[maj0rhn]

Collapsed while hiking. That is a cardiovascular death until proven otherwise. In a guy who ate a half a stick of butter every day ... quelle surprise.

Listen to a cardiologist trying to talk Seth out of his course, at around 11 minutes in this 2008 video:

http://vimeo.com/14281896

[ellyagg]

Dr. Mel Siff was a famous scholar in sport science. He hosted a mailing list for a decade that everyone in the field subscribed to. He wrote a comprehensive text on the subject of sport science, Supertraining:

http://www.amazon.com/Supertraining-Paperback-Yuri-Verkhosha...

A fitness buff throughout his life, so never straying far from a conventionally healthy diet in the first place, he famously doubled down on conventional wisdom and went on a low fat, vegetarian diet after suffering a heart attack at a young age. He did everything right, according to establishment wisdom. After a few years, at only 58, he died from a heart attack or stroke. Those of us who are skeptical of the diet-heart hypothesis were not surprised.

The point is, it's very easy to support a side with your favorite anecdote.

After decades of motivated science, the support for the diet-heart hypothesis is poor. Stephan Guyenet, a Ph.D. neurobiologist who studies obesity for a living, has a blog where he examines the evidence in detail. Here's a sample:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/07/diet-heart-hyp...

If you disagree, I'm sure Stephan would welcome you opening a dialogue with him in the comments on his blog. I'd be interested in that.

[lena]

Mel Siff died in 2003. "Established wisdom" at that time did not recommend a low-fat diet at all. He apparently wrote in one of his books that "nutritional scientists" recommend a diet of 10% fat, but that was never the recommendation of major health organizations or "conventional wisdom". The IOM recommended in 2002 20-35% of calories from fat, for example. In 1990 the recommendation was 30% or less.

It seems that Mel Siff didn't follow a low fat vegetarian diet himself, based on his response to a critical article about him: (full response here: http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6558 )

Interestingly, I cannot recall anyone by the name of Glassman ever staying in the Siff household or studying me in the laboratory to examine my eating habits, so I am intrigued to know where he found this inside information. The abbreviated tale of my cardiac rehab programme (http://www.worldfitness.org/drmelsiff.html) certainly said nothing about my specific breakdown of macronutrients in my diet.

Had he read a little more carefully what I wrote, he would have noticed that my diet comprises something like 50-60% lipids (no fried foods, no transfats, no animal fat, plenty of fish) and under 30% carbohydrates (no refined carbs) and hasn't deviated much from that sort of balance for many years - I have never been a lover of high carb diets and have eaten little or no sugar (other than about 1-2 tablespoons of honey or a few servings of fruit a day). Where on earth does he obtain that nonsense from about my diet?

So, he says there he ate about 50-60% fat. It's strange though that he says "no animal fat" but plenty of fish, which is of course animal fat.

[gress]

Nice appeal to authority without a shred of evidence.

Edit: downvotes? Where is the evidence of what actually killed Seth? What makes a 'cardiologist' correct here, vs a scientist?