Original subtitles

- [Gary Taubes] A very good sign that you've

misunderstood the cause of a disorder is your

inability to treat or prevent it.

- You look at the data of ever increasing obesity

and diabetes and you just think,

how is it possible the whole world

has failed to eat healthfully?

Maybe we're being told the wrong advice.

- [CBS News Anchor] Since the 1960's

the American Heart Association

has been saying saturated fat

is detrimental to cardiovascular health.

You need to get it out of the diet.

- It's hard to think of another policy

that has caused so much harm that has been so wrong.

- You know the chief killer

of Americans is cardiovascular disease.

- [Dr. Sarah Hallberg] I mean, the manipulation

of the data and the idea and the push for low fat,

really got us in trouble.

- I think the low fat diet is genocide.

- [TV Anchor] saturated fat increases cardiovascular risk.

- We've been told forever that fat's gonna kill you.

- This started because incontrovertible evidence

that saturated fat is bad.

- Over and over and over.

- The more animal protein, particularly red meat you eat,

the more likely you are to get sick

from all kinds of different things.

- You're fat because you eat too much fat.

- So, low fat, low fat, low fat, low fat, low fat.

- [Dr. Hyman] For 40 years, the dietary guidelines

have set nutrition standards

for every American for our kids in school,

for food programs for the poor and the elderly,

for rations for our nation's military,

for doctors, nutritionists and dieticians.

We've had it hammered into our heads that fat is bad.

Especially saturated fat, the kind found in meat, dairy,

and some tropical oils like coconut and palm.

- [Woman] The base of the pyramid, carbohydrates.

- [Dr. Hyman] The food pyramid codified our fat phobia,

telling us to make carbohydrates

the foundation of our food choices.

- I think the food pyramid is great if you're standing

on your head because you need

to turn that pyramid upside down.

- You can't be serious.

That would put butter and fat at the top of the--

- Flip the damn food pyramid!

(keyboard keys clacking) (dramatic music)

(computer beeping)

- Nutrition is stabilizing.

(all cheering)

- We got the whole story wrong.

We were told to eat six to 11 servings of bread,

rice, cereal and pasta a day

by the government and the food pyramid,

it should be called the food tombstone!

(gentle music)

- [Dr. Hyman] I'm Dr. Mark Hyman,

a functional medicine physician

with a focus on food as medicine.

And I understand the healing power of food.

But I can tell you the low fat diet

did not make us healthy.

- I think a low fat heart healthy diet is unproven.

It was essentially a huge experiment

on millions of people and it failed miserably.

Wait a minute, have you not seen,

are you not practicing medicine

to see who is coming into your clinic?

To see the problems that this idea has caused?

I mean, it's just to me, unbelievable.

- [Dr. Hyman] For years, even I believed

that eating fat would make me fat,

and that eating saturated fat

would cause heart disease and kill me.

But now a growing group of experts reveal

that the science against saturated fat was never there.

- I was astonished to find

that there simply was no evidence.

- It was just an idea, but it was launched as a policy

for all Americans based really on no evidence at all.

- What is the evidence?

A big, big zero.

- Our federal dietary guidelines,

the official government advice for how

we should all eat to stay healthy tell us

to limit saturated fat to just a couple of bites a day

and make carbohydrates more than half our daily calories.

I'm here to tell you that advice

is upside down and backwards.

The idea that eating fat will make you fat is wrong

and the science that says saturated fat

causes heart disease is misleading.

And instead has led our nation down

a dangerous path toward a widespread epidemic

of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

- We screwed up.

It happens all the time in science.

Medical orthodoxy latched onto the wrong explanation,

made a tragic mistake and now

we're living with the consequences.

(gentle music) (cards flipping)

- [Charlie Gibson] The nation got a report card

on obesity today and the country flunked.

- [News Reporter] The battle against obesity

has been going on for years.

- [Michelle Obama] One in three children

in this country is overweight or obese.

(gentle music)

- [Dr. Oz] An estimated $200,000,000,000 cost

to the healthcare industry continues to rise.

- [Gayle King] The search for weight loss and health

may be a little more complex than you think.

- [Peter Jennings] Despite all attempts

to attack the problem,

the adult obesity rate increased in 23 states last year.

(gentle music)

- [Cynthia McMadden] Why is it that Americans

keep getting fatter in spite of government efforts ranging

from calorie posting to new school lunch programs?

- [Gary Taubes] A lot of things with science

is about seeing whether things

that make sense are really right or not.

In this case it sounded reasonable but happened to be wrong.

(gentle music)

- I'm not happy about a lot of years of bein'

at different doctors and every time

that I'd go in there was just here's another injection,

here's a different kind of an injectable.

This is the injectable that is supposed

to help you make your own insulin.

The list of side effects were longer than your arm

and it never made you feel better.

And certainly didn't help at all with weight.

- [Dr. Hyman] Judi has been Type 2 diabetic

for most of her adult life.

So has her dad.

When she was a teenager he died

from complications of the disease.

Judi's tried for decades to get

her blood sugar under control.

- When I did everything they told me to do,

I'd still gain weight and so then you just give up.

- [CNBC Anchor] This health epidemic

is weighing on Americans. - Judi is not alone.

- [CNBC Anchor] Reports show the U.S. obesity epidemic

is only getting worse.

- Americans are not winning their battle against obesity.

- Obesity among children doubled over the past two decades.

- [Dr. Hyman] Today, 75% of the country

is overweight or obese and one in two of us

is either pre-diabetic or Type 2 diabetic.

- Type 2 diabetes is crushing us financially.

Crushing us.

- It currently costs a person

with diabetes in America $900 a month for insulin.

- Direct cost to our healthcare system,

is about a billion dollars a day.

- There isn't enough money in the health care system

to be able to afford this.

- The cost in terms of money is huge,

the cost in terms of human suffering

is like 10 times more than that.

(upbeat music)

- [Dr. Hyman] In the space of a single generation,

we've gone from this,

to this. (whistle shrilling)

- Watching the footage of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11,

I was struck by how not fat everyone in the crowd was.

(audience laughs)

We look like a completely different race of people.

- The heart attacks, the strokes, the cancer, the blindness,

the amputations, all of that,

I think is unnecessary suffering that we're causing people.

- [Dr. Hyman] The question is, where did this

come from and why is it occurring?

When I was in medical school,

Type 2 diabetes happened only in older adults.

Now we see it in kids as young as three years old.

And the more we try to medicate our way out of the disease,

the worse it seems to get.

- Ya can't throw drugs at a dietary disease

and expect to make it better.

But that's the medical teaching.

"Hey, you have Type 2 Diabetes, let me give you some pills."

- The model doesn't work.

We're not making people healthy,

we're just treating disease.

But if you give people good nutrition,

they become very healthy.

- He introduced that keto diet,

and six weeks later, it was like a miracle.

No diabetes.

- And it was like magic,

and I got off, completely off of insulin.

- Two years later I had lost 197 pounds.

- [Dr. Hyman] Problem is we've been confused

and downright brainwashed by decades of nutritional dogma.

The almost religious conviction

that fat is bad, especially saturated animal fats.

- You can lose weight on these animal protein,

Atkins type diets but you're mortgaging

your health in the process.

- We still operate under this idea of dogmatic principles.

We've always done it that way,

that's what we've always said,

we're gonna continue to say it.

And unfortunately, nothing is holding back progress

in nutrition science like dogma.

- [Dr. Hyman] Alternative ideas have been attacked

and physicians labeled us quacks

for ignoring guidelines against fats

and telling patients to cut carbs instead.

In South Africa, Dr. Tim Noakes went through

a four year ordeal that threatened his medical license

for recommending a low carbohydrate,

high fat diet to a young mother.

- The reason why the low carbohydrate diet

has become demonized is because it works

and it has a huge impact on

the financial return of the medical profession.

- I'm an internal medicine specialist.

I can treat all of the conditions that I used to treat

with medications just by changing the food.

It's remarkable.

- It's completely free, there's no special equipment,

there's no special surgeries.

It's completely natural and it's

been used for thousands of years.

- I can treat not only obesity

but I can treat Type 2 diabetes,

high blood pressure,

in fact I have to take away medications

from people as they get better.

- This is as big as the discovery of insulin or antibiotics.

It clearly is.

- My interpretation is that low-fat diets can work

but low carb diets work better

and that's what the science says.

(upbeat music)

- [Dr. Hyman] Nick Brown is a pretty typical American

when it comes to his diet.

- Hey, how you doin'? - Good.

- [Dr. Hyman] He eats a variety of protein,

vegetables and grains.

He enjoys beer now and then.

And one of his favorite foods--

- Thank you, Sir. - Have a good day.

- Have a good day. - Appreciate it.

- [Dr. Hyman] Is pizza.

- Lookin' forward to pizza.

Maybe.

If it ruins pizza for me, I'm gonna be pissed off.

(group laughing)

- [Dr. Hyman] Nick is participating

in a unique nutrition experiment along with Tracy.

- [Tracy] Yeah, I've got a plan for the week.

- [Dr. Hyman] And Cynthia.

- Thank you. - You're welcome.

- [Dr. Hyman] Three metabolically healthy people

who take no medications, trying two different diets.

Low carb versus low fat.

- Quite a few new recipes,

so I was curious about using the right thing.

- [Nurse] Up on this smaller--

- [Dr. Hyman] Before, during and after

the experiment they each weight in,

check their blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol.

- Here's a little bit of alcohol--

- [Dr. Hyman] Throughout the experiment

we'll track their blood sugar.

- [Dr. Freshwater] Are you ready?

- [Nick] Sure.

- Okay, here it comes. - Go.

- [Dr. Hyman] Using a continuous glucose monitor or CGM.

- [Dr. Freshwater] It didn't bother you?

- [Nick] No.

- [Dr. Freshwater] Okay.

- You just hit a check glucose.

And it says, "Ready to scan" and you just take it here,

(scanner beeps)

and there it is.

It's 94, right now.

- [Dr. Hyman] The first week we put them

on a low carb ketogenic diet with less

than 20 grams of carbohydrates per day.

