Review of Life Without Bread: How a Low-Carbohydrate Diet Can Save Your Life (Paperback)

Life Without Bread is an important addition to the growing body of literature on the benefits and importance of low-carb diet.Written by Christian Allan, Ph.D., and Wolfgang Lutz, M.D., the book is based on Dr.Lutz's experience using carbohydrate restricted diets with thousands ofpatients for over 40 years.It is also based on extensive research in themedical and scientific literature, and provides ample references.The bookpresents a more or less unified theory of how high (and even"moderate") levels of dietary carbohydrate cause or exacerbatevarious health problems, and how carbohydrate restriction can help peopleto recover from those problems.Although obesity is one of the problems,this is not primarily a weight-loss book.There is only one short chapteron weight loss.Other chapters deal with heart disease, gastrointestinaldisorders (e.g., Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis), auto-immunedisorders, and so on.There is also discussion of dietary carbohydratefrom the perspective of humanity's adaptation to the conditions of the longPleistocene era.
Life Without Bread accomplishes a number of importantthings.First, it collects a body of evidence for the low-carb way ofeating that is carefully thought out, and based on sound research andextensive clinical experience.Second, it debunks the pervasivecholesterol neurosis that has made much of the developed world phobic aboutfats.This is very important, since there are still relatively fewscientists willing to put their reputations on the line in opposition tothe cholesterol theory of heart disease.Allan and Lutz join their ranks. Third, it offers good arguments for the positive virtues of saturatedanimal fats, perhaps the most maligned dietary suspects of the past 100years.The authors are careful to distinguish levels of support for theirclaims; when they are somewhat speculative, they say so.They also pointout some of the limitations of the low-carb program, and do not claim it tobe a panacea.Fourth, they refute the many lame and ill-informedcriticisms of low-carb diets that one encounters again and again in thepopular (and, unfortunately, sometimes also in the scientific) literature-- such as the claim that these diets harm the kidneys or cause musclewasting.
For anyone who wants to gain a clearer understanding of thebenefits of low-carb diets, or to explain them to someone else (such as afamily physician, perhaps), this book is a valuable resource.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Life Without Bread: How a Low-Carbohydrate Diet Can Save Your Life (Paperback)