Mark's Story

Mark is a 35-year-old patient who came to see me for relief from frequent and severe headaches. Mark is 5 feet, 9 inches tall. When he first came to see me, he weighed 260 pounds. His body mass index was a whopping 40 percent (30 percent is considered obese).

Mark was morbidly obese, almost twice his healthy weight, and his blood pressure was markedly elevated. In order to rule out a neurological cause for his headaches, I referred him for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of his brain. His MRI came back as normal, so it became clear to me that Mark’s headaches were related to his elevated blood pressure—which was caused by his obesity. Mark’s blood work showed a markedly elevated triglyceride level (a risk for heart disease when high, and indicative of excessive carbohydrate intake). Mark had very low levels of high density lipoprotein cholesterol (C-HDL), which is another risk for heart disease when low. His examination and lab work indicated that he suffered from the metabolic syndrome, a disease of insulin resistance. His fasting insulin level was at 60, which is way too high.

I sat down with Mark and took an extensive dietary history. Mark told me that he had followed a low-fat and high-carbohydrate diet all his life. His weight constantly fluctuated, but it would always creep back up—no matter how vigilant he was.

Each morning, Mark ate cereal with fat-free milk and drank orange juice for breakfast. A typical lunch was usually a grilled chicken sandwich on white bread with fat-free mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomato, and a side order of a baked potato. He snacked on fat-free yogurts and pretzels. For dinner, he frequently ate pasta, a staple of his Italian background. Mark’s diet certainly followed the vague low-fat dietary guidelines we’re all encouraged to follow, but I quickly realized that he ate practically nothing but sugar. Mark was shocked when I told him that following a high-fat and low-carbohydrate diet, a balanced diet, was the only way to improve his deteriorating health. I explained to Mark that the abundance of sugar and lack of natural fat in his diet were causing his health problems.

Desperate to feel better and lose weight, Mark began following the Perfect 10 Diet. Within ten months, he was down to 170 pounds, his headaches were gone, and his blood pressure, cholesterol, and insulin had all returned to normal levels. Mark reports that he’s never felt better. Like me at one time, and most other Americans, Mark was being poisoned by the massive amounts of processed food, sugar, refined carbohydrates, and low-fat products he ate. 

Mary's Story

I met Mary several years ago, when she came to see me because of her elevated cholesterol levels. “Since I got married 2 years ago, I’ve gone from a size 4 to a size 12. I don’t take any drugs except for oral contraceptives.”

Mary was 37 years old, 5 feet, 4 inches tall, and weighed 160 pounds when I first met her. After taking an extensive history and doing a complete blood workup, I knew that Mary’s elevated cholesterol was
directly related to her diet. Her fasting insulin level was at 40 units, which is very high. Mary had been brainwashed into believing that all fat, except for margarine and refined manufactured vegetable oils, was bad.

She told me, “I don’t understand it. I don’t eat eggs or shrimp, Doctor, because of their high cholesterol content. I only eat cereals and pasta, and always make low-fat choices, from salad dressings to crackers.” Of course, most people with elevated cholesterol are advised to follow a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, and to use tub-margarine and other refined vegetable oils. My advice to Mary was to increase her intake of natural fat and to eliminate refined grains and processed foods from her diet.

My rather unconventional advice to improve her cholesterol levels and to lose weight alarmed Mary. “Wait a minute, Doctor. That’s a first. I’ve never heard of a doctor advising his patients to follow a higher-fat diet, or to eat egg yolks,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want to give me a cholesterol drug?”

“Mary, I’m positive,” I replied.

Mary eliminated margarine from her diet and started to eat fiber-rich vegetables with each meal. Sure enough, within 3 months, she’d lost 23 pounds. Her fasting insulin level dropped to 4, and her cholesterol
returned to a normal level without the use of any drugs or supplements.