Dr. Mercola January 05 2008 134,906 views
The first scientific indictment of saturated fat was made in 1953. Dr. Ancel Keys published an influential paper comparing fat intake and heart disease mortality in six countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Italy, and Japan. The Americans ate the most fat and had the highest death rate from heart disease; the Japanese ate the least fat and had the fewest heart disease deaths.
But while data from those six countries seemed to support the diet-heart hypothesis, statistics were actually available for 22 countries. When all 22 were analyzed, the apparent link disappeared. The death rate from heart disease in Finland was 24 times that of Mexico, although fat-consumption rates in the two nations were almost the same.
This fascinating MSNBC article examines in depth why saturated fat has been unfairly demonized, and the truth about fats and heart health.
I don’t know if you fell for it, but I certainly did -- the low fat myth. I bought it hook line and sinker in the 70s and early 80s, and it was all based on flawed science. Low fat is actually quite good for the 1/3 of people who are carb nutritional types. Unfortunately it wasn’t very good for me at all and caused some health challenges.
Fortunately though, I continued to study and learn and eventually realized that fat was not the evil it was being made out to be.
A subset of the low fat myth that persists to this day is the belief that saturated fat will increase your risk of heart attacks. In 2002 the "expert" Food & Nutrition Board gave the following misguided statement: "Saturated fats and dietary cholesterol have no known beneficial role in preventing chronic disease and are not required at any level in the diet."
Folks, this is simply another myth that has been harming your health and your loved ones for the last 30 or 40 years, ever since Dr. Keys managed to convince the establishment that his unproven hypothesis was fact.
Confusing the Facts is Part of the Problem
Part of the scientific confusion relates to the fact that your body is capable of synthesizing saturated fats that it needs from carbohydrates, and these saturated fats are principally the same ones present in dietary fats of animal origin. However, and this is the key, not all saturated fatty acids are the same. There are subtle differences that have profound health implications, and if you avoid eating all saturated fats you will suffer serious health consequences.
There are in fact more than a dozen different types of saturated fat, but you predominantly consume only three: stearic acid, palmitic acid and lauric acid.
It’s already been well established that stearic acid (found in cocoa and animal fat) has zero effect on your cholesterol levels, and actually gets converted in your liver into the monounsaturated fat called oleic acid.
The other two, palmitic and lauric acid, do raise total cholesterol. However, since they raise “good” cholesterol as much or more than “bad” cholesterol, you’re still actually lowering your risk of heart disease.
Why do You Need Saturated Fat?
Foods containing saturated fats include:
These (saturated) fats from animal and vegetable sources provide a concentrated source of energy in your diet, and they provide the building blocks for cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone like substances.
When you eat fats as part of your meal, they slow down absorption so that you can go longer without feeling hungry. In addition, they act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Dietary fats are also needed for the conversion of carotene to vitamin A, for mineral absorption, and for a host of other biological processes.
Humans have eaten animal products for most of their existence on earth and therefore, they have consumed saturated fats for most of that time. If saturated fats were of no value or were harmful to you, why would breast milk produce saturated fats like butyric, caproic, caprylic, capric, lauric, myristic, palmitic and stearic acids, which provide a naturally perfected source of nourishment to ensure the growth, development and survival of your infants?
Saturated fats are also:
However, There IS Still a Link Between Fat and Heart Disease!
Now, it is clear that there is some association between fat and heart disease. The problem lies in the fact that most studies make no effort to differentiate between saturated fat and trans fat. I believe this is the missing link.
If researchers were to more carefully evaluate the risks of heart disease by measuring the levels of trans and saturated fat, I believe they would find a completely different story.
Trans fat is known to increase your LDL levels, or "bad" cholesterol, while lowering your levels of HDL, known as "good" cholesterol, which, of course is the complete opposite of what you need in order to maintain good heart health. It can also cause major clogging of arteries, type 2 diabetes and other serious health problems.
Unfortunately, many food companies use trans fat instead of oil because it reduces cost, extends storage life of products and can improve flavor and texture.
Your body needs some amount of saturated fat to stay healthy. It is virtually impossible to achieve a nutritionally adequate diet that has no saturated fat. What you don’t need, however, are trans fats.
One point you should be aware of is the loophole used by many food companies to get around the labeling requirements for trans fats. See, they can still claim their product is trans fat-free if it has less than 500 mg trans fat per serving. So many have decreased their serving size to the point that the ratio of trans fat falls below 500 mg.