Plenty of healthy fats and a moderate amount of protein.

A diet designed to keep blood sugars low,

but an eating pattern that is not allowed

by the U.S. dietary guidelines.

The second week, we switch them to a USDA MyPlate meal plan.

It's a 2,000 calorie a day government endorsed low fat plan

featuring whole grains, lean meats and vegetable oils

and more than half the day's calories as carbohydrates.

Week one is the low carb, high fat diet.

- And then we'll keep this goin'.

This is almost ready.

I'm excited about it.

I'm excited to try the recipes and excited to see

just what a full week of doing this does.

- [Tracy] I'm grateful to be doing it.

It's very fascinating to me.

- [Dr. Hyman] The keto recipes are full

of healthy natural fats like eggs, butter, avocado,

olive oil and nuts and seeds and even grass fed beef.

- [Cynthia] I love new recipes, so this is really good.

Interesting.

- So, these are buttered eggs

and that's what they're called in the recipe.

You actually make them with butter.

I use the grass fed butter.

And then, I decided to add a little bit of avocado,

and some tomatoes and salt and pepper and that's it.

Super simple, super easy.

- I am making a keto zucchini boats.

You take out the middle of the zucchini,

cook it up with some onion, spinach.

I put in some olives, olive oil,

and then just let that saute for a little bit.

- I think it's working for my body.

I'm curious to see what it does through the whole week.

(upbeat music)

- These are really good.

- [Dr. Hyman] By adding healthy fats into every meal

and cutting out processed carbs,

the three experience a sense of fullness that lasts.

- Well, to be honest, I've really not been famished.

- [Tracy] So, this is day three of the strict Keto Diet.

I am literally down three and a half pounds

from when this started.

I'm surprised by that.

I feel great.

I went mountain biking last night,

and had a lot of energy and I don't feel hungry.

- I still feel full and that

was after three and a half hours.

And usually at that time, yeah,

the two, two and a half hours, I'm hungry, usually.

- One way to think of carbs

is they're like kindling on a fire.

They burn quickly and then go out,

dropping your blood sugar and creating severe cravings.

The physical signal that your body needs more fuel.

To keep your metabolism burning,

you must constantly eat more and then you crash

and then you eat more and then you crash.

See how carbs like bread, pasta,

rice and yes even whole grains effect your blood sugar.

Protein has a much lower response.

It will raise blood sugar a small amount and fat,

take a look at fat.

Almost no rise in blood sugar at all.

When you eat fat it's like putting logs on the fire.

What you get is just a long, steady source of fuel.

- And that's one of the reasons that I like low carb diets

so much because they don't require as much willpower

because if your hormones, your insulin isn't going

up to the sky every time that you eat,

and then crashing down making you crave a bagel

or a donut or something from the snack.

If that's not happening in your physiology all the time,

it's much easier to not overeat.

- Day six, lunchtime.

Leftover Italian cabbage stir fry

with a blop of sour cream.

I'm still not quite hungry but it's time for lunch.

- You know what's really great

about this is it's so easy to test your glucose.

- The sensor is here.

And then, on my phone I go on the app that connects to it.

- And you just put it up and it grabs it.

- And it went doo bloop and then you have it.

- Pretty cool.

- It's really cool (laughs).

- [Dr. Hyman] All week on the low carb, hight fat diet,

their blood sugars are virtual straight lines

with no spikes or dips.

- It's been steady.

It's been, typically, at the 85 to 90 range.

And I just ate and that's 83.

I just tried it a few minutes ago

and it's gone down six points.

- I kinda wanna just keep it on all the time

'cause it's so interesting to see what you're doing all day.

- [Dr. Hyman] By the end of the week

all three participants have lost weight and feel great.

- How'd your week go?

- Very well.

Thanks. - Good.

You have lost about two and a half pounds of fat.

And how were your blood sugars?

- Very, very even.

- And look, your lean tissue, not only has it not gone down,

it's actually gone up a little bit.

Boy, you're really even.

- Yeah. - Wow,

not a lot of variation at all.

- I had always a full feeling,

so I'm wondering if I ate too much maybe.

I don't know.

- Well, you'll feel a lot more full

with fat and protein, - Yeah.

- and less carbohydrate, for sure.

- [Dr. Hyman] Next week, we'll flip from low carb

to low fat and follow the U.S. dietary guidelines.

- [Dr. Freshwater] I'm really curious

to see what happens (laughs). - Yeah, me too.

- I'm a little scared about what's gonna happen.

(upbeat music)

- So how is it possible that we got

the story so wrong about fats?

There were religious objections to eating meat

as early as the 1800's that influenced American opinions

but a major turning point was in 1955

when a presidential health scare shocked the nation.

- [News Anchor] News of President Eisenhower's

sudden illness described by his doctors

as coronary thrombosis came as a severe shock to us all.

- President Eisenhower in 1955 had a heart attack.

He was out of the oval office for 10 whole days,

and that really focused the attention

of the nation on this problem of heart disease.

- [News Anchor] Cardiovascular ailments continue

to take an increasingly heavy toll of American lives,

a million this year.

- The nation was really in shock

and there was a desperate need for explanations.

- And people were like,

"Whoa, what's causing all the heart disease?"

- [Man] Here are vital statistics,

they show that the problem here

in America is the worst in the world.

- [Woman] There were a number of ideas about it.

One was that it was vitamin deficiency,

another was that it was the rising tide of auto exhaust,

more cars on the road.

- Of 10 men, we can expect five to get it.

But we can't say who or when or why.

- Now, you can look back now and say,

"Well, that's pretty easy to understand.

"Everybody was smoking."

- Raleigh?

- Oh, no thanks!

I have a pack.

- [TV Announcer] More doctors smoke Camels

than any other cigarette.

- [Dr. Hyman] In the 1950s and 60s, cigarettes were in.

♪ Spud cigarettes are cooler than cool ♪

♪ Smoke Spud cigarettes ♪

♪ That's the mouth's happy rule ♪

- Here, have a Viceroy.

- [Dr. Hyman] Eisenhower himself smoked four packs a day.

- What do you think?

- This is what I was really looking for.

- [Dr. Hyman] If you look at the trends

for cigarette smoking against

the increases in heart disease, they track together.

But at the same time the consumption

of saturated fat was falling dramatically.

- Everybody was smoking.

Now we know smoking causes heart disease,

or contributes to heart disease,

but at the time, of course,

the tobacco companies were like,

"No, no, no, no, no, no (laughs).

"Tobacco smoking, it doesn't cause heart disease."

So, all the scientists were like,

"Hey, I wonder why we're getting so much heart disease?"

- There was one theory that was proposed

by Ancel Benjamin Keys who was a pathologist

at the University of Minnesota.

And he said that it was saturated fat

and dietary cholesterol that caused heart disease.

- It's like, okay, but how do people eat butter

for the last sort of two millennia,

and ever since 1970, it causes heart disease?

It's like it didn't cause heart disease before.

- [Dr. Hyman] At the same time consumption of sugar,

refined oils and refined grains

were on the rise in America but Ancel Keys focused on fat

as the cause of heart disease.

- And he thought that total cholesterol

in your arteries would build up

and clog your arteries and give you a heart attack,

like hot oil down a cold stove pipe.

So that was his idea.

It was just a simple idea.

- To blame a sort of ancient food for a modern disease

was completely illogical, it didn't make any sense,

but you repeat things enough,

and you get it out there enough, people believe you.

- As American author H.L. Mencken once said,

"For every complex problem, there is a solution

"that is simple and clear and wrong."

- It's the biggest scam ever perpetrated

on the American people.

This whole notion of cholesterol.

- If you have high cholesterol,

you may be at increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

Don't kid yourself.

- [Announcer] talk to your doctor

about your risk and about Lipitor.

- It's eye-wateringly lucrative

to keep this idea going that we need to lower cholesterol.

- Cholesterol has definitely become

the boogeyman of cardiology and here's what's

so interesting about cholesterol is we need it.

Our bodies cannot exist without cholesterol.

Yet once again, in simplistic thinking,

we try and lump cholesterol

in good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.

And we wanna lower the bad cholesterol,

the LDL and raise the good cholesterol and HDL.

That is incredibly simplistic.

- It turns out that raising your LDL cholesterol

in diet does not translate into heart attacks and death.

It just doesn't.

- When you take cholesterol out of the equation,

you go, let's just see if people

who eat more saturated fat actually die more?

Do they actually get more heart disease?

That's what we care about.

Forget that it raises cholesterol.

We know it raises cholesterol,

so let's take that out of the equation

and see what the end result is

which is what we care about and every time they do that,

the relationship dissolves.

There is no relationship between the amount

of fat you eat in your diet and getting heart disease.

- [Dr. Hyman] We now know the chronic inflammation caused

by a diet high in sugar, refined grains,

and refined vegetable oils

is far more dangerous to our health.

- Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease.

It's not a buildup of fat in the artery,

it's actually an inflammation that's causing the problem.

- And the cholesterol then will go to that damage

to try to repair it but it didn't cause the damage.

The damage has to come first.

It's like saying that firefighters caused

the fire when they just turned up to put the fire out.

It was there by association,

but it was there to repair, not to cause harm.

- Inflammation is probably the number one promoter

of every disease we don't wanna have.

And the number one inflammatory substance

in the American diet is sugar.

That's it.

I mean, put those two things together.

Inflammation makes everything worse and sugar is the number

one inflammatory substance that we consume.

End of argument.

(upbeat music)

- [Woman] In 1951, Ancel and Margaret took

the two oldest children to Oxford for a year's sabbatical.

The couple continued their travels,

measuring cholesterol's and conducting diet surveys

in several European and African countries.

- There was a study that he presented

at the Mt. Sinai Hospital in 1953

and it was the Six Countries Graph.

- [Dr. Mente] He specifically looked

at six countries around the world.

And on the x-axis he plotted fat intake,

and on the y-axis coronary heart disease rates,

and he found a straight line relationship.

- And he offered that as proof that there

was a linear relationship between

how much saturated fat people consumed

and how much heart disease they had.

