ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2009) - Any diet will do? Not if you want to lose fat instead of muscle. Not if you want to lower your triglyceride levels so you'll be less likely to develop diabetes and heart disease. Not if you want to avoid cravings that tempt you to cheat on your diet. And not if you want to keep the weight off long-term.
"Our latest study shows you have a better chance of achieving all these goals if you follow a diet that is moderately high in protein," said Donald Layman, a University of Illinois professor emeritus of nutrition. The research was published in the March Journal of Nutrition.
Dietary composition modulates brain mass and solubilizable Abeta levels in a mouse model of aggressive Alzheimer's amyloid pathology.
Pedrini S, Thomas C, Brautigam H, Schmeidler J, Ho L, Fraser P, Westaway D, Hyslop PS, Martins RN, Buxbaum JD, Pasinetti GM, Dickstein DL, Hof PR, Ehrlich ME, Gandy S.
Mol Neurodegener. 2009 Oct 21;4:40.
PMID: 19845940
doi:10.1186/1750-1326-4-40
INTERPRETATION: Dissociation of Abeta changes from brain mass changes raises the possibility that diet plays a role not only in modulating amyloidosis but also in modulating neuronal vulnerability. However, in the absence of a study of the effects of a high protein/low carbohydrate diet on nontransgenic mice, one cannot be certain how much, if any, of the loss of brain mass exhibited by high protein/low carbohydrate diet-fed TgCRND8 mice was due to an interaction between cerebral amyloidosis and diet. Given the recent evidence that certain factors favor the maintenance of cognitive function in the face of substantial structural neuropathology, we propose that there might also exist factors that sensitize brain neurons to some forms of neurotoxicity, including, perhaps, amyloid neurotoxicity. Identification of these factors could help reconcile the poor clinicopathological correlation between cognitive status and structural neuropathology, including amyloid pathology.
"This article was originally published in 2004 in the Chicago Tribune. It's still knocking around on the web in various places but the original seems to have disappeared. You can't have too much of a good thing. Obviously Stephan's recent posts on lard prompted me to put this one up. The imported nutritionist doesn't seem quite as dismissive as you might expect! But notice in the last paragraph that the big bogeyman is protein overload damaging the kidneys! On 60g/d of protein??? Sobor clearly knows nothing about high fat diets, certainly not the one he is commenting so authoritatively about in this case!"