Therefore, if a serving size seems ridiculously low, it’s probably hiding trans fat content.
Contradictory Results SUPPORT Nutritional Typing
Studies also clearly show that despite great compliance to low saturated fat diets, there is a wide difference in biological responses. What could this mean? Is it just poor science or flawed studies?
Not necessarily, because for one, it absolutely supports nutritional typing, which predicts that one-third of people will do very well on low saturated fat diets (which supports the studies showing that they work), but another one-third of people need high saturated fat diets to stay healthy. I happen to be one of those who need a high saturated fat diet to stay healthy and warm.
I would agree with the final conclusion of this MSNBC article, that bad habits, such as lack of exercise and not eating the right foods for your biochemical needs cause more heart disease than any specific “bad food.” As Dr. Volek stated, “If you consistently consume more calories than you burn and you gain weight, your risk of heart disease will increase – whether you favor eating saturated fats, carbs, or both.”
The quality of meat containing saturated fats is often not counted for in studies saturated fat studies. Red meat, for instance raised on corn will be very high in Omega-6 fatty acids which causes increased inflammatory problems for the body. Meat that is grass fed will have a natural balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids and this leads to a decreased inflammatory state. NOT ALL MEAT IS EQUAL. "Dying is easy; you have to work at living. Life is an athletic event. You have to really be in shape for it." ---Jack La Lanne---age 93.
Johan,
You are clearly on the wrong website! LOL.
Ex
cellent health info.! Very instructive. Keep up the good Work.!
HOMOGENIZATION of milk has a lot to do with the bad reputation of saturated fats. Real raw milk will separate into milk and cream in a few hours. Grocery store milk is not only heat to kill germs, it is ALSO put through a fine spray nozzle to break the cream into tiny globules called micelles that do not re-form into large enough fat globules to rise to the top. This effect is considered convenient. It also alters the digestion of those micelles. They tend to hold a milk protein called Xanthine Oxidase. This protein will break down completely from raw milk but will be absorbed intact in the tiny homogenized fat micelle. The intact enzyme tears up your arteries, requiring vitamin c and cholesterol to repair them. Cholesterol levels will become elevated as the cell signals will tell the liver to produce3 or release a lot of it.
The unthinking response to this was to promote "lowfat milk," which you see everywhere. This avoids the toxin, but tends to raise insulin levels by making the milk into a high-carb food.
A better solution is to get Organic Valley dairy products or "cream top" dairy from your local health food store. Getting real raw milk is even better.
Google homogenized milk health for more info (you won't find anything in the bioscience source Pubmed)
Great info Esther. Another problem with homogenization is that it allows more fat to be exposed to air increasing the rancidity of the fat.
I completely agree that homogenized milk is a serious problem. As an ex dairy farmer, I bought bypass proteins in feed for young stock that were placed in small fat globules by the process of homogenization so the proteins would be able to get by the stomach and into the small intestine without being destroyed by stomach acid. This was beneficial for the babies only because the proteins in the fat globules were beneficial to the calves.
However, by homogenizing milk, we now place Xanthine Oxidase into the fat globules creating a bypass enzyme/protein for us. In the small intestine as the fat globule is broken down and absorbed, the Xanthine Oxidase is also absorbed into the bloodstream along with the fat. In non-homogenized milk the Xanthine Oxidase is destroyed by the stomach acid and renderd harmless.
Non-homogenized, although pasterized, milk is also safe because the Xanthine Oxidase is not forced into the fat globules. Raw milk is not readily available in many states in the US due to other disease(usually virulent bacteria) concerns.
Personally, I prefer raw milk and drank it for some 40 odd years until I sold the dairy. Stupidly, I bought some homogenized milk. It tasted so nasty I threw it out, thinking it was just a bad gallon. I then made sure I got a fresh gallon. It also tasted just as pukey, so to make a long story short, I went to goat's milk which wasn't too bad. I am now able to buy non-homogenized milk. I cannot tell the difference in taste between raw milk and pasterized milk, which I consider to be a very good thing.
After reading about Xanthine Oxidase several years ago, I now avoid all homogenized dairy products including cottage cheese, yogurt, and any other homogenized dairy products. Hopefull, if more people ask their supplier(s) of dairy products for non-homogenized products these products will become more readily available.
