The Skinny on Fat and Cholesterol

"A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth.” — Edward De Bono

Yesterday, while I was reading November's issue of Outside Magezine, I found this: Eat This Way.

2. No more than 30 percent of your daily calories should come from fat (one gram has nine calories). Good fats (mono- and polyunsaturated) promote cardiovascular health. Bad fats?(trans and saturated) clog arteries.

3. Carbs should supply about 60 percent of daily calories. Complex (like whole grains) are better than simple (sugars).

It's this type of diet that killed my uncle, 50 years of age, just 8 weeks ago. Eating a poor diet led to him being diagnosed with diabetes in his 30's, afterwhich he was placed on the diet above. High-Carb, Low-fat. :shk:



Bogus indeed! It was in 1961 that the American Heart Association published its first Dietary Guidlines based on faulty information. The guidelines, co-authored by Dr. Ancel Keys, Irving Page, Jeremiah Stamler and Frederick Stare, were the first to establish that the consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet causes Heart Disease. It's now the norm, politicaly correct, if you will.

The video above shows how Dr. Keys skewed his research to support his idea that high saturated fat intake was directly correlated with heart disease in multiple different countries. Not only was he lying about that but, according to Teya Skae M.A., B.A., of Empowered Living in an article she wrote here, Dr. Keys and company published information linking vegetable oils with heart disease.

was put forth even though Keys, Stare and Page had all previously noted in their published papers that the increase in Heart Disease was due to increasing consumption of vegetable oils. The 1961 report did not publish this fact, even after a 1956 paper by Dr. Keys suggested that the increasing use of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (which is what TFA’s technically are) is one of the culprits in the heart disease epidemic.

This all starts to make sense when one factors in corporate interest in the form of vegetable oil processing industries, who would stop at nothing to keep vegetable oils in the kitchens of Americans.

The vegetable oil and food processing industries, the main beneficiaries of any research that found fault with competing traditional foods, began promoting and funding further research designed to support the lipid hypothesis.

Subsequently, all of the "traditional" foods, such as eggs, butter, meat, cheese and coconut oil, were completely thrown under the bus. The real problem that we've had for half a century now has been vegetable oils and sugar. Not just table sugar, HFCS and such, but also foods that elevate blood glucose. Fitness expert Jack Lalanne realized this 50 years ago and was eager to teach others the knoweledge he possesed.



Jack Lallane is now 94 years old and still tickin. Here's a pic of him at 93...



Here's Dr. Ancel Keys at 100 years old....



Why is it that after all these years of following the politicaly correct low-saturated fat diet, Americans, and really most of the worlds population, have become fatter and heart disease has increased dramaticaly?

During the sixty-year period from 1910 to 1970, the proportion of traditional animal fat in the American diet declined from 83% to 62%, and butter consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four. During the past eighty years, dietary cholesterol intake has increased only 1%. During the same period the percentage of dietary vegetable oils in the form of margarine, shortening and refined oils increased about 400% while the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased about 60%.2

Saturated fats are not the cause of modern day diseases of man and are not some "artery-clogging" demon that should be avoided at all costs. The evidence in support of the lypid hypothesis is lacking and almost non-existent, while the evidence against it is conclusive. Saturated fats are very beneficial. They enhance the immune system and have anti-microbial properties that protect the body from microorganisms.

Honestly, don't worry about saturated fat intake, it's the vegetable oils, polyunsaturated fats, that you should be worrying about.

Humans evolved on a diet with a 1 or 2:1 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3. Modern diets have a ratio of 20 or 30:1 in favor of omega 6 fatty acids and this ratio is believed to be a significant contributing factor to the development of many diseases.

The main source of omega 6 fatty acids are vegetable oils. See the connection here?

7) Saturated fatty acids such as caprylic acid found abundantly in coconut oil, is anti fungal and helps combat candida (yeast overgrowth that is common in our society).

8) While saturated fats raise both the bad and the good cholesterol, TFA’s as well as excess consumption of omega-6 fatty acids raise the bad Low Density Lipo-protein (LDL) and suppress the good High Density Lipo-protein (HDL) cholesterol, making it even worse.

Continnued for Cholesterol................

Sources:
www.naturalnews.com...
www.westonaprice.org...
www.proteinpower.com... ncel-keys/
www.johnberardi.com...


[edit on 1-12-2008 by DevolutionEvolvd]

Correlation does not imply Causation..........

Correlation does not imply causation is a phrase used in the sciences and the statistics to emphasize that correlation between two variables does not imply that one causes the other. Its negation, correlation proves causation, is a logical fallacy by which two events that occur together are claimed to have a cause-and-effect relationship.

........In health science, doubly so. And, so it would seem, cholesterol has become a victim of this Logical Fallacy. Claiming that cholesterol is the cause of heart disease is like saying that skid marks on the road are the cause of auto accidents.

