The sugar you eat as a cause of heart disease and diabetes.

John Yudkin was a man decades ahead of his time. He was one of the first scientists to warn of the dangers of sugar and highly refined carbohydrates. He became internationally famous with his book Pure, White and Deadly (published in English in 1972, with new editions in 1986 and 2012). I first heard of Yudkin when reading a Gary Taubes book an extract below re. Yudkin.

“The George McGovern’s Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs 1973.

Peter Cleave testified to his belief that the problem extended to all refined carbohydrates. “I don’t hold the cholesterol view for a moment,” Cleave said, noting that mankind had been eating saturated fats for hundreds of thousands of years. “For a modern disease to be related to an old fashioned food is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard in my life,” Cleave said. “if anybody tells me that eating fat was the cause of coronary disease, I should look at them in amazement. But, when it comes to the dreadful sweet things that are served up … that is a very different proposition.” Yudkin blamed heart disease exclusively on sugar, and he was equally adamant that neither saturated fat nor cholesterol played a role. He explained how carbohydrates and specifically sugar in the diet could induce both diabetes and heart disease, through their effect on insulin secretion and the blood fats known as triglycerides. McGovern now struggled with the difficulty of getting some consensus on these matters.

“Are you saying that you don’t think a high fat intake produces the high cholesterol count?” McGovern asked Yudkin. “Or are you even saying that a person with high cholesterol count is not in great danger?”
“Well, I would like to exclude those rare people who have probably a genetic condition in which there is an extremely high cholesterol,” Yudkin responded. “If we are talking about the general population, I believe both those things that you say. I believe that decreasing the fat in the diet is not the best way of combating a high blood cholesterol …. I believe that the high blood cholesterol in itself has nothing whatever to do with heart disease.” “That is exactly opposite what my doctor told me,” said McGovern.

Extract taken from the brilliant book ‘The Diet Delusion’ by Gary Taubes page 123 a must read for anyone with an interest in weight loss and controlling diabetes.

The John Yudkin book Pure, White and Deadly is available to read for free here. If only action had been taken regarding Yudkin’s work, would we be facing the twin epidemics of obesity and it’s often linked type two diabetes?

Eddie