Saturday, July 19, 2008

Fat facts you should know...

Today I wanted to talk a bit about fats, which ones are good, which ones are bad and whether you should be fearful of cholesterol in your diet.

Fats are essential for health. The healthiest cultures eat high amounts of good fats and have low levels of chronic degenerative diseases. Understanding the Epigenetic effects of good and bad fats will make a big difference in your families health.

Basically there are 2 kinds of essential fats, omega 3's and omega 6's. We need both to be healthy. Omega 3's have a epigenetic switch of turning inflammation OFF, while omega 6's have the opposite switch of turning inflammation ON.

The ideal ratio of omega 3's to omega 6's is 1 to 1. Our typical American diet has a ratio of at least 20 omega 6's to 1 omega 3's... What does that mean? It means our typical American diet is very PRO-INFLAMMATORY.

Do you consume the following oils?
Corn
Canola
Soybean
Sunflower

Even if you don't, if you consume commercially produced process packaged foods, salad oils, etc... you are getting loads of these PRO-INFLAMMATORY fats.

Take a few moments and learn the facts from the articles and studies below.

cw

Cave men diets offer insights to today's health problems, study shows...

Eat meat. That's the dietary advice given by a team of scientists who examined the dietary role of fat in a study that combined nutritional analysis with anthropologic research about the diets of ancient hunter-gatherer societies.
But there's a catch: To be as healthy as a cave man you have to eat certain kinds of fish, wild game such as venison, or grass-fed meat such as beef.
The research was conducted by Bruce Watkins, professor and university faculty scholar at Purdue University and director of the Center for Enhancing Foods to Protect Health, and anthropologist Loren Cordain, professor of health and exercise science at Colorado State University and author of "The Paleo Diet" (John Wiley & Sons, 2002). Watkins and Cordain conducted detailed chemical analysis of the meats people ate 10,000 years ago and compared those results to the most common meat people eat today.
They found that wild game, such as venison or elk meat, as well as grass-fed beef, contain a mixture of fats that are actually healthy for you, and, the researchers say, lower cholesterol and reduce other chronic disease risk.
Recent studies have indicated that a healthy diet should contain a balance of essential fats. The two types of most concern are omega-6 and omega-3, and both are essential for proper nutrition. Omega-3 fat, which is often found in high levels in certain fish, has been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, but too much omega-3 can increase the risk of stroke. Omega-6 fat also is an essential fat, but too much omega-6 in the diet can contribute to inflammatory responses associated with of chronic disease.


More fish oil, less vegetable oil, better for your health...
Scientists have provided new evidence that using more fish oil than vegetable oil in the diet decreases the formation of chemicals called prostanoids, which, when produced in excess, increase inflammation in various tissues and organs. The results, by William L. Smith, Professor and Chair of Biological Chemistry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues, may help in designing new anti-inflammatory drugs with fewer side effects than the ones currently available.
“Prostanoids help control blood pressure, fight allergies, and modulate inflammation, but too much of them – especially those made from vegetable oils – can also lead to increased pain, swelling, and redness in various tissues,” Smith says. “Our study shows that prostanoids made from fish oil are less effective at causing pain and swelling than those made from vegetable oil and that adding fish oil to the diet decreases the amount of prostanoids made from vegetable oil.”


Does Cholesterol Matter? Only if You're on a Cholesterol-Lowering Drug...
The makers of Zetia and Vytorin (which combines Zetia and Zocor) recently announced that their aggressively advertised cholesterol-lowering drugs failed to slow the development of fatty plaque in arteries. In fact, the drugs actually promote the formation of plaque in arteries, which fuels heart disease and increases the risk of a heart attack. The announcement –- in a news release, not a medical journal –- came after long delays in reporting the findings of their study.


Taking a Closer Look at the Inuit Paradox and Cardiovascular Disease ...
Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is rare in Inuit people who continue to eat their ‘traditional’ diet. But how can eating a diet predominantly consisting of seal meat, fat and blubber and almost completely void of greens, fruits and fiber be ‘preventative’ of the very disease which plagues the entire western world and for which medical orthodoxy blames on diets high in saturated fats and cholesterol? Also, by adopting medicine’s low-fat, low-cholesterol diet and drug regimes, CVD continues to increase with no cures in site. Herein lies the paradox... if high fat and high cholesterol diets cause CVD, then what is ‘protecting’ the traditional Inuit, which has thrived on a diet rich in both?
One of the differences is that the traditional Inuit’s diet is very high in Omega-3 fats while our western diet is very high in Omega-6 fats. Science has shown that the ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 should be as close to a ratio of 1:1 and certainly no more than 4:1. Inuits are about the only peoples to approach the 1:1 ratio while we typically come in at 20:1 and the real junk foodists are measuring in at upwards of 50:1 ratios. A balanced Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio promotes a homeostasis, non-inflammatory state in the body while a tilt to the high Omega-6 side will promote an inflammatory and therefore disease and degenerative state.


Confused About Fats?

Video - Exploring the Cholesterol Myth



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Christopher Wiechert's Healthblogger is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a health care professional. If you decide to use this information on your own, it's your constitutional right, but I assume no responsibility. The views expressed on this website are those of the health professionals & scientists I list or my own opinions and are not intended to replace any medical advice you may require. The contents have not been approved by the Pharmaceutical Association, the American Medical Association, or the Food and Drug Administration. This website may present views diametrically opposed to the views of such organizations.


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