Eat Fat, Be Healthy
Author: Frank Carrea, Matthew J. Bayan
List Price: $9.99
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Publisher: Scribner
Sales Rank: 21,796
Average Customer Rating: 4 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Highly Recommended and Well Worth The Money
This is an excellent book written by a man who has both personal (heart attack survivor) and professional experience (25 years managing health and nutrition programs) with the topics of heart disease and diet. The book depicts a journey of self-discovery regarding a genetic risk factor (Apolipoprotien B gene) which predisposes the carrier to paradoxically produce heart- threatening, small particle LDL on a low fat diet. Conveyed in dramatic and, at times, humorous terms, this book contains valuable information for anyone who wants to be an active, knowledgeable, and critical consumer of their own cardiac healthcare. Many patients in our clinic have positively endorsed the book, describing it as "one of the best to read in the area", "down to earth and understandable", "interesting and entertaining", "personally empowering", and "great advice from someone who has been there." As an added bonus, the author provides a web page address and links through which he interacts and consults with readers, responsibly referring them to places where they can obtain state of the art diagnostics regarding a variety of "heart-stopper" risk profiles, additional sources of information, and professional advice. Highly recommended and well worth the money.
Rating: 5 out of 5
A Life Saver
I've worked ER and the idea that someone could survive seventy-two defibrillations was (pardon the pun) a shocking thought. The author is a miracle man indeed! I've never seen anyone brought back from cardiac arrest that many times, or even close to it.I thoroughly enjoyed this man's sense of humor. He truly captured the sometimes circus-like atmosphere of a hospital. And his interactions with the nurses ring true. I laughed out loud at a couple of places where his wit rightly lances some pompous and absurd aspects of our medical system.
His explanations of the science behind how cholesterol is formed and how it functions in the body are simple, to the point, and very understandable. This is the best explanation of how our bodies manage fat that I have ever read. I wish doctors could be this clear to their patients.
Mr. Bayan has uncovered a truly dangerous disease and has unflinchingly told his story, even though I am sure it was difficult to do. I hope his book is successful in reaching the millions of people who unknowingly carry this dangerous affliction. This book could save many lives.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Interesting and useful
Most people interested or experiencing coronary heart disease will probably find this book useful. It is well and lively written, easy to follow and full of very practical self-tested and perhaps life-saving guidelines. One big plus of this book is that the author is not afraid of questioning the established medical dogmas, and at the same time is also able to see some merit in it as well, without thrashing it out altogether. My other comment is that it would benefit to have more thoroughly quoted scientific references, the way for example Atkins has done; for example in the chapter where the author strongly criticizes dr.Ornish' diet for failing or being outright harmful in large fraction of cardiac cases (quotes 5,15-30 or even 41%) due to genetic factors, the scientific reference is provided (LBL, U of Ca, page 59) but is unfortunately untraceable. This is quite important as the author's statement is in strong contradiction to Ornish's own claim of his diet being good for almost everybody. There are several inaccuracies in this book. For example, the author has correctly noticed that a diet high in fats is known to improve the lipid panel in almost all cases, especially by increasing HDL and reducing supposedly harmful LDL-B, unfortunately on page 60 while recommending unsaturated fats he at the same time suggests to avoid saturated fat without providing any scientific evidence backing such a claim (which of course there exist none but it is another story...). The author does not mention that not only there is no evidence to support the notion that natural saturated fats are supposed to be bad, at the same time there is no mention of studies pointing to possible health hazards (e.g. cancer, blood clotting alteration) from eating the very fat that he recommends - polyunsaturated vegetable oils. In terms of dietary recommendation as per title of the book, that is to eat fat, it stops at 30% calories, which is sort of half-way through and falls short of what other non-conventional doctors advocate as a true high fat diet. In fact at 30% it should still be classified as a high carb low fat diet, since human metabolism switches to the true high fat regime only after exceeding 50% (optimum is 60-80%) by calories. This might perhaps explain why the author had to resort to using drugs to further improve his lipid profile. This book raises also more questions than answers, which is good! For example: it is still unclear whether the lipid anomalies are the causes or the symptoms (caused by some unknown factor), some studies indicate one some other the second possibility. Also it is highly unlikely, contrary to the author's suggestion, that a genetic defect which kills men in their 40-ties would have persisted in the population in such a high percentage as 1 out of 4 or so. It is probably more likely that the real cause is in food or environmental while genetics may be simply making those people more susceptible to the real (as yet unknown) agent of the disease. In spite of the above comments I would recommend this book. Last but not least, I firmly believe that the book would have been hugely enhanced had the author expanded upon the statement on page 87 ("I _choose_ to come back here.").
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