Decoding the Diets

Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s the average person can gain up to 8 pounds. It’s the extra stuffing and gravy, the pumpkin pie with whipped cream, the eggnog and the hot toddy. Now, however, it’s a new year. Time again for resolutions to go to the gym and lose those extra pounds … it’s time to get “healthy,” it’s diet time!!!

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in 2020 that 17 percent of Americans said they were on diets during the 2017-2018 survey period, up from 14 percent a decade earlier. Stierman, B., et al., “Special Diets Among Adults: United States, 2015-2018,” National Center for Health Statistics (Nov. 2020). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db389.htm “From 1999 –2000 through 2017–March 2020, US obesity prevalence increased from 30.5% to 41.9%. During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%.” CDC, “Adult Obesity Facts.” https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html Obviously, we are dieting more and yet getting fatter. Cena, H. & P. Calder, “Defining a Healthy Diet: Evidence for the Role of Contemporary Dietary Patterns in Health and Disease,” Nutrients 12(2):334 (Jan 27, 2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12020334

But wait a minute, what do we mean when we say we are “on a diet.” I am not an etymologist, nor a linguist, but trying to live with the word “diet” can induce schizophrenia. The word “diet” may originate from the Greek word diaita, which means mental and physical health. For Merriam-Webster and the Cambridge Dictionary, the first meaning of the word diet recognizes we cannot survive without food and drink: “food and drink regularly provided or consumed; habitual nourishment,” and “the food and drink usually eaten or drunk by a person or group,” respectively. Easily confirmed, we cannot survive without eating and drinking, a daily process. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diet; https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/diet

The fun begins when we read further. “[A] regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight,” and “an eating plan in which someone eats less food, or only particular types of food, because they want to become thinner or for medical reasons.” A more helpful definition may have been provided by Mark Twain … “The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.”

The third definition of “diet” perhaps holds the key to understanding: “something provided or experienced repeatedly,” and “a particular type of thing that you experience or do regularly, or a limited range of activities.” You have to love lexicographers. We make the same resolutions

about health and diet every New Year’s, but do we live up to our resolutions? Perhaps we need more motivation: “You can never be too rich or too thin” … Wallace Simpson, Duchess of Windsor.

Ok, now we’re motivated. Time to get started … started how? How many diets can you name? Which one is best? Which one is best for me? Which diet claims do I believe? How do I decide? Mass confusion reigns.

The first reported diet was the Vinegar Diet espoused by poet Lord Byron in the early 1800s.

How about the 1920s Cigarette Diet (“Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet”)?

Just for fun, let’s see how many other “diets” you can name: Acid Alkaline Diet, AHA Diet (American Heart Association), Always Hungry Solution, Atkins Diet, Baby Food Diet, Bone Broth Diet, Cabbage Soup Diet, Cleveland Clinic Diet, Cookie Diet, Cretan Diet, DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), Don’t Eat for Winter Diet, Dukan Diet, Fit for Life Diet, Flexitarian Diet, Galveston Diet, Dr. Gundry’s Diet, HCG Diet (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin), Herbalife Nutrition Diet, Hollywood Diet (from the 1930s), Intermittent Fasting Diet, Jenny Craig Diet, Keto Diet, Lacto-ovo Diet, LEARN Diet (Lifestyle, Exercise, Attitudes, Relationships, and Nutrition), Low Carbohydrate Diet, Keto Diet, Macrobiotic Diet, Master Cleanse Diet (from the 1940s) Mayo Clinic Diet, Mediterranean Diet, Menopause Diet, Met Flex Diet, MIND (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay), New Mayo Clinic Diet, No Guesswork Diet, Noom, Dr. Nowzaradan Diet, Nutrisystem Diet, Nutritarian Diet, Nutrivore Challenge, Optavia, Ornish Diet, Paleo Diet, Paleo-Autoimmune Diet, Perfect Health Diet, Pescatarian, Plantstrong Diet (formerly known as the Engine 2 diet), Perfect Health Diet, Pesco-pollo Diet, Primal Blueprint, Pritikin Diet, Profile Plan, Prudent Diet, Raw Food Diet, Sleeping Beauty Diet, SlimFast Diet, South Beach Diet, TLC Diet (Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes), Ultra-Low-Fat Diet, Volumetrics Diet, Vegan Diet, WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers), Dr. Weil’s Anti-Inflammatory Diet, Whole30 Diet, ZigZag Diet, Zone Diet.

