[2017] Lore of Nutrition: Challenging Conventional Dietary Beliefs

by Tim Noakes

  27.Y.N. Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (London: Harvill Secker, 2014), 83.

  28.Ben-Dor, Gopher, Hershkovitz et al., ‘Man the fat hunter: The demise of Homo erectus and the emergence of a new hominin lineage in the Middle Pleistocene (ca. 400 kyr) Levant’.

  29.A. Watts, ‘90% of the last million years, the normal state of the Earth’s climate has been an ice age’, Watts Up With That?, 13 May 2009, available at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/13/90-of-the-last-million-years-the-normal-state-of-the-earths-climate-has-been-an-ice-age/ (last accessed 4 August 2017).

  30.‘Where woolly mammoths used to roam – Range at their peak, Brilliant Maps, 21 July 2015, available at http://brilliantmaps.com/woolly-mammoths/ (last accessed 4 August 2017).

  31.M.R. Eades and M.D. Eades, Protein Power (New York: Bantam Books, 1996).

  32.M. Henneberg, ‘Decrease of human skull size in the Holocene’, Human Biology 60(3), 1988: 395–405.

  33.M.R. Eades and M.D. Eades, Protein Power, 15.

  34.M.A. Ruffer, ‘On arterial lesions found in Egyptian mummies (1580BC–525AD)’, The Journal of Pathology 15(4), 1911: 453–62.

  35.J. McCann, ‘Maize and grace: History, corn, and Africa’s new landscapes, 1500–1999’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 43(2), 2001: 246–72.

  36.Ibid.

  37.A. Greaves, Isandlwana (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2001), 43.

  38.M.K. Mutowo, ‘Animal diseases and human populations in colonial Zimbabwe: The rinderpest epidemic of 1896–1898’, Zambezia 28(1), 2001: 6.

  39.M. Poland, D. Hammond-Tooke and L. Voight, The Abundant Herds: A Celebration of the Nguni Cattle of the Zulu People (Cape Town: Fernwood Press, 2006), 106.

  40.R. Mack, ‘The great African cattle plague epidemic of the 1890s’, Tropical Animal Health and Production 2, 1970: 210–9.

  41.C. van Onselen, ‘Reactions to rinderpest in Southern Africa 1896–97’, Journal of African History 13(3), 1972: 488.

  42.R.H. Steckel and J.M. Prince, ‘Tallest in the world: Native Americans of the Great Plains in the nineteenth century’, American Economic Review 91(1), 2001: 287–94.

  43.A. Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States (London: The Folio Society, 2003), 297.

  44.Ibid., 295.

  45.E. Lipski, ‘Traditional non-Western diets’, Nutrition in Clinical Practice 25(6), 2010: 587–8.

  46.K.M. Venkat Narayan, ‘Diabetes mellitus in Native American: The problem and its implications’ in G.D. Sandefur, R.R. Rindfuss and B. Cohen (eds), Changing Numbers, Changing Needs: American Indian Demography and Public Health (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996), 262–88.

  47.P. Clayton and J. Rowbotham, ‘How the mid-Victorians worked, ate and died’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 6(3), 2009: 1235–53; P. Clayton and J. Rowbotham, ‘An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part one: Public health lessons from the mid-Victorian working class diet’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 101(6), 2008: 282–9; P. Clayton and J. Rowbotham, ‘An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part two: Realities of the mid-Victorian diet’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 101(7), 2008: 350–7; J. Rowbotham and P. Clayton, ‘An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part three: Victorian consumption patterns and their health benefits’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 101(9), 2008: 454–62.

  48.Clayton and Rowbotham, ‘How the mid-Victorians worked, ate and died’.

  49.Ibid., 1240.

  50.R. McCarrison, Nutrition and Health (London: The McCarrison Society, 1982); R. McCarrison, Studies in Deficiency Disease (London: Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton, 1945).

  51.McCarrison, Nutrition and Health.

  52.H.M. Sinclair, The Work of Sir Robert McCarrison (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1953), 302.

