At 10:20 PM 10/9/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Some people on this list have down played the significance of medical
>research when it shows evidence that high saturated fat and cholesterol
>may cause heart disease, some cancers, complicate high blood pressure and
>diabetes, etc.

There is alot of disagreement on what is causitive in these diseases e.g.
heart disease, stroke, cancers, diabetes.  High blood pressure itself is
only an indicator and not a 'disease' in itself (except, of course, for
extremely high BP's)  Many people including MDs parrot things that they
have read in the journals without understanding.  Sometimes the research
is just bad.  Popular news is famous for misunderstanding and misrepresenting
medical research.  As an example, some research may show that animal saturated
fat may contribute in a small way to insulin resistance.  In our case for
a comparitly low carb diet, this is of no consequence.  It may be a
different matter for one with the typical SAD.

>At the same time most on this list seem to want to lose weight, if they
>are overweight.  Why?  Do they believe that being overweight is unhealthy
>for some reason, but simultaneously do not accept the aforementioned
>medical research?  My point is, why not just say that being overweight
>also poses no health risks, just as elevated cholesterol levels do not?
>Wouldn't that present a consistent way of thinking?

It may not be the fact that being obese is bad in itself but rather it
indicates a common causitive agent which will cause both obesity and
the particular disease e.g. heart disease.  Remember, these are only
risk factors and some do not correlate very well at all.  Remember, about
2/3 of people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterols.  There are
also many  (I don't know the number) who have very high cholesterols who
never experience a heart attack and live to be 100.  I think you're missing
the idea that this is all a convoluted mess and not quite as cut and dried
as you'd like.  People could be obese for many reasons, some of which may
have no bearing on their health.  In fact, it may give them muscular
calf muscles ;-)


>Little icons from the ice ages of fat women seem to indicate that there
>were fat women in the ice ages.  If it worked for cro-magnon man (and
>woman) why not try to emulate that as well?

Do they indicate actual fat women, some sort of pornographic fantasy
figure, or some idealized goddess?  Who could say definitivly?  Do
you think the mighty muscled figures of greek and roman sculpture accurately
represents the bodies of various leaders and Caesars?  I would say the
evidence points to a more lean cro-magnon based upon more modern hunter
gatherers.  It seems difficult to gain fat on a typical hg diet that is
low in carbohydrate.  There was some good info posed in another group
showing that about an additional 5000 calories of fat could be eaten while
maintaining ketosis without gaining weight for a total of around 6-7000
calories!  Anyway, I think the interpretation is weak.

>James Crocker


  Wade Reeser  [log in to unmask]