Lore of Nutrition: Challenging conventional dietary beliefs

by Tim Noakes

Reginald Noakes would also have had NAFLD, commonly known as ‘fatty liver’, although no one knew it at the time. Noakes presented robust research showing that high-carbohydrate diets cause NAFLD in people who are insulin resistant/diabetic. He also showed that NAFLD causes blood-fat abnormalities, and that it is these blood-fat abnormalities that, together with high blood insulin levels and inflammation, lead to disseminated arterial disease. Thus, he showed that T2DM is ultimately a condition of progressive, disseminated arterial disease. It progresses over decades, he told the hearing. It leads ultimately to complete obstruction of blood flow to the eyes, kidneys and lower limbs. The consequences couldn’t be more severe: blindness, kidney failure and gangrene (and eventually amputation) of the limbs. This same arterial disease can lead to heart attacks and strokes, although these represent a ‘fundamentally different process’.