In his 1973 movie Sleeper, Woody Allen plays a character who ends up in a coma on life support due to a medical error. Two hundred years later, he wakes up to find that the conventional dogma on healthy living has been turned upside-down.
Woody is astonished to learn that wheat germ and brown rice, the ideal of 1970s health food faddists, are now considered terrible choices. Instead, hot fudge and steak are the new health foods.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this “science fiction” is that it may be coming true. Scientists have found evidence that chocolate contains a number of compounds that can keep blood platelets from forming blood clots that may lead to heart attacks.
But surely steak remains on the “forbidden” list? According to a new study, that dogma may also need revision.
Dr. Eric Westman is an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center. While fielding questions from overweight patients about the high-protein low-carbohydrate Atkins diet, Dr. Westman realized that there was very little good research to answer their questions about the effectiveness of this approach. He undertook a study that has just been published in the American Journal of Medicine (July 2002).
Dr. Westman followed 41 people on the Atkins diet for six months. They were allowed to eat as much red meat and eggs as they wished, with up to a cup of low-carbohydrate vegetable a day. No fruit, no bread, no pasta-not even any brown rice.
The study subjects lost an average of 10 percent of their starting weight and, paradoxically, their bad LDL cholesterol levels dropped, along with triglycerides and total cholesterol. In addition, their beneficial HDL cholesterol levels went up, improving their cholesterol/HDL ratios. This ratio is considered one of the most important indicators of heart disease risk.
The idea that eating steak and eggs could lower cholesterol is heretical. For decades most nutritionists have warned people against such foods on the grounds that they would raise cholesterol. These dietary prohibitions were based primarily on beliefs rather than on data, however.
When scientists actually looked at the effect of eggs on cholesterol they were shocked. Two large studies following thousands of health professionals for years showed that eating an egg a day did not increase the risk of heart disease in healthy people (JAMA, April 21, 1999).
Is it safe to adopt a high-protein diet? No one knows. The six-month study at Duke is the longest period that has been examined so far, and the diet’s effect on heart disease remains to be determined.
For readers of this column we have prepared a Guide to Cholesterol & Heart Health. Anyone who would like a copy, please send $2 in check or money order with a long (no. 10) stamped, self-addressed envelope: Graedons’ People’s Pharmacy, Dept. C-AT, P. O. Box 52027, Durham, NC 27717-2027.
Dietary dogma should be based on evidence rather than taken on faith. Individual foods that once were forbidden, such as walnuts and avocados, are now considered good for the heart. Perhaps Woody Allen’s screwy scenario in Sleeper is not as far-fetched as he thought.
The People's Perspective on Medicine