While the South Beach Diet doesn’t directly address the issue of leptin, it is similar to leptin control diets because it’s goal is to get your body burning fats rather than sugars. That’s why we put it under this heading.Dr. Arthur Agatston is a cardiologist and author of The South Beach Diet. He says that the fallout from the low-fat diets of the past few decades was an “unintended experiment,” in which Americans substituted highly processed carbohydrates for fat, which resulted in the current obesity epidemic.
An interview with the creator of the South Beach Diet
In this interview, he discusses how he developed the South Beach Diet, and why he considers it the successor to Atkins and other low-carb diets. Agatston also explains the concept of the glycemic index, which measures how foods affect blood sugar, and its importance in cardiac health.
A national nutrition experiment gone awry due to the introduction of processed carbs
What happened at the time this epidemic started were the national recommendations on low-fat, [high]-carb diets, and the response of the food industry, with all the great low-fat, high-carb, and processed carbohydrate foods.
Basically the idea was that the low-fat, high-carb diet was to mimic underdeveloped countries, which are low fat, high carb, no heart attacks, no strokes, no obesity. However, what the American food industry produced was processed carbohydrates where the fiber and the nutrients were removed.
What ended up was an unintended experiment in this country. There’ve been countries, societies that have been high-fat, who have done well. Some Mediterranean countries, the island of Crete was studied very, very carefully; the Greenland Eskimos have been studied. Those are high-fat societies that do fine as far as cardiovascular disease and obesity. And we mentioned the under-developed world, which tends to be low-fat, high-carbohydrate, also does well.
No society ever before was ever low-fat, high-processed carbohydrate. That was a new experiment, as well as throwing in Trans fats, those of the hydrogenated oils found in commercial baked goods and cookies that are over-the-counter. Those turn out to be the worst fats, and the worst for both our blood vessels and long-term weight loss.
Many of us feel hungry much of the time. Processed carbohydrates are rapidly digested. That causes swings in our blood sugar where we’re hungry soon after we finish a meal, and we’re ready to eat some more. Basically Americans are walking around hungry all the time, and [I believe strongly that's the primary cause] of the epidemic of obesity.
Source: To review the complete interview, click here.
Online resources:
WEBMD evaluation of the South Beach Diet
Home page for the South Beach Diet.
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