Customer Reviews

Eat Fat, Be Healthy: When A Lowfat Diet Can Kill You

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this book after I had a heart attack. Like the author, my first heart attack was ignored by the hospital doctor and I was sent home. It was only after the third one that I was referred to a cardiologist, who had me flown to a hospital by air ambulance for angioplasty, which opened up the 90% clogged right main artery.

You need to read this book if you have any family history of heart disease, stroke or diabetes, even if you follow a healthy lifestyle, exercise and watch your diet. This book is not about eating fat, its about newer, more accurate blood tests that can find risk factors that standard tests do not.

Since reading and following this book, I have dropped my triglycerides from 700 to 66 and my cholesterol from 230 to 146. My waist has gone from 38 to 34. I still need to raise my HDL from 35 and lower my lipoprotein (a), which I will do with niacin and more exercise.

The air ambulance cost me $9500, the angioplasty $17,000 and the emergency room, hospital stays and rehab another $10,000. I still get angina from time to time. I will always face the prospect of restenosis. It will be cheaper for you if you buy the book.

For about 20% of the population, eating a very lowfat diet will cause increased risk of heart disease. Who are these people? These are primarily men whose grandfathers, fathers and older brothers had heart attacks before age 50. They have high blood pressure and high triglycerides and cholesterol despite eating a good diet. And they are the ones who just might have the apolipoprotein B gene - a gene that predisposes them to all these conditions.

This is a great book for people who fit this profile. Matthew Bayan's description of his own heart attack is a powerful incentive to do something about the risk of a heart attack. He explains why his attempts to eat a low fat, low cholesterol diet only increased his cholesterol. If these people don't eat some cholesterol in their diet, their bodies will produce a great quantity of cholesterol on their own. Unfortunately, not all physicians know about the apoB gene and it`s significance on diet. But this book will provide enough information to help the informed patient to communicate better with his physician.

So no, if you thought this was a book saying it's okay to eat a fatty diet, it's not. It's a very sensible person's journey through the medical maze back to health - which just might help about 20% of the population.

Dr. Suzanne ...

I've worked ER and the idea that someone could survive seventy-two defibrillations was (pardon the pun) a shocking thought. The author is a miracle man indeed! I've never seen anyone brought back from cardiac arrest that many times, or even close to it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this man's sense of humor. He truly captured the sometimes circus-like atmosphere of a hospital. And his interactions with the nurses ring true. I laughed out loud at a couple of places where his wit rightly lances some pompous and absurd aspects of our medical system.

His explanations of the science behind how cholesterol is formed and how it functions in the body are simple, to the point, and very understandable. This is the best explanation of how our bodies manage fat that I have ever read. I wish doctors could be this clear to their patients.

Mr. Bayan has uncovered a truly dangerous disease and has unflinchingly told his story, even though I am sure it was difficult to do. I hope his book is successful in reaching the millions of people who unknowingly carry this dangerous affliction. This book could save many lives.

My father died at age 37. I always wondered if I might have inherited a bad heart gene, but my cholesterol was always good... so I decided that I must have inherited my mothers good genes. However, I learned from this book that you can have a normal cholesterol reading and still have a life threatning inherited condition. It gave me the address of where to get tested. To my surprise, I did have a blood clotting condition called LP(a). This is a totally inherited condition. I had no idea. I started taking Niaspan (niacin) and I've seen marked improvement in my tests! This book contains valuable information on medicine, diet, and exercise. I keep referring back to it as my heart bible. Also, it was a pleasure to read because it is written in an interesting story format. Hats off to Matthew Bayan. This book was very needed. It could save thousands of lives..... as it did mine.

Most people interested or experiencing coronary heart disease will probably find this book useful. It is well and lively written, easy to follow and full of very practical self-tested and perhaps life-saving guidelines. One big plus of this book is that the author is not afraid of questioning the established medical dogmas, and at the same time is also able to see some merit in it as well, without thrashing it out altogether. My other comment is that it would benefit to have more thoroughly quoted scientific references, the way for example Atkins has done; for example in the chapter where the author strongly criticizes dr.Ornish' diet for failing or being outright harmful in large fraction of cardiac cases (quotes 5,15-30 or even 41%) due to genetic factors, the scientific reference is provided (LBL, U of Ca, page 59) but is unfortunately untraceable. This is quite important as the author's statement is in strong contradiction to Ornish's own claim of his diet being good for almost everybody. There are several inaccuracies in this book. For example, the author has correctly noticed that a diet high in fats is known to improve the lipid panel in almost all cases, especially by increasing HDL and reducing supposedly harmful LDL-B, unfortunately on page 60 while recommending unsaturated fats he at the same time suggests to avoid saturated fat without providing any scientific evidence backing such a claim (which of course there exist none but it is another story...). The author does not mention that not only there is no evidence to support the notion that natural saturated fats are supposed to be bad, at the same time there is no mention of studies pointing to possible health hazards (e.g. cancer, blood clotting alteration) from eating the very fat that he recommends - polyunsaturated vegetable oils. In terms of dietary recommendation as per title of the book, that is to eat fat, it stops at 30% calories, which is sort of half-way through and falls short of what other non-conventional doctors advocate as a true high fat diet. In fact at 30% it should still be classified as a high carb low fat diet, since human metabolism switches to the true high fat regime only after exceeding 50% (optimum is 60-80%) by calories. This might perhaps explain why the author had to resort to using drugs to further improve his lipid profile. This book raises also more questions than answers, which is good! For example: it is still unclear whether the lipid anomalies are the causes or the symptoms (caused by some unknown factor), some studies indicate one some other the second possibility. Also it is highly unlikely, contrary to the author's suggestion, that a genetic defect which kills men in their 40-ties would have persisted in the population in such a high percentage as 1 out of 4 or so. It is probably more likely that the real cause is in food or environmental while genetics may be simply making those people more susceptible to the real (as yet unknown) agent of the disease. In spite of the above comments I would recommend this book. Last but not least, I firmly believe that the book would have been hugely enhanced had the author expanded upon the statement on page 87 ("I _choose_ to come back here.").

