STOP the NO HEAL NO CURE Never Look @ Causes , DRUG PUSHING, Brainwashed Drs.

Great Britain’s Most Outspoken Cardiologist Sets the Record Straight on Saturated Fats

June 05, 2016 | 

By Dr. Mercola

Is saturated fat really the health hazard it’s been made out to be? Dr. Aseem Malhotra is an interventional cardiologist consultant in London, U.K., who gained quite a bit of publicity after the publication of his peer-reviewed editorial1 in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 2013.

In it, he seriously challenges the conventional view on saturated fats, and reviews how recent studies have failed to find any significant association between saturated fat and cardiovascular risk.

In fact, Malhotra reports that two-thirds of people admitted to hospitals with acute myocardial infarction have completely normal cholesterol levels. Malhotra, founder of Action on Sugar, also works as an adviser to the U.K.’s National Obesity Forum.

“My focus has been, ‘what can we do as individuals collectively (the medical profession) to help curb demand on the health system?’” he says. “A lot of that is being driven by diet-related diseases.

According to the Lancet Global Burden of Disease Reports, poor diets now contribute to more disease and death than physical activities — smoking and alcohol combined ..

As an interventional cardiologist, we can do life-saving procedures with people who have heart attacks through heart surgery. But to be honest, rather than saving them from drowning, I’d rather they wouldn’t be thrown into the river in the first place. This is really where my focus has shifted.

I think for many of us, as clinicians moving more towards intervention, I think the realization that what we can do in medicine is really quite limited at the treatment end and actually the whole ‘prevention is better than cure’ phrase is very true.”

Hospitals and Medical Personnel Are Far From Paragons of Health

Malhotra’s epiphany that something was wrong with the system came rather early. While working as a resident in cardiology, he performed an emergency stenting procedure on a man in his 50s who’d recently suffered a heart attack.  The following morning, Malhotra spoke to the man, giving him the usual advice about quitting smoking and improving his diet.

“Just when I was telling about healthy diet, how important that was, he was actually served burger and fries by the hospital. He said to me, ‘Doctor, how do you expect me to change my lifestyle when you’re serving me the same crap that brought me in here in the first place?’”

Looking around, he realized that a lot of healthcare professionals are overweight or obese, and hospitals serve sick patients junk food. He believes one of the first things that really needs to happen is to set a good example in hospitals.  “The hospital environment should be one that promotes good health, not exacerbates bad health,” he says. His journey began with an email to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who did a lot of work campaigning for improved food in school canteens. Malhotra asked Oliver for ideas on how to improve hospital food.

“A couple of years later, I ended up going to the British Medical Association Annual Conference. I put a motion forward saying there should be a policy from the BMA to ban the selling of junk food in hospitals. It got an overwhelming majority vote.”

Diet and lifestyle changes are particularly important in light of the fact that medical errors and properly prescribed medications are the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer. Over medication is a particularly serious problem among the elderly, who tend to suffer more side effects.

“Part of that is because there are very powerful vested interests that push drugs,” Malhotra says. “They even coax academic institutions and guideline bodies. People aren’t getting all the information to make decisions, whether or not they should take medications ...

This is a major problem, especially [since] we’ve neglected or detracted from lifestyle changes, which are going to be much more impactful on your health and without side effects.”

For Past 60 Years, the Wrong Fats Have Been Vilified

For the past 60 years, the conventional wisdom has dictated that saturated fat is dangerous and should be avoided. This flawed notion was originally promoted by Dr. Ancel Keys, whose Seven Countries Study laid the groundwork for the myth that saturated fat caused heart disease. It’s true that heart disease rates began spiking in the beginning of the 20th century, and for 50 years, heart disease has been progressively increasing. It really wasn’t an issue prior to the 20th century. But were saturated fats really to blame?

My belief is that it was in fact due to fats, but contrary to popular belief, saturated fat wasn’t the problem. It was all the other harmful fats people were eating.

