The Obesity Epidemic: What Caused It? How Can We Stop It?

by Zoe Harcombe

Wishnofsky’s estimate that fat has 9.5 calories per gram. Indeed, his second paragraph states “It was shown by Bozenraad that the average fat content of human adipose tissue taken from various parts of the bodies of well nourished subjects is 87 per cent. One pound (454 grams) of human adipose tissue, therefore, contains 395 grams of fat. The caloric value of one gram of animal fat is 9.5; consequently, the caloric equivalent of one pound of human adipose tissue may be considered to be about 3,750 cal.” I

Taking one extreme, the lower (Livesey) estimate of the calories in a gram of fat and the lower (Bozenraad) estimate of the lipid content of fat tissue; one pound of human fat would then equal 454 grams, at 8.7 calories, multiplied by 72% i.e. 2,843 calories. At the other extreme, the higher (Wishnofsky) estimate of the calories in a gram of fat and the higher estimate of the lipid content of fat tissue is calculated exactly as shown by Wishnofsky, giving a precise number of 3,752 calories.

Feinman and Fine demonstrated that there was up to 27% energy loss in converting, as an example, amino acids to protein and back. (They note that higher inefficiencies have been found in other studies). They don’t mention Bunsen burners, but they go to the heart of this issue when they say “1g carbohydrate =4 kcal; 1g fat = 9kcal, these relations only apply to the reaction with oxygen...if an ingested macronutrient undergoes some other reaction in vivo, e.g. conversion from amino acid to carbohydrate, or multiple metabolic cycles before oxidation, then calories cannot be directly substituted for mass.”

I can eat a banana and use the glucose available for energy immediately. I can eat a banana and not need the energy immediately; I can eat a banana and need some of it immediately and use up some energy converting the rest for storage for later on. The banana may be turned into glycogen and I may need this later on. Or the banana may be turned into glycogen and I don’t need it, so it can be turned into triglyceride. This may get stored as fat, or I may need fat for energy (if I have no glucose or glycogen available at some stage) and then the fat cycling in and out of fat cells can become available and I can burn this for fuel. There are virtually infinite combinations of pathways that a simple banana can take within the human body. At every stage, energy is being used up in storing or making available energy and the body has different needs and energy options continuously.

Sustained weight loss is probably the biggest challenge that the human body can face. The body is hard wired to both store fat and conserve energy and, ironically, our current diet advice facilitates both of these beautifully.

Millions of people, women particularly, are living in a state of permanent calorie deprivation (i.e. hunger), which should be ‘rewarding’ this starvation with 50-100 pounds lost every year. The average woman, (needing 2,000 calories a day), on 1,000 calories a day, should lose 104 pounds each and every year (regardless of starting weight). Yet, instead, they lose little or nothing and put on weight when they can’t stand the starvation any longer and eat close to a normal day’s requirement of 2,000 calories. We cannot allow this to continue.

My mother told me to eat my liver, eggs and greens, to drink my milk and to take my cod liver oil. Her mother told her the same and her mother before that. Somewhere along the line we seem to have forgotten that we eat food for a reason.

Macronutrients are, collectively, carbohydrate, protein and fat. The Greek word macro means large and these are nutrients that we (allegedly) need in large quantities.

Micronutrients are, as the name suggests, those needed by the body in smaller quantities. Vitamins and minerals fall into this category.

There are 13 vitamins in total: A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12, C, D, E and K. The fat soluble vitamins are A, D, E and K and, as their name suggests, they are found in fats and need to be consumed in/with fats for their absorption. The water soluble vitamins are vitamin C and the vitamin B group, which comprises: B1 (thiamine); B2 (riboflavin); B3 (niacin); B5 (pantothenic acid); B6 (pyridoxine); B7 (biotin); B9 (folic acid) and B12 (cobalamin).

There are two categories of minerals – macro minerals are both present in the body and needed by the body in larger amounts than the trace minerals (where only a trace is needed). The macro minerals are: calcium; chloride; magnesium; phosphorus; potassium; sodium and sulphur. The trace minerals are: chromium; copper; fluoride; iodine; iron; manganese; molybdenum; selenium and zinc.

Eating to overcome an obesity epidemic, we have no room for empty calories. Every calorie ingested must contribute to our nutritional requirements. We cannot afford to consume manufactured foods that have been comprehensively and carefully designed to be irresistible and ‘moreish’. Instead of counting calories we need to make every calorie count.

