Advanced Mediterranean Diet

LCHF Cheese

Dr. Eenfeldt of DietDoctor.com gave a talk at the recent Ancestral Health Symposium in California, on the rationale of the current low-carb, high-fat diet (LCHF) so popular in his home country of Sweden.  It’s very understandable to the general public and is a good introduction to low-carb eating.  The entire YouTube video is 55 minutes; if you’re pressed for time, skip the 10-minute Q&A at the end.

He also discusses the benefits of LCHF eating for his patients with diabetes.

If you reduce carbohydrates, you’re going to replace it with either protein, fat, or both.  As Dr. Eenfeldt recommends, the Ketogenic Mediterranean and Low-Carb Mediterranean Diets replace carbs more with fats than protein.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Older adults with high olive oil consumption have a lower risk of stroke, according to French investigators.

The Mediterranean diet, rich in olive oil, has long been linked to lower rates of stroke and other cardiovascular diseases.  The French researchers wondered if that might be attibutable to higher olive oil consumption.  Triglyceride esters of oleic acid comprise the majority of olive oil, and oleic acid blood levels reflect olive oil consumption. 

Have you heard of monounsaturated fatty acids?  Oleic acid is one.

Methodology

Over 7,000 older adults without history of stroke were surveyed with regards to olive oil consumption.  Oleic acid plasma levels were measured in over a thousand of the study participants.  Over the course of five years, 175 strokes occurred.

Compared with those who never used olive oil, those with the highest consumption had a 41% lower risk of stroke.  The researchers made adjustments for other dietary variables, age, physical activity, and body mass index.

In looking at the plasma oleic acid levels, those in the highest third of levels had 73% lower risk of stroke compared to those in the lowest third.

Comments

Results suggest that the olive oil in the Mediterranean diet  may help explain the diet’s protection against stroke.  They also support my inclusion of olive oil in the Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Reference:  Samieri, C. et al.  Olive oil consumption, plasma oleic acid, and stroke incidence: the Three-City Study.  Neurology, Published online before print June 15, 2011, doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e318220abeb

The Mediterranean diet slowed age-related mental decline in elderly Chicago residents, according to researchers at Rush University Medical Center.  The investigators noted that a Manhattan population following the Mediterranean diet also showed slower mental decline and lower rates of Alzheimers dementia.Over 3,000 study participants (2,280 blacks, 1,510 whites) were studied for an average of eight years.  Food consumption was determined by questionnaires, and mental function was tested every three years.  Adherence to the Mediterranean diet was judged according to a Mediterranean diet score developed by Panagiotakis, et al.

The greater the adherence to the Greek-style Mediterranean diet, the lower the rate of mental decline over the course of the study.

Mental decline to some extent is a normal part of aging.  If we can avoid it or lessen it’s impact, why not?  A couple ways to do that are regular exercise and the Mediterranean diet.

Would a low-carb Mediterranean diet work just as well or better?  Nobody knows yet.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Reference:  Tangney, Christine, et al. Adherence to a Mediterranean-type dietary pattern and cognitive decline in a community population.  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2010.  doi 10.3945/ajcn.110.007369

In 2009, Current Diabetes Reports published “The usefulness of a Mediterranean-based diet in individuals with type 2 diabetes,” by Catherine M. Champagne, Ph.D., R.D., L.D.N.  Unfortunately, the full article isn’t available to you at no cost.  But I read it.  Her article is a review of available scientific evidence related to the Mediterranean diet as applied to a diabetic population.  Dr. Champagne wrote:

This diet is a viable treatment option; advisors should stress not only adherence to a fairly traditional Mediterranean eating plan but also a lifestyle that includes sufficient physical activity.

I’ve been publishing my series on exercise here in dribs and drabs for the last several months.

Dr. Champagne was very favorably impressed with the DIRECT trial of Shai et al, which I covered extensively elsewhere.  DIRECT compared three diets over 24 months: Atkins, Mediterranean/calorie-restricted, and low-fat/calorie-restricted.  Mind you, it was a weight loss study, but a fair number of diabetics participated.  Mediterranean-style eating showed the most beneficial effects for diabetics. 

I think the Mediterranean diet could be even healthier for people with diabetes if it had fewer carbohydrates.  That’s why I composed the Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet.

Dr. Champagne also mentions evidence that a modified Mediterranean diet may help counteract the build-up of fat in the liver, seen in up to 70% of type 2 diabetics.  I wrote recently about how a very-low-carb diet beat the low-fat diet so often recommended for this condition (hepatic steatosis or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease).

