In my decades as an Information Sherpa, I have guided many through the treacherous, jagged peaks of enterprise data and the dense, fog-filled valleys of Master Data Management. But the most profound truths I’ve uncovered didn’t just emerge from the hum of a server room; they were forged in the heavy silence of a recovery room following an ischemic brainstem stroke in 2014. Whether you are navigating the migration of a massive corporate database or the slow, painstaking journey of neurological recovery, the guiding principle is the same: Awareness is Reality.

If we lack awareness of context, history, and the intricate relationships that bind a system together, our perception is nothing more than a shadow. In my life and work, I’ve seen how the “marketing hype” of technology and the “fluff” of professional titles can blind us. To truly see, we must move past the surface and understand the deep logic that governs both our information and our well-being.

The “Bitropy” Blunder: Why Definitions Can Be Dangerous

Clarity of terminology is the bedrock of trustworthy information, yet much of our modern technical foundation is built upon what I call a farcical train of misconceptions. Consider the term “entropy.” Since the 1940s, a linguistic shadow has hung over information theory because of a joke made by John von Neumann to Claude Shannon.

“You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name. In the second place, and more importantly, no one knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.” — John von Neumann

This was science’s greatest Sokal affair. As Ingo Müller noted, such jokes merely expose their authors as “intellectual snobs.” Thermodynamic entropy is a physical state function (Joules per Kelvin), whereas Shannon’s “entropy” is a mathematical measure of choice (bits). To correct this seven-decade confusion, we should use the term Bitropy. The etymology is precise: it is the transformation (-tropy) of a choice between two (bi-) alternatives (bits) into information.

This semantic drift mirrors the modern sociopolitical trajectory of the word “woke.” Originally a signifier for awareness of systemic prejudice, it has suffered “elite capture,” where a professional-managerial class co-opts the language for cultural capital. This “identity reductionism” replaces material reality with performative labels. In both AI and society, when we lose the specific meaning of our words, we lose our grip on reality. Proper data preparation is unglamorous, but without semantic clarity, we are merely building on a bandwagon of misapplication.

The Chocolate Cake Principle: Why Relationships Outweigh Ingredients

Most organizations approach data quality as if they were examining ingredients in a vacuum. They analyze the “quality” of their flour or the freshness of their eggs without ever asking what they are trying to bake. Data only becomes information when it is placed within the Information Value Chain: data yields quantities, which inform formulas, which reveal relationships, which produce information, which leads to knowledge.

If your business objective is to bake a chocolate cake, you need more than just 2/3 cup butter, 3 large eggs, and 2/3 cup baking cocoa. You need the recipe—the associations and hierarchies that tell you how these elements interact. Analyzing a single column of data is useless until you understand the “drill path” of the business.

Ingredient-Centric Data Management (Old School)

Relationship-Centric MDM (Master Data Relationship Management)

Focuses on individual data quality (standardizing a single field).

Focuses on the associations and hierarchies between entities.

Analyzes ingredients (butter, flour, cocoa) in isolation.

Analyzes the “Recipe” (the business objective like “Operating Income”).

Leads to technical silos and reports that lack business context.

Enables a “drill path” to answer why a metric is performing poorly.

Prioritizes technology over business logic.

Prioritizes Information Architecture as the “Rosetta Stone.”

True Data Science can only be achieved after a business fully understands its existing Information Architecture. This architecture serves as the Rosetta Stone, translating past, current, and future results into a language the business can actually speak.

The Hidden Risk of Rapid Transformation: The “Slimmer’s Palsy” Warning

Transformation is often celebrated as a pure good, but rapid change without historical context is a dangerous endeavor. In my personal health journey, I experienced this firsthand. After my stroke in 2014, I eventually set out to reclaim my health. I was heavy—over 300 pounds. I lost 155 pounds in total, but 80 of those pounds vanished in a single year (2021).

This massive, rapid loss led to a counter-intuitive setback: “nutritional neuropathy,” or Slimmer’s Palsy. Because I lost weight too fast, the body began to lose the protective fat from the nerves themselves.

“I lost it too fast… this happened to my leg and arm… [the weight loss included] fat from my nerve in leg and throat and arm.”

