Low-fat diets can do a great
disservice, since good fats are essential to life
Complex
Issues Of Good-and-Bad Cholesterol, Saturated Fats, Unsaturated Fats, Essential
Fatty Acids and Deadly Trans Fatty Acids
High-Level Summary: Certain types of “good” fats are absolutely essential – we cannot exist without eating and producing them, but other “bad” fats can cause many types of disease, leading to great suffering, economic burden, and unnecessary early death. Many people need to eliminate “trans fats” (found in many processed foods) and increase their intake of “omega-3 fats” (found in unsalted raw walnuts, canola oil (rapeseed), smaller cold-water fish, flaxseed, lecithin (soy, eggs, meats and to a lesser degree in some fruits and vegetables), etc.), (explained in detail in later sections).
Insufficient intake of good fats can result in a variety of diseases that have complex cause-and-effect relationships, such as internal organ damage, central nervous system damage, mental imbalance including depression and dementia, symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. Externally, long-term insufficient good fat intake can cause accelerated skin aging, disease-causing inflammation, susceptibility to infection and hair loss.
Examples of new counterintuitive scientific discoveries that very few medical professionals understand: Many people should INCREASE their intake of certain saturated fats to lower their bad cholesterol level and reduce the risk of deadly heart disease (explained below by a renowned endocrinologist M.D.). Millions of people are causing significant damage to their liver by eating UNsaturated fat (scientifically explained below).
EVERYONE SHOULD LEARN HOW TO AVOID COMMONLY-USED TRANS FATTY ACIDS. For years, doctors, government agencies and professional dietitians incorrectly told us that eating fat was bad and that margarine was better for us than butter, but in recent years, research scientists have clearly explained precisely why consuming “trans fatty acids” in margarine and most baked goods like bread, cookies, noodles, etc. is three times worse than eating pure butter or lard. This information is highly controversial, since it contradicts what biased organizations like the National Association of Margarine Manufactures and the (documented corrupt, untrustworthy) U.S. Food and Drug Administration have been incorrectly promoting for decades.
Trans fatty acids greatly increase the risk of America’s number one killer: heart disease. Trans fats lead to high blood pressure, stroke and heart attack. Half of Americans will die of cardiovascular disease.
Trans fats are currently THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM WITH THE BAD AMERICAN DIET TODAY. The FDA was finally forced to recognize this, and is now requiring all foods to add trans fat content to their labels by 2006. Many foods with zero trans fats have already added this to their labels in 2004. High trans fat foods are being reformulated. American dietary changes are slow and difficult to bring about – there is enormous resistance to change. Ignorance, apathy and deceptive misinformation abound, but the trans fat issue is so serious that at least the labels are changing quickly. Soon, the food industry will begin to eliminate most deadly trans fats from the marketplace of better-informed consumers.
Until then, intelligent readers can be assured in 2005 that a product that does NOT list its trans fat content, and that has “partially hydrogenated” in its Ingredients, has a lot of deadly trans fat in it, and should be TOTALLY AVOIDED. Clue: If you add the amounts of saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated fat on the food label, and the total does not equal "Total Fat" , the discrepancy may represent the amount of deadly trans fat (rounded to the closest gram per item). If you do nothing else to improve your diet, PLEASE pay attention to this very important issue and ELIMINATE ALL TRANS FAT FROM YOUR DIET.
The doctors, dietitians and government agencies that recommended the use of foods containing trans fatty acids unknowingly (or with obviously-biased profit motives) do a great disservice to us all, which has probably resulted in the unnecessary suffering and untimely death of millions of Americans with heart disease in the last half century.
Several recent studies have addressed the subject of heart disease risks in childhood and documented that heart-healthy eating habits are important for adults AND young children. One new millennium study (published in the Journal of the American Medical Association) confirmed that simple dietary substitutions make a significant difference in lowering bad cholesterol levels, not only in adults but also in children. This research revealed that the entire family can benefit from a heart-healthy diet that substitutes good fats for bad fats (discussed in great detail below).
Another study found that adolescents (ages 13 to 18) with high cholesterol intake were more likely to show early signs of cumulative artherosclerosis (heart disease). In addition, a major 20-year heart study revealed that children aged 5 to 17 who were overweight were 2.4 times more likely to have elevated bad cholesterol levels, which are clearly linked to heart disease. Roughly one fourth to one third of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are at least “overweight”, which places an alarming number of young people at a significantly increased risk for devastating heart disease, diabetes, etc.
The National Cholesterol Education Program issued updated guidelines for the detection, evaluation and treatment of high blood cholesterol in adults, which included this recommendation: "Everyone older than age 2 should care about cholesterol to reduce the risk of developing heart disease as an adult. Children as well as adults can improve the health of their hearts by following a low-saturated-fat and low-cholesterol diet, avoiding obesity, and being physically active." While this statement is basically correct, we will explain in this in-depth material why the NCEP recommendation is over simplified and still needs further refinement in light of the last few years of research about dietary good and bad fats.
We now know that heart disease starts in childhood and it is America’s number one killer of both men and women. In order to help reverse this trend, the entire family should develop improved nutrition habits. Simple dietary changes are the first steps toward a longer, healthier, happier lifestyle.
According to opinion surveys, parents already think that they know what they should be doing to improve their children’s eating habits, but they don’t. In fact, this material will point that not only are the vast majority not doing what they think is good for their children, but they are being mislead by government agencies, board-certified medical professionals and misinformed professional dietitians. In our fast-paced, fast food, overstressed, everyone-is-too-busy world, adult and child nutrition suffers badly, and our public health is declining sadly.
Changing the long-term bad nutrition habits of Americans is not going to be easy. Many will continue to suffer debilitating disease and die unnecessary deaths rather than change. They will endure significant unnecessary long term pain, place a huge burden on unsound baby boomer medical subsidies, and on their caregivers and loved ones – ALL OF WHICH IS LARGELY AVOIDABLE.
It will take significant education and personal discipline to retrain American taste buds, marketing practices, and food shopping skills to know the difference between good and bad nutrition habits. Government agencies have spent many years trying to indiscriminately get the general public to eat less fat, but the majority of Americans are eating even more. Profit-motivated convenience food company marketing campaigns, (with throw-away-toys next to the french fries), are obviously much more effective at molding the decision-making process of adults and children than FDA recommendations, (which we will see are themselves are highly flawed).
We now know that the government’s nutrition guidelines need significant revision. Even if what we are talking about was not controversial, it would take more than a decade to get people to change eating habits learned from grandma or from commercial television ads. The fact that most medical professionals, dietitians and government officials are NOT keeping up with modern nutrition research only slows the process of massive international behavior modification.
To realize how rampant the lifestyle misinformation problem is today, consider the millions of Americans (including some of our Presidents) who risk permanent physical and mental health damage by ignoring scientific findings and taking (and selling) illegal “recreational” drugs. Since the damage from improper lifestyle choices can take many years to accumulate, most people think “If it doesn’t kill me today, it must be OK.”
Joyful Aging can only hope that YOU will take the time to read this lengthy material and other valuable sources of nutrition information. We hope we can help motivate you to pursue lifelong learning about important issues that can dramatically impact your own health and happiness.
The following material provides overwhelming scientific clinical-and-laboratory findings to provoke our thoughtful readers (with effective critical thinking skills) to study and understand what needs to change and why. Please take the time to read and absorb it all, but, if you gain nothing else from the following material, the VERY MOST IMPORTANT MESSAGE is to STOP CONSUMING TRANS FATTY ACIDS. Check the ingredients when you go shopping. If the ingredients include “partially hydrogenated” oils, or “shortening,” do NOT buy or consume them. A small amount of trans fat probably won’t kill you quickly, however, long-term consumption of trans fats will have a cumulative negative impact that can begin as early as age 2. For your own sake, and the long-term health of your offspring, please invest the time to learn, and be prepared to make simple changes to the combination of foods that you eat.
Our intent is to inform and educate our intelligent readers about solid scientific knowledge and statistical risk factors, not to diagnose particular diseases or to treat unique individuals. Let’s begin with the basics:
The underlying metabolic biochemistry processes of “lipids” (different forms of fat) are poorly understood by the general public AND by many board-certified physicians, professional dietitians and government agencies (including the U.S. FDA). Understanding lipid metabolism requires a mind that is open to science, more than the traditions that grandma taught your mother, or unhealthy foods that are promoted by profit motivated television commercials.
