heart-health hypothesis Archives

The Clash of Food Civilizations: Sugar Versus Fat

Published on September 19, 2016

3769 views

Which Kills Your Heart? Sugar or Fat?

“So what DO you eat?”

I hear this question daily. It seems that the sugar civilization cannot envision life without sugar, refined or fiber-rich carbohydrates, such as cereals or grain. Indeed, I am part of the new fat civilization culture. So I daily have to answer two questions:

1) What can you eat if you don’t eat bread or pasta or cereal or any sweets?

2) All that fat you are eating must be really bad for your cholesterol and blood pressure.

Interestingly, while I have been on the low carbs high fat diet (LCHF) for a year and on the more extreme version called ketogenic for a few months now, contrary to what people may expect to find, I lost weight. I am never hungry. I don’t crave foods. My blood pressure, even right after running up four floors at the doctor’s office, is 117/77. My triglycerides dropped from 172 to 76 (that is great!). I no longer need afternoon naps. I don’t get muscle aches after intense “speed gardening” (I know, it is an oxymoron but I use that as exercise). All my allergies are gone as well. I am doing great! How is that possible? I think that the latest article published in JAMA provides a great explanation.

The Scam

On the 12^th of September, 2016, JAMA Internal Medicine released a landmark article that reverberated in many leading papers and news stations – see the New York Times article here, CNN news article here, and NPR here. The journal article is written by scientists supported for this research by:

Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, San Francisco, California
Department of Orofacial Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco
Clinical and Translational Science Institute, San Francisco, California
Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, San Francisco, California
Cardiovascular Research Institute, San Francisco, California
Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, California

Clearly the scientists publishing this landmark article are not supported by the typical type of support one would expect with a watershed article on nutrition. However, this is this is not your everyday academic article on nutrition. The article was published in a “side journal” of JAMA; a journal not expected to catch much attention and understandably so.

From my personal publishing experience, no academic article that has at its core the revealing of academic corruption could ever have published in a leading headline-grabbing academic journal. Therefore, I am tickled to joy seeing it being picked up by the media a day after its publication from a journal few were intended to read. The article presents strong evidence of corruption within academia and the sugar industry that set the animal fats industry to doom in order to push sugar. The findings by these investigators is nothing short of the corruption discovery of the tobacco industry and how they were profiting from their knowledge that tobacco causes addiction and harm.

This article, open access for free reading here, is not a data analysis but rather an examination of historical communication between key players in the sugar industry and academicians working for them at big name universities – including Harvard.

This unusual approach is reminiscent of the Watergate type investigation. Not surprisingly, their research of documents pointed to cover-ups and deliberate destruction of academic careers and people’s health. The sugar industry, then called Sugar Research Foundation, knew quite well that coronary heart disease, a key area of research and funding at that time, was not caused by fat but by sugar. The Sugar Research Foundation is still continuing its fight for the health and benefits of sugar with a name change to the Sugar Association. They funded most research, decided what to research, what findings were acceptable and what was to be published.

Findings that did not match their goal were swept under a giant carpet. Not surprisingly, nothing bad was ever found about the effects of sugar. Since coronary heart disease rates continued unabated in that era (and still do today), they pushed all blame on saturated fat and cholesterol (as the blame is still on these today). Luckily, that very tall carpet holding all the truth, has now been shaken free from dust, revealing the corruption. Critically, we now know with certainty that sugar contributes to a host of problems, including coronary heart disease, obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, whereas fat may not be involved at all. Even brain-health deterioration is now seen to be caused by sugar rather than fat because the brain has insulin receptors whose resistance is thought to be responsible for metabolic diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, in addition to type 2 diabetes and obesity.

In the process of pushing sugar and low fat, the Sugar Research Foundation destroyed not only academic careers, such as John Yudkin, a physiologist and nutritionist and professor of nutrition in the Queen Elizabeth College in London, but also, the health and lives of millions (if not billions) of people around the world. The lies still continue to mislead; Tasmania believes that apple or cherry pie is healthier than bacon and eggs and wants to rename a city accordingly.

“Considering the high levels of cholesterol and saturated fat in eggs and bacon, the area may as well be called ‘Heart Attack Bay,’” said a spokeswoman not realizing that it is questionable if cholesterol has anything to do with heart attacks at all. Cholesterol is vital to human health and is protective against coronary heart disease and is not the cause of it. HDL and LDL are not cholesterol but lipoprotein balls that carry cholesterol inside of them. Having high or low HDL or LDL tells nothing about how much cholesterol we have. The statement of the spokeswoman indicates a complete lack of understanding. Cholesterol is not made from fat but from carbohydrates in a rather complicated process.

