Via Stephan Guyenet comes a report of a study showing that following a strict vegan diet known as the Daniel fast for 21 days improves CV health markers.
The Daniel fast “prohibits the consumption of animal products, refined foods, white flour, preservatives, additives, sweeteners, flavorings, caffeine, and alcohol” and following the diet for 21 days “has been demonstrated to improve blood pressure, LDL-C, and certain markers of oxidative stress, but it has also been shown to lower HDL-C.”
The study seemed to be designed to test how krill oil supplementation affected health markers (it didn’t). But the study did show improvements in multiple CV health markers such as reductions in LDL-C, the LDL:HDL ratio, fasting blood glucose, fasting blood insulin, systolic BP, and body weight.
Moral of the story? To me, this study is reinforcement that it may well be less about what you eat (especially as far as macronutrient ratio or following a very strict paleo diet goes) and more about what you don’t, namely SAD foods.
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health & food policy. And cats! 
But the Daniel fast is really about calorie restriction. Yes, it’s vegan but it’s really about restriction of all food. They emphasize the “fast” part of the diet that’s for sure. You are to welcome hunger and limit food intake as much as possible. It seems to me the take-away is that, once again, calorie restriction appears to provide some improvement in health markers and shockingly you lose weight.
Interestingly, it’s apparently not a huge reduction in calories. I found a free text version (PDF) of a study the same authors reported in 2010 and the delta in calories was ~460 cals per day (2185 to 1722). Another good reason to reduce SAD foods first!
That is interesting. I wish more information about the specific diet was provided. 1,700 a day is not the Daniel fast. Ad libitum? That’s a huge stretch. I’ve done it twice and I can assure you there was nothing ad libitum about it. If your assumption is correct then it seems to me they should have just called it a vegan diet. Or a JERF vegan diet. Give people a list of inherently low cal
foods and tell them they can eat whatever they want is more like WW Core program (and we all know how well that one has proven to work.)
But whatever you call it it’s still just calorie restriction via restriction of calorically dense foods. I seriously question their conclusion that compliance is high with restriction of types of foods (presumably vs self-imposed restriction of quantity of any and all types of foods) For 21 days perhaps but where are we at 21 weeks on a program like this?
As you know I believe in macro manipulation as it’s the only thing that ever worked for me and for so many I know but I know for sure there are many paths to God. Getting rid of junk is always a great first start. Cutting 500 calories a day is also a good plan…or so we have been told time and time again (and again with this study if your figures are correct.)
I don’t know. Seems like same old same old to me in more ways than one. Stop eating junk and instead eat low calorie foods which are namely veggies and fruit, and “bloodwork” get a little better and you lose 5 pounds. Great. Fantastic. Show me the study where people somehow managed to be compliant with this plan for 21 weeks or, heaven forbid, 21 months instead of 21 days and then you’ll have something new and actually useful. Show me the people who ate like this for an extended period of time and lost the 100 lbs they wanted to lose and kept it off and then I’ll agree that it’s more about what you don’t eat. Markers getting better is one thing. Losing significant amounts of weight and keeping it off is something else. Better CV health does not a new size jeans make. My money is on it being about vastly more than just not eating junk.
Beth it just occurred to me that our “it”s may be different. I assumed you included weight loss in yours but perhaps that is not the case. If your assertion is simply that CV health markers improve based on what we don’t eat more than what we do eat then I would probably agree with that. I just don’t include weight loss as part of that equation.
No, I do include weight loss. I don’t deny your experience … reducing carbs may well be necessary for you. You’re certainly making it work! I’m just not convinced that it’s macronutrient ratio per se that is driving obesity as a general rule.
BTW, not sure if you saw, but over on Evelyn’s blog we were talking about research Christopher Gardner reported in his ATOZ study that showed folks’ response to a LC or LF diet varied based on their insulin sensitivity. Folks who were more insulin resistant did do better on LC, folks who were more insulin sensitive did better on LF. And folks like us who get to be 100+ lbs overweight are probably more IR than not. For me, a PHD lower-carb diet (100g/day) has worked well.
Re doing this plan for extended periods of time, it seems to me that Furhman’s Nutritarian approach is fairly close. And some folks seem to do well on that. I wouldn’t choose it myself though!
It wasn’t that caloric restricted.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-9-82.pdf
Table 3 - Dietary data before and during the final 7 days of a 21-day Daniel Fast
Variable Pre Post p valuea
Energy (kcal) 1857.6 ± 94.4 1601.7 ± 84.7
So calories declined from appx 1858 to appx 1600
Carbohydrate (g) 229.2 ± 12.5 240.5 ± 14.1 0.35
Carbohydrate (% energy) 49.5 ± 1.0 60.7 ± 1.7
Carbs increased from appx 50% to appx 61%
Fat (g) 66.6 ± 3.8 54.9 ± 4.7 0.02
Fat (% energy) 32.2 ± 0.8 30.1
Fat went from appx 32% to appx 30%
Protein (g) 79.4 ± 6.2 53.0 ± 3.4 < 0.01
Protein (% energy) 16.7 ± 0.7 13.2 ± 0.5
Protein went from appx 17% to appx 13%
Way too high carb for me.
It may be too high carb for you, but it does suggest that a higher carb diet can result in weight loss and improved CV markers, no?
The Nutrition and Metabolism site does not mention that the Daniel Fast is based on the Book of Daniel in the Bible. The original intents was spiritual, that is, fasting combined with prayer. Some Christian congregations have followed it during the 40 days of Lent. (BTW, it would not be compulsory). I have no idea if there have been any published results.
“Moral of the story? To me, this study is reinforcement that it may well be less about what you eat (especially as far as macronutrient ratio or following a very strict paleo diet goes) and more about what you don’t, namely SAD foods.”
(sarcasm)—> But, jeez, that sucks…because SAD foods are such HAPPY foods!!!!
I guess my point is at risk if I don’t add the following: SAD foods are socially constructed (in more ways than I can begin to show here, but mainly by dominant cultural discourses) as happy foods, but not just as tasty or pleasurable in the eating—rather, for example, dominant cultural discourses suggest that SAD foods make you happy because they offer you CONNECTION with others, the discourses and images suggest that SAD foods do wonderful things to enhance our sense of belonging, such as: 1) bring family members closer together over shared meals (buckets of fried chicken, for instance); 2) help you to feel part of the big (imaginary) community that eats this way (so you feel less isolated and different, supposedly); 3) tell us that SAD foods bring the world to us and us to the world (again, to offer that feeling of being connected and not different); 4) create wonderful memories of togetherness, 5) provide fulfillment through repeated “traditions” and “rituals” (such as Halloween candy each year…)
In other words, the dominant cultural discourses and images show SAD foods can be substitutes for the things we don’t like to believe are missing from our modern lives….Authentic connection, beautiful traditions that ACTUALLY create community, memorable and meaningful and meaning-FILLED lives…
SAD foods are thus made to whisper, as it were, stories of another (happier) reality that can be yours for the eating…
When I think back to my “love” for Friday night pizza with my sweetie, I see the little ritual was not really about the food, it was about trying to create something from the food that cannot be created except by daring to risk…a lot…