The government medicine food pyramid was pushed through by George McGovern during the Carter Administration. The onset of epidemic obesity and young to mid-life type II diabetes tracks well to this act.
Metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance are the result of both a high glycemic and carbohydrate based diet.
There was an uproar by cardiologists at the time about the recommendation. They were ignored for what could be considered the greatest enactment by government of an ideological diet in US history over that of sound science.
The majority of government studies (including the NIH) conducted research to support the fat is bad mantra. What we got was bad science that failed to control for carbohydrate intake.
One of the other areas of negative health effects of a carbohydrate diet is triglyceride (TAG) levels. These increase to unhealthy levels in tandem with insulin resistance. A low carbohydrate diet will immediately lower TAG counts independent of BMI. A low carbohydrate diet supplemented with niacin is the safest way to lower and control high TAG levels. Other pharmaceutical options are very unsafe.
TAG levels have been ignored for their role in cardiac disease until recently. TAG levels are now being considered healthy under 100. From Wikipedia:
In the human body, high levels of triglycerides in the bloodstream have been linked to atherosclerosis, and, by extension, the risk of heart disease and stroke. However, the relative negative impact of raised levels of triglycerides compared to that of LDL:HDL ratios is as yet unknown. The risk can be partly accounted for by a strong inverse relationship between triglyceride level and HDL-cholesterol level.
This raises even more questions about government medicine. The food pyramid is now being recognized as the primary culprit in the increase in obesity, metabolically induced heart disease and type II diabetes. If TAG is the primary culprit in VLDL cholesterol, what is the effect of reducing VLDL with pharmaceuticals?
There were two schools of thought prior to cholesterol levels becoming government medicines enemy #1. The first and very vocal was the need to lower cholesterol levels at all cost. There was however an equally large school of physicians that felt that lowering cholesterol would not improve cardiac care and may have other deleterious effects. They compared attacking cholesterol levels with the same outcome as firemen going to a fire to put out the smoke.
Some in this same group felt that any small diameter lipoprotein (either high or low) was dangerous. Almost all felt that the total cholesterol score was meaningless without the breakdowns into the primary cholesterol types. There protests until recently have been ignored.
Like many other aspects of society, government medicine has been shown to be both dangerous in both recommendations and acceptance to conventional wisdom. There has been a trust of "government" resulting in an "Obedience to Authority" on the part of Americans to every pronouncement in Washington. We are seeing now how dangerous this unquestioning acceptance can be. From "global warming", the ban on DDT, Cap and Trade, cafe standards resulting in needless traffic deaths, Metabolic Disease and an emerging awareness of virus based cancer disease, the Federal Government has 100 percent culpability.
Needless suffering has resulted from a government who have overturned the constitution. If our Federal Government had constrained to those powers enumerated by law all of this needless suffering and deaths could have been avoided. Sadly it is only going to get worse.
Every five years, the federal Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services revise their Dietary Guidelines for Americans
...Where in the Constitution is this power delegated to the Federal government, I wonder?
Add it to the pile of failed socialist experiments:
Food pyryamid
Welfare
Medicare
Social Security
Public Lands Management
The US Border
Immigration
Gun Control
Government Schooling
Obamacare
I could go on, but I am conserving electrons this week - going green and all that...
Interesting, thanks.
My Great Aunt lived to 103. She was never fat, tho rounded. Last time I visited, her frig and freezer were full of Sarah Lee cakes, 31 Flavors ice cream, brownies, fruit cake — every imaginable goodie and absolutely NO fruits and vegs. When I offered to stock her frig with ‘healthy’ foods, she told me in no uncertain terms that she had eaten that way all her life and here she was, living alone at 97!
Made me think that I had been sold a bill of goods.