Illness down in Europe during WWII

[jld]

I remember reading here that major illnesses were down in Europe during WWII as a result of the lack of animal product consumption. Unfortunately, I am not able to find the passage. Could anyone link it, or a similar reference?

Thanks in advance!

[Ern2Win]

http://healthylongevity.blogspot.com/20 ... evity.html



Figure 1. Mortality from circulatory disease, correlated for age; consumption of fat in form of butter, milk, cheese and eggs, Norway 1938-48



Figure 5. Actual animal protein intake and age-corrected circulatory disease mortality from the cited papers

[jld]

Thank you. I am trying to show someone that stress does not cause illness. I remember Dr. McD saying something like that somewhere, but could not remember where.

[bbq]

Also available on YouTube as Dr. Esselstyn usually mentioned it in his talks:

http://youtu.be/VOP_cMcaIYU

http://youtu.be/CKEjzWLxGm0#t=93

http://youtu.be/nPeLgcyJ2Y8#t=338

[jld]

Thanks for the links!

They are pounding this idea that stress causes illness. Does anyone have any links disproving that? I am pretty sure Dr. McD has said it is food, not stress, that causes illness.

[dteresa]

because someone's woe causes obesity, artery disease and other degenerative diseases and some cancers does not preclude stress being responsible for or at least exacerbating these diseases or others that are not diet related. Similarly we are told that lack of sleep, alcohol, smoking and lack of exercise contribute to illness. Stress may lead to lack of sleep or destructive behaviors. It is also true that exercise can relieve stress in some cases.

Many have said that they overeat because they are stressed. I remember gaining a few pounds around exam time in college. Always studied with a bag of potato chips nearby. Fortunately when the pressure was off always lost it. I can imagine someone caring for a dementia patient at home. Or with personal problems causing a lot of stress. So even indirectly stress might lead to illness. In times of great stress I wonder if one's immune system can be compromised.

On the other hand, someone who denies that eating the SAD leads to obesity, heart disease, stroke, some cancers and other obesity related illnesses has not looked at or refuses to acknowledge the evidence which so far as I know is not in dispute.

didi
PS At one time it was thought that stress caused heart disease. I remember in college and when working in the sixties, the type A personality was blamed for heart attacks. The young, career driven executive was always thought to be a prime candidate. No one seemed to suspect the two martini lunch followed with a cigarette and the rich foods eaten at those business dinners was the cause of the blocked arteries that did him in. Even now, Clinton's surgeons did not attribute those blocked arteries that required by passing to his fat and animal protein laden diet.

[bbq]

Human beings aren't exactly machines, let's say heart disease is like fire and stress is like gasoline. We light the fire by injuring our endothelium with too much junk, and then it would be totally stupid to pour gasoline on fire. Dr. Ornish had a patient who actually did that and he's the only one who skipped all stress management classes. His rocky marriage was finally taking a toll and he passed away while exercising like crazy:

http://youtu.be/CIHqoyhJ9p0
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-01/news/tv-718_1_heart-disease

In other words, we could get away with some stress if we weren't damaging the endothelial cells to begin with. Once we're messing with those cells due to a poor diet, don't add insult to injury or else we might have to pay the ultimate price.

Sometimes we should be careful with the term causation since it's more complicated than we would like to think, let's listen to the 0:11:11 mark of this interview here:

https://soundcloud.com/richroll/rrp150

Personally I'd rather go for a different direction myself. Almost everyone is living a stressful life these days, it would be wiser to manage all that stress proactively instead of numbing ourselves with an addiction such as stuffing our sugary/oily/salty faces. Eating the right foods would help us to cope with the stress while avoiding even more stress that's related to chronic diseases.

Whenever someone still didn't get it since we're actually looking for something to convince them about the foods instead of stress, maybe that won't go too far and we don't have to waste our time anymore. Someone like that already made a decision and such belief system can't be changed without a serious commitment IMHO.

[BlueHeron]

I think that Dr. Esselstynn's presentation of the Norwegian diet during World War II is unfortunately simplistic. Norwegians were not eating a vegan diet. There are reports that the consumption of fish increased greatly and that the consumption of dairy, particularly skim milk, went up. In addition, if you look at this article on food rationing during World War II in Norway, you'll see that Norwegians were substituting salt herring for lamb in a traditional dish and eating organ meats, intestines, and heads instead of the more valued cuts. This is not a diet our plant-based docs would recommend.

http://aof.revues.org/6383

Also, access to sugar was greatly decreased, so those who believe that sugar is the main problem with the Western diet could equally use the Norwegian information as "proof."