Cholesterol is a fatty, waxy alcohol that is found in cell membranes and the blood and is manufactured in the liver and most cells. It is not only used to bind cells together, it's also essential for the body to repair damaged cells. There is no such thing as "Bad Cholesterol", there's only cholesterol. It's essential for life. Since cholesterol is insoluble in blood it must use transporters. These transporters, or at least the ones that matter, are HDL(High-Density Lipoprotein) and LDL(Low-Densiity Lipoprotein). And contrary to what you may have been told, LDL and HDL are not cholesterol.

Just a few benefits of cholesterol.....

-Cholesterol acts as a precursor to vital corticosteroids, hormones that help us deal with stress and protect the body against heart disease and cancer; and to the sex hormones like androgen, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone.

-Cholesterol is a precursor to vitamin D, a very important fat-soluble vitamin needed for healthy bones and nervous system, proper growth, mineral metabolism, muscle tone, insulin production, reproduction and immune system function.

-Dietary cholesterol plays an important role in maintaining the health of the intestinal wall.49 This is why low-cholesterol vegetarian diets can lead to leaky gut syndrome and other intestinal disorders.

LDL, the supposed "bad cholesterol", actually transports cholesterol from the liver to the cells while HDL, the so called "good cholesterol", transports cholesterol back to the liver. The politicaly correct lipid hypothesis says this about cholesterol:

According to the lipid hypothesis, abnormally high cholesterol levels (hypercholesterolemia), or, more correctly, higher concentrations of LDL and lower concentrations of functional HDL are strongly associated with cardiovascular disease because these promote atheroma development in arteries (atherosclerosis). This disease process leads to myocardial infarction (heart attack), stroke and peripheral vascular disease. Since higher blood LDL, especially higher LDL particle concentrations and smaller LDL particle size, contribute to this process more than the cholesterol content of the LDL particles,[17] LDL particles are often termed "bad cholesterol" because they have been linked to atheroma formation. On the other hand, high concentrations of functional HDL, which can remove cholesterol from cells and atheroma, offer protection and are sometimes referred to colloquially as "good cholesterol".

There are aspects of cholesterol that seem to contribute to heart disease.

• Bad HDL/LDL Ratio
  
• Small LDL Particle size
  
• Oxidation of Cholesterol in arterial walls
  

To control the ratio of HDL/LDL particles in the blood, doctors normally prescribe statin drugs. These drugs inhibit HMG-CoA reductase, an enzyme needed to manufacture cholesterol inside cells. When a cell needs cholesterol, for whatever reason, it either manufactures it itself or it retreives it from the blood in the form of LDL. If, for some reason, one process stops working, the cell will adapt by doubling the efforts of the other process. So in the case where HMG-CoA reductase is inhibited, the cell sends more receptors to the outer wall of the cell to catch the LDL floating around, thereby reducing LDL particles in the blood and improving the LDL/HDL ratio.

Here's the funny thing. Eating the proper diet can do the exact same thing that Statin does, without the side effects. And no, it's not by eating less saturated fat and cholesterol. Lets just get one thing straight, eating dietary cholesterol does not increase serum cholesterol.



Now, of course he would suggest that you not eat saturated fat. It raises Total cholesterol and guess what, total cholesterol doesn't matter...



So what diet does improve the HDL/LDL ratio and why? There just so happens to be a hormone that does the exact same thing a statin does, it's called Glucagon. That's right, by keeping insulin levels down, glucagon levels will stay up and HDL/LDL levels will be perfect, without drugs. This is achieved by eating a diet that controls blood sugar levels, one that is low in carbohydrates.

The really cool thing about keeping insulin levels down is it just so happens to increase the size of HDL particles which takes care of number Two on the list. Number Three? Since small LDL particles are now large and can't get suck between cells that line arterial walls, oxidation of cholesterol in the blood is less likely to occur. But just in case, taking plenty of antioxidants is a plus.



You see, the diet that has been recommended to us by doctors has been the real problem. It's their guidelines that are causing heart disease, obesity, diabetes and possibly even cancer. Like I've said before in other threads of mine, these diseases are just symptoms of one disease. A disease of malnutrition. A disease of hyperinsulinemia.

Thanks for reading guys, comments are appreciated.

*Note: All sources in this post are from OP

-Dev

30% daily intake of fat I would hardly say is low fat. With diabetes there might be some changes to the percentages but a lot of it is just sticking to a diet which can be difficult, basically eating less. Around sixty percent for carbs isn't that bad either, either way with diabetes just check your blood sugar often and stop eating so much if it spikes.

