Christopher's Commentary:
Here we go again. Despite the efforts of countless doctors,
scientists, fitness professionals and science journalists to explain
that "high carb nutrition" is detrimental to fat loss and a likely
contributor to a variety of chronic, metabolically-linked diseases. . . we still
get studies concluding that whole grain consumption has health benefits. It's ironic that the sponsors of this study were General Mills and the Federal Government -- how about funding these studies without the monies of a food-manufacturing giant?
Whole Grain Diets Lower Risk Of Chronic Disease, Study Shows
ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2008) — Diets with high amounts of whole grains may help achieve significant weight loss, and also reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a team of Penn State researchers at University Park and the College of Medicine.
"Consumption of whole grains has been associated with a lower body weight and lower blood pressure," said co-author Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State. "We thought that incorporating whole grains into a heart-healthy weight loss diet may provide the same benefits to people at risk from chronic diseases." Read more. . .
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Numerous studies (and years of 'real world evidence' have shown that high protein, high(er) fat, low carb (read: low sugar) nutrition promotes a healthier, more efficient body than the low fat, whole grain-emphasized alternative. And yet the dogma that "whole grain rules" lives on.
The hypothesis that "whole grain, low fat diets are the key to heart health (and overall health)" needs to die. . . until much stronger research comes along to support it.
Until then, consider these points before you go running off to eat buckets full of cereal, pasta, granola bars, crackers or some other "beneficial" whole grain. . .
The test of time has shown the following to be true:
1. Quality food that comes to us directly from the earth, most notably in the form of meat, leaves, nuts and berries, is the preferred food source for survival -- not processed products, including those that have "whole grains listed as the primary ingredient." Even if whole grains were a preferred fuel source/building block for the body, the additives that help create the final product are not!
2. You have to eat foods containing cholesterol and high-quality fat -- they are significant in cell membrane construction and integrity, hormone production, transport molecules. . . not to mention that fat is a great source of energy and insulation.
3. You're best served by keeping your starch/sugar intake low (eating a diet loaded with whole grains might make this difficult). Why? Here's a synopsis taken straight from page 323 of The Protein Power Lifeplan, by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades:
"The total carbohydrate content of any food is the sum of simple sugars, the starches and the fibers. . . that the food might contain. Bet, metabolically speaking, only the absorbable forms -- the sugars and the starches -- can have a metabolic impact on insulin and blood sugar. . . If the body can't turn a food substance into glucose, that food component can't cause a rise in insulin, and therefore can't perpetuate the insulin-resistance cycle."
In other words, eating whole grains vs. refined carbohydrate products (with respect to effects on insulin) doesn't make much of a difference -- even though the whole grains will contain less absorbable sugar than their refined counterparts, they still contain absorbable sugar nonetheless, and that sugar will influence your insulin levels.
There's the rub.
Because regardless of your carbohydrate source, regardless of that source's quality, you're going to end up with sugar in your system. With sugar in your system, your pancreas secretes insulin. Ingest lots of sugar, you'll secrete lots of insulin. Do this chronically, and you'll likely end up with chronically elevated insulin levels. . . which can lead to insulin resistance. . . which can increase the likelihood that you'll develop problems such as heart disease, diabetes, elevated cholesterol and triglycerides and high blood pressure.
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So, the authors of the "whole grain" study claim that a heart healthy, whole grain diet reduces chronic disease risk by way of positively altering the risk factors of waist circumference, excess body weight (fat?) and inflammation. But they did nothing to measure the effects of whole grain consumption on the participants' insulin levels.
Being that carbohydrate consumption will undoubtedly lead to insulin secretion, and being that elevated insulin has been shown to be a major factor in chronic disease development, wouldn't it have been more prudent for the authors to observe this diet's effect on the participants' insulin (instead of waist circumference, weight loss, etc.) before concluding that a diet flush with whole grains is the answer to reducing chronic disease risk? Better yet, shouldn't they have looked at the "insulin question" before sending a potentially misleading message out to the (already confused) public?