  53.Ibid., 268.

  54.Ibid., 267.

  55.Ibid., 270.

  56.Ibid., 271.

  57.Ibid.

  58.Ibid., 305–6.

  59.S.L. Malhotra, ‘Geographical aspects of acute myocardial infarction in India with special reference to patterns of diet and eating’, British Heart Journal 29(3), 1967: 337–44.

  60.S.L. Malhotra, ‘Epidemiology of ischaemic heart disease in India with special reference to causation’, British Heart Journal 29(6), 1967: 903.

  61.S.L. Malhotra, ‘Epidemiological study of cholelithiasis among railroad workers in India with special reference to causation’, Gut 9(3), 1968: 290–5.

  62.S.L. Malhotra, ‘Peptic ulcer in India and its aetiology’, Gut 5, 1964: 412–6; S.L. Malhotra, C.T. Majumdar and P.C. Bardoloi, ‘Peptic ulcer in Assam’, Gut 5, 1964: 355–8.

  63.S.L. Malhotra, ‘A comparison of unrefined wheat and rice diets in the management of duodenal ulcer’, Postgraduate Medical Journal 54(627), 1978: 6–9.

  64.S.L. Malhotra, ‘Geographical distribution of gastrointestinal cancers in India with special reference to causation’, Gut 8(4), 1967: 361–72.

  65.S.L. Malhotra, ‘An epidemiological study of varicose veins in Indian railroad workers from the South and North of India, with special reference to the causation and prevention of varicose veins’, International Journal of Epidemiology 1(2), 1972: 177–83.

  66.Lipski, ‘Traditional non-Western diets’.

  67.Ibid.

  68.J.B. Orr and J.L. Gilks, Studies of Nutrition: The Physique and Health of Two African Tribes (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1931).

  69.A.G. Shaper, M. Jones and J. Kyobe, ‘Plasma-lipids in an African tribe living on a diet of milk and meat’, The Lancet 2(7216), 1961: 1324–7; G.V. Mann, R.D. Shaffer, R.S. Anderson et al., ‘Cardiovascular disease in the Masai’, Journal of Atherosclerosis Research 4, 1964: 289–312; A.G. Shaper, K.W. Jones, M. Jones et al., ‘Serum lipids in three nomadic tribes in Northern Kenya’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 13, 1963: 135–46; K. Biss, K.J. Ho, B. Mikkelson et al., ‘Some unique biologic characteristics of the Masai of East Africa’, The New England Journal of Medicine 284(13), 1971: 694–9; A.G. Shaper, ‘Cardiovascular studies in the Samburu tribe of Northern Kenya’, American Heart Journal 63, 1962: 437–42; G.V. Mann, R.D. Shaffer and A. Rich, ‘Physical fitness and immunity to heart-disease in Masai’, The Lancet 2(7426), 1965: 1308–10; G.V. Mann, A. Spoerry, M. Gray et al., ‘Atherosclerosis in the Masai’, American Journal of Epidemiology 95(1), 1972: 26–37.

  70.M.J. Murray, A.B. Murray, N.J. Murray et al., ‘Serum cholesterol, triglycerides and heart disease of nomadic and sedentary tribesmen consuming isoenergetic diets of high and low fat content’, British Journal of Nutrition 39(1), 1978: 159–63.

  71.W. Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (Oxford: Benediction Classics, 2010).

  72.J.D. Boyd and C.L. Drain, ‘The arrest of dental caries in childhood’, JAMA 90(23), 1928: 1867–9.

  73.W.A. Price, ‘New light on the etiology and control of dental caries’, Journal of Dental Research 12, 1932: 540–4.

  74.T.F. Dreyer, ‘Dental caries in prehistoric South Africans’, Nature 136(3434), 1935: 302–3.

  75.Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 268.

  76.Ibid., 272.

  77.Ibid., 295.

  78.R. Schmid, Primal Nutrition: Paleolithic and Ancestral Diets for Optimal Health (Rochester: Healing Arts Press, 1987).

