The definitive guide to saturated fat (or how to stop worrying and love butter)

Compak · 06-05-2011 1:00am

Tremelo wrote: »

Yes, you win. But give me another year

I did. But calorically, the vast majority of my excess weight was lost in the kitchen, not the gym.

ha ha actually Im up to 3.4 now, so I fear another year

Do you understand though that your n=1 study would be thrown out academically? As regardless of your source of weight loss -though exercise is a big plus- weight loss alone dramatically reduces your risk of CV disease and all indicating factors. The inflammation reduction alone from 30kg of fat loss -congrats btw-is just huge.

Mellor · 06-05-2011 6:55am

Compak wrote: »

Do you understand though that your n=1 study would be thrown out academically?

You do understand he wasn't suggesting it was a study but rather anecdotal?
Are you aware that there have been study with significant numbers of participants, they have been accepted, published and show the same results?

El_Dangeroso · 06-05-2011 9:03am

Compak wrote: »

Sorry whats FWIW?

Never start with "why would our bodies", it straight away creates a bias.
Plus we know excess carbs especially when introduced to replace fat raise serum triglycerides and supress HDL.

I know Lauric acid is anti-infective, it is why we need limited amounts for monlaurin production

here is a ref for sat fat raising insulin and also points out it is a lack of comprehension to dismiss carbon chain length in determining the biological effects of your fat.

J Surg Res. 1992 Apr;52(4):328-33.
Insulinotropic potency of lauric acid: a metabolic rationale for medium chain fatty acids (MCF) in TPN formulation.
Garfinkel M, Lee S, Opara EC, Akwari OE.

FWIW, For what it's worth.

That paper is post-prandial levels, and in mice. I'd have to see something for fasting insulin to be remotely concerned. Post-prandial insulin is not the bogeyman we once thought it was. Physiological =/= pathological.

Plus last time I checked we don't eat fatty acids in isolation, and it's misleading to extrapolate these very reductive studies to a human population without an controlled human trial. For example if you feed isolated fructose to mice their triglycerides rise, but feed those mice fructose in the context of honey and we don't observe the same effect.

Re: LDL, review papers in this area are based on short-term feeding studies, which as saturated fat enhances the clearing of fat from the liver, this is a temporary effect. Long term studies show no association between chol and sat fat intake.

Also, PUFA lowers cholesterol, but not in a good way, it lowers the total volume but increases the proportion of small-dense LDL.

Re: epidemiology, did you look at the graph I posted of consumption in Europe? How can you pull a positive correlation out of that? If anything there's a slight negative correlation. Also the pacific islanders who eat 50% of their diet of lauric acid rich coconut oil and have little to no heart disease.

In any case, I'd need a controlled trial where they made one group reduce sat fat and it reduced coronary events.

I'm aware of the Lyon Diet-heart trial, which reduced PUFA below 4%.

Then there's the Finnish Mental Hospital trial which had a flawed design as well as issues with the control group taking more drugs known to increase the risk of CHD.

Then you have the Corn oil trial that increased PUFA for sat fat and increased heart attacks.

I'm dashing off to work but I'll update later.

TLDR: Show me controlled studies in humans where any type of sat fat increased coronary events.

El_Dangeroso · 06-05-2011 9:40am

Compak wrote: »

Ah looking at papers past 12am, its like the good old study days

An independent association of saturated fat intake with CVD risk has not been consistently shown in prospective epidemiologic studies, although some have provided evidence of an increased risk in young individuals and in women.

No it hasn't, 25 trials, only 4 showed an association. That's pretty much the opposite of consistent.

Compak · 06-05-2011 10:41am

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

No it hasn't, 25 trials, only 4 showed an association. That's pretty much the opposite of consistent.

Write a critique to the peer reviewed study and get it published, its not my quote.

We will agree to disagree you can't post a nutritional study in the world that I cant flaw, its nutrition, so seriously its a mute issue.

the simple fact you tried to critique the well known fact that increasing PUFAs will lower CHD by using an n6 only study shows you will not be deterred even if you try and pulll the wool over peoples eyes.

Where are your RCTs? why is the onus on me to prove every world authority right and you as an internet poster who has the backing of other posters start off as infallible. Observationals studies at most are a possiblity.