Norwegians have also been using cod liver oil as a supplement for hundreds of years. This cod liver oil manufacturer notes that consumption increased in Norway during World War II, while Dr. Esselstynn famously says people should not use even a drop of oil:
http://www.mollersomega3.com/c-80-M%C3% ... story.aspx

I'm not saying that cod liver oil is a good food, only that if Dr. Esselstynn wishes to point to the excellent cardiac health of Norwegians during the war, we should realize they weren't following his recommendations.

I wish that people would quit bringing up the Norwegian diet during the war. It is far too easy to refute. Playing fast and loose with history does not help our cause. Dr. Esselstynn and Dr. Ornish's studies showing actual reversal of heart disease are far more persuasive.

Also, regarding stress, stress can be a contributing factor to the disease process. My fibromyalgia was basically cured after I pursued a particular type of body-based psychotherapy (somatic experiencing), not from a change in diet. But in light of what we know now, it seems foolish to attribute heart disease and diabetes to stress alone - though it can probably exacerbate both conditions. We really only have begun to understand the mind/body connection.

[dteresa]

http://healthylongevity.blogspot.com/20 ... evity.html

This is the same reference to healthy longevity's blog when he discusses Norway during the war years. HL says the consumption of dairy went down as did the consumption of fat and animal protein. He cites studies to that effect.

One can substitute those organ meats for muscle meat but the question is, did consumption of animal food go down? I do not know that anyone said it disappeared.

I doubt doctor esselstyn bases his admonition about oils on the war years in norway but on the fact that fats slow down circulation and block arteries and destroy endothelial cells. I am guessing that his reading showed a decrease in animal food consumption correlating with a decrease in heart disease. I do not know if he claims no animal food at all was eaten during those years. But I could be wrong.

During the war years cod liver oil was like a vitamin supplement today. Mom gave it to us as infants. If the manufacture of cod liver oil increased during the war years were people putting it on their vegetables and/or cooking with it or using it as a supplement in the face of food shortages?

didi

[Ern2Win]

I wish that people would quit bringing up the Norwegian diet during the war. It is far too easy to refute. Playing fast and loose with history does not help our cause.

Your examples are anecdotal and don't at all refute the DATA presented in the 2 slides I show from Healthy Longevity.

I suggest you read the Healthy Longevity blog I referenced where he utterly tears apart Denise Minger's supposed refutation of this assertion.

http://healthylongevity.blogspot.com/20 ... evity.html

The DATA is unequivocal: 1) less animal fat, lower mortality, 2) less animal protein, lower mortality.

[Jumpstart]

The problem with the graph is they don't correlate with the availability of animal products. They correlate with the start and end of the war. Rationing of animal products continued in Norway until the early 1950's with some food stuffs rationed until 1959. The same goes for England where rationing of everything didn't end until 1954. But just like Norway the graphs showed an increase in heart disease in England right after the end of the war in Europe.

If you review total calories available in both countries prior, during and after the war you get a much better correlation with heart disease than you do with animal products. Gas was also rationed and people increased their walking and biking. So, people were eating fewer calories and exercising more and that's a prescription for health. I'm sure the reduction in animal products certainly didn't hurt either.

It's rarely a single change that accounts for increases or decreases in health in a country. It's generally a cascading situation where one change leads to many more changes. I'll bet if you graph the increase in computers or TV sets in countries like China today you'd find a correlation with heart disease and type 2, but no one would say that watching TV or sitting at you computer causes these diseases.

[colonyofcells]

Many vegan gurus cite the wartime diets similar to Nathan Pritikin altho I think most of the therapeutic diets are more inspired by the traditional diets of poor people similar to the africa diet of Dr Denis Burkitt. Paleo diet is also inspired by one of the africa diets that was higher in animal products and nuts. The Weston Price Foundation diet is maybe inspired by the minority traditional diets higher in animal products and or it is funded by the animal products industry.

[BlueHeron]

I wish that people would quit bringing up the Norwegian diet during the war. It is far too easy to refute. Playing fast and loose with history does not help our cause.

Your examples are anecdotal and don't at all refute the DATA presented in the 2 slides I show from Healthy Longevity.