If you want full online access to Champagne’s 6-page article, you can purchase it for $34 (USD) at SpringerLink.  I cite many of the same scientific sources and provide a whole lot more in my 216-page Conquer Diabetes and Prediabetes: The Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet, at Amazon.com for $16.95 or $9.99 (the Kindle edition) or in multiple ebook formats from Smashwords.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Reference: Champagne, Catherine (2009). The usefulness of a Mediterranean-based diet in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Current Diabetes Reports DOI: 10.1007/s11892-009-0060-3

The very-low-carb Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet cures metabolic syndrome, according to investigators at the University of Córdoba in Spain. 

The metabolic syndrome is a collection of clinical factors that are linked to high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease.  Individual components of the syndrome include elevated blood sugar, high trigylcerides, low HDL cholesterol, high blood pressure,  and abdominal fat accumulation.

Spanish researchers put 26 people with metabolic syndrome on the Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet for twelve weeks and monitored what happened.  At baseline, average age was 41 and average body mass index was 36.6.  Investigators didn’t say how many diabetics or prediabetics were included.  No participant was taking medication.

What’s the Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet?

Calories are unlimited, but dieters are encouraged to keep carbohydrate  consumption under 30 grams day.  They eat fish, lean meat, eggs, chicken, cheese, green vegetables and salad, at least 30 ml (2 tbsp) daily of virgin olive oil,  and 200-400 ml of red wine daily ( a cup or 8 fluid ounces  equals 240 ml).  On at least four days of the week, the primary protein food is fish.  On those four days, you don’t eat meat, chicken, eggs, or cheese.  On up to three days a week, you could eat non-fish protein foods but no fish on those days. 

How’s this different from my Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet?  The major differences are that mine includes one ounce (28 g) of nuts daily, less fish overall, and you can mix fish and non-fish protein foods every day.

Regular exercisers were excluded from participation, and my sense is that exercise during the diet trial was discouraged. 

What Were the Results?

Metabolic syndrome resolved in all participants.

Three of the original 26 participants were dropped from analysis because they weren’t compliant with the diet.  Another one was lost to follow-up.  Final analysis was based on the 22 who completed the study.

Eight of the 22 participants had adverse effects.  These were considered slight and mostly appeared and  disappeared during the first week.  Effects included weakness, headache, constipation, “sickness”, diarrhea, and insomnia. 

Average weight dropped from 106 kg (233 lb) to 92 kg (202 lb).

Body mass index fell from 36.6 to 32.

Average fasting blood sugar fell from 119 mg/dl (6.6 mmol/l) to 92 mg/dl (5.1 mmol/l).

Triglycerides fell from 225 mg/dl to 110 mg/dl.

Average systolic blood pressure fell from 142 mmHg to 124.

Average diastolic blood pressure fell from 89 to 76.

So What?

A majority of people labeled with metabolic sydrome continue in metabolic sydrome for years.  That’s because they don’t do anything effective to counteract it.  These researchers show that it can be cured in 12 weeks, at least temporarily, with the Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet.

Very-low-carb diets are especially good at lowering trigylcerides, lowering blood sugar, and raising HDL cholesterol.  Overweight dieters tend to lose more weight, and more quickly, than on other diets.  Very-low-carb diets, therefore, should be particularly effective as an approach to metabolic syndrome.  It’s quite possible that other very-low-carb diets, such as Atkins Induction Phase, would have performed just as well as the Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet.  In fact, most effective reduced-calorie weight-loss diets would tend to improve metabolic syndrome, even curing some cases, regardless of carb content. 

Most physicians recommend that people with metabolic syndrome either start or intensify an exercise program.  The program at hand worked without exercise.  I recommend regular exercise for postponing death and other reasons.

Will the dieters of this study still be cured of metabolic syndrome a year later?  Unlikely.  Most will go back to their old ways of eating, regaining the weight, and moving their blood sugars, triglycerides, and HDL cholesterols in the wrong direction.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Reference: Pérez-Guisado J, & Muñoz-Serrano A (2011). A Pilot Study of the Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet: An Effective Therapy for the Metabolic Syndrome. Journal of medicinal food PMID: 21612461

In January, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the latest estimates for prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes.  The situation is worse than it was in 2008, the last figures available. 