- But he chose six countries

for that perfect correlation and at the time

there was data available for 22 countries.

- [Zoe Harcombe] And when you put in all

of those countries It just looked like a scatter plot.

- The trendline is nowhere near as clear-cut.

- There was no clear relationship.

- No correlation between fat and heart disease.

He was criticized at the time by a statisticians who said,

"Well you're obviously cherry picking your data."

- He knows it's a hypothesis,

he knows he doesn't have the evidence

and he immediately starts recommending the country

go on a low fat diet which is fascinating

because there is no concern that you're gonna do harm.

There's no, the Hippocratic Oath, first do no harm.

- [Dr. Hyman] Despite his critics, Keys was determined

to prove himself right.

He followed up with his famous seven country study,

where he traveled to the countries cherry picked

from his graph and studied eating habits

and heart disease among the people there.

- For his Seven Country Study he repeated the same mistake,

I mean, he cherry-picked his countries.

- I think he did cherry-pick countries

for the Seven Countries Study.

He knew from the Six Countries Graph

the countries that would be on that straight line,

so he knew, for example, that Italy would

be a sure thing and America would be a sure thing.

They would quite nicely anchor

some of the ends of the graph.

- But he did not go to countries

like Switzerland, France, Germany who ate a lot

of saturated fats and also

had very low rates of heart disease.

(Parisian music)

- The French were eating all kinds of saturated fat,

butter, cream, and they weren't gaining weight,

which was a paradox at the time

and they weren't getting heart disease.

They had like half the rate

of heart disease compared to Americans.

And everybody said, "Well, what a paradox, what a paradox."

There was no paradox.

The dietary fat simply wasn't causing obesity,

and it didn't cause heart disease.

- So he's a very respected physiologist

and it's worth mentioning, by the way,

that Eisenhower followed the Ancel Keys advice

and cut out all saturated fat and all cholesterol

up until the day he died in 1969 of heart disease.

Just worth mentioning.

- Ancel Keys diet heart hypothesis remains

the single most influential theory

in the history of nutrition science.

And here's an interesting point.

Over the past 50 years tax payers

have funded several billion dollars of research trying

to prove saturated fat causes heart disease but guess what?

It's never been proven.

To this day the diet heart hypothesis remains a hypothesis.

- [Zoe Harcombe] There is no evidence against saturated fat.

There just isn't.

- [Dr. Hyman] Dr. Zoe Harcombe is an obesity researcher

who wrote her thesis on the lack

of evidence behind the dietary guidelines.

- My thesis was born out of trying

to understand why we have an obesity epidemic.

- [Dr. Hyman] Zoe collected all the raw data

from randomized control clinical trials,

conducted prior to the release of the dietary guidelines.

She then reanalyzed all the results

in a process called a meta analysis.

- It was looking at the absolute totality of the evidence.

No cherry-picking whatsoever, no study left out.

So there's the Rose Corn Oil Trial.

There's the Research Committee Low-Fat Diet.

There's the MRC Soybean Study.

There's the LA Veterans Dayton Study.

There's Leren Oslo Study.

- [Dr. Hyman] When she examines the results

to see which groups suffered more deaths,

there was no difference at all.

There was no health benefit for the groups assigned

to eat a low fat diet.

- I was astonished to find

that there simply was no evidence.

- Real food fats are not dangerous.

They are not the enemy.

It's too simplistic and reductionist

to say saturated fat is dangerous and needs to be avoided

and the evidence does not support that.

- So how then without the heart science

to back it up did the diet heart hypothesis

become the foundation of our nation's dietary guidelines?

Well, it had one big thing going for it.

Ancel Benjamin Keys.

- He had just a very out sized personality.

Colleagues of his told me he could

just argue anyone to the death.

And he was able to get into

the American Heart Association on their Nutrition Committee.

And in 1961, the Heart Association comes out

with the first advice anywhere

in the world telling people to cut back

on saturated fat and cholesterol

in order to prevent a heart attack.

- [Dr. Hyman] Up until the 1960s,

Americans consumed almost half

of their daily calories as fat.

We ate butter without guilt, bacon and eggs

for breakfast and roast for dinner.

Exercise gyms were barely a thought and still,

we were relatively slim.

- Conventional wisdom until the 1960s

was carbohydrates were fattening.

That's the weird thing about it.

You talk about bread, pasta, potatoes, rice,

sweets going directly to your hips.

It was what my mother's generation believed growing up.

- [Reporter] The diet used in this study

is satisfying to the appetite

because of the use of more protein and fat.

- And then in the 1960s, we come along with this idea

that dietary fat causes heart disease.

In 20 years, from the 1960s to the mid 1980s,

the carbohydrate went from fattening

to a heart healthy diet food.

- [Dr. Hyman] The low fat diet fad had taken hold

and Keys rose to prominence within

the American Heart Association

and at the National Institutes of Health.

- If you only lived in America,

you'd think this controversy was pretty settled.

That obviously saturated fat causes heart disease,

'cause it raises cholesterol

and we all know cholesterol clogs the arteries.

But there was a alternative hypothesis

going on across the pond in England.

- There was always this competing theory

that it was sugar and not fat

that might cause heart disease,

and the leading proponent of that was John Yudkin

and he published about that.

And I think this is an extraordinary example

of how nutrition science did or did not really work

in America because rather than say,

"Oh this is an interesting competing theory,

"let's explore that.

"Maybe they're right, maybe we're wrong."

Their reaction instead was to just bully him,

really bully him out of the field.

- And Ancel Keys literally destroyed his reputation.

He went after him.

He did everything but call his mother names.

- And I think Ancel Keys knew

that this hypothesis competed with his own,

and he did not want that to succeed.

He wanted his hypothesis to be successful.

- Not surprisingly the sugar industry also preferred

to point the finger at saturated fat.

Recently discovered documents reveal

that in 1965 the sugar industry paid

prominent Harvard researchers to do just that.

- And they were very specifically

paid $50,000 in today's dollars,

to produce two articles that exonerated sugar

and fingered saturated fat

as the cause of cardiovascular disease.

We know that because we have the paper trail.

We have their names on the documents.

This is unconscionable.

- The sugar industry's job was to get

the nutrition community to say publicly

what they believed to be true,

which was dietary fat was the problem, not sugar

and they paid researchers to do that

and they were very successful

with getting that message across.

- [Dr. Hyman] In the 1977 a senate select committee

headed up by Senator George McGovern helped seal fats fate.

Over the objection of scientists who pleaded against it,

and with no hard evidence to back it up,

the committee recommended the low fat diet to the nation.

- I have pleaded in my report

and I will plead again orally here

for more research on the problem

before we make announcements to the American public.

- Well, I would only argue that Senators don't have

the luxury that a research scientist does

of waiting until every last shred of evidence is in.

- McGovern just wanted to make the statement and he said,

"We haven't got time to wait for the evidence."

- They recognized the science is unsettled.

And then the counterargument is,

but we cannot afford to wait.

- And so they went without any evidence.

And despite the fact that many people had warned

that this is gonna cause an obesity diabetes epidemic.

They were warned but they ignored it.

- [Dr. Hyman] In 1980, the U.S. government triggered

a radical shift in the diet of Americans

when the campaign against fat became official food policy.

- [Nina Teicholz] The first dietary guidelines

recommended seven to 11 servings

of bread basically every day.

50 to 55% of your calories

are supposed to come from carbohydrates, mostly grains.

- For the first time anywhere in the world,

our government endorsed a massive increase

in carbohydrates and slashed saturated fat consumption

to less than 10% of daily calories.

- The American Guideline started with a very high carb,

low fat approach which was disastrous

for putting that out into an entire population

without evidence saying that it was healthy.

- Obesity in America had been slowly creeping

up from the mid 1900s on

but 1980 you see it go sharply, turn sharply upwards.

- And then it just takes off like an airplane.

So, you just want to ask well, what happened around then?

- What happened in 1980 is that the U.S. government told

all Americans cut back on fat

and increase your carbohydrates.

- It could be complete coincidence,

that that just happened to coincide

but it sure as anything needs looking

at to see if it is just coincidence.

- When we took the fat out of the food, what did we do?

We put something in which was way worse.

Sugar.

- [Man] One, two and twist.

- [TV Announcer] Reduced-fat, Oreo.

Less Fat, loads of taste.

- [TV Announcer] New, reduced fat browning muffin

and cake mixes from Pillsbury.

Try the new frosting, too.

- [TV Announcer] Hershey's Syrup is virtually fat free.

- Terrific.

- I mean let's face it, fat tastes good.

We know that, and if you're gonna remove

the fat from a food, you're gonna have

to replace it with something else

that gives people pleasure.

- [TV Announcer] As new Simple Pleasures

is made with all natural Simpless, instead of fat.

- And what did they put in?

Refined carbohydrates, increased sugar,

and boom we've got an explosion of processed foods.

- [TV Announcer] So irresistible,

people are sinking to a new low to get their hands on one.

- Okay.

- [TV Announcer] Continental Yogurt is non-fat,

not low-fat, non-Fat.

- Zero fat?

How'd they do that?

- Ultimately, sugar was a bigger problem

than saturated fat ever was.

- The industry learned that if they took fat out the diet,

they had to replace it with sugar.

They then learned that sugar was addictive.

- Wow!

- These are really good.

- These are great.

- Bring 'em on.

- [Man and Woman] Oh yes!

- And that's the drive of the obesity epidemic.

- [Nina Teicholz] Low fat yogurt higher in sugar.

- Whoa!

- [Nina Teicholz] Low fat peanut butter.

- This is special.

- [Nina Teicholz] Low fat salad dressing.

- This is great.

- [Nina Teicholz] All higher in sugar or carbs.

- Are you sure this fat free?

- All low fat foods turned out to be higher in carbs.

- I don't think this was anyone's intention.

But it's what naturally happens when you remove fat,

which is natural for humans to be eating,

from their dietary choices and you put them

on things instead of tasting like cardboard,

they can at least taste like sweet cardboard.

- [Man] SnackWells, Chocolate Sandwich Cookies.

- These taste unbelievable.

