Plant positive has done an amazing job detailing the scientific evidence, so if you had actually watched his videos, you would begin to see what we understand. Here’s a link. It’s a long series but exhaustively researched, with the specific studies noted, and well worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PrimitiveNutritionYou can quibble with the size of Esselystyn’s original study (he’s releasing a much larger one soon), but those were the sickest of patients, who had all had multiple heart surgeries, stents, and bypasses. Some weren’t expected to live more than 2 years, yet after adopting a whole food plant-based diet, they all survived the next 10 years without further heart events.
By contrast, where is the evidence that a low carb/high fat diet reverses heart disease? People like Atkins, Taubes, and Eades have had decades to produce these results. All anyone needs to do is look at the diets of some of the world’s longest-lived and healthiest populations – the rural Chinese, or Okinawans, for instance - to see the health benefits of a whole food, primarily plant-based diet.
You should be aware that many of the Mediterranean diet studies have been paid for by olive oil companies or governments highly influenced by them, and the benefits are better attributed to the increase in fruits and vegetables, as opposed to the “good fat” of olive oil. The olive oil just gets the press, for obvious reasons.
I believe Ornish has written about the study you sited, and he made clear that the subjects were not compliant with his diet. They were just told to eat low fat, but they actually didn’t. That is the problem with so many “low fat” studies. The subjects are still eating around 36% fat, when the SAD is 39%, so yes, it’s slightly lower fat compared to SAD, but not actually low fat whole food, which is what we eat here at under 10% fat.
Campbell selectively used data sympathetic towards his anti-animal protein bias and completely ignored that data that quite possibly indicts wheat gluten. I am not going to do a point-by-point analysis that has been done effectively by numerous folks including Denise Minger [http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/]. But I am guessing she is also demonized already in this community. It is amazing how many other people are wrong and only a handful of ‘scientists/doctors” i.e. Campbell, Ornish, Esselstyn, Benard and McDougall have is figured out correctly.
Denise Minger has a liberal arts degree. She is certainly entertaining. All the high fat apologists are, which is why they're persuasive. But when you really look at it objectively, it makes absolutely no sense that someone with no formal background in science could pick apart a peer-reviewed study, such as the China Study. I mean, the results were reviewed by the world’s top scientists, yet we’re expected to believe that no one caught these supposed errors in Campbell’s data until a quick-witted blogger did? It’s just silly.
In fact, that was actually what triggered a seed of doubt in me when I was on the low carb side. I read Campbell’s gracious response to Minger’s amateur attempt at scientific analysis, and I was impressed enough to explore more about who he was. He’s a highly regarded researcher, and I’d trust his conclusions far more than a blogger with no discernable source of income (I now question who is funding these high fat blogs. The meat and dairy industry has much to gain in keeping us eating their products).
I’ll let others address the individual studies, but I will go back to one of my personal questions. You developed cardiovascular disease somehow. How can you bet your life that it was simply because you weren’t getting enough fat or animal products? Because that’s what people like Jimmy Moore are advocating.
One thing that’s for sure is that there is absolutely no credible evidence to link fruits and vegetables to CVD. And scant, if any, to link whole grains and starches. So, why not give that type of diet a chance to repair the arterial damage? Rather than bank on these unproven cholesterol theories and the size of your particles, wouldn’t you be better off eating a diet that is known to lead to longevity and health?
Research the longest-lived, healthiest populations, and it's glaringly evident (don't fall, as I did, for the assertion that the Inuits were healthy - they weren't - and they weren't long-lived). Whole plant foods and minimal, if any, animal products is the safest diet for someone with your health concerns.
And in and of itself on its’ best day is anecdotal not science.