In the 20th century, the average person probably had less than 1 pound a year of refined, processed omega-6 vegetable oils. By the 1950s, probably about 50 pounds a year, and by year 2000, it increased at about 75 pounds a year. It seems “fat” in itself isn’t the issue; it’s the type of fat that’s crucial.  This massive amount of highly refined polyunsaturated fat is far in excess of what we were designed to eat for optimal health. And I suspect that’s what catalyzed Keys to devise his research to come up with a justification for his recommendation to lower fat intake.

“What’s interesting is if you look in the USA, between 1961 and 2011, 90% of the calorie intake has been carbohydrates and refined industrial vegetable oils,” Malhotra says. “I think you’re absolutely correct.

The heart disease epidemic peaked between 1960 and 1970. It started to rise about 1920. When we look at our data, it’s quite clear that the so-called fats responsible for that are trans fats and very likely polyunsaturated vegetable oils high in omega-6 fatty acids.

We know now that they oxidize LDL and are pro-inflammatory. The other issue was smoking. Smoking was very high. When smoking reduction occurred from regulatory efforts, heart attack admissions dropped very rapidly. That’s because just 30 minutes after smoking, platelet activity increases.

A quick example: Helena, Montana 2002 brought in a public smoking ban. Within six months, there was a 40% reduction in hospital admissions for heart attack. When the law was rescinded, the hospital admissions came back to preceding levels.

When you combine all those things, it’s very clear. The dietary factors — trans fats, refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and smoking — are probably the three most important factors.”

What Are the Real Risk Factors for Heart Disease?

By failing to differentiate between trans fats and saturated fats, massive confusion has arisen. There’s also confusion about the relationship between saturated fat and cholesterol. Adding to the complexity, there are also different types of saturated fats, which may have different biological effects.

Many saturated fats will raise LDL, the so-called “bad” cholesterol. But LDLs come in various sizes. Large type A particles are less atherogenic and are influenced by saturated fat. Saturated fat also increases HDL, the “good” cholesterol.

“What’s interesting is the saturated fat, even though it may raise LDL, your lipid profile may actually improve [when you eat more saturated fat], especially when you cut the carbs. On top of that, LDL has been grossly exaggerated as a risk factor for heart disease, with the exception of people who have a genetic abnormality (familial hypercholesterolemia),” Malhotra says.

“Certainly when you get over the age of 60, the cardiovascular association between LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular mortality diminishes. It becomes almost negligible. For overall mortality, there is an inverse association with LDL. The higher your LDL, if you’re over 60, the less likely you are to die.

So what is the major issue when you look at heart disease and heart attacks? Insulin resistance ... The reason it’s being neglected is partly this flawed science on cholesterol. But also because there’s never been any effective drugs that target insulin resistance.

Therefore, because [there isn’t a] big market around something to sell, there aren’t many people that know about it. As you and I know, if you target insulin resistance through the right kind of diet and lifestyle changes, stress reduction, right kind of exercise, that’s going to have the biggest impacts on your health.”

Gauging Your Heart Disease Risk

Factors that can help gauge your heart disease risk include:

• A fasting insulin level above 3
• A triglyceride to HDL ratio above 2
• A waist circumference indicating overweight or obesity
• High blood pressure

If you have 3 out of the following 5 indications of metabolic syndrome: insulin resistance, high triglycerides, low HDL, hypertension and increased waist circumference, then you are at high risk for heart disease. Another major risk factor for heart disease that receives virtually no attention is high iron levels.

In menstruating women, this is not an issue since they lose blood on a monthly basis. This is actually part of why premenopausal women have a decreased risk of heart disease.

In men, iron levels can rise to dangerously high levels. In my experience, the majority of adult males and postmenopausal women have elevated levels that put their health at risk. Checking your iron levels is easy and can be done with a simple blood test called a serum ferritin test.

I believe this is one of the most important tests that everyone should have done on a regular basis as part of a preventive, proactive health screen. If your levels are high, all you have to do is donate blood a few times a year.

The Connection Between Saturated Fats and Diabetes

Malhotra cites a 2014 Lancet study looking at the association between dietary saturated fat, plasma saturated fat and type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, while dietary saturated fats found in dairy products were strongly inversely associated with the development of type 2 diabetes (meaning it was protective), endogenously-synthesized plasma-saturated fat was strongly associated with an increased risk.

