Abstract

The cholesterol hypothesis that intake of saturated fatty acids increases blood cholesterol levels, which in turn increases the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD), has hardly been proved. Even the most famous intervention study in Finland (Finnish Mental Hospital Study) was questionable; it must have been very difficult to diagnose CHD in heavily sedated patients without bias. However, because diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the major risk factors of myocardial infarction, diabetologists adopted the hypothesis above to reduce CHD incidence and educated DM patients not to eat much land animals’ meat and their fat, which means high-carbohydrate diets. Unfortunately the more carbohydrate people eat, the higher blood glucose and insulin levels. In fact, if DM patients are treated with low-carbohydrate diets, hemoglobin A1c levels markedly drop. Because insulin levels are also reduced, body weight is reduced too. (Insulin is probably the most powerful agent for fattening.) The prevailing idea that low-fat is good for you does not hold true anymore. The exploding number of obese and diabetic patients in the US was the most horrible example of iatrogenic disease in the last century.