High cholesterol

[Bubblingbrooks]

Anecdotal evidence: I drop a bit of turkey. The dog grabs it. I drop another bit. The dog grabs it. I drop another bit. The....well, you get the idea. But since it is not a double-blind, placebo controlled study, we cannot conclude that if I drop a bit of chicken, the dog will grab it.

Anecdotal evidence has shown me that if I eat sugar, my basal tempature drops. Forgetting a meal or flat out not eating to satisfaction does the same thing. That thermometor does not lie!

Hmmm, anecdotal is not a good word for this.....

So anecdotal evidences leads us to believe that eating sugar, and skipping meals prevents ovulation.

and sadly in my case, low temps should have indicated to me the reason I had so many miscarriages

 

[patandchickens]

Oy, I forgot how hostile people are if the word science is mentioned around here. Everything tarred with the same brush.

I will try this one last time and then give up.

Anecdote can more-easily be mistaken than a well designed study can. Lighter things *don't* fall more slowly (if same shape) than heavy things; observing that birth rates in Sweden correlate with stork populations does *not* mean that storks actually bring babies; just because I wore my pink socks in the game we won last night does not mean they are lucky and MADE us win; it sure looks and seems like porcupines ballistically shoot their quills, except in reality they don't. Etc.

Certainly anecdote is "evidence" in the most general sense (as opposed to pure imagination, with no ground-truthing). But it is not nearly as GOOD OR USEFUL evidence as a well designed study, if a well designed study is actually available on the particular issue in question.

(That is the whole point of DOING a well designed study -- "well designed" and "study" mean that you actively do everything you can to collect additional information that will help you rule out (or in!) alternative explanations for the observed result. So that when you get your observed result, you can have as good a shot as possible at knowing whether it occurred because of the reason you THINK it did, versus because of some other reason and it just happened to coincidentally come out the way your theory had predicted even though your theory was wrong.

Anecdote can't do that hardly at all. A well designed study can do it fairly well, sometimes really really well. (THere are limits on how well designed a study can be, because some factors are easier to control or standardize or measure than others, and so forth)

So IF a well designed study is available, it is generally more informative and trustworthy than anecdote or poorly-designed studies.

Thing is, for most things in life, there will never BE a well designed study done, chiefly because there are WAY the heck too many questions in the world (especially when you consider how answer to questions can depend on what circumstances), and also to a lesser extent because there are certain things it is just not possible to DO (closely control randomized peoples' activities and diets; replicate the entire universe; re-run history; etcetera)

So what. That's fine. Contrary to what you seem to be reading into things, I =am totally not= claiming that we need scientific studies before we can believe things or make choices. In fact I think I said pretty much exactly that!

I would be happy to modify what I said (back in post #8) from "I think that quite frankly the research has not yet been done that would sufficiently clarify the issue for it to be more than a matter of more-or-less religious faith (rather than evidence)" to "(rather than strong clearly-interpretable evidence)". Fair enough, I was sloppy in my original phrasing.

But I 100% still say that when it comes (specifically) to these three questions:

-- what role dietary saturated fat plays in maybe encouraging heart disease,

-- whether blood cholesterol levels (of whatever subtype of cholesterol) is or is not a meaningful warning factor for heart disease, and

-- whether or not it is worth eating differently to alter your blood cholesterol readings w/r/t trying to prevent heart disease...

....I think although everyone has opinions based on anecdote, peoples' anecdotes can be strongly contrasting so that no single clear picture emerges, and therefor the fairest thing to say is that we don't know for sure in a strongly evidence-based way. ("Strongly" meaning "evidence coming from situations that allow you to rule out alternative interpretations/mechanisms")

As it happens, though, this is mostly just an inconvenience in terms of understanding what's going on.

In terms of knowing what's a good diet to eat, I think that it is pretty obvious and well-ground-truthed that traditional-style diets (practically *anyone's* traditions ) are way the heck healthier than the crap people eat today.

The real issue, IMHO, is not really "what should I eat to be healthy". Deep in their hearts, I think people kinda pretty much KNOW that.

The real issue is more along the lines of "how much can I cheat on that, and in what directions, without getting into too much trouble"

(And for *that*, a good understanding of the underlying physiology/biochemistry -- which we still don't have -- and good controlled scientific studies -- which we still don't have -- is indeed important, because there *isn't* a good big track record of observational data to go off of, especially given that everyone has their own preferences of what ways they'd like to eat indulgently/unhealthily if it might be ok in the end )

Pat

 

[FarmerChick]

Oy, I forgot how hostile people are if the word science is mentioned around here. Everything tarred with the same brush.

I will try this one last time and then give up
Pat

why did ya even bother trying? but I give ya credit for trying

anyone without any scientific background and training just have opinions based on other science they read on the net

:bun


this subject is just way too open to way too much interpretation

 

[patandchickens]

Anecdotal evidence: I drop a bit of turkey. The dog grabs it. I drop another bit. The dog grabs it. I drop another bit. The....well, you get the idea. But since it is not a double-blind, placebo controlled study, we cannot conclude that if I drop a bit of chicken, the dog will grab it.

Look, if you do it over and over, it is NOT just anecdote, it is a reasonably well designed study if your intent is to find out what happens when you drop a bit of turkey in front of that dog.