  79.Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 259.

  80.M. Mellanby and C.L. Pattison, ‘Remarks on the influence of a cereal-free diet rich in vitamin D and calcium on dental caries in children’, British Medical Journal 1(3715), 1932: 507–10.

  81.Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 55.

  82.V. Stefansson, Not By Bread Alone (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1946); V. Stefansson, The Fat of the Land (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1956); V. Stefansson, The Friendly Arctic (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921).

  83.W.S. McClellan and E.F du Bois, ‘Prolonged meat diets with a study of kidney function and ketosis’, Journal of Biological Chemistry XLV, 1930: 651–67.

  84.
V. Stefansson, Cancer: Disease of Civilization? An Anthropological and Historical Study (New York: Hill and Wang Inc., 1960).

  85.Schmid, Primal Nutrition: Paleolithic and Ancestral Diets for Optimal Health.

  86.A.R. David and M.R. Zimmerman, ‘Cancer: An old disease, a new disease or something in between?’, Nature Reviews Cancer 10(10), 2010: 728–33.

  87.‘Scientists suggest that cancer is man-made’, University of Manchester, 14 October 2010, available at http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/scientists-suggest-that-cancer-is-man-made/ (last accessed 4 August 2017).

  88.J.J. DiNicolantonio, ‘Increase in the intake of refined carbohydrates and sugar may have led to the health decline of the Greenland Eskimos’, Open Heart 3(2), 2016: e000444.

  89.Lipski, ‘Traditional non-Western diets’.

  90.Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 55.

  91.N.K. McGrath-Hanna, D.M. Greene, R.J. Tavernier et al., ‘Diet and mental health in the Arctic: Is diet an important risk factor for mental health in circumpolar peoples? – a review’, International Journal of Circumpolar Health 62(3), 2003: 228–41.

  92.Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 152.

  93.K. O’Dea, The Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyle of Australian Aborigines: Implications for Health. Current Problems in Nutrition, Pharmacology and Toxicology (London: Libbey, 1988), 26–36.

  94.K. O’Dea, K. Traianedes, J.L. Hopper et al., ‘Impaired glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, and hypertriglyceridemia in Australian Aborigines from the desert’, Diabetes Care 11(1), 1988: 23–9; K. O’Dea, ‘Westernisation, insulin resistance and diabetes in Australian aborigines’, Medical Journal of Australia 155(4), 1991: 258–64; K. O’Dea, ‘Marked improvement in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in diabetic Australian aborigines after temporary reversion to traditional lifestyle’, Diabetes 33(6), 1984: 596–603.

  95.K. O’Dea, The Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyle of Australian Aborigines: Implications for Health, 28.

  96.O’Dea, ‘Marked improvement in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in diabetic Australian aborigines after temporary reversion to traditional lifestyle’.

  97.T.L. Cleave, The Saccharine Disease: Conditions caused by the taking of refined carbohydrates, such as sugar and white flour (Bristol: John Wright & Sons Ltd, 1974).

  98.T.L. Cleave and G.D. Campbell, Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis and the Saccharine Disease (Bristol: John Wright & Sons Ltd, 1966), 9.

  99.Ibid., 46–9.

  100.Ibid., 53.

  101.Ibid., 59.

  102.J. Yudkin, Pure, White and Deadly (London: Penguin Books, 1972), viii.

  103.Ibid., 4.

  104.J. Yudkin, ‘Patterns and trends in carbohydrate consumption and their relation to disease’, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 23, 1964: 149–62.

  105.Yudkin, Pure, White and Deadly, 188.

  106.R. Lustig, ‘Sugar: The Bitter Truth’, YouTube Video, 30 July 2009, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM (last accessed 4 August 2017).

  107.R.H. Lustig, Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease (New York: Hudson Street Press, 2013).

  108.G. Taubes, The Case Against Sugar (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016).

