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Cassandra (and anyone else for that matter...), what do you think of these findings?
Quote:
Saturated fat impedes 'good' cholesterol activity
Monday, August 7, 2006; Posted: 7:38 p.m. EDT (23:38 GMT)
"What we put into our mouth makes a big difference in terms of our health," says Dr. Charles McCauley.
CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) -- Eating just one meal high in saturated fat -- in this case, carrot cake and a milkshake -- can quickly prevent "good" cholesterol from protecting the body against clogged arteries, a small study shows.
The results of the research weren't a surprise to the experts, but they say the findings reaffirm something that more people need to understand:
"What we put into our mouth makes a big difference in terms of our health," said Dr. Charles McCauley, a cardiologist with Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin, who reviewed the research but wasn't involved with the study. "We really have to be very careful as to how our food is processed and what kind of ingredients we use."
In the study, at The Heart Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, 14 people, ages 18-40, ate two meals of carrot cake and a milkshake one month apart. One meal was high in saturated fat -- using coconut oil -- and the other was high in polyunsaturated fat -- using safflower oil.
Saturated fat has long been linked to the buildup of plaque that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. HDL, the "good" cholesterol, protects arteries from the inflammation that leads to artery-clogging plaques. And plaque hurts the ability of arteries to expand to carry blood to tissues and organs.
The researchers, led by Dr. Stephen Nicholls, a cardiologist now at the Cleveland Clinic, found that three hours after eