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- A very good sign that
you've misunderstood the cause

of a disorder is your inability
to treat or prevent it.

- You look at the data of
ever increasing obesity

and diabetes and you just think,

how is it possible the
whole world has failed

to eat healthfully?

Maybe we're being
told the wrong advice.

- [Reporter] Since the 1960s
the American Heart Association

has been saying saturated
fat is detrimental

to cardiovascular health,

you need to get it
out of the diet.

- It's hard to think of
another policy that has caused

so much harm that
has been so wrong.

- You know the chief
killer of Americans

is cardiovascular disease.

- [Dr. Sara] The manipulation
of the data and the idea

and the push for low-fat,
really got us in trouble.

- I think the low-fat
diet is genocide.

- Saturated fat increases
cardiovascular risk.

- We've been told forever
that fats gonna kill you.

- This started because
incontrovertible evidence

that saturated fat is bad.

- Over and over and over.

- The more animal protein,
particularly red meat you eat,

the more likely you'll
get sick from all kinds

of different things.

- You're fat because
you eat too much fat.

- So, low-fat, low-fat,
low-fat, low-fat, low-fat.

- [Dr. Mark] For 40-years,
the dietary guidelines

have set nutrition standards
for every American,

for our kids in school, for
food programs for the poor

and the elderly, for rations
for our nation's military,

for doctors, nutritionists
and dieticians.

We've had it hammered into
our heads that fat is bad,

especially saturated fat,
the kind found in meat,

dairy and some tropical
oils like coconut and palm.

- [Female Narrator] The base
of the pyramid, carbohydrates.

- [Dr. Mark] The food pyramid
codified our fat phobia

telling us to make
carbohydrates the foundation

of our food choices.

- I think the food pyramid
is great if you're standing

on your head because
you need to turn

that pyramid upside down.

- You can't be serious,
that would put butter

and fat at the top of the--

- Flip the damn food pyramid!

- Nutrition is stabilizing.

- We got the whole story wrong,

we were told to eat six
to 11 servings of bread,

rice, cereal and pasta
a day by the government

and the food pyramid,

it should be called
the food tombstone.

- I'm Doctor Mark Hyman, a
functional medicine physician

with a focus on
food as medicine.

And I understand the
healing power of food.

But I can tell you,

the low-fat diet did
not make us healthy.

- I think a low-fat heart
healthy diet is unproven.

It was essentially
a huge experiment on
millions of people,

and it failed miserably.

Wait a minute,
have you not seen,

are you not practicing
medicine to see who's coming

into your clinic
to see the problems

that this idea has caused?

I mean, it's just
to me, unbelievable.

- [Dr. Mark] For years, even
I believed that eating fat

would make me fat and
that eating saturated fat

would cause heart
disease and kill me.

But now, a growing
group of experts reveal

that the science against
saturated fat was never there.

- I was astonished to
find that there simply

was no evidence.

- It was just an idea, but
it was launched as a policy

for all Americans based
really on no evidence at all.

- What is the evidence?

A big, big zero.

- Our federal
dietary guidelines,

the official government advice
for how we should all eat

to stay healthy, tell us
to limit saturated fat

to just a couple of bites a day

and make carbohydrates more
than half our daily calories.

I'm here to tell
you, that advice

is upside down and backwards.

The idea that eating fat
will make you fat is wrong

and the science that
says saturated fat
causes heart disease

is misleading and instead
has led our nation down

a dangerous path toward
a wide-spread epidemic

of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

- We screwed up, it happens
all the time in science,

medical orthodoxy latched
onto the wrong explanation,

made a tragic mistake
and now we're living

with the consequences.

(mellow music)

- [Charlie Gibson] The
nation got a report card

on obesity today and
the country flunked.

- [News Reporter] The
battle against obesity

has been going on for years.

- [Michelle Obama] One in
three children in this country

is overweight or obese.

- [Dr. Mehmet] An
estimated $200 billion cost

to the healthcare industry
continues to rise.

- [Gayle King] The
search for weight loss

and health may be a little
more complex than you think.

- [Peter Jennings]
Despite all attempts

to attack the problem, the
adult obesity rate increased

in 23 states last year.

- [Cynthia Mcmadden] Why
is it that Americans keep

getting fatter in spite of
government efforts ranging

from calorie posting to
new school lunch program?

- [Gary Taubes] A lot of
things with science is about

is seeing whether things

that make sense are
really right or not.

In this case, it sounded
reasonable but happened

to be wrong.

- I'm not happy about
a lot of years of being

at different doctors,
and every time

that I'd go in there was just,
here's another injection,

here's a different
kind of an injectable,

this is the injectable
that is supposed

to help you make
your own insulin.

The list of side effects
were longer than your arm

and it never made
you feel better.

And certainly, didn't
help at all with weight.

- [Dr. Mark] Judi has struggled
with type 2 diabetes most

of her life, so did her dad.

When she was a teenager,
he died from complications

of the disease.

Judi's tried for decades

to get her blood
sugar under control.

- When I did everything
they told me to do,

I'd still gain weight, and
so then you just give up.

- [News Anchor]
This health epidemic

is weighing on Americans--

- [Dr. Mark] Judi is not alone.

- [News Anchor] U.S obesity
epidemic is only getting worse.

- Americans are not winning
their battle over obesity.

- Obesity among children doubled
over the past two decades.

- [Dr. Mark] Today, 75% of
the country is overweight

or obese, and one in two
of us, has pre-diabetes

or type 2 diabetes.

- Type 2 diabetes is crushing
us financially, crushing us.

- It currently costs
a person with diabetes

in America $900 a
month for insulin.

- Direct cost to our
healthcare system

is about a billion
dollars a day.

- There isn't enough money
in the healthcare system

to be able to afford this.

- The cost in terms
of money is huge,

the cost in terms
of human suffering

is like 10 times more than that.

- [Dr. Mark] In the space
of a single generation,

we've gone from this, to this.

- Watching the footage of the
50th anniversary of Apollo 11,

I was struck by how not fat
everyone in the crowd was.

We look like a completely
different race of people.

- The heart attacks,
the strokes, the
cancer, the blindness,

the amputations, all of that,

I think is unnecessary suffering
that we're causing people.

- [Dr. Mark] The question
is, where did this come from

and why is it occurring?

When I was in medical school,

type 2 diabetes happened
only in older adults.

Now we see it in kids as
young as age three years old

and the more we try to medicate
our way out of the disease,

the worse it seems to get.

- You can't throw drugs
at a dietary disease

and expect to make it better,

but that's the medical teaching,

"Hey, you have type 2 diabetes,
let me give you some pills."

- The model doesn't work.

We're not making people healthy,

we're just treating disease.

But if you give
people good nutrition,

they become very healthy.

- He introduced that keto
diet, and six weeks later,

it was like a
miracle, no diabetes.

- And it was like
magic, and I got off,

completely off of insulin.

- Two years later, I
had lost 197 pounds.

- [Dr. Mark] Problem
is, we've been confused

and downright brainwashed by
decades of nutritional dogma,

the almost religious
conviction that fat is bad,

especially saturated
animal fats.

- You can lose weight
on these animal protein,

atkins type diets but you're
mortgaging your health

in the process.

- We still operate under this
idea of dogmatic principles.

We've always done it that way,

that's what we've always said,

we're gonna continue to
say it and unfortunately,

nothing is holding back progress

in nutrition science like dogma.

- [Dr. Mark] Alternative
ideas have been attacked

and physicians labeled as quacks

for ignoring
guidelines against fats

and telling patients
to cut carbs instead.

In South Africa,
Doctor Tim Noakes went

through a four year ordeal

that threatened
his medical license

for recommending a
low carbohydrate,

high fat diet to a young mother.

- The reason why the
low carbohydrate diet

has become demonized
is because it works

and it has a huge impact
on the financial return

of the medical profession.

- I'm an internal
medicine specialist,

I can treat all of the
conditions that I used to treat

with medications just
by changing the food,
it's remarkable.

- It's completely free,
there's no special equipment,

there's no special surgeries,
it's completely natural

and it's been used for
thousands of years.

- I can treat not only obesity,

but I can treat type 2
diabetes, high blood pressure,

in fact, I have to
take away medications

from people as they get better.

- This is as big
as the discovery of
insulin or antibiotics,

it clearly is.

- My interpretation is
that low-fat diets can work

but low-carb diets work better

and that's what
the science says.

- [Dr. Mark] Nick Brown is
a pretty typical American

when it comes to his diet.

- Hey, how you doing?

- [Dr. Mark] He eats
a variety of protein,

vegetables and grains.

He enjoys beer now and then,
and one of his favorite foods,

- Thanks, sir.

Have a good day.

- [Dr. Mark] Is pizza.

- Looking forward to pizza.

- Maybe, if it ruins pizza for
me, I'm gonna be pissed off.

- [Dr. Mark] Nick
is participating

in a unique nutrition
experiment along with Tracy.

- [Tracy] Yeah, I've
got a plan for the week.

- [Dr. Mark] And Cynthia.

- Thank you.

- [Waiter] You're welcome.

- [Dr. Mark] Three
metabolically healthy people

who take no medications,
trying two different diets,

low-carb versus low-fat.

- Quite a few new recipes,
so I was curious about using

the right thing.

- [Dr. Mark] Before, during
and after the experiment,

they each weigh in, check
their blood pressure,

blood sugar, and cholesterol.

- It's a little bit of alcohol--

- [Dr. Mark] Throughout
the experiment,

we'll track their blood sugar.

- Are you ready?

- [Nick] Sure.

- [Dr. Michelle]
Okay, here it comes.

- [Dr. Mark] Using a continuous
glucose monitor or CGM.

- [Dr. Michelle]
Does it bother you?

- [Nick] No.

- [Dr. Michelle] Okay.

- You just hit, Check Glucose
and it says, ready to scan

and you just take it
here, and there it is,

it's 94, right now.

- [Dr. Mark] The first week,
we put them on a low-carb,

ketogenic diet with
less than 20 grams

of carbohydrates per day,
plenty of healthy fats

and a moderate
amount of protein,

a diet designed to
keep blood sugars low

but an eating pattern
that is not allowed

by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

The second week,
we switched them

to the USDA MyPlate meal plan.

