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Mike Dilger ☑️ 1y ago

HEADLINE: CARDBOARD DIET IS HEALTHIER THAN OMNIVORE DIET

If a mildly overweight person chooses to eat a diet of only cardboard, they will:

1) have lower diet satisfaction

2) lose weight

3) improve their cardiovascular markers, insulin sensitivity, and fasting glucose.

Does that mean eating only cardboard is a healthy diet?

There was a Stanford Twin Study comparing a vegan diet to a healthy omnivorous diet

using 44 pairs of identical twins randomly assigned to either diet, for 8 weeks.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2812392

They found that the vegans:

1) had lower diet satisfaction

2) ate less, and lost a little weight

3) improved their cardiovascular markers, insulin sensitivity, and fasting glucose.

This does not mean that the vegan diet is healthier, for the same reason that the cardboard diet is not healthier.

Over the long haul, vegans don't get enough vitamin B-12, iron, calcium, DHA or EPA. Yes, apparently any amount of animal fat will raise LDL and increase risk of cardiovascular disease. The fact that vegans have lower LDL is unsuprising, and any move towards a higher percentage of plant based foods will probably always lower LDL and probably also apoB. But that isn't the only important factor. Heart disease, how you die, even when you die, is not the most important thing. Sometimes a tradeoff is needed.

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Discussion

Dr. Fernando Morales 1y ago

Hey, I agree that it's a somewhat weak study, even if it's a randomized controlled trial. 8 weeks is way too little time to reach any significant long term health conclusions, plus, "healthy" omnivore diet? Based on what exactly? Current nutritional guidelines are a joke on what constitutes a healthy diet.

The participants had a blast with grains and sugar. Grains and refined grains especially are not a healthy component of any diet, they're basically sugar in the end of the day (along with starches). Great survival food though.

Both group's insulin levels are pretty high and quite similar, that's not good in the long run, as it leads to more insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia. I'm guessing both groups would suffer significant chronic comorbilities in the next few decades, probably less in the vegans though. I think a better study would've been a omnivore group eating only meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables, but mainly meat, just like people were doing in the late 19th century and early 20th century before processed food and vegetable oils became widespread.