Fact is I personally don't care, last time I checked I did nt have stocks or financial interest in saturated fats. I know what I see in clinical practice.

You dont even have the balance to give a simple recommendation of to try your 'theory' put and get bloods done a few months later.

El_Dangeroso · 06-05-2011 12:09pm

Compak wrote: »

Write a critique to the peer reviewed study and get it published, its not my quote.

We will agree to disagree you can't post a nutritional study in the world that I cant flaw, its nutrition, so seriously its a mute issue.

the simple fact you tried to critique the well known fact that increasing PUFAs will lower CHD by using an n6 only study shows you will not be deterred even if you try and pulll the wool over peoples eyes.

Where are your RCTs? why is the onus on me to prove every world authority right and you as an internet poster who has the backing of other posters start off as infallible. Observationals studies at most are a possiblity.

Fact is I personally don't care, last time I checked I did nt have stocks or financial interest in saturated fats. I know what I see in clinical practice.

You dont even have the balance to give a simple recommendation of to try your 'theory' put and get bloods done a few months later.

Lets say that no one had ever said that saturated fat increased heart disease, and someone presented you with the evidence you've presented us. Would you describe that evidence as weak or strong in support of that hypothesis? Be honest.

I don't need to write the review article, it has already been done by a renowned Harvard lipid researcher.

I don't need RCT's to prove no association, if there's no proof, there's no proof. I've pretty much reviewed all the available evidence for the theory and seen it to be flawed, weak and inconsistent.

The fact that many public health authorities recommend it is merely an appeal to authority, given that the evidence they based that decision on was flawed I think their opinion is largely irrelevant. There are lots of public health recommendations that are based on very little evidence. If the public health case is SO strong then how come one little anonymous internet poster can demolish is with no formal training in medicine or biochemistry?

We have nothing but a few observational studies and RCTs, pretty much all have been listed on this thread or in attached links. You make a great point about how flawed most nutrition science is (the lack of inability to blind is a huge issue for example) but yet you think this flawed evidence is good enough to make a blanket recommendation. If I replaced 'reduce saturated fat' with 'take this drug' would you accept that level of contradictory evidence?

And yet as weak as this evidence is, the totality of it points to saturated fat being beneficial, not harmful.

Also, check out my first post with my cholesterol results. I've been eating this way for four years. I don't have a baseline but if it was any lower than that my all cause mortality risk would begin to rise.

Re: your clinical experience. I severely doubt you saw a long term drop in cholesterol from reducing sat fat without weight loss, reduction in trans fats, reduction in deep fried food, increase in exercise, fish consumption, fruit and vegetable intake and smoking cessation. After all a physician will normally recommend doing these things in tandem and people normally do a number of different things when embarking on a healthier lifestyle.

Amtmann · 06-05-2011 2:46pm

Sorry to lower the erudition of this thread once more, but El Dangeroso? You know the way you said to love butter? Does that go for cream too? Because today I hit 62.5kg (down from a high of 92) after a year and a half of high fat eating. So I just cracked open a 250ml carton of Avonmore Fresh Cream, whipped it all up, mixed it with strawberries and devoured every last bit of it. Between that and my 250g of ground beef and my 300g of veg drizzled in butter, I won't need to eat for another 24 hours at least. Onwards to 60kg

Compak · 06-05-2011 3:13pm

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Lets say that no one had ever said that saturated fat increased heart disease, and someone presented you with the evidence you've presented us. Would you describe that evidence as weak or strong in support of that hypothesis? Be honest.

I don't need to write the review article, it has already been done by a renowned Harvard lipid researcher.

I don't need RCT's to prove no association, if there's no proof, there's no proof. I've pretty much reviewed all the available evidence for the theory and seen it to be flawed, weak and inconsistent.

The fact that many public health authorities recommend it is merely an appeal to authority, given that the evidence they based that decision on was flawed I think their opinion is largely irrelevant. There are lots of public health recommendations that are based on very little evidence. If the public health case is SO strong then how come one little anonymous internet poster can demolish is with no formal training in medicine or biochemistry?

