I say keep it going. You never know what new evidence will show up. Resting on "facts" in the specific definition you presented is not acceptable. I remember when the now accepted primary cause of stomach ulcers was treated as heresy. There was talk of taking away the doctor's license, as I remember it.
http://www.livescience.com/34799-stomach-peptic-gastric-ulcers.htmlFunny you would mention that. Many docs back in the day, my dad included, started treating ulcer patients with erythromycin because it worked. The hospitals and insurance companies would have nothing to do with it, so docs would simply add a secondary diagnosis for minor prophylactic treatment of _____ infection if the patient wanted insurance to cover it, or the hospital/nursing home to accept it. This was in the early 80s when docs knew ulcers and even mouth cankers were bacteria related. This happens more than you think in medicine, where the practitioners are in disagreement with the academics. Okay, it happens in every profession.
In medicine, we see the same today with statin drugs. Most physicians are now aware that LDL cholesterol levels are a result of vascular inflammation rather than a cause of cardiovascular disease. After over 20 years of prescribing statins, there is no evidence that higher LDL cholesterol levels lead to heart attack or stroke. The folks that have been taking statins all that time exhibit the same incidence of cardiovascular disease and death, except they are more likely to develop dementia because they have been blocking their body's ability to produce cholesterol in the brain where it acts as the primary antioxidant.
Starting in the 70s and 80s this started having a major effect on what we eat. We were taught that high cholesterol and saturated fat foods lead to high blood cholesterol levels, and that a fatty diet caused obesity. Again, there was and is no correlation. Most of the cholesterol in your body is produced by your liver in response to inflammation. Prick your finger and you develop a scab. Inflame your blood vessels and you generate more cholesterol. When you eat fat, your body does not just slap it onto your hips. Fat from a cow, chicken, or aardvark are not the same as human fat. Your body has to break all of that fat down, then convert it into sugar, then your cells convert it into human fat. Basically it takes much more work to turn bacon into love handles than sugar or starch. Also, eating a slab of bacon does almost nothing to insulin production, so if you want to gain weight, you would need to add a few twinkles to the mix to produce the insulin necessary to make your body store it.
Many docs have known this for quite a while, Atkins was just the first to break the silence about it, even though he really didn't completely understand all of the mechanisms himself. Now with a growing folio of research even academics are beginning to understand that spikes in blood sugar (and therefore insulin) caused by high carbohydrate diets, and refined sugars, cause immediate and lasting inflammation in the vascular system, and that inflammation is what contributes to heart disease, and a whole host of other ailments including many cancers. The increase in insulin production from our high carbohydrate diets is what has made us a nation of blimps, not our Spam intake.
Personally I lost 39lbs this last year, basically eating a simi-PALEO diet. I probably eat twice as much as I did before. I really don't keep track any more. I like meat and eggs and butter and cheese and vegetables, and nuts and just eat with abandon. My cholesterol (which was always borderline high) is now in the mid to low range, and about 6 months ago I got my old cardiologist dad doing the same thing. He's about 20lbs down and in better shape than ever.
That ribeye steak will do you no harm, it's that donut that's going to kill you!
Give this a peek. If you've got Amazon Prime, it's free:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Perfect-Human-Diet/dp/B00AX4QEAS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1357502705&sr=8-2&keywords=the+perfect+human+diet