If your intent is something else -- like to see whether vertebrates eat turkey, or to determine whether dogs can distinguish turkey by smell from other foods -- then it is not at all a well designed study.

Anecdotal evidence has shown me that if I eat sugar, my basal tempature drops. Forgetting a meal or flat out not eating to satisfaction does the same thing. That thermometor does not lie!
Hmmm, anecdotal is not a good word for this.....

Anecdotal is a good word for it if you have not actually written down your basal temperatures and done a good, quasi-statistical-analysis comparison of its level when you eat sugar/skip meal vs when you don't. (By quasi statistical, I mean that sometimes the difference between two sets of numbers is so big that it is really obvious that they are from different statistical populations and "the eyeball t-test" is just fine in normal life; if there is a good bit of overlap between the two sets of numbers, though, it is better to investigate more closely and formally what the chances are of that happening by random variation)

If (as many people do, including me back when I was trying to get pregnant) you actually chart your numbers, and if the difference IS so conspicuous and little-or-no-overlap that just eyeballing it is likely to be correct, then I would not call that anecdote at all, if your goal is to say what effect sugar/meals have on YOUR PERSONAL basal temperature. I would call it a reasonably good correlational study.

(Although it is still not a 100% dependable interpretation, without considering whether the efffect might be due to other correlated things -- for instance, if you are eating different types of things when you do eat 'well' and maybe it is the presence of some of *them* that causes *higher* bbt, as opposed to eating lotsa sugar and skipping meals causing *lower* bbt. To make it a better study, you would want to do some specific dietary trials to test those alternative hypotheses, so you could be more sure what exactly was going on)

OTOH if your goal is to say what effect eating sugar and skipping a meal is on the basal body temperature of PEOPLE IN GENERAL, then you have only one data point, and it is just anecdotal evidence. Cuz, maybe not everyone's body works the same as yours.


Pat

 

[freemotion]

I absolutely understood what you were saying, Pat, and I do appreciate your input. However....many studies are ill-designed. You could drive a truck through the flaws. Yet they are well-accepted and used to "prove" things....like that hydrogenated fats are healthy and that we MUST get those cholesterol numbers down with drugs immediately.

I have two clients that I can think of right away who are overweight and diabetic. They work closely with a registered dietitian. They both eat diets full of white flour, white sugar, hydrogenated fats, and processed foods. One just had her statin drugs increased to lower her cholesterol by 9 points. This is the science that makes me roll my eyes. This is the application of modern science that annoys me.

You won't find the studies I'm looking for because nobody with the money to fund them wants the information.

Have a sense of humor, ladies!

 

[Wifezilla]

And again I recommend Gary Taubes' book. He is a researcher. He studies the studies. This is the guy who busted the "Hey! We made cold fusion!" hucksters.

Here is some of his stuff for free to get you started...

What if it's all been a big fat lie?
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html

The Scientist and the Stairmaster
http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/

What Makes Us Fat and Why Nobody Seems to Care (free lecture)
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Oy, I forgot how hostile people are if the word science is mentioned around here. Everything tarred with the same brush.

I will try this one last time and then give up
Pat

why did ya even bother trying? but I give ya credit for trying

anyone without any scientific background and training just have opinions based on other science they read on the net

:bun


this subject is just way too open to way too much interpretation

Pat, we mainly are just trying to keep things light. We are slammed on all sides with "science" telling us everything old and real is bad for us.
The science that drives mainstream USDA food pyramid type eating, hurt my body beyond belief.
And I know that goes for so many on here.

 

[Wifezilla]

The science that drives mainstream USDA food pyramid type eating, hurt my body beyond belief.
And I know that goes for so many on here.

Well yes, I am in this camp. But the stuff we were told from weight watchers, on tv and in magazines that promoted a low fat, high carb diet wasn't really science. The science behind it wasn't science. It was a lie and fraud. One of the main culprits in this was Ancel Keys. This site shows how he "massaged" the data to get to the conclusion he wanted....that saturated fat caused heart disease.

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2009/02/cholesterol-presentation-between.html

 

[FarmerChick]

Free
those overweight sick people.....do they really tell ya what the dietician recommends and do they really eat the better foods etc? I am sure dieticians are not recommending they eat that solely....geez maybe they could mix in some veggies in that diet ya know lol
I doubt that dietician is saying eat choc chips cookies for breakfast, have a big old salad for lunch and then have processed mac n cheese with big chunks of white bread for dinner

remember everyone wrote---people lie about what they eat, get good information to eat foods, then don't----most overweight people (and this is in general now, not everyone) do lie about what they eat.
No one is monitored 24/7
so....

just saying lol

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Free
those overweight sick people.....do they really tell ya what the dietician recommends and do they really eat the better foods etc? I am sure dieticians are not recommending they eat that solely....geez maybe they could mix in some veggies in that diet ya know lol
I doubt that dietician is saying eat choc chips cookies for breakfast, have a big old salad for lunch and then have processed mac n cheese with big chunks of white bread for dinner

remember everyone wrote---people lie about what they eat, get good information to eat foods, then don't----most overweight people (and this is in general now, not everyone) do lie about what they eat.
No one is monitored 24/7
so....

just saying lol

Many dieticians will tell you, as long as you are getting it mostly right, don't worry bout the rest. It will even out in the end.