Attack of the Killer Potato

The Idaho Potato board is once again bombarding the airwaves with ads touting the health benefits of the potato (see below for actual ad). I am of Irish/German descent and originally from the Midwest. So you can just imagine the number of potatoes I ingested in the form of potato salad, mashed potatoes, au gratin potatoes, german potato salad, potato pancakes, spatzel, tater tots, potato dumplings, potato chips and french fries. That fact that I know how to make everything I just listed from scratch, with the exception of the tater tots, is a bit of an indicator (and given some time and a grater, I think I could make a passable approximation of the tater tot). So if the potato is so healthy, why would I, an avid potato lover, gain so much weight while eating them?



According to my mom, the potato was perfectly healthy. It was all the stuff we added to it that made it in to a dietary disaster. It was the sour cream, butter, cheese, and cooking oils that were to blame. That's what was reported in all the magazines mom read and in the weekly food section of the local paper. That is also what she learned at her Weight Watchers meetings. That's what EVERYBODY "just knew". Once again, everybody was dead wrong.

According to Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, "Potatoes are a great way to survive a famine. My grandparents survived the Depression on potatoes. But in a contemporary, sedentary society, potatoes are unhealthy, with a very big glycemic load. We've seen in our studies that higher potato consumption is related to a risk of diabetes. They are very rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream-more than eating pure sugar: sugar is only half glucose when it's broken down, potatoes are 100 percent glucose. There's not very much in terms of redeemable nutritional value that you get for the calories. Unless you are extremely lean and extremely active, you can't tolerate them. If you really like potatoes, you can have them in moderation now and then, but the trouble is that a big mountain of potatoes on your plate twice a day is how many people eat."

"Actually, careful studies have shown, demonstrated that you get a bigger rise in blood sugar after eating potatoes, a baked potato, say, than you do from eating pure table sugar."

The typical large restaurant-sized baked potato, with approximately 50g of carbohydrates, is nothing more than 1/4 cup of sugar in disguise. Sure it contains vitamins and minerals, but so does a strawberry danish. The difference is the danish isn't pretending to be a health food. It is amazing to think that I was taught that potatoes were good, sour cream and butter were bad, and if I got fat, it was my fault for being weak and lazy. All the while the very basis of my diet was messing up my blood sugar, causing intense food cravings, and helping me on the way to 280lbs...my all time highest weight. Had I just thrown out the potato and eaten the butter, sour cream, shredded cheese, and bacon bits out of a bowl with a spoon, I would have been perfectly fine.

Instead, I, just like mom, bought the great potato lie hook, line and sinker. I ate them plain, I ate them with low fat yogurt instead of sour cream, I used margarine instead of butter. Then word got out that potatoes were good with fat-free salsa and I tried that too. My weight continued to climb and I felt worse all the time. It wasn't until very recently that I understood that the potato was the real problem all along.

I do understand that potato farmers need to make a living, and there are quite a few people who can scarf starchy foods with little health consequence. I am just not one of them. I can, however, find a way to continue to help the potato farmers. I will just make myself a potato canon. Then I can actually use the potatoes in a healthy way...as ammo to shoot at people who try to tell me potatoes are good to eat!

Make your own potato canon!


The latest "lievertisement" from the potato council...

If I Never Lose Another Pound...

My weight loss has stalled over the Winter, but I am not discouraged. I usually GAIN weight during the colder months, and despite not losing pounds, I am still losing inches. I know it is easy to get discouraged about a diet if you aren't seeing movement on the scale, but eating low carb isn't just about weight loss. It is about my health.

I was talking about this very topic on the Low Carb Friends forum, and started to list reasons I would still eat low carb even if I never lost another pound. I think it is important to list and expand on them here, not just as a reminder for my forgetful self, but to show others who may be stalled (or miserable on a restricted calorie diet) that the scale number is NOT the most important part about being healthy and fit.