There are many books leading the way in helping people understand that refined carbs, cereal, bread and pasta, soft drinks, fruit juices, sweet fruits (like pineapples) and vegetables full of starch (like potatoes) have caused a massive metabolic syndrome across the globe (1-7).

Back to my story and how eating more fat changed my health entirely.

Eating Fatty Foods Versus Carbohydrates

This is the first paradox in the heart-health hypothesis of increased carbohydrates to reduce cholesterol. Eating more carbohydrates will not reduce cholesterol because cholesterol is made from carbohydrates. Increased carbs leads to increased cholesterol. Cholesterol is made from carbs, in particular fructose is a great source of triglycerides. Triglycerides are the bad lipids that cholesterol tests measure—so I don’t eat fructose. Removing fructose means the removal of all refined sugars since sugar is made from glucose and fructose (disaccharide). I definitely don’t want fructose as a result of what it becomes—and I am not just talking about triglycerides. Fructose converts to ethanol in the liver before it becomes triglycerides. In fact, soft drinks, fruit juices, and smoothies all become ethanol and then triglycerides in the liver. Ethanol is the stuff in my car’s gasoline; I don’t think I want that in my liver. Fructose also causes non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, something I had and reversed by quitting fructose and all sugars completely. All I can say is that my grandchildren do not drink fruit juices or sodas.

Glucose Contributes to Heart Disease

Glucose causes metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome contributes to heart disease. Why would one eat a diet high in glucose? Glucose spikes insulin, which over time leads to pancreatitis and other wonderful conditions ending up in type 2 and later type 1.5 diabetes (when your pancreas cannot make enough insulin). I don’t want diabetes of any kind so I don’t eat glucose either. Special note: the page I linked you to (Harvard University) that explains how glucose and carbs in general lead to type 2 diabetes sports a photo of grain flour as its background. Don’t you find it odd that a page that explains that grains are partly to blame for diabetes advertises to increase grains for heart health on their second page (under fiber)?

Why Do We Hate Fat?

The human brain is between 60% and 70% fat (depending upon what article you read) nonetheless it is the most critical element in brain development and repair. Are we so concerned about our heart that we forget that without a brain the heart is useless? If I don’t eat the right kind and amount of fat, what will my brain become? Fat is essential for the brain development of children and the brain does not stop developing until you die. Your brain needs all fats: saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats but more saturated fats for myelinating axons (in English: insulation for the voltage carrying parts of the brain’s neurons). Alzheimer’s disease, which is now rampant as a result of the low fat and high carbs diets, can potentially be prevented by diets that prevent hypertension, diabetes and obesity. When fats were removed from food, sugars were put in to replace them and people ended up with hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, which clearly then increases Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, and coronary heart disease in addition to all metabolic diseases.

It is time to put fats back to where they belong. Fats are essential for maintaining brain health, whereas eating sugar is not. Amazingly Harvard University now agrees–controversy is good.

And here, I connect back to something important in terms of vegetables and fruits. Gout, predominantly believed to be caused by protein, is caused by fructose and alcohol. Since there is neither fructose nor alcohol in meat, gout cannot be caused by meat but by elements high in “heart healthy” foods, such as grains, fruits, vegetables, and even red wine (or other alcohol). It is also an important discovery that while most minerals are found mainly in animal meats and fish, even vitamins have taken on a different meaning when you learn that one only needs to supplement vitamin C, for example, while eating a carbohydrate rich diet (1). That is because insulin receptors are using both glucose and vitamin C and the two compete. Since glucose has priority, much C is released unused. This explains why the LCHF diets need potentially no vitamin supplementation whereas high carbohydrate diets do. However, vitamin supplementation has its own controversy as well.

What Can You Eat?

Now that I have connected as many dots as space allows, I hope I answered the two questions I asked up front, which I summarize here:

1) “What can you eat if you don’t eat bread or pasta or cereal or any sweets?” Everything that is fat, meat, or dairy with limited low fructose/glucose fruits–I can also eat leafy green veggies but with the recent concerns of various infections I am not fond of taking that chance. My meals include a moderate amount of fatty protein like red meat and fatty fish and absolutely the smallest amount of fruits and vegetables if any at all (I only eat blackberries). I eat lots of cheese, sour cream, and drink whipping cream (unflavored) and whole milk. I know that your next question, though silent, is: what about fiber for healthy bowel movement? Nah… that belongs to the story book of the “heart-health” fantasy as well. Fiber pulls water from your cells thereby creating bulk and wonderfully constipating plugs as a result. You need fiber only if you eat loads carbohydrates. No fiber and limited carbs means no constipation.

