Fat Does Not Make You Fat! Dietary Fat is NOT the Culprit!

A growing body of evidence is suggesting that the low-fat/ high-carb mania of the last several decades may be responsible for the rise in obesity, Type II Diabetes and a host of degenerative diseases.

A small cadre of health professionals is on the verge of wiping out decades of dietary advice that has sent Americans scrounging for low-fat labels on grocery items. Beginning with Dr. Diana Schwarzbein, endocrinologist and author of The Schwarzbein Principle, increasing numbers of informed health professionals are re-thinking the reigning conventional wisdom regarding diet and fat.

Don’t Blame Fat

Dietary fat is critical for human survival, according to Schwarzbein. In fact, low-fat, low calorie diets turn off one’s metabolism!

Gary Taubes, winner of three Science in Society Journalism awards, also demonstrates that dietary fat is not responsible for clogging arteries or making people fat in Good Calories, Bad Calories, where he debunks study after erroneous study making the false link between fat consumption and heart disease and obesity.

Blame Carbohydrates

According to Schwarzbein, Taubes and a growing number of health and dietary experts, excessive consumption of carbohydrates is to blame for a host of human ailments, ranging from acne to cancer, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, Type II Diabetes and many other degenerative diseases. Man-made carbohydrates are the most damaging, according to some nutritionists, and are actually the only “bad” carbohydrates.

Schwarzbein suggests that most, if not all, degenerative diseases are not genetically driven, but are the result of hormonal imbalance brought about by increasing insulin resistance due to excessive carbohydrate ingestion.

Balanced Diets

No one is suggesting that one abandon carbs entirely and resort to eating a steady diet of fats. According to Taubes, however, “Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization.” He goes on to say that, “The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion…The more digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.”
Taubes’ seven years of intensive research indicates that refined carbohydrates are most likely the cause of cancer, Alzheimer’s and many other modern ailments.

Many health experts, however, still lay the blame on saturated fat for clogged arteries and expanded waistbands. The American Medical Association and The American Heart Association have as yet shown little or no indication of recognizing the obesity problem in America for what more and more people are saying it is: Excessive Carbohydrates.

Eating properly takes planning, something for which Americans appear to have little time. A balanced diet is increasingly difficult to achieve when many products in the grocery stores contain high fructose corn syrup, a particularly insidious man-made carbohydrate.
Human survival depends on fat. Long term low-fat/high carbohydrate diets lead to insulin resistance. Type II Diabetes, obesity and a host of other ailments.

An excellent cookbook, designed with these eating principles in mind, is One Pot Galley Gourmet, by Becky Coffield. The recipes in this book are all easy-to-prepare, mostly one pot meals, that are nutritious and delicious! The book is available at amazon.com and at http://www.moonlightmesaassociates.com/

Clenching and Grinding Can Lead to Throat Ailments

Need another good reason to make every effort to stop clenching and grinding your teeth? More than just your teeth and jaws are affected! Clenching and grinding can also lead to serious throat and swallowing problems.

The damage done to teeth because of clenching and grinding often causes irreversible damage which can cost a lot of money and time a dental chair to repair. Equally as bad, however, (maybe worse) is the injury and trauma to one's throat that one can ultimately experience because of clenching and grinding. If tender throat muscles aren't scary enough for you, think about the horrible swallowing difficulties, risk of choking and other myofascial problems which can often ensue because of this insidious habit.

If you are already experiencing difficulty with swallowing, even if it's only occasional, or if you are prone to choking, you need to pay particular attention here. Stressing the jaw joints creates stress on the throat muscles as well. These things do not work in isolation. If you are already having difficulties with your throat, it is imperative that you take every action possible to stop the clenching/grinding that you are most likely doing at night while you're sleeping.

Often eliminating this habit goes hand in hand with eliminating stress. It's time to do some serious reflection here. Stress is going to do much more harm over the long haul to your body than cause TMJ Disorder, myofascial problems and swallowing/throat difficulties. These may just be the beginning of a long slide downhill.

Clenching and grinding is a very complex problem, however, and being under stress may not be the cause of this problem. There are many factors that can contribute to clenching, grinding and TMJD, from whip lash, head/neck injury, spinal misalignment, hyper-extension of the jaw, exposure to toxic substances and on and on. It can also be something as simple as a childhood habit that was never outgrown.

Take the time to analyze what could be causing this problem. Don't brush this off with a simple, "Oh well." Worse problems will come if clenching and grinding are not brought under control.

For ideas in dealing with this problem, You Can Conquer TMJ: Recipes and Ideas is available at http://www.amazon.com/ and http://www.moonlightmesaassociates.com/.