For your Health Enjoy The
Fat: But Not Trans Fats (2)
Written By Nutriwonders
A couple of issues ago, We
wrote about fat. A good deal of that article was based upon research
done by Gary Traub and printed in Science Magazine.
In this article We will continue
with Dr. Traub's excellent analysis. He points out, for instance that
the evidence supporting the proposition that dietary fats cause cancer
was thought to be undeniable by l982. However, it appears that "fifteen
years and hundreds of millions of research dollars later" a report
by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer
research could find neither "convincing" nor "probable"
reason to believe that dietary fat caused cancer.
Interesting isn't it? As
well, the belief that cutting fat from the diet would result in the
loss of pounds was nearly a "religious belief". Well, it did
bring about the loss of pounds, according to a study lasting three years,
involving 50,000 women and costing $l00 million dollars. These women
were told to consume only 20% of their calories from fat (the average
in l970 was 40%). They lost an average of 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram). The
results of other well-controlled clinical trials consistently demonstrate
that people on low-fat diets lose a couple of kilograms initially. The
weight tends to return.
Now let's get to the scientific
facts and medical information that perplexed many researchers. All scientists
know that cholesterol is an essential component of the human anatomy
and physiology. However, there is HDL (high-density lipoprotein), which
is "good" cholesterol; and there is LDL (low-density lipoprotein)
which is "bad" cholesterol. Some saturated fats, such as stearic
acid (the fat in chocolate) are neutral at worst. Stearic acid in particular
raises HDL (good) and does little or nothing to LDL (good because LDL
is bad). Saturated fats are supposed to be bad fats. If you examine
the USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference at its Web site, you
will find that fifty-one percent of the fat of a porterhouse steak is
90% oleic acid. Oleic acid is the same healthy fat that is in olive
oil. The rest of the fat is saturated. However, one-third of that is
stearic acid, which is, as was pointed out above, is virtually harmless.
All of this suggests that eating a porterhouse steak, might actually
improve heart disease risk.
This rather perplexing state
of affairs was apparently borne out by the Lyon Diet Heart Study in
which the investigators randomized 605 heart attack survivors, all on
cholesterol-lowering drugs, into two groups. One group was counseled
to eat a "prudent diet" very similar to that recommended for
all Americans. The other group was counseled to eat a diet with more
bread, cereals, legumes, beans, vegetables, fruits, and fish and less
red meat (the Mediterranean diet).
Well, guess what? Mr. Traub
says: "Total fat and types of fat differed markedly in the two
diets, but the HDL, LDL, and total cholesterol levels in the two groups
remained virtually identical. Nonetheless, over 4 years of follow-up,
the Mediterranean-diet group had only l4 cardiac deaths and nonfatal
heart attacks compared to 44 for the "Western type" diet group.
It appears that heart disease
is not related to serum concentrations of total, LDL or HDL cholesterol.
It appears it is related to the amount of glucose being absorbed into
the systemic circulation directly from digested foods.
The difference appears to
be in the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables that are consumed. The
micronutrients and phytonutrients appear to be the important difference.
But actually it is because fruits and vegetables produce a low glycemic
index and thus a small cholesterol response. More about that in our
“Syndrome X” articles.
When we look at the USDA
Web site, and examine the nutrient content of various fruits and vegetables,
We are astounded by how much one must eat just to get the amounts of
essential nutrients recommended by the FDA.
We are very happy that vitamin
and other food supplements are so readily available in this country.
Good Health!