It's a 2000 calorie a
day, government endorsed,

low-fat plan,
featuring whole grains,

lean meats and vegetable oils.

And more than half the day's
calories as carbohydrates.

- [Dr. Mark] Week one, is
the low-carb, high-fat diet.

- [Nick] And then
they'll keep this going,

this is almost ready.

I'm excited about it.

I'm excited to try the recipes
and excited to see just

what a full week
of doing this does.

- I'm grateful to be doing it,
it's very fascinating to me.

- [Dr. Mark] The keto
recipes are full of healthy,

natural fats like eggs, butter,
avocado, olive oil, nuts

and seeds and even
grass-fed beef.

- I love new recipes, so this
is really good, interesting.

- So these are buttered eggs

and that's what they're
called in the recipe.

You actually make
them with butter.

I use the grass fed butter
and then I just decided

to add a little bit of
avocado, and some tomatoes,

and salt and pepper,
and that's it.

Super simple, super easy.

- I am making a
keto zucchini boats.

You take out the
middle of the zucchini,

cook it up with some onion,
spinach, I put in some olives,

olive oil, and then just let
that saute for a little bit.

- I think it's
working for my body.

I'm curious to see what it
does through the whole week.

- These are really good.

- [Dr. Mark] By adding
healthy fats into every meal

and cutting out processed carbs,

the three experience a sense
of fullness that lasts.

- To be honest, I've
really not been famished.

- So, this is day three
of the strict keto diet.

I am literally down
three and a half pounds

from when this started.

I'm surprised by
that, I feel great,

I went mountain
biking last night,

and had a lot of energy
and I don't feel hungry.

- I still feel full and
that was after three

and a half hours.

And usually at that
time, yeah, the two,

two and a half hours,
I'm hungry, usually.

- One way to think of carbs
is they are like kindling

on a fire, they burn
quickly and then go out,

dropping your blood sugar
and creating severe cravings,

the physical signal that
your body needs more fuel.

To keep your metabolism burning,

you must constantly eat
more and then you crash,

and then eat more
and then you crash.

See how carbs like bread,
pasta, rice, and yes,

even whole grains,
affect your blood sugar.

Protein has a much
lower response,

it will raise blood sugar
a small amount, and fat,

take a look at fat.

Almost no rise in
blood sugar at all.

When you eat fat, it's like
putting logs on the fire.

What you get is just a
long steady source of fuel.

- And that's one of the reasons
that I like low-carb diets

so much, because they don't
require as much willpower.

Because if your hormones,
your insulin isn't going up

to the sky every
time that you eat

and then crashing down
making you crave a bagel

or a donut or
something from a snack,

if that's not happening in
your physiology all the time,

it's much easier to not overeat.

- Day six lunchtime, leftover
Italian cabbage stir fry

with a blop of sour cream.

I'm still not quite hungry
but it's time for lunch.

- You know, what's
really great about

this is it's so easy
to test your glucose.

- The sensor is here,
and then on my phone,

I go on the app
that connects to it.

- And you just put it
up and it grabs it.

- And it went doo bloop,
and then you have it.

- Pretty cool.

- It's really cool (laughs).

- [Dr. Mark] All week on
the low-carb, high-fat diet,

their blood sugars are
virtual straight lines

with no spikes or dips.

- It's been steady,
it's been, typically,

at the 85 to 90 range.

And I just ate and that's 83,

I just tried it
a few minutes ago

and it's already
gone down six points.

- I kind of wanna just
keep it on all the time

'cause, it's so
interesting to see

what you're doing all day.

- [Dr. Mark] By the
end of the week,

all three participants have
lost weight and feel great.

- How'd your week go?

- Very well, thanks.

- Good.

- You have lost about two
and half pounds of fat.

- And how were
your blood sugars?

- Very, very even.

- And look, your lean tissue,
not only has it not gone down,

it's actually gone
up a little bit.

Boy, you're really even, not
a lot of variation at all.

- I had always a full feeling,

so I'm wondering if I ate
too much maybe, I don't know.

- Well, you'll feel a lot more
full with fat and protein,

and less carbohydrate, for sure.

- [Dr. Mark] Next week, we'll
flip from low-carb to low-fat

and follow the U.S.
Dietary Guidelines.

- I'm really curious to
see what happens this week.

- Yeah, me too.

- I'm a little scared
about what's gonna happen.

- [Dr. Mark] So how is it
possible we got the story

so wrong about fats?

There were religious
objections to eating meat

as early as the 1800s that
influenced American opinions,

but a major turning
point was in 1955,

when a presidential health
scare shocked the nation.

- [Narrator] News of
President Eisenhower's

sudden illness,
described by his doctors

as coronary thrombosis, came
as a severe shock to us all.

- President Eisenhower in
1955 had a heart attack.

He was out of the oval
office for 10 whole days,

and that really
focused the attention

of the nation on this
problem of heart disease.

- [Narrator] Cardiovascular
ailments continue

to take an increasingly
heavy toll of American lives,

a million this year.

- The nation was really in shock

and there was a desperate
need for explanations.

- And people were like,
whoa, what's causing all

the heart disease?

- [Narrator] Here
are vital statistics,

they show that the
problem here in America

is the worst in the world.

- [Nina] There were a
number of ideas about it,

one was that it was
vitamin deficiency,

another was that it was the
rising tide of auto exhaust,

more cars on the road.

- Of 10 men, we can
expect five to get it,

but we can't say
who or when or why.

- Now, you can look
back now and say,

well, that's pretty
easy to understand,

everybody was smoking.

- Raleigh?

- Oh, no thanks!

I have a pack.

- More doctors smoke Camels
than any other cigarette.

- [Dr. Mark] The 1950s and
60s, cigarettes were in.

* Sparks cigarettes
are cooler than cool *

* Smoke Spark cigarette
as the mouth happy *

- Here have a Viceroy.

- [Dr. Mark] Eisenhower,
himself, smoked
four packs a day.

- What do you think?

- This is what I was
really looking for.

- [Dr. Mark] If you look at the
trends for cigarette smoking

against the increases in heart
disease, they track together.

But at the same
time, the consumption

of saturated fat was
falling, dramatically.

- Everybody was smoking,

now we know smoking
causes heart disease,

or contributes to heart disease,
but at the time, of course,

the tobacco companies were
like, no, no, no, no, no, no,

tobacco smoking, it doesn't
cause heart disease.

So all the scientists
were like, hey,

I wonder why we're getting
so much heart disease?

- There was one theory
that was proposed

by Ancel Benjamin Keys,
who was a pathologist

at the University of
Minnesota and he said

that it was saturated fat
and dietary cholesterol

that caused heart disease.

- It's like, okay, but
how do people eat butter

for the last two millennia?

And ever since 1970, it
causes heart disease.

It's like it didn't cause
heart disease before.

- [Dr. Mark] At the same
time, consumption of sugar,

refined oils and refined grains
were on the rise in America.

But Ancel Keys focused on fat
as the cause of heart disease.

- And he thought that total
cholesterol in your arteries

would build up and
clog your arteries

and give you a heart attack,

like hot oil down
a cold stove pipe.

So that was his idea, it
was just a simple idea.

- To blame a ancient
food for a modern disease

was completely illogical,
it didn't make any sense,

but you repeat things enough,

and you get it out there
enough, people believe you.

- As American author
H.L Mencken once said,

"For every complex problem,
there is a solution

"that is simple and
clear and wrong."

- It's the biggest
scam ever perpetrated

on the American people, this
whole notion of cholesterol.

- If you have high cholesterol,
you may be at increased risk

of heart attack and stroke.

Don't kid yourself, talk to
your doctor about your risk,

and about Lipitor.

- It's eye-wateringly lucrative
to keep this idea going

that we need to
lower cholesterol.

- Cholesterol has definitely
become the boogeyman

of cardiology and here's what's

so interesting about
cholesterol, is we need it.

Our bodies cannot exist
without cholesterol.

Yet once again, in
simplistic thinking,

we try and lump cholesterol
in good cholesterol

and bad cholesterol and we
wanna lower the bad cholesterol,

the LDL, and raise the
good cholesterol, the HDL.

That is incredibly simplistic.

- It turns out that raising
your LDL cholesterol

in diet does not translate
into heart attacks and death.

It just doesn't.

- When you take cholesterol
out of the equation,

you go, let's just see if people

who eat more saturated
fat actually die more.

Do they actually get
more heart disease?

That's what we care about.

Forget that it
raises cholesterol,

we know it raises cholesterol,
so let's take that out

of the equation and see what
the end result is which is

what we care about and
every time they do that,

the relationship dissolves.

There is no relationship
between the amount

of fat you eat in your diet
and getting heart disease.

- [Dr. Mark] We now know that
chronic inflammation caused

by a diet high in
sugar, refined grains

and refined vegetable
oils is far more dangerous

to our health.

- [Dr. Jason] Atherosclerosis
is an inflammatory disease,

it's not a buildup
of fat in the artery,

it's actually an inflammation
that's causing the problems.

- And the cholesterol then
will go to that damage to try

to repair it, but it
didn't cause the damage.

The damage has to come first.

It's like saying that
firefighters caused the fire

when they just turned
up to put the fire out.

It was there by association,
but it was there to repair,

not to cause harm.

- Inflammation is probably
the number one promoter

of every disease we
don't wanna have.

And the number one
inflammatory substance

in the American diet
is sugar, that's it.

You put those two
things together,

inflammation makes
everything worse

and sugar is the number
one inflammatory substance

that we consume,
end of argument.

- [Narrator] In 1951,
Ancel and Margaret took

the two oldest children to
Oxford for a year's sabbatical.

The couple continued their
travels, measuring cholesterols

and conducting diet
surveys in several European

and African countries.

- There was a study
that he presented

at the Mount Sinai
Hospital in 1953

and it was the six
countries graph.

- [Dr. Andrew] He specifically
looked at six countries

around the world and on the
x-axis he plotted fat intake,

and on the y-axis coronary
heart disease rates,

and he found a straight
line relationship.

- And he offered that as proof

that there was a
linear relationship

between how much saturated
fat people consumed

and how much heart
disease they had.

- But he chose six countries
for that perfect correlation

and at the time, there was data
available for 22 countries.

- [Dr. Zoe] And when you put
in all of those countries,

it just looked like
a scatter plot.

