4 Biggest Health Myths

GET EDUCATED TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR HEALTH

by Dr. Cindy Clayton, D.C. She is a Doctor of Chiropractic and Nutritionist.

The Four Biggest Health Myths

Myth # 1

Diets High in Fat Cause You to Get Fat

Advertisers have promoted low fat everywhere and so many people are obsessed with cutting fat from their diets. But did you know that eating healthy fat actually helps you lose weight? When you eat low fat foods your metabolism drastically shuts down. When your metabolism shuts down, so does your fat burning furnace. If you want to speed up your metabolism and lose weight – consume more healthy fat. Fat also tells your brain that you’re full. It will greatly cut your appetite. Have you ever eaten at a Chinese restaurant and been hungry an hour later? That was because of the high carbohydrates. It is the carbohydrates that cause you to get fat and make you hungry, especially sugar and refined grains. We’re not talking about the artificial margarine, oleos or the heated, trans fats. We’re talking about eating more raw nuts, olive oil, flax oil, coconut oil, cod liver oil, real butter, cheese, eggs and meats as good sources of healthy fat (organic and hormone free).

Myth #2

High Carbohydrate, Low Calorie Diets Help with Weight Loss

The problem with a high carbohydrate, low calorie diet is that bread, pasta, cereal, and other carbs break down into sugar very rapidly. This triggers an increase in insulin. Insulin takes high sugar that’s in the blood and puts it into storage as fat. This data can be found in almost every medical textbook on the subject of insulin and carbohydrate metabolism. When insulin is released it also inhibits the action of enzymes that break fat down.

Your organs need calories to keep functioning, including the heart, liver, kidneys and brain. Low calorie diets actually starve these organs. They will eventually start to malfunction. A low calorie diet will also cause your metabolism to slow way down which will cause your body to expand it’s fat cells and make it very hard to lose weight.

Protein on the other hand increases a hormone which has a function that is the opposite of insulin. It will cause your body to dissolve fat rather than store it. In the process of dissolving the fat, it gives you energy. By taking grain carbohydrates and sugar out of your diet and increasing vegetables, proteins and healthy fats, you will lose weight with less hunger and will have more.

Myth #3

Eating Saturated Fats Causes Heart Disease

The Ancient Egyptians consumed a diet of high carbohydrates and low fats. When mummified bodies were dug up it was routinely found that their arteries were filled with cholesterol, their teeth were rotted and they were obese.

The Eskimos consumed a 70% fat diet and had practically no heart disease. Africans, Indians, Mediterranean cultures, inhabitants of Crete, Puerto Ricans, Swiss, French and New Zealanders also consumed diets high in saturated fats with virtually no heart disease.

Despite popular belief, there are no scientific studies that show that eating a high fat diet and high cholesterol diet will in any way cause heart disease or heart attacks.

However, a low cholesterol diet can cause you to develop cataracts (vision loss), age more quickly and weaken your immune system. It can also cause your body to overcompensate and to develop high cholesterol.

Heart Disease was very rare a hundred years ago. Heart disease started to increase from nothing in 1910, to a major epidemic in 1945 (50% of all deaths). From 1910 to 1970, the consumption of animal fats has actually declined, butter consumption has declined, cholesterol consumption has increased only 1% yet heart disease has increased a lot. Refined foods, sugar consumption, margarine and artificial oil intake has increased tremendously during this same period.

It is these refined foods that increase cholesterol and destroy the heart. Refined foods are depleted of all their vitamins, minerals and enzymes, especially B vitamins. Scientists have now proven that it is the B vitamin deficiency that causes heart attacks.

You may be saying to yourself that you already take B vitamins but chances are you may be taking synthetic B vitamins, made from petroleum which will not supply the B you need and will actually create deficiencies.

Standard Process makes Cataplex B and G, whole food organic supplements that will give you the entire B complex which will feed your heart and body. Cataplex B is the half that will help you heart, nerves and carbohydrate metabolism. Cataplex G is the half that helps stress, relaxation and fat metabolism.

Here is a list of fats with the proper ratios you should have in your diet (You should have 1 part saturated fats to one part Omega 3 unsaturated fats to 1 part Omega 6 unsaturated fats – 1:1:1):

SATURATED FATS: Meats, Cheese, Eggs, Raw Milk, Butter OMEGA 3: Fish Oil, Flax oil OMEGA 6: Vegetable oils, Raw nuts, Olive oil

Myth #4

Eggs Will Raise Your Cholesterol

Egg whites contain one of the best sources of protein. Egg yolks contain a small amount of cholesterol and a large amount of lecithin which breaks down the cholesterol.

The way to maintain normal cholesterol levels is not to avoid cholesterol, because that will cause your body to produce more. This occurs because of an internal mechanism in your liver. The less cholesterol you consume, the more your body makes.

What you want to do is eat foods that are high in lecithin and forget about cholesterol. It just so happens that all high lecithin foods contain high fats. That’s the way nature designed it. And that is the problem with refined and heated oil—they destroy lecithin.

Eggs don’t raise cholesterol levels. In fact, they do just the opposite—they decrease cholesterol levels. The best way to lower cholesterol is to eat organic eggs because of the lecithin factor.

Cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to all your cells. most of your hormones are made out of cholesterol. Your nerves could not conduct electricity without cholesterol. Your brain couldn’t function without cholesterol—in fact 70% of it is cholesterol. Cholesterol also makes vitamin D, which helps in the absorption of calcium. So be sure to make organic eggs part of your normal diet.

See also a video by Dr. Eric Burg The Egg Yolk Myth