LLVC - Gundry

This was one of the most information dense podcasts I've heard; truly a tour de force for LLVC and Dr. Gundry.

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/atlcx-episode-35-dr-steven-gundry-high-fat-diets-good-vs-bad/17547

High points - what fats are good human fuel, and which are bad, and what are the varying effects of these fats on weight loss/gain and health/illness.

Low points - the doctor gives in to food purism quite often. Owing to his disdain for industrial food production, it's easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater when thinking through the imperfections in, for example, factory produced eggs/meat. However, the number one killer, the number one toxin, the number one threat to your health is not imperfect eggs/meat or even milk - it is excess carbohydrate consumption leading to metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and all the downstream effects of that process (gout, hypertension, cancer, CVD, and autoimmune disorders being the most commonly occurring examples).

A slight refinement of that conjecture is to specify that excess fructose consumption is apparently an element of the progression from fat to insulin resistant to diabetic.

AND, bombing yourself with grains and their accompanying insults to the digestive tract is an accelerant, at least.

Adding industrial seed oils and “vegetable oils” seems to have a unique capacity to add to chronic inflammation - IOW, these are also a potent accelerant for the inflammatory process that results from excess carb consumption.

Finally, deficiencies in minerals like magnesium, and vitamins like K and D make us vulnerable to the illnesses which excess inflammation sparks. 

Taken together, high carb, low nutrient, high omega 6 diets are going to lay most humans low.

Perhaps they make us vulnerable to the other supposed killers such as "toxins", excess sun exposure, "harmful chemicals", and supposed problems like synthetic chemicals which we seem to accumulate in fat cells.

All that being said, all it takes to drive people on a traditional diet into all the diseases of civilization is exposure to the western staples of sugar and wheat.

All in all, the doctor's message is a powerful reinforcer of what I've learned through experience - carb restriction is a necessary component of healthy eating, but as important is finding and eating good fats – a lot of them.  IOW – you have to replace the carbs with fat.

The doctor does a nice job in this interview of clarifying what is his opinion, and what is validated by others similarly informed, and what is backed by a measure of science. I appreciated his precision in that regard.

I've listened to his podcast several times now and I highly recommend it.