Health Prevention, Diet and Latest Evidence

[Abu-Salman]

TRICK AND TREAT —

how 'healthy eating' is making us ill (BMJ Top 20 Bestsellers)

 

Click for larger image Due October 2008

 

By Barry Groves

512 pages £12.99 (Paperback)

 

ISBN: 978-1-950140-22-0

 

 

 

"A great book that shatters so many of the nutritional fantasies and fads of the last twenty years. Read it and prolong your life."

Clarissa Dickson Wright.

TRICK AND TREAT. It's a play on words based on the US children's Hallowe'en practice of extortion with menaces game called trick or treat. But where trick or treat gives you a choice, the way the 'health industry' works does not. TRICK AND TREAT details the way the health industry's strategy TRICKs us into making ourselves unwell, so that they can then TREAT us for the illnesses their advice has caused.

 

This is why health costs are rising so rapidly, and why we seem to get little in the way of better services for the money — the health industry is one of the world's most corrupt industries. The health industry is ruled by the multinational pharmaceutical companies and big food companies. It is they who control what health professionals are taught, making doctors, nutritionists and dieticians into unwitting mouthpieces and drug pushers. But TRICK AND TREAT shows that there is a way out: while the 'health industry' tries to make everyone into 'patients', we don't have to comply, and we don't have to get ill. Live the right lifestyle and they cannot force us to take their drugs and unnatural 'foods' if we don't want to.

 

You may have noticed that, over the past few years, what we have been taught about 'healthy eating' has changed — subtly but significantly. This is because it is becoming all too obvious to consumers that what we have been told about 'healthy eating' is wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

In this controversial, evidence-based account of how and why the health-care establishment has got the concept of ‘healthy eating’ so wrong, Barry Groves shows us how to take charge of our own health and lives, in contravention of what the health-care industry would have us believe and do.

 

 

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Trick and Treat is available for preorder on line in several countries: the UK, from Amazon, Country Bookshop, and W H Smith's and from Amazon in the USA, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Foreword by Dr Howel Buckland Jones MB, BS (London)

Introduction

PART ONE

 

THE MISAPPROPRIATION OF HEALTH

 

11 Part One shows that the 'health industry' has a vested — financial — interest in us being ill. Looking at evidence for 'healthy eating' it details the unhealthy misinformation we are given

Chap. 1: Trick to Treat 19 Medical care is one of the world's largest industries. This chapter sets the scene by detailing widespread corruption, fraud and mismanagement, largely for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry. Heavily influenced by the drug companies, doctors' training is seriously biased towards prescribing; medical research and publications are rarely independent. There is more interest in wealth than health.

Chap. 2: What's behind the screens? 37 Screening for disease is promoted as a preventive measure. It is not: if a disease is found it hasn't been prevented. With considerable evidence of adverse effects, medical screening seems merely a pretext to increase the 'patient base' and identify a market for increased drug sales, with precious little evidence of benefit to the 'patients'.

Chap. 3: How we got to where we are 56 Since we were introduced to 'healthy eating' our health has deteriorated dramatically. How on earth did this sorry state of affairs come about? We look at how the battle against cholesterol and development of the 'diet/ heart' hypothesis radically changed dietary recommendations for the worse.

The roles of cholesterol are explained.

Chap. 4: Learning from history 77 If we are to right the health of western societies, we could do worse than look at the way populations we call primitive manage to stay entirely healthy, despite (or because) they have none of our advanced scientific knowledge. The story of pemmican tells how nutritionists, even a century ago, consistently undermined traditional healthy dietary practices.

Chap. 5: Fats: from tonic to toxic 89 For the sake of our hearts, we are told to replace traditional 'saturated' fats with processed, polyunsaturated vegetable oils.

There are three ways in which a substance can increase the risk of cancer: it can cause body cells to become cancerous; it can promote a cancer's growth; it can suppress the immune system. Polyunsaturated vegetable oils have been shown to do all three.

Chap. 6: The seeds of ill health 108 Base meals on starches, we are told. Eat bread, pasta, rice, breakfast cereals. Indeed we eat more cereals than any other foodstuff. But all cereal grains pose significant health risks to humans. Wheat, on which we depend the most, is probably the worst of them all. And legumes (beans) are almost as bad.

Chap. 7: Climb off the bran wagon 118 With cereals comes bran (cereal fibre). We have been urged for generations to eat fibre to prevent and cure many bowel and other health conditions. However, research shows that, while vegetable fibre may be relatively harmless, bran increases the risk of many of the conditions it is promoted to prevent and cure — and a lot more as well.