The interesting thing is that the basics of essential fatty acid (EFA) metabolism are covered in a one credit hour sophomore undergraduate Biochemistry class. From my experience, most medical doctors and certified nutritionists/dietitians do NOT understand the practical applications of this second year one-hour college course or related recently published research papers.
If you want to see how sad the lack or fat metabolism knowledge really is, take a look at the Biochemistry class webpage on fat metabolism. Pick out a few of the interesting terms and ask your medical doctor or a hospital dietitian / meal planner why their food recommendations ignore basic Biochemistry concepts. It is very easy to learn more about fat metabolism than most doctors and dietitians combined understand - Just read this Joyful Aging material, browse a few Internet web pages, and you will quickly see what I mean.
The U.S. FDA has for many years demonstrated their ongoing ignorance of basic Biochemistry and published the major source of the modern American morbid obesity epidemic with their relentless promotion of their “deadly” low-fat, high-carbohydrate Food Pyramid. The Healthy Lifestyles Act, submitted to the Senate in May 2004, mandates major revision of the highly flawed FDA Food Pyramid based on abundant information gathered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (www.CDC.gov) that document the link between the terrible FDA Food Pyramid errors and galloping morbid obesity in America.
Humans are as unique as our fingerprints: Fat metabolism requirements and diseases linked to insufficient good fats vary significantly from one individual to another, based on:
(1) Inherited genetic tendencies
(2) Lifestyle (nutrition, exercise, attitude and mental activity)
(3) Environment (pollutants, toxins, free radicals, etc.)
(4) Activity (exercise)
(5) Age (Rate of Aging)
(6) Other non-fat nutritional intake (particularly high glycemic index carbohydrates).
Over the years, medical doctors, certified nutritionists, and government agencies, have made many incorrect, overly-simplistic recommendations about fat consumption that we now know are the WRONG thing for most individuals to do.
The following material provides a basic understanding of frequently misunderstood dietary fat issues. We will overview recent important scientific and public health discoveries, and illuminate the reasons for improved dietary fat recommendations (like increase omega-3 intake and some type of body-building saturated fat, and eliminate pervasive, unnatural, deadly trans fats).
EVERY HUMAN IS “FAT.” Every cell of our body is lined with a critical membrane made of fat. The (axon / dendrite) fibers that interconnect our nerves have a fatty myelin sheath that acts like electrical insulation. Many essential vitamins that we cannot survive without (A, D, E, F & K) are fat based. Without essential fats in our diet, we will surely die. A “no fat” diet will kill anyone. Our body MUST have lecithin, or similar lipids so the liver can manufacture lecithin.
Lecithin is a “phospholipid” – one of five different types of fat discussed in more detail below. Lecithin is needed by every cell in the body, and is a key building block of cell membranes. Without lecithin our cell membrane would harden and we would age rapidly. Lecithin protects cells from oxidation and is a major component of the protective sheaths surrounding the brain. Lecithin is composed mostly of B vitamins, phosphoric acid, choline (phosphatidylcholine), linoleic acid and inositol.
Although lecithin is basically a fatty substance, it is also a valuable fat emulsifier that helps fat mix with water. This characteristic helps purge bad LDL cholesterol from our bodies. Nature exploits the lecithin emulsifier effect and includes lecithin in many plants and animal tissues. Lecithin provides essential support for the entire the circulatory system. Of all the muscles in our body, our heart (which is the most difficult muscle to fatigue) has the highest lecithin content.
The brain uses lecithin’s valuable choline to make acetylcholine, an essential neurotransmitter that is necessary for memory, sensory input, and muscular control. WE ARE ALL “FAT HEADS” (smile). Sixty percent of a normal healthy brain is made up of structural fat.
WE ARE WHAT WE EAT. Our food MUST provide the essential building blocks and fuels for life. Approximately 30% of our brain is composed of lecithin. Of the insulating and protective sheaths that surround our brain, spine, and thousands of miles of nerves, lecithin accounts for two- thirds of their composition.
When hospitalized patients must be fed intravenously (with “TPN”), lecithin is an essential phospholipid (form of fat) that we cannot live without.
An interesting thing is that liquid lecithin food supplement capsules can be about one half saturated fat. Board-certified nutrition “experts” who foolishly suggest that we should avoid consuming all saturated fats do not have a clue about essential human nutrition and lipid metabolism.
Most lecithin food supplements are made from soybeans, which also contains many other valuable phytonutrients. Soybeans can be refined and most of the oil can be removed, along with the protein-building amino acids, but WHY BOTHER? Whole soybean products are a beneficial food source, which includes absolutely essential lecithin and other essential biochemicals. Lecithin research studies about lowering cholesterol levels have been done using 3-5 rounded tablespoons of oil-removed lecithin granules daily. After a period of three to four months, significant reduction in serum cholesterol is usually observed (due in large part to the emulsifier effect of lecithin).
Plants and animals cannot exist without many different types of fats that we either (1) eat or (2) generate internally from other dietary nutrient sources. A “vitamin” is an organic (carbon-containing) compound that is necessary for the normal physiological and metabolic function of the body. Although some vitamins (like B12) can be generated in small amounts by bacterial in a “healthy” gut (that has not been exposed to antibiotics that kill both bad and good micro organisms) most vitamins cannot be produced by the body in adequate amounts and must therefore be obtained in our diet.
Some vitamins (A, D, E, F & K) are fat soluble. Anyone who recommends a “zero fat” diet simply does NOT understand the critical nature of vitamins. Mother’s milk is the best food for an infant. It is loaded with fat-based and water-based vitamins, along with many beneficial things (hormones, immune system antibodies, etc.) that are not found in any commercial baby formula. One half of human milk is good essential fat. We simply can NOT live long healthy lives without continuing to consume essential good fats.
Humans cannot generate certain “essential fatty acids” (recently named “vitamin F”). These “EFA’s” MUST be included in our diet for us to survive. Some naturally healthy foods (like walnuts, soy / tofu, flaxseed, canola, and some types of cold water, fatty, wild fish) contain absolutely essential dietary fatty acids, but the vast majority of Americans do NOT consume adequate EFA’s in their normal diet. Frequently, the imbalance of good-versus-bad fats in their diet is quite harmful to their health. Insufficient fat-based vitamins and structural fats (like lecithin) in the diet results in many serious, avoidable, health problems (discussed in much more scientific detail below).
Eating fat does not necessarily make you fat. Educing intake of some types of good fat may NOT help you lose weight. In fact, eating some types of fats will actually help you LOSE excess body fat.
One extremely important clinical study (that many people have not heard about) found that dieters on a calorie-controlled, “moderate-fat” (35 percent of calories) nutrition plan that included nuts and other good fats lost as much or more weight than dieters on a 20-percent-fat calorie-controlled plan. One of several reasons is that low fat diets are higher in carbohydrates, which convert quickly into body fat.
The 35% moderate-fat diet group maintained their weight loss longer and better than did the 20% low-fat group over the 18-month test period and beyond. This is because the “moderate-fat, nuts-allowed” group reported fewer hunger and energy problems than did the low-fat diet group. Low-fat, high carbohydrate diets create a “sugar spike” after eating, followed by sugar depression a few hours later. Carbohydrates do not “stick to your ribs” like a moderate good fat diet does. One critical key to good health and weight control is to know the difference between good and bad fats – consume the good ones in moderate amounts (35% of caloric intake), and avoid the bad ones, ESPECIALLY DEADLY TRANS FATS (explained below).
Fresh, unsalted nuts (especially walnuts discussed in detail below) provide valuable protein, essential fatty acids, fiber, and important antiaging phytonutrients. In moderation (one handful every day), walnuts provide a healthy and slimming alternative to the empty calories of age-accelerating, disease-causing, high-glycemic-index refined carbohydrates, sugars, flour, potatoes, corn, starches, chips, breads, crackers and desserts (all of which should be avoided by most adults and overweight children).
Fats are an excellent form of high-density energy storage that is generated and stored by plants and animals during times of abundance. Powerful petroleum that powers our airplanes, trains and cars is generated when tiny fatty sea creatures die and settle to the bottom of the sea floor. These efficient, energy-storing animal fats are compressed by heavy geologic pressure from sediments that build up over many thousands or millions of years.
