Improve health and lose weight by increasing fat intake???
In last month’s edition (click here) our 5 simple steps to increased health were introduced. We discussed the issue of too much sugar and the massive side effects of excessive carbohydrate intake.
I recently stumbled over yet another article with further supportive evidence to my recommendations that you need to lower your carbohydrate intake.
It has now been confirmed that pancreatic cancers use fructose to fuel their growth (1). Our diets contain a fair amount of fructose mainly from cane sugar (whose technical name is sucrose, which is basically one molecule fructose and one molecule glucose) and it has been known for a while that glucose will help cancer cell grows.
So I reiterate – eliminate the amount of sugar from your food, either because you add it or because it was added to the processed meal you bought! Higher quality food will increase your health.
ENJOY MORE FAT – WHAT???
In this issue we will continue with step 2, which is the introduction of more fat into your daily diet. In requesting you lower your carbohydrate intake we thereby limit your main source of energy. Therefore we suggest increasing fat, as a ‘new’ source of energy. Simply put, fat doesn’t increase your insulin and insulin is what drives fat storage (2)! We illustrated that concept in the last edition.
Fat is slightly different for your body to work with, it can take a while before your body will build momentum up as the diesel-like-fat is fractionally harder initially to ignite and is a bit harder to burn. However, after an initial introduction phase, your body will use fat as a main fuel source and you will often find that you run more steadily on fat and experience less cravings, less energy drop-outs and increased concentration.
I understand this is extremely controversial and I recently had a discussion with a fat phobic member, who proudly announced that he hardly ate any fat at all, other than what is added when you buy processed foods. When I then questioned him how come he was so scared of fat he didn’t quite know what to answer, but it was something to do with heart diseases! Do you know why we are supposed to avoid it? Has anyone ever questioned why?
Many of you will recognize the statement I introduced a few months ago about the common misperception that fat = heart diseases and this was particularly directed towards saturated fats. It is very frustrating that it just isn’t true (3)(4) because now what are we supposed to believe?
We recommend re-reading our article regarding fat – how we became fearful of it.
So we need to understand what fat is before we have a better picture of why we need to use it more!
Saturated fats – not so bad!
The main evil is the ‘artery-clogging’ saturated fat or so we think, but it turns out that you need fat for a lot of internal functioning. Our supply of saturated fat (Saturated fatty acids – SFA) mainly come from animal products, and then coconut and palm oil in that order. In our cells, around 50% of the membrane is saturated fats, for the calcium to penetrate into the bones SFA is needed, SFA is a source of vitamin A and D and SFA is also needed to properly utilize omega 3 fatty acids (the fish oil one).
We understand that some fats can go rancid, they oxidize quicker than others. Having a lot of oxidizing fats is problematic for your health. We have all heard about the anti-oxidant effects of fruits and red wine, and this is exactly what their job is. They minimise the oxidization of the cells.
SFA are very heat stable, which also means they have less tendency to oxidize where as polyunsaturated fats are highly oxidizing.
Recently I saw an article in the newspaper about the gut heeling effect of coconut oil and milk. Again it is believed that SFA are beneficial for protecting against microbial attacks in the gut. Speaking of coconut – it has been shown as an effective source for fat loss! Yes, that is correct, the same saturated fat that is claimed to be the biggest contributor to heart disease is proving to be quite effective as a fat loss tool. (5)
And while we are at it, a study from Australia showed that full fat dairy didn’t increase the risk of cardio vascular disease, in fact, those who ate full fat dairy had 69% less risk (6). And all these years we have been on light or fat free dairy!
The evidence supporting saturated fats as the villain is slim.
We have previously mentioned the Harvard Nurses health study from America and one of the conclusions drawn from more than 340.000 people 11.006 developed Coronary Heart Diseases and strokes but there was no link to saturated fats in these cases. In fact the conclusions were that more research is needed into the effects of the replacements we have used for saturated fats (poly-unsaturated fats, like margarine and many oils)(7).
Another study from Japan found that strokes were inversely associated with SFA intake – meaning it had none or only preventable effects (8)
Both of these studies are from 2010.
Mary Enig PhD who is a renowned researcher on fats, made a point that there is no support to the assertion that ‘artery-clogging’ SFA will cause heart disease. According to her study it was revealed that only in 26% of the cases of the clots were cause by saturated fats – the rest were from unsaturated fats!(9) And remember as we covered in the last article, excess carbohydrate increases palmitic acids – which is a saturated fat!
A relatively new study conducted by one of the leading experts in terms of lipid and heart diseases, Dr Ronald Krauss, confirms that there are different levels if LDL; small dense and large buoyant and it is the first one, raised by refined carbohydrates we need to be on the watch for. Here is the quote from the study:
Furthermore, particularly given the differential effects of dietary saturated fats and carbohydrates on concentrations of larger and smaller LDL particles, respectively, dietary efforts to improve the increasing burden of CVD risk associated with atherogenic dyslipidemia should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intakes and a reduction in excess adiposity. (10)
Unsaturated fats – the good guys or?
Since it was decided that we were not allowed to eat butter anymore, and there was some slight improvements to be seen with unsaturated fats, the industry decided to boost the production of anything containing unsaturated fats and in particular poly-unsaturated fats. This created margarine and in almost any processed products these days you will find some sort of vegetable oil.
Both mono unsaturated (MUFA) and poly unsaturated fats (PUFA) are necessary in the function of the body but probably not to the extent we are currently consuming them. One of the key functions of one branch of PUFA is the development of the brain in infants and the long term benefit of preventing chronic diseases. We humans need to add some of the PUFA – mainly omega 6 and 3 to our diet to help the body function optimally. However, since omega 6 and 3 also control inflammation we can overdose on omega 6 which tends to increase our inflammation. In our modern life it has been estimated that our balance of omega 6 to omega 3 is up 30 to 1. In our ancestors it was around a 1-3:1 ratio (11).