- The trendline is
nowhere near as clear-cut.

- There was no
clear relationship.

- No correlation between
fat and heart disease.

He was criticized at the time
by a statisticians who said,

"You're obviously cherry
picking your data."

- He knows it's a hypothesis,
he knows he doesn't have

the evidence and he
immediately starts recommending

the country go on a low-fat
diet, which is fascinating

because there is no concern
that you're gonna do harm,

there's no the Hippocratic
Oath, "First, do no harm."

- [Dr. Mark] To spite his
critics, Keys was determined

to prove himself right.

He followed up with his
famous Seven Countries Study

where he traveled to the
countries cherry-picked

from his graph and
studied eating habits

and heart disease
among the people there.

- For his Seven Country Study,
he repeated the same mistake,

he cherry-picked his countries.

- I think he did
cherry-pick countries

for the Seven Countries Study.

He knew from the six
countries graph the countries

that would be on that
straight line, so he knew,

for example, that Italy
would be a sure thing

and America would
be a sure thing.

They would quite nicely
anchor some of the ends

of the graph.

- But he did not go to countries
like Switzerland, France,

Germany, who ate a
lot of saturated fats,

and also had very low
rates of heart disease.

- The French were eating
all kinds of saturated fat,

butter, cream, and they
weren't gaining weight,

which was his
paradox at the time,

and they weren't
getting heart disease,

they had like half the
rate of heart disease

compared to Americans.

Everybody said, "Well, what
a paradox, what a paradox."

There was no paradox,
the dietary fat simply

wasn't causing obesity, and
it didn't cause heart disease.

- So he's a very
respected physiologist

and it's worth
mentioning, by the way,

that Eisenhower followed
the Ancel Keys advice

and cut out all saturated
fat and all cholesterol up

until the day he died in
1969 of heart disease,

just worth mentioning.

- [Dr. Mark] Ancel Keys diet
heart hypothesis remains

the single most influential
theory in history

of nutrition science.

And here's an interesting
point, over the past 50 years,

taxpayers have funded
several billion of dollars

of research trying to
prove saturated fat

causes heart disease,
but guess what?

It's never been proven.

To this day, the
diet heart hypothesis

remains an hypothesis.

- [Dr. Zoe] There is no
evidence against saturated fat,

there just isn't.

- [Dr. Mark] Dr. Zoe Harcombe,
is an obesity researcher

who wrote her thesis on
the lack of evidence behind

the dietary guidelines.

- My thesis was born out
of trying to understand

why we have an obesity epidemic.

- [Dr. Mark] Zoe
collected all the raw data

from randomized controlled
clinical trials conducted prior

to the release of the
dietary guidelines.

She then she re-analyzed
all the results

in a process called
a meta-analysis.

- It was looking at the absolute
totality of the evidence,

no cherry-picking whatsoever,
no study left out.

So there's the Rose
Corn Oil Trial,

there's the Research
Committee Low-Fat Diet,

there's the MRC Soybean Study,

there's the LA
Veterans Dayton Study,

there's Leren Oslo Study.

- [Dr. Mark] When she
examined the results to see

which group suffered
more deaths,

there was no difference at all.

There was no health benefit
for the groups assigned

to eat a low-fat diet.

- I was astonished to
find that there simply

was no evidence.

- Real food fats are
not dangerous, they
are not the enemy.

It's too simplistic
and reductionist to
say saturated fat

is dangerous and
needs to be avoided

and the evidence does
not support that.

- So how then, without the
hard science to back it up,

did the diet-heart hypothesis
become the foundation

of our nation's
dietary guidelines?

Well, it had one big
thing going for it,

Ancel Benjamin Keys.

- He had just a very
outsized personality,

colleagues of his told me
he could just argue anyone

to the death.

And he was able to get into
the American Heart Association

on the Nutrition Committee.

And in 1961, the Heart
Association comes out

with the first advice anywhere
in the world telling people

to cut back on saturated
fat and cholesterol

in order to prevent
a heart attack.

- [Dr. Mark] Up until the 1960s,

Americans consumed almost half

of their daily calories as fat.

We ate butter without guilt,
bacon and eggs for breakfast

and roasts for dinner.

Exercise gyms were barely
a thought and still,

we were relatively slim.

- Conventional wisdom
until the 1960s

was carbohydrates
were fattening,

that's the weird thing about it.

So you talk about bread,
pasta, potatoes, rice, sweets,

going directly to your hips.

It was what my mothers
generation believed growing up.

- [Narrator] The diet used
in this study is satisfying

to the appetite because of the
use of more protein and fat.

- And then in the 1960s, we
come along with this idea

that dietary fat
causes heart disease.

In 20 years, from the
1960s to the mid-1980s,

the carbohydrate
went from fattening

to a heart-healthy diet food.

- [Dr. Mark] The low-fat
diet fad had taken hold

and Keys rose to prominence

within the American
Heart Association

and at the National
Institutes of Health.

- If you only lived in America,
you'd think this controversy

was pretty settled, that
obviously saturated fat

causes heart disease,
'cause it raises cholesterol

and we all know cholesterol
clogs the arteries.

But there was a alternative
hypothesis going on across

the pond in England.

- There was always
this competing theory
that it was sugar

and not fat that might
cause heart disease,

and the leading proponent
of that was John Yudkin

and he published about that.

And I think this is an
extraordinary example

of how nutrition science
did or did not really work

in America because
rather than say,

oh, this is an interesting
competing theory,

let's explore that.

Maybe they're right,
maybe we're wrong.

Their reaction instead
was to just bully him,

really bully him
out of the field.

- And Ancel Keys literally
destroyed his reputation.

He went after him,
he did everything

but call his mother names.

- And I think Ancel Keys knew
that this hypothesis competed

with his own, and he did
not want that to succeed.

He wanted his hypothesis
to be successful.

- Not surprisingly, the
sugar industry also preferred

to point the finger
at saturated fat.

Recently discovered documents
reveal that in 1965,

the sugar industry paid
prominent Harvard researchers

to do just that.

And they were very
specifically paid $50,000,

in today's dollars, to
produce two articles

that exonerated sugar and
fingered saturated fat

as the cause of
cardiovascular disease.

We know that because we
have the paper trail.

We have their names
on the documents.

- This is unconscionable.

- The sugar industry's job was

to get the nutrition
community to say publicly

what they believed to be true,
which was dietary fat was

the problem, not sugar and they
paid researchers to do that

and they were very
successful with getting

that message across.

- [Dr. Mark] In 1977, a Senate
Select Committee headed up

by Senator George Mcgovern,
helped seal fat's fate.

Over the objection of scientists
who pleaded against it,

and with no hard
evidence to back it up,

the committee recommended the
low-fat diet to the nation.

- [Dr. Robert] I have
pleaded in my report

and I will plead again
orally here for more research

on the problem before
we make announcements

to the American public.

- [Senator George] I would
only argue that senators don't

have the luxury that a
research scientist does,

of waiting until every last
shred of evidence is in.

- Mcgovern just wanted to make
the statement and he said,

"We haven't got time to
wait for the evidence."

- They recognized the
science is unsettled

and then the counterargument is,

but we cannot afford to wait.

- And so they went
without any evidence,

and despite the fact that
many people had warned

that this is gonna cause an
obesity, diabetes epidemic.

They were warned
but they ignored it.

- [Dr. Mark] In 1980, the
U.S. government triggered

a radical shift in
the diet of Americans

when the campaign against fat
became official food policy.

- [Dr. Nina] The first dietary
guidelines recommended seven

to 11 servings of bread
basically every day.

50 to 55% of your calories
are supposed to come

from carbohydrates,
mostly grains.

- [Dr. Mark] For the first
time anywhere in the world,

our government endorsed
a massive increase
in carbohydrates

and slashed saturated
fat consumption

to less than 10%
of daily calories.

- The American guideline
started with a very high-carb,

low-fat approach which
was disastrous for putting

that out into an
entire population
without evidence saying

that it was healthy.

- Obesity in America had
been slowly creeping up

from the mid 1900s on, but
1980 you see it go sharply,

turn sharply upwards.

- And then it just takes
off like an airplane.

So you just want to ask, well,
what happened around then?

- What happened in 1980 is
that the U.S. government

told all Americans,
cut back on fat

and increase your carbohydrates.

- It could be complete
coincidence, that
that just happened

to coincide but it sure as
anything needs looking at

to see if it is
just coincidence.

- When we took the fat out
of the food, what did we do?

We put something in which
was way worse, sugar.

* One, two and twist

- [Narrator] Reduced Fat Oreo,
less fat, loads of taste.

New, reduced fat browning muffin

and cake mixes from Pillsbury,
try the new frosting, too.

Hershey's Syrup is
virtually fat free.

- Terrific!

- I mean, let's face it, fat
tastes good, we know that.

And if you're gonna remove
the fat from a food,

you're gonna have to replace
it with something else

that gives people pleasure.

- [Narrator] As new
simple pleasures is made

with all natural
Simplesse, instead of fat.

- And what did they put in?

Refined carbohydrates,
increased sugar, and boom,

we've got an explosion
of processed foods.

- [Narrator] So irresistible,
people are sinking

to a new low to get
their hands on one.

Continental yogurt is non-fat,
no low-fat, but non-fat.

- No fat?!

- How'd they do that?

- Ultimately, sugar
was a bigger problem

than saturated fat ever was.

- The industry learned that
if they took fat out the diet,

they had to replace it
with sugar and then learned

that sugar was addictive.

- Whoa, these are really good.

- These are great.

- Bring 'em on.

- Oh, yeah.

- And that's the drive
of the obesity epidemic.

- [Dr. Nina] Low-fat
yogurt higher in sugar.

- Whoa!

- [Dr. Nina] Low-fat
peanut butter.

- This is special.

- [Dr. Nina] low-fat
salad dressing.

- This is great!

- [Dr. Nina] All higher
in sugar or carbs.

- Are you sure this fat-free?

- All low-fat foods turned
out to be higher in carbs.

- I don't think this
was anyone's intention,

but it's what naturally
happens when you remove fat,

which is natural for
humans to be eating,

from their dietary choices
and you put them on things

instead of tasting
like cardboard,

they can at least taste
like sweet cardboard.

- SnackWell's, Chocolate
Sandwich Cookies.

- These taste unbelievable,

what if I can't
bake enough of them?

- Those women will
be after me again.

- Hello, cookie-man,
what's in the box?

- We have the SnackWell
phenomenon was like the epitome

of what happened with the
low-fat food industry,

where people thought they
could just eat massive amounts

of these cookies.

- Don't you think you get
a little carried away?

- [Dr. Nina] They were very
high in sugar and white flour.

- Cookie-man, you'd better
make some more (laughs).

- [Dr. Mark] The American
Heart Association cashed

in on the low-fat craze.

Food companies paid hundreds
of thousands of dollars

to feature this heart-healthy
check-off symbol on a product.

- So this resulted in crazy
things like heart check-off

on Cocoa Krispies, or
Honey Nut Cheerios,

or on all these foods that
were super high in sugar,

but as long as they
were low in fat

then it was considered healthy.

- Kellogg's Fruit Loops Cereal,

part of this
nutritious breakfast.

Now that's the seal of approval.

- [Dr. Mark] Heart-healthy,
low-fat fruit loops, anyone?

- [Dr. Nina] There's a kind
of conventional explanation

that it's really the
fault of Americans

for not following
the guidelines,

there's nothing wrong
with our guidelines,

it's just that Americans
fail to follow them.

- [Dr. Mark] But
government consumption data

confirms Americans
did as they were told

and dutifully cut back on
natural fats found in red meat,

whole milk, eggs,
animal fats and butter,

but we still gained weight.

- One of the analogies
that I like to use,

just imagine you
had a baseball team

that lost every single game
for the last 50, 60 years.

And you're like,
well, those players,

they just don't
know how to play.

None of my players
know how to play.

Well, at some point
you'd have to say,

maybe we should take a look
at our coaching strategy.

It can't be the fault of all
of those players for decades

but that's basically
our explanation

for why Americans are
getting fatter and sicker,

it's their fault.

They just can't do it right.

- I think the dietary
guidelines have been

a tremendous failed experiment.

It's a good question of whether
they just need to be changed

or whether they just need to
be scrapped and start over.

- I genuinely believe that
people now are hanging

onto the saturated fat myth
because they don't want to admit

that they were wrong.

- I don't think the
governments will ever admit

they were wrong
about saturated fat.

- We are paying
a hell of a price

for a few public
health people wanting

to protect their own reputation,
not wanting to look silly.

- I used to fantasize about
the American Heart Association,

press release that would
say, okay, yes, we know

for the past almost 60
years we've been giving you

the wrong advice and we
apologize if we killed any

of your loved ones prematurely

and we apologize if we
gave you heart disease

with the advice we did give you.

We were just telling you
what we thought was true then

and we were best of intention
and now we know better.

- That apology may never come

and the largest health
organizations dedicated

to preventing obesity and
type 2 diabetes continue

to spread advice
that makes it worse.

- Type 2 diabetes we were
always taught is a chronic

and irreversible disease,
inevitably progressive.

I flatly rejected that,
I flatly rejected.

So it is chronic, irreversible,
and inevitably progressive

if you take the guidelines
currently in place

and utilize them as
your treatment plan.

(keyboard typing)

- [Dr. Mark] For years, the
American Diabetes Association

has promoted low-fat diets.

They use this handy
graphic illustration called

the Diabetic Plate, which
features limited amounts

of lean meat, non-fat
dairy products and 50%

or more of daily calories
as carbohydrates.

- I think the Diabetic
Plate is a prescription

for worsening of the disease.

If you really look at
the Diabetic Plate,

it is 3/4 carbohydrates,
which makes no sense.

It also is lean protein,

so when we look at the
Diabetic Plate as a whole,

there's almost no fats.

- This is a way to make
people sicker and fatter.

This is the advice I was giving,

this is the advice
that doesn't work.

This is the advice that
prescribes more medications,

this is the advice
that increases insulin.

But really it's a metabolic
shift when you burn fat

instead of burning sugar.

- [Dr. Mark] Alyssa Gallagher
is Judi's dietician.

She was initially trained
in the low-fat paradigm.

- When I first started
exploring the low-carb approach.

- [Judi] That's really
low-carb, I can use that.

- I helped people genuinely,

for the first time in my career.

- I'm going for real food now,

so I can get rid of all of this.

- In the old days,
I was frustrated

that the advice I was giving
wasn't working for people.

- Oh, chips and crackers,
where is that garbage can?

- I was taught, essentially what

the American Diabetes
Association teaches
is carbohydrates,

consistent carbohydrates,
more whole grains.

- No oatmeal, they used to
tell us that was good for you.

- I was taught saturated
fat is bad for you.

Saturated fat is
something to be avoided

and limited at all costs.

- [Dr. Mark] The problem
is, when you remove fat

from the diet, you have to
eat something else instead

and that something else
is often carbohydrates.

- At first I didn't understand

why the advice I was
giving wasn't working.

It's what I learned in school.

I'm the nutrition expert, right?

It should be working.

And then eventually it started
not making sense to me.

Why am I telling
somebody with diabetes

that they must
eat carbohydrates?

It didn't make any sense.

Carbohydrates raise blood sugar,

when you have
higher blood sugars,

we need to give you
more medication.

When we give you more
medication, you gain weight.

When you gain weight,
you need more medication,

you wanna eat more carbs,
it became a vicious cycle.

- Okay, I think I'm done
cleaning out my pantry.

- An insulin resistance
is essentially a state

of carbohydrate intolerance.

So why or why do we wanna
continue to recommend

to people to eat them?

- [Dr. Mark] Sarah Hallberg is
a physician leading arguably

the most promising trial ever
conducted on type 2 diabetes.

She's helped hundreds
of patients safely

and sustainably reverse
their diabetes diagnosis,

often, getting off
of all medications

by cutting carbohydrates and
increasing their fat intake,

a lot, to as much as 70 to
80% of their daily calories.

- The solution to the
diabetes problem in my clinic

is exceedingly clear, stop
using medicine to treat food.

- [Dr. Mark] Her TED Talk on
this unconventional approach

has nearly five million views.

The title, Reversing
Type 2 diabetes starts

with ignoring the guidelines.

- Fat is central

to any science-based
nutrition recommendation

for anyone who struggles
with type 2 diabetes.

Carbohydrates cause our
insulin and glucose to go up,

proteins much less, and
with fat, there's no glucose

or insulin reaction.

And given the fact that
type 2 diabetes is a problem

with elevated glucose,
wait a minute,

we can't be recommending
the macronutrient

that's gonna cause glucose
and insulin to go up,

but that's exactly what MyPlate
and the ADA guidelines do.

They recommend us to
eat the macronutrient

that's causing the problem.

- [Dr. Mark] In her clinical
trial of nearly 500 patients,

60% of the intervention
group reversed

their diagnosis of diabetes.

That's more than
half the patients

whose blood sugars normalized.

94% had their insulin doses
decreased or totally eliminated

with no increase in their
LDL or lousy cholesterol.

By comparison, the American
Diabetes Association reports

a less than 1% success
rate at reversing diabetes

when following their
own, low-fat advice.

- So if we want people
to really get help,

we have to start giving them
advice that actually works.

- It's hard when you have, let
alone been hearing something

for decades but been saying
something for decades,

it's difficult to
turn that ship around.

Because to turn that ship around
you have to be vulnerable.

You have to say, I was wrong.

And this involves a
lot of organizations,

a lot of people saying I was
wrong, and I think that's hard.

I think that's a big deal.

- [Dr. Mark] After years
of following the guidelines

and getting nowhere,
Judi has decided

to ignore the ADA's
advice and try

to reverse her type 2
diabetes with a low-carb,

high-fat nutrition plan.

- The health professionals
that were giving us all

that advice through the
years just bounced us back

and forth, and we never
really had any answers.

- I really like
unsweetened coconut chips.

- I feel like what I'm learning
now is a way toward health

and a way toward a better
size that I'll feel good about

which to me is hand in
hand with my health.

- The U.S. military is
now facing a new threat.

It's not North Korea, it
is actually the U.S. diet.

- The single biggest
disqualifier is obesity.

- Wait?

We're talking
about young people?

- Right, youth obesity.

- [Reporter] 25% of
all potential recruits
are turned away

because of their weight.

- At this point in time,
we can't field an army,

because they are
"too fat to fight"

that's not my words, that's
the U.S. Army's words.

- A few months ago, the army
missed its recruitment goals

for the first time in 13 years.

We've gotten to a point
where we're too fat

to defend ourselves.

- [Dr. Mark] Captain
Brian Gaudette

is an Apache helicopter
pilot, an entrepreneur

and a living example

of why the U.S. Dietary
Guidelines matter.

- [Brian Gaudette] Flying Apache
helicopters is probably one

of the most fun
things on the planet,

but it's also very high stakes.

You need all of your
faculties to stay safe.

- [Dr. Mark] On high
stakes missions,

often on the other
side of the world,

Brian was confined to army food,

a diet dictated by the
dietary guidelines.

- I always had
sandwiches for lunch,

lots of noodle-based dishes,
lots of rice-based dishes.

I was running about three
or four times a week,

between three and five miles,

but the weight was
still coming on.

One day I was in the cockpit,
and I put my head down,

and it felt like the
world was moving,

like the aircraft was moving.

I looked up really quick, and
then I put my head down again.

I felt it again and so I kinda
had to raise my hand and say,

hey, we have a problem here.

- [Dr. Mark] Brian knew he was
sick, but he didn't know why.

He was grounded from flying.

- For the next eight months
I went to every specialist.

- Do you have a brain tumor?

Is it an inner ear thing?

Is there a cardiac issue?

Is there a neurological issue?

- And they said,
"You know, Brian,

"sometimes stress does
weird stuff to the body,"

and handed me a card
for mental health.

- [Dr. Mark] Not one medical
specialist asked Brian

about his nutrition.

- And they were just like,

"Sorry, that's about
all we can do for you."

So there was a turning
point where I was like,

okay, well, we've got to
figure this out on our own.

- [Dr. Mark] Brian decided
to try an elimination diet

and he cut out all
grains and sugar.

- For really, just
efficiency and for taste,

I made these giant batches
of bone broth, vegetable,

and meat soups, and I just
ate them pretty much every day

and that's where
sort of the nickname,

Captain Soup, came from.