If I Never Lost Another Pound, I Would Still Eat Low Carb Because...

• Eating low carb reduces my chance of developing type 2 diabetes*.
• Eating low carb does not cause inflammation and blood vessel damage like eating carbohydrates and sugars does*.
• Eating low carb means I am eating less processed foods, and I think Monsanto and ConAgra have enough money already.
• Eating low carb also means I am supporting small local farmers because I shop at farmer's markets instead of the super market whenever possible.
• My eating low carb makes militant vegetarians seriously pissed off and I find that amusing.
• That goes double for PETA members.
• Did I mention I like meat?
• I never turn down an excuse to use my bbq grill.
• Eating low carb reduces my chances of developing heart disease*.
• I am no longer plagued by constant hunger pains.
• Since I stopped eat grains, I fart a lot less (seriously).
• I no longer get the shakes and break out in a cold sweat from a blood sugar crash even though I have just eaten about an hour earlier.
• I'll take any excuse I can get to keep eating cheese.
• I can easily eat this way for the rest of my life without being miserable.
• By eating low carb I have less monthly bloating.
• Eating low carb does not deplete my body of vitamins like high carbohydrate food does*.
• Heavy cream ... droooooollllll
• Eating low carb reduces the ability of cancer cells to develop and spread in my body (more).
• Eating low carb is healthier for my skin and reduces collagen damage (more) - I have enough wrinkles already!
• Because I really love putting melted butter on stuff.
• Bacon!

Are these enough reasons for you to continue with low carb eating? Enough reasons for you to look beyond the scale? Enough reasons for you to consider starting? If nothing else, it will give you something to think about.

*Sources - "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes, "Natural Health & Weight Loss" by Barry Groves, "Protein Power" by Drs. Mike & Mary Eades and more.

Low Carb & Cancer

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...well...ok...it was 1931 and right on this planet, but anyway...a man by the name of Otto Warburg was awarded a Nobel Prize for discovering that, basically, cancer cells like sugar. REALLY like it! They use 4 to 5 times more glucose than normal cells. Like a 2 year-old on Halloween, cancer cells happily munch away on sweets while growing rapidly and leaving a path of mayhem and destruction in their wake.

So here we are in 2007, SEVENTY-SIX YEARS LATER, and what kind of diet is being recommended to cancer patients? According to the Oral Cancer Foundation, they should be eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, whole grain breads and cereals, lean cuts of meat, along with low-fat dairy products. In essence they are telling you to ingest foods that have a very high glucose content while asking you to eliminate foods that can provide you with essential fatty acids??? But wait, it gets even more entertaining! The American Cancer Society posts a recommended shopping list on their website that encourages you to avoid fat, yet includes rice, pasta, couscous, orzo, cornmeal, whole wheat crackers, bread sticks, bread crumbs, raisins, fruit juice, corn tortillas, dinner rolls, English muffins, and bagels - ALL of which turn to glucose once they are digested and hit the liver. So, despite the knowledge from SEVENTY-SIX FREAKING YEARS AGO that cancer cells thrive on glucose, patients are told to eat glucose in the form of grains, glucose in the form of fruits, and glucose in the form of vegetables. Sugar, sugar, sugar, and sugar, with a side order of sugar. If I were a cancer cell, these recommendations would make me throw a party!


So now I am confused. Has anyone had the thought that....well....uhhhh...maybe since cancer likes sugar so much, HOW ABOUT NOT EATING SUGAR IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!? Anyone out there have a doctor tell them that cancer cells thrive in a high glucose environment and that there is a relatively easy way to change that environment right in your own body called low carb? Anyone ever hear of an oncologist handing a patient a copy of The Atkin's Diet, Protein Power, or Natural Health and Weight Loss? Anybody? They are more likely to hear that since they will be ill from their chemo treatment, they should just eat whatever they can, which ignores the fact that what they are eating may very well have helped make them sick in the first place.

Instead of a recommendation to avoid sugar IN ANY FORM, the "eat lots of fruits and veggies, eat whole grains and avoid fat" mantra is repeated throughout the cancer community, health organizations, and government institutions. Of course, you should recognize this as the same message given to the obese and type 2 diabetics as well as the general public. It is a message that has been pounded in to the heads of every school-aged child and is repeated on public service radio and television messages. But guess what? It's wrong when it comes to weight loss, it's wrong when it comes to preventing obesity, and I am guessing it is equally wrong when it comes to cancer. According to some recent headlines, my guessing may be right on....

"Eating fruits and vegetables was not strongly associated with decreased colon cancer risk, according to a study published online in the September 25 Journal of the National Cancer Institute." - Science Daily

"Following an eating pattern lower in total fat did not significantly reduce the incidence of breast cancer, heart disease, or stroke, and did not reduce the risk of colorectal cancer in healthy post-menopausal women, according to the latest clinical trial results from the National Institutes of Health’s Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). " NIH News

"A recent study questions whether the longstanding recommendation to eat an abundance of fruits and vegetables to reduce cancer risk may be overstated. In a report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2004;96:1577–1584), Walter Willett, MD, DrPH, and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health found that eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily had an impact on cardiovascular disease risk but not overall cancer incidence. " American Cancer Society

Knowing SEVENTY-SIX YEARS AGO (yeah, I'm kind of stuck on that and it's still blowing my mind) that GLUCOSE has a big role in cancer growth, where are the studies on a low carbohydrate diet and its effect on cancer? Doesn't it seem logical that this should be an area of intensive study? I would think this would be the FIRST thing they looked in to after good ole' Otto pointed out the whole glucose thing. EDIT: I just found a link that lists 2 studies. Ironically, it shows up in the same search with a warning from the American Cancer Society about the dangers of low carb written in 2004. Despite the Cancer Societies misguided "warning", one study showed low carb reduced tumor growth, and the other showed eating fats kept tumors from stealing all the nutrients and prevented wasting. http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/users/jyelon/lowcarb.med/topic8.html.

So, despite my initial tirade, there are actually a few people out there with a clue including Boston College's Thomas Seyfried. He was featured in a recent TIME article which stated, "Seyfried has long called for clinical trials of low-carb, high-fat diets against cancer, and has been trying to push research in the field with animal studies: His results suggest that mice survive cancers, including brain cancer, much longer when put on high-fat diets, even longer when the diets are also calorie-restricted. "Clinical studies are highly warranted," he says, attributing the lack of human studies to the medical establishment, which he feels is single-minded in its approach to treatment, and opposition from the pharmaceutical industry, which doesn't stand to profit much from a dietetic treatment for cancer." http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1662484,00.html Looks like Thomas Seyfried is noticing the same things I am.

So there are pages and pages of cancer related sites recommending that you eat lots of grains, fruits and vegetables, which appears not to help at all, and very few pages of information about eating low carb to shrink tumor cells which appears to work. I am married to a big time news junkie, and I have seen none of this information in my local paper on cable or tv news. I am pretty sure the information that SUGAR FEEDS CANCER would have stuck in my mind. Even if the medical community and the news community was a bit slow on the uptake and missed that little nugget (we all have off days...or decades apparently), wouldn't THIS have given them a clue?

"Obesity has recently been linked to mortality from the majority of cancers. The insulin/insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system may partly explain this effect. The metabolic syndrome, associated with hyperinsulinemia, may modulate this effect. Recent evidence supports the role of insulin and IGF-1 as important growth factors, acting through the tyrosine kinase growth factor cascade in enhancing tumor cell proliferation."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14713323&dopt=AbstractPlus

That's right people. INSULIN appears to promote tumor growth. And what causes high levels of insulin? You got it! GLUCOSE! A low carb diet works by controlling insulin. You control insulin by not ingesting the glucose that causes insulin to be released, which promotes fat storage. Low carbers are successfully short-circuiting the glucose-insulin-fat cycle for weight loss, so it is logical to me that this would also work to short-circuit cancer growth. Since the same hormone that makes us fat also appears to makes cancer cells grow, why, with other than a few rare exceptions, isn't low carb at the very top of the study list? I guess there just isn't much money in people staying away from carbs (aka glucose). There is no big payout for drug companies in a prescription for low carb vegetables, low carb berries, good fats, full-fat dairy and meat. You just can't put the low carb lifestyle in a pill and sell it $79.95 a piece.

By no means am I implying a low carb way of eating is some kind of miracle cure for cancer. I don't want to give families struggling with this horrible disease false hope. Different cancers grow different ways and are effected by more than just amount of glucose available in your blood stream. But it is my personal belief based on the information I cited that low carb eating CAN be a valuable tool and, in a majority of cases, will do absolutely no harm. So why not add this way of eating to your cancer fighting arsenal? Lets not wait another 76 years to get started.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on tv. If you see anything wrong with this article, please let me know. Constructive criticism is always welcomed. If you just don't like my tone or think I am rude, well bite me!

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Additional information about glucose and cancer. (My commentary in italics.)

http://www.thresholdpharm.com/sec/targeting_cancer
"Cancer cells require large amounts of glucose for energy production and growth. This increased consumption of glucose has two causes: the process of a normal cell becoming a rapidly dividing cancer cell; and the exposure of a cell to the low oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions within those regions of most solid tumors where cells are dividing slowly."

This place is working on a drug to limit the uptake of glucose. Of course you could just not INGEST it....LOL...but they do explain well how cancer uses glucose.

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http://tinyurl.com/3y98zq
"Scientists have known for decades that cancer cells consume more glucose than normal cells. A longstanding assumption that the excess glucose metabolism was needed to make energy has not been borne out by research studies. This lack of understanding of why cancer cells need increased glucose metabolism has hampered the exploitation of this difference for cancer therapy."

Duhhh...how about a low carb diet for a good therapy?

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http://www.ndmnutrition.com/deprived...ome%20can%20di
"Researchers have discovered that cancer cells self-destruct when they are deprived of glucose, a finding that could lead to new drugs to fight the disease...."When we bathed cells with high c-Myc levels in a cell medium with no glucose, they destroyed themselves by triggering a cell suicide process called apoptosis,"

Self-destruction of cancer cells is an awesome thing. But do you really need a NEW DRUG for that? Just starve the bastards so they blow up!

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Here is a quote from Dr. Barry Groves' book Eat Fat Get Thin. This is out of print, but he has an updated book called Natural Health and Weight Loss available on Amazon.com ...

"Cancers are Sugar Junkies.

Seventy years ago Otto Warburg, PhD won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering that cancer cells require glucose (blood sugar) for growth. Most cells have a requirement for glucose, but cancer cells consume as much as four or five times more than normal cells. In fact, cancer cells seem to have great difficulty surviving at all without glucose. A study carried out by Johns Hopkins researchers found that some cancer cells will self-destruct when deprived of glucose.

‘The change when we took away glucose was dramatic,’ said Dr ChiVan Dang, director of haematology. ‘By the next day we knew very quickly that the cells we had altered to resemble cancers were dying off in large numbers.’ He continued: ‘Scientists have long suspected that the cancer cells’ heavy reliance on glucose (sugar) – its main source of strength and vitality – could also be one of its great weaknesses.’

And if cancers cannot survive without glucose, then it follows that a low-carb diet is likely to prevent a cancer starting in the first place. And just that piece of knowledge could stop all the heartbreak, pain and misery that cancer causes – not to mention the huge cost to the National Health Service. I say low-carb, not low-sugar, because all carbs become the blood sugar, glucose."

Dr. Barry's website...www.second-opinions.co.uk