dr. castelli & the framingham study

A place to get your questions answered from McDougall staff dietitian, Jeff Novick, MS, RDN.

Moderators: JeffN, carolve, Heather McDougall

dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby catalina1 » Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:02 am

jeff hi - i need you to answer this question , as it may clarify a lot of misinformation. this morning , i was discussing with a friend who is a strong advocate / follower of the paleo diet . anyway , i told him that his diet has no definitive studies showing the supremacy of his diet and that hi carb diets have numerous studies , including the framingham study. he responded with something i found shocking . he said that the lead researcher ( dr. castelli ) came out recently & said in his studies , the people who ate the greatest amount of saturated fats & cholesterol were the thinnest , healthiest , & lived the longest . he also said that the people with the lowest cholesterol levels had the highest rates of cancer . jeff , is it true that castelli now advocates hi fat , hi protein diets ?
catalina1
 
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 4:52 pm

Re: dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby JeffN » Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:12 am

Let me post Dr Castelli's personal comments in response to that often misrepresented quote...

He says he was observing that in one of the first dietary history
studies done at Framingham a data set was used which showed that
those who ate the most saturated fat had the lowest cholesterol
readings. That seemed surprising at the time. But even more
surprising, the same data also indicated that those in the group who
ate the most calories weighed the least.

Since eating more and weighing less appeared contradictory, this
raised questions. They realized something must be awry, so they set
out to determine what it was. The answer turned out to be that in
this particular group of subjects those who ate the most saturated
fat also had the highest energy expenditure. So that, although they
ate more, they weighed less because they were burning a lot more
calories. Also relevant was the fact that exercise appreciably
reduces blood cholesterol in the very short term.

So, in order to figure out whether it was eating saturated fats that
was lowering cholesterol, or the exercise instead, they investigated
further. Specifically, a direct quote cut-and-pasted from Dr.
Castelli's recent communication:

".... how do you know that eating cholesterol and saturated fat raise
your serum cholesterol? You have to do a metabolic ward study. Being
on a metabolic ward is like being in prison and the two best studies
were done in Minneapolis (Dr. Ancel Keys) and Boston (Mark Hegsted).
They would increase the cholesterol and saturated fat in your diet,
controlling for everything else and showed the more cholesterol you
ate, or the more saturated fat you ate, the higher you serum
cholesterol went.

In other words it was the higher physical activity that had accounted
for the lower blood cholesterol's of the subjects in the earlier
study - exercise was the confounder that had not been controlled for.

Further, he goes on:

"Virtually all the early diet trials were based on removing saturated
fat and cholesterol from you diet and lowering your serum
cholesterol. They also showed that the better they did this, the
better was the fall in coronary heart disease."

So, Dr. Castelli is saying, not only did lowering saturated fat
intake drop cholesterol, it also reduced heart disease. And further,
Dr. Castelli says:

"....... the latest diet data from Framingham showed that the women of
Framingham who ate a high fat, low calorie diet doubled the deposits
in their carotid arteries compared to women on a heart healthy diet."

And still further he notes that the impact on lipids of a high
saturated fat diet is even greater than that measured by standard
cholesterol tests. This is because the tests are normally done after
an eight to ten hour fast. But the atherogenic effects (chylomicron
remnants) peak around the time the meal is eaten and then diminish
dramatically as the hours go by. So they are much greater in the
period immediately following a high fat meal than when the tested
blood is normally drawn many hours later.


In Health
Jeff
User avatar
JeffN
 
Posts: 9412
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:56 am

Interview with Dr. Castelli

Postby f1jim » Wed Nov 23, 2011 11:19 am

Sourced from another member:

http://www.prescription2000.com/Intervi ... cript.html

It's enlightening and informative.
f1jim
While adopting this diet and lifestyle program I have reversed my heart disease, high cholesterol, hypertension, and lost 54 lbs. You can follow my story at https://www.drmcdougall.com/james-brown/
User avatar
f1jim
 
Posts: 11349
Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 4:45 pm
Location: Pacifica, CA