A gallon of petroleum or vegetable oil contains a
significant amount of easy-to-use energy that can drive an automobile, heavy
truck or train many miles, or lift a huge airplane off of the ground.
Carbohydrates (sugar, grass, wood, etc.) cannot possibly provide the
high-density energy storage that petroleum (animal fat) does. For over a
century, petroleum has been one of the densest forms of readily-available,
easily-controlled energy storage. (Nuclear energy is denser, but too complex for biological systems to
control.)
In 1895, Rudolf Diesel invented his internal combustion engine – designed to run on peanut oil. Today, modern diesel and jet engines can run efficiently on clean, renewable “biodiesel” products like peanut oil, soybean oil, canola (rapeseed) oil, etc. In 1912, Rudolf Diesel wrote: "The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in the course of time as important as the petroleum and coal tar products of the present time." As the world slowly runs out of non-renewable petroleum, clean-burning biodiesel fuels may extend the lifetime of the internal combustion engine, oil-burning heating systems, etc. (National Biodiesel Board) It would be better if we could have zero-pollution, renewable-energy electric vehicles, but no one has been able to design a battery that can store energy as efficiently as animal fats do.
In warm-blooded hibernating animals (like many bears), body fat storage supplies enough energy to keep pregnant females nourished, warm and healthy for many months of bad weather. A large belly full of grass or berries could not possibly do this.
The energy in fat is stored and released slowly, unlike fast-burn carbohydrates. Consider the difference between a long-burning animal fat candle, a kerosene lamp or a diesel truck, and a pile of fast-burning grass, or the burst of energy you would need to outrun an angry bear for a short distance. Sugar is fast burn, volatile, limited energy storage. Fat is slow burn, stable, large-capacity energy storage. Humans need both in the proper balance.
In addition to efficiently storing large amounts of energy, animal-fat-based petrochemicals are also used to make strong and lightweight jet fighter aircraft wings, automobile parts, extremely-thin airtight food wrap, thread, cloth, asphalt highways, etc.
The state-of-the-art body of the new 250-passenger “Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner” is made of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (from the stored body fats of ancient animals that eventually became petroleum). The structural-fat-based 7E7 plastic body is stronger and 20% lighter than metal body aircraft. It has only been very recently that aeronautical engineers have begun to learn what animal biology demonstrated billions of years ago about the high value of structural fats, and using fat as an excellent energy storage media for when food is scarce.
The diversity of uses for fat-based petrochemical plastics is the same concept that different types of fat use in many essential roles in our human body structure of cells, tissues and organs. Our brain would collapse of its own weight without the structural fats that hold the gray matter together, electrically insulate nerve impulses, and protect our precious brain from concussions, free radical oxidation, etc.
Every one of the many trillions of cells in our entire body depends on a flexible fat-based cell membrane, which is more important to human existence than the petroleum-fat-based plastic wings on a supersonic military jet fighter. Just like modern electrical wires are encased in flexible plastic insulation, every central nervous system neuron MUST have a fat-based insulating “myelin sheath” to keep thousands of tightly-bundled adjacent nerves from “shorting out” electrically.
Multiple sclerosis (loss of multiple sensory and control
nerve functions) involves extensive degradation of improperly nourished myelin
sheaths in nerves throughout the body. Essential fatty acids and the
fat-based antioxidants (like vitamin A, D, E, K & F) that protect
structural fats, cell walls and myelin sheaths are absolutely necessary for
good health and longevity.
Most Americans develop diverse health problems because
they do not consume enough of the right kind of essential fatty acids. If
we do not consume sufficient fat-based vitamins and essential fatty acids (like
omega-3 and DHA discussed in detail below), then our cell membranes and
myelin sheaths will NOT be pliable, strong, resilient or resistant to disease
processes, and every body tissue and organ will age much faster than it should.
The impact of insufficient vitamin F essential fatty acids is so dramatic that you can see it in the lack of resilience and premature aging of the skin, especially the face. We learn to recognize a person’s age by wrinkles in their skin. BUT, some people appear to age much more rapidly than others. Part of the reason for premature accelerated aging is insufficient intake of “good fats” and insufficient protective antioxidant vitamins. Although you can see this problem externally on the skin, the same is also true about every internal organ in the body. Wrinkled faces imply advanced internal organ aging. People who starve themselves on low-fat diets, or who drink alcohol or smoke regularly, often have premature external skin wrinkles, in addition to internal heart disease, cancers and other deadly age-related ailments. Our lifestyle choices dramatically impact our rate of aging.
Good fats and antioxidants are essential to good health. Misinformed “experts” who indiscriminately recommended reduction of dietary fat intake below 35% damaged the health of millions of Americans. The 1992 U.S. FDA Food Pyramid recommendation to reduce all fat intake and replace it with bread, pasta, potatoes, sugars, etc. is directly responsible for the untimely death of millions of Americans that were clearly caused by excessive intake of bad carbohydrates instead of good fats and antioxidants. The deadly cause-and-effect of the terrible 1992 FDA Food Pyramid is overwhelmingly documented in studies published on the Internet by the U.S. Centers For Disease Control (CDC), and by merely looking at the vast majority of obese Americans, and the new millennium epidemic of morbid obesity.
Unlike fats, many of the plant-based carbohydrates that we consume are rapidly digested and stored (short term) as immediately usable energy (glycogen - a sugar water complex) in our muscles and liver. “Carbohydrate loading” is essential for running a marathon. But, human glycogen storage capacity is very limited – It fills up quickly after a high carbohydrate meal, and is depleted rapidly during heavy exercise. If you consume bread and pasta (as was catastrophically recommended by the inept, misinformed FDA Food Pyramid), you will soon be hungry again. Your personality, emotions and depression will be subject to significant instability, since they are based in large part on blood sugar highs and lows. In stark contrast, major medical research institutes have now shown that omega-3 essential fatty acids stabilize mood and emotions, and are much safer and effective than some dangerous antidepressant medications.
In the presence of excess blood sugar (as easily measured by a serum glucose level “glucometer”), a healthy pancreas releases insulin, which improves the effectiveness of certain mitochondria (chemical factories within our cells) and stimulates enzymes (determined by our DNA, and located primarily in our liver) to rapidly convert the excess sugar into fat-based long-term energy storage (body fat).
Humans have specialized “fat cells” that hold this dense form of energy storage as body fat, for use later when food is scarce. In contrast to short-term, small-capacity, storage of glycogen energy in our muscles, body fat cells are long-term, large-capacity energy storage mechanisms (like the fuel tanks on a transcontinental jet airplane). When humans eat more carbohydrates than they burn in a day, they naturally store body fat during periods of inactivity – sleeping, sitting, watching TV, playing video games, working in front of a computer, surfing the Internet, etc.
American children are trained in school classrooms to sit still for many years, and lead mostly sedentary lives, whereas our ancestors’ bodies evolved to be constantly moving around while they were awake. Mental activity is linked to physical activity. Lazy minds are often found in lazy bodies. Look at the high-energy and imagination of preschool children, and then go visit them in a sadly boring American classroom a few years later.
In an era when the extremely simplistic book “Fun With Dick and Jane” ruled America's mindless mediocre schoolrooms, Albert Cullum allowed Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Shaw to reign in his fifth grade public school classroom. Through the use of poetry, drama and imaginative (out of your seat) play acting, Cullum championed an unorthodox educational philosophy of entertaining fun and critical thinking that spoke directly to his students' innermost being.
Most of Cullum’s students developed superior minds and healthy bodies. They had extensive vocabularies and problem solving abilities. Decades later, our modern schools are producing inferior, non-competitive, lazy, obese graduates who can barely read, write, communicate, or do basic arithmetic. Poor nutrition, exercise and mental aerobic training are largely to blame.
Humans are born energetic geniuses – Busy working parents lazily allow others to train their offspring to be satisfied with sedentary compliance to unhealthy normalcy - imposed by underpaid schoolteachers with mediocre minds and low community expectations. Middle-of-the-road classroom conformance is rewarded. Dissatisfaction and creative problem solving skills are punished.
Dilbert cartoons point out that everyone is aware that we are surrounded by galloping stupidity, yet we will wake up tomorrow and follow the same uncritical bad habits of mediocrity that created yesterday’s unfulfilling life. “The thinking that created today’s problems is insufficient to solve them.” – Albert Einstein
High carbohydrates plus deadly habitual, traditional, inactivity have produced the catastrophic American morbid obesity epidemic with terrible cascading consequences in the last decade alone. Serious American lifestyle changes are now absolutely necessary. Joyful Aging focuses on proper nutrition, exercise and mental aerobics that influence the decisions we make that control our good-or-bad lifestyle decisions.