In about six weeks,
I got my brain back,

I got my energy back,
I lost about 25 pounds.

- I started to see
my husband come back.

I started to see my
children's father come back.

It's miraculous to me
what just food can do.

- [Dr. Mark] Just by
changing what he ate,

Brian's health
problems resolved.

He no longer takes
any medication,

he's back to his
high school weight,

and the army has reinstated
his flight status.

And now he's sharing his recipe
for health with the world.

- [Brian Gaudette] Now we make
just super-clean keto soups,

and we ship them frozen
all over the country.

- [Dr. Mark] These days, when
Brian goes on deployment,

he ships ahead cases of soup,

he no longer relies on the army
food that made him so sick.

- When my son was
born, I was really sick

and I look back at
photos from that time

and I barely remember
anything about that year,

because I was so
out of it, sorry.

And when you don't have energy

and you don't have your health,

you don't really have anything.

I have my brain back,
I have my energy back

and I can show up and
be there for my kids

and for my wife like I wanna be.

- Today, less than
20% of medical schools

require nutrition
training for physicians

and that's slowly changing,
but a widespread lack

of nutrition knowledge means
many physicians misunderstand

the root causes of chronic
and metabolic diseases

which are often driven by diet.

- When a physician
preaches low-fat

and a physician preaches
reducing calories

and they try that themselves,
it doesn't take long for some

of them to realize, this
isn't working for me,

maybe it's not working
for my patients, either.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- How are you doing?

- Good.

- [Dr. Mark] Physicians
are not immune to obesity.

Plenty of them struggle with
their own health challenges.

- Until two years ago,

I was trying to do the American
Diabetes Association diet,

the American Heart Association,

trying to eat a low-fat diet,

eating small meals
throughout the day

and I'm gaining weight.

Up, two, up, three.

I was working out
six days a week

because I would say I gotta
work out if I wanna lose weight,

I wanna be an example
to my patients.

You're exercising
but like they say,

you can't outrun your fork.

- [Dr. Mark] Like many docs,
Brian Lenzkes was trained

in the low-fat paradigm and
that's what he practiced

with his patients for decades.

But the struggle
with his own weight

was getting out of control.

- Yeah, at that point I
was around 260 pounds,

and at that time I
was also pre-diabetic.

Clearly what I was
doing wasn't working.

I was following the
government guidelines

and I was getting
sicker and sicker.

And it's not working
for me, well,

were my patients
not listening to me

or was I giving them bad advice?

And it turns out we
were giving bad advice.

- Honey, I got a
mixture of chicken,

Italian seasoned sausage
and a spicy pork.

- So when I cut carbohydrates
the interesting thing for me,

if I had eggs for
breakfast for instance,

my ten o'clock snack
that I was gonna have,

I wasn't hungry and I would
skip right through it.

Within the first six
months I was down

about 28 pounds, 30 pounds.

I was putting on muscle mass
and I was feeling really good.

My energy, my mental clarity,
my focus, my fatigue levels,

all those things got better.

I was like, wow,
pretty interesting.

- How many of you guys
have lost 10 pounds

or more pounds to
low-carb or keto?

- And he's been a
fantastic ambassador

for low-carb lifestyle because
he's seen it personally

and now he's seen it with
hundreds of his patients.

- Hey, how are doing?

- Fine.

- So good to see you.

- Thank you.

- How's things?

In all my years of practice,
I never saw anyone cured

of diabetes by going
on a low-fat diet,
never, not one time.

No one came off insulin.

- [Dr. Mark] Since switching
his practice to a low-carb,

ketogenic approach,
nearly a dozen

of Brian's patients have
reversed their type 2 diabetes

and come off insulin altogether.

- [Dr. Brian] I was just
looking at your numbers

and I think of anyone I've seen,

you've come off insulin
faster than anyone.

- I feel brand new, brand new.

So I'm sticking with the diet.

- At three months, I went
from insulin five times a day

to no insulin and was able to
maintain normal blood sugars.

- I don't remember
if Doctor Lenzkes

suggested keto specifically
for the weight loss

or if it wasn't for the
other issues that I had.

I started it, and I do love
butter, and I do love cream

and I do love bacon.

So it sounded really
pretty good to me.

I ate less, and what
I ate, I enjoyed more.

- Since last March, a year ago,

I've lost between
50 and 60 pounds,

but I've gained a
lot of strength,

I've gained a lot
of muscle as well.

- So, I've lost over 200 pounds.

- It's just mind boggling.

He hadn't taken any
patients off insulin ever

in his entire career
and in five months,

he got 11 patients off
insulin completely.

How can you not
acknowledge that?

- You've done incredible things,
just two years ago you were

on insulin five times a day,
huge doses and you asked me,

can I come off this insulin?

I'm gaining weight, I'm tired,
I'm fatigued all the time,

and now seeing you,
where you are at now,

it's pretty remarkable where
you've accomplished just

by making some
lifestyle changes.

They're empowered now to
get themselves off insulin.

So now they're seeing it.

Now my patients are telling
other patients and they're going

to them to say, hey, how come
this person came off insulin?

I thought it couldn't happen.

It can happen, it does happen
and we're excited about that.

I don't know anyone else
who has lost as much weight

as you have, even with
gastric bypass surgery,

I've never seen it.

The fact that you
are coming down

off all your diabetes
medications, you're
off them now,

your blood pressure came down,

all these things
are getting better

and we're slowly getting
you off of medications.

You are making progress and
you're a ton of progress,

more than anyone I've ever seen.

- That shift that he
saw in his patients,

being able to actually
remove medications

and make them healthier
at the same time

was just tremendous
and it all started

with his own personal journey.

- Maybe, eventually, the
government will come around.

- Maybe possibly so, if
not, it's your health.

We can do it as
individuals and when people

are seeing people
will have benefits,

they are gonna wanna
go to that lifestyle,

and what we are seeing day
after day is super exciting,

so thank you.

- Thank you so much.
- Thank you

for encouraging me too.

- Oh no, you're wonderful,
you are absolutely the best.

- You're awesome, thank you.

- So the three main
macronutrients in
food are carbohydrate,

protein and fat and
here's an important point,

there are essential fats
and essential proteins,

but there are no
essential carbohydrates.

Essential means the
nutrients are required

to sustain human life, we
must eat these to survive.

But there is no physical
or biological need for us

to consume any
carbohydrates at all.

- [Doug Reynolds] I was
an ultra distance runner,

not an elite athlete,
but I was pretty good

and finished in the
top 100 out of a field

of about 14, 15000.

- [Dr. Mark] By the time he was
30 years old, Doug Reynolds,

had run almost 100 marathons
in ultra marathons.

He was in the best
shape of his life,

but something wasn't right.

- And I would be incredibly
fit, and yet on the day

of the race, I would be
standing there thinking,

I've got to run up that
mountain for 55 miles,

I can't even get to the corner.

I felt terrible.

I used to think it
was just nerves.

- [Dr. Mark] Like many people,

Doug thought athletes
couldn't function

without carbohydrates,
he would binge on carbs

in the days leading
up to the race.

- But it wasn't the nerves,

it was the fact that
three days before,

I'd just gorge myself on all
these pastas and potatoes

and all these carbohydrates
and it was toxic.

- [Dr. Mark] It's a familiar
story to doctor Tim Noakes,

the man who wrote the
book on carb-loading.

- So the first four
chapters are all

on high carbohydrate diets

and how the most important
determinant of your success

in running is how much
carbohydrates you're eating.

So I promoted this and all
the time while I was writing

this I was getting
fatter, less healthy

and my running was getting
slower and slower and slower,

to the point where I was
really hating running.

- [Dr. Mark] Even though they
were exercising a lot more

than most people, both men
suffered from their low-fat,

high-carb diets.

- I started to put on
a little bit of weight

and I never used to weigh myself

because I was always
a runner, I was fine.

And I got on the scale and I
was like 35 pounds overweight.

I thought the scale was broken.

- And then, much
more interestingly,

I discovered I had
type 2 diabetes,

which was predictable
'cause my dad had died

from the disease and my
dad took 10 years to die

and I figured, I've got ten
years to sort this problem out.

- Both Tim and Doug
decided to break

with convention and
try a low-carb diet.

They cut carbs to less
than 20 grams a day,

ate moderate amounts of protein

and began eating 70% to 80%
of daily calories as fat.

Nutrition is actually
pretty simple,

your body needs protein
and protein comes first,

that's essential, but
then you can choose

to run your body
on carbohydrates,

including sugars and starches
or fats and it's your choice.

If you quit eating carbs,
sugars, and starches,

your body is forced to use an
alternative fuel source, fat.

Burning fat produces
substances called ketones

that provide all the energy
you need to fuel your body

and your brain.

That's why the low-carb,

high-fat diet has been
given the name keto.

For most of human history,

there has been very little
sugar or starches in the diet.

In fact, if you put all of
human history in one year,

it's only in the last day

that people started
eating grains or bread

and it's only in the last hour

that people have
been eating sugar.

- In fact we know that
keeping people in ketosis,

keeping the carbs very low may
actually be the preferred way

for people to be.

- Eventually, I dropped
right down 44 pounds

and I went back to
my weight that I had

when I was running in 1972.

And I'm glad to say,
after seven years,

my blood glucose control is as
good as it could be expected

for someone of my age of 69.

I'm not completely normal,
but I'm 99% normal.

- [Dr. Mark] Tim famously tore
out the pages on carb-loading

from his "Lore of Running" book

and promotes ketogenic
diets for athletes.

- [Doug Reynolds] Two,
three weeks after I started

on this keto diet, I
was jumping out of bed

and going for a run in the
morning and enjoying it.

It's just been the most amazing
transformation in my life.

- [Dr. Mark] Doug started
own company called,

LowCarbUSA, dedicated to
education and nutrition support.

His logo, our nation's food
pyramid turned upside down.

- Well, yeah, the whole idea
was that the reason we're

in this terrible metabolic
dilemma in this country

is because of the food pyramid.

What we are advocating is
pretty much 180 degrees opposite

to what the food
pyramid tries to teach.

- We now understand
that our bodies,

even the bodies
of elite athletes,

don't need carbohydrates
to survive.

We can convert fat
into ketones for fuel,

but early nutrition scientists

did not understand
nutritional ketosis.