2) “But all that fat you are eating is surely bad for your cholesterol and your blood pressure!” – Since bad cholesterol (triglyceride) is made from carbs (not fat), something that I don’t eat, my cholesterol is actually great. Since the human brain is about 70% fat, it needs to be filled with fat and not sugar. I now can think clearly; I am in a good mood; I am not tired; I don’t have sugar crashes and I don’t have diabetes either. My blood pressure is 117/77, absolutely perfect (it always was this low and never changed). Life is great without sugar, fruits, veggies, and grains. I am living the high life on fats.

Enjoy the new science and enjoy your fatty meats. Dump all that sugar and grain and eat wholesome healthy fatty foods to support your nervous system and your heart-health for real.

Sources

Taubes G (2011) Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Anchor) Reprint edition December 27, 2011 Ed p 288.
Taubes G (2008) Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Anchor).
Teicholz N (2015) The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet (Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition, New York) p 496.
Sanjay Gupta MD & Lustig MD, Robert H (2013) Sugar. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HezSlrJ1k7w).
Robert H. Lustig M.D. MSL (2012, 2013, 2014) Fat Chance; Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease (Penguin, New York, New York).
Lusting JYwRH (2013) Pure, White, and Deadly: How Sugar is Killing Us and What We can Do To Stop It. (Penguin Books).
Dr. Kendrick M (2007) The Great Cholesterol Con; The trusth about what really causes heart disease and how to avoid it (John Blake Publishing, London, England) p 270.

The Misguided Battle Against Dietary Fat and Cholesterol

by Angela A Stanton, PhD

Published on August 8, 2016

2955 views

I was at my medical provider the other day waiting for my turn for an MRI test. I shared the lobby with over 100 people. As I looked around, for the first time I noticed something odd. About 80% of the people in the lobby were overweight. I found a seat, the only seat. It was a single small seat. Most of the seats now are double sized to allow the obese to sit. I am claustrophobic and was concerned about this on my way to the MRI machine. The nurse gave me a wink and smile and we walked into the room. I was nailed to the floor. I have never seen anything like this though I have been in MRIs many times before.

I recall having been pushed into a narrow tube many times before where I could not lift a hand, usually dimly lit with some wind blowing in my face and a terribly loud echoing hammering as the image slices were taken. Yet here I was, glided silently into an MRI machine that was almost big enough for me to sit up in. “Ah the benefits of having obese people” I thought as I entered this brightly lit giant tube that was so wide that even the noise was reduced, lacking the echo we all are familiar with and hate. The radiologist told me that all MRI scanners are being replaced. As I was scanned for 45 minutes, I had no claustrophobia at all and not too much noise to block my thinking. The time gave me a chance to pause about the obesity epidemic: how did we get here? Why are entire new industries created to cater to our new weight rather than help us become healthy? Why are so many of us overweight to begin with? What has gone wrong?

Coincidentally, for unrelated reasons, I was already researching the nutritional recommendations of the USDA for the past several months; reading all of the books and academic research papers available to me. The USDA recommendations sparked my interest because I run a migraine group full of glucose intolerant migraineurs. I merely wanted an answer to why migraineurs (like me) are glucose intolerant, when I came across the huge nutritional boxing ring with major academic fights in this arena. The real science was hid, even by the NIH, unpublished.

The obesity epidemic starts with the theory of Ancel Keys who in the mid 20^th Century US decided that coronary heart disease (CHD) was the most important thing to focus on (Eisenhower just had a heart attack). He found support for his hypothesis that high cholesterol is caused by high dietary fat—in particular saturated animal fats—and those with high cholesterol will most certainly have CHD, will flip and die very soon. His findings were dubious at best, but still garnered support (Ancel Keys – Seven Countries Study)

Researchers all over the world presented conflicting evidence but they were not only not able to publish these data in reputable academic journals, they were ostracized for even trying. Eventually so many scientists lost their reputation as a result of trying to fight Keys’ hypothesis that many left academia or changed fields of research and gave up (1-3).