Endogenously-synthesized plasma-saturated fats are fatty acids produced by your liver in response to net carbohydrates, sugar and alcohol. These findings suggest eating full-fat dairy products may protect you against type 2 diabetes, whereas consuming too many net carbs (total carbs minus fiber) will increase your risk of type 2 diabetes — in part by raising the saturated fat levels in your bloodstream.

That said, I believe a caution may be warranted. Milk, even raw milk, is actually high in net carbs, which your body converts to glucose. So as a general rule, I recommend avoiding milk. Butter is an exception, as it’s almost pure fat and has virtually no net carbs.

Healthy Fat Tips

Here are a few tips to help ensure you're eating the right fats for your health:

• Use organic butter made from raw grass-fed milk instead of margarines and vegetable oil spreads.
• Use coconut oil for cooking. It is primarily a saturated fat and more resistant to heat damage than other cooking oils. It will also help improve your ability to burn fat and serve as a great source of energy to help you make the transition to burning fat for fuel.
• Sardines and anchovies are an excellent source of beneficial omega-3 fats and are also very low in toxins that are present in most other fish.
• To round out your healthy fat intake, be sure to eat raw fats, such as those from avocados, raw dairy products, and olive oil, and also take a high-quality source of animal-based omega-3 fat, such as krill oil.

Why Statins Are a Bad Idea for Most People

In addition to the recommendation to follow a low-fat diet, many doctors are still avid prescribers of statins, which help lower your cholesterol. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans over the age of 40 are on these drugs; soon to be 1 in 3. Malhotra is greatly troubled by these kinds of statistics.

“This is a drug that was marketed over the last three decades as being a wonder drug. It’s driven a multi-trillion dollar industry. We’re only now realizing that the benefits of statins have been grossly exaggerated and the side effects underplayed. One of the reasons for that is that most if not all of the studies that drove the guidelines, and the information around statin prescription, were industry-sponsored studies.

One of the things we have neglected in medicine is this issue around absolute risk and relative risk. The reality is if you look at the published data ... if you have heart disease and you've had a heart attack, then taking a statin every day for five years, there’s a 1 in 83 chance that [statin] will save your life.

That means in 82 of 83 cases, it’s not going to save your life. That information isn’t given to patients, but it’s really important. Actually that’s a much more informative and transparent way to understand the benefit they’re going to get.

On top of that when you look at people with lower risk, otherwise healthy people, there is no mortality benefit. People should know that if they haven’t had a heart attack, according to the published literature, they are not high risk and they’re going to live one day longer from taking statins.”

Statins Are Associated With Serious Side Effects

Then there’s the issue of side effects. According to Malhotra, between 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 patients suffer unacceptable side effects (which he qualifies as side effects that interfere with or diminish the quality of your life). Muscle pain is the most significant side effect reported followed by fatigue (mostly in women). This isn’t very surprising, considering the fact that statins are essentially a metabolic blocker and mitochondrial poison.

They inhibit an enzyme called HMG-CoA reductase. This is how they lower cholesterol. But that same enzyme is also responsible for a number of other things like making coenzyme Q10, which is why muscle pain and fatigue are so common. This is in fact a sign that your CoQ10 is being depleted, and you don’t have enough cellular energy.

Statins also block the formation of ketones, which are an essential part of mitochondrial nutrition and overall health. If you can’t make ketones, you impair the metabolism in your entire body, including your heart, thereby raising your risk for heart problems and a variety of other diseases. It’s also recently been established that within a few years of taking statins, the drug causes type 2 diabetes in one out of 100 patients.

That too can be a significant tradeoff that needs to be taken into account, as diabetes is a risk factor for heart disease and other chronic diseases. Dr. Michel De Lorgeril, a well-respected French cardiologist at Grenoble University recently reopened the debate about statins after publishing a review in which he questions whether statins actually have any benefit at all.

“He pointed out several discrepancies in the original trials ... statistical manipulation, conflict of interest ... ” Malhotra says.”He’s actually suggested that maybe nobody benefits from statins; even people on statins for prevention.

He says that unless we get access to the raw data, independent analysis, the actual claims about the benefits of statins are not evidence-based. Now, I’m not personally saying that. I’m saying this is really intriguing and certainly raises as many questions ... This is something that people need to know about. Even if we use the published literature at face value properly, people would be better informed. That’s the way forward in my view.”

More Information

Malhotra is currently finalizing a film called “The Big Fat Fix,” which will present a dietary protocol that incorporates many of the components of the Mediterranean lifestyle to help you reduce your risk of obesity, reverse type 2 diabetes and improve your cardiovascular health.

“We went to visit the village where Ancel Keys spent six months each year for 30 years doing his research. They had very high longevity. We try and find out what the secrets were and how things got misinterpreted,” Malhotra says. “This is really what the film will show. Where did things go wrong and where do we go from here?”

This Way of Eating Doubled a Mouse's Lifespan

How and Why Too Much Protein Triggers Aging and Cancer

May 07, 2016 | 

By Dr. Mercola

Anti-aging expert Ron Rosedale, M.D., was among the first to warn people about thedangers of eating too much protein — a stance that has received a fair share of criticism over the years, although mounting research now offers strong support for this notion.

He was the first to help me understand the importance of insulin in 1995 and more recently the importance of protein and mTOR as discussed in the above video. I consider him my most important nutritional mentor. The featured lecture was given in February of this year at Vail. In it Dr. Rosedale details the ancestral connection between protein, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), the aging process, and cancer formation. He starts out by offering an absolutely simple yet profound piece of wisdom in that “your health and likely your lifespan will be determined by the proportion of fat versus sugar you burn over a lifetime.”

In essence, he proposes that any food that helps you burn fat is likely beneficial for health, and any that makes you burn sugar is likely not. This is largely because sugar is a “dirty” fuel and fats and ketones burn far cleaner causing far less oxidative damage. Hormones and the communication between them play an important role here, and those hormones are determined by the foods you eat. According to Rosedale, “you should eat today to control the hormones that will tell you what you will need to eat tomorrow.”

In a nutshell, this hypothesis completely ignores the “calories in, calories out” dogma, and instead focuses on foods that support hormones and growth factors that make your body burn fat rather than sugar.

Protein Restriction — An Important Dietary Strategy for Optimal Health

The low-carb diet made its initial appearance some 40+ years ago. In particular, it was found that low carb diets facilitated weight loss. At the time, most people recommended replacing carbs with high amounts of protein, and these low-carb, high-protein diets (such as Atkins') worked quite well for the purpose of shedding weight. Dietary fat was almost universally avoided, as most experts embraced the “low fat myth" and fat was thought to promote obesity and heart disease. Rosedale, however, wanted to treat diabetics, and was one of the few who promoted a high-fat diet for that purpose.

One of the primary problems with excess protein or amino acids is that it stimulates mTOR, which stimulates growth rather than regeneration. Fat calories did not stimulate mTOR, leptin or insulin. They were essentially metabolically free calories.  Rosedale found a diet high in healthy fats worked quite well for diabetes and heart disease patients. Over time, he discovered that restricting protein was another important factor that could affect health, and even more specifically the aging process.

Why Paleo Diets Don’t Promote Longevity

Dr. Rosedale is of the opinion that while the Paleo diet may help mimic a diet that will optimize reproductive success, it will not necessarily help you live longer, because life extension and reproductive capacity do not go hand in hand.

“We can’t use nature, in general, to tell us how to live a long happy life,” he says, “because nature doesn’t care [about life extension]. Nature’s purpose is to get genes passed along [to the next generation].”

From an evolutionary perspective, nutrients had to be allocated by an organism either for a) growth, replication, and reproduction, or b) maintenance and repair, which helps you stay alive longer.

As a rule, nature will keep an organism alive long enough to replicate and reproduce; it doesn’t care much about staying alive post reproduction, and that’s why we age and die. “What we want to do is apply that science post reproductively,” Rosedale says.