What if I can't bake enough of them?

Those women will be after me again.

- Hello, Cookie-Man, what's in the box?

- We have the SnackWell phenomenon,

it was like the epitome of what happened

with the low fat food industry,

where people thought they could

just eat massive amounts of these cookies--

- Don't you think you got a little carried away?

- [Nina Teicholz] That were very high

in sugar and white flour.

- Cookie-Man, you'd better make some more (laughs).

- [Dr. Hyman] The American Heart Association

cashed in on the low fat craze.

Food companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars

to feature this heart healthy check off symbol on a product.

- So this resulted in crazy things

like heart checkoff on Cocoa Krispies,

or on Honey Nut Cheerios or on all these foods

that were super high in sugar,

but as long as they were low

in fat then it was considered healthy.

- [TV Announcer] Kellogg's Fruit Loops Cereal,

part of this nutritious breakfast.

(seal barking)

(TV Announcer laughs)

Now that's the seal of approval.

- [Dr. Hyman] Heart healthy low fat Fruit Loops anyone?

- [Nina Teicholz] There's a kind of conventional explanation

that it's really the fault of Americans

for not following the guidelines,

there's nothing wrong with our guidelines,

it's just that Americans fail to follow them.

- [Dr. Hyman] But government consumption data

confirms Americans did as they were told

and dutifully cut back on natural fats found

in red meat, whole milk, eggs, animal fats and butter.

But we still gained weight.

- One of the analogies that I like to use

is imagine you had a baseball team

that lost every single game for the last 50, 60 years.

- [Sports Announcer] Strike three, strike three!

- And you're like, "Well those players,

"they just don't know how to play.

"None of my players know how to play."

Well at some point you'd have to say,

maybe we should take a look at our coaching strategy.

It can't be the fault of all of those players for decades.

But that's basically our explanation for why Americans

are getting fatter and sicker, it's their fault.

They just can't do it right.

- I think the dietary guidelines have been

a tremendous failed experiment.

It's a good question of whether they just need

to be changed or whether they

just need to be scrapped and start over.

- I genuinely believe that people now

are hanging onto the saturated fat myth

because they don't want to admit that they were wrong.

- I don't think the governments

will ever admit they were wrong about saturated fat.

- And we are paying a hell of a price

for a few public health people wanting

to protect their own reputation, not wanting to look silly.

- I used to fantasize about

the American Heart Association press release that would say,

"Okay yes we know for the past almost 60 years

"we've been giving you the wrong advice

"and we apologize if we killed

"any of your loved ones prematurely and we apologize

"if we gave you heart disease

"with the advice we did give you.

"We were just telling you what we thought was true then

"and we were best of intentioned and now we know better."

- That apology may never come

and the largest health organizations dedicated

to preventing obesity and Type 2 Diabetes continue

to spread advice that makes it worse.

(gentle music)

- Type 2 diabetes we were always taught is a chronic

and irreversible disease, inevitably progressive.

I flatly rejected that.

I flatly reject it.

So it is chronic, irreversible,

and inevitably progressive if you take

the guidelines currently in place

and utilize them as your treatment plan.

(keyboard keys clacking) (gentle music)

- [Dr. Hyman] For years the American Diabetes Association

has promoted low fat diets.

They use this handy graphic illustration called

the Diabetic Plate which features limited amounts

of lean meat, non fat dairy products,

and 50% or more of daily calories as carbohydrates.

- I think the Diabetic Plate is a prescription

for worsening of the disease.

If you really look at the Diabetic Plate,

it is three-fourths carbohydrates, which makes no sense.

It also is lean protein,

so when we look at the diabetic plate as a whole,

there's almost no fats.

- This is a way to make people sicker and fatter.

This is the advice I was giving,

this is the advice that doesn't work.

this is the advice that prescribes more medications,

this is the advice that increases insulin.

But really it's a metabolic shift

when you burn fat instead of burning sugar.

- [Dr. Hyman] Alyssa Gallager is Judi's dietician.

She was initially trained in a low fat paradigm.

- When I first started exploring the low-carb approach--

- [Judi] That's really low carb.

I can use that.

- I helped people genuinely,

for the first time in my career.

- I'm going for real food now,

so I can get rid of all of this.

- In the old days, I was frustrated that the advice

I was giving wasn't working for people.

- Oh, chips and crackers, where's that garbage can?

- I was taught, essentially what

the American Diabetes Association teaches is carbohydrates,

consistent carbohydrates, more whole grain.

- No oatmeal.

They used to tell us that was good for you.

- I was taught saturated fat is bad for you.

Saturated fat is something

to be avoided and limited at all costs.

- [Dr. Hyman] The problem is when

you remove fat from a diet you have

to eat something else instead.

And that something else is often carbohydrates.

- At first I didn't understand why the advice

I was giving wasn't working.

It's what I learned in school.

I'm the nutrition expert, right?

It should be working.

And then eventually it started not making sense to me.

Why am I telling somebody with diabetes

that they must eat carbohydrates?

It didn't make any sense.

Carbohydrates raise blood sugar,

when you have higher blood sugars,

we need to give you more medication.

When we give you more medication, you gain weight.

When you gain weight, you need more medication,

you want to eat more carbs.

It became a vicious cycle.

- Okay, I think I'm done cleanin' out my pantry.

- And insulin resistance is essentially

a state of carbohydrate intolerance.

So why oh why do we want to continue

to recommend to people to eat them?

- [Dr. Hyman] Sarah Hallberg is a physician leading arguably

the most promising trial

ever conducted for Type 2 diabetics.

She's helped hundreds of patients safely

and sustainably reverse their diabetes diagnosis,

often getting off all medications

by cutting carbs and increasing their fat intake a lot

to as much as 70 to 80% of daily calories.

- The solution to the diabetes epidemic

in my clinic is exceedingly clear.

Stop using medicine to treat food.

- [Dr. Hyman] Her TED Talk on this unconventional approach

has nearly 5,000,000 views.

The title?

"Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Starts

"with Ignoring the Guidelines."

- Fat is central to any science-based nutrition

recommendation for anyone

who struggles with Type 2 diabetes.

Carbohydrates cause our insulin and glucose to go up.

Proteins much less and with fat,

there's no glucose or insulin reaction.

And given the fact that Type 2 diabetes

is a problem with elevated glucose, wait a minute,

we can't be recommending the macro nutrient

that's gonna cause glucose and insulin to go up.

But that's exactly what MyPlate and the ADA guidelines do.

They recommend us to eat

the macro nutrient that's causing the problem.

- [Dr. Hyman] In here clinical trial of nearly 500 patients,

60% of the intervention group reversed

their diagnosis of diabetes.

That's more than half the patients

whose blood sugars normalized.

94% have their insulin doses decreased

or totally eliminated with no increase

in their LDL or lousy cholesterol.

By comparison, the American Diabetes Association

reports a less than 1% success rate

at reversing diabetes when following

their own low fat advice.

- So if we want people to really get help,

we have to start giving them advice that actually works.

- It's hard when you have, let alone been hearing something

for decades but been saying something for decades.

It's difficult to turn that ship around.

Because to turn that ship around you have to be vulnerable.

You have to say, I was wrong.

And this involves a lot of organizations,

a lot of people saying I was wrong and I think that's hard.

I think that's a big deal.

- [Dr. Hyman] After years of following

the guidelines and getting nowhere,

Judi has decided to ignore the ADA's advice

and try to reverse her Type 2 diabetes

with a low carb, high fat nutrition plan.

- The health professionals that were givin'

us all that advice through the years

just kinda bounced us back and forth

and we never really had any answers.

- I really like just unsweetened coconut chips--

- I feel like what I'm learning now is a way toward health

and a way toward a better size that I'll feel good about

which to me is hand in hand with my health.

- The U.S. military is now facing a new threat.

It's not North Korea, it is actually the U.S. diet.

- The single biggest disqualifier is obesity.

- [Woman] Wait?

We're talkin' about young people?

- [Man] Right, youth obesity.

- [News Anchor] 25% of all potential recruits

are turned away because of their weight.

- At this point in time, we can't field an army,

because they are quote, "Too fat to fight."

That's not my words, that's the U.S. Army's words.

- A few months ago, the Army missed its recruitment goals

for the first time in 13 years.

We've gotten to a point where

we're too fat to defend ourselves.

(drum music)

- [Dr. Hyman] Captain Brian Gaudette

is an Apache helicopter pilot,

an entrepreneur and a living example

of why the U.S. dietary guidelines matter.

- [Brian] Flying Apache helicopters is probably one

of the most fun things on the planet,

but it's also very high stakes.

You need all of your faculties to stay safe.

- [Dr. Hyman] On high stakes missions often

on the other side of the world,

Brian was confined to Army food.

A diet dictated by the dietary guidelines.

- I always had sandwiches for lunch,

lots of noodle-based dishes, lots of rice-based dishes.

I was running about three or four times a week,

between three and five miles,

but the weight was still coming on.

One day I was in the cockpit, and I put my head down,

and it felt like the world was moving,

like the aircraft was moving.

I looked up really quick and then I put my head down again.

I felt it again.

And so I kinda had to raise my hand and say,

"Hey, we have a problem here."

- [Dr. Hyman] Brian knew he was sick but he didn't know why.

He was grounded from flying.

- For the next eight months I went to every specialist.

- Do you have a brain tumor?

Is it an inner ear thing?

Is there a cardiac issue?

Is there a neurological issue?

- And they said, "You know, Brian, sometimes stress does

"weird stuff to the body,"

and handed me a card for mental health.

- [Dr. Hyman] Not one medical specialist

asked Brian about his nutrition.

- And they were just like, "Sorry."

You know?

"That's about all we can do for you."

So, there was a turning point where I was like, "Okay.

"Well, we've got to figure this out on our own."

(upbeat music)

- [Dr. Hyman] Brian decided to try an elimination diet

and he cut out all grains and sugar.

- For really, just efficiency and for taste,

I made these giant batches of bone broth, vegetable,

and meat soups and I just ate them pretty much every day.

And that's where sort

of the nickname Captain Soup came from.

