Only this week I learned of the death of one of the world’s foremost Low Carbohydrate Diet Advocates Dr. Barry Groves (R.I.P.)
When Oxfordshire Cotswolds native Dr. Barry Groves and his wife Monica decided to start on a low-carb, high-fat diet beginning in 1962, all of his friends and family thought he was crazy. But when this nutritional scientist Ph.D. lost weight and greatly improved his health by eating supposedly-forbidden foods like butter, full fat meats and cheeses and lard while eschewing blood sugar-spiking carbage foods like bread, pasta and rice, Dr. Groves was the one who had the last laugh. It allowed him to live a long and healthy robust life with over a half century of enjoyable low-carb, high-fat living as one of the UK’s strongest advocates for this healthy lifestyle change. Dr. Groves passed away last night, April 29, 2013 at the age of 77. (Source)
[ JMIT looked at the word 'carbage' and suspect it means 'carbohydrate garbage' - if you know differently please do let me know]
Barry Groves obtained his Doctorate in Nutrition, and like many nutritionists today he believed in and followed the advice of the Government Health Authorities in his own country (UK). That was until that particular advice did not seem to be working for him or his wife, who were at the time, attempting to lose the weight they had both put on by restricting their caloric intake and doing more exercise.
From a learned friend (? in Singapore) he was advised that if they wanted to lose weight they should consume more fat. Of course this was counter to the current (then & now) diet dictocrats dogma – ‘Fat is Bad’, ‘Fat causes Atherosclerosis‘, ‘Fat causes Heart Disease’ and of course ‘Fat Kills’…… all of which are being shown time and time again to be incorrect.
Barry and his wife Monica ate more fat and lost weight which was counter intuitive, and this caused Barry to go seeking the science and the rational from which we all have benefitted to this very day. It is not healthy dietary fats which cause weight gain it is the carbohydrate rich modern diet which is at fault.
Fat is the most valuable food known to Man
PROFESSOR JOHN YUDKIN
Dr. Groves was one of the earliest, one might say pioneers, in the fight against the vilification of saturated fats. At a time when the entire world was going crazy with the Diet Heart Hypothesis, and new fangled money making schemes like The Low Glycaemic Index Diet and Low Glycaemic Load methods – which were making the news big time, Barry was making videos and writing books and undertaking speaking engagements showing how this was terribly wrong, and seriously detrimental to our health. VIDEO
He showed time and again that for ALL Diabetics, plus those with Insulin Resistance, the Over Weigh/Obese and others who had issues with weight swings etc…. eating Low Carbohydrate and Higher Fat meals was the way to control their issues.
He knew there was a plethora of diet advice abounding, much of it wrong. He knew also that people were questioning exactly what they should replace carbohydrates with if they seriously reduced them from their diets.
…… the real confusion lies in what we should replace the carbohydrates with: for example, should it be protein or fats? And if fats, what sort of fats?
……. Our bodies use carbs for only one purpose: to provide energy. When we cut down on carbs, the energy our bodies need has to come from somewhere else.
There are only two choices: Protein or fat.
He wrote his answers in plain simple terms and sincerely hoped millions would benefit from his research. LINK
There is just one other consideration: If you want to lose weight, the actual material you want to rid your body of is fat. But to do that you have to change your body from using glucose as a fuel to using fat including your own body fat.
Clinical experience and studies into low-carb diets over the last century suggest that everybody has a threshold level of dietary carbohydrate intake where the changeover from glucose-burning to fat and ketone burning takes place. This varies between about sixty-five and 180 grams of carbs per day.[xv] If your carb intake is below this threshold, then your body fat will be broken down to generate ketones to supply your brain and other cells that would normally use glucose.
In the early trials for the treatment of obesity, carb levels were very much reduced to supply only about ten percent of calories. This works out at around fifty or sixty grams of carb for a 2,000 calorie daily intake. For diabetics, the level may need to be lower to counteract insulin resistance. Typical levels of carb intake for a type-2 diabetic are around fifty grams per day; the level should be lower still at about thirty grams a day for a type-1 diabetic.