Unfortunately you always read these kind of made up stories in alternative health forums. And without any scientific sources!
It took me a few seconds of research to find scientific sources that these claims are bull!
"Homogenized bovine milk xanthine oxidase: a critique of the hypothesis relating to plasmalogen depletion and cardiovascular disease"
Source: www.ajcn.org/.../327
And also this study... www.ingentaconnect.com/.../art00009
I'm really fed up with scare/doomsday shouters like Esther M. Cook. Ridiculous!
"tell the liver to produce3 or release alot of it."
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Johan, why do you read 'these alternative health forums' then?
I wonder why Hydrogenated Oils have not been withdrawn before?? In 1960, I was an industrial chemist in the Pharmaceutical industry and read articles in the medical journals that stated that, prior to the introduction of HVO, coronary thrombosis was unknown, and determined to never knowingly eat HVO again. In 1995, I retired and took a part time job where biscuits were freely available, and not realising that they contained HVO, I ate a lot more than I had been, and within a year, I had a heart attack (MI), all, I suspect, caused by the HVO - I have not eaten another one since, and my clogged arteries seem to have cleared by using a diet including daily oats and fish products
I have the same question. Why were we so heart healthy prior to the introduction of trans-fats in our diet? Instead, pharmaceutical companies now push statins to lower cholesterol that our body needs to function in a healthy manner. Follow the money on that one. Our ancestors ate basic foods and were active outdoors. We ought to be the healthiest generation yet, but we're not. Put down the bag of potato chips and go take a walk!
In the UK, denaturised fish oils used to be used in biscuits (cookies) and cakes - i.e. they removed the smell and taste and on the ingredients panel it just said "animal fat". Then in the 70's this fact was revealed in a TV documentary and people were horrified. Hydrogenated vegetable oils started being used instead. It seems ironic that an ingredient in junk food that was probably conducive to health was replaced with one highly damaging to health, and all apparently at the behest of the consumer.
Here is another consideration.
"The death rate from heart disease in Finland was 24 times that of Mexico, although fat-consumption rates in the two nations were almost the same."
Are people even considering not just the type of fats consumed, but the role of Vitamin D in cancer and heart disease here? This is an issue that I have been considering recently, after reading several of Dr Mercola's posts on Vitamin D.
The first humans that ventured north in Europe, following the retreating ice sheets, around 18,000 years ago (people that had originally left Africa between 60,000 to 150,000 years ago) were only able to move northwards, into colder climes, due to their tool- and fire-making abilities. They were able to clothe themselves and keep themselves warm. Their skins gradually lightened in response to latitude change..those people with the lighter skins evolved to manufacture more Vitamin D, which was needed as the intensity of the sun decreased. They produced less melanin as sun protection was less of an issue in Europe.
Those early Finns would have consumed animals that gave them all the vitamin D and fat that they needed. Seals, whales,and walrus (they would have eagerly consumed the Vitamin D and energy rich blubber) fish, caribou, seabirds and their eggs. They probably lived at, or close to the coast with its rich harvest of food from the sea. Almost no part of the animals would have been wasted. The fats that they consumed would have been a mixture of saturated and unsaturated fats and oils.
18,000 years later, those folks are still there. Virtually all of Finland is north of 60 degrees latitude; nearly a quarter of the land area and fully one-third of the latitudinal extent of the country lie north of the Arctic Circle. Therefore, in winter they experience 24 hour nights. They are now heavy carbohydrate and meat eaters (mainly beef)... I would imagine that Vitamin D levels are very low amongst Finns...
Thanks for the fairy tale.
what is worse than bad science, is intentional bad science. i always remember that the Rockefeller familay maintained an organic beef ranch for themselves in Venezuela while promoting chemicalized and medicalized food for the masses. recently, to inflame the idea, i read that the Flexner Report around the 1920's was a carefully engineered report to direct medical schools to teach the selling of drugs and mass medication. it was a report that virtually destroyed homeopathy in this country, a healing protocol that John D himself used for himself. today we have a bogus food pyramid heavily influenced by large agribusiness corps that supports sugar.
George Dubya owns a sustainable ranch in TX. He's got composting toilets, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were solar panels and wind turbines. He just bought a bunch of land in Paraguay which sits on one of the largest & least polluted aquifers left in the world. Meanwhile, he allows oil and gas companies to go into CO and other formerly clean water areas and drill. I too believe much of this is intentional.