SEARS WELLNESS RESEARCH

Al Sears, MD
11905 Southern Blvd.
Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411

Healthy Readers

One of the lead researchers at my Wellness Foundation told me what her 80-year-old father eats for breakfast every day – a couple of slices of whole wheat toast… a cup of low-fat yogurt… a bowl of Grape Nuts cereal with skim milk…and a little orange juice to wash it down.

He made himself a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, followed by a container of applesauce. For dinner, he asked for a plant-based burger and brown rice – because everybody knows plants are better for your health than meat, right?

This is exactly the kind of diet the agencies that are supposed to be in charge of our health and the giant food corporations the government supports recommend you eat.

My researcher has been trying to get her father to change his food habits for years. But she admits he’s been convinced by the USDA for more than 60 years that he’s eating the best foods he can for his health.

You may also think these kinds of foods are healthy, and that they keep your heart strong and your weight under control – but here’s something not even nutritionists will tell you…

Ever since the government got involved in food production and dietary recommendations, America’s state of health has collapsed. And it has been replaced by an epidemic of chronic conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.

The truth is, if you follow the government’s dietary guidelines, you run the risk of developing any of these diseases.

Whole wheat bread, for example, is recommended by the government as heart-healthy, despite being linked in multiple studies to coronary heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.^1,2

To support its whole wheat recommendations, the government always pulls out a bunch of inaccurate observational studies. But not one of these supporting studies is a gold-standard randomized control study that ensures no other factors – such as no smoking among participants or regular exercise – can interfere with the conclusions.

But if you look at the randomized studies, you find a very different set of results. One randomized trial revealed that eating just six slices of whole wheat bread per day can increase your chances of developing a dangerous heart condition by a whopping 35%, compared with those who eat no wheat.³

The truth is, America has become a nation of wheat-aholics, eating around 133 pounds of wheat per person per year – whether it’s pizzas, pasta, Oreo cookies, or granola bars in the name of health, sandwiches, whole wheat toast or breakfast cereal.⁴

But wheat is just one part of America’s dietary woes

Everything began to go wrong back in the 1950s, when the medical-industrial-complex, backed by government dietary recommendations, declared war on fat – falsely linking fat and cholesterol to heart disease.⁵

Out went the protein-based meals of your grandparents – like steaks and eggs cooked in full-fat butter – and in came grain-heavy breakfast cereals, mass-produced breads, pastas, processed granola bars, cheaply produced vegetable oils, and a host of sugary, low-fat boxed and bagged supermarket products and poisonous artificial sweeteners.

Meanwhile, your morning fruit juice is now packed with so much high fructose sugar – 20 to 26 grams per cup – it’s as unhealthy as a sugary soda.

And soy products haven’t just been linked directly to diabetes, they’re loaded with estrogen mimickers that cause erectile dysfunction, man boobs, loss of bone and muscle mass, and at least half a dozen different types of cancer.⁶

The latest fad of plant-based meat and eggs is just another form of processed, unnatural fake foods loaded with sugar, excess salt, and soy.

The result is that America has become increasingly unwell, with some of the worst rates of chronic disease on the planet – and it’s all been imposed on us by Big Agra, Big Food and their government partners.

Despite all these dietary changes, heart disease is still the leading cause of death in America, killing one person every 33 seconds! Diabetes, obesity, and Alzheimer’s are off the scale.⁷

Not to mention an entire nation suffering from a broken metabolism…

The role of government in this modern health disaster cannot be understated. For decades, governments have spewed out unhealthy dietary recommendations – while at the same time, Congress and government agencies dole out subsidies and tax breaks to the producers of the most unhealthy, ultra-processed foods imaginable.

This is why I help my patients avoid these modern food threats and eat the way nature intended.

And that means putting fat first.

Put Fat First

Fats must make up 70% of your calories. One of the things I love best about the popular keto diet is that it FINALLY supports what I’ve been telling my patients for more than 30 years…fat is one of the healthiest things you can eat.

You need fat for more energy, to maintain your body temperature, to transport nutrients, and to build a faster brain. Fat is so important that if your body senses you’re starving, it does everything it can to preserve your fat stores. I tell my patients to eat as much of the following fats as they can every day:

1. Bring back the saturated fats. I’ve been shattering the “saturated fat is bad” myth for as long as I’ve been practicing medicine. The research just doesn’t back it up. In fact, the whole saturated fat myth has been debunked by science. Because saturated fats do not clog your arteries. And they don’t harm your heart. Truth is saturated fat is GOOD for your heart.
   
   I suggest getting about 50% of your fats from saturated fats. Replace corn and canola oils with lard. Bring back the butter and coconut. Always choose whole-fat dairy foods. Look for a particular kind of saturated fat called stearic acid. You’ll find it in pasture-raised beef and pork, pastured eggs, full-fat dairy, wild-caught tuna, salmon, and pompano, olive oil, chicken skin, and dark chocolate.
2. Always include omega-3 fats. These fats are from both plant and animal sources. Food sources include Sacha Inchi, canola, and flax seed oils. Animal sources include grass-fed beef, and fish — especially oily fish such as wild-caught salmon, mackerel, Southern bluefin tuna, trevally, and sardines.https://www.amway.com/en_US/Nutrilite%E2%84%A2-Advanced-Omega–p-126136
4. Mono-unsaturated fats from plants and plant oils. These include olive, sunflower, avocado, and most nuts.
5. Poly-unsaturated fats. This fat group also comes primarily from plant oils. It includes safflower, sesame, and sunflower seeds, corn and soybeans, many nuts and seeds, and their oils.
6. Eat more medium-chain and long-chain fatty acids. The two most common sources are coconut oil and MCT oil. These fats help your body shift from using carbs as a primary fuel source to using fat. This promotes more energy, clearer thinking, balanced blood sugar, and weight loss.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD, CNS

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References:

1. Harris KA, Kris-Etherton PM. “Effects of whole grains on coronary heart disease risk.” Curr Atheroscler Rep. 2010 Nov;12(6):368-76.
2. Jensen MK, et al. “Intakes of whole grains, bran, and germ and the risk of coronary heart disease in men.” Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Dec;80(6):1492-9
3. Ness AR, et al. “The long-term effect of dietary advice in men with coronary disease: follow-up of the Diet and Reinfarction trial (DART).” Eur J Clin Nutr. 2002 Jun;56(6):512-8.
4. USDA. “Wheat’s Role in the U.S. Diet Wheat’s Role in the U.S.: Diet Has Changed Over the Decades.” Available at: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/wheat/wheats-role-in-the-us-diet/
5. Wilson P, et al. “High density lipoprotein cholesterol and mortality: The Framingham Heart Study.” Arteriosclerosis. 1988 Nov-Dec;8(6):737-41.
6. Deol P, et al. “Soybean Oil Is More Obesogenic and Diabetogenic than Coconut Oil and Fructose in Mouse: Potential Role for the Liver.” PLoS One. 2015 Jul 22;10(7):e0132672.
7. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Heart Disease Facts.” Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm