How did we get Nutrition so wrong!

Fifty years ago, obesity was rare. Now, 2 out of 3 adults in Australia are overweight or obese. The number of people being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes does not only continue to rise, but children as young as 5 years old are now being diagnosed with this preventable disease. Cardiovascular disease also continues to pose a major threat as the leading cause of death in Australia. So what have we been doing wrong for so long?  

In the early stages of cardiovascular disease epidemiology, there were two major theories being debated. In America, Ancel Keys conceived the Seven Countries Study, which thought saturated fats were at the centre of heart diseases. But in Britain, John Yudkin believed it was a rise in excess sugar intake causing this increase.

 At half a century from when these hypotheses were tried and tested, we’ve come to know the truth. After rigorous scientific research, we know the consumption of fat was in fact not the driving force behind heart diseases, and sugar has been the danger the whole time. But the damage has already been done.

 The now ever-controversial “diet-heart hypothesis” was a staple in dietary treatment for heart disease for over 50 years. Promoting the idea saturated fats like butter and cream would raise cholesterol and increase the risk for heart disease, it focused on the use of vegetable oils instead. The low-fat, high-carbohydrate meals the diet-heart hypothesis pushed is one of the biggest contributing factors to our inflating heart disease numbers.

When we take a look at the increasing rate of obesity and type 2 diabetes, it’s easy to see its starting point was synonymous with the dietary guidelines introduced after the diet-heart hypothesis. Obesity rates in Australia climbed almost immediately, with type 2 diabetes rates following suit in the years to come.

So, turning back to Yudkin’s 1972 publication “Pure, White and Deadly”, we can now see sugar and processed carbohydrates are what we really need to be watching out for, and what we should have been watching out for all along.

Recently, it’s been uncovered coronary heart disease isn’t triggered by high cholesterol or salt intake, but by chronic inflammation. An excessive intake of sugar, processed foods and vegetable oils, smoking, inactivity and stress are all lifestyle factors contributing greatly to inflammation, so it’s unfortunately no wonder the diet-heart hypothesis has descended us into this epidemic of obesity, cardiovascular disease and other chronic diet-related health conditions.