How Did We End Up Here?

Professor Tim Noakes investigates the dietary advice that has led to the chronic diseases present in today’s population.

- Tim Noakes

The mid-Victorians who lived in Britain in the mid-19th century enjoyed a life expectancy similar to that of modern Britons. However, they had less than 10% of the incidence of chronic diseases including cancer, coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) that have reached pandemic proportions in the past 50 years.

And if the mid-Victorians’ abundantly healthy diet was a large reason for their immunity to these chronic diseases, why did humans ever choose to change?

The most likely explanation is the medical demonisation of dietary saturated fat that began in the 1950s, and the US Dietary Guidelines produced by the 1977 Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. These were followed by the dramatic growth in the processed food industry over the past 70 years and its use of sugar to replace dietary fat in processed foods.

THE DEMONISATION OF DIETARY FAT

In 1953 the US physiologist Ancel Keys’ PhD proposed that dietary fat, especially dietary saturated fat, raised the blood cholesterol concentration, which then “clogged” the arteries supplying the heart muscle, producing heart attacks. This hypothesis was based on associational, epidemiological evidence that cannot prove causation.

In our book Lore of Nutrition, Marika Sboros and I outline the evidence that I presented in my four-year long “trial” before the Health Professions Council of South Africa, which proves that, despite its near universal acceptance, Keys’ hypothesis remains unproven to this day.