Some body fat cells (like those near the heart and liver) are specialized to release energy much more rapidly than others (like those near our apple-shaped stomach, or pear-shaped rear end). The loss of fast-burn fat around the heart is dangerous – we cannot respond to high-stress and the heart can fail catastrophically. Low-calorie, low-fat “starvation diets” introduce serious health risks, including loss of critical heart/liver fat and the body digesting its own lean muscle mass, which reduces our ability to burn up stored body fat. Essentially, low fat, low calorie starvation makes you fatter.
The loss of fat around the stomach and hips is difficult for most people to achieve without significant long-term changes in nutrition and exercise (discussed extensively on this web site). It requires the wisdom to make lifelong modifications to healthy nutrition consumption, NOT quick-fix on-again, off-again crash diets, which cause the body to go into “energy conservation” mode and store as much fat as quickly as possible when you become ravenous and begin eating again.
The number of fat storage cells in our body (and where they are located) is for the most part determined very early in life. The eating habits of our mother and the food we are fed before we learn how to talk will influence our capacity to store body fat for the rest of our lives.
Decades ago, mothers used to incorrectly think that a fat baby was a healthy baby. Medications were stupidly prescribed to baby boomers (by the inept Geritol generation) to encourage children to eat more and become fat. We now know that this concept was for the most part very bad. Children and adults with more fat-storing cells must be even more careful about consuming too much carbohydrate, which can quickly turn into unhealthy levels of disease-causing stored body fat.
Obesity often runs in families. This does NOT mean that the tendency to become fat was inherited from your parents’ DNA. The people who plan menus for the family (or often purchase bad fast food) transfer their stupid nutrition habits to those around them and everyone young and old gets fat and has weight-related diseases, like diabetes, heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, cancers, etc.
If obesity was determined exclusively by genetics, then why has there been such an upsurge in morbid obesity since the U.S. FDA published their deadly Food Pyramid high-carbohydrate recommendations? Our DNA did NOT suddenly change since 1992, but most American sedentary lifestyles and bad nutrition habits certainly have gotten much worse.
Depending on our hour-by-hour food intake versus our physical activity, our body may be able to gradually convert stored fat back into usable “glucose” or “ketones” (needed by muscles and our brain / central nervous system), or we may accumulate increasing levels of body fat over time (leading to the current American “morbid obesity epidemic”).
Some naive / obsolete people say that weight loss is a simple matter of taking in fewer “calories” (a measure of energy in our food) than we burn. Clearly, if you consume zero calories, you WILL lose weight. But, the ratio of calories consumed versus calories burned is an obsolete (50+ year old), misleading oversimplification that is only partially true. Sometimes, we eat certain foods, the body takes only what it needs, and the rest goes down the toilet. Some foods are high in indigestible dietary five, which is high in calories, but does not increase blood sugar or body fat. High calorie dietary fiber has many health benefits and can contribute to loss of excess body fat. There are many other reasons why the pseudo-scientific overly-simplistic thermodynamic physics of “calories-in versus calories-out” does NOT describe the way human metabolism really works.
Donald D. Hensrud, M.D., is an often quoted nutrition specialist at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Consider his following incorrect misleading oversimplified false statement, which is based on partial truth, combined with his obsolete training about calories-in versus calories:
“…carbohydrates raise blood sugar levels, which then kicks in insulin. Insulin drives blood sugar into the cells and prevents fat breakdown in the body, which means you won't burn excess fat and lose weight. Proponents of low-carbohydrate diets take this one step further. They say that if carbohydrates raise blood sugar and insulin levels and cause weight gain, a decrease in carbs will result in lower blood sugar and insulin levels, leading to weight loss. And because you're not eating the carbs, your body breaks down fat to provide needed energy. Some people do lose weight on low-carb diets, but the weight loss probably isn't related to blood sugar and insulin levels. The weight loss is more likely the result of eating fewer total calories, whether they're from carbohydrate, fat or protein.”
Doctors who continue to make such false statements in light of modern scientific information do a great disservice to the gullible mediocre masses.
We will explain in several sections of the following material how the very different metabolism of fats and sugars means that you can consume more “good” fat calories than “bad” carbohydrate calories and lose more weight by eating MORE calories.
This directly contradicts Dr. Hensrud of the prestigious Mayo Clinic, and all of those who ineptly preach that calories are the only thing that matters in weight loss.
Are you interested? Modern studies make it very clear that different types of fats and carbohydrates are digested and metabolized, used or stored much differently.
How your unique body metabolism works is more important than the number of calories you consume (although portion control does play an important role in good nutrition, as do the differences between good-and-bad fats-and-carbs).
You can have a dramatic impact on the rate of your metabolism by a variety of voluntary lifestyle decisions that you make every day. Without a doubt, exercise increases your metabolic rate. The more exercise, the more energy you burn (from ingested or stored sugars, fats, etc.). The proper balance between nutrition and exercise is essential to good health. Too much or too little of either will unnecessarily accelerate your rate of aging.
The biochemistry term “carbohydrate” means “carbon joined with water.” Through “photosynthesis”, plants store energy from the sun by efficiently converting carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates. Animals digest and metabolize the stored solar energy by “burning” carbohydrates in the presence of oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide and water, in a never-ending plant / animal energy-storage-and-use cycle.
The simplest forms of common carbohydrate (stored solar energy) are sugars and starches. The most common simple sugar is glucose, (which has six carbon atoms and forms an easily-burned biochemical ring structure). Sugar in the blood (serum glucose) releases its energy very quickly through the chemical factories (mitochondria) inside every living cell in our bodies. For this to work properly, the fat-based cell membranes mush work correctly. We previously explained that insufficient dietary intake of lecithin and fatty vitamins (A, D, E, K and F) produce unhealthy cell membranes, which corrupt proper metabolism. This is a negative downhill metabolic snowball, leading ultimately to untimely death.
The simpler a carbohydrate that we eat is (sweet liquids, table sugar, flour, corn, starchy roots like potatoes, carrots, beets, etc.), the faster it is digested and turns into blood sugar (serum glucose), which is easily converted to stored body fat (in the presence of insulin), if it is not burned very quickly with heavy exercise.
It is surprising to note that eating a plain baked potato is worse than eating an equal amount of table sugar, in that the potato releases glucose into the blood stream faster than does table sugar, causing a rapid sugar spike followed by hunger and depression. Potatoes and corn are good foods, ONLY if your other alternative is starvation!
With the exception of a few foods, (like pure glucose), almost everything we eat must be digested and broken down into familiar forms of energy (fuel), and body building blocks, before our food can be used. At least a small part of ALL digestible foods are eventually converted into serum glucose (even part of the energy stored in the leanest meats and protein sources). Indigestible dietary fiber merely passes through the system without contributing much glucose.
Beneficial “complex carbohydrates” (some vegetables like broccoli, kale, et.al.) and proteins (meat and some vegetables like beans and walnuts) take more time to digest and release glucose into our blood. The rate that different foods are digested and release their glucose (and store it as body fat if not used in a matter of hours) is called the “glycemic index.”
Glucose is very soluble in water and in our blood. Babies have immature digestive systems and need high glycemic index foods and frequent feeding. Liquefied carbohydrates (sugar water, fruit juice and milk lactose) pass very quickly through the stomach lining into our blood stream. This is great for infants, but bad for older children and adults.
The immature digestive system of infants must have high-glycemic-index food (like mother’s milk and low-fiber sweet fruit juice). In contrast, most adults should avoid high glycemic index foods, except when they exercise heavily, or they are diseased and significantly underweight.
Overweight children, adults, and those with problems controlling high blood sugar (diabetics) should generally avoid high glycemic foods, (which rapidly turn into body fat), unless they are running a marathon. Later, we will explain how low-blood sugar is necessary to encourage the beneficial process called “ketosis” which converts stored fats into a usable form of energy called “ketones” (this process is essential to weight loss).
Glucose is a universal fuel for almost all cells, tissues, organs and organisms. Glucose is the energy source for muscles, most brain functions, etc. Glucose provides about 4 calories of energy per gram. Alcohol is about 7 calories per gram, whereas high-density fat is about 9 calories per gram. Calorie counts indicated how much heat (energy) is released when a substance is burned (oxidized) in the presence of oxygen.