In about six weeks, I got my brain back.

I got my energy back.

I lost about 25 pounds.

- I started to see my husband come back.

I started to see my children's father come back.

It's miraculous to me what just food can do.

- [Dr. Hyman] Just by changing what he ate,

Brian's health problems resolved.

He no longer takes any medication,

he's back to - Nice, throw dude.

- his high school weight, - Ready?

- and the Army - Whoa!

- [Dr. Hyman] has reinstated his flight status.

And now he's sharing his recipe for health with the world.

- [Brian] Now we make just super clean keto soups,

and we ship 'em frozen all over the country.

- [Dr. Hyman] These days when Brian goes

on deployment he ships ahead cases of soup.

He no longer relies on the Army food that made him so sick.

- When my son was born, I was really sick.

And I look back at photos from that time,

and I barely remember anything about that year,

because I was so out of it.

Sorry.

And when you don't have energy

and you don't have your health,

like you don't really have anything.

I have my brain back, I have my energy back,

and I can show up and be there

for my kids and for my wife like I wanna be.

- Today, less than 20% of medical schools

require nutrition training for physicians.

That's slowly changing but a widespread lack

of nutrition knowledge means many physicians misunderstand

the root causes of chronic and metabolic diseases

which are often driven by diet.

- When a physician preaches low-fat

and a physician preaches reducing calories

and they try that themselves, it doesn't take long

for some of them to realize, "This isn't working for me,

"maybe it's not working for my patients, either."

- Ali! - Hi.

- How are you doin'?

- Good, it's nice to see you.

- [Dr. Hyman] Physicians are not immune to obesity.

Plenty of them struggle with their own health challenges.

- It's been gettin' a lot better.

- Until two years ago, I was tryin'

to do the American Diabetes Association diet,

the American Heart Association,

trying to eat a low fat diet,

eating small meals throughout

the day and I'm gaining weight.

- Up, two!

Up, three!

- I was working out six days a week

because I would say I gotta work out

if I want to lose weight,

I want to be an example to my patients.

You're exercising but like they say,

you can't outrun your fork.

- So, I had a huge--

- [Dr. Hyman] Like many docs, Brian Lenzkes

was trained in the low fat paradigm

and that's what he practiced with his patients for decades.

But the struggle with his own weight

was getting out of control.

- Yeah at that point I was around 260 pounds.

And at that time I was also pre diabetic.

Clearly what I was doing wasn't working.

I was following the government guidelines

and I was getting sicker and sicker.

And it's not working for me.

Well, were my patients not listening to me

or was I giving them bad advice?

And it turns out we were giving bad advice.

- Honey, I got a mixture of chicken,

Italian seasoned sausage and a spicy pork.

- So when I cut carbohydrates the interesting thing for me,

if I had eggs for breakfast for instance,

my 10 o'clock snack that I was gonna have,

I wasn't hungry and I would skip right through it.

- I got grease on my fingers. - Super good.

Within the first six months I was down

about 28 pounds, 30 pounds.

I was putting on muscle mass and I was feeling really good.

My energy, my mental clarity, my focus, my fatigue levels,

all those things got better.

I was like, wow.

Pretty interesting.

How many of you guys have lost 10 pounds

or more doing low carb or Keto?

- And he's been a fantastic ambassador

for low-carb lifestyle because he's seen it personally

and now he's seen it with hundreds of his patients.

- Hey, how ya doin'? - Fine, thanks.

- So good to see ya. - Thank you.

- How's things?

In all my years of practice, I never saw anyone cured

of diabetes by going on a low fat diet.

Never, not one time.

No one came off of insulin.

- [Dr. Hyman] Since switching his practice

to a low carb ketogenic approach nearly a dozen

of Brian's patients have reversed

their Type 2 diabetes and come off insulin all together.

- Man, I was just lookin' at your numbers

and it's like, I think of anyone I've ever seen,

you have come off insulin faster than anyone.

- I feel brand new, brand new, brand new.

So I'm stickin' with the diet.

- At three months, I went from insulin five times a day

to no insulin and was able to maintain normal blood sugars.

- I don't remember if Dr. Lenzkes suggested keto

specifically for the weight loss

or if it wasn't for the other issues that I had.

I started it, and I do love butter,

and I do love cream and I do love bacon.

So, it sounded really pretty good to me.

I ate less, and what I ate, I enjoyed more.

- Since last March, a year ago,

I've lost between 50 and 60 pounds,

but I've gained a lot of strength,

I've gained a lot of muscle as well.

- So, I've lost over 200 pounds.

- It's just mind boggling.

He hadn't taken any patients off insulin ever

in his entire career and in five months,

he got 11 patients off insulin completely.

How can you not acknowledge that?

- You've done incredible things.

I mean, just two years ago you were

on insulin five times a day, huge doses and you asked me

can I come off this insulin?

I'm gaining weight, I'm tired, I'm fatigued all the time,

and now seeing you, where you're at now,

it's pretty remarkable what you've accomplished

just by making some lifestyle changes.

They're empowered now to get themselves off insulin.

So, now they're seeing it.

Now my patients are telling their patients

and they're going to them to saying,

"Hey, how come this person came off insulin?

"I thought it couldn't happen."

It can happen.

It does happen, right?

And we're excited about that.

I don't know anyone else who

has lost as much weight as you have,

even with gastric bypass surgery I've never seen it.

The fact that you are coming down off

your diabetes medications, you're off them all now,

your blood pressure came down.

All these things are getting better

and we're just slowly getting you off the medications.

You are making progress and you're making a ton of progress,

more than anyone that I've ever seen.

- That shift that he saw in his patients,

being able to actually remove medications

and make them healthier

at the same time was just tremendous.

And it all started with his own personal journey.

- [Kate] Maybe, eventually,

the government will come around (laughs).

- Maybe, possibly so.

If not, it's your health, right?

- Absolutely, absolutely. - We can do it as individuals

and when people are seeing people have benefits,

they're gonna wanna go into that lifestyle,

and what you're doing and what we're seeing day after day

is super exciting. - Yeah.

- Yeah, so thank you. - Thank you so much.

- Thank you

for encouraging me too! - Thank you.

Oh no.

You're wonderful, you are absolutely the best.

- You're awesome, thank you.

- So the three main macronutrients

in food are carbohydrate, protein and fat,

and here's an important point.

There are essential fats and essential proteins,

but there are no essential carbohydrates.

Essential means the nutrients

are required to sustain human life.

We must eat these to survive.

But there is no physical or biological need

for us to consume any carbohydrates at all.

(gentle music)

- [Doug] I was an ultra distance runner.

Not an elite athlete, but I was pretty good and finished

in the top 100 out of a field of about 14, 15,000.

- [Dr. Hyman] By the time he was 30 years old,

Doug Reynolds had run over almost

100 marathons and ultra marathons.

He was in the best shape of his life

but something wasn't right.

- And I would be incredibly fit,

and yet on the day of the race,

I would be standing there thinking,

"I've got to run up that mountain for 55 miles.

"I can't even get to the corner."

I felt terrible.

I used to think it was just nerves.

- [Dr. Hyman] Like many people, Doug thought athletes

couldn't function without carbohydrates.

He would binge on carbs in the days leading up to the race.

- But it wasn't the nerves.

It was the fact that three days before,

I'd just gorge myself on all these pastas

and potatoes and all these carbohydrates and it was toxic.

- [Dr. Hyman] It's a familiar story to Dr. Tim Noakes,

the man who wrote the book on carb loading.

- So the first four chapters are all

on high carbohydrate diets and how

the most important determinant of your success

in running is how much carbohydrates you're eating.

So I promoted this and all the time while I was writing

this I was getting fatter, less healthy and my running

was getting slower and slower and slower,

to the point where I was really hating running.

- [Dr. Hyman] Even though they were exercising

a lot more than most people,

both men suffered from their low fat, high carb diets.

- I started to put on a little bit of weight

and I never used to weigh myself

because I was always a runner, I was fine.

And I got on the scale

and I was like thirty-five pounds overweight?

I thought the scale was broken!

- And then, much more interestingly,

I discovered I had Type 2 diabetes,

which was predictable because my dad

had died from the disease and my dad took 10 years

to die and I figured I've

got 10 years to sort this problem out.

- [Dr. Hyman] Both Tim and Doug decided

to break the convention and try a low carb diet.

They cut carbs to less than 20 grams a day,

ate moderate amounts of protein and began eating 70

to 80% of daily calories as fat.

Nutrition is actually pretty simple.

Your body needs protein and protein comes first.

That's essential.

But then you can choose to run

your body on carbohydrates including sugars

and starches or fats and it's your choice.

If you quit eating carbs, sugars and starches,

your body is forced to use an alternative fuel source, fat.

Burning fat produces substance called ketones

that provide all the energy you need

to fuel your body and your brain.

That's why the low carb high fat diet

has been given the name Keto.

For most of human history there's been

very little sugar or starches in the diet.

In fact if you put all of human history into one year,

it's only in the last day that people

started eating grains or bread and it's only

in the last hour that people have been eating sugar.

- In fact we know that keeping people in ketosis,

keeping the carbs very low may actually

be the preferred way for people to be.

- Eventually, I dropped right down 44 pounds

and I went back to my weight

that I had when I was running in 1972.

And I'm glad to say, after seven years,

my blood glucose control is as good

as it could be expected for someone of my age of 69.

I'm not completely normal, but I'm 99% normal.

- [Dr. Hyman] Tim famously tore out

the pages on carb loading from his "Lore of Running" book

that promotes ketogenic diets for athletes.

- [Doug] Two, three weeks after I started on this keto diet,

I was jumping out of bed and going

for a run in the morning and enjoying it.

It's just been the most amazing transformation in my life.

- [Dr. Hyman] Doug started a company called LowCarb USA

dedicated to education and nutrition support.

His logo?

Our nation's food pyramid turned upside down.

- Well, yeah, I mean the whole idea

was that the reason we're in

this terrible metabolic dilemma

in this country is because of the food pyramid.

What we are advocating is pretty much 180 degrees opposite

to what the food pyramid tries to teach.