Chap. 8: Why '5 portions'? 129 The mantra that everyone will know is 'eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day'. Yet it has no evidential basis; there is little evidence of benefit over about two portions a week; and eating as much as five a day could have serious adverse effects on health. Why growing them is also a wasteful use of land.

Chap. 9: The phoney war on salt 144 Salt was so valuable that Roman soldiers were paid with it. Today, salt is the subject of the latest health scare. However, if the evidence against the 'diet/heart' hypothesis is flimsy, the evidence against salt is practically non-existent. While salt has been shown to increase blood pressure in a small proportion of people, in others it lowers blood pressure and in most it makes not the slightest difference. Current strictures against salt are increasing health problems

Chap. 10: Soy, fluoride and the thyroid 156 The thyroid gland controls many functions within the body, including the rate at which we use energy. When its action is suppressed, weight gain is an inevitable result. Soya and fluoride, widely promoted as 'healthy', both have such an effect.

Chap. 11: Our irrational fear of sunlight 167 Keep out of the midday sun, cover up and wear a sunscreen, we are told. But the sun is nature's great healer. Sunlight is our only reliable source of vitamin D. It is increasingly recognised that people who sunbathe have less cancer. Sun creams increase the risk of cancer.

Chap. 12: Exercise care 185 Touted as a cure for obesity, heart disease and myriad other conditions, we are all told to exercise more. All that does is burn energy, necessitating increased consumption — of the wrong foods. While exercise may increase fitness, it seems to have little benefit for health. Types of exercise generally promoted can do harm.

Chap. 13: Homo carnivorous 196 Having shown that the health regimes we are exhorted to undertake have little or no evidential support, that leaves the question of what constitutes a truly healthy diet for us as a species. This chapter looks at our evolutionary history to show that we really should eat a very different diet from that advocated today. It also looks at the basis for our 'love affair with fat'.

Chap. 14: The metabolic syndrome and the glycaemic index 211 Since we began to eat 'healthy' carbohydrate-rich foods, a constellation of serious degenerative diseases emerged. Scientists defined the 'metabolic syndrome', or syndrome X. This chapter looks at the causes and symptoms of the metabolic syndrome and of insulin resistance, and at the development and limited usefulness of the Glycaemic Index (GI).

Chap. 15: Unhealthy dogma means unhealthy food 228 Food manufacturers jump on the lucrative 'healthy' bandwagon, making foods that are lacking in important nutrients such as the many 'low-fat' dairy products. These have been shown to raise the risk of some cancers. 'Improving' foods has not only made them more hazardous for us to eat, but has also compromised the health of food animals'.

Chap. 16: So what should we eat? 236 We have seen that the healthiest diet for us is one low in carbohydrates, but there is little agreement on what we should eat instead. This chapter looks at proteins, fats and carbohydrates, their uses in the body and the amounts we need to each. The overwhelming conclusion is we should eat real, fresh food and avoid what is processed and artificial.

Chap. 17: Why low-carb diets must be high-fat, not high-protein 252 If we reduce the carbohydrate content of our diet, we either go hungry or replace the carbs lost with something else. There is currently a great deal of debate about what this should be. This chapter explains why carbs should be replaced with fats — and which fats they should be.

Chap. 18: Prevention is better 258 Prevention is better than cure, but this means starting with a healthy baby. This chapter looks at how to prepare in advance for healthy children, including eating the right things before conception and through pregnancy. It also looks at what constitutes a truly healthy diet for children up to the age of about seven years.

 

PART TWO NEW DIET: NEW EPIDEMICS 271 Part Two looks at the wide range of diseases that are caused or exacerbated by our unhealthy 'healthy' diet

 

Chap. 19: 'Healthy eating' is fattening 273 Since the introduction in the 1980s of 'healthy eating', with its emphasis on low-fat, carbohydrate-rich foods, the number of overweight and obese people has risen exponentially. This chapter demonstrates that this is not a coincidence but a prime example of cause and effect and looks at why conventional advice on weight loss is totally at variance with both real life studies and clinical trials.

Chap. 20: Diabetes deceit 288 Because diabetics are more prone to heart disease, they too are advised to eat a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. But this is what caused their condition in the first place. This chapter looks at how conventional dietary treatment makes diabetes worse and suggests an alternative diet that both helps and prevents diabetes.

Chap. 21: Diseases of the heart and blood vessels 302 Most cardiovascular diseases are attributed to dietary fats and cholesterol. This chapter looks at alternative, evidence-based possibilities and finds the case for carbohydrates and consequent high blood insulin levels being to blame more persuasive.

