Why Fat is the Preferred Fuel for Human Metabolism
- Thread starter DT-waw
- Start date
Just a quick google and I find many vegan competitive body builders.
http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bio_avi
http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bio_avi
and, even a 61 year old raw vegan bodybuilder:
http://rawveganwarrior.com/?p=328
Like you said before, we don't know if those guys are juicing in those pics. Also some guys have good genetics working for them.
So your standard of proof has gone from 'any' to 'top half of a competition'? Why do you find this so hard to believe? As has been stated human protein requirements are generally overestimated and there are no missing nutrients in plants. Nonetheless, despite vegans being less than 1% of the population, there are some vegan bodybuilders who are competitive by most standards.
Robert Cheeke's (also pictured above)Bodybuilding achievements include:
2005 INBA Northwestern USA Natural Bodybuilding Overall Novice Championship
2006 Natural Bodybuilding World Championships
2009 Northwestern USA Natural Bodybuilding Championships - 1st in class
Also, Kenneth Williams:
2004 Natural Olympia in Las Vegas â third out of more than 200 competitors from 37 nations and becoming Americaâs first vegan bodybuilding champion.
He has also competed and placed well in a number of important bodybuilding events. In 2004 alone, he placed second in his class at the Silver & Black Muscle Classic (sponsored by the Oakland Raiders), the Team USA contest, and the World Natural Bodybuilding Championships.
Imagine how much better they'd be eating meat.
Before going further, my friend's blindness was the result of two surgeries to remove a brain tumor that formed after a couple years on the Atkins diet (and returned only months after the initial surgery). He had full vision despite diabetes pre-surgery and 25% vision afterwards.
A high fat, high animal protein diet increases risk of all-cause mortality.
http://www.annals.org/content/153/5/289.abstract
A low fat (that's 15% or less calories from fat, not the high fat "low-fat" diets promoted by the USDA and the American Heart Association) whole foods plant-based diet (no refined carbohydrates, which ensures you're getting sugar in the amount needed for sustained energy, not mega-dose calorie bombs), will sustain health and slow aging. I've already posted dozens of links to back up these claims.
RB, have you read either The China Study, or Reverse and Prevent Heart Disease? If not, please do.
Caloric restriction (CR) has been proven again and again in laboratory rodents through primates to extend life, often as much as 50%.
RB, I gave you the respect of reading the entire Alzheimer's study, the derived headline to which you linked several days ago. I found it very provocative and interesting (I admit I'm a nerd, a closet scientist at heart). There was an interesting development during the study, related to your post above.
The transgenic mice (engineered to mimic Alzheimer's disease) refused to eat the high protein/high fat chow (ketogenic diet or KD) when it was initially introduced. The researchers had to phase it in by mixing it with the standard chow and gradually substituting more and more of the KD chow until the mice were finally accepting of it. The KD mice lost quite a bit of weight during this period.
The researchers admitted in the published study that "since the animals were reluctant at first to eat the KD chow and we observed weight loss in the KD group, we cannot rule out the possibility that the Aβ lowering effects were due to CR." (caloric restriction)
Another significant result of the study that "headline" reports leave out is that despite the lowered Aβ (amyloid-beta) levels in the KD diet group, "no difference in behavioral measures were detected between the groups" during the Cognitive Testing phase of the study:
Cognitive testing
After 38 days on the diet animals were tested for behavioral deficits using object recognition tests as previously described [20], see methods. Despite the differences in chow, BHB levels, and weight loss, no difference in behavioral measures were detected between the groups (Table 2)
The KD diet was developed to mimic a starvation response in animals without reducing calories to harmful levels [15]. In this way a KD is similar to caloric restriction (CR) regimes that have been used in many species to alter aging and increase some forms of stress resistance. CR typically reduces calories 30â40% compared to ad libitum fed animals and has numerous positive effects on animal health [24]. In the present study we did not attempt to restrict calories in any way and the animals had free access to the ketogenic chow at all times and intake was self limited. However, since the animals were reluctant at first to eat the KD chow and we observed weight loss in the KD group, we cannot rule out the possibility that the Aβ lowering effects were due to CR.
The published study did include a conflict of interest statement, which is always one of my primary concerns regarding scientific studies.
COMPETING INTERESTS
As co-founder of Accera, Inc., STH holds shares in an organization and may gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript. In addition, STH has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript and may gain or lose financially from publication of this manuscript.
In the May 1998 issue of Journal of Neurochemistry, an abstract was published by researchers at the Institute of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, in which oxidative stress was demonstrated to increase amyloid-beta production in mice.
What are effective methods of reducing oxidative stress? One method as you already noted is caloric restriction.
Another is a whole foods vegetarian diet, which is packed with antioxidants and includes no foods high on the food chain (which store many times the toxins found in conventionally grown plant foods).
http://professional.diabetes.org/News_Display.aspx?TYP=9&CID=84163
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16240844
"Studies done in South India, Mumbai and the northern state of Haryana in India have reported very low rates of occurrence of Alzheimerâs disease in those at 65 years of age or older, ranging from about 1% in rural north-India (the lowest reported from anywhere in the world where Alzheimerâs disease has been studied systematically) to 2.7 in urban Chennai.