• Nearly 27% of American adults age 65 or older have diabetes (overwhelmingly type 2)
• Half of Americans 65 and older have prediabetes
• 11% of U.S. adults (nearly 26 million) have diabetes (overwhelmingly type 2)
• 35% of adults (79 million) have prediabetes, and most of those affected don’t know it

The CDC estimates that one of every three U.S. adults could have diabetes by 2050 if present trends continue.

The press release from the CDC mentions that physical activity and avoidance of overweight will prevent some cases of diabetes.  I believe that  limiting consumption of refined carbohydrates like sugar and flour would also help.

Those who already have diabetes and prediabetes should consider carbohydrate-restricted Mediterranean-style eating, as in Conquer Diabetes and Prediabetes: The Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Animal-based low-carb diets are linked to higher death rates, according to a recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.  On the other hand, a vegetable-based low-carb diet was associated with a lower mortality rate, especially from cardiovascular disease.

As always, “association is not causation.”

Since I created the Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet, it’s just a matter of time before someone asks me, “Haven’t you heard that low-carb diets cause premature death?”  So I figured I’d better take a close look at the new research by Fung and associates.

It’s pretty weak and unconvincing.  I have little to add to the cautious editorial by William Yancy, Matthew Maciejewski, and Kevin Schulman published in the same issue of Annals.

The study at hand was observational over many years, using data from the massive Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals’ Follow-up Study.  To find the putative differences in mortality, the researchers had to compare the participants eating the most extreme diets.  The 80% of study participants eating in between the extremes  were neutral in terms of death rates.

They report that “…the overall low-carbohydrate diet score was only weakly associated with all-cause mortality.”  Furthermore,

These results suggest that the health effects of a low-carbohydrate diet may depend on the type of protein and fat, and a diet that includes mostly vegetable sources of protein and fat is preferable to a diet with mostly animal sources of protein and fat.

In case you’re wondering, all these low-carb diets derived between 35 and 42% of energy (total calories) from carbohydrate, with an average of 37%.  Anecdotally, many committed low-carbers chronically derive 20% of calories from carbohydrate (100 g of carb out of 2,000 calories/day).  The average American eats 250 g of carb daily, 50-60% of total calories.

Yancy et al point out that “Fung and coworkers did not show a clear dose-response relationship in that there was not a clear progression of risk moving up or down the diet deciles.”  If animal proteins and fats are lethal, you’d expect to see some dose-response relationship, with more deaths as animal consumption gradually increases over the deciles.

The Fung study is suggestive but certainly not definitive.  Anyone predisposed to dietary caution who wants to eat lower-carb might benefit from eating fewer animal sources of protein and fat, and more vegetable sources. Fung leaves it entirely up to you to figure out how to do that. Compared to an animal-based low-carb diet, the healthier low-carb diet must subsitute more low-carb vegetables and higher-fat plants like nuts, seeds, seed oils and olive oil, and avocadoes, for example.  What are higher-protein plants?  Legumes?

You can see how much protein and fat are in your favorite vegetables at the USDA Nutrient Database.

The gist of Fung’s study dovetails with the health benefits linked to low-meat diets such as traditional Mediterranean and DASH.  On the other hand, if an animal-based low-carb diet helps keep a bad excess weight problem under control, it too may by healthier than the standard American diet.

See the Yancy editorial for a much more detailed and cogent analysis.  As is so often the case, “additional studies are needed.”

Steve Parker, M.D.

Reference:  Fung, Teresa, et al.  Low-carbohydrate diets and all-cause and cause specific mortality: Two cohort studies.  Annals of Internal Medicine, 153 (2010): 289-298.

Gary Taubes’s new book, Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It, comes on the market later this month.  I give it five stars per Amazon.com’s ranking system (I love it).

♦   ♦   ♦

At the start of my medical career over two decades ago, many of my overweight patients were convinced they had a hormone problem causing it.  I carefully explained that’s rarely the case.  As it turns out, I may have been wrong.  And the hormone is insulin.

Mr. Taubes wrote this long-awaited book for two reasons: 1) to make the ideas in his 2007 masterpiece (Good Calories, Bad Calories) more accessible to the public, and 2) to speed up the process of changing conventional wisdom on overweight.  GCBC was the equivalent of a college-level course on nutrition, genetics, history, politics, science, physiology, and biochemistry. Many nutrition science geeks loved it while recognizing it was too difficult for the average person to digest.

Paradigm Shift

The author hopes to convince us that “We don’t get fat because we overeat; we overeat because we’re getting fat.”  We need to think of obesity as a disorder of excess fat accumulation, then ask why the fat tissue isn’t regulated properly.  A limited number of hormones and enzymes regulate fat storage; what’s the problem with them?