Our enzymes can rapidly convert excess serum glucose (a simple molecule) into fat (a more complex, high-density energy storage molecule) that is then accumulated in our body fat storage cells. Have you ever noticed how some fats (fried foods, etc.) taste “sweet”? Fat is just a higher-density form of energy storage than sugar, with a more complex molecular structure. Our sugar-sensitive taste buds recognize (“like”) sweet fats. Carnivorous animals (including humans) like eating high-density fats, since it provides long-lasting energy, when food is generally scarce and only occasionally abundant (when an animal food source is killed).
Sugars are “carbohydrates.” Animal fats and petroleum fuels are called “hydrocarbons.” Both are forms of water plus carbon (hydrogen, oxygen and carbon in various different “burnable” energy-storage structures).
COMMON MISUNDERSTANDING: EATING FAT MAKES US FAT. This incorrect concept from more than ten years ago (e.g., the deadly 1993 FDA Food Pyramid bad high-carbohydrate dietary recommendations) was based on the oversimplified belief that fat has more than twice the calories of table sugar. This is misleading, since it is only a small part of the equation. It ignores human metabolic processes. It is an invalid conclusion, based on the naïve belief that our body works entirely on “calories-in versus calories-out.” . (In this respect, Dr. Hensrud of the Mayo Clinic and many other overly-simplistic professional intuitionalists are flatly wrong, despite their prestigious titles and job assignments.) Our bodies do NOT behave the way calories do did a high-school biology class. What our biology teacher said decades ago is now know to have been less than the complete truth.
Different types of food are metabolized in different ways. For example, grass (and dietary fiber cellulose) are very high in carbohydrate calories. Cellulose burns rapidly and gives off a lot of heat quickly in a high school chemistry class calorie test.
Cattle eat grass, but they have the multiple stomachs that are required to “ruminate” and slowly break down cellulose into usable blood sugar. If humans eat only high-calorie grass, we will starve to death, since we cannot METABOLIZE grass the way cattle do.
Dietary fiber is essential in a healthy diet. Water-insoluble fiber helps clean out our intestines (like tiny brooms). Soluble gum and pectin helps is like sticky sponges that help purge cholesterol and buffer the rapid release of high glycemic index carbohydrates by coating the stomach lining. Dietary fiber is often high in calories (in laboratory tests), but much of it is not digested as it passes through our body. Dietary fiber can actually help reduce excess body fat, despite the fact that it is high in calories. Calories-in versus calories-out is absolutely an obsolete, inaccurate misconception, that is widely held by most medical doctors, professional nutritionists and dieticians. Overcoming their false “religion” is extremely difficult to do.
It is very clear to open-minded modern scientists that weight gain-or-loss is NOT based exclusively on calories-in versus calories-burned (as so many misinformed professionals have falsely proclaimed for over half a century). Weight gain or loss is actually based on “how” we digest and absorb the different types of food that we eat. Counting calories is grossly oversimplified, and it just does NOT work for many people who have tried and failed to lose weight by counting calories alone. A very small percentage of people can stay on a low-calorie diet for very long.
Portion control (especially of high glycemic foods) is important, but portion control of foods like dietary fiber and lean meats is far less important, despite the fact that they may very well be quite high in calories.
If we only consider caloric intake, we might falsely conclude that the way for an obese person to lose weight is to eat no fat or dietary fiber at all. However, we now know that people who eat moderate quantities of the right kinds of essential fats, fiber AND small amounts of high-glycemic-index carbohydrates usually LOSE excess body fat rapidly, while many Americans on low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets have become diseased and morbidly obese while eating a lot of bread, potatoes, pasta, cereals, rice, sweet liquids and other high-glycemic-index carbohydrates. The CDC morbid obesity statistics since 1992 prove that the FDA Food Pyramid, professional nutritionists, and the low-fat food providers who naively listened to them were extremely wrong!!!
Recent studies have shown that people on strictly controlled diets can consume MORE calories and lose MORE weight by eating low-carbohydrate meals, in contrast to low-fat meals (with fewer calories). To most board-certified medical doctors (who do not understand carbohydrate versus fat metabolism), this seems to contradict the laws of (calories in versus calories out) thermodynamics, but medical scientists and some “endocrinologists” who have carefully studied human metabolic processes now understand the fundamental differences between eating fat versus carbohydrates.
The calories in simple carbohydrates are easily turned into stored body fats, whereas it is much more difficult to convert dietary fats into stored body fats. When we eat fat, our bodies must first digest (break down) complex long-chain hydrocarbon fat molecules and slowly convert them into serum glucose (or ketones), before they can then be converted and stored as body fat.
When we restrict our intake of carbohydrates, our body goes into a beneficial fat-burning metabolic mode called “ketosis” where our body attempts to convert stored body fat into usable energy “ketones.” Misinformed medical critics of low-carbohydrate, high-protein dietary ketosis incorrectly claim that ketosis is an unnatural process, linked to diabetes. They may be board-certified medical professionals, (like the badly misinformed Ornish, Brown, Scherwitz, Billings, Armstrong and Ports, with a strong profit motive to sell their own biased low-fat diet plan books and close-minded research programs), but they are very wrong and confusing essential and beneficial “ketosis” with unhealthy diabetic “ketoacidosis” (which should indeed be avoided).
In fact, most Type II diabetics who change to a low-carbohydrate diet (instead of the highly-flawed FDA Food Pyramid) quickly eliminate ketoacidosis (as measured by excess ketones in the urine) and they greatly improve their control of serum glucose. In many cases, Type II diabetics can significantly reduce or even eliminate the need for medications (insulin, etc.) by reducing carbohydrate intake (especially high-glycemic index foods) and increasing the level of regular (almost daily) exercise.
It is interesting to note that being overweight greatly accelerates the onset of age-related deadly diabetes. When blood sugar is out of control, medical doctors prescribe insulin injections. Non-compliant diabetics who continue to overeat, require high levels of insulin. High insulin levels greatly accelerate fat storage, and make insulin-dependent diabetics gain weight even faster than they were before. Insulin injections by non-compliant diabetics can be a destructive downhill snowball where the prescribed symptomatic treatment makes the root cause much worse. IT IS FAR BETTER TO GREATLY REDUCE CARBOHYDRATE INTAKE, AND INCREASE EXERCISE LEVEL, RATHER THAN TO BECOME DEPENDANT ON INSULIN INJECTIONS ! ! ! High blood sugar levels greatly accelerate aging, but then so do high insulin levels!
Despite what biased, misinformed, professional critics say, ketosis is a natural process that we all experience almost every day. Ketosis (low blood sugar that triggers the fat burning process) happens whenever we go for hours without eating and our blood sugar levels drop, such as while we are sleeping. Without ketosis, we would have to eat much more often. Ketosis decreases when our serum glucose increases, like shortly after we eat carbohydrates (especially those with a high glycemic index value). High blood sugar is bad. Ketosis is good for overweight people with excess body fat that needs to be burned off.
Both the heart and the brain operate 25% more efficiently on ketones than on glucose. Benefits that many people experience while in a state of low-carbohydrate-induced ketosis can include: reduction of excess body fat, decreased hunger, mental clarity, improved mood / attitude / motivation, increased energy, and (as long as protein intake is adequate) protection of lean muscle mass. Cutting calorie intake alone (with low protein intake) can cause the body to digest muscle tissue. Digesting the body’s own muscle tissue is a desperate mechanism that attempts to preserve the heart and brain during periods of starvation. This desperate condition of semi-starvation is known as “marasmus,” if you wish to study it further. It occurs frequently in extremely poor countries.
On a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet, the body’s lean muscle mass is not digested – the dietary protein is metabolized, rather than the body’s own muscle tissue. This concept is not understood by those who incorrectly recommend a low calorie diet to lose weight (which often lacks sufficient protein and “essential fatty acids” – both of which are high in “good” calories).