I have lost a pound and a half just reading this diet list. Confused yet? Of course, we could explode this list further if we include the hundreds of “cookbooks” that claim to be diets. Keep in mind …

Help!!! There has to be some way to weave our way through this labyrinth to find a diet that works for us. Aren’t there any guideposts?

The good news, there are four threads that fundamentally underly virtually all of these diets. The bad news, they are as convoluted as the DNA helix. If you want to read the sordid details of shoddy science, individual and institutional arrogance, political malfeasance, and money, look at Taubes, G., Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Anchor Books, 2008); Minger, D., Death By Food Pyramid (Primal Blueprint Publishing, 2013); and Fallon, S. with M. Enig, Nourishing Traditions (NewTrends Publishing, 2001), among numerous others.

Here are the threads.

Low fat, high carbohydrate diets:

After World War II data was interpreted to conclude there was an epidemic of heart disease (spoiler alert, the interpretation was incorrect). The responsive logic from certain researchers was high blood cholesterol causes heart disease; saturated fat raises blood cholesterol; Q.E.D. (Latin: quod erat demonstrandum) saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease. You have to give up foods high in saturated fats: red meat, full-fat dairy products, specifically to include cheese, butter, coconut oil, ice cream, and chocolate … in other words, the foods you like (you really want me to give up chocolate … not happening!). The penultimate manifestation of the recommended diet was the US Department of Agriculture Food Pyramid released in 1992.

The USDA has a long history of nutrition guides: the Basic 7 (1943-1956), the Basic Four (1956-1992), the Food Guide Pyramid (1992-2005), MyPyramid (2005-2023), and ultimately MyPlate in 2011. Unfortunately, all of these guides were and continue to be based on misinterpreted data. Furthermore, obesity has monotonically continued to increase over the same period. Proponents of this approach strain to explain away the continuing evidence that the USDA approach does not work. In other words, the USDA has been wrong for over 70 years to the detriment of much of the US population. A significant number of the diets enumerated above are just variations of this theme, eat more of this.

There are three major problems underlying the Food Pyramid. First, developers of the Food Pyramid never differentiated between healthy fats and unhealthy processed fats. Second, the Food Pyramid emphasizes a high carbohydrate diet. “There is no essential carbohydrate,” says Dr. Marc Bessler, Director of the Center for Metabolic and Weight Loss Surgery and United States Surgical Professor of Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center, “Everything your body needs can be made from proteins and fats that you eat. You don’t need to eat a single carb to live a normal life.” Third, the industrialized food industry fostered a massive increase in sugar, a carbohydrate, and calorie intake. The effects of sugar in the diet is a whole massive other topic unto itself. Chang, N., “A New Way to Think About Carbs, Weight, and Obesity.” https://columbiasurgery.org/news/new-way-think-about-carbs-weight-and-obesity; Goldberg, J., et al., “The obesity crisis: don't blame it on the pyramid,” J Am Diet Assoc 104(7):1141-7 (Jul 2004). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jada.2004.04.026; Lustig, R., Fat Chance: the Hidden Truth About Sugar, Obesity and Disease (Fourth Estate, 2014).

Low carbohydrate, high protein, high fat diets:

Perhaps at the opposite end of the diet pendulum are what are called the ancestral or paleolithic-style diets. Ancestral diets are based on the premise that human genetics have changed little since the dawn of agriculture. The earliest cultivated agriculture was based on grains; the first domesticated wheat was einkorn about 15,000 years ago; before then grains were not part to the human diet. Paleolithic diets are based on foods that were available during the Paleolithic period of human history, before the advent of agriculture. Included here are both land and sea animals, eggs, low-glycemic fruits such as berries, tubers, nuts and seeds, and animal fats like tallow and lard.