Nina Teicholz spent eight years digging up files never published and hidden in the archives of the NIH (3). The reason for not publishing? The findings did not support Keys’ theories. It was assumed that the results had to have been wrong and therefore could not be published. In scientific research the role of science is to try to refute the theory by proving it wrong. In the case of Keys’ theory, the law of science changed: a theory was accepted as truth and no one could publish anything unless they found supporting evidence to THAT theory. Thus, science moved backwards and has effectively stalled for decades where cholesterol and fat are concerned.

When nutrition research began in the early 20^th Century, we did not have the all of the tools available that we have today. Today we know that cholesterol is not made from fat at all but from Acetyl CoA and Acetoacetyl CoA (source). So if cholesterol is not made from fat, what is the connection of eating saturated fat to CHD? Nothing actually—today we know but shhhhh… this still cannot be said loud!

Cholesterol Is Made from Acetyl CoA and Acetoacetyl CoA, Not Fat

Cholesterol is made from two molecules in a total of about 39 hard steps by our liver (or we can eat it like egg yolks). Would our body go through such hard work of creating something if it ended up causing our death? It is not even plausible that human evolution would have supported such counter mechanism.

A Primer on Metabolism

Acetyl CoA is

“an important biochemical molecule in cellular respiration. It is produced in the second step of aerobic respiration after glycolysis [the breakdown of glucose (think carbohydrates) by enzymes, releasing energy and pyruvic acid] and carries the carbon atoms of the acetyl group to the TCA cycle [Krebs cycle which is a chemical reaction used by all aerobic organisms] to be oxidized for energy production” (source)

and Acetoacetyl CoA is

“intermediate in the oxidation of fatty acids [fats] and in the formation of ketone bodies [fat burning energy bodies]” (source).

Note that neither is a fat but they together form fat (cholesterol) by oxidation. Cholesterol is a lipid (a naturally occurring molecule like fats, waxes, steroids, fat-soluble vitamins like vitamins A, D, E, and K, and also triglycerides). Triglycerides are ester derived from glycerol and three fatty acids – body fat, phospholipids (a major component of all cell membranes), and many other types of lipids. The main biological functions of lipids (such as cholesterol) are storing energy, signaling, and acting as structural components of cell membranes.

It is not the matter of eating fat and oops we now have cholesterol; rather it is a matter of “we must have cholesterol to survive.”

Where do these elements come from in the body to create cholesterol?

As noted above: carbohydrates (glucose is a carbohydrate) and an element that is an intermediate step in oxidizing fatty acid combined create cholesterol, which “then enters the citric acid cycle in the mitochondria…” (source) Note the key word here: carbohydrates. This is important because the “health-heart” movement of Ancel Keys’ “fat causes high cholesterol” is clearly not true if cholesterol is made from carbohydrates and not a fat. How did we end up thinking that cholesterol is made from fat? It certainly is fat but clearly is not made from fat.

Why do we need cholesterol?

Cholesterol is used by our mitochondria (not what we eat but what our mitochondria needs to create energy ATP). (source)

How much cholesterol is needed and what happens when we reduce cholesterol?

You would think that these questions were asked over the 80+ years but no reputable scientist dared asking. The moment such question was asked, the sticker “black sheep” went up the forehead so researchers just let it go. Thus we have no idea how much cholesterol we actually need. Everyone needs a different level: the thought that a 30-year old 7-foot-tall male Marathon runner needs the same cholesterol level as a little old lady, aged 95, in a wheelchair is just preposterous. Clearly each person needs a different level based on mitochondrial respiration intensity and frequency, which is age, gender, and activity related. A cookie-cutter approach just cannot work. What happens when we reduce cholesterol? As noted above, cholesterol stores energy, it is a signaling agent, and acts as structural components of cell membranes among other things. If we reduce cholesterol, we effectively reduce our body functions.

The Combustible Vegetable Oils

Since it was decided that fat creates cholesterol and thus saturated fats had to be removed from everyone’s diet, the research was about how to make vegetable oils, unsaturated or polyunsaturated, edible and digestible (the kind flies won’t eat in your garage). Hydrogenation could only produce dangerous fats, such as hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fats) or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, both of which were said to have randomly combusted in delivery trucks while being taken for cleaning and also while taken back to the restaurants after cleaning. Apparently the fumes vegetable oils create settle in the clothing (and the lungs of the chefs) and even after professional cleaning are still capable to burst into flame without any provocation (3). These vegetable oils have polyunsaturated fats that have the unfortunate “poly” (multiple) bonds. These bonds break easily, transforming fats into ugly sticky goo and free radicals. This goo replaces animal fats in human mitochondria, blocking the mitochondria from creating energy.

