Photo courtesy of CBC

A reader named Bob (Thanks Bob!) sent me the following link: My Big Fat Diet.

In Alert Bay, Canada, there is a community of Namgis First Nation aborigines suffering from high rates of obesity and the accompanying complications. Dr. Wortman has taken a group of these aboriginals and put them on a new diet.

Permitted foods include; beef, pork, chicken, fish or seafood, cauliflower, broccoli, all the salad greens, eggs, cream, but not milk. Milk contains lactose, which is sugar.

Not permitted are starches like pasta, rice, potatoes, bread and sugar. Dr. Jay Wortman believes that it was the introduction of these by Europeans over a hundred and fifty years ago that caused the rise of diabetes and obesity.

That sounds very close to a Paleo diet, though with the inclusion of cream, or to the Atkins diet. Dr. Wortman’s assumption prior to beginning the experiment was that the inclusion of processed products from Westernization was causing the high rates of obesity, Type II diabetes, and metabolic syndrome seen in this community. So how have things turned out?

The interim analysis is nothing short of impressive, though not surprising for those of us not tied to low-fat dogma. In an average of 7.6 months, participants shed 10% of their body weight, nearly 10% of their waist circumference and 7% from the hips. Waist to hip ratio also improved. Blood pressure rose slightly, though this result wasn’t significant. But what about their cholesterol levels? Surely all of that deadly fat has them at a high risk of heart attack, right? Here are the results: Total cholesterol up 3%, but triglycerides down 20%. HDL up nearly 18%, LDL up only 2%. Both the Triglyceride to HDL ratio and the Total Cholesterol to HDL ratio improved markedly, 30% and 11.5% respectively. Given that Trig/HDL ratio is very important in terms of heart disease, it would seem to me that this diet is making people healthier.

Let’s see how the low-fatters scramble when the final result is published. Who wants to bet that someone seizes on slight increases in LDL, Total Cholesterol, and blood pressure, all of which didn’t reach significance? Or they’ll just appeal to the “common knowledge” that it can’t be good to eat all of that fat. Or that we “need” carbs. Or, without actually reading, they’ll dismiss it for not including vegetables (note that Dr. Wortman requires consumption of 2 cups of salad greens and a cup of other vegetables daily).

If you missed it the first time, it’s showing again on CBC this Saturday, March 15th, at 10pm Eastern and Pacific. I’m excited to see the final analysis.

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Tags: carbohydrate, diabetes, Dr. Wortman, low carb, Namgis First Nation, obesity, Paleo