Re: Interview with Dr. Castelli

Postby Spiral » Wed Nov 23, 2011 11:31 am

f1jim wrote:Sourced from another member:

http://www.prescription2000.com/Intervi ... cript.html

It's enlightening and informative.
f1jim


This might be the higlight of the interview.
KIRK HAMILTON: Let's say you had no medication and you could get everybody behaviorally to do everything you exactly wanted them to do by diet, the average American. How would you reverse the heart disease epidemic by diet?
DR. WILLIAM CASTELLI: I would. I would do it and it would work better than the drugs. And I can show you all of the reversibility trials and they were mostly drug trials.
KIRK HAMILTON: But what would the diet be if you didn't have drugs and you could get everybody to do exactly what you wanted diet-wise in the United States? How would you reverse the heart disease?
DR. WILLIAM CASTELLI: Well you'd have them on a pure vegetarian diet and not getting fat on the vegetarian diet.


And then this.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well let me ask you, because you can say vegetarian diet and that can mean anything from a white flour vegetarian diet to you know a very -

DR. WILLIAM CASTELLI: It would have to be a whole grain -
User avatar
Spiral
 
Posts: 3005
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 8:18 pm
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana

Re: dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby Gweithgar » Wed Nov 23, 2011 2:33 pm

HI, Jeff,
Thank you for your answer. The erroneous information that the first poster asked about is the kind of thing that is often cited over at the Weston A. Price board and I had always wondered about it, but had not seen it parsed out so clearly before.
Cet animal est tres mechant; quand on l'attaque, il se defend
(This animal is very wicked; if attacked it defends itself)
User avatar
Gweithgar
 
Posts: 2360
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:47 am
Location: Madison, WI

Re: dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby pinkrose » Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:18 pm

Yes, Jeff, thanks for your very thorough treatment of this question! Very interesting! :-D
User avatar
pinkrose
 
Posts: 4829
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2009 4:18 am
Location: Nanning, China

Re: dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby sweetfruitlover » Thu Nov 24, 2011 8:21 am

Yes, I agree, that was so helpful. It seems like people can always quote info from studies that seem so convincing, and though I do not personally doubt this way, I would love to be able to help others to understand what is really the healthiest way to eat.
sweetfruitlover
 
Posts: 269
Joined: Thu May 19, 2011 9:25 pm
Location: California

Re: dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby dlb » Thu Nov 24, 2011 8:31 am

Hi Anthony!!!!

Good question, thanks.

Thanks for the answer too Jeff!

Donna
To read how the McDougall Program helped me reach my goals, go here:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/stars/donna_byrnes.html
dlb
 
Posts: 1451
Joined: Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:07 am
Location: Amelia Island, FL

Re: dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby didi » Fri Nov 25, 2011 7:54 am

Finally, someone answered that question for me. I have been wondering about it for years. However, Castelli said that the people who were eating a lot also were exercising a lot and the exercise lowered cholesterol. This puzzles me. Years ago Pritikin and Jim Fixx, the famous runner, argued about diet. Pritikin insisted his low fat diet was heart healthy and Jim Fixx insisted that if you could run a marathon you could eat anything you wanted and not worry about heart disease. Jim Fixx died at the age of 56 of a heart attack while out running.

So, I am wondering why the people Castelli studied showed lower cholesterol because they exercised a lot. Pritikin claimed that exercise had many benefits but lowering cholesterol was not one of them.

Didi
didi
 
Posts: 2777
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2010 3:35 pm

Re: dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby JeffN » Fri Nov 25, 2011 8:06 am

Exercise can lower cholesterol, both LDL and Total and raise HDL. However, the impact is minimal and mostly on HDL.

In Health
Jeff
User avatar
JeffN
 
Posts: 9412
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:56 am

Re: dr. castelli & the framingham study

Postby kittyadventures » Mon Oct 14, 2013 8:40 pm

Thanks Jeff I just ran into this issue today.
Who knew an Apple a day, really would keep the Doctor away!
"Be the change you want to see in the world"--Gandhi.

http://www.kittyadventures.wordpress.com

Days in a row of exercise: 9
User avatar
kittyadventures
 
Posts: 1741
Joined: Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:48 pm


Return to Jeff Novick, RD

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests



Welcome!

Sign up to receive our regular articles, recipes, and news about upcoming events.