This makes a lot of sense: fats in vegetable oils are not the same chemical components as fats in animal bodies. There is a huge difference in how they work and to what they bond. Animal fats become energized by thermal heat referred to as internal combustion whereas vegetables use external energy (the sun) and in heat they disintegrate, oxidize, and become goo. They chemically change from being fats to something that cannot be used by the human body as fats (4). Olive oil does not combust but at higher temperatures oxidize, creating free radicals.

Fat provides a lot of energy, 9 Calories per gram as opposed to carbohydrates and proteins, each producing only 4 Calories per gram. This implies that by removing fat calories from our diet, a very large part of the daily calories needed to be made up by something other than fat. Since protein also contained fat (saturated fat in particular), the Food Pyramid and later “My Plate” both reduced the protein amount as well. Thus, what we were left with was increased carbohydrates in our diets. However, as noted above, carbohydrates are part of cholesterol creation. This has become a catch 22 that no one in the “heart-health” supporter group accepted or did not see or decided to ignore because it was too complex or decided to ignore because then they too would become black sheep.

The Catch 22

Perhaps most the most striking aspect of this misunderstanding, is that if we follow the steps, we inadvertently increase the very diseases that we would like to avoid. By increasing carbohydrate intake, we’re increasing cholesterol and inducing metabolic disorders.

reduce cholesterol ==> reduce fats ==> increase carbohydrates ==> increase cholesterol

So here we are today, 80+ years later. Today the Western Diet world has a nightmare of metabolic disorders to fight. Where do metabolic disorder lead to? CHD of course, the very thing Ancel Keys wanted to rid the society from. However, there is more to it than that.

Carbohydrates have some nasty properties—both simple and complex carbohydrates do:

They are addictive; eight times more than cocaine or heroin (5, 6)
Grains (complex carbohydrates we eat the most of) release morphine (7), another drug
Carbohydrates spike insulin and create insulin resistance (8-10)
Insulin in the blood makes us hungry
The more carbohydrates we eat, the more insulin we release and the hungrier we get
Insulin resistance turns into type 2 diabetes
People with type 2 diabetes are at an increased risk of CHD
Carbohydrates create triglycerides, the type of cholesterol that is know to cause CHD (11)

And so now not only are we back at trying to prevent CHD, where we started 80+ years ago, but we also have massive metabolic disorder epidemic and new diseases, such as cancer, that also appear to be connected to high carbohydrate consumption.

Yet, to this day, the nutrition guideline of the USDA for the American population, now called My Plate, does not even include dietary fat! I challenge you to find a baby food with more than 1% fat in it; babies are only eating carbohydrates.

Luckily there is a new movement toward a healthy diet that goes under a couple of different names: Low Carbohydrate High Fat (LCHF) or ketogenic diet. These types of diets are used now therapeutically for many health conditions; health conditions we could probably prevent if we simply added saturated animal fats back into our diet and dumped all that sugar and grain.

Sources

Taubes G (2008) Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Anchor).
Taubes G (2011) Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Anchor) Reprint edition December 27, 2011 Ed p 288.
Teicholz N (2015) The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet (Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition, New York) p 496.
Browner WS, Westenhouse J, & Tice JA (1991) What if americans ate less fat?: A quantitative estimate of the effect on mortality. JAMA 265(24):3285-3291.
Ahmed SH, Guillem K, & Vandaele Y (2013) Sugar addiction: pushing the drug-sugar analogy to the limit. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition & Metabolic Care 16(4):434-439.
Lenoir M, Serre F, Cantin L, & Ahmed SH (2007) Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward. PLoS ONE 2(8):e698.
Perlmutter D & Loberg K (2014) Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar – Your Brain’s Silent Killers (Hodder & Stoughton).
DiNicolantonio JJ & Lucan SC (2014) The wrong white crystals: not salt but sugar as aetiological in hypertension and cardiometabolic disease. Open Heart 1(1):e000167.
Schaefer EJ, Gleason JA, & Dansinger ML (2009) Dietary Fructose and Glucose Differentially Affect Lipid and Glucose Homeostasis. The Journal of Nutrition 139(6):1257S-1262S.
Stanhope KL (2015) Sugar consumption, metabolic disease and obesity: The state of the controversy. Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Sciences:1-16.
Gandotra P & Miller M (2008) The role of triglycerides in cardiovascular risk. Current Cardiology Reports 10(6):505-511.

Hormones Matter