I suggest you read the Healthy Longevity blog I referenced where he utterly tears apart Denise Minger's supposed refutation of this assertion.

http://healthylongevity.blogspot.com/20 ... evity.html

The DATA is unequivocal: 1) less animal fat, lower mortality, 2) less animal protein, lower mortality.

I'm so tired of the phrase "correlation does not equal causation" that I hate to repeat it, but it's appropriate here. I am no defender of anything Denise Minger says, and I did not use her examples in any way, so it doesn't matter to me whether someone can tear her assertions apart.

Yes, less animal protein and less cardiac disease occurred at the same time. There were many shortages during the war. There was also less sugar, less gasoline, less white flour. I believe that animal fat and animal protein increase mortality, but your data here do not prove that.

Also, did you look at any of the research papers provided by healthylongevity, rather than just his interpretation? Here's the first sentence of the article THAT HE LINKS TO on Norway:
"It is not possible to give detailed information about the food situation in Norway during the war. Figures for imports, exports, production and rationing are available, but there is no record of how the food consumption of the various groups of producers and consumers was affected by the increasing food shortage."

People were consuming rabbits and raising animals on their own (and probably secretly - that is the sort of thing that the Nazis killed people over).

Here's a later sentence from the same article:
"Preliminary results, from dietary studies which were secretly performed in Oslo among a small group of 30 to 50 families three times a year from 1941 to 1945 illustrate the great change in the diet of consumers during this period of deterioration."

So the existing data are from a very small group in a major city - where you are probably less likely to be able to hide your consumption of animal foods. These data barely rise above the level of anecdotal.

But just in case you still think the data are definitive, here's another sentence from the same article:
"The consumption of fish was increased by 200 percent . . . The total daily protein consumption of 100 to 110 g. was nearly the same as before the war." (No specification on plant versus animal protein before or during the war.)

Just to be clear, I am not in any way saying that animal foods or oil are healthful. My criticism is of using the Norwegian wartime experience as proof. I don't think it rises to that level.

BTW, didi, according to the article I referenced, they did use cod liver oil for cooking during the war.

[BlueHeron]

Just in case it gets lost in all of that, my main point is that someone like Gary Taubes could use the Norwegian data to "prove" that sugar and white flour cause heart disease. That is the primary reason I don't think it's a good idea to rely on these data (although it also seems to be very unreliable in general - which I didn't realize until I started looking into it for this thread). My secondary point is that, while animal protein and fat consumption were probably reduced, they were not reduced to the level we are told is necessary by Dr. Esselstynn, yet he states that heart disease disappeared. I am not disputing his other reasons for saying that such a reduction is necessary. I am limiting my critique to his use of historical data.

I'm going to pull out of this thread now, so someone else can feel free to have the last word.

[Jumpstart]

I believe the reason that Tuabs used Norway is because rationing was phased in over time. Coffee and sugar was rationed in late 1939 prior to the invasion. This correlated very well with the drop in heart disease. In April of 1940 they imposed rationing of flour and flour products, by Sept of 1941 more rationing was imposed on ALL grains. It wasn't until mid 1942 for meat rationing cards to be disturbed based on family size, age, and work status. They started to ration potatoes in mid 42 and all vegetables by late 42. People were encouraged to raise their own chickens, ducks, geese and yes, pigs and that included the cities. Everyone in Oslo if they had a yard of earth in back of their homes grew produce and the government turned over public land for community vegetable gardens. The people of that country varied in diet with the north consuming almost no animal products, but ate exclusively fish, while the south was the reverse. Those in the city were closer to 50/50 on the meat/fish scale. Prewar consumption of fish in Norway was just over 100,000 tons and by the third year of the war it increased to 240,000 tons. By 1943 rationing of just about everything was in place. Consumption for male adults consumers was 2800 calories prewar and 2310 calories by 1943. If you worked a hard factory job it was increased to 2643 calories. At no time were they low fat or even close to it. Macro content during the war based on The League of Nation’s study was 2220 calories of which 77.8 grams were protein, 73.1 grams were fat and 297.8 grams were carbs. For heavy factory workers the calories count was 2643 with 93.8 gram of protein, 75.5 grams of fat and 397.7 grams of carbs.

For those interested I recommend a book titled:
Management of Agriculture and Food in the German-occupied and Other Areas of Fortress Europe