We have nothing but a few observational studies and RCTs, pretty much all have been listed on this thread or in attached links. You make a great point about how flawed most nutrition science is (the lack of inability to blind is a huge issue for example) but yet you think this flawed evidence is good enough to make a blanket recommendation. If I replaced 'reduce saturated fat' with 'take this drug' would you accept that level of contradictory evidence?

And yet as weak as this evidence is, the totality of it points to saturated fat being beneficial, not harmful.

Also, check out my first post with my cholesterol results. I've been eating this way for four years. I don't have a baseline but if it was any lower than that my all cause mortality risk would begin to rise.

Re: your clinical experience. I severely doubt you saw a long term drop in cholesterol from reducing sat fat without weight loss, reduction in trans fats, reduction in deep fried food, increase in exercise, fish consumption, fruit and vegetable intake and smoking cessation. After all a physician will normally recommend doing these things in tandem and people normally do a number of different things when embarking on a healthier lifestyle.

Look we will have to agree to diagree. I for one can't stay posting and arguing, I spend enough time all day doing it and get paid well for it, without going over the same things time and time again outside hours.

I see it in academia all the time, thats nutrition there will never ever be unanimous consensus.

I for one already admitted as a whole, saturated fatty acids are not a major deal, dep on the rest of the diet, if you are n3 deficient and replace some sat fats with them big plus, replace with carbs especially refined big minus. Off course it appears you won't even accept this

I tried to add another aspect to the thread, the individual properties of the fatty acid, how this a big factor and manipluation of such can promote the biggest metabolic effect.

In essence you are not interested. I do not expect most people here to take an interest in them, its big enough chore to check the sat fat content of a food without trying to find out the individual makeup. However considering your initial posts I believed you had a general scientific interest in this field and this would help inform you. However, I see you are not grasping what I am putting across or simply do not care.

Can I suggest though, considering the fundamental flaws in dietary analysis, recall, questionnaires etc, it is of great use to look at the actual biochemical happenings as discovered by lab tests and animal studies.

You ignore clinical practice of many I know where sat fat is a no no for familial hypercholesterolemia types, its easy to hide behind a username on a forum, others of us have to deal with litigation issues and Ive not met many in the public to make a claim for any person of any genetic type to eat sat fat as they like.

We all know sat fat is required and beneficial, the quantity is the point of contention, and this is not proven on either end, so I dont know how you can make such claims.

Science is about enlightening people and allowing them to make decisions yet it seems to me certain people here just like to go against the norm as contrarian is in trend.

All I ask is people who up their sat fat after listening to you get baseline bloods done and then bloods done a few months later. I wonder how many would actually do it,despite the supposed want for knowledge. A boards own study, how intriguing that would be.

Anyway I've said my piece, good luck with your work/ research. Im sure ill see more writings as I mange to pop in every two weeks or so to have a look.

Amtmann · 06-05-2011 3:26pm

Compak wrote: »

All I ask is people who up their sat fat after listening to you get baseline bloods done and then bloods done a few months later. I wonder how many would actually do it,despite the supposed want for knowledge. A boards own study, how intriguing that would be.

You're dead right about this. I didn't embrace high sat fat from El Dangeroso though; I got it from Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint. And last week I had blood tests done and a full health check. My doctor said I "have a heart like a stag" and that I was one of the healthiest people to walk through his door in six months. This week, I had a DEXA scan done by Prof Phil Jakeman at the University of Limerick who said my body composition is perfectly fine for a male my age and height, though I have a fat mass of 15kg which I will get down to 10kg without problems.

Now, suppose I had gone for the conventional advice of eat little sat fat, etc. I'd still be on a weight-loss/weight-gain roller coaster. I know that because I've been there. The reality is that I have never in my whole life been healthier than I am now. My case won't stand up academically, but there's no arguing that my health and well-being shot up dramatically when I embraced high fat eating. My success can't be put down to exercise - the sums just don't add up. I lost 80% of my weight, and my cholesterol plummeted, when I started eating a fat-heavy diet. It's incontestable.

El_Dangeroso · 06-05-2011 4:56pm

Compak,

Forgive me if I see your post as somewhat of a copout.

