Timeline of Heart Disease, Diabetes, fats, lard, HFCS, and vitamin D – Aug 2012

Subset of Illustrated History of Heart Disease 1825-2015 Diet Heart News Aug 2012

Note: lard and butter used to have lots of vitamin D and Omega-3

1910	Lifetime risk of type II diabetes was 1 in 30; today 1 in 3
1910	butter consumption = 18 pounds per capita – mortality from heart disease was below 10 percent.
1910	Lard, the rendered fat from outdoor-living pigs, was the #1 cooking fat – enjoying 70 % of the market. lard was the best source of Vitamin D
1911	Proctor & Gamble introduce Crisco,
1912	Dr. James B. Herrick first described a form of heart disease he called “hardening of the arteries.”
1924	American Heart Association (AHA) – founded.
1937	Biochemists demonstrated that dietary cholesterol had very little effect on blood cholesterol. Never refuted
1949	Arterioslcerosis is added to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), causing a sharp increase in reported deaths from heart disease
1950	Discovered several fat-like substances circulating in the blood, including LDL and VLDL. Reported that total cholesterol (TC) was a “dangerously poor predictor” of heart disease.
1951	Ancel Keys, professor, University of Minnesota, attends a conference in Rome on nutrition and disease and learns that heart disease was rare in some Mediterranean populations who consumed a lower fat diet. He noted, too, that the Japanese had low fat diets and low rates of heart disease. He hypothesized from these observations that fat was the cause of heart disease.
1953	Ancel Keys, convinced that dietary fat is the cause of heart disease, published his Six Country Analysis, suggesting an association between dietary fat and mortality from heart disease. Critics pointed out that Keys had data for 22 countries, but selected data from just 6. (As an example, Keys excluded France, a country with a high fat diet and low rates of heart disease.) Keys selected data – he cheated!
1956	American Heart Association (conducts a nationwide fundraiser on all three TV networks urging Americans to reduce their intake of total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.
1957	Margarine outsold butter for the first time. Has no vitamin D and Excess Omega-6
1961	Framingham Heart Study (data from five years). Men under 50 with elevated cholesterol were at greater risk of heart disease. However, this group of vulnerable middle-aged men were also more likely to smoke, be overweight, and not exercise – the famous Framingham “risk factors” and elevated cholesterol was at the top of the list.
1973	American Medical Association (AMA) attacks Dr. Atkins calling his high fat diet a “dangerous fraud.”
1976	FDA gives GRAS status (generally regarded as safe) to hydrogenated soybean oil – even though lipid biochemist Mary Enig, PhD, warned the government that – among their many dangers – trans fats interfere with insulin receptors on cell membranes and thereby increase the risk of diabetes.
1977	“All hell broke loose!” in Washington DC after the proposed guidelines were released. Major players - like the American Medical Association – and scientists in federal government agencies were aghast at what McGovern and his staff of non-scientists had come up with. At this juncture, McGovern was forced to schedule six additional hearings.
1978	High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) enters the sweetener market.
1980	U.S. Department of Agriculture released the official first ever low fat Dietary Guidelines for Americans. In bold face on the cover: “EAT LESS FAT, SATURATED FAT, AND CHOLESTEROL.”
1984	Anthony Gotto, president, American Heart Association, said, “If everyone went ahead with cholesterol-lowering, we will conquer atherosclerosis by the year 2000.”
1986	For the first time blood cholesterol over 200 mg/dl is treated as a disease.
1986	U.S. declared “War on Cholesterol,”
1987	Another ignored finding in the Framingham Heart Study: “Framingham residents whose cholesterol levels declined over the first 14 years were more likely to die prematurely of heart disease and cancer than those whose cholesterol remained the same or increased.”
1987	Mevacor, the first cholesterol-lowering statin drug, was approved in record time.
1988	Surgeon General’s :“Highest priority is given to reducing fat intake.”
1988	After 20 years researching carbohydrate metabolism, Gerald Reavan, MD, University of California, announces his discovery of “Syndrome X,” now referred to as Metabolic Syndrome or diabetes-related heart disease. Syndrome X is a cluster of abnormalities, including high blood sugar, high insulin levels, elevated triglycerides, and depressed protective HDL.
1990	In the year 2000, the CDC reported that the lifetime risk of diabetes is now 1 in 3.
1999	At the 14 year point in the Harvard Nurses Study, 3,000 nurses had developed cancer. According to study leader Walter Willett, the less fat the nurses ate the greater their risk of cancer. Willett said, “Saturated fat seems to be protective…
2000	Nutritious lard consumption: Less than 1 pound per capita.
2000	Sugar consumption in the US reaches 150 pounds per capita – most of it HFCS
2000	Butter consumption in the US goes below 4 pounds per capita.
2000	Well over $1 billion has been spent on trials focusing on lowering LDL cholesterol.
2002	What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie? – Gary Taubes’ New York Times magazine cover story (July 07, 2002) signaled that after three decades low-fat could be on its way out. Taubes pointed out that the science behind low fat was never proven and was actually based on “a leap of faith”
2005	More than 30 percent of all Americans are clinically obese
2005	butter is making a comeback! For the first time since 1957, butter outsells margarine