Life Extension Depends on Upregulating Repair Mechanisms

At any given moment, there’s competition in your body between cellular damage and repair. As the damage becomes greater than your body’s ability to repair and regenerate, deterioration sets in. “If we could repair damage as fast as it occurs, we could live forever,” he says.

The reason we cannot keep up with this maintenance is because our repair mechanisms become damaged over time as well. So your best chance of living longer is to upregulate your repair mechanisms, because you simply cannot stop damage from occurring. Simply breathing creates oxidation and damage.

Fortunately, all organisms, including humans, are equipped with a mechanism by which cells can outlast nutrient deprivation (famine), and that’s part of the answer.

Remember, the foods you eat will influence either a) repair, which will help you live longer, or b) reproduction, and your body is ingeniously equipped with “nutrient sensors” that help determine how the nutrition will be used.

Insulin, leptin, and insulin-like growth factor (IGF) are examples of nutrient sensing hormones that in turn regulate metabolism, growth, cell differentiation, and cellular survival. Organizing all of these nutrient sensors is the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR).

According to Rosedale, mTOR is the most important signaling pathway in your body. It’s an ancient pathway found in virtually all organisms, including bacteria.

Why mTOR Is So Important for Longevity

Your mTOR pathway orchestrates all the available nutrient sensors in your body, and decides whether cells should replicate now or stay alive to replicate at a more opportune time in the future when nutrients are more plentiful.

The latter is part of the mechanism that allows for life extension, and this is whycalorie restriction appears to be so effective at making organisms live longer. In one experiment, the lifespan of a mouse was extended from two to four years by inhibiting IGF receptors through a calorie restrictive diet.

Other research cited in Rosedale’s lecture has demonstrated that by using a drug compound that inhibits growth hormone, they were able to reverse signs of aging, noting this may seem counterintuitive as some older people take growth hormone for revitalizing purposes.

As noted by Rosedale, “there’s a dichotomy, apparently, between growth, reproduction, and longevity.”  He also points out that there’s a cross-reaction between insulin and IGF. High insulin is detrimental to health in part by stimulating IGF receptors, which is a growth hormone.

High insulin also causes insulin resistance of course, which has an adverse effect on your metabolism. But by promoting growth hormone, high insulin effectively decreases longevity, as growth and longevity cannot be promoted simultaneously.  You’re choosing one or the other.

Calorie Restriction, Longevity and Thyroid Function

On a side note, since we’re talking about hormones, a 2005 study noted that “some of the common and consistent effects of calorie restriction... include lower fat mass, particularly visceral fat, lower circulating insulin and IGF-1 concentrations, increased insulin sensitivity, lower body temperature, lower fat-free mass, decreased levels of thyroid hormones and decreased oxidative stress.”

According to Rosedale, this is an important piece of information, because if you embark on a ketogenic, high-fat, low net carb diet you may notice your thyroid hormone levels going down, which may raise concerns about thyroid disease. Such concerns are unwarranted (as long as your TSH level is normal). In fact, this is a much healthier state, Rosedale says.

“You’re running cooler, allocating more resources toward maintenance, repair, and longevity,” he says. “It’s not thyroid disease ... because TSH did not go up, which is how you define hypothyroidism.”

Protein Intake Determines Your IGF Concentration

So IGF is a key player when it comes to longevity. It appears that by inhibiting IGF you can boost lifespan and reduce your risk of cancer (remember, cancer is an out of control proliferation of malignant cells. By redirecting energy from proliferation to repair and maintenance, cancer growth is impeded). And what nutrient determines your level of IGF? Protein. Higher protein intake elevates IGF, and lower intake decreases it.

As noted by Rosedale, there’s a major difference between a low-carb/high protein diet and a low-carb/high-fat diet. The former raises IGF, and the latter does not. In the early days of the low-carb revolution, no distinction was made between high protein or high fat, and since fat was so vilified, most people replaced the carbs with protein. It worked well for weight loss, but drawbacks also became apparent.