The USDA database does not have information for Biotin and it only records 11 minerals. There is not even an RDA for vitamins B5, D and K or for the minerals calcium, potassium, sodium and manganese. There is an “Adequate Intake” (AI) apportioned instead. The concept of RDA is bad enough. As Sally Fallon Morell said “why am I only allowed a certain level of nutrition?”[125]

processed carbohydrates have little or no natural nutrition and even nature’s carbohydrates are comprehensively beaten by nature’s fats and proteins. Telling people to avoid fat is the same as telling us to avoid nutrition.

If we base our meals on starchy foods and consume an average 1,100 largely useless calories, we still have a nutritional requirement to be met. The body will continue to seek food in an attempt to get the nutrition it needs. We may then consume another 1,100 calories, likely as nutritionally lacking as the first batch and we arrive at a population that is both overfed and undernourished. That’s another way of defining obesity.

the real food basket comprised carbohydrate:fat:protein in the ratio 29:27:44. The flour and sugars, being consumed by the average American each day, has the macronutrients in the ratio of 93:1:6.

Carbohydrate can only be used for energy. Sugar, the most nutritionally void carbohydrate, cannot do anything useful in the body. It must be used as energy or it will be stored as fat (and it can be stored as fat because it causes insulin to be released).

I have never heard anyone declare an addiction to, or craving for, meat, fish, eggs, salads or vegetables.

It is substantially easier to avoid the foods that manufacturers deliberately engineer so that we want more of them, than it is to try to eat less of them. I have not eaten a biscuit for 15 years.

The only real foods that I have seen over consumed are fruit and cheese.

the serum cholesterol level is essentially independent of the cholesterol intake over the whole range of natural human diets.

That was quite a range of studies done by Keys – who clearly initially investigated whether or not eating cholesterol raised cholesterol levels. He concluded unequivocally that it did not. He never deviated from this view. He was quoted in 1997 as saying “There’s no connection whatsoever between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in blood. And we’ve known that all along.

eggs are one of the two healthiest foods on the planet (liver being the other one),

The diet/heart hypothesis started as an attempt to show that eating cholesterol causes raised cholesterol levels causes heart disease. This is why Keys’ early studies in the 1950’s all focused on trying to establish a relationship between cholesterol intake and cholesterol levels. When absolutely none could be found, Keys needed to find another suspect and, for some reason, fat was the chosen one. Speaking personally, I can see some logic for trying to find a relationship between cholesterol eaten and cholesterol in the body. However, given that there isn’t one, I find no logic at all in the attempt to try to establish a relationship between fat eaten and cholesterol in the body, when none has been found with cholesterol in food and cholesterol in the body –

foods that contain cholesterol also contain fat (meat, fish, eggs and dairy products). (Please note that all of these foods contain both saturated and unsaturated fat). Although there are some foods that contain fat and not cholesterol (e.g. nuts, avocados), there are no foods that contain cholesterol, but not fat (some seafood is high in cholesterol and low in fat, but it still contains fat).

given that animal foods contain both cholesterol and fat and a substantial increase in these foods in the diet has no impact on cholesterol levels in the body, to the extent that it is concluded that cholesterol in food has no impact on cholesterol levels in the body; why is it not also concluded that fat has no impact on cholesterol levels in the body? In fact, having discovered that cholesterol in food has no impact on cholesterol in the body; surely the least logical suspect to turn to next would be fat

So, it is immediately fair to say that our global dietary advice was changed for 100% of the population when no association had even been attempted for 50% of the population (women), let alone an association proven to hold every time, let alone a clear causation established.

Keys simply did not include, let alone prove any association for, over 95% of the countries of the world. He discounted 50% of the population in its entirety (women). Had Keys chosen France, Switzerland and Austria, to name but a few other countries, he could have demonstrated the exact opposite of what he tried to conclude.

(does obesity cause diabetes, or does diabetes cause obesity, or are both associated with each other and potentially caused by eating processed carbohydrates?)

The BBC Horizon programme, about The Atkins Diet (August 2004), interviewed Dr. Gary Foster who had recently led a study comparing the Atkins diet with the standard USA government low fat advice of the time.

The Atkins diet started with a carbohydrate intake limited to 20g per day for two weeks and the group following this diet were given a copy of Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution to follow thereafter.

