Historical Event
Date:
January 1, 1957
Short Description:
Tweet:
Reddit:
Ahrens observes carbohydrates increasing trigylcerides in the blood as an alternative to diet-heart hypothesis.
Title:
Book:
Person:
URL:
Important Text:
Pete Ahrens was objecting already in 1957: "When unproved hypotheses are enthusiastically proclaimed as facts, it is timely to reflect on the possibility that other explanations can be given for the phenomena observed."
​
Ahren's own research had opened up another line of inquiry, suggesting that the carbohydrates found in cereals, grains, flour, and sugar might be contributing directly to if not actually causing obesity and disease. And he correctly predicted that a fat-reduced diet would only increase our consumption of these foods.
​
The highly controlled liquid-formula feeding experiments that he conducted from 1951 to 1964 consistently revealed that these trigylcerides shot up w henever carbohydrates replaced fat in the diet. A majority of patients showed the clouding because of a "normal chemical process which occurs in all people on high carbohydrate diets," Ahrens wrote.
​
“But let’s talk about Pete Ahrens,” he volunteered. “Pete Ahrens! He was always a big roadblock on everything! I used to have vigorous discussions with Pete.”
Mockingly, Stamler proceeded to channel Ahrens: “No, We’re researching this, give us another five years. We have to do balanced studies. We have to figure it out. We don’t know.”
“He always opposed any statement. I would say, ‘Pete, what you’re saying is that the present American diet is the best diet you can conceive of for the health of the American people.’ ‘No! No!’ ‘But Pete, please, the logic!’ Anyway, he’s dead and gone now.”
​
Listening to Stamler talk, I could almost picture his spear. “And Yudkin!” Stamler nearly bellowed to me, referring to the British doctor who promoted the rival sugar hypothesis. “I was part of shooting him down!” And of Michael Oliver, a prominent British cardiologist and critic of the diet-heart hypothesis, Stamler repeatedly said that he was a “scoundrel.”
​
Nina Teicholz - The Big Fat Surprise - Page 59, Page 60