Unedited excerpt from 180-Degree Health: Understanding and Reversing the Decline of Human Health, due for release in January 2009
…one need look much further than the end result of most people ?livin? la vida low carb. Everyone knows that going on a practically no carb diet has serious drawbacks. For one, most people get mean constipation. If not, your body odor and breath start stinking to a level that screams, ‘this can’t be healthy! What’s totally nuts is that even Dr. Fatkins himself mentions, on page 303 of Dr. Fatkins New Diet Revolution?
??remember that prolonged dieting [including ‘this one?] tends to shut down thyroid function. This is usually not a problem with the thyroid gland but with the liver, which fails to convert T4 into the more active thyroid principle, T3. The diagnosis is made on clinical grounds with the presence of fatigue, sluggishness, dry skin, coarse or falling hair, an elevation in cholesterol, or a low body temperature.
In my own personal copy of the book, I have this quote in brackets with ?WTF?? written beside it in large letters. Now I do agree that his competitor’s diets do ‘tend? to do the same thing, but rarely do they acknowledge that. But how does one come to the conclusion that their diet is the bomb, knowing that it ‘tends to shut down thyroid function. He might as well have said, ‘tends to make you go blind,? or ‘tends to make your arms fall off,? or ‘tends to make you blow your brains out? because shutting down the thyroid is an astronomically big deal. In fact, the biggest disservice you could possibly do for someone who is overweight is to ‘shut down thyroid function. Ah jeez.
Weight loss aside, low thyroid output is associated with virtually every known disease of aging (with or without being paired in a dual relationship with hyperinsulinemia). I could go off for a couple of days on the connections, but you can get the gist of the significance of Fatkins’s comment on the thyroid by simply reading this extended title, a book written by James Scheer and Stephen Langer, M.D.,
Solved, The Riddle of Illness: How Managing Your Thyroid Can Help You Fight and Control: Arthritis, Cancer, Diabetes, Obesity, Heart Disease, Fibromyalgia, Sexual Problems
Their book is sound in terms of making connections between low thyroid function and the degenerative diseases of aging, well-established by ahead-of-his-time Endocrinologist Broda Barnes (who recommended ?one gram of protein for each kilo of body weight? a minimum of fifty grams of carbohydrate to avoid ketosis? [and] enough fat should be added to keep the appetite satisfied.). The only problem is that the book uses the information to spew propaganda for thyroid hormone supplementation when proper eating (which by the way includes far more than 50 grams daily of starch-based carbohydrate) is much safer and more effective, especially for the type of thyroid-related malfunction that Fatkins was referring to. Anyway, suffice it to say that the health of your thyroid has certainly been given thorough consideration in any and all weight loss and health-improvement advice that I have to share….
I find the dark blue print on black background almost impossible to read. I confess that I'm also put off by the childish name calling (Fatkins?). You seem to have an interesting message so I wish you could present it in a legible and at least relatively polite way.
Me? Polite? Not a chance!