Since then, researchers have discovered that low-protein diets extend lifespan in flies, and the underlying reason for that is improved mitochondrial function and mTOR inhibition. According to the authors, “the molecular mechanisms responsible for the lifespan extension in the flies have important implications for human aging and diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cancer.”

Rapamycin, mTOR and Cancer Risk

Rapamycin, which is an mTOR inhibitor, is an antifungal agent that also inhibits cancer. Interestingly, it’s also an immune suppressant, and in medicine it’s used to suppress immune function during organ transplantation to avoid organ rejection.

Research shows that kidney transplant patients actually have a lower incidence of cancer — despite having lowered immune function — and this effect is thought to be due to the protective effects of rapamycin. It seems counterintuitive, since strong immune function is typically considered to be foundational for cancer suppression, so these findings suggest something else, and something quite powerful, is at play.

That “something,” is mTOR. By inhibiting mTOR, rapamycin powerfully inhibits cancer, despite lowered immune function. So what else affects mTOR? Amino acids and glucose both affect TOR directly, which is why carbs and protein have such a detrimental effect on health and aging. Insulin and other growth factors all upregulate TOR, which is why it’s so important to keep your insulin and IGF low.

Remember, TOR regulates growth and repair. Either growth is promoted or maintenance and repair, depending on whether TOR is up- or downregulated. When TOR is suppressed, maintenance and repair is upregulated and that results in increased longevity, which is what you want.

Exercise and Fasting Upregulates Genetic Expression of Maintenance and Repair

Again, mTOR senses nutrient availability, and directs energy accordingly. Hence your diet can have a tremendous influence on your lifespan.  Glucose and amino acids are the nutrients and fuel necessary for replication and reproduction. If you keep glucose, amino acids, insulin, and growth factors like IGF low, you will suppress mTOR, thereby allowing the upregulation of the genetic expression of maintenance and repair.

TOR also plays an important role in autophagy, the process by which your body cleans out debris, including toxins, and recycles damaged cell components. A similar process is known as mitophagy, where damaged mitochondria are cleaned out and replaced with new, healthy ones, and this process is also largely regulated by mTOR.

By boosting your body’s autophagy processes, you dampen inflammation, slow down the aging process, and optimize biological function. Autophagy occurs in response to stress. Exercise is one way by which you boost autophagy. Fasting is another. As noted in a 2011 study published in Molecular Cell Biology:1

“In all eukaryotes [incl. humans], the TOR signaling pathway couples energy and nutrient abundance to the execution of cell growth and division, owing to the ability of TOR protein kinase to simultaneously sense energy, nutrients and stress and, in metazoans [incl. humans], growth factors. In the past few years, a significant advance in our understanding of the regulation and functions of mTOR has revealed the crucial involvement of this signaling pathway in the onset and progression of diabetes, cancer and aging.”

Excessive Protein Shuts Down Autophagy and Increases Cancer Risk by Stimulating mTOR

Of all the components that stimulate mTOR, amino acids are the most potent stimulators. Hence, eating large amounts of protein is also one of the quickest ways to shut down autophagy, which prevents your body from effectively cleaning out debris and damaged cells. According to Rosedale, even if you do everything else right to keep glucose and insulin low, your mTOR would still be elevated if you eat too much protein.

He also notes that virtually all cancers are associated with mTOR activation, so activating mTOR is something you’ll definitely want to avoid. This is why I recommend limiting protein to about 40 to 70 grams per day, depending on your lean body mass.

The specific formula is one gram of protein for every kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. To determine your lean body mass, subtract your percent body fat from 100. For example, if you have 30 percent body fat, then you have 70 percent lean body mass. Then multiply that percentage (in this case, 0.7) by your current weight to get your lean body mass in pounds or kilos.

In the past, Rosedale used to recommend cutting that down to 0.75 grams per kilo of lean body mass if you were diabetic. Today, he believes this may actually be a more ideal amount for everyone, and you could even go below that because your body will conserve protein when you suppress mTOR and increase maintenance and repair. That said, protein is important for muscle maintenance and growth, so there’s definitely a fine balance that needs to be struck.