Studies from China and Taiwan have also shown a lower risk of Alzheimerâs disease as compared to western countries. The low rates of occurrence of Alzheimerâs disease in the eastern countries is in striking contrast to data from the western countries."
Refined carbohydrate consumption is one key difference between these countries and western countries. Large amounts of animal protein consumption and minimal consumption of vegetables is another. Whole plant foods are highly antioxidant. Refined plant foods (white flour, oils, and refined sugars including fruit juice) and animal foods (including cow's milk and its derivatives) are quite toxic. Meat in and of itself isn't so awful in small quantities, but in the countries above, they don't have huge factory farms manufacturing toxic waste and labeling it as food. Chickens from our grandparents' time had 100 times the essential fatty acids as our factory farmed chickens do now, and far less saturated fat.
Cow's milk is for infant cows. It offers no health benefit to humans, and is implicated as a trigger for many health problems.
A high fat, high animal protein diet increases risk of all-cause mortality.
http://www.annals.org/content/153/5/289.abstract
A low fat (that's 15% or less calories from fat, not the high fat "low-fat" diets promoted by the USDA and the American Heart Association) whole foods plant-based diet (no refined carbohydrates, which ensures you're getting sugar in the amount needed for sustained energy, not mega-dose calorie bombs), will sustain health and slow aging. I've already posted dozens of links to back up these claims.
RB, have you read either The China Study, or Reverse and Prevent Heart Disease? If not, please do.
Caloric restriction (CR) has been proven again and again in laboratory rodents through primates to extend life, often as much as 50%.
RB, I gave you the respect of reading the entire Alzheimer's study, the derived headline to which you linked several days ago. I found it very provocative and interesting (I admit I'm a nerd, a closet scientist at heart). There was an interesting development during the study, related to your post above.
The transgenic mice (engineered to mimic Alzheimer's disease) refused to eat the high protein/high fat chow (ketogenic diet or KD) when it was initially introduced. The researchers had to phase it in by mixing it with the standard chow and gradually substituting more and more of the KD chow until the mice were finally accepting of it. The KD mice lost quite a bit of weight during this period.
The researchers admitted in the published study that "since the animals were reluctant at first to eat the KD chow and we observed weight loss in the KD group, we cannot rule out the possibility that the Aβ lowering effects were due to CR." (caloric restriction)
Another significant result of the study that "headline" reports leave out is that despite the lowered Aβ (amyloid-beta) levels in the KD diet group, "no difference in behavioral measures were detected between the groups" during the Cognitive Testing phase of the study:
Cognitive testing
After 38 days on the diet animals were tested for behavioral deficits using object recognition tests as previously described [20], see methods. Despite the differences in chow, BHB levels, and weight loss, no difference in behavioral measures were detected between the groups (Table 2)
The KD diet was developed to mimic a starvation response in animals without reducing calories to harmful levels [15]. In this way a KD is similar to caloric restriction (CR) regimes that have been used in many species to alter aging and increase some forms of stress resistance. CR typically reduces calories 30â40% compared to ad libitum fed animals and has numerous positive effects on animal health [24]. In the present study we did not attempt to restrict calories in any way and the animals had free access to the ketogenic chow at all times and intake was self limited. However, since the animals were reluctant at first to eat the KD chow and we observed weight loss in the KD group, we cannot rule out the possibility that the Aβ lowering effects were due to CR.
The published study did include a conflict of interest statement, which is always one of my primary concerns regarding scientific studies.
COMPETING INTERESTS
As co-founder of Accera, Inc., STH holds shares in an organization and may gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript. In addition, STH has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript and may gain or lose financially from publication of this manuscript.
In the May 1998 issue of Journal of Neurochemistry, an abstract was published by researchers at the Institute of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, in which oxidative stress was demonstrated to increase amyloid-beta production in mice.
What are effective methods of reducing oxidative stress? One method as you already noted is caloric restriction.
Another is a whole foods vegetarian diet, which is packed with antioxidants and includes no foods high on the food chain (which store many times the toxins found in conventionally grown plant foods).
http://professional.diabetes.org/News_Display.aspx?TYP=9&CID=84163
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16240844
"Studies done in South India, Mumbai and the northern state of Haryana in India have reported very low rates of occurrence of Alzheimerâs disease in those at 65 years of age or older, ranging from about 1% in rural north-India (the lowest reported from anywhere in the world where Alzheimerâs disease has been studied systematically) to 2.7 in urban Chennai.
Studies from China and Taiwan have also shown a lower risk of Alzheimerâs disease as compared to western countries. The low rates of occurrence of Alzheimerâs disease in the eastern countries is in striking contrast to data from the western countries."
Refined carbohydrate consumption is one key difference between these countries and western countries. Large amounts of animal protein consumption and minimal consumption of vegetables is another. Whole plant foods are highly antioxidant. Refined plant foods (white flour, oils, and refined sugars including fruit juice) and animal foods (including cow's milk and its derivatives) are quite toxic. Meat in and of itself isn't so awful in small quantities, but in the countries above, they don't have huge factory farms manufacturing toxic waste and labeling it as food. Chickens from our grandparents' time had 100 times the essential fatty acids as our factory farmed chickens do now, and far less saturated fat.
Cow's milk is for infant cows. It offers no health benefit to humans, and is implicated as a trigger for many health problems.