 A Thumbs Up Book Review
The Schwarzbein Principle
By Diana Schwarzbein, MD and Nancy Deville
Reviewed By Stephen Byrnes, PhD, RNCP, ©2001
This book gets a qualified Thumbs Up. Dr. Diana Schwarzbein is a an endocrinologist who worked with type 2 diabetics at her first medical clinic following her residency and internship. In the beginning, Dr. Schwarzbein followed the standard dietary and pharmaceutical protocols for adult-onset diabetes: a high carbohydrate, low-protein, lowfat diet in conjunction with oral diabetes medications. Things started to change, however, when, in response to pleas from her patients, she allowed them more red meat and fat in their Spartan diets—things that are supposed to make diabetes worse, according to her medical training.
Schwarzbein then noticed that the blood sugar profiles of several of her patients improved considerably. When she quizzed them as to what they'd done differently, they all confessed to the same "crime": instead of eating just a little more red meat and fat in their diets as she told them, they ate lots of the forbidden foods while simultaneously dropping their carbohydrate intake. Dr. Schwarzbein had to admit the obvious: the standard of care for adult-onset diabetes was wrong. From that point on, she changed her whole approach to diabetes and nutritional health in general, realizing the dangers of high-carbohydrate diets and the misinformation on saturated fats promulgated by the establishment.
The Schwarzbein Principle should be subtitled "Everything You Wanted to Know About Insulin Resistance, But Were Afraid to Ask." It is an important antidote to the many books promoting lowfat or low-protein diets for insulin resistance. Schwarzbein links high insulin levels, primarily caused by high-carbohydrate, lowfat diets to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, oxidative stress, depression, eating disorders and obesity.
Her sensible approach to weight loss and general health is a lower carbohydrate, higher fat, moderate protein diet of natural foods. She points out that those who get a lot of exercise, such as athletes, need to eat more carbohydrates for energy. But for those who are more sedentary, excess carbohydrates will cause weight gain.
The great asset of the book is its down-to-earth explanations of complex biochemical processes—the reader is not left confused by endocrinological double-talk.
Our Thumbs Up is qualified because of several serious errors. Schwarzbein endorses processed soy foods (listed in several of the menu plans) and canola oil products. For a book that exhorts readers to avoid "man-made foods," these recommendations are strange indeed. Schwarzbein is also curiously down on coconut oil and incorrectly states that heating of oils creates trans-fatty acids—wrong on both counts.
For a weight loss program you can live with, though, as well as a sensible eating pattern that does not relegate saturated fats to the realm of poisons, The Schwarzbein Principle is a good pick.
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This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Winter 2002.
About the Reviewer
Stephen Byrnes, BA, MA, DR(AM), was a nutritionist and naturopath who grew up in New York and attended Hunter College in New York City where he received his BA in Comparative Religion. After moving to Los Angeles, he completed his MA in Humanities at California State University at Dominguez Hills. He then received his Diploma in Homeobotanical Therapy from the Australasian College, USA, a state-licensed college in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and his Doctorate of Alternative Medicines from the Alternative Medicines Research Institute (AMRI), a licensed and registered educational institution in Gibraltar, European Union, affiliated with the Open International University of Complementary Medicines, Colombo, Sri Lanka. He later received his Graduate Diploma in Naturopathy from the Canadian Alternative Medicines Research Institute (CAMRI), Vancouver, British Columbia. CAMRI is licensed and registered with the Private Post-Secondary Education Commission of British Columbia.
Dr. Byrnes had over 100 articles and papers published in health magazines and professional journals around the world. He was an honorary board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and an editorial board member of the Australian holistic magazine WellBeing. He also authored four books: Digestion Made Simple (Whitman Books; 2002); Diet & Heart Disease: It’s NOT What You Think (Whitman Books; 2001); Overcoming AIDS with Natural Medicine (Healing Light Ministries; 2001); and The Lazy Person's Whole Foods Cookbook (Healing Light Ministries; 2001).
Dr Byrnes died of a stroke in 2004 at the age of 42. During the final years of his life, he suffered extreme physical, emotional and financial stress, including threats from a stalker and having to defend himself in a frivolous lawsuit. He is greatly missed by his many friends and colleagues at the Weston A. Price Foundation.
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