Men tend to consume at least sufficient levels of protein, whereas many women prefer high carbohydrates (incorrectly recommended by the FDA) like pasta, baked goods, potatoes and salads, which lack sufficient protein and essential fatty acids. The difference between the average diet of men and women clearly shows up in middle age – on average, most women have age-acceleration wrinkles in their skin at an earlier age than most men (even though they often spend less time outdoors in the sun than most men do). Excess sugar accelerates aging. Insufficient protein in the diet cause the body to digest itself to avoid starvation. The fashionable idea that a middle-aged woman is only attractive if she is as skinny as a pubescent teenager is making women appear to grow old much sooner than men of the same chronological age. Everyone needs sufficient protein, antioxidants and essential fatty acids in their diet. Caloric intake is not the primary issue. Well-balanced nutrition is. The FDA Food Pyramid is down right wrong, misleading, and causing people to be overweight and age far too rapidly. The thinking that created these problems is insufficient to solve them.
Complete protein, vitamins and good fats are essential to good health and Joyful Aging. Our skin is an external organ that displays what is also happening to our internal organs. Women wear makeup to hide the truth, but some need to wash their face, look into the mirror, and realize what decades of poor nutrition has done. Low protein, insufficient good fats and too few antioxidants, combined with high blood sugar and insufficient water intake (even slight dehydration) causes age-accelerating inflammation. Sugar attaches to collagen, which results in stiff, inflexible, sagging skin that makes us look and feel older than we should/could be.
The good news is that skin begins to look better after less than a week on a low-carbohydrate anti-inflammatory balanced nutrition and exercise plan with sufficient protein, essential fatty acid (omega-3), antioxidants and water intake. We cannot completely eliminate the impact of decades or poor nutrition in only one week, but we can greatly reduce the rate of future aging by making easy-to-understand, intelligent lifestyle changes.
Due to the complexity of human metabolic processes, the type of calories we eat is much more important than the number of calories we ingest. It is therefore slowly becoming obvious to an increasing number of nutrition research scientists that the relationship between eating fat and storing fat is much more complex than professional hospital dietitians and government agencies understood only one decade ago, when the extremely-bad recommendations of the 1992 Food Pyramid were first published, to the long-term detriment of a significant portion of obese, unhealthy Americans who listened to the FDA.
The U.S. FDA Food Pyramid failed to different between good carbohydrates like beans, certain green leafy veggies and high antioxidant fruits, versus fattening high-glycemic foods like liquid carbohydrates, juices, refined sugar, flour, bread, pasta, beets, potatoes, corn, carrots, etc.
An all-meat diet may be effective for lions and tigers. Grass may be good for cattle, bamboo for gorillas and pandas, and eucalyptus leaves for koalas, but as humans we need the proper natural balance of animal protein, certain complex carbohydrates, vitamins and fiber (discussed in detail in multiple Joyful Aging nutrition materials).
In this paper about fats, we have attempted to make it clear that eating fat does not necessarily make you fat (unless the fat is consumed along with high carbohydrates). We will now dig a bit deeper into the modern biochemical metabolic mysteries of “good” versus “bad” fats. Some fats are absolutely essential to life. We will die without them. Other fats (like trans fats) accelerate aging, cause many diseases, and early death. Only a small percent of board-certified medical professionals and dietitians understand even part of the important nutrition details found on the Joyful Aging web site. Most did not receive this information in their formal nutrition training, and they are far to lazy to practice LIFELONG LEARNING in a world of ever-expanding new information about their profession.
The following may sound like excessively technical biochemistry, but the conclusions drawn from it are essential to good health. The more you know about these good-fat/bad-fat topics, the better lifestyle decisions you will be able to make for yourself and for those whose lives around you that you care about and influence.
Lipids
(Various Forms Of Good and Bad Fat)
There are five main groups of compounds called “lipids”: fats, oils, phospholipids, waxes, and steroids. All but one contain either hydrocarbon chains or “fatty acids” in combination with other groups of molecules.
A fatty acid is chemically a long hydrocarbon chain capped by a carboxyl group (COOH). There are many common fatty acids, such as palmitic, stearic, oleic and linoleic acids.
Glycerol is a small, three-carbon molecule that can link fatty acids together. Fats and oils are basically very similar types of long chain molecules consisting of one, two or three fatty acid molecules linked to a single molecule of glycerol. A single fatty acid joined to a single glycerol molecule is termed a monoglyceride; two and three fatty acids joined to the same glycerol molecule are diglycerides and triglycerides. Many animal fats are triglycerides.
The combination of the particular fatty acids in a triglyceride determines many different things about the lipid, including how it looks and feels, whether it is a solid fat or a liquid oil at room temperature, and how healthy it is for our body (good or bad thing to eat or generate internally).
The disease of high serum triglycerides (“hypertriglyceridemia”) is a significant risk factor for deadly heart disease and stroke. Many Americans suffer from this deadly disease, which is largely caused by poor nutrition and is easily reduce by making simple dietary changes. Hypertriglyceridemia often runs in families. A small part of this is caused by inherited genetics, but most of it is caused by poor eating habits passed on from mothers, dietitians and caregivers to children, and by commercial advertising that promotes bad foods. In any case, hypertriglyceridemia can be reduced by improving nutrition, based on the following information.
Fats are generally composed of “saturated” fatty acids (explained below) and are solid at room temperature.
In contrast, oils are generally composed of “unsaturated” fatty acids and are often liquids at room temperature.
Waxes are usually simpler, consisting of two hydrocarbon chains held together by a single atom of oxygen.
Phospholipids are diglycerides with a phosphate group attached to the third carbon atom of the glycerol molecule.
Steroids (such as cortisone – an inflammation-controlling adrenal steroid hormone) are complex molecules made up of four closely connected rings of carbon atoms with other groups attached. Steroids and other lipids have dramatic influences on body structure and function.
In general, the five lipids play a variety of important roles in living cells, tissues, organs and organisms. Some lipids serve as long-term energy storage molecules, waterproof coverings and highly flexible barriers or boundaries between cells are their surroundings. Fats and oils are the main energy storage molecules for animals, and for some plants. In contrast to low-energy-storage sugars, one gram of high-density fat stores 9 calories of energy. If you are going to carry around a pound of energy, fats (like those in nuts and dried meats) are more than twice as efficient as carbohydrates.
In humans, lipids are stored in our organs and in specially adapted fat cells (adipose cells) just below the skin, or around critical organs like the heart and liver.
Waxes form part of waterproof coverings in a variety of organisms.
Phospholipids (like fatty acids) have the dual characteristics of being part hydrophobic and part hydrophilic (they can selectively mix or not mix with water – “semi-permeable” - conceptually similar to computer semi-conductors that conditionally allow-or-block the flow of electrons). Phospholipids are emulsifiers that allow oil and water to mix with each other. (See the previous discussion of essential Lecithin above.)
Phospholipids are an essential component in all cell membranes, where they form flexible, self-healing, double-layered boundaries between the cell and its surrounding environment. Improper lipid nutrition produces cells with critical membrane flaws that impair the functions of many human tissues and organs.
Steroids are regulatory molecules that pass into and out of cells easily, where they alter the metabolism or regulatory pathways within the cell, or change the flexibility of the cell membrane. Almost all steroid hormones are derived from beneficial forms of cholesterol. They influence dramatic male / female sexual characteristic differences. Professional athletes and Olympic competitors are barred from taking dangerous performance enhancing steroids (although many have been found to have done so). Steroids bind with DNA genetic “nucleotides” and influence cellular reproduction transcription rates. The adrenal steroid hormone “cortisone” controls painful and damaging inflammation. It is often administered by myopic medical doctors to reduce symptomatic inflammation, but an excess of cortisone causes the body to stop producing it, and the patient will soon have serious inflammatory pain all over their body when the treatment ends. Attempts to externally regulate steroids are extremely dangerous. It is far better to maintain a healthy body with proper lipid nutrition.
In summary, the five types of lipids (fats) are essential to life itself. Lipid metabolism problems are the source of a wide variety of difficult-to-understand disease, reproduction, growth, development, healing, maturation and aging processes. The lipids in our body are directly influenced by the foods we eat, and a variety of other complex interacting factors. Lipid ingestion and metabolism dramatically influences health, development and longevity, perhaps even more than minor genetic variations in most individuals.
Using the above basic sugar and fat concepts, we will now discuss the “good” and “bad” aspects of: Cholesterol, Saturated Fats, Unsaturated Fats, Essential Fatty Acids (vitamin F) and Deadly Trans Fatty Acids. We will see how dietary fat decisions that you make can have a significant impact on your development, longevity, health, happiness, pain, suffering and national medical care economics. Too many public policy makers are clueless about much of the detail contained in this material. Our goal is to inform, so superior policy decisions and lifestyles will result in the near future. Please tell your friends what you have thoughtfully discovered.