As flawed as observational science is, you seem to be saying that we need to instead rely on in vitro studies and clinical experience, which as you know are lesser forms of evidence. There is no biological plausibility for the same substance that fuels us in our sleep is somehow toxic in dietary form. Lab studies are useful, but only to determine the biological mechanisms of things we already know or to generate hypotheses. You really cannot rely on them as proof of anything. If anything, due to the 'healthy user' and recall biases from 30 years of advice to reduce saturated fat, the observational evidence should indict saturated fat, but it doesn't even come close.

For example, If I were to rely solely on biochemical rationisations then I would come to the conclusion that too many apples will cause eventual failure of the liver due to the fructose, but as we eat real food and not isolated chemicals, it is unwise to make biological predictions on the basis of a very reductionist viewpoint. This is where the entire saturated fat investigation went wrong.

Re: Familial hypercholesterolmia, total strawman argument but I'll entertain it. Again I'll ask for long term evidence that saturated fat increases LDL. Short term feeding studies show it does but this effect levels off over time.

You sound exasperated at the fact that I am not willing to accept weak and inconsistent human evidence, well I'm sorry, but I work in clinical research and have seen countless fabulous looking compounds that bring mice and rats back from the brink of death do absolutely nothing (or worse) to humans. So it's human evidence or no evidence, in this case, no evidence.

I accept increasing n-3 decreases the risk of CHD (at least in the short term), I don't however agree that carbohydrate is intrinsically atherogenic. We have too many high-carbohydrate eating cultures without overt heart disease for that.

I'm not interested in the break down of various fatty acids no, why? Because as long as we get enough food we can desaturate or saturate whatever we need. If one was supposedly toxic (and I've never seen a shred of credible evidence that it is), the body can quickly convert it to a non-toxic form.

It's a bit of name-calling to just say I'm contrarian for the sake of it. I agree with a lot of mainstream nutritional recommendations, but some turned out to be wrong.

Why are you clinging on to the idea of saturated fat being harmful based on such poor evidence. Again, I ask you if this level of evidence was presented as a drug treatment, would you accept it?

El_Dangeroso · 06-05-2011 6:08pm

I love the idea of a boards-based study btw, however it would need to have about 50 people per arm to be adequately powered (year long, based on LDL, HDL, trigs and Lp(a)). I doubt I convince that many people to take my word for it that saturated fat is good for you

If you think that this forum is full of people who all happen to think saturated fat isn't bad for you, then think again. The small level of consensus we do have was battled out over many a multi-page debate. And as you are now, each poster was asked to provide a high level of evidence (human and more than a single case report) and to this date there hasn't been anything overwhelming cited.

You seem to imply that I am closed-minded, honestly I'm not, I have changed my mind about lots of things and I'll change my mind again. But do trust that this has been my pet research project for four years now. Once my master's thesis is done I'd like to give a talk to a few medical classes and strike up debate. Because seriously, once you start looking into the history of how this recommendation came to be, how this was decided by fraudulent science and politics rather than any quest for truth, you start to become pretty much set upon correcting people who have been duped and misled.

I can see from a litigation point of view how you are required to be conservative. But with so little evidence against saturated fat given the bias against it, it's wholly plausible that reducing it has unknown and possibly harmful consequences. In which case, how can you justify an intervention based on inadequate evidence? That is not evidence-based medicine.

You are the type of person I am trying to convince. I am simply an anonymous person on the internet but you have the ability to change people's lives for good or bad based on your advice. If it were me, I'd want to be sure the advice I was giving out was based on sound evidence.

EileenG · 27-07-2011 11:47pm

Bumping this up for the benefit of people who are worried about eggs and butter.

Go_Long · 28-07-2011 4:44pm

Hi All,

I was introduced to the High Fat/Low Carb world through Ron Rosedale's book The Rosedale Diet - The main reason he sites for disaproving of satruated fat, apart from coconut oil and the likes, is that it makes cell membranes rigid and hard and inhibits the "flow" of nutrients into cells - Now he doesn't elaborate on the negative effects (apart from bad membranes = bad health) or provide any sources or anything but I though it was an interesting point that hasn't been mentioned around here - Any thoughts? For or against??