  109.R.J. Johnson, ‘The Fat Switch’ (Mercola.com, 2012); R.J. Johnson, The Sugar Fix: The High-Fructose Fallout That is Making You Fat and Sick (New York: Rodale Press, 2008). S.E. Perez-Pozo, J. Schold, T. Nakagawa et al., ‘Excessive fructose intake induces the features of metabolic syndrome in healthy adult men: Role of uric acid in the hypertensive response’, International Journal of Obesity 34, 2010: 454–61; R. Nakagawa, H. Hu, S. Zharikov et al., ‘A causal role for uric acid in fructose-induced metabolic syndrome’, American Journal of Physiology Renal Physiology 290, 2006: F625–F631.

  110.W.R. Leonard, J.J. Snodgrass and M.L. Robertson, ‘Evolutionary perspectives on fat ingestion and metabolism in humans’ in J.P. Montmayeur and J. le Coutre (eds), Fat Detection: Taste, Texture, and Post Ingestive Effects (Boca Raton: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2010), 3–18.

  111.U. Toepel, J.F. Knebel, J. Hudry et al., ‘The brain tracks the energetic value in food images’, NeuroImage 44(3), 2009: 967–74.

  112.Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration; Schmid, Primal Nutrition: Paleolithic and Ancestral Diets for Optimal Health; R. Schmid, The Untold Story of Milk: The History, Politics and Science of Nature’s Perfect Food: Raw Milk from Pasture-fed Cows (Washington, DC: NewTrends Publishing, 2005).

  Chapter 17: The Worst Mistake in the History of Medicine

  1.J. le Fanu, The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 2012), 403.

  2.G. Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories (New York: Anchor Books, 2007), 5.

  3.M.G. Enig, Know Your Fats: A Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol (Bethesda: Bethesda Press, 2010); M.G. Enig, S. Atal, M. Keeney and J. Sampugna, ‘Isomeric trans fatty acids in the U.S. diet’, Journal of the American College of Nutrition 9(5), 1990: 471–86; M.G. Enig, R.J. Munn and M. Keeney, ‘Dietary fat and cancer trends – a critique’, Federation Proceedings 37, 1978: 2215–20.

  4.F.A. Kummerow and J.M. Kummerow, Cholesterol Won’t Kill You But Trans Fats Could: Separating Scientific Fact from Nutritional Fiction in What You Eat (Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 2008); P.V. Johnston, O.C. Johnson and F.A. Kummerow, ‘Occurrence of trans fatty acids in human tissue’, Science 126, 1957: 648–9; P.V. Johnston, F.A. Kummerow and C.H. Walton, ‘Origin of the trans fatty acids in human tissue’, Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 99, 1958: 735–6.

  5.R.J. Johnson, M.S. Segal, Y. Sautin et al., ‘Potential role of sugar (fructose) in the epidemic of hypertension, obesity and the metabolic syndrome, diabetes, kidney disease, and cardiovascular disease’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 86(4), 2007: 899–906.

  6.USDA, Agriculture Fact Book 2001–2002, March 2003: 16. Available at www.4uth.gov.ua/usa/english/trade/files/2002factbook.pdf (last accessed 4 August 2017).

  7.See Figure 2 in Enig, Munn and Keeney, ‘Dietary fat and cancer trends – a critique’; R.L. Rizek, B. Friend and L. Page, ‘Fat in todays food supply – level of use and sources’, Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society 51(6), 1974: 244–50.

  8.Enig, Munn and Keeney, ‘Dietary fat and cancer trends – a critique’.

  9.Kummerow and Kummerow, Cholesterol Won’t Kill You But Trans Fats Could: Separating scientific Fact from Nutritional Fiction in What You Eat.

  10.F.A. Kummerow, ‘Viewpoint on the report of the National Cholesterol Education Program Expert Panel on the Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Cholesterol in Adults’, Journal of the American College of Nutrition 12, 1993: 2–13.

  11.C.R. Daniel, A.J. Cross, C. Koebnick et al., ‘Trends in meat consumption in the USA’, Public Health Nutrition 14(4), 2011: 575–83.