Mr. Taubes makes a great effort convince you the old “energy balance equation” doesn’t apply to fat storage.  You remember the equation: eat too many calories and you get fat, or fail to burn up enough calories with metabolism and exercise, and you get fat.  To lose fat, eat less and exercise more.  He prefers to call it the “calories-in/calories-out” theory.  He admits it has at least a little validity.  Problem is, the theory seems to have an awfully high failure rate when applied to weight management over the long run.  We’ve operated under that theory for the last half century, but keep getting fatter and fatter.  So the theory must be wrong on the face of it, right?  Is there a better one?

So, Why DO We Get Fat?

Here is Taubes’s explanation.  The hormone in charge of fat strorage is insulin; it works to make us fatter, building fat tissue.  If you’ve got too much fat, you must have too much insulin action.  And what drives insulin secretion from your pancreas?  Dietary carbohydrates, especially refined carbs such as sugars, flour, cereal grains, starchy vegetables (e.g., corn, beans, rice, potatoes), liquid carbs.  These are the “fattening carbs.”  Dozens of enzymes and hormones are at play either depositing fat into tissue, or mobilizing the fat to be used as energy.  It’s an active process going on continously.  Any regulatory derangement that favors fat accumulation will CAUSE gluttony (overeating) or sloth (inactivity).  So it’s not your fault. 

What To Do About It

Cut back on carb consumption to lower your fat-producing insulin levels, and you turn fat accumulation into fat mobilization.

Before you write off Taubes as a fly-by-night crackpot, be aware that he’s received three Science-in-Society Journalism Awards from the National Association of Science Writers.  He’s a respected, professional science writer.  Having read two of his books, it’s clear to me he’s very intelligent.  If he’s got a hidden agenda, it’s well hidden.

One example  illustrates how hormones control growth of tissues, including fat tissue.  Consider the transformation of a skinny 11-year-old girl into a voluptuous woman of 18. Various hormones make her grow and accumulate fat in the places we now see curves.  The hormones make her eat more, and they control the final product.  The girl has no choice.  Same with our adult fat tissue, but with different hormones. If some derangement is making us grow fatter, it’s going to make us more sedentary (so more energy can be diverted to fat tissue) or make us overeat, or both.  We can’t fight it.  At not least very well, as you can readily appreciate if look at the people around you at any American shopping mall.

This’N'That

Taubes’s writing is clear and persuasive.  He doesn’t beat you over the head with his conclusions. He lays out a logical series of facts and potential connections and explanations, helping you eventually see things his way.  If insulin controls fat storage by building and maintaining fat tissue, and if carboydrates drive insulin secretion, then the way to reduce overweight and obesity is carbohydrate-restricted eating, especially avoiding the fattening carbohydrates.  I’m sure that’s true for many folks, perhaps even a majority.

If you’re overweight and skeptical about this approach, you could try out a very-low-carb diet for a couple weeks or a month at little expense and risk (but not zero risk).  If Mr. Taubes and I are right, there’s a good chance you’ll lose weight.  At the back of the book is a university-affiliated low-carb eating plan.

If cutting carb consumption is so critical for long-term weight control, why is it that so many different diets—with no focus on carb restriction—seem to work, if only for the short run?  Taubes suggests it’s because nearly all diets reduce carb consumption to some degree, including the fattening carbs.  If you reduce your total daily calories by 500, for example, many of those calories will be from carbs.  Simply deciding to “eat healthy” works for some people: stopping soda pop, candy bars, cookies, desserts, beer, etc.  That cuts a lot of fattening carbs right there.

Losing excess weight or controlling weight by avoiding carbohydrates was the conventional wisdom prior to 1960, as documented by Mr. Taubes.  Low-carb diets for obesity date back almost 200 years.  The author attributes many of his ideas to German internist Gustav von Bergmann (1908).   

Taubes discusses the Paleolithic diet, mentioning that the average paleo diet derived about a third of total calories from carbohdyrates (compared to the standard American diet’s 55% of calories from carb).  My prior literature review  found 40-45% of paleo diet calories from carbohydrate.  I’m not sure who’s right.

Minor Bone of Contention RE: Coronary Heart Disease

Mr. Taubes provides numerous scientific references to back his assertions.  I checked out one in particular because it didn’t sound right.  Some background first. 