The results were visceral: “foot drop,” slurred speech, and an ulnar nerve contraction that left my arm and hand withdrawn. This physical crisis mirrors the “Case of the Impossible Update” I once discovered in a bike shop’s database. I found 701 store records where the ModifiedDate was exactly Sep 12 2014 11:15 AM for every single entry.

This is a synchronization anomaly—a digital graveyard. While the data looked “clean,” it represented a total loss of history. Just as rapid weight loss can compress nerves by removing the fat that cushions them, rapid data migrations that “clean” records to a single timestamp blind a business to its own operational history. You can no longer see the past; you can only see the update. In both health and data, erasing the past makes it impossible to navigate the future.

AI is an Evolution, Not a Revolution

The hype surrounding Artificial Intelligence suggests a total revolution, but for the seasoned professional, it is an evolution of the same “unglamorous” work we have done for 20 years. To have confidence in an AI’s output, you must first prepare the foundation. You cannot “AI it” or “impute” your requirements; they must be written down through human discussion.

The path to trustworthy AI follows a specific hierarchy of needs:

The AI Development Pyramid:

1. Data Foundation: The unglamorous preparation of Word docs, presentations, spreadsheets, and data reports.

2. Algorithm Design: Defining the logic and formulas.

3. Model Training: RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) or fine-tuning for subject knowledge.

4. Application Integration: LLM meta-prompts and agent generation.

5. Future Synthesis: Integrating existing systems with future capabilities.

AI makes the “legwork” faster, but it cannot replace the human review. Without proper preparation of your Word documents and data reports, you will find yourself needlessly retracing your steps, lost in a forest of improper prompts and halluncinated facts.

Conclusion: From Perception to “Awarement”

We often live in a state of Perception—the titles we chase, the marketing hype we buy into, and the belief that a new tool will fix a broken process. But the goal of the Sherpa is to reach Awarement. This is the established form of truth realized through context and lineage. Awareness is coming to terms with reality.

In your business, and in your recovery, are you merely managing the ingredients—the raw facts and daily chores? Or are you brave enough to master the recipe and understand the relationships that hold your world together? Without lineage, there is no information. Without awareness, your data is just a collection of facts, and your reality is merely a perception.

Are you managing the ingredients, or are you ready to master the recipe?

Introduction: The Fat We Were Told to Fear

For the better part of 60 years, the message from doctors and public health officials has been clear and consistent: to protect your heart, you must avoid saturated fat. Foods like butter, red meat, and cheese were cast as dietary villains, directly responsible for clogging arteries and causing heart disease. This advice became a cornerstone of modern nutrition, shaping how billions of people eat.

But the scientific story behind this advice is far more complex than most people realize. It’s a history filled with surprising twists, questionable data, influential personalities, and crucial studies that were buried for decades. The seemingly solid consensus was, in fact, built on a foundation that is now being challenged by re-discovered evidence. Here are five surprising takeaways from the convoluted history of saturated fat.

1. The “Diet-Heart Hypothesis” Has a Surprisingly Flawed Origin Story

The idea that saturated fat causes heart disease by raising cholesterol, known as the “diet-heart hypothesis,” was first proposed in the 1950s by physiologist Ancel Keys. The bedrock evidence used to support this theory was Keys’s influential Seven Countries Study, which for decades was cited as definitive proof of the link.

However, a closer look at the study reveals major shortcomings. Critics have long pointed out that Keys used a “nonrandom approach” to select the countries, leading to accusations that he “cherry picked” nations likely to confirm his hypothesis. For example, he did not include countries like France or Switzerland, where people ate a great deal of saturated fat but had low rates of heart disease.

The problems went deeper than just country selection:

• Flawed Dietary Data: Dietary information was sampled from only 3.9% of the men in the study, totaling fewer than 500 participants.

• The Lent Omission: The data collection on the Greek island of Crete suffered from what later researchers called a “remarkable and troublesome omission.” The dietary sample was taken during Lent, a period when the Greek Orthodox church banned “all animal foods.” This meant saturated fat consumption was almost certainly undercounted, yet this skewed data became a cornerstone of the argument that the famously healthy “Cretan diet” was low in saturated fat.

2. Major Studies That Contradicted the Hypothesis Were Left Unpublished

While the diet-heart hypothesis was gaining widespread acceptance, several large and rigorous clinical trials were conducted to test it. Shockingly, when the results contradicted the prevailing theory, they were often ignored or simply not published.

Two critical examples stand out:

• The Minnesota Coronary Experiment (MCE): Conducted between 1968 and 1973, this was the largest test of the diet-heart hypothesis ever performed, involving over 9,000 men and women in one nursing home and six state mental hospitals. Despite successfully lowering participants’ cholesterol, the study found no reduction in cardiovascular events, cardiovascular deaths, or total mortality. The results went unpublished for 16 years.

• The Framingham Heart Study: This landmark study is one of the most famous health investigations in history. Yet, a detailed dietary investigation completed in 1960 concluded there was “No relationship” between saturated fat consumption and heart disease. This crucial finding was not publicly acknowledged by a study director, William P. Castelli, until 1992.

Why would the results of such a major trial like the MCE be withheld for so long? The study’s principal investigator, Ivan Frantz, reportedly explained his decision with a simple, telling admission:

“We were just disappointed in the way it came out.”

3. Swapping Saturated Fat for Vegetable Oil Lowered Cholesterol—But Was Linked to a Higher Risk of Death

When the long-lost data from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment (MCE) was finally recovered and re-analyzed decades later, it revealed a stunning and deeply counter-intuitive finding. The study’s intervention, which replaced saturated fats with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid (like corn oil), was successful in its primary biochemical goal: it lowered participants’ serum cholesterol by an average of 13.8% compared to the control group.

According to the diet-heart hypothesis, this should have led to fewer deaths. Instead, the opposite happened. The re-analysis showed no mortality benefit at all. More strikingly, it uncovered a dangerous paradox: for each 30 mg/dL reduction in serum cholesterol, there was a 22% higher risk of death.

This finding is monumental because it directly challenges the core assumption that lowering cholesterol through this specific dietary change—swapping saturated fat for vegetable oils high in linoleic acid—automatically translates to better health and a longer life.

4. Major Conflicts of Interest May Have Shaped the Official Advice

The official dietary advice to limit saturated fat wasn’t just shaped by flawed science; it was also influenced by powerful financial interests.

In 1961, the American Heart Association (AHA) became the first major organization to recommend that Americans limit saturated fat. What is less known is that in 1948, the AHA received a transformative donation of $1.7 million (about $20 million in today’s dollars) from Procter & Gamble, the makers of Crisco oil. This product, made from polyunsaturated vegetable oil, benefited directly from advice to avoid traditional animal fats. According to the AHA’s own official history, this donation was the “bang of big bucks” that launched the group into a national powerhouse.

This pattern of potential conflicts has persisted. An analysis of the 2020 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) advisory committee found numerous conflicts, including members with extensive funding from the soy and tree nut industries—which benefit from recommendations favoring polyunsaturated fats—and members who were openly plant-based advocates.

This raises serious questions about the objectivity of the guidelines, especially for specific numerical caps. In a private email obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Vice-Chair of the 2015 DGA committee made a frank admission about the 10% limit on saturated fat:

“There is no magic/data for the 10% number or 7% number that has been used previously.”

5. The “Scientific Consensus” Isn’t as Solid as You Think

Over the past decade, the evidence challenging the diet-heart hypothesis has mounted significantly. More than 20 review papers by independent teams of scientists have now been published, largely concluding that saturated fats have no significant effect on cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular mortality, or total mortality.

The debate continues to play out in major scientific journals, with different meta-analyses reaching conflicting conclusions. For example, a 2020 Cochrane review found that reducing saturated fat led to a 21% reduction in cardiovascular events(like heart attacks and strokes) but had little effect on the risk of dying. In contrast, a 2025 systematic review in the JMA Journal found no significant benefit for either mortality or cardiovascular events. A key reason for these conflicting results is the inclusion of flawed trials; the JMA Journal review, for example, criticized other meta-analyses for including data from studies like the Finnish Mental Hospital Study, which was not properly randomized.

Despite this fierce and ongoing scientific debate, the new evidence has not yet been reflected in official dietary policies, which remain largely based on the older, contested science. As the authors of the 2025 JMA Journal meta-analysis bluntly concluded:

“The findings indicate that a reduction in saturated fats cannot be recommended at present to prevent cardiovascular diseases and mortality.”

Conclusion: A New Perspective on Fat

The history of the war on saturated fat serves as a powerful cautionary tale. It reveals how a scientific hypothesis, born from flawed studies and propelled by influential advocates, can become entrenched as government policy and public dogma, even as contradictory evidence is ignored, buried, or dismissed.

For decades, we’ve been told a simple story about fat, but the reality is that much of this advice was based on a shaky scientific foundation, compromised by unpublished trials and significant conflicts of interest. The conversation is finally changing, but it took the recovery of long-lost data to force a re-examination of decades-old beliefs.

It took decades and recovered data to question the war on fat. What official advice are you following today that might be based on a similarly fragile foundation?

Briefing Document: Review of Themes and Ideas from “Author’s Journey of Health and Recovery”

Source: Excerpts from “Author’s Journey of Health and Recovery” by Ira Warrenn Whiteside.

Date of Source: Implied to be before the year 2021 and extending through 2023 (as the “Third year” is mentioned in the context of symptoms worsening).

Overview: This document provides excerpts from an author’s personal account of a significant health journey characterized by rapid weight loss, the onset and worsening of various neurological symptoms, and a prolonged period of recovery.

Main Themes:

• Significant and Rapid Weight Loss: The author highlights experiencing substantial weight loss, noting the loss of “80 pounds in one year” in 2021, and an overall loss of “155 pounds.”
• Neurological Decline and Symptoms: A central theme is the progression of various neurological issues, including:
• Slurred speech (“Begin to slur,” “Slur got worse”).
• “Nueral fajtque tiredness exhaustion.”
• “Pheneric. nerve breathing nerve referrred pain in shoulder.”
• “Foot Drop got worksheet.”
• Worsening of function in the “Elbow” and “Hand.”
• Prolonged Illness and Worsening Condition: The author describes a period of decline, particularly noting that the “Third year very bass” (likely meant to be “very bad” or “very tough”).
• Connection to Weight Loss/Bariatric Patients: The author explicitly links their experience to “Many people bariatric patients,” suggesting a possible connection between rapid weight loss and the observed symptoms, and states this phenomenon is “Well documented.”
• Hope and Recovery: Despite the difficulties, the author concludes with a sense of progress and understanding, stating, “Finally getting better. It makes sense.”
• Exploration of Recovery Frameworks: The author mentions discovering and utilizing “Brunnstrom stages of memory recovery” as a tool or framework during their recovery process.

Most Important Ideas and Facts:

• Dramatic Weight Loss as a Potential Precursor: The significant weight loss of 155 pounds, including “fat from my nerve i in leg and throat and arm,” is presented as a key event preceding or coinciding with the onset of neurological issues.
• Specific Neurological Manifestations: The detailed list of symptoms – slurring, fatigue, nerve pain, foot drop, and worsening function in the hand and elbow – are crucial facts outlining the nature of the author’s health challenges.
• The “Third Year” as a Nadir: The statement “Third year very bass” indicates a critical point of significant decline in the author’s health journey.
• Acknowledged Link to Bariatric/Weight Loss Experiences: The author’s assertion that their experience is “Well documented” among “Many people bariatric patients” is a significant claim that points towards a recognized medical phenomenon potentially related to rapid weight loss.
• Brunnstrom Stages as a Recovery Tool: The use of “Brunnstrom stages of memory recovery” suggests the author is employing a structured approach to their recovery, although the application to neurological function beyond memory is implied.
• Improvement and Understanding: The concluding statement, “Finally getting better. It makes sense,” signals a turning point towards recovery and implies the author has gained some understanding of the underlying causes or mechanisms of their illness.

Quotes from the Source:

• “2021 lost 80 pounds in one year”
• “Begin to slur”
• “Slur got worse”
• “Nueral fajtque tiredness exhaustion”
• “Pheneric. nerve breathing nerve referrred pain in shoulder”
• “Foot Drop got worksheet”
• “Third year very bass”
• “Discovered Brunnstrom stages of memory recovery”
• “Overall one and lost 155 pounds”
• “Including fat from my nerve i in leg and throat and arm”
• “Many people bariatric patients”
• “Well documented.”
• “Finally getting better. It makes sense.”

Conclusion:

These excerpts detail a challenging health journey marked by substantial weight loss followed by a period of significant neurological decline. The author highlights a potential link between rapid weight loss and these symptoms, referencing the experience of bariatric patients and the documented nature of this phenomenon. The mention of using Brunnstrom stages suggests a focused approach to recovery, which the author indicates is finally yielding positive results.