Chap. 22: The dangers of low blood cholesterol 314 We are told incessantly that high cholesterol is bad for us. But low cho-lesterol is far more serious. Cholesterol is an essential compound in our bodies. Low levels of cholesterol are associated with increased total mor-tality, cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, antisocial behaviour, depression, suicide, increased susceptibility to infections and other conditions.

Chap. 23: Cancer: disease of civilization 330 Populations eating traditional diets are remarkably free of cancer, but they soon succumb when they eat our diet. Numbers of cases of cancer have tripled since 'healthy eating' was introduced. This could be because cancers rely on a ready supply of glucose. And that comes from dietary carbohydrates.

Chap. 24: Gut reaction 345 Being in the front line, the gastrointestinal tract is exposed to the greatest danger if the diet we eat is not suited to us. This chapter looks at how our 'healthy diet' can be harmful and the health problems it can cause.

Chap. 25: Deficiency diseases 362 I have suggested that reducing our intake of carbs is advantageous. But might cutting out carbohydrate-rich foods like bread, pasta, breakfast cereals and rice and reducing our intake of other plant foods might put you at risk of deficiency diseases? The evidence suggests that the opposite could be true.

Chap. 26: Diet and the brain 371 The food we eat has a wide range of effects on our body systems. As the brain uses one fifth of all the energy used by the body, it seems logical to suppose that it could be affected by incorrect diet. This chapter looks at the deleterious effects of 'healthy eating' on many brain functions and at the mental health problems that can result.

Chap. 27: Multiple sclerosis 388 This chapter looks exclusively at one of the most distressing conditions to afflict us. Although the causes of MS are unknown, we discuss compelling evidence that our 'healthy' lifestyle may be a major contributory factor.

Chap. 28: The signs of 'healthy eating' 399 There are many other signs of 'healthy eating', including acne, bad teeth and short sight. This chapter looks at this wide range of conditions, many of which are clearly visible as they affect the face, and gives evidence for 'healthy eating' being the culprit.

Chap. 29: And, finally . . . 416 Changes have already been made within medical schools to break the shackles of the pharmaceutical industry on health. It is time we took a stand against the misinformation that is making us ill by taking responsibility for our own health.

REFERENCES 429 This book is fully supported by over 1,100 references from peer-reviewed medical journals and learned works

GLOSSARY 483 Explaining acronyms and technical words used in the book

APPENDIX: RESOURCES 489 How to check references; useful books, websites and other sources of further information

INDEX 491

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 498 Brief history; Barry Groves' other books

[Ms DD]

Too much reading required Abu salman..Care to summerise it pls?

[Abu-Salman]

It is always harder to convince people when they do not scrutinize regularly the primary sources for themselves (wether Qur'aan/Ahaadiths or clinical studies), but to give only one advise about prevention:

 

Forget all the "experts", ads or cliches (2 fruits a week are enough and naturally filling fats are healthier than the typical alternative consumption of flour or beans, let alone sugars), the only way so far "proven" to optimize one's health, apart from "spirituality" (or truly Islamic lifestyle) and activity incorporated into daily routine (forget gym but walk and be naturally active), is to avoid manufactured food, especially when they claim to be "healthy" and restrict yourself to thoroughly natural, unprocessed milk, butter, cereals, honey etc, without the slightest additive and cooked at home ("light spreads" and commercial honeys, which are even worse than pure sugar, are nefarious and hardly beneficial while UHT Milk is the worst type, let alone powder milk).

 

Noteworthy, what you eat directly influence too the probability of your offspring suffering from modern epidemies, just like our grandparents diets influenced us; thus a typical Western diet, especially during pregancy and around puberty, is translated into a significant risk increase of all sorts of pathologies for the coming generations.

 

For instance, type 1 diabete, which hit children, is exploding dramaticall in Finland while both types of diabetes are rapidly becoming a worldwide epidemy, to take but one example (chronic conditions such as obesity and associated arthritis or cancers are also expected to become major burdens, almost eclipsing infectious diseases already prevalent in the rest of the World)

 

 

PS: Even more practically, a poor boy in the Miyi, even though he may face significant deficit in terms of calorie intake, is much more likely to have a healthier lineage and our mothers forcing overfed children to finish their Chiken & Chips, Pasta or Pancakes are seriously harming them (not least because 30-40% less than required calories has resulted in much healthier mammals in laboratory, let alone when this apply to our typical junk diet)...

[Cara.]

Be rich, or eat as if you are.

[Jacaylbaro]

Simple rule:

 

Eat only when you are hungry and don't eat too much when you are eating.