- We now understand that our bodies,

even the bodies of elite athletes

don't eat carbohydrates to survive.

We can convert fat into ketones for fuel,

but early nutritional scientists

did not understand nutritional ketosis.

Scientists simply thought that since fat

has nine calories per gram while protein

and carbs have only four calories per gram,

we should just cut back on fat to lower

our calories consumption and lose weight.

- I met with people who helped with the initial guidelines

and they were well-intentioned.

They reasoned that because calories lead to obesity,

reduce the food that has the most calories which is fat.

- We've been counting calories ever since

in every way imaginable on food labels,

in menus, online and in apps and lately even on our bodies.

For years we've been told it's a simple equation.

If we could just balance the number of calories

we consume against the number of calories we burn,

the calories in versus calories out,

our weight will stay in balance.

Everything on the level, right?

Actually, not so right.

- The calories in, calories out model

is fundamentally flawed because the body

doesn't account for the fat that way.

That's not how we gain fat.

- It's not a physics problem.

It's a biology problem.

It's a physiology problem.

- The alternative theory is called

the carbohydrate insulin hypothesis of weight gain.

Remember how carbohydrates

raise blood sugar but fat doesn't?

That's the key to the insulin carbohydrate hypothesis.

- It's really not that hard to understand.

So if you take 100 calories of brownies

and 100 calories of salmon,

and you eat the two, all the insulin hypothesis says

is that one food is going to raise insulin a lot,

the other food is not.

So we know that as soon as you put

those foods in your mouth,

the hormonal effect of those foods

is completely and utterly different.

- So we really need to pay attention

to hormones at least as much if not more than calories.

So, what raises insulin?

Well, carbohydrates number one with a bullet.

It's like in real estate, location, location, location,

with insulin it's carbohydrate, carbohydrate, carbohydrate.

Protein is a distant second,

so protein can raise insulin as well.

You know what doesn't raise it at all?

Fat.

Zero.

Not a drop.

Doesn't move the needle.

So, what is the irony of us telling people

to eat a diet that is absent of the one macro nutrient

that has no effect on the fat storage hormone?

It's total sheer madness.

- Insulin essentially acts as a lock

that gets clamped down on all of our fat stores

and prevents us from using our stored fat as energy.

But, when we restrict carbohydrates

and we can therefore bring the insulin levels down,

the locks come off and all of sudden we have access

to all of our fat stores for energy.

- [Dr. Hyman] That's right.

Insulin is a fat storage hormone.

Lower insulin by cutting out sugar and carbs

and the weight comes off or never

comes on in the first place.

- We tell patients to think of their body

as a bowl of sugar, right?

So over time, that bowl fills up.

If you're eating a lot of processed foods

and sugar and so on, that bowl fills up,

and eventually that sugar, as you add more sugar in,

spills out, and that's what Type 2 diabetes is.

- Your cells can't hold anymore sugar,

it simply spills out into the blood.

The wrong thing to do is to take the insulin

and keep cramming that sugar back into the body,

the body takes it, takes it, takes it until it rots.

Right?

It would be much smarter to simply say,

"Hey, I have too much sugar.

"Let me just burn it all off by intermittent fasting,

"or not putting anymore sugar in."

A low-carbohydrate diet, and guess what?

It works exactly as you would expect it to work.

- I've been using the keto diet for about 13 years

in a university clinical practice and the results

in treating diabetes are quite remarkable.

I've had some people get off insulin within just a few days

of changing from eating carbohydrates

to not eating carbohydrates.

I think my record that I can recall

is I took someone off 180 units

of insulin a day in just two days.

- Come on in and take a seat.

- Sure.

- If Judi were to have walked into my Office 10 years ago

when I started, I would have thought, I can help you.

You just need to eat less.

You need to exercise more.

We need to start measuring your food.

You can do this, I believe in you.

And I thought that to be true.

Why don't you go ahead and get

your blood sugar meter out for me too.

- Okay.

- Take a look at that.

Over the course of the following five years,

I realized it wasn't working

and either no one was following my advice

or I was giving terrible advice.

- I've been writing down each day--

- Thankfully Judi didn't come into my office 10 years ago.

She came into my office this year.

And I was able to offer hope.

I was able to offer an opportunity.

I knew that she could be successful

and success wasn't just measured on a scale,

it was measured with blood sugar reduction,

insulin reduction, anti-inflammatory markers,

blood pressure as well as insulin.

- Yeah.

- [Dr. Gallager] Looks like you did an awesome job.

- Yeah. - And you are down 12 pounds.

- [Judi] Wow.

- Since our last visit, yeah.

- I can report that this is the second week

and I have normal blood sugars now in the morning.

I'm still doing my injectables, but it's gotten leveled.

It's leveled and I know that I'm in ketosis.

And the weight is starting to drop off.

- What was the dose you were taking

when you walked out of the door?

- It was 120 units. - Okay.

- And now I'm doing 100.

- [Dr. Hyman] In just two weeks on a ketogenic diet,

Judi has cut her blood sugar in half and lost 12 pounds.

Changing her nutrition has done more

to improve her health than any medication ever did.

- The difference is more fat,

and that gives a lot more energy.

- It's amazing.

I'm happy I come to work again,

and there was really a time when I thought, I have to quit.

I can't do this, this is miserable.

It's hopeless.

Diabetes is a hopeless disease.

And I felt that way.

I really, truly felt that way and I knew

that there had to be another answer,

and I don't feel that way anymore.

- In results from more than 50 controlled clinical trials

comparing high fat and low fat diets for weight loss,

the high fat diets won every time.

The higher the fat the higher the weight loss.

That's because eating fat speeds up

your metabolism and helps you burn body fat,

carbs slow down your metabolism and cause weight gain.

It's week two of our nutrition experiment.

This time it's the low fat diet.

- So today's breakfast was oatmeal

with raisins and brown sugar.

- [Dr. Hyman] We're following a USDA MyPlate 2,000 calorie

a day meal plan downloaded from the USDA website.

- Do you have a leaner ham?

- [Dr. Hyman] It calls for low fat meats, non fat dairy,

including non fat sugar sweetened chocolate milk

and plenty of carbohydrates, things like lasagna,

bread and even pizza.

- This looks like stuff you would take

to a college dorm, right (laughs)?

- [Dr. Hyman] This is what

our government says we should eat.

- We have some shredded wheat here.

And then I'm adding a whole half cup of sliced banana.

And half a cup of fat free milk.

Oh, then toast.

And one cup of chocolate milk, fat free.

- [Dr. Hyman] This breakfast alone contains 150 grams

of carbohydrates and 50 grams of sugar.

- [Cynthia] Two teaspoons of jelly.

- Instead of eating bacon and eggs in the morning,

which keeps you full until well past lunch for example,

now you're eating a couple of slices of bread and jam,

and of course by the time you metabolize it,

the sugar goes way up and then it goes way down,

at 10:30 you're looking for a low-fat muffin.

- Day one of the new diet has begun

and I have to admit, I'm not likin' it.

Hungry all day.

- So instead of eating sorta three meals a day,

which is a standard since in the '60s, '50s, '60s, '70s,

now all of a sudden, people are getting hungry,

like ravenous at 10:30 and they're saying,

"Oh, yeah, I need to eat six times a day."

- Today I was hungry again so I needed the snack,

and I also got really tired after the meal.

- So not only are you eating foods

that stimulate a lot of insulin,

you're doing it constantly,

six times a day versus three times a day,

and it's like, well, what's gonna happen?

- Lunch was a ham sandwich with some mayo,

some grapes and the milk.

And I went off the chart, I went over 200.

And it just kept going up and up

and up and up and up and up and up and then it hit over 200,

206, I think was it?

Then it started coming down.

That was crazy to me and it was almost a little scary.

- It's a recipe for diabetes.

How long is it gonna be before everybody

becomes diabetic because that's the outcome of that advice?

- I never even got that close to that last week,

not even close.

So it's gonna be an interesting week

and gosh I hope I last all week, I'm not kidding!

- Hi this is Cynthia, fifth day on the low-fat diet.

It is barely 12 but I'm hungry so I'm digging in my lunch.

I'm hungry again so I will dig into my daily snack.

Last week I was barely hungry at two

and now I'm very hungry so I will eat.

- I was hungry the entire time.

I would eat, that would feel good for about 30,

40 minutes and then I would start just feelin' hungry.

- [Cynthia] I definitely liked last week--

- [Dr. Hyman] When you compare the flat

and steady blood sugars from the high fat week

to the roller coaster readings from this low fat week,

it's hard to believe that

our government thinks this is good for us.

- The USDA put together a guideline

that seems to me was really to market

the food that America makes.

It wasn't based on health.

- The dietary guidelines are not guidelines.

The dietary guidelines are guidance.

They're guidance for the food industry

to be able to sell food.

They have nothing to do with health.

And the fact that the USDA is

in charge of our health is already a problem.

- The USDA when it was founded had two mandates.

Not one, two.

Mandate number one was to provide information

to the American public about healthy eating.

Mandate number two was to support,

encourage and grow the American agricultural industry.

Those two mandates are not always congruent

with one another because if you were really being honest

with the American people you would say,

"Wheat, corn, sugar and soy are not health foods."

And if you're congregant with the other mandate

of the USDA which is to support and encourage

and grow American agriculture

you ain't telling people to not eat four

of the five biggest crops that are made in America.

Trouble.

That's the contradiction and that's

why I don't think you're gonna

see much change in dietary recommendations.

- So Nick, tell me about your experiences

these past two weeks.

- So it's been really, really interesting.

- Yeah, so it was interesting.

- Well, it was really interesting.

- The low carb, high fat,

I had a really good experience with.

- I loved all the food, and I found it very easy.

- I liked the high fat a little better

because I felt more energetic.

- The following week on the low fat,

high carb, I was bonkin'.

I'd just be tired and maybe hangry

is probably the best word.

- Insulin is a big driver

of carbohydrate craving and hunger.

That hangry feeling that you mentioned

is often when someone's insulin levels

are high but their blood sugar is low.