Scientists simply
thought that since fat

has nine calories per
gram, while protein

and carbs have only
four calories per gram,

we should just cut back on fat

to lower our calorie
consumption and lose weight.

- I met with people who helped
with the initial guidelines

and they were well-intentioned,

they reasoned that because
calories lead to obesity,

reduce the food that has the
most calories which is fat.

- We've been counting
calories ever since

in every way imaginable,
on food labels, in menus,

online and in apps, and
lately even on our bodies.

For years we've been told
this is a simple equation.

If we can just balance the
number of calories we consume

against the number
of calories we burn,

the Calories In
versus Calories Out,

our weight will stay in balance,

everything on the level, right?

Actually, not so right.

- The Calories
In/Calories Out model

is fundamentally flawed,
because the body doesn't account

for the fat that way.

That's not how we gain fat.

- It's not a physics problem,
it's a biology problem,

it's a physiology problem.

- The alternative
theory is called

the Carbohydrate-Insulin
Hypothesis of weight gain.

Remember how carbohydrates
raise blood sugar

but fat doesn't?

That's the key to the
insulin-carbohydrate hypothesis.

- It's really not that
hard to understand,

so if you take 100
calories of brownies

and 100 calories of salmon,
and you eat the two,

all the insulin hypothesis
says is that one food is going

to raise insulin a lot,
the other food is not.

So we know that as soon
as you put those foods

in your mouth, the
hormonal effect

of those foods is completely
and utterly different.

- So we really need to
pay attention to hormones,

at least as much if not
more, than calories.

So, what raises insulin?

Well, carbohydrates
number one with a bullet.

It's like in real estate,
location, location, location.

With insulin, it's carbohydrate,
carbohydrate, carbohydrate.

Protein is a distant second,

so protein can raise
insulin as well.

You know what doesn't
raise it at all?

Fat.

Zero, not a drop.

Doesn't move the needle.

So what is the irony of us
telling people to eat a diet

that is absent of
the one macronutrient

that has no effect on
the fat storage hormone?

It's total sheer madness.

- Insulin essentially
acts as a lock

that gets clamped down
on all of our fat stores

and prevents us from using
our stored fat as energy.

But, when we restrict
carbohydrates

and we can therefore bring
the insulin levels down,

the locks come off, and all
of sudden we have access

to all of our fat
stores for energy.

- [Dr. Mark] That's
right, insulin is a
fat storage hormone.

Lower insulin by cutting
out sugar and carbs

and the weight comes
off or never comes on

in the first place.

- We tell patients to
think of their body

as a bowl of sugar, so over
time, that bowl fills up.

If you're eating a lot of
processed foods and sugar

and so on, that bowl fills
up, and eventually that sugar,

as you add more
sugar in, spills out,

and that's what
Type 2 Diabetes is.

Your cells can't
hold anymore sugar,

it simply spills
out into the blood.

The wrong thing to do
is to take the insulin

and keep cramming that
sugar back into the body,

the body takes it, takes
it, takes it until it rots.

It would be much
smarter to simply say,

hey, I have too much sugar,
let me just burn it all off

by intermittent fasting, or
not putting anymore sugar in.

A low-carbohydrate
diet, and guess what?

It works exactly as you
would expect it to work.

- I've been using the keto
diet for about 13 years

in a university
clinical practice

and the results in treating
diabetes are quite remarkable.

I've had some people get off
insulin within just a few days

of changing from
eating carbohydrates

to not eating carbohydrates.

I think my record that I
can recall is I took someone

off 180 units of insulin
a day in just two days.

- Well, come on in
and take a seat.

- Sure.

- If Judi were to have walked
into my office ten years ago

when I started, I would have
thought, I can help you.

You just need to eat less,
you need to exercise more,

we need to start measuring
your food, you can do this,

I believe in you.

And I thought that to be true.

Why don't you go ahead and
get your blood sugar meter out

for me too.

- Okay.

- Take a look at that.

- Over the course of the
following five years,

I realized it wasn't working,

and either no one was
following my advice

or I was giving terrible advice.

- I've been writing
down each day.

- Thankfully Judi didn't come
into my office 10 years ago,

she came into my
office this year.

And I was able to offer hope,

I was able to offer
an opportunity.

I knew that she
could be successful

and success wasn't just
measured on a scale,

it was measured with
blood sugar reduction,

insulin reduction,
anti-inflammatory markers,

blood pressure as
well as insulin.

Looks like you did
an awesome job.

- Yeah.

- And you are down 12 pounds
since our last visit, yeah.

- I can report that
this is the second week

and I have normal blood
sugars now in the morning.

I'm still doing my injectables,
but it's gotten leveled.

It's leveled and I know
that I'm in ketosis

and the weight is
starting to drop off.

- What was the dose
you were taking

when you walked out of the door?

- It was 120 units.

- Okay.

- And now I'm doing 100.

- [Dr. Mark] In just two
weeks on a ketogenic diet,

Judi has cut her blood sugar
in half and lost 12 pounds.

Changing her nutrition has
done more to improve her health

than any medication ever did.

- The difference is more fat

and that gives a
lot more energy.

- It's amazing, I'm happy
I come to work again

and there was really a time
when I thought, I have to quit.

I can't do this,
this is miserable.

It's hopeless, diabetes
is a hopeless disease.

And I felt that way, I
really truly felt that way

and I knew that there
had to be another answer,

and I don't feel
that way anymore.

- In results from more than
50 controlled clinical trials

comparing high-fat and
low-fat diets for weight loss,

the high-fat diets
won every time.

The higher the fat, the
higher the weight loss.

That's because eating fat
speeds up your metabolism

and helps you burn body fat.

Carbs slow down your metabolism
and cause weight gain.

It's week two of our nutrition
experiment, this time,

it's the low-fat diet.

- So today's breakfast
was oatmeal with raisins

and brown sugar.

(computer typing)

- [Dr. Mark] We're following

a USDA MyPlate 2000 calorie
a day meal plan downloaded

from a the USDA website.

- Do you have a leaner ham?

- [Dr. Mark] It calls for
low-fat meats, non-fat dairy,

including non-fat
sugar-sweetened chocolate milk

and plenty of carbohydrates,
things like lasagna,

bread and even pizza.

- This looks like
stuff you would take

to a college dorm, right?

- [Dr. Mark] This is what our
government says we should eat.

- We have some
shredded wheat here,

and then half cup
of sliced banana,

and half a cup of fat
free milk, then toast

and one cup of chocolate
milk, fat free.

- [Dr. Mark] This breakfast
alone contains 150 grams

of carbohydrates and
50 grams of sugar.

- [Cynthia] Two
teaspoons of jelly.

- Instead of eating bacon
and eggs in the morning,

which keeps you full until
well past lunch for example,

now you're eating a couple
of slices of bread and jam,

and of course, by the
time you metabolize it,

the sugar goes way up,
and then it goes way down.

At 10:30, you're looking
for a low-fat muffin.

- Day one of the new diet has
begun and I have to admit,

I'm not liking it
hungry all day.

- Instead of eating
three meals a day,

which is a standard since in
the '60s, '50s, '60s, '70s,

now all of a sudden,
people are getting hungry,

like ravenous at 10:30,
and they're saying,

oh, yeah, I need to
eat six times a day.

- Today I was hungry again
so I needed the snack,

and I also got really
tired after the meal.

- So not only are you eating
foods that stimulate a lot

of insulin, you're
doing it constantly,

six times a day versus three
times a day, and it's like,

well, what's gonna happen?

- Lunch was a ham
sandwich with some mayo,

some grapes, the milk
and I went off the chart,

I went over 200 and it just
kept going up and up and up

and up and up and up and up
and then it hit over 200, 206,

I think was it.

Then it started coming
down, that was crazy to me.

And it was almost
a little scary.

- It's a recipe for diabetes,

how long is it gonna be before
everybody becomes diabetic?

Because that's the
outcome of that advice.

- I never got even close to
that last week, not even close.

So it's gonna be an
interesting week and, gosh,

I hope I last all
week, I'm not kidding.

- Hi, this is Cynthia, fifth
day on the low-fat diet.

It is barely 12:00
but I'm hungry

so I'm digging into my lunch.

I'm hungry again, so I will
dig into my daily snack.

Last week I was
barely hungry at 2:00

and now I am very
hungry so I will eat.

- I was hungry the entire time.

I would eat, I would
feel good for about 30,

40 minutes and then I would
start just feeling hungry.

- [Cynthia] I definitely
liked last week.

- [Dr. Mark] When
you compare the flat

and steady blood sugars
from the high-fat week

to the rollercoaster readings
from this low-fat week,

it's hard to believe that
our government thinks

this is good for us.

- USDA put together a guideline
that seems to me was really

to market the food
that America makes.

It wasn't based on health.

- The dietary guidelines
are not guidelines,

the dietary guidelines
are guidance.

They're guidance for the
food industry to be able

to sell food.

They have nothing
to do with health.

And the fact that the USDA
is in charge of our health

is already a problem.

- The USDA when it was
founded had two mandates,

not one, two.

Mandate number one, was
to provide information

to the American public
about healthy eating.

Mandate number two, was
to support, encourage

and grow the American
agricultural industry.

Those two mandates are
not always congruent
with one another

because if you were
really being honest

with the American people you
would say, wheat, corn, sugar

and soy are not health foods.

And if you're congruent
with the other mandate

of the USDA which is to
support and encourage

and grow American agriculture,
you ain't telling people

to not eat four of
the five biggest crops

that are made in America.

So that's the contradiction

and that's why I don't think
you're gonna see much change

in dietary recommendations.

- So Nick, tell me
about your experiences

these past two weeks.

- So it's been really,
really interesting.

- Yeah, so it was interesting.

- Well, it was
really interesting.

- The low-carb, high-fat,

I had a really good
experience with.

- I loved all the food,
and I found it very easy.

- I like the high-fat
a little better

because I felt more energetic.

- The following week on
the low-fat, high-carb,

I was bonking.

I'd just be tired,
maybe hungry is probably

the best word.

- Insulin is a big driver
of carbohydrate craving

and hunger.

That hungry feeling that
you mentioned is often

when someone's insulin
levels are high

but their blood sugar is low.

It's that insulin
rollercoaster we talked about

that you eat carbs, your
insulin levels go up.

