Google Doesn’t Lie

Dear Natural Health Solutions Reader,

Sure, it’s shocking. Disorienting. Downright dizzying. With the planet awash in depressing news — from stock slumps to Mideast mayhem — can there really be cause for celebration?

Well, check the chart below. It’s from Google Trends, a service that tracks how often people search for particular terms on the Web.

The blue line represents the relative number of searches worldwide using the term “low fat” since 2004.

The red line represents the relative number of searches using the term “low sugar” over the same period.

Clearly, the blue line is going down and the red line is traveling slowly but steadily up.

What these converging — and indeed, briefly crossing — lines represent is momentous.

The world appears to be waking up from a 60-year collective delusion that “low-fat” foods would save us from heart disease, cancer, stroke, obesity, and the other chronic diseases of modern life.

Rather than seeking information about “low-fat” foods, recipes, and diet plans, the world’s Googlers are now ferreting out “low-sugar” information with nearly equal frequency.

This is a delightful turn of events.

Consider that a 2013 study from Credit Suisse Research Institute concluded that as much as 40 percent of health care spending in the U.S. is for diseases that are directly related to overeating sugar.

In fact, the number of studies indicating that low-carbohydrate — and particularly low-sugar — diets beat low-fat diets for conditions ranging from obesity¹ to cardiovascular disease risk² to diabetes³ is now overwhelming.

For years, I’ve been shouting this message from the metaphorical bottom of a well, unsure whether any above heard it.

But it appears that the information is finally being heard, and assimilated, by the public at large, through the efforts of dozens of scientists and nutrition writers. I hope my decades of effort have made at least a tiny contribution to this wonderful change.

Bottom line: The three worst foods Americans commonly eat are sugar (and its close cousin high fructose corn syrup), flour, and soybean oil.

Step away from this deadly triumvirate and you are halfway there.

Eat my high-fat, real food diet and you are home free.

Sincerely,

Brad Lemley
Editor, Natural Health Solutions

Citations

1. Samaha FF, Iqbal N, Seshadri P, et al. A low-carbohydrate as compared with a low-fat diet in severe obesity. N Engl J Med. 2003

2. Aude YW, Agatston AS, Lopez-jimenez F, et al. The national cholesterol education program diet vs a diet lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein and monounsaturated fat: a randomized trial. Arch Intern Med. 2004

3. Meckling KA, O’sullivan C, Saari D. Comparison of a low-fat diet to a low-carbohydrate diet on weight loss, body composition, and risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease in free-living, overweight men and women. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2004