It's that insulin rollercoaster we talked

about when you eat carbs and your insulin levels go up.

- And I got foggy during the high carb week.

- A little groggy.

- I was even just sayin' things backwards

and I noticed that I wasn't, there wasn't the,

I wasn't clicking like I normally do.

- [Dr. Freshwater] I'd love to see

your graphs at some time, too.

Like kind of see - Oh, okay.

- [Dr. Freshwater] the whole progression of them.

Do you have them with you?

- Yeah, sure.

Let me see here.

- [Dr. Hyman] Just look at the difference

between the two diets.

Everyone of our participants experienced similar reactions

to the low carb versus low fat diets.

- Wow, what a difference

between the two weeks. - Yeah, it's huge.

- Yeah.

- From the first week I was almost a flat line.

- Yeah. - I was averaging 84.

- [Dr. Freshwater] Much more stable.

- [Nick] It was fascinating.

- Yeah, it's interesting. - It was really interesting

being a part of this.

- I'm really excited about

this changing my life. - Yeah.

It's cool to see.

- For many people, fat is a super food.

Not only does it help you feel full and lose weight,

your body uses it as the building blocks

for cellular membranes and fat makes

up the myelin sheath that forms around

your nerves and allows electrical impulses

to transmit quickly and efficiently.

Fat makes up more than half our brain tissue.

Human breast milk is more than half fat,

much of which is saturated fat.

We need healthy fats to be healthy humans.

Unfortunately what we've been told

about which fats are good for us

and which fats are bad is dead wrong.

- Everybody just thinks,

oh, don't eat fat, don't eat fat,

and it's actually more tragic than that.

The story is actually much worse.

As people turned away from saturated fats,

like butter and animal fats, we were told to eat margarine.

♪ Yes I am the muffin man ♪

♪ Now I am the butter man ♪

(horn trumpeting)

- [TV Announcer] Imperial.

Only our taste deserves the crown.

- It turns out, and this is what's so tragic about it,

it was deadly advice.

- Many doctors have recommended corn oil margarine's

to help lower the saturated fat in a reduced fat diet.

- So if you remember margarine is vegetable oils,

and then they partially hydrogenate them

to make them solid, so they look like butter.

Partially hydrogenated fats are actually trans-fats.

- It's best to replace spreads high in saturated fats.

- So we went from eating natural foods

and butter to trans-fats which we now know was super,

super, super deadly for heart attacks.

- For the family you love,

serve delicious, new Mazola Margarine.

And love it's light delicate flavor everyday.

- That is mind-blowing that we told people

to stop eating butter and eat this poison instead,

and it would be good for you and we all did it.

- This is Mazola 100% corn oil margarine

made from 100% corn oil goodness.

- Well there's really no doubt

that the American Heart Association endorsement

of vegetable oils was a great thing for that industry.

- [Ralph] This is Ralph Edwards

of "Truth or Consequences" and congratulations

on your fine entry statement

of why we should all support the American Heart Association.

- [Dr. Hyman] The American Heart Association started

in the 1920s as a sleepy little organization

that could barely keep its doors open,

but in 1948 Proctor and Gamble,

maker of Crisco or shortening staged

a nationwide fundraiser and the AHA hit the jackpot.

- [Ralph] Thanks to Jack Benny,

the American Heart Association has

a million and a half dollars there.

Alright, this is Ralph Edwards saying goodnight, everybody!

- Overnight millions of dollars flowed into their coffers.

I mean literally from one week to the next

they started opening up chapters all over the country,

all thanks to Proctor and Gamble.

- [TV Announcer] New Crisco Oil stays blended longer,

makes salads taste great.

New Crisco Oil blends better than other oils.

- [Dr. Hyman] The American Heart Association

has endorsed special oils ever since.

- It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.

(elephant trumpeting)

- They then were able to publish advertisements saying,

lowers cholesterol.

Take this ad to your doctor and get them

to prescribe to you vegetable oils for your health.

- Vegetable oils are a fascinating topic

because they've become labeled as heart healthy

which drives me a little crazy

because the label was granted

to them simply by lowering LDL cholesterol.

But, the broader question is, what else are they doing?

These are not real food products.

These are products made in factories.

These are products that require heat and chemicals

and high pressure to extract what little oil there is.

- [Dr. Hyman] The heat and chemicals used

in the manufacturing process oxidizes

these delicate seed oils.

When you eat oxidized vegetable oils like soy,

canola, corn and seed flower or sunflower,

they create free radicals throughout

your body that are highly inflammatory

and known to cause heart disease and cancer.

Why are we always trying to eat more antioxidants?

To combat free radicals like the ones found

in refined vegetable oils.

- And then they're used by restaurants

in the most carcinogenic way possible.

They heat them, reheat them, cool them off,

heat them again and use 'em for a week.

So, switching to vegetable oils,

the seed oils was probably

a terrible idea in the first place.

- [Dr. Hyman] One researcher from the University

of Minnesota went to a variety of fast food restaurants

in her neighborhood and purchased french fries

and then took them back to her lab for testing.

She found numerous compounds

of toxic aldehydes in the fries.

Aldehydes are known to cause gene mutation,

alter RNA and DNA and trigger massive inflammation

in the body.

- Vegetable oil is highly toxic

and anyone who advises people

to eat vegetable oils is also giving misinformation.

- I tell my clients to avoid

the industrial seed oils as much as possible.

- [Dr. Hyman] Vegetable oils belong in the engines of cars,

not in your food.

Refined vegetable oils are one more reason

you should avoid fast food and processed food.

If it comes in a bottle or a box

it probably contains vegetable oils.

From crackers to cookies, mayonnaise to salad dressings,

baby food and even baby formula.

- They're not natural.

They've been shown to be pro-inflammatory

and in some studies like the Minnesota Coronary Experiment,

the Sydney Diet Heart Study,

they've shown that, yes, they lower LDL

but they actually do nothing

or they worsen all-cause mortality.

(pensive music)

♪ Minneapolis, there's so many things to be ♪

- The Minnesota Coronary Survey which took place

in the 1960s was the biggest

ever test of Ancel Keys' hypothesis.

- The Minnesota Coronary Experiment

is a fascinating study both from a science standpoint

and sort of a detective standpoint.

- So it took place in five Minnesota mental hospitals

which is a kind of experiment

you can't do anymore because it's considered unethical.

But back then it has the benefit of being highly controlled,

which means that you're feeding people all their food,

so you know what they're eating,

and they can't get outside food so they can't cheat.

- In the diet, they replaced saturated fat

with polyunsaturated fat, in the intervention.

And the diet was similar in all

the other nutrients that they deemed to be important.

And what they found was that with the intervention,

cholesterol levels went down,

which is what you would expect,

but mortality actually trended up.

- It turned out that people who were

on the cholesterol lowering diet had more heart disease

and more deaths than the people eating the controlled diet,

which was the exact opposite of what they wanted.

- So it did not support the diet-heart hypothesis.

- But they never published the results.

- If you do a very long study going into

that study thinking that you know what the end in mind

is going to be and then it isn't the end in mind,

I can understand that you don't wanna publish the results,

but it is scientific fraud.

- Yeah, that is totally unacceptable

to not publish your data like that.

- It wasn't published until decades later

that a relative of the author went digging for the results

and this is the detective part that's kind of crazy,

that he had to go looking through the basements

to find these data and re-crunch the data

and reanalyze it and then bring it out to publish it to say,

"Hey, look, this diet higher in omega-6 oils, lowered LDL,

"but it increased cardiovascular risk

"and it increased mortality."

- When you are making recommendations

that are not evidence-based,

and evidence comes out that's contrary

to those recommendations, wait a minute,

that's a problem, right?

And so what has been the standard approach

to dealing with that situation,

which has come up a number of times?

Bury the new evidence.

And that's exactly what's happened,

and the Minnesota Coronary study

is a perfect example of this.

- The Heart Foundation didn't come out and say,

"Sorry, we're wrong."

They just ignored it as if it didn't happen

and they continued to promote vegetable oils

and poly-unsaturated fats.

- If that had been published,

almost certainly what we eat today would be different.

- This is a reason for everyone

to be outraged beyond concern.

- Controlled clinical trials like

the Minnesota Coronary Survey are considered

the gold standard of research.

The type of experiment where you can control

every bite of food and change just one thing,

like swapping butter for margarine

to find out if it has an effect on our health.

But trials like these are expensive,

and some even considered unethical.

Cheaper observational trials are far more common.

- [Interviewer] How many times have

you had oatmeal in the last year?

- I have no clue.

- Oh my gosh.

(interviewee laughs)

- [Dr. Hyman] Observational trials often rely

on food frequency questionnaires

that rely on people's memories.

And people's memories aren't that great.

- [Interviewer] How many times have

you had orange juice in the last year?

- I wouldn't know a number.

- Last year?

- I'm gonna say...

- If I was to put a number on it, upwards of 20?

- [Interviewer] In the last year, 20 times?

- Oh yeah, yes. - Okay.

So you think you've had it only about two times a month?

- Oh, oh darn, yeah, you're right.

- I have no idea how many ounces...

- Well, if I had to break it up into ounces...

- Probably about the same as you.

I don't know how many ounces.

- See what I mean?

Observational trials generate unreliable data

and are the reason

why nutritional recommendations constantly flip and flop.

Setting nutritional food policy based

on unreliable data is largely what got

us into this big fat mess.

- [Interviewer] How hard do you think

it is to remember what you ate?

- Impossible, unless you have some ridiculous ability

to remember everything which nobody does.

Nobody remembers things accurately.

- [Dr. Hyman] No one person may represent

the antithesis of the low fat diet better than Dave Asprey.

His company, Bulletproof has made

a morning ritual out of adding spoonfuls of fat to coffee.

- [Dave] You take anywhere from a teaspoon

to a tablespoon of grass-fed butter.

- [Dr. Hyman] Add to that a few more teaspoons

of purified coconut oil.

- And then add your brewed black coffee,

(coffee splashing) (upbeat music)

and you blend it.

(blender whirring)

You can see, it looks an awful lot like a latte.

