My own fat loss journeys are sufficient proof to me that the latter is definitely not true.  While I don’t take in too much fat, my diet is principally fat and protein with minimal carbs.  However, what about the idea that fat is bad for your general health and well-being, in particular that it is bad for your heart?

April was an exciting month in research circles regarding this topic and some of the ideas that saturated fat isn’t bad for you even started to filter into the general public through the media.  I’ve collected together a few of the most relevant or interesting posts and articles that were published at the time to give you a good starting point if you ever have to defend your fat-consumption to someone (or if you need a bit of convincing yourself).

Pot roast - plenty of saturated fat doesn't have to be a bad thing

• Let’s kick off with a good all-rounder article.  Dr Briffa has reviewed a study carried out over an average of 12 years with 53,000 participants, looking at the relationship between eating habits and the risk of heart attack.  As Dr Briffa points out, the study claimed to conclude that replacing saturated fatty acids with low-GI carbs reduced the risk of heart attack, while replacement with high-GI carbs created a higher risk of heart attack.  However the results actually show that low-GI carbs made no change to the risk of heart attack when compared to the saturated fatty acids diets.  So that’s a massive study supporting the idea that cutting out the fat and replacing it with carbs will not reduce the risk of heart attacks, despite what we are told by the medical profession (and despite what the researchers tried to force the results to show).
• A study by Houston et al with a simple abstract was published in late March.  This study looked at the connection between diet (specifically carbs, dietary fat and egg consumption) and cardiovascular disease in older adults (those in the 70-79 age range).  The researchers concluded that there were no significant associations between dietary fats and cardiovascular disease while there was a clear correlation between cardiovascular disease and both dietary cholesterol and egg consumption.  Thankfully the researchers took this a step further to understand the correlation that was found.  This concluded that the correlation with both dietary cholesterol and egg consumption was only evident in those test subjects who had type 2 diabetes.  So dietary fats are exonerated (again).
• Dan Hubbard wrote a brilliant article in mid-March on “The Exoneration of Bacon: Saturated Fat is Healthy”.  I was particularly interested by his observation that the earliest reports of heart disease were on rare occasions in the 1920s while “animal fat consumption decreased significantly from 1910-1970 due to the increased prevalence of processed foods and fear of the animal fat’s and cholesterol’s proposed negative relationship with heart disease.  Concurrently, processed vegetable oils and processed carbohydrates increased significantly because of cheaper costs and longer shelf-lives.
• This link may not seem to be related to fat at a first glance, but bear with me for a moment.  The Whole Health Source blog ran an article about copper deficiency and cardiovascular disease.  If you speak to a medical professional in the Western world you will find that the common belief is that cardiovascular disease is caused by consumption of too much saturated fat.  This hypothesis was “bolstered by some encouraging findings and zealous personalities” and subsequently took the western world by storm.  One of the key studies behind this was carried out by Dr Ball in 1963 where classic symptoms of cardiovascular disease were seen in mice fed on a diet rich in saturated fat.  However, in 1985 Dr Klevay was able to replicate the same study, preventing all the cardiovascular disease symptoms by supplementing the diet of the mice with copper.  This study, alongside various other studies that also show cardiovascular disease appearing in copper deficient animals, suggests that copper deficiency rather than excess saturated fat is the guilty party in cardiovascular disease.  I’d certainly include this article in a list of must-read articles for anyone who believes that consumption of saturated fat is bad for you.
• Finally, we have something on timing of fat consumption.  A study looked at the timing and concluded that fat intake at the time of waking appeared to turn on fat metabolism efficiently and also the ability to respond to different food types later in the day while those fed carbohydrates when they woke had carbohydrate metabolism turned on and this stayed on all day, promoting carbohydrate utilisation for the rest of the day.  This links in with fat-burning but has also supported my previous belief that if you want to most easily convert to a fat-adapted lifestyle you should start by converting your breakfast from toasts, cereals and other traditional carbohydrate breakfasts to a fat-based breakfast before trying to change other meals.

Omlette muffins - in support of eggs for breakfast, even if you are eating on the move

I hope you found those helpful.  I’ll carry on fuelling my life with plenty of meat and eggs now!

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: Diet-related links association
2. Blog-watch: the China Study
3. Blog-watch: low carb diets

Last Monday I was asked for help by a member of my family.  Her husband had just been told by his doctor that he had extremely high cholesterol and that in particular his LDL levels were very high.  He had been sent home with some basic nutrition advice and been told that if diet changes hadn’t made a noticeable difference when he is retested in a few weeks time then he will be prescribed statins.

Being known as a bit of a nutrition nut by my family, I was given the challenge to get his cholesterol levels down through diet changes.

Introducing cholesterol

When I started speaking to them both, I was shocked by how little basic education the doctor had given them about cholesterol.  How are you meant to make sensible dietary decisions when you are out of your usual surroundings (e.g. a dinner in a restaurant) if you don’t understand the background?  An excellent starting point for anyone, is a recent article done by Ryan Andrews on Precision Nutrition.

Why do we need cholesterol?

Everyone seems to be against cholesterol but it has an important role in our bodies.  It is produced and destroyed as necessary by our livers (they produce 1-2mg of cholesterol daily) and it is used:

• to produce vitamin D, steroid hormones and bile acids;
• as one of the components of cell membranes;
• to aid in muscle growth as a precursor to important anabolic hormones;
• as the basis of some reproductive hormones (including androgens and estrogens);
• to increase membrane viscosity, increasing the exposure of proteins to compounds coming in from outside the cell and possibly therefore maximising the use of nutrients by the body.