This major increase mainly comes from a higher intake of PUFA, particularly omega 6 but also from the way we produce meats. It has been shown that the commercially grain fed farm raised products have much higher levels of omega 6 than 3 (11)
This is why the hype is on fish oil and why you will see drug stores are drowning in fish oil – there is a market for anti-inflammatory pills.
If you can not stand fish oil, your choice is to take the smallest dose and then go completely organic, grass feed and cook everything yourself. Most would deem this option to be impossible but it is not really.
Transfatty acids – the real scary element.
Some of you have heard about transfatty acids and recognize them as being a strong contributor to CVD. This has been trialled several times and is one area where the literature is unchallenged – avoid it. However, there are two types, one is naturally occurring in animal products and one is artificially made from a heating process, which happens when you make margarine or when you heat up vegetable oil and allow oxidation.
Margarine was the replacement for butter, but even though it might have some immediate effect on LDL, it seems like the long term effect is quite the contrary. A study run over 20 years illustrates this fact. The results found that margarine increased the incidence of heart disease, the complete opposite to what has been preached and we have believed for years (12). As the picture shows the more margarine the higher risk of heart disease. And there is more – when adjusted for age, glucose intolerance, the amount of smoking, drinking and highest consumption of saturated fats, the margarine still didn’t work!
Consuming fats – what are we to eat now?
There is possibly a little confusion now as to what you should eat in terms of fat. But here are my recommendations based on the scientific research I study, the feedback I get and the results I see:
- Animal fat from free range, grass fed meats. Remember that the high saturated fat levels gives you a more heat stable fat and less risk of oxidizing. And the fat is flavour and taste. Seek a free range supplier like: www.wychwoodmeat.com.au
- Eat more fatty fish. Wild caught salmon, mackerel, herring, sardines all of them are great and add fish oil every day. How much is depending on how sick or overweight you are.
- Free range eggs.
- Olive oil – possibly go towards a cold pressed oil for dressing purposes. However do not heat up a cold pressed olive oil.
- Coconut oil, milk, cream. A great replacement for dairy if you have lactose issues or issues with the protein in milk. Frozen banana with ½ can of coconut cream blended together is a great dessert. Coconut oil is good for cooking, as it is very heat stable – as you can see when you purchase it, as it is solid.
- Avocados are a great source of MUFA – guacamole is universal, it performs well with almost any combination.
- Some organic butter and cream. I see no reason why not. You don’t have to use it everyday but once in a while I would use butter for cooking and a dollop of cream on my strawberries.
- Nuts and seeds – I would prefer almonds and cashews due to their omega 3-6 ratio, but again use a variety of nuts and seeds.
I would avoid any use of:
- Vegetable oil, that is what you will read on most labels and it covers anything from soybean, corn, sunflower oil which all are high in omega 6.
- Hydrogenated oils – in short – margarines as they contain too many omega 6 and transfatty acids.
Conclusions:
Logically speaking; if saturated fats from animal products are so bad and would kill us, how did we make it this far? Our diet has been based on eating animals and it hasn’t been until last century that heart diseases have been a major issue.
What have we changed over the last 100 years? A lot, not just food intake but our life style.
If you need to, have a complete blood panel done including a test of your LDL particle size and C-reactive Protein, increase your fat – from the above mentioned sources, eliminate sugar completely and decrease carbohydrates in general before you do another test in 3 months time! And more importantly, tell us about it. Use our information and knowledge to improve your health.
Final note – if you want to see a really solid analysis of the lack of evidence behind the fat-heart attack hypothesis, have a look at this site. He has gathered all the links and has gone through them – easy to read and worth a visit during a lunch break.
This information was provided by EFM Nutrition and Soren Kristensen. For more information, vist the efm nutrition website.
Sources.
(1) Science daily – 5/8-2010
(2) Cahil, George, Fuel Metabolism in Starvation, Annu. Rev. Nutr. 2006. 26:1–22
(3) Krauss M, Ronald, et al. Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease; Am J Clin Nutr 2010;91:535-46
(4) Mente, Andrew et al.; A systematic review of the evidence supporting a casual link between dietary factos and coronary heart disease; Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(7):659-669
(5) Onge-St, MP and Jones Peter; Physiological Effects of Medium-Chain Triglycerides: Potential Agents in the Prevention of Obesity, J. Nutr. 132:329-332, 2002
(6) M Bonthuis, M C B Hughes, T I Ibiebele, A C Green and J C van der Pols; Dairy consumption and patterns of mortality of Australian adults, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 64, 569-577 (June 2010)
(7) Krauss, Ronald et al.; Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease; Am J Clin Nutr (January 13, 2010)
(8) Kazumasa Yamagishi et al.; Dietary intake of saturated fatty acids and mortality from cardiovascular disease in Japanese: the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study for Evaluation of Cancer Risk Study; Am J Clin Nutr (August 4, 2010).
(9) Enig, Mary, PhD. Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol. Bethesda Press, 2000
(10) Krauss, Ronald et al.; Saturated fat, carbohydrate, and cardiovascular disease, Am J Clin Nutr (January 20, 2010).
(11) Cordain L, Watkins BA, Florant GL, Kehler M, Rogers L, Li Y. Fatty acid analysis of wild ruminant tissues: Evolutionary implications for reducing diet-related chronic disease. Eur J Clin Nutr, 2002; 56:181-191
(12) Castelli WP et al.: Margarine intake and subsequent coronary heart disease in men. Epidemiology. 1997 Mar;8(2):122-3.