Protein Sources

Substantial amounts of protein can be found in meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Some vegetables also contain generous amounts of protein — for example, broccoli. Forty grams of protein is not a large amount of food — it's the equivalent of one 6-ounce chicken breast.

To determine whether or not you're getting too much protein, simply calculate your body's requirement based on your lean body mass, and write down everything you eat for a few days. Then calculate the amount of daily protein you've consumed from all sources. If you're currently averaging a lot more than what is optimal, adjust downward accordingly. The following chart provides a quick overview of how much protein is in various foods.

Red meat, pork, poultry, and seafood average 6 to 9 grams of protein per ounce. An ideal amount for most people would be a 3-ounce serving of meat or seafood (not 9- or 12-ounce steaks!), which will provide about 18 to 27 grams of protein	Eggs contain about 6 to 8 grams of protein per egg. So an omelet made from two eggs would give you about 12 to 16 grams of protein If you add cheese, you need to calculate that protein in as well (check the label of your cheese)
Seeds and nuts contain on average 4 to 8 grams of protein per quarter cup	Cooked beans average about 7 to 8 grams per half cup
Cooked grains average 5 to 7 grams per cup	Most vegetables contain about 1 to 2 grams of protein per ounce

Is Protein Restriction Even More Important Than Net Carbohydrate Restriction?

Since mTOR can be elevated even if your glucose and insulin levels are low, and since mTOR regulates energy distribution, growth, and repair, Rosedale now believes protein restriction may be even more important than the restriction of net carbohydrates (total carbs minus fiber). This theory has in fact been tested, and found to hold true. As noted in a 2014 study in Cell Metabolism:2

“Longevity and health were optimized when protein was replaced with carbohydrate to limit compensatory feeding for protein and suppress protein intake ... The results suggest that longevity can be extended in ad libitum-fed animals by manipulating the ratio of macronutrients to inhibit mTOR activation.”

It’s worth noting they didn’t test a high-fat diet. They were only looking at carbs versus protein, and if those were your only choices, protein restriction may in fact be more important than carb restriction. However, there are many drawbacks with eating lots of non-fiber carbs too, so it’s far from an ideal solution. Your best alternative is to replace net carbs with high quality healthy fats, and restrict protein to just what your body needs (as described above).

Beware: Ketogenic Diets Can Be High-Protein or High-Fat, But Only the Latter Is of True Benefit

Now, here’s where things might get confusing, because research3 has also shown that ketone body utilization drives tumor growth and metastasis. (Ketones are acids made by your body when it burns fat rather than carbohydrates as its primary fuel.) This finding appears to be completely contradictory to so many other studies that show a ketogenic diet effectively “starves” cancer. But there is an answer to this apparent contradiction, which Rosedale explains in his lecture.

“It isn’t ketogenesis, really, that we’re after,” he says. “It’s fat burning. They’re not the same. You can have a ketogenic diet by eating protein. It isn’t the ketones, necessarily, that give you the benefit, it’s the fact that you’re burning fat, and the ketones are a byproduct. So you have to specify if you’re going to [promote a] ketogenic diet that it’s a high fat ketogenic diet.

It’s really the burning of fat that’s of benefit. As a result, you’ll get ketones that your brain needs. They do good things too ... So a ketogenic diet is a good diet, but not because it’s ketogenic. It’s [good] because it’s an indication that you’re burning fat.”

The Ideal Diet? Think Low-Carb, Moderate-Protein, High-Fat

I believe it's absolutely crucial, no matter what type of cancer you're trying to address, to incorporate a high-fat ketogenic diet, meaning a diet high in healthy fats like avocado, coconut oil, butter, olive oil and macadamia nuts, low in net carbs (total carbs minus fiber), and moderate amounts of high quality protein, ideally no more than about 1 gram per kilo of lean body mass.

Such a diet, along with Peak Fasting can be easily integrated into whatever cancer treatment plan you decide to follow. More importantly, this kind of diet may be key for preventing cancer and other chronic diseases in the first place. It also appears to be key for longevity, and will help optimize your weight as well, since eating this way will help you convert from burning sugar to burning fat as your primary fuel.