Dietary cholesterol and “saturated fats” (discussed in more detail below) tend to increase blood cholesterol, but there are many other factors that can increase fat in the blood stream, such as inherited genetic tendencies and excessive blood sugar from eating and drinking sugars, bread products and starches like potatoes, etc. (since the liver can rapidly turn excess serum glucose into to fat).
A high level of “bad” cholesterol in the blood is one serious risk factor for coronary heart disease and high blood pressure, which eventually leads to heart failure or brain stroke, which are the leading causes of death in the United States. For many years, doctors have monitored blood (serum) cholesterol levels and advised patients to avoid high cholesterol levels. However, several studies in the 1990’s showed that as many as eighty percent of people having heart attacks have normal or low cholesterol levels, so cholesterol level is obviously not the only issue with respect to heart disease.
High total cholesterol is one risk factor for heart disease, but total serum cholesterol is clearly NOT the most important indicator to monitor. We now know that low total cholesterol (and therefore low “good” cholesterol) can be much more deadly than high total cholesterol with a good ratio of good versus bad cholesterol (explained in detail below)..We will first introduce cholesterol basics, and then discuss the lesser-known subtle cholesterol issues that are very important to your health.
Blood cholesterol can be measured by your physician, or at home with a kit available from your drug store, (for a few dollars per test). The American Heart Association (AHA) and the National Cholesterol Education Program developed the Step I and Step II diets to treat high blood cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia). Their main goal is to lower LDL cholesterol (the bad form discussed below) to significantly reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and high blood pressure, which cause heart attack. They state that: “a person with a total cholesterol of 300 mg/dL has a greater risk than someone with a total cholesterol of 240 mg/dL, even though everyone with a total cholesterol greater than 240 is considered high-risk.” The AHA continues to have a long-standing recommendation to limit dietary cholesterol to less than 300 mg daily, or if that does not sufficiently lower your serum cholesterol then limit dietary cholesterol to less than 200 mg daily. This makes sense, but it is over simplified.
It is estimated that for every 1% reduction in cholesterol, heart disease risk is lowered by 2% (but we will explain why other complex issues are also involved). You should always read the cholesterol level on the label of the processed foods that you buy, and become familiar with the cholesterol levels in unlabeled butchered meats.
The following is a brief summary of the approximate milligrams of cholesterol in a serving of common foods (arranged in worst-to-best descending sequence): Use this to plan you menus:
Liver – 400, Beef Steak or Roast – 320, Bacon – 306, One Egg Yolk – 274, Lamb Chop – 270, Boneless Ham – 259, Veal Cutlet – 254, Lean Canadian (Back) Bacon – 228, Chicken Dark – 130, Turkey White – 117, Turkey Dark – 109, Tuna Packed In Water – 104, Small Hamburger – 96, Skinless Chicken Dark – 87, Ground Chuck – 85, Lobster – 81, Pork Chop – 81, Chicken Breast (with skin, compare skinless below) – 78, Sardines – 55, Trout – 49, Salmon – 47, Perch – 36, Crab – 35, Pike – 33, Whole Milk – 33, Buttermilk – 31, Chocolate Milk – 30, 2% Reduced Fat Milk – 18, Buttermilk – 9, Skim Milk – 4, Skinless Chicken Breast – 1, Egg White – 0, Fruits – 0.
Likewise, sufficient protein is essential to life, but too much protein may compromise kidney function in older people, and in patients with kidney disease. High protein intake may adversely affect calcium balance and contribute to mineral loss from bones. Since high meat protein is often linked to high saturated fat intake, it may be linked in some individuals to excess bad “LDL” cholesterol levels:
Since as many as 80% of people who have heart attacks have normal or low total cholesterol, there MUST be other factors that are involved. One of them is extremely important is the different types of cholesterol:
Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) - The “bad” kind of cholesterol - Increases the risk of death by heart disease and stroke. Your blood test LDL should be well below 100. Higher levels can be deadly (over time). Dietary choices and exercise can significantly lower your LDL.
High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) - The “good” kind of cholesterol - Decreases the risk of death by heart disease and stroke. Higher levels of protective HDL are better. Dietary choices and exercise can significantly raise your HDL.
HDL circulates in the bloodstream, extracting bad cholesterol from body tissues and transporting it to the liver for excretion or recycling. Increased levels of HDL are correlated with a decreased risk of artherosclerosis - a primary cause of cardiovascular disease and stroke.
When we ingest certain types of low-density fats (which are essentially an indigestible waxy substance), the enzymes in a healthy liver attempt to convert LDL into beneficial HDL (by wrapping them with longer-chain, high-density fat molecules). If we overload our liver (with excess fat, sugar, etc.) or damage it with alcohol, drugs (legal or illegal), excess iron, etc. our liver can NOT convert enough LDL into HDL, and our net LDL / HDL ratio (cholesterol profile) becomes “bad” (deadly over time). High TOTAL cholesterol is NOT the most serious heart disease problem, as long as our LDL / HDL ratio is “good.”
Cholesterol repairs blood vessel cracks and leaks that would otherwise cause devastating hemorrhages, strokes (macro and micro “mini” strokes), loss of blood supply to muscles and nerves, heart attacks, disruption of central nervous system connections (memories, skills, senses and motor control), dizziness, neuropathy (pain and tingling in the extremities and eventually loss of sensor and motor control similar to multiple sclerosis), permanent irreversible dementia, blindness, and ultimately (slow or rapid) death by heart failure, errors in judgment, fatal accidents, etc.
High cholesterol is NOT the source of all vascular disease problems. Helpful Analogy: Think of cholesterol as firemen trying to put out a fire (small-and-large cracks and leaks in the vascular system). If you see many firemen, it does NOT mean that they are starting all of the fires – It merely means that there are other disease processes going on and they are merely trying to help reduce the devastating impact of vascular leakage. Of course, if the street is crowded with cholesterol firemen, the important and essential fire trucks and water cannot get through, and much more serious problems will soon occur (high blood pressure, strokes, heart attack and unnecessary early death).
We need the correct balance of firemen, fire trucks, water, etc. Too much or too little of any one thing, and we will have out-of-control fires, strokes, ischemic neuropathies, and organ failures throughout the body. Turning off the natural gas or electricity that is fueling the ongoing fires would also be a good thing to do. This requires us to stop looking at the firemen, and explore the underlying cause and effect (which seems to be very rare in these days of massive oversimplification of the complex problems we face, where we prescribe neurotoxic pain killers, without first investigating and removing the thorn in our foot.). Dangerous cholesterol-lowering drugs have killed millions of Americans. They disable important liver functions, and when combined with certain common foods like grapefruit can quickly become life threatening.
We need to fix the problems causing the underlying vascular damage, rather than focus on merely getting blood test results to look better, while killing the patient (which is so much of the “bad” medicine being practiced today).
The following describes vascular damage and cholesterol plaques caused by high levels of the amino acid “homocysteine.”
We now know the precise science of scientific nutrition. One of the essential nutritional categories that we must have is Amino Acids (arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine). We need ALL of these basic protein building blocks in the proper amounts and ratios. The liver uses enzymes (based on our precise DNA) plus vitamins (that are in the food we eat) to spin amino acids into very-strong long chain protein molecule threads. These protein threads are then woven together to create the fabric of all our tissues and organs.
We are made of protein. Our long hair and muscle fibers are mostly protein with flexible high-strength characteristics. Our bones are mostly calcium held together in part by protein. Protein metabolism (mostly liver function) is extremely critical to life.
You can tell by the placement of our forward-facing 3D-perceptive eyes that human ancestors were predatory carnivore meat eaters. (Vegetarian herbivores that are3 the prey of carnivores have defensive eye placement on the sides of their heads.) Carnivores get their amino acids from eating meat. Lions, tigers, etc. live well on nothing but meat. Herbivores must get their amino acid mix from vegetables – none of which have all necessary amino acids in the correct proportions.
Modern humans who eat meat and fish generally consume complete amino acids in the proper ratio, but most humans who choose to not eat meat have a significant deficiency of one or more amino acids, which often results in weak protein chains. Vegetarians and especially vegans must be diligent to consume the proper balance of all amino acids, which very few of them are capable of doing, due to dietary misinformation and improper nutrition choices. Human meat eaters also often make bad nutrition choices, consuming far too little of the recommended daily intake of seven to nine servings of the right kinds of fruits and vegetables.