  12.USDA, Agriculture Fact Book 2001–2002.

  13.A. Keys, ‘Sucrose in the diet and coronary heart disease’, Atherosclerosis 14(2), 1971: 193–202.

  14.J. Yudkin, Pure, White and Deadly (London: Penguin Books, 1972).

  15.J. Yudkin, ‘Dietary fat and dietary sugar in relation to ischaemic heart-disease and diabetes’, The Lancet 2(7349), 1964: 4–5.

  16.T.L. Blasbalg, J.R. Hibbeln, C.E. Ramsden et al., ‘Changes in consumption of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in the United States during the 20th century’, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 93(5), 2011: 950–62.

  17.A. Keys, ‘Atherosclerosis: A problem in newer public health’, Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital, New York 20(2), 1953: 118–39.

  18.A. Keys, A. Menotti, M.J. Karvonen et al., ‘The diet and 15-year death rate in the seven countries study’, American Journal of Epidemiology 124(6), 1986: 903–15.

  19.J. Yerushalmy and H.E. Hilleboe, ‘Fat in the diet and mortality from heart disease: A methodologic note’, New York State Journal of Medicine 57(14), 1957: 2343–54.

  20.P.D.P. Wood, ‘A possible
selection effect in medical science’, The Statistician 30(2), 1981: 131–5.

  21.Ibid.

  22.T.D. Noakes, ‘The 2012 University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences Centenary Debate’, SAJCN 28(1), 2016: 19–33.

  23.P. Grasgruber, M. Sebera, E. Hrazdira et al., ‘Food consumption and the actual statistics of cardiovascular diseases: An epidemiological comparison of 42 European countries’, Food & Nutrition Research 60, 2016.

  24.P.D.P. Wood, ‘ A possible selection effect in medical science’, 131-5.

  25.P. Grasgruber et al.

  26.Ibid., 23.

  27.Ibid., 1.

  28.Credit Suisse Research Institute, ‘Fat: The New Health Paradigm’, September 2015, available at http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=9163B920-CAEF-91FB-EE5769786A03D76E (last accessed 2 August 2017).

  29.Ibid.

  30.A. Keys, J.T. Anderson and F. Grande, ‘Serum cholesterol response to changes in the diet: II. The effect of cholesterol in the diet’, Metabolism 14(7), 1965: 759–65.

  31.Z. Harcombe, ‘An examination of the randomised controlled trial and epidemiological evidence for the introduction of dietary fat recommendations in 1977 and 1983: A systematic review and meta-analysis’, PhD thesis, University of the West of Scotland, March 2016.

  32.E. di Angelantonio, P. Gao, L. Pennells et al., ‘Lipid-related markers and cardiovascular disease prediction’, JAMA 307(23), 2012: 2499–506.

  33.‘Risk of fatal coronary heart disease in familial hypercholesterolaemia’, Scientific Steering Committee on behalf of the Simon Broome Register Group, BMJ 303(6807), 1991: 893–6.

  34.L. Pérez de Isla, R. Alonso, N. Mata et al., ‘Predicting cardiovascular events in familial hypercholesterolemia: The SAFEHEART Registry’, Circulation 135(22), 2017: 2133–44.

  35.R. Lomonaco, F. Bril, P. Portillo-Sanchez et al., ‘Metabolic impact of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in obese patients with type 2 diabetes’, Diabetes Care 39(4), 2016: 632–8; F. Bril, J.J. Sninsky, A.M. Baca et al., ‘Hepatic steatosis and insulin resistance, but not steatohepatitis, promote atherogenic dyslipidemia in NAFLD’, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 101(2), 2016: 644–52; F. Bril and K. Cusi, ‘Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: The new complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus’, Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinics of North America 45(4), 2016: 765–81; F. Bril, D. Barb, P. Portillo-Sanchez et al., ‘Metabolic and histological implications of intrahepatic triglyceride content in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease’, Hepatology 65(4), 2017: 1132–44.