One of the earliest of these diets was the Atkins Diet. Today, Keto Diets are more popular even though there is some research debate about their effectiveness. On the other hand, people who have had success on ketogenic diets swear by their effectiveness. Malgorzata, J., et al., “The Effect of the Paleolithic Diet vs. Healthy Diets on Glucose and Insulin Homeostasis: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials,” J Clin Med 9(2):296 (Jan 21, 2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm9020296; Dowis, K. & S. Banga, “The Potential Health Benefits of the Ketogenic Diet: A Narrative Review,” Nutrients 13(5):1654 (May 13, 2021). https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13051654

Natural, whole foods diet:

The Mediterranean Diet describes a way of eating that mimics the regional cuisines of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. It emphasizes natural foods and eschews processed foods. The Mediterranean Diet focuses on farm-to-table fruits and vegetables, whole unprocessed grains, nuts and berries, and fish Olive oil is the primary fat. Some versions of the Mediterranean Diet include lean meats. Martini, D., “Health Benefits of Mediterranean Diet,” Nutrients 11(8):1802 (Aug 5, 2019). https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11081802

Food sensitivity, anti-inflammatory diets:

Inflammation fundamentally underlies all chronic diseases. We all have genetically-based inflammatory reactions to various foods, linked to our ancestors evolution over time. When you burp or pass gas after eating certain foods, you are having an intestinal reaction to those foods. There is a blood test called the Mediator Release Test (MRT) that looks at the antibodies released by leukocytes, white blood cells, in your gut in response to certain foods. These antibodies are used to identify the foods to which you are sensitive and which cause inflammation.

The MRT measures your immune response to 141 foods and 29 chemicals. It reports foods designated green, yellow and red, and on a numeric scale of zero to five. Each color category comprises foods from every major food group, meats, seafood, dairy, grains, vegetables, fruits, even spices, taste enhancers and food additives. “Green” foods, less than 2.0, typically do not trigger an inflammatory response in the intestine, “yellow,” 2.0 to 3.9, do not trigger a severe inflammatory response eaten in moderation, and “red,” over 4.0, typically trigger a severe inflammatory response. “Green” foods are good all the time, “yellow” foods occasionally and in limited quantities, and “red” foods almost never [avocados (0.6), beef (0.4), shrimp (0.9), and cheese from whole milk (0.8) are always good for me, but interestingly carrots (2.2), Brussels sprouts (2.3) and cauliflower (2.3) are “yellow.” Corn (4.1) is a definite “red,” but I admit I have more than a few tortilla chips with the guacamole.]

The MRT is not covered by most health insurance and you have to find a practitioner who can order it for you. It is definitely worth the effort. [I lost 26 pounds over six weeks just eating green foods and was never hungry. I started with foods rated less than 1.0 and gradually added higher rated foods for more variety. I could eat as much of those foods as I wanted.]

The bottom line is to find a diet that works for you. You can tell a diet’s effectiveness by how you feel and how your body reacts after eating. Underlying all of these diets is the quality of the food you eat … organic, non-GMO, unprocessed, 100% grass fed, 100% grass finished, wild caught, regenerative agriculture-based. You will not succeed on any of these diets eating ultra-processed foods. Easy way to tell … if you are shopping in the center aisles of the grocery store, you are purchasing ultra-processed food, even if the package declares the contents “natural” and good for you. If you shop on the edges of the grocery store, you are much more likely to be purchasing natural foods.

Here's hoping you find a diet that works for you !!!

Khawandanah, J. & I. Tewfik, “Fad Diets: Lifestyle Promises and Health Challenges,” J. Food Rsch. 5(6):80 (Nov. 15, 2016). https://doi.org/10.5539/jfr.v5n6p80; Shan, Z., et al., “Trends in Dietary Carbohydrate, Protein, and Fat Intake and Diet Quality Among US Adults, 1999-2016,” JAMA 322(12):1178-1187 (Sep. 24, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2019.13771