Reducing our total fat and saturated fat consumption over the last 40 years was supposed to lower our LDL cholesterol, thereby reducing the burden of coronary heart disease, which causes heart attacks.  Instead, we’ve experienced the obesity epidemic as those fats were replaced by carbohydrates.  Taubes mentions a 2009 medical journal article by Kuklina et al, in which Taubes says Kuklina points out the number of heart attacks has not decreased as we’ve made these diet changes.  Kuklina et al don’t say that.  In fact, age-standardized heart attack rates have decreased in the U.S. during the last decade. 

Furthermore, autopsy data document a reduced prevalence of anatomic coronary heart disease in people aged 20-59 from 1979 to 1994, but no change in prevalence for those over 60. The incidence of coronary heart disease decreased in the U.S. from 1971 to 1998 (the latest reliable data).  Death rates from heart disease and stroke have been decreasing steadily over the last 40 years in the U.S.; coronary heart disease death rates are down by 50%.  I do agree with Taubes that we shouldn’t credit those improvements to reduced total and saturated fat consumption.  [Reduced trans fat consumption may play a role, but that’s off-topic.] 

I think Mr. Taubes would like to believe that coronary artery disease is either more severe or unchanged in the last few decades because of low-fat, high-carb eating.  That would fit nicely with some of his theories, but it’s not the case.  Coronary artery disease is better now thanks to a variety of factors, but probably not diet (setting aside the trans-fat issue).

Going Forward

Low-carb dieting was vilified over the last half century partly out of concern that the accompanying high fat consumption would cause premature heart attacks, strokes, and death.  We know now that total dietary fat and saturated fat have little to do with coronary heart disease and atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which sets the stage for a resurgence of low-carb eating.  

I advocate Mediterranean-style eating as the healthiest, in general.  It’s linked with prolonged life and lower risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, diabetes, and cancer.  On the other hand, obesity is a strong risk factor for premature death and development of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.  If consistent low-carb eating cures the obesity, is it healthier than the Mediterranean diet?  Maybe so.  Would a combination of low-carb and Mediterranean be better?  Maybe so.  I’m certain Mr. Taubes would welcome a decades-long interventional study comparing low-carb with the Mediterranean diet.  But that’s probably not going to happen in our lifetimes. 

Gary Taubes rejects the calories-in/calories-out theory of overweight that hasn’t done a very good job for us over the last 40 years.  Taubes’s alternative ideas deserve serious consideration.   

Steve Parker, M.D.

References:
Coronary heart disease autopsy data:  American Journal of Medicine, 110 (2001): 267-273.
Reduced heart attacks:  Circulation, 12 (2010): 1,322-1,328.
Reduced incidence of coronary heart disease:  www.UpToDate.com, topic: “Epidemiology of Coronary Heart Disease,” accessed December 11, 2010.
Death rates for coronary heart disease:  Journal of the American Medical Association, 294 (2005): 1,255-1,259.

Disclosure:  I don’t know Gary Taubes.  I requested from the publisher and received a free advance review copy of the book.  Otherwise I received nothing of value for this review.

Disclaimer:   All matters regarding your health require supervision by a personal physician or other appropriate health professional familiar with your current health status.  Always consult your personal physician before making any dietary or exercise changes.

Followers of my Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet and Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet may appreciate a Daily Log I’ve put together and published as a one-page PDF.  You actually track seven days of eating on a standard sheet of printer paper.

Daily logs aren’t essential, but may help dieters keep track of the major components of the programs.  For instance, you simply check off when you’ve had your olive oil, vegetables, nuts, fish, wine (or alternative), and supplements.  It also has slots for blood sugar levels.

As long as you have a printer, ink, paper, and electricity, the Daily Log PDF is free.   

I’m trying to make this as easy as possible.  What else can I do for you?

Steve Parker, M.D.

My 2007 book, The Advanced Mediterranean Diet: Lose Weight, Feel Better, Live Longer is now available in PDF format for $9.95 USD.  It’s not a low-carb diet book, but a calorie-restricted, balanced diet incorporating the healthy features of the traditional Mediterranean diet.  The physical book is also available from Amazon or CreateSpace. 

As we learned in yesterday’s post, loss of excess weight can be accomplished by measuring either carb grams or calories.  If you can handle monitoring your calorie consumption—and I make it as easy as possible in the book—then the Advanced Mediterranean Diet is a good way to go.  Due to the relatively high carbohydrate content of the traditional Mediterranean diet, however, people with diabetes or prediabetes should do better with carb-counting, as in the Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet or Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet.

Either way, I got you covered.

Steve Parker, M.D.