-cholesterol diet that many doctors have been recommending since the late 1980s has done almost nothing to prevent heart disease. Meanwhile, scientists have discovered that a diet with high levels of carbohydrates, specifically those with a high glycemic index and load, is hard on the heart.
Studies as far back as the 1940s show that low-carb diets are effective for fat loss. And epidemiological studies from the 1970s showed a correlation between high carbohydrate intake and the risk of coronary heart disease. But those results were ignored, because everyone thought fat was the lone culprit.
Low-carb diets have now been validated in study after study – not only for weight management, but to control insulin and glucose elevations. This means they are also very effective for controlling Type II diabetes and hypertension. And that is why researchers and some members of the medical community are urgently calling for a change. But will anyone hear them?
A diet that is higher in good fats (not harmful trans-fats) and protein but lower in high glycemic index and high glycemic load foods is the diet that is best for lowering what is now being called cardio-metabolic risk. This new term implies what I and other ETR experts have been teaching for years. The best way to control your weight and reduce your risk of diabetes and coronary disease is to control your glycemic response.
If you haven’t yet gotten serious about a low-carb approach to health, it is time for a change.
[Ed. Note: By modifying your diet, medications, lifestyle, and exercise habits, and with nutritional supplementation, your health is largely in your control. James B. LaValle, RPh, ND, CCN – the founder of the LaValle Metabolic Institute and a nationally recognized expert on natural therapies – has come up with an approach to health that has worked for thousands of patients. And it can help you, too. Learn how right here.]