I don't agree with the mainstream stance on saturated fat either. Once I started eating more saturated fat, I could tell I felt better and was eating a whole lot less than I normally would. I don't eat red meat or other sources of saturated fat so for breakfast I would have some nice fatty hot coco with something else and I would be full for a good amount of time.

The video that shows Dr. Keys' graph is not on saturated fat, but fat in general as far as I saw. Good info though

Well, 30% fat intake isn't low but 60% carbohydrates is ridiculous. Just to let you know, there is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. The daily required amount for survival is 0%. The metabolic effect that 60% carbs would have on the body is like a roller coaster and is devastatingly horrible.

-Dev

Hiya Devo. LTNS. S&F

I can't really add anything scientific here, except to say I agree completely. In the search to become healthy, we have made ourselves sick. What I can add is a way I like to get my 'yucks' whenever a doctor tells me I have high cholesterol. I simply explain my 'theory' to them. You see, cholesterol is like WD-40 for your arteries, keeping them soft and flexible, but it's thicker than blood alone, so you need high blood pressure to move it around. As long as you've got both (which I do), you're doing great!

You should see their faces.

TheRedneck

Thanks Red!

That's Hilarious. I remember you telling me something like that in chat once. Good stuff. I might have to use that next time I go to the doctor.

Thanks for the reply and don't be stranger buddy.....Chat's been back up for a while....

-Dev

this just goes to show you nature will always beat science.

What part does exercise play in all of this?

Obviously a better diet is mandated to get rid of our current problems; however, even if you eat healthy, it might not keep you healthy. Look at a lot of the obese children out there; one, they eat bad, but two, they don't exercise. I myself try to eat less carbs; and its hard, but I try. I really don't drink Cokes and all - that high fructose corn syrup is just terrible.

Lalanne is right, when you eat healthier, you don't feel like crap. Your cholesterol post is very enlightening and informative; but what about high blood pressure? How do you solve that issue; because its obviously "as bad as" cholesterol.

reply to post by ChrisJr03


Thanks!

Firstly, as I've said in here before, there are numerous studies that show that in regards to improving body composition, diet is 80%-90% and exercise is closer to 10%. In other words, workout all you want, but unless you adhere to the proper diet it won't do you any good.

Hypertension, like heart disease and diabetes, is just a symptom of a bigger problem. Most people can improve their blood pressure by simply treating insulin. Keeping it low, that is. Insulin causes sodium retention and also water retention. Couple this with the fact that insulin causes magnesium excretion and you have yourself a recipe for Hypertension.

-Dev

(NaturalNews) Want to lower cholesterol levels in hopes of preventing coronary heart disease and stroke? The odds are your doctor will probably prescribe a statin drug. In fact, a recent Forbes report found that from 11 million to 30 million Americans are already taking these drugs and many physicians argue another 25 million should be popping these pills daily. What's often lost in the hype about this class of drugs is the reality of the side effects – sometimes serious – associated with statins, including muscle pain, neurological disorders, rashes and liver problems.

Now comes word of yet another downside to these supposedly "magic bullets" for artery clogging cholesterol. A new study led by F.W. Fraunfelder, MD, of the Casey Eye Institute of Oregon Health and Science University, is the first to systematically report on eye disorders caused by statin use. The results are published in the December issue of Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology,

www.naturalnews.com...



All the more reason not to take statins. It's so sad that doctors are prescribing a pill that lowers cholesterol chemically when the same exact effect can be achieved naturally, without the side effects.

-Dev

Originally posted by DevolutionEvolvd
All the more reason not to take statins. It's so sad that doctors are prescribing a pill that lowers cholesterol chemically when the same exact effect can be achieved naturally, without the side effects.

-Dev

But how else are they going to achieve their sales targets for their sponsored hols?

That'd be like a petrol station telling you,you don't need to use your car to get to your work 300 mtrs away. .

You can't expect honesty from big med companies.

They want you to keep buying pills for everything,the sooner they get kids hooked on something,the better the long term profits.

Start with Ritalin and see where it goes from there.

It's this type of diet that killed my uncle, 50 years of age, just 8 weeks ago. Eating a poor diet led to him being diagnosed with diabetes in his 30's, after which he was placed on the diet above. High-Carb, Low-fat.

High-Carb, Low-fat for a diabetic is crazy.
a diabetic eating high carbs is the same as eating sugar because carbs are converted to sugars by the body.

A diabetic should be on a moderate fat. high protein diet.

The interesting thing about a zero carb with high fat diet (atkins) your cholesterol levels will return to normal.
fat and cholesterol will provied the fuel your body needs.
but only if you don't not have carbs for your body to burn.

Bread. pasta and anything with high fructose corn syrup are WMDs to diabetics.

Diabetics should be on high protein, very low carb diets
and watch out for sugar free foods, many have replaced the sugar with high carbs and do nothing to help control blood sugar levels.

www.diabetesforums.com...
www.diabetesforum.com...