“subjects on the low-carbohydrate diet had lost more weight than subjects on the conventional diet”. They had, in fact, lost twice as much. At three months the Atkins group had lost, on average (mean) 6.8% of their body weight vs. 2.7% for the low-fat group. At six months the comparator numbers were 7.0% vs. 3.2% of

Not only were there no bad effects of the diet in terms of cholesterol, but actually there were quite positive ones.” Triglyceride readings for the Atkins group showed an 18.7% fall at three months, compared with a 1.1% rise for the low-fat group.

More than 15 years after America changed its diet advice and precisely 10 years after the UK did the same,

Vitamin D can be ingested and it can be made from skin cholesterol. Natural sunlight hitting cholesterol in our skin cell membranes turns the cholesterol into vitamin D. With reduced sunlight, in countries further away from the equator, there is reduced sunlight to turn cholesterol into vitamin D. This would logically leave more cholesterol in the body and higher cholesterol levels in areas where heart disease was found to be higher. However, the cholesterol level is in no way a cause of heart disease – it is simply a factor observed at the same time.

vitamin D deficiency plays a role in cardiovascular disease.

There is a more sinister issue here. Vitamin D is found exclusively in animal products and requires cholesterol for its synthesis.

cake and ice cream as the listed examples – have been assumed to be saturated fat for the Seven Countries Study.

Cholesterol is a vital substance in the human body. We would die without it. Here are the key critical functions that it performs: - Cholesterol builds and maintains the integrity of the cell walls. Every cell in our body is covered by a membrane made largely of cholesterol, fat and protein. Membranes are porous structures, not solid walls, letting nutrients and hormones in while keeping waste and toxins out. If cholesterol were removed from cell membranes they would literally explode from their internal water pressure. Human beings are simply not viable without cholesterol. - Cholesterol plays a vital role in hormone production.

Cholesterol is vital for digestion. The human body uses cholesterol to synthesise bile acids. Without cholesterol-rich, bile salts, the human body could not absorb essential fatty acids or the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) and serious, even life threatening, deficiencies could develop.

Cholesterol is abundant in the tissue of the brain and nervous system and is critical for the brain and memory functions. Even though the brain is only 2% of the body’s weight, it contains approximately 25% of the body’s cholesterol.

One of the key reasons that we need to spend approximately one third of our lives sleeping is to give the body time to produce cholesterol, repair cells and perform other essential maintenance.

Cholesterol is also critical for bones and for all the roles performed by vitamin D. Vitamin D is best known for its role in calcium and phosphorus metabolism, and thus bone health, but we are continually learning more about potential additional health benefits of vitamin D from mental health to immune health.

When you read in detail the life essential role of cholesterol in the human body, through cell viability to hormones to digestion to the central nervous system and the skeletal system, it is impossible not to question the efficacy of our widespread prescription of statins – drugs that stop the body from producing the cholesterol that the body was designed to produce.

CoQ10 is also called “ubiquinone”, from the word “ubiquitous” meaning “present everywhere”. That’s a good description of CoQ10, as it is found in virtually all cell membranes. CoQ10 is a critical component in the production of ATP,

CoQ10 is particularly concentrated in those organs that have the highest energy requirements – the brain, heart and liver. The vital roles played by both cholesterol and CoQ10 in the body help explain why the side effects of statins can be unpleasant at best and serious at worst. Such side effects include energy loss, muscle pain, muscle weakness, even muscle wasting and memory loss, amongst other undesirable symptoms.

Cholesterol is cholesterol. It is not good or bad. The chemical formula for cholesterol is C27H46. There is no molecular formula for a good version or a bad version and we must stop using such erroneous and emotive terminology. What differs is the carrier of the cholesterol – the lipoprotein.

The next largest are very low density lipoproteins (VLDL’s), which are often called triglycerides, also somewhat unhelpfully.

Then we have the much more widely known low density lipoprotein (LDL), erroneously known as ‘bad’ cholesterol and high density lipoprotein (HDL), equally erroneously known as ’good’ cholesterol.

chylomicrons are formed in the intestine, as a result of digestion, and chylomicrons are the transport mechanism for taking dietary fat (and cholesterol) from the digestive system into the blood stream and from there to the different parts of the body. Dietary fat is not turned into LDL – certainly not directly and many would argue not at all.