You drink this you're just not hungry for hours and hours,

and you're energized in a way

that you'll never get from a piece of toast.

- [Dr. Hyman] It was through his own discovery

of a high fat, low carb diet that Dave Asprey lost

more than 100 pounds and he's kept it off for 10 years.

- In 2004, after I lost a bunch of the weight

I wanted to lose, I decided to go to Tibet

to learn meditation from the masters.

And I'm at 18,000 feet elevation

in a very remote part of Tibet.

10 degrees below zero, 30 mile an hour winds,

and I'm feeling kind of wrecked

'cause there's no air and it's cold.

And this little Tibetan woman gave me a bowl

of yak butter tea, which is yak butter, mixed with tea,

and a pinch of salt.

All right, fine, I'm hungry.

I drank it.

It didn't taste great, it didn't taste bad.

But a minute later I'm like, "I feel really good.

"In fact, I haven't felt this good in days.

"What is happening?"

And I wrote a little note in my journal, how could this be?

And that day, I had another 20 cups of it,

and I just felt like I got my life back.

- [Dr. Hyman] Dave came back to the States

and adapted his yak butter tea experience to coffee.

Bulletproof is now a multi million dollar company

which Dave operates alongside his small,

organic farm where he grows grass-fed sheep and pigs.

- Hey guys, hey Riley.

- [Dr. Hyman] Dave believes the quality

of the fats we consume is critical.

- If you're not sure whether fats

are good or bad, it's okay.

Some fats are bad, and some fats are good.

No wonder it's confusing.

Short version, grass-fed butter, egg yolks,

coconut oil, avocados, olive oil.

Those are the good fats.

- [Dr. Hyman] While there is much debate over

the role played by animal agriculture in climate change,

raising grass-fed animals on organic pastures

like Dave's actually helps capture carbon

and can be a sustainable piece of the climate's solution.

- And the meat you eat must be higher quality.

And guess what high quality animals make?

High quality poop.

Guess what high quality poop makes?

High quality vegetables.

The vegetables you're eating that don't come

from farms like this are vegetables devoid of nutrients

and if we allow that to continue, there will be no topsoil.

This is how you make topsoil.

And the Tibetans figured out a long time ago,

saturated fat helps your brain.

They were using it for meditation,

they were using it to help their metabolism work

in very harsh conditions that are high stress.

So it's time to throw away the seed oils.

They are not fit for human consumption.

If you're eating bad fats, it's going to kill you.

And this is where The American Heart Association,

and the American Diabetes Association just got it wrong.

They told you to eat bad fats because

of industrial interests and it's time that we change that.

The science is very, very clear.

- Yeah, it's--

- So how much weight have you lost total?

- I, 30 pounds.

- That's great. - Yeah.

And my goal was 50, so I think it's very doable.

- [Dr. Gallager] And you're down another five pounds.

- I am?

- Yeah.

- Yay! - Yeah.

- [Dr. Hyman] In two months Judi has lost weight

and cut her insulin medications by 60%.

- I think you have to look inside yourself

and just determine that nobody

is gonna take care of you the way that you can.

I don't feel like anyone could

go wrong with making an attempt at this

but you can't attempt it for a week.

You have to set your mind and set yourself

to it for a period of time.

- [Dr. Hyman] Judi is inspired by thousands

of other patients who reversed their Type 2 diabetes

getting off all medications with a high fat,

low carb nutrition plan.

- We reversed my Type 2 Diabetes, after one month.

I couldn't be prouder.

No more insulin injections for me,

and no more metformin, and even statins.

- I completely reversed

my Type 2 Diabetes in just three months.

Before I changed my diet, I weighed 212 pounds.

Now I weigh 165 pounds and I take zero medications.

- Before I started, I weighed about 265 pounds,

I now weigh 130 pounds.

Now I can enjoy my family,

I can do everything that you should do to live a life.

It's just been a total change.

- I have seen so many individual transformative patients,

what an honor that is to share that journey with a patient.

- I feel like if a person just is determined

and sets their goals that there isn't anything you can't do.

You just have to decide that feeling good

and being healthy is more important than

the things you used to like to eat.

It isn't very long before

your tastes change and you really like it.

(food sizzling)

- When I first started exploring low-carb,

I tried to keep it very quiet

because it had been and maybe still is

a very controversial subject.

In other countries dietitians were losing

their licensure over practicing low-carb,

let alone medical doctors as well.

- Professor Noakes, on a charge of unprofessional conduct,

the majority of this committee find you not guilty.

(court applauding)

- [Dr. Hyman] The controversy over low carb

may be slowly, quietly changing.

In the long drawn out case of Dr. Tim Noakes,

the final ruling found in his favor.

- So as far as we're concerned,

we made the point that this diet is safe.

That's all we really set out to do.

- The low carb, ketogenic diet is a low inflammation diet.

- [Dr. Hyman] More and more brave practitioners

are going against the dietary guidelines

to help their patients find better health.

Like Brian Lenzkes, who also teaches low carb nutrition

classes at his church.

So far, Brian's congregation

has lost more than 2,000 pounds.

- Our results are in purple here.

Low carb.

- [Dr. Hyman] The two year findings

from Sarah Hallberg's clinical trial show

that a low carb, high fat diet is equally

as effective as bariatric surgery

in reversing Type 2 diabetes.

- So your assessment of the vilification

of saturated fat after your experience in this trial?

- Well, I'll tell you, what we say is that

we do not restrict saturated fat in these patients,

and yet they're having these remarkable results.

- [Dr. Hyman] In April of 2019,

the American Diabetes Association

issued an update to its long standing position

that diets lower than 130 grams of carbs a day are unsafe.

- I was thrilled, it felt like Christmas morning to me.

It was the very first time in writing

from a huge organization that said

what I was doing was okay.

What I was doing was an approach

that was helping my patients.

And while it was something that I have known for years,

it was the first time I felt safe.

It was the first time I felt safe

to give these recommendations.

- [Dr. Hyman] In 2015 after more than 50 years

of condemning foods like eggs, lobster and shrimp,

the American Heart Association quietly dropped

their long standing recommendation

against dietary cholesterol saying

it's no longer a nutrient of concern.

That same year, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Committee

removed the cap on dietary fat consumption,

admitting there's no evidence

that eating fat is bad for health.

But the cap on saturated fat remains.

- The hypothesis that saturated fats

are bad for health has been the most tested hypothesis

in the history of nutrition science.

There has been no hypothesis that has been more tested.

Some 75,000 people, 65,000 somewhere in that range,

depending on which studies you include,

and none of them could show that saturated fats

had any effect on total or cardiovascular mortality.

There's no evidence for it.

- [Dr. Hyman] Even so the American Heart Association

who takes much of its funding from big food

and big pharma continues to stand behind

its long held position that saturated fats

are the cause of heart disease

and that refined vegetable oils are heart healthy.

- But there is so much politics and so much money,

and big pharma and the sugar industry

behind trying to keep those guidelines

as they are right now.

I feel like eventually they will change, but when?

It could be 50 years.

- We can't wait 50 years.

Millions of people have died already because of this mess.

- [Dr. Hyman] Doug Reynolds isn't waiting any longer.

His company, LowCarb USA is partnering

with dozens of physicians, nutritionists

and dieticians to create a set of global,

clinical guidelines that teach medical professionals

how to safely and effectively practice low carb nutrition.

- Now It gives a lot of them confidence

to maybe start implementing it in their practice,

where before, they weren't quite sure how to do it

or they were afraid that other doctors weren't doing it.

Now, they're actually following

some kind of set of guidelines.

- [Dr. Hyman] And what about

the official dietary guidelines for Americans?

The three main eating patterns recommended

by the USDA all feature more than 50%

of daily calories as carbohydrates.

According to the dietary guidelines,

low carbohydrate, high fat diets are still not an option.

- It smells so good.

- In 2017, the National Academy of Sciences and Medicine

perform the first ever outside scientific review

of the U.S. dietary guidelines

and found that the process lacked transparency

and scientific rigor.

Recommending a signal dietary pattern

to an entire population was a huge mistake.

Not only did the low fat diet not work,

it did us harm and resulted in greater obesity and disease.

The lesson of the low fat diet may be

that nutrition science is deeply flawed

and our nation's dietary guidelines

have been heavily influenced by the food industry

and the enormous amount of money at stake.

- What we are living now is just

so completely unsustainable.

These unsustainable rates of obesity

and diabetes were bankrupting our nation,

it's destroying people's lives,

it's destroying our country, and it has to stop.

- We are not treating the disease,

we're treating the symptoms of the disease.

And so it should be of no surprise

to anyone that we're not getting better.

And we're not going to get better

until we recognize what the real problem is.

If we changed the food, we could solve this problem.

- [Tracy] We get so many mixed messages about diet and--

- Does the government have a role

in telling people how to eat?

- We kind of have to find what really works for us

but we still need to know the truth.

- It's a fascinating question

that has a lot of different opinions.

And certainly, the past 30, 40 years

of experience would say, no,

they probably shouldn't be in that role.

- The people at the top are not going to change,

so we have to get this going as a bottom up revolution

and get more and more people on board until they're shamed

into changing the guidelines

because the swell of the population is just ignoring them.

- The change is coming from the people,

because they've changed.

They're forcing the doctors to change if we can change

the medical profession, I think we'll do something.

- If you're pre diabetic or Type 2 diabetic,

there is a way out, a path forward to health

and vitality to fewer drugs and more energy.

You can get your life back

and all you have to do is eat real food.

- If somebody has Type 2 diabetes,

they can go online right now,

they can watch your movie,

they can read up on something,

they can buy a book and start reversing their disease today.

- What I see on a day-to-day basis

with my individual patients as well

as my own family and my own friends,

I think it's missed in some of this research,

and what that is is freedom.

It's freedom from being hangry.

It's freedom from cravings.

It's freedom from headaches.

- Whoa!

- [Dr. Gallager] It's freedom from reactive hypoglycemia.

It's freedom from mood swings.

It's better quality of sleep.

It's better quality of life.

- I feel great.

(bicycle bell dings)

I feel really good.

Hi girls.

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