The Diet of Confucius

1.He did not dislike to have his rice finely cleaned, nor to have his minced meat cut quite small.
2.He did not eat rice which had been injured by heat or damp and turned sour, nor fish or flesh that was gone.
3.He did not eat that which was discolored or that which was of a bad flavor, nor anything which was ill-cooked or not in season.
4.He did not eat meat which was not cut properly, nor that which was served without its proper sauce.
5.He would not allow a large quantity of meat to exceed the due proportion of rice.
6.He did not lay down a limit of wine for everybody, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
7.He did not partake of wine and dried meat bought in the market.
8.He was never without ginger when he ate, but he did not take too much of it as ginger has many advantages, but could also harm one's eyes.
9.He did not keep the flesh of the Prince's sacrifice which he received overnight.
10.He did not keep the flesh of his own family sacrifice over three days.
11.When eating, he did not converse.
12.Although his food might be coarse rice and vegetable soup, he would offer a little of it in a sacrifice with a grave and respectful air.
13.When the Prince sent him a gift of cooked meat, he would adjust his mat, taste it first, and then give it away to others.
14.When the Prince sent him a gift of undressed meat, he would have it cooked and offer it to the spirit of his ancestors.
15.When the Prince sent him a gift of a live animal, he would keep it alive.

Originally posted by ANNED

High-Carb, Low-fat for a diabetic is crazy.
a diabetic eating high carbs is the same as eating sugar because carbs are converted to sugars by the body.

Thanks for the Reply. You're spot on.

I've touched on throughout most of my posts and discussed some details in this thread: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Also a little here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Diabetics should stay away from ALL non fibrous carbohydrates. That includes potatoes. Eating one regular sized white potato is the equivalent of eating a cup of sugar.

-Dev

Devolved I think you are onto something.

I eat a diet that is relatively high in fat. Not much meat, virtually no processed foods, but a lot of cheese, milk, eggs, natural oils, and nuts.

Despite this I am very healthy. I am in good physical condition and have a BMI of about 18.5--virtually underweight if you just look at the numbers.

Maybe it's all the Italian and German in my genetics but I feel sick if I don't eat a moderately high fat diet, like I don't have enough energy and I'm starting to suffer from arthritis.

Thanks Asmeone!

Your testimonial is actually the rule, not the exception. Most people who adhere to that same diet have excellent health and are not overweight.

Off topic: By the way, I got a job that might be right next door to ya!

-Dev

The key is that it has to be healthy fats... things that would occure naturally in the food, not what is artificially added in.

That kind of fat is pretty much undigestible--I think that is why so many people gain it and keep it--wheras natural fats are used as fuel by the body.

Despite what you've been told, fat, not glucose, is the body's prefered fuel source. Just think about it for a minute. The human body can only store limited quantities of sugar which is stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen. Fat, on the other hand, can be stored in large quantities as body fat. Why would your body store saturated fat if glucose is prefered?

Doesn't really make sense. Think of the body as a diesel engine. The primary fuel is diesel, which burns very efficiently. You would use diesel alone for normal, everyday use. But if you want a boost, say if you're running late for work or have to race someone, you can use NOS. If for some reason you use NOS on a regular basis it can cause damage to your motor, so it's used sparingly.

Fat, like diesel, burns very efficiently. In fact some car engines can be modified to accept used vegetable oil for fuel. Sugar, or glucose, like NOS, causes damage when it's used as fuel for long periods of time. Glucose is used as a fuel source for quick bursts of energy in demanding situations, like running from a saber tooth tiger. We know that the body wasn't designed to have much glucose in the blood because when insulin is released, it overcompensates causes low blood glucose and very low energy.

The daily requirements, for fat and protein are well known, they are essential for survival. There is no essential carbohydrate. Your body can function just fine without carbs. Go without fat or protein for too long and you'll die. That's a fact.

-Dev

There is an important distinction to make though, Devo. Unless one is pregnant or trying to loose weight, he should be taking in the same amount as he takes in. Furthermore unnatural fats, the hydrolizedoil for instrance, do not occure naturally and are not healthy for the body.

Trans fats occur naturally, they're just not prevalent. I do agree with you though about consuming only naturally occurring fats. I just think that we need to reduce our intake of vegetable oils and focus more on omega 3's and saturated fats. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier but it is important to get plenty of antioxidants if your increasing your fat intake.

Are you talking about balancing calorie expenditure and calorie intake? As long as you're eating the right foods and not taking it to the extreme, maintaining a small caloric deficit or caloric surplus does nothing. The body adapts to these small changes in energy consumption. That's why it's pointless to try and lose weight by simply eating a couple hundred calories less per day.

-Dev