El_Dangeroso · 28-07-2011 5:00pm

Go_Long wrote: »

Hi All,

I was introduced to the High Fat/Low Carb world through Ron Rosedale's book The Rosedale Diet - The main reason he sites for disaproving of satruated fat, apart from coconut oil and the likes, is that it makes cell membranes rigid and hard and inhibits the "flow" of nutrients into cells - Now he doesn't elaborate on the negative effects (apart from bad membranes = bad health) or provide any sources or anything but I though it was an interesting point that hasn't been mentioned around here - Any thoughts? For or against??

It's true that chronic high levels of palmatic acid (a saturated fat) in the blood is a BAD thing, that's why I'm so grateful I get to eat saturated fat and not inject it directly into my arteries

Levels of blood fats are largely controlled by the liver, and if the liver isn't up to scratch you're gonna get high cholesterol, screwed up blood sugar and lots of other fun things.

Saturated fat actually may help detoxify the liver, as in it will prevent damage to the liver in the presence of liver toxins such as alcohol. So if your liver is in great shape that will ensure that it will easily maintain the optimal balance of fats in the blood.

It's oxidisation of fat hanging around too long in the blood that will cause most cases of heart disease, and polyunsaturated fat is far more prone to oxidisation.

Go_Long · 28-07-2011 6:07pm

That seems reasonable - What about the cell membrane composition though? Rosedale suggests that if you consume saturated fat, "it will often end up in your cell membranes" which can lead to nutrients circulating in your bloodstream instead of getting into the cells which can be "in some cases harmful" - Is this something worth worrying about? Intuitively it sounds like a nice, permeable cell membrane would be very important..

Orla K · 28-07-2011 6:18pm

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Saturated fat actually may help detoxify the liver, as in it will prevent damage to the liver in the presence of liver toxins such as alcohol. So if your liver is in great shape that will ensure that it will easily maintain the optimal balance of fats in the blood.

It's oxidisation of fat hanging around too long in the blood that will cause most cases of heart disease, and polyunsaturated fat is far more prone to oxidisation.

I'm just wondering, when you say 'may help' I get the impression that it's not proven yet, is that what you ment by may?

El_Dangeroso · 28-07-2011 6:51pm

Orla K wrote: »

I'm just wondering, when you say 'may help' I get the impression that it's not proven yet, is that what you ment by may?

All the evidence is in mice and rat studies at the moment, hence my hesitance to say 'will help'.

Go_Long wrote: »

That seems reasonable - What about the cell membrane composition though? Rosedale suggests that if you consume saturated fat, "it will often end up in your cell membranes" which can lead to nutrients circulating in your bloodstream instead of getting into the cells which can be "in some cases harmful" - Is this something worth worrying about? Intuitively it sounds like a nice, permeable cell membrane would be very important..

I'd like to see the evidence that a diet higher in saturated fat leads to a higher level of saturated fat in cell membranes. I haven't seen any.

Nutrition scientists often confuse the effects of molecules as internal metabolites with their effect as an ingested food. The body doesn't just dump what goes into the mouth right into the cells. We have a very complex metabolism for a very good reason.

We can very easily desaturate any sat fat with enzymes to produce a monounsaturated fat. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think those enzymes are produced again in the liver. Once again I advise people to look after your liver, and it will look after you.

Trans fats on the other hand, your body has no enzymes for (as artificially produced trans fats have a novel chemical structure that our body has no idea what to do with) and these WILL end up as part of the cell membrane and cause all manner of havoc in cell signalling.

I hope that explains things!

PokeHerKing · 28-07-2011 8:10pm

Hi El Dangeroso,

Just a quick question, in your opinion is eating a 100 grams of cashew nuts a day bad? This whole omega 6 thing has thrown me for a loop, I'm currently trying to gain weight for weightlifting and I thought this was the healthy option for getting in the cals?

El_Dangeroso · 28-07-2011 9:20pm

Honestly, I don't know.

We know that omega 6 in the form of vegatable oil is bad for you, but we know that the fructose in refined sugar is bad for you. But take fructose in a whole food like fruit and you get improved health, not worse.

That's the problem with nutrition science is far too reductionist, taking components of food out of isolation and they seem to lose some of the original properties.

Generally the science on nuts is positive. But that's comparing eating nuts to eating junk food so anything would be an improvement.