- And I got foggy during
the high-carb week.

- A little groggy.

- I was even just saying
things backwards and I noticed

that I wasn't clicking
like I normally do.

- I'd love to see your
graphs at some time,

kind of see the whole
progression of them.

Do you have them with you?

- Yeah, sure.

Let me see here.

- [Dr. Mark] Just
look at the difference

between the two diets.

Every one of our participants
experiences similar reactions

to the low-carb
versus low-fat diets.

- Wow, what a difference
between the two weeks.

- Yeah, it's huge.

- Yeah.

- From the first week I
was almost a flat line.

I was averaging 84.

- [Dr. Michelle]
Much more stable.

- It was fascinating, it
was really interesting

being a part of this.

- I'm really excited about
this changing my life.

- It's cool to see.

- For many people,
fat is a superfood.

Not only does it help you
feel full and lose weight,

your body uses it as
the building blocks

for cellular membranes and
fat makes up the myelin sheath

that forms around our nerves
and allows electrical impulses

to transmit quickly
and efficiently.

Fat makes up more than
half of our brain tissue.

Human breast milk is
more than half fat,

much of which is saturated fat.

We need healthy fats
to be healthy humans.

Unfortunately, what
we've been told about

which fats are good for
us and which fats are bad

is dead wrong.

- Everybody just thinks, oh,
don't eat fat, don't eat fat,

and it's actually
more tragic than that,

the story is
actually much worse.

As people turned away
from saturated fats,

like butter and animal fats,
we were told to eat margarine.

* Yes I am the muffin man,
now I am the butter man *

- [Narrator] Imperial, only
our taste deserves the crown.

- It turns out, and this is
what's so tragic about it,

it was deadly advice.

- Many doctors have
recommended corn oil margarines

to help lower the saturated
fat in a reduced fat diet.

- So if you remember
margarine is vegetable oils,

and then they partially
hydrogenate them
to make them solid,

so they look like butter.

Partially hydrogenated fats
are actually trans-fats.

- It's best to replace spreads
high in saturated fats.

- So we went from eating
natural foods and butter

to trans-fats, which we
now know was super, super,

super deadly for heart attacks.

- For the family you
love, serve delicious,

new Mazola margarine

and love it's light
delicate flavor everyday.

- That is mind-blowing
that we told people

to stop eating butter, and
eat this poison instead,

and it would be good for
you, and we all did it.

- This is Mazola, 100%
corn oil margarine made

from 100% corn oil goodness.

- Well, there's really no doubt

that the American Heart
Association endorsement

of vegetable oils was a great
thing for that industry.

- [Narrator] This
is Ralph Edwards

with "Truth or Consequences."

Congratulations on your
fine entry statement

of why we should all support

the American Heart Association.

- [Dr. Mark] The American
Heart Association started

in the 1920s as a sleepy
little organization

that could barely
keep its doors open.

But in 1948, Procter and Gamble,

the maker of Crisco
was shortening,

staged a nation-wide fundraiser
and the AHA hit the jackpot.

- [Narrator] To
thank Jack Benny,

the American Heart
Association has a million

and a half dollars there.

All right, Ralph Edwards
saying, goodnight, everybody.

- Overnight, millions of dollars
flowed into their coffers.

I mean, literally from
one week to the next,

they started opening up
chapters all over the country,

all thanks to
Procter and Gamble.

- [Narrator] New Crisco
oil stays blended longer,

makes salads taste great.

New Crisco oil blends
better than other oils.

- [Dr. Mark] The American
Heart Association

has endorsed vegetable
oils ever since.

- It's not nice to
fool mother nature.

- They then were able to
publish advertisements saying,

lowers cholesterol, take
this ad to your doctor

and get them to prescribe
to you vegetable oils

for your health.

- Vegetable oils are
a fascinating topic

because they've become
labeled as heart-healthy

which drives me a little crazy
because the label was granted

to them simply by
lowering LDL cholesterol.

But, the broader question
is, what else are they doing?

These are not real
food products,

these are products
made in factories.

These are products that
require heat and chemicals

and high pressure to extract
what little oil there is.

- [Dr. Mark] The heat
and chemicals used

in the manufacturing
process oxidizes

these delicate seed oils.

When you eat oxidized vegetable
oils like soy, canola,

corn, safflower or sunflower,
they create free radicals

throughout your body that
are highly inflammatory

and known to cause heart
disease and cancer.

- Why are we always trying
to eat more antioxidants?

To combat free radicals
like the ones found

in refined vegetable oils.

- And then they're
used by restaurants

in the most carcinogenic
way possible.

They heat them, reheat them,
cool them off, heat them again

and use them for a week.

So switching to "vegetable
oils," the seed oils,

was probably a terrible
idea in the first place.

- [Dr. Mark] One researcher
from the University of Minnesota

went to a variety of
fast food restaurants

in her neighborhood and
purchased french fries,

and then took them back
to her lab for testing.

She found numerous
compounds of toxic aldehydes

in the fries.

Aldehydes are known to
cause gene mutation,

alter RNA and DNA, and
trigger massive inflammation

in the body.

- Vegetable oil is
highly toxic and anyone

who advises people
to eat vegetable oils

is also giving misinformation.

- I tell my clients to avoid
the industrial seed oils

as much as possible.

- [Dr. Mark] Vegetable oils
belong in the engines of cars,

not in your food.

Refined vegetable oils
are one more reason

you should avoid fast
food and processed foods.

If it comes in a
bottle or a box,

it probably contains
vegetable oils,

from crackers to cookies,
mayonnaise to salad dressings,

baby food and even baby formula.

- They're not natural,
they've been shown

to be pro-inflammatory
and, in some studies like

the Minnesota
Coronary Experiment,

the Sydney Diet Heart Study,
they've shown that, yes,

they lower LDL but they
actually do nothing

or they worsen
all-cause mortality.

(historical music)

- The Minnesota Coronary
Survey which took place

in the 1960s was the
biggest ever test

of Ancel Keys' hypothesis.

- The Minnesota
Coronary Experiment
is a fascinating study

both from a science standpoint

and sort of a
detective standpoint.

- So it took place in five
Minnesota mental hospitals

which is a kind of experiment
you can't do anymore

because it's
considered unethical.

But, back then it
has the benefit

of being highly
controlled, which means

that you're feeding
people all their food,

so you know what they're eating

and they can't get outside
food, so they can't cheat.

- In the diet, they
replaced saturated fat

with polyunsaturated
fat, in intervention.

And the diet was similar
in all the other nutrients

that they deemed
to be important.

And what they found was
that with the intervention,

cholesterol levels went down,

which is what you would expect,

but mortality
actually trended up.

- Turned out that people

who were on the
cholesterol lowering diet

had more heart disease
and more deaths

than the people eating
the controlled diet,

which was the exact opposite
of what they wanted.

- So it did not support
the diet-heart hypothesis.

- But they never
published the results.

- If you do a very long study
going into that study thinking

that you know what the
end in mind is going to be

and then it isn't the end
in mind, I can understand

that you don't wanna
publish the results,

but it is scientific fraud.

- Yeah, that is
totally unacceptable

to not publish your
data like that.

- It wasn't published until
decades later that a relative

of the author went
digging for the results.

And this is the detective
part that's kind of crazy,

that he had to go looking
through the basements

to find these data and re-crunch
the data and reanalyze it

and then bring it out
to publish it to say,

"Hey, look, this diet higher
in omega-6 oils, lowered ldl,

"but it increased
cardiovascular risk

"and it increased mortality."

- When you are making
recommendations

that are not evidence-based,
and evidence comes out

that's contrary to those
recommendations, wait a minute,

that's a problem, right?

And so what has been the
standard approach to dealing

with that situation, which
has come up a number of times?

Bury the new evidence.

And that's exactly
what's happened,

and the Minnesota Coronary Study

is a perfect example of this.

- The heart foundation
didn't come out and say,

sorry, we're wrong.

They just ignored it
as if it didn't happen

and they continued to
promote vegetable oils

and poly-unsaturated fats.

- If that had been published,

almost certainly what we eat
today would be different.

- This is a reason for everyone

to be outraged beyond concern.

- Controlled
clinical trials like

the Minnesota Coronary
survey are considered

the gold standard of research,
the type of experiment

where you can control
every bite of food

and change just one thing,
like swapping butter

for margarine to find out if
it has an affect on our health.

But trials like
these are expensive

and some even
considered unethical.

Cheaper, observational
trials are far more common.

- [Interviewer] How many
times have you had oatmeal

in the last year?

- I have no clue.

- Oh my gosh.

(interviewee laughs)

- [Dr. Mark] Observational
trials often rely

on food frequency questionnaires

that rely on people's memories

and people's memories
aren't that great.

- [Interviewer] How many times
have you had orange juice

in the last year?

- I wouldn't know a number.

- Last year?

- I'm gonna say...

- If I was to put a number
on it, upwards of 20.

- [Interviewer] In the
last year, 20 times?

- Oh yeah, yes.

- [Interviewer] So you
think you've had it only

about two times a month?

- Oh, darn, yeah you're right.

- I have no idea
how many ounces.

- Well, if I had to break
it up into ounces, you know.

- Probably about
the same as you,

I don't know how many ounces.

- See what I mean?

Observational trials
generate unreliable data

and are the reason why
nutrition recommendations

constantly flip and flop.

Setting nutritional food
policy based on unreliable data

is largely what got us
into this big fat mess.

- [Interviewer] How hard do
you think it is to remember

what you ate?

- Impossible, unless you
have some ridiculous ability

to remember everything
which nobody does,

nobody remembers
things accurately.

- [Dr. Mark] No one person
may represent the antithesis

of the low-fat diet
better than Dave Asprey.

His company, Bulletproof,
has made a morning ritual out

of adding spoonfuls
of fat to coffee.

- [Dave Asprey] You take
from teaspoon to a tablespoon

of grass-fed butter.

- [Dr. Mark] Add to that
a few more tablespoons

of purified coconut oil.

- And then, add your brewed
black coffee and you blend it.

(blender whirring)

You can see, it looks an
awful lot like a latte.

You drink this, you're just
not hungry for hours and hours,

and you're energized in a
way that you'll never get

from a piece of toast.

- [Dr. Mark] It was through his
own discovery of a high-fat,

low-carb diet that Dave Asprey
lost more than 100 pounds

and he's kept it
off for 10 years.

