Zarathustra, you may have been improving *some* insulin resistance with the, almost exclusive, high animal fat diet (also avoiding the processed foods) ?
The avoidance of processed foods cannot be the primary reason, why my current diet improved various of my health problems, since I avoided processed foods for at least 2 years prior to the start of the low carb diet. Although I ate lots of vegetables, salads, whole grains, legumes, sprouts, fruits, so called healthy fats (the monounsaturated) and moderate protein and took supplements, my health actually DECREASED during that time. I still suffered from acne, hypoglycemia, terrible brain fog, eczema etc.
Don't get me wrong, I still believe that vegetables in moderation can be healthy, but too much of hard to digest plant foods (raw salads, lots of fiber, whole grains etc.) can be very detrimental in a lot of people (especially in those with dysbiosis, leaky gut syndrome etc.)
The Okinawans with a very high lifespan, do eat ALOT of vegetables (besides having a low calorie intake)) with moderate protein, and moderate healthy fat intake (ideally a CR diet, but I'm not there yet), because I think it is the optimal #1 way to continuously *detoxify* your body, *while* ensuring hGH production and thus, superior health.
Well, I don't believe in the "politically correct interpretation" of the Okinawan diet. Proponents of the Okinawan diet often fail to mention some important aspects of the Okinawan diet, which don't fit to their belief systems. For instance:
The main meat of the diet is pork, and not the lean cuts only. Okinawan cuisine, according to gerontologist Kazuhiko Taira, "is very healthy—and very, very greasy," in a 1996 article that appeared in Health Magazine.19 And the whole pig is eaten—everything from "tails to nails." Local menus offer boiled pigs feet, entrail soup and shredded ears. Pork is cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, kelp and small amounts of sugar, then sliced and chopped up for stir fry dishes. Okinawans eat about 100 grams of meat per day—compared to 70 in Japan and just over 20 in China—and at least an equal amount of fish, for a total of about 200 grams per day, compared to 280 grams per person per day of meat and fish in America. Lard—not vegetable oil—is used in cooking. http://www.westonapr...d_in_china.htmlIt's also interesting to note, that the Japanese individuals with the highest intake of cholesterol and animal fat actually have the lowest incidence of stroke! This is a rather challenging finding for proponents of the "politically correct interpretation" of the okinawan diet, who tell us, that it is the low fat high carbohydrate aspect (amongst other aspects) of the okinawan diet, that explains their longevity.
Stroke. 2004 Jul;35(7):1531-7. Epub 2004 May 27.
Animal protein, animal fat, and cholesterol intakes and risk of cerebral infarction mortality in the adult health study.Sauvaget C, Nagano J, Hayashi M, Yamada M.
Department of Epidemiology, Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Hiroshima, Japan. sauvaget@rerf.jp
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: A traditional diet that is poor in animal products is thought to explain the high rate of stroke in Asian populations. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of a diet rich in animal protein, animal fat, and cholesterol on the risk of cerebral infarction mortality in a Japanese population. METHODS: A prospective study of 3731 Japanese men and women aged 35 to 89 years was conducted from 1984 to 2001. Nutrient intake was estimated at baseline from the responses to a 24-hour diary. During the follow-up period, cases of cerebral infarction deaths (as entered on death certificates) were monitored. RESULTS: During the follow-up period, 60 deaths were attributed to cerebral infarction.
A high intake of animal fat and cholesterol was significantly associated with a reduced risk of cerebral infarction death. The risk was reduced by 62% (CI, 82% to 18%) for those in the third tertile of animal fat intake, compared with those in the first tertile, with a significant linear dose-response relationship (P=0.0073). The risk of death from infarction was reduced by 63% (CI, 82% to 22%) in the high cholesterol consumption group, compared with the low consumption group. A significant linear dose-response relationship was observed. Animal protein was not significantly associated with infarction mortality after adjustment for animal fat and cholesterol. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that in Japan, where animal product intake is lower than in Western countries, a high consumption of animal fat and cholesterol was associated with a reduced risk of cerebral infarction death.
PMID: 15166397 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Also don't forget, the country with the second highest lifespan is Iceland. The traditional diet of Iceland is also very high in animal protein and fat.
Traditional Icelandic food is not particularly palatable to mainstream European tastes. Pickled ram?s testicles, decomposed shark meat, cooked sheep?s head and slatur, a type of sheep intestine haggis, are some of the dishes you want to seek out or avoid. Luckily, the mainstays of the Icelandic diet are simpler: marinated herring, fresh salmon, dried fish, smoked lamb and curd, as well as whale and seal meat. Greenhouse-grown vegetables are common and of good quality. Vegetarians will find Iceland difficult, though Reykjavik has an increasing number of modern and ethnic eateries.http://travel.guardi...,420714,00.htmlThe country, with the third highest average lifespan is Spain. Here's a quote from the "Protein Power Lifeplan":
When a group of scientists evaluated the changing dietary patterns in Spain over the past twenty-five years, they found that the consumption of bread decreased, the consumption of fruits and vegetables decreased, and the consumption of even olive oil decreased.9 Over the same time, Spaniards increased their consumption of dairy products and meat of all kinds. In other words the diet of the average Spaniard-at least by our misguided modern nutritional standards-degenerated; he ate more high-fat foods of animal origin, while at the same time low-fat, highcarbohydrate foods went lacking. According to the prevailing pyramid paradigm of what good nutrition is (again, misguided in our opinion), people throughout Spain should be dropping like flies from cardiovascular disease. What the researchers found, however, was that the rates of death from heart disease declined dramatically over this period. Since this didn't fit with what the researchers expected to find, they as all good researchers do, tried to find some way to reconcile their data with what they "knew" to be true. They reckoned that perhaps some isolated areas in Spain contained unenlightened people who ate a lot of meat, fat, and dairy products, fouling up the statistics for the rest of the country. And when they did evaluate consumption on a region-by region basis they found exactly that, but, unfortunately for their hypothesis, the high-meat-eating regions had the greatest declines in the rates of death from heart disease. In their words, "it is also paradoxical that regions demonstrating the highest increases in fat intake displayed the lowest rates of CHD [coronary heart diseasel mortality]."
Edited by zarathustra, 07 August 2006 - 10:00 PM.
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