Given the liver’s key role in all of this, it is immediately clear to me that any action we can take to look after and support our liver, which carries out several major metabolic functions in addition to the synthesising of cholesterol and bile salts, will help in our quest for acceptable cholesterol levels.

The different cholesterol types

Cholesterol is fatty and in order for it to be carried around the body, it has to be given a protein coating, known as a lipoprotein.  There are three different lipoproteins which determine the different types of cholesterol:

• High-density lipoprotein (‘HDL’ or “good cholesterol”):  This mops up excess cholesterol and moves it to the liver for disposal.
• Low-density lipoprotein (‘LDL’ or “bad cholesterol”):  This is used to transport cholesterol and fat from the liver to the rest of the body where the cholesterol can serve its purpose.  Unfortunately it gets a bad name as it is fragile and prone to oxidation, therefore it is one of the main ingredients in vessel plaque.
• Lp(a):  This can restore damaged blood vessels in a healthy body but if levels are too high then it can concentrate at damaged artery sites leading to plaque build-up.

Generally accepted principles (though disputed by many reputable researchers) are that you want to keep your total cholesterol under 200mg/dl, with LDL below 100mg/dl and HDL above 60mg/dl. 

You might be wondering at this point, as I do, whether the problem with our health is not the level of cholesterol in the blood but instead the damage being done to the arteries in the first place that causes the cholesterol to build up in its attempts to mend the arteries.  However, my goal this week was to provide support, not create doubt regarding the capability of the medical profession.

Trans fats, meat and the stealth oil

There has been lots of noise about trans fats.  Studies have shown that they raise LDL and also that they may lower HDL.  Therefore, to sort out your cholesterol levels you probably want to reduce your trans fats.  But what are they? Trans fats seem to come in two main forms:

• Elaidic acid – converted from oleic acid and the main trans fat found in soy bean oil
• Vaccenic acid – formed in animal products by bacteria in the rumen, one of the four stomachs in ruminating animals.  This hydrogenates polyunsaturated fats and converts them into saturated and trans fats.

Mike Roussell summarises in a brief article about trans fats that epidemiological data (studies where results are put together through observation, a common tool with nutritional studies but also, through the nature of them, inherently less reliable) shows that “natural” trans fats, such as those in animal products, don’t increase the risk of heart disease.  In fact, humans can convert vaccenic acid into CLA (conjugated linoleic acid).

So we want to avoid the elaidic acid form of the trans fats.  That’s ok, just avoid soy oil.

But that’s not so easy, as Dr Kaayla Daniel explains in an interview with Chris Shugart.  Soy oil is produced in huge quantities and is in almost everything that is processed.  In fact, it is so prevalent that it doesn’t always get labelled on the packet as a trans fat or as soy oil.  Look for anything that has vegetable oil, margarine or shortening in it for a start.  Apparently you can almost guarantee that in reality it has soy oil in it.

Saturated Fats and Dairy

I was asked specifically to find out about dairy.  Mostly because I went off on a tirade about trans fats when they told me that the doctor had advised that they should use margarine rather than butter.  I really can’t believe that they said that.  It borders on malpractice, in my view.

Saturated fat has been shown in numerous studies to increase LDL.  However, the complication is that it slightly increases HDL while appearing to inhibit the anti-inflammatory effects of HDL. 

So, to summarise, saturated fats are bad, because they increase LDL and inhibit the anti-inflammatory effects of HDL, but they are also better than other fats because they increase and maintain elevated HDL levels.

Where does that leave us?  I advised the following:

• ignore the doctor’s advice to use margarine instead of butter (I’d rather have a helping of LDL and HDL increasing saturated fats than a dose of LDL increasing trans fats), but
• do follow advice to use skimmed milk instead of semi-skimmed or whole milk (at least in the short term), and
• use all dairy products as little as possible and when using them, take them in moderation.

As a reminder, I also mentioned that there were saturated fats in meat.  This is therefore the basis for recommendations that you limit your meat intake on a cholesterol-reducing diet.  I’m more relaxed about this, though I did agree that using more chicken and less beef might be a good idea for a while, to kick-start the diet.

The Egg Debate

I was also shocked to hear that the doctor had advised against eating eggs.  The best summary of why this is hugely outdated advice comes from Poliquin who explains that yes, eggs raise cholesterol.  However, there are two important pieces of information missing:

1. The study was done by the cereal board – you should question the reliability of a group of people whose best interests are in getting you to replace eggs as your breakfast food.
2. The study was done before they differentiated between different cholesterol types.

Eggs raise HDL, not LDL, so if you are trying to lower LDL and raise HDL then the logical answer is to eat more eggs, not fewer. 

Summary

So for today we have learned that while it is generally accepted that we need to keep our total cholesterol below 200mg/dl, with emphasis on HDL, we do still need cholesterol as it plays an important role in our bodies.  

We’ve also learned that there are three main forms of cholesterol, designated by the different lipoprotein coatings that they have to enable them to be carried around the body and which give each cholesterol type a unique characteristic.

We’ve found that different fats affect our cholesterol levels in different ways.  Trans fats raise LDL and are found in almost any processed food, while saturated fats are more complex since they increase LDL and may reduce the anti-inflammatory effects of HDL but they do also keep HDL elevated.  When faced with a choice, choose the saturated fat (so keep the butter and ditch the margarine).

And finally we’ve established that eggs are, as anyone who does weight training knows, good for you and not the evil foodstuff that the medical profession would have you believe.

Related posts:

1. Top 10 Tips on Reducing and Controlling Blood Cholesterol
2. Lessons learned this week: water retention
3. Lessons learned this week: falling off the diet wagon