- In 2004, after I lost a
bunch of the weight I wanted

to lose, I decided to go to
Tibet to learn meditation

from the masters.

And, at 18000 feet elevation
in a very remote part of Tibet,

10 degrees below zero,
30 mile an hour winds,

and I'm feeling kind of
wrecked, 'cause there's no air

and it's cold.

And this little Tibetan
woman gave me a bowl

of yak butter tea, which is
yak butter, mixed with tea,

and a pinch of salt.

All right, fine, I'm hungry.

I drank it, didn't taste
great, didn't taste bad.

About a minute later,
I feel really good.

In fact, I haven't
felt this good in days.

What is happening?

And I wrote a little note in
my journal, how could this be?

And that day, I had
another 20 cups of it,

and I just felt like
I got my life back.

- [Dr. Mark] Dave came
back to the states

and adapted his yak butter
tea experience to coffee.

Bulletproof is now a
multi-million dollar company

which Dave operates alongside
his small organic farm

where he grows grass-fed
sheep and pigs.

- Hey, guys.

Hey, Riley.

- [Dr. Mark] Dave
believes the quality

of the fats you
consume is critical.

- If you're not sure whether
fats are good or bad,

it's okay 'cause some fats are
bad, and some fats are good.

No wonder it's confusing.

Short version: grass-fed
butter, egg yolks, coconut oil,

avocados, olive oil,
those are the good fats.

- [Dr. Mark] While there is
much debate over the role played

by animal agriculture
in climate change,

raising grass-fed animals
on organic pastures

like Dave's actually
helps capture carbon

and can be a sustainable
piece of the climate solution.

- And the meat you eat
must be higher quality

and guess what high
quality animals make?

High quality poop.

Guess what high
quality poop makes?

High quality vegetables.

The vegetables you're eating
that don't come from farms

that look like this are
vegetables devoid of nutrients.

And if we allow that
to continue, there
will be no topsoil.

This is how you make topsoil.

And the Tibetans figured
out a long time ago,

saturated fat helps your brain.

They were using it for
meditation, they were using it

to help their metabolism
work in very harsh conditions

that are high stress.

So it's time to throw
away the seed oils,

they are not fit for
human consumption.

If you're eating bad fats,
it's going to kill you.

And this is where the
American Heart Association,

and the American Diabetes
Association just got it wrong.

They told you to eat bad fats

because of industrial interests,

and it's time that
we change that.

The science is very, very clear.

- So how much weight
have you lost totally?

- I believe 30 pounds.

- That's great.

- Yeah, and my goal was 50
so I think it's very doable.

- And you're down
another five pounds.

- I am?

- Yeah.

- [Dr. Mark] In two months,
Judi has lost weight

and cut her insulin
medications by 60%.

- I think you have to
look inside yourself

and just determine that
nobody is gonna take care

of you the way that you can.

I don't feel like
anyone could go wrong

with making an attempt at this
but you can not attempt it

for a week.

You have to set your
mind and set yourself

to it for a period of time.

- [Dr. Mark] Judi is inspired
by thousands of other patients

who have reversed
their Type 2 Diabetes,

getting off all medications
with a high-fat,

low-carb nutrition plan.

- We reversed my Type 2
Diabetes, after one month.

I couldn't be prouder, no more
insulin injections for me,

and no more metformin,
and even statins.

- I completely reversed
my Type 2 Diabetes

in just three months and
before I changed my diet,

I weighed 212 pounds.

Now I weigh 165 pounds and
I take zero medications.

- Before I started, I
weighed about 265 pounds.

I now weigh 130 pounds.

Now I can enjoy my family,
I can do everything

that you should
do to live a life.

It's just been a total change.

- I have seen so many individual
transformative patients,

what an honor that is to share
that journey with a patient.

- I feel like if a
person just is determined

and sets their goals that there
isn't anything you can't do.

You just have to decide
that feeling good

and being healthy is
more important than
the things you used

to like to eat.

It isn't very long
before your tastes change

and you really like it.

- When I first started
exploring low-carb,

I tried to keep it very
quiet because it had been

and maybe still is a very
controversial subject.

In other countries, dietitians
were losing their licensure

over practicing low-carb, let
alone medical doctors as well.

- Professor Noakes, on a charge
of unprofessional conduct,

the majority of this
committee find you not guilty.

(audience applausing)

- [Dr. Mark] The controversy
over low-carb may be slowly,

quietly, changing.

In the long, drawn out
case of Doctor Tim Noakes,

the final ruling
found in his favor.

- So as far as we're
concerned, we made the point

that this diet is safe.

That's all we really
set out to do.

- The low-carb, ketogenic diet
is a low inflammation diet.

- [Dr. Mark] More and
more brave practitioners

are going against the
dietary guidelines

to help their patients
find better health,

like Brian Lenzkes,

who also teaches low-carb
nutrition classes at his church.

So far, Brian's congregation
has lost more than 2000 pounds.

- Our results are in
purple here, low-carb.

- [Dr. Mark] The
two year findings

from Sarah Hallberg's clinical
trial show that a low-carb,

high-fat diet is
equally as effective

as bariatric surgery in
reversing Type 2 Diabetes.

- So your assessment
of the vilification

of saturated fat after your
experience in this trial?

- Well, I'll tell you,

what we say is that we do
not restrict saturated fat

in these patients,
and yet they're having

these remarkable results.

- [Dr. Mark] In April of 2019,

the American Diabetes
Association issued an update

to its longstanding position
that diets lower than 130 grams

of carbs a day are unsafe.

- I was thrilled, it felt
like Christmas morning to me.

It was the very
first time in writing

from a huge
organization that said

what I was doing was okay.

What I was doing was an approach

that was helping my patients.

And while it was something
that I have known for years,

it was the first
time I felt safe.

It was the first
time I felt safe

to give these recommendations.

- [Dr. Mark] In 2015,
after more than 50 years

of condemning foods like
eggs, lobster and shrimp,

the American Heart
Association quietly dropped

their longstanding
recommendation

against dietary cholesterol,

saying it's no longer
a nutrient of concern.

That same year, the U.S.
Dietary Guidelines Committee

removed the cap on
dietary fat consumption,

admitting there's no evidence
that eating fat is bad

for health, but the cap
on saturated fat remains.

- The hypothesis that
saturated fats are bad

for health has been the
most tested hypothesis

in the history of
nutrition science.

There has been no hypothesis
that has been more tested.

Some 75,000 people, 65,000
somewhere in that range,

depending on which
studies you include,

and none of them could show

that saturated fats
had any effect on total

or cardiovascular mortality.

There's no evidence for it.

- [Dr. Mark] Even so, the
American Heart Association,

who takes much of its funding
from Big Food and Big Pharma,

continues to stand behind
its long-held position

that saturated fats are
the cause of heart disease

and that refined vegetable
oils are heart-healthy.

- But there is so much
politics and so much money,

and Big Pharma and the
sugar industry behind trying

to keep those guidelines
as they are right now.

I feel like eventually
they will change, but when?

It could be 50 years.

We can't wait 50 years.

Millions of people have died
already because of this mess.

- [Dr. Mark] Doug Reynolds
isn't waiting any longer.

His company, LowCarbUSA
is partnering

with dozens of physicians,
nutritionists and dieticians

to create a set of global,
clinical guidelines

that teach medical
professionals how to safely

and effectively practice
low-carb nutrition.

- Now it gives a lot
of them confidence

to maybe start implementing
it in their practice,

where before, they weren't
quite sure how to do it

or they were afraid that other
doctors weren't doing it.

Now, they're actually
following some kind

of set of guidelines.

- And what about the
official dietary guidelines

for Americans?

The three main eating
patterns recommended

by the USDA all
feature more than 50%

of daily calories
as carbohydrates.

According to the dietary
guidelines, low carbohydrate,

high-fat diets are
still, not an option.

In 2017, the National Academy
of Sciences and Medicine

performed the first ever
outside scientific review

of the U.S. Dietary
Guidelines and found

that the process
lacked transparency
and scientific rigor.

Recommending a single
dietary pattern

to an entire population
was a huge mistake.

Not only did the low-fat
diet not work, it did us harm

and resulted in greater
obesity and disease.

The lesson of the low-fat diet
may be that nutrition science

is deeply flawed and our
nation's dietary guidelines

have been heavily influenced
by the food industry

and the enormous amount
of money at stake.

- What we are living now is just

so completely unsustainable.

These unsustainable
rates of obesity

and diabetes were
bankrupting our nation,

it's destroying people's lives,
it's destroying our country,

and it has to stop.

- We are not
treating the disease,

we're treating the
symptoms of the disease.

And so it should be of
no surprise to anyone

that we're not getting
better and we're not going

to get better until we recognize
what the real problem is.

If we changed the food, we
could solve this problem.

- [Tracy] We get so many mixed
messages about diet and--

- Does the government have
a role in telling people

how to eat?

- [Tracy] We kinda have to
find what really works for us

but we still need
to know the truth.

- It's a fascinating
question that has a lot

of different opinions and
certainly, the past 30, 40 years

of experience would say,
no, they probably shouldn't

be in that role.

- The people at the top
are not going to change,

so we have to get this going
as a bottom up revolution

and get more and more people
on board until they're shamed

into changing the
guidelines because the swell

of the population is
just ignoring them.

- The change is coming
from the people,

because they've changed.

They're forcing the
doctors to change,

if we can change the
medical profession,

I think we'll do something.

- If you're pre-diabetic
or Type 2 Diabetic,

there is a way out, a path
forward to health and vitality,

to fewer drugs and more energy.

You can get your life
back and all you have

to do is eat real food.

- If somebody has
Type 2 Diabetes,

they can go online right now,
they can watch your movie,

they can read up on
something, they can buy a book

and start reversing
their disease today.

- What I see on a
day-to-day basis

with my individual patients
as well as my own family

and my own friends, I
think it's missed in some

of this research, and
what that is is freedom.

It's freedom from being hungry.

It's freedom from cravings.

It's freedom from headaches.

It's freedom from
reactive hypoglycemia.

It's freedom from mood swings.

It's better quality of sleep.

It's better quality of life.

- I feel great, I
feel really good.

Hi, girls.

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(upbeat music)

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