Homocysteine is an essential amino acid (a building block of protein) that is produced in the human body. Clinical studies for the last 30 years consistently link elevated homocysteine with an increased risk for developing heart deadly disease. Excess levels of homocysteine can irritate blood vessels and invite cholesterol (fireman) build up, leading to detrimental blockages in the arteries (called atherosclerosis).
In addition to cardiovascular disease, recent studies suggest that elevated levels of homocysteine play a role in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, dementia, rheumatoid arthritis, pregnancy-induced hypertension, miscarriages, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.
High homocysteine levels in the blood can also cause cholesterol to change into “oxidized low-density lipoprotein” (very bad cholesterol), which is even more damaging to the arteries. Antioxidants can help reduce the rate of LDL oxidation.
High homocysteine levels can make blood clot more easily than it should, increasing the risk of blood vessel blockage. Artery blockage can cause you to have a sudden problem with blood flow, a devastating brain stroke, or sudden catastrophic heart failure. Many people with life-threatening heart disease have high homocysteine levels.
Homocysteine is formed in humans from the metabolism of the essential amino acid, “methionin” found in meats and dairy products. High dietary consumption of methionine can result in the overproduction of homocysteine (depending on genetic characteristics). Soon after homocysteine is produced, it is metabolized in the body through one of two possible pathways “remethylation” or “transsulfuration.”
Remethylation is a process that uses folate, vitamin B12 or “betaine” (trimethylglycine) to convert homocysteine back to methionine. Alternately, transsulfuration uses vitamin B6, pyridoxal-5-phosphate, to catabolize excess homocysteine into a number of metabolites for eventual excretion from the body. Plasma homocysteine concentrations may differ, depending on which metabolic homocysteine pathway is less effective in particular individuals. Even a mildly impaired remethylation pathway will significantly increase plasma fasting homocysteine concentrations. This impairment may be caused by reduced levels of folate, vitamin B12 or genetic defects. In contrast, a mild impairment in the transsulfuration pathway can lead to a very slight increase in fasting plasma homocysteine levels. A transsulfuration impairment may be due to genetic defects or inadequate levels of vitamin B6. It is usually characterized by elevated plasma homocysteine following a methionine loading test, where scientists administer high doses of methionine to subjects and observe homocysteine levels.
Although the above involves complex biochemistry, the bottom line is that incomplete nutrition causes heart disease. In healthy individuals, homocysteine is normally used by the body to build essential protein. If your homocysteine level is too high, you may not have enough B vitamins to help this process, or you may not have enough of the enzymes that are necessary to metabolize homocysteine correctly.
Most people with a high homocysteine level do NOT get enough folate (also called folic acid), vitamin B-6 or vitamin B-12 in their diet. Correcting these dietary deficiencies with proper nutrition or food supplements helps return the homocysteine level to normal and greatly reduce the risk of several deadly diseases. Other possible causes of a high homocysteine level include low levels of thyroid hormone, kidney disease (often caused by poor lifestyle choices), psoriasis, or rare inherited genetic deficiencies in the enzymes used to process homocysteine in the body. Medications such as Azaribine (a vitamin B6 antagonist); phenytoin (Dilantin) and carbamazepine (Tegretol) (anticonvulsants that interfere with folate metabolism); and the administration of nitrous oxide in anesthesia during operations (and drug abuse) elevates homocysteine level.
Many scientific studies have shown the powerful effects B vitamins have on homocysteine. In one study of 750 subjects and 800 controls, plasma homocysteine concentration dropped as blood levels of folate, “cobalamin” and “pyridoxine” rose. Users of vitamin preparations containing these nutrients appeared to experience substantial protection from vascular disease compared to nonusers. In most cases, including genetic, vitamin supplementation results in a near normalization of plasma homocysteine.
The normalization evident with folate supplementation may be dose dependent. In one study of 491 adults with hypertension, dyslipidemia or type II diabetes, serum total homocysteine concentrations were elevated in participants consuming less than 400 mcg folate/day, but fell as folate intakes exceeded 400 mcg/day.
The effect of B vitamins depends on the reason for elevated homocysteine. A placebo-controlled study of healthy kidney transplant recipients showed that whereas fasting homocysteine can be lowered by a combination of folate and vitamin B12, post-methionine load homocysteine can only be lowered by B6 supplementation.
Another important homocysteine-regulating nutrient is “betaine,” which is essential in recycling homocysteine back to methionine. Betaine has been shown to lower homocysteine levels in the majority of patients unresponsive to vitamin B6 therapy. In one study, daily doses of 250 mg of vitamin B6, 5 mg of folic acid, and 6 gm of betaine by themselves or in combination normalized the majority of high homocysteine levels in patients administered high doses of methionine.
Recent research suggests that cardiovascular disease is only one aspect of the protective effect of B vitamins. The implications have become substantially more far-reaching as scientists have begun unearthing links between homocysteine and numerous other diseases. Due to the low cost of vitamins, no one has an economic incentive to inform Americans of the life-saving benefits of simple nutrition secrets.
There are accurate (but expensive) blood tests for homocysteine level that are especially valuable for “at risk” individuals. People who consume more vitamin B-6 (about 4.6 mg a day), folate (at least 400 mcg a day), or vitamin E (at least 100 IU, but not more than 400 IU, a day) have a lower risk of heart attacks.
Vitamin B-6, B-12 and folate protect the heart by lowering blood levels of homocysteine. Some scientific studies suggest that if we add these essential vitamins to food supplies, we would save 50,000 Americans from heart attacks every year.
Much vascular damage is done every single minute of our life by free radicals (age accelerating oxidizers) found in pollution (smoke, car exhaust, industrial processes / materials / gases, food and water additives, plastic solvents, carcinogenic household cleaners, etc). Unavoidable free radicals are also continually produced internally by incomplete human metabolic processes.
Although our stomach contains strong acids that are necessary to digest the food we eat, our blood stream must be alkaline (not acidic) in order for our red blood cells to carry oxygen to our tissues. Free radicals and a lack of essential minerals like calcium can change the acid / alkaline balance and damage our arteries, which activates the cholesterol firemen to patch up the cracks, lest we leak blood and die. Adequate dietary intake of essential vitamins and minerals can reduce “hardening of the arteries” by reducing the damage to the underlying vascular wall “connective tissue.”
A calcium deficiency also plays a role in the build up of excess body fat and damgerous cholesterol plaques. According to Dr. Michael Zemel (Director of the Univ. of Tennessee Nutrition Institute): "When your body is deprived of calcium, it begins conserving calcium. That mechanism prompts your body to produce higher levels of a hormone called calcitriol, and that triggers an increased production of fat cells." A rise in calcitriol increases the number and size of fat cells. Extra calcium suppresses calcitriol. The body breaks down more fat, and fat cells become leaner. Zemel states that a high-calcium diet can boost weight loss by about 70%. Complex natural dietary sources of calcium are superior to simple calcium mineral supplements.
Dietary antioxidants and proper mineral balance can greatly reduce the damage being done by free radicals. Some natural antioxidants (in fruits with high levels of dark pigments like blueberries, dark grapes, and many other sources) naturally adhere to connective tissue (which is what our blood vessels are made of). Proper antioxidant nutrition neutralizes and eliminates many vascular damage fire starters. The net result: We have fewer fires, and therefore we need fewer cholesterol firemen blocking the street (for the free flow of absolutely essential blood, oxygen, antibodies and nutrients to our hungry cells, tissues and organs).
The extremely serious problem that society faces today is that bright flames and lots of firemen draw a lot of media attention (and funding). Everyone quickly knows when there is a big fire. In contrast, a healthy, happy building does not draw fire alarms or media attention, and few people notice what a great job we are doing at preventing fires in the first place. (Sigh – How sadly misguided our oversimplified instant gratification world has become.)
Drugs (like statins) that prevent the liver from producing cholesterol (firemen) are among the dumbest, unscrupulous things that profit-motivated pharmaceutical companies continue to do. They spend millions of dollars trying to get lazy medical doctors (who fail to keep up with modern research or “integrated medicine”) to prescribe unnatural patented drugs that lower good cholesterol at the same time as lowering total cholesterol.