<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Hi All, I assume that the list owners are in favor of the current debate about low carb (or high protein, high fat) diets, since the thread just continues and continues. Most of the posters are preaching the complex carb creed. The difficulty with lining up on either side of the debate is that there is solid scientific evidence to support whatever position one takes on it. Some studies report problems with saturated fats, while others report huge health benefits. The problem I'm having is with the one-sided perspective (or is that a lack of perspective?). One poster insists that high fat diets lead to elevated LDL cholesterol. This is a commonly held perspective, but there is considerable debate of that issue in the medical literature, and cholesterol levels are no longer believed to be very good predictors of cardiac incident. (Currently, homocysteine is recognized as one of the better predictors.) The same poster says that she wants to see the studies that support the low carb diet. Well, I would like to suggest that she peruse the peer reviewed medical literature. There are a number of articles, published over the last 75 years, that report health benefits from such diets. The earliest I'm aware of arose out of Vilhjalmur Stefanson's experience of living with the Inuit on the north coast of Canada. He asserted the good health of these people who survived and even thrived, in one of the most hostile climates in the world, eating a diet that was mostly comprised of meat and fish. Subsequent experiments with such diets were reported in the literature. The same poster admits that the Atkins diet does result in weight loss, but asserts those who return to eating a high carb diet quickly gain weight even beyond the point at which dieting was begun. Well, that looks like a compelling case in favor of consuming fewer carbs on an ongoing basis. As for the assertion that high fat diets are correlated with gall bladder disease, there is a high incidence of gall bladder disease among untreated celiac patients. Do remember that celiac disease is has long been characterized as a condition of fat malabsorption. The light, floating stools that formed part of the classical presentation of celiac disease were the result of dietary fats not being absorbed. I suppose that one could argue that the gall bladder disease in celiac disease is somehow distinct from the gall bladder disease found in the general population, but I'm not aware of any evidence to support such an argument. Then there is the perspective that such diets increase the risk of cancer. That is difficult to square with the positive results that have been reported for trials of the ketogenic diet among cancer patients. It seems that such diets result in halting tumour growth, while avoiding the usual trend of physical degeneration in the patient. There was also the claim that diabetes, especially the non-insulin dependent variety, was somehow caused or exacerbated by high fat intake. Yet on June 15, 1999, Dr. James Hays, an endocrinologist and director of the Limestone Medical Center in Wilmington, DE, presented the results of a study of 157 men and women with type 2 diabetes showed an impressive benefit in body mass index (BMI) triglycerides, HDL, and LDL. There is also some confusion about ketosis reflected in the following statement: > ketosis (this is a BAD thing - diabetics on insulin spend their >lives AVOIDING deadly ketosis) The poster appears to have confused ketoacidosis with ketosis.... a significant error, which is countered by studies such as the one mentioned above. I'm not convinced that one diet fits all perspective will survive much further research. I suspect that our dietary needs may be as individual as we are. I have tried to look carefully at as much information as I can, and I have arrived at some tentative dietary choices for myself. That does not mean that I can or should assert the value of these choices for others. While I am interested in other opinions, I'm not very interested in dogma on the issue of diet. best wishes, Ron Hoggan Calgary, Ab, Canada