We'll have to see when further research is out, but until the meantime I do try and minimise my n6 intake no matter the source to emulate populations with very low heart disease. If it's a choice between nuts and processed food though (which happens sometimes when trying to get food when travelling) then nuts are the clear winner.

PokeHerKing · 28-07-2011 9:43pm

Ok, so gun to your head, if you had to pick a nut to over indulge on daily, which would it be?

Also if you could, what wud be the best foods in your opinion to eat if one was trying to gain weight, ie healthy but also calorific?

Cheers for the knowledge bombs your dropping here btw!

Red Cortina · 28-07-2011 9:50pm

PokeHerKing wrote: »

Hi El Dangeroso,

Just a quick question, in your opinion is eating a 100 grams of cashew nuts a day bad? This whole omega 6 thing has thrown me for a loop, I'm currently trying to gain weight for weightlifting and I thought this was the healthy option for getting in the cals?

I'm gonna butt in here...

According to this site http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3095/2 100g of cashew nuts have 7.8g polyunsaturated fatty acids.

If you adhere to the rule of keeping the amount of polyunsaturated fats in your diet to <4% of total calories, then 7.8g of PUFAs is 70kcal. If you are a women and eating approx 1800kcals/day then you are getting 3.9% of your total calories/day as PUFAs. If you are a bloke and eating aapprox 2200kcals/day then you are getting 3.1% total calories/day as PUFAs.

However, when you factor in all the other sources of PUFAs in your diet along with your 100g of cashew nuts, not to mind trying to balance the ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 PUFAs to 2:1, then you will easily exceed the your total PUFA intake of <4% of total calories.

Just my 2 cents on PUFAs in cashew nuts...

El_Dangeroso · 28-07-2011 10:38pm

PokeHerKing wrote: »

Ok, so gun to your head, if you had to pick a nut to over indulge on daily, which would it be?

Also if you could, what wud be the best foods in your opinion to eat if one was trying to gain weight, ie healthy but also calorific?

Cheers for the knowledge bombs your dropping here btw!

Definitely milk, so easy to tuck away 800 calories of that a day.

Red Cortina wrote: »

I'm gonna butt in here...

According to this site http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3095/2 100g of cashew nuts have 7.8g polyunsaturated fatty acids.

If you adhere to the rule of keeping the amount of polyunsaturated fats in your diet to <4% of total calories, then 7.8g of PUFAs is 70kcal. If you are a women and eating approx 1800kcals/day then you are getting 3.9% of your total calories/day as PUFAs. If you are a bloke and eating aapprox 2200kcals/day then you are getting 3.1% total calories/day as PUFAs.

However, when you factor in all the other sources of PUFAs in your diet along with your 100g of cashew nuts, not to mind trying to balance the ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 PUFAs to 2:1, then you will easily exceed the your total PUFA intake of <4% of total calories.

Just my 2 cents on PUFAs in cashew nuts...

Nice one RC! You don't have to balance your omega 6 with omega 3 if PUFA is less than 4% though. It's either/or.

So yeah, if cashews were your only source of PUFA you'd be good to go.

I think I like avocados and olive oil too much so that's what I spend my PUFA on!

Paigne · 28-07-2011 11:15pm

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

I think I like avocados and olive oil too much so that's what I spend my PUFA on!

Your not alone, I love halving an avocado, mixing 2 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar and pouring into the crater from the stone and busting into it with a teaspoon..... unreal! :pac:

Red Cortina · 29-07-2011 11:00am

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Nice one RC! You don't have to balance your omega 6 with omega 3 if PUFA is less than 4% though. It's either/or.

Did not know that!

PokeHerKing · 29-07-2011 1:59pm

Cheers for the info folks, maybe Ill switch to walnuts! I drink about 2L of milk a day and aim for around 3000 cals a day, so getting them from good sources can be difficult enough!

rocky · 16-08-2011 6:54pm

Chris Masterjohn's talk at Ancestral Health :

http://vimeo.com/27692174

Slides:
http://www.slideshare.net/ancestralhealth/ahs-slideschris-masterjohn

The definitive guide to saturated fat (or how to stop worrying and love butter)

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