This is an excellent book written by a man who has both personal (heart attack survivor) and professional experience (25 years managing health and nutrition programs) with the topics of heart disease and diet. The book depicts a journey of self-discovery regarding a genetic risk factor (Apolipoprotien B gene) which predisposes the carrier to paradoxically produce heart- threatening, small particle LDL on a low fat diet. Conveyed in dramatic and, at times, humorous terms, this book contains valuable information for anyone who wants to be an active, knowledgeable, and critical consumer of their own cardiac healthcare.

Many patients in our clinic have positively endorsed the book, describing it as "one of the best to read in the area", "down to earth and understandable", "interesting and entertaining", "personally empowering", and "great advice from someone who has been there." As an added bonus, the author provides a web page address and links through which he interacts and consults with readers, responsibly referring them to places where they can obtain state of the art diagnostics regarding a variety of "heart-stopper" risk profiles, additional sources of information, and professional advice. Highly recommended and well worth the money.

A moving description of a very personal journey. Matt Bayan's decision to take control of his life and his health (with his cardiologist's help) is inspiring. His ability to translate medical material into terms a layperson can understand makes the book quite readable, despite its technical focus. He has a very important story to tell, and he tells it with wit and clarity.

With all the books out today on Hypertension, Heart Disease, High Cholesterol, I found Mr. Bayans book to be not just informative, easy to read AND understand, but a refreshing change from many books on those mentioned diseases. It is a shame that this information had to come from one who had to basically DIE first in order to receive the appropriate treatment for his medical problem. "Let the reader beware before it's too late" is the message I think Mr. Bayan is giving us through his terrifying ordeal and his own personal search for a physician who could basically save his life!!

With all the books out today on Hypertension, Heart Disease, High Cholesterol, I found Mr. Bayans book to be not just informative, easy to read AND understand, but a refreshing change from many books on those mentioned diseases. It is a shame that this information had to come from one who had to basically DIE first in order to receive the appropriate treatment for his medical problem. "Let the reader beware before it's too late" is the message I think Mr. Bayan is giving us through his terrifying ordeal and his own personal search for a physician who could basically save his life!!

As Publisher's Weekly and the book's own preface by Frank Carrea MD note the title "Eat Fat Be Healthy" is rather misleading, and could easily be taken by some to suggest that Mr. Bayan is arguing for a high fat diet, whereas the author is still eating a very low fat diet (he tries to stay close to 15 percent fat calories). Actually, the book is a discussion of the LDL subtype "B" as denoted on the VAP fractionated lipid test - subtype "B" meaning that your LDL cholesterol is "small and dense" rather than "big and fluffy". Subtype B is considered "atherogenic" - leading to atherosclerosis in your arteries. The VAP test is now widely available from most labs and covered by most insurance companies - when the book was written it wasn't. Everyone should request it because the normal lipid panel (total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides) doesn't have enough information to determine if you are a subtype B. My own lipid panels looked great - high HDL, low LDL, normal triglycerides, but it showed my LDL was subtype B. However, subtype B isn't purely genetic, which is what Mr. Bayan seems to think. Diet (particularly very low fat diets) can actually shift a person from the desirable "type A LDL" subtype to the bad "type B". So where the book falls short is that it doesn't explain the science behind this more complete lipid test, which has critical implications for understanding why people in Western countries get heart disease, which is remarkably absent in "undeveloped" countries or countries which still follow more traditional diets. Mr Bayan still buys into the official view that fats are causing elevated cholesterol and fatty plaques. He notes that in subtype B cases, eating low fat and too many carbs will raise triglycerides - but he doesn't seem aware that for everyone, eating simple carbs is the root problem. He doesn't seem to be aware that there is a common thread which links all populations which have low rates of heart disease and it isn't the amount or type of fat in the diet. Japanese, Eskimos, Papua New Guineans, rural Africans etc etc all traditional have virtually no heart disease, despite the fact that some eat huge amounts of saturated fat - like Eskimos and Polynesians - while some eat very low fat like the Japanese. And these populations also have people who are genetically predisposed to being "subtype B" - yet they still don't have heart disease. What these population with very low heart disease rates have in common is that their consumption of simple sugars (refined sugar, refined flours, high fructose corn syrup, highly processed carbs in general) has traditionally been very low. When these groups do begin consuming simple carbohydrates, they develop the "diseases of civilization - obesity, heart disease, diabetes. Instead of this book, I would recommend Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories" - which explains the science in great detail and quite readable for the lay person. Taubes' book is a not only a history of the science behind the "fat theory" of heart disease and the "carbohydrate theory" of heart disease - he explains the science as well, and if you bother to spend a few days reading it you will have a much better understanding of how heart disease and the associated metabolic diseases develop and how current nutritional guidelines came to be. You'll also probably decide to stop eating ANY kind of refined carbohydrate (complex carbs are not the problem) and you won't worry about fat, whether you're a subtype B or not.