Of course he was controversial and still is! He is certainly not alone in this stance that carbohydrate foods which convert quickly to glucose, cause an insulin response which – if excessive is seriously detrimental to our health. Insulin is required to facilitate the transport of glucose and necessary minerals and vitamins into our cells. Any more than is necessary is stored as fat. It is carbohydrate consumption and digestion that causes the Insulin Response.
This is what seems to be controversial – Insulin causes fat storage. It ought not be though because the ultimate question should be… what happens to all the excess glycogen when the cells and the liver and the muscles are full – and there is still a surplus floating around in the body?
Barry Groves is only one of many who have spoken out against the High Carbohydrate diet which is the basis for all nutritional health in the world today. Dr. Mercola, Sally Fallon, Zoe Harcombe and Garry Taubes (to mention just a few) also join him on the podium.
click on image to enlarge
Overconsumption of carbs is the primary driving factor for insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Unfortunately, the conventional medical wisdom has unwisely been extolling the virtues of consuming massive quantities of carbohydrates for years, even placing them as the “foundation” of the highly flawed food pyramid.
If you are seeking to both lose weight and optimize your health, foods like bread, rice and pasta should comprise very low percentages of your diet. Virtually anyone who bought into these high-carb, low-fat dietary recommendations has likely struggled with their weight and health, wondering what they’re doing wrong.
The problem is that overeating grain and sugar carbohydrates can prevent a higher percentage of fats from being used for energy, and lead to an increase in fat production and storage. It also raises your insulin levels, which not only causes insulin resistance and can lead to diabetes, but is at the root of virtually every chronic disease known to modern man. SOURCE
The Weston A Price Organisation has a wonderful description of what how and why on carbohydrates and insulin:
Along the way a curious thing happens called insulin resistance. This means that as the blood sugars are chronically elevated, and the insulin levels are rising, the cells build a shield or wall around themselves to slow down this influx of excess sugar. Insulin resistance is a protective or adaptive response, it is the best the body can do to protect the cells from too much glucose. But as time goes on the sugar in the blood increases, more insulin is made by the pancreas to deal with this elevated sugar and the cells resist this sugar influx by becoming insulin resistant, in a sense by shutting the gates.
This leads to the curious situation in which blood sugar levels are high but cellular sugar levels are low. The body perceives this as low blood sugar. The patient has low energy and feels hungry so he eats more, and the vicious cycle is under way.
Having a chronically elevated insulin level is detrimental for many other reasons. Not only do high insulin levels cause obesity (insulin tells your body to store fat), but they also signal that fluid should be retained, leading to edema and hypertension. Chronic high insulin provokes plaque development inside the arteries and also suppresses growth hormone needed for the regeneration of the tissues and many other physiological responses.
During the 1980s, researchers began to ask whether obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension and other common medical problems that occur together are really separate diseases, or manifestations of one common physiological defect. The evidence now points to one defect and that is hyperinsulinemia, or excessive insulin levels in the blood. Hyperinsulinemia is the physiological event that links virtually all of our degenerative diseases. It is the biochemical corollary or marker of the events described in heart disease.
The question we need to answer, then, is what causes hyperinsulinemia? In basic biochemistry we learn about the three food groups: fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Under normal circumstances it is the carbohydrates that are transformed into the sugar that goes into the blood. Fats are broken down into fatty acids and become the building blocks for hormones, prostaglandins and cell membranes. Proteins are broken down into amino acids which then are rebuilt into the various proteins in our bodies.
Carbohydrates are used for one thing only and that is energy generation. This allows us to define a “balanced” diet, which is one where the energy used in movement and exercise equals the energy provided by the carbohydrates we consume.
Too many carbohydrates leads to
too much insulin, which in turn leads to
serious diseases in the human population.
I shall miss Dr. Barry Groves’ insights but KNOW without a shadow of a doubt there are many credentialed “other’s” in the field fighting for recognition of the damaging effects of excessive insulin in the human body.
When at last our Government Health Authorities finally pull their heads out of the financial backers wallets, and admit a Grave Error has been made, that saturated fats are healthy and necessary in the human body while carbohydrates need to be restricted – we will start a new journey to health.
This will not happen of course while there is still a dollar or two to be made off the sale of large stocks of carbohydrates, which are still erroneously considered essential to our survival.