Is Doctor McDougall aware of this?

For those questions and discussions on the McDougall program that don’t seem to fit in any other forum.

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Re: Is Doctor McDougall aware of this?

Postby colonyofcells » Fri May 26, 2017 12:35 pm

We already know that any type of weight loss will have some health benefits. Any type of diet intervention will also have some health benefits. It is possible that more use of unrefined foods and less animal products (or no animal products with vitamin b12 supplement) might get even better results. It is possible that lower fat unrefined vegan diet (less than 50% fat, less than 30% fat) might do even better. There are healthy eating gurus who do believe that higher fat unrefined vegan diets are also beneficial such as Dr Bill Harris, Dr Joel Fuhrman, Dr Michael Greger, nutritionist Brenda Davis, etc. so Virginia Messina is not alone in her opinions about the necessity or non necessity of low fat diets. When Dr Kim Williams was just starting to eat healthy for himself, he actually followed the higher fat portfolio diet (portfolio diet is about 30% fat and uses margarine enriched with plant sterols and almonds) of Dr David Jenkins but currently, Dr Kim Williams does recommend the low fat unrefined vegan diet of Dr Esselstyn for those with serious heart disease. Most people will find it hard to lose weight on high fat healthy vegan foods like nuts, seed, avocado which is probably why many people still use low fat unrefined vegan diets. Traditionally, the main use of nuts and seeds was to fatten up in preparation for expected future food scarcity. Traditionally, more olive oil was used in those places where people were not able to get enough calories from other foods bec of food scarcity.
Many years ago, Dr Michael Greger did a video on the high fat vegan diet (43% fat) of Dr David Jenkins :
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/2/e003505
More recently, Dr Michael Greger also did a video on the higher fat unrefined vegan diet of Dr Joel Fuhrman.
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Re: Is Doctor McDougall aware of this?

Postby Helpinghands » Fri May 26, 2017 3:05 pm

What I failed to mention and should have was the researchers conclusion as to WHY (the mechanism) or WHAT caused regression of heart disease. It wasn't pure weight loss. THEY concluded that it was as a result of the drop in blood pressure the weight loss caused that created the regression. When I read this I had to laugh. Probably 90% of us who had heart attacks had our blood pressure dropped like a rock with drugs years prior to our heart attacks. IF heart disease regresses with a drop in blood pressure NONE of us would have had our heart attacks in the first place.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=shai+reverse+atherosclerosis
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Re: Is Doctor McDougall aware of this?

Postby Spiral » Fri May 26, 2017 3:13 pm

Helpinghands wrote:What I failed to mention and should have was the researchers conclusion as to WHY (the mechanism) or WHAT caused regression of heart disease. It wasn't pure weight loss. THEY concluded that it was as a result of the drop in blood pressure the weight loss caused that created the regression. When I read this I had to laugh. Probably 90% of us who had heart attacks had our blood pressure dropped like a rock with drugs years prior to our heart attacks. IF heart disease regresses with a drop in blood pressure NONE of us would have had our heart attacks in the first place.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=shai+reverse+atherosclerosis


I guess having ones blood pressure drop through weight loss and a healthier diet is better than having an identical drop of blood pressure via drugs. I am going to assume that these diets were healthier than the baseline diets for the people in the study. Perhaps even the low-carb diet featured more fruits and vegetables than the baseline diet.

Is carotid artery intima-media thickness a good indicator of heart attack risk? Is it correct to assume that if carotid artery intima-media thickness is reduced by 5 percent that thickness in the walls of the coronary arteries will be similarly reduced?

What if someone has heart disease but is not overweight? Would these diets reduce heart attack risk in patients like that?
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Re: Is Doctor McDougall aware of this?

Postby bbq » Fri May 26, 2017 8:22 pm

https://www.propublica.org/article/when-evidence-says-no-but-doctors-say-yes
In 1997, a Swedish hospital began a trial of more than 9,000 patients with high blood pressure who were randomly assigned to take either atenolol or a competitor drug that was designed to lower blood pressure for at least four years. The competitor-drug group had fewer deaths (204) than the atenolol group (234) and fewer strokes (232 compared with 309). But the study also found that both drugs lowered blood pressure by the exact same amount, so why wasn’t the vaunted atenolol saving more people? That odd result prompted a subsequent study, which compared atenolol with sugar pills. It found that atenolol didn’t prevent heart attacks or extend life at all; it just lowered blood pressure. A 2004 analysis of clinical trials — including eight randomized controlled trials comprising more than 24,000 patients — concluded that atenolol did not reduce heart attacks or deaths compared with using no treatment whatsoever; patients on atenolol just had better blood-pressure numbers when they died.
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Re: Is Doctor McDougall aware of this?

Postby Spiral » Mon May 29, 2017 3:52 pm

Helpinghands wrote:In the ongoing saga of a vegan low fat poster and Ginny, he asked her if she knew of ANY studies regardless of whether they included exercise, statins or stress control that showed regression of heart disease other than those done by whole food, low fat, no oils doctors? I'm guessing he figured she'd be trapped and have to admit there weren't any. Surprise, she came up with one. I then googled any articles on this study done in Israel and found a CNN article that detailed not only the study referenced by Ginny, but a prior study that actually used Atkins as one of the diet protocols. For those interested I'll post the url to the article.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/01/weight.loss.reverse.artery.clogs/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Shock and surprise that all show lesion regression if the subject lost a certain amount of weight regardless of diet, The more they lost the greater the regression.

But this study didn't really demonstrate regression of heart disease, did it?

Also, people who are not overweight can suffer heart attacks.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when mortality from heart disease was higher than it is today, BMIs were lower than they are today.

So, if the takeaway message from this study is "just lose weight and you will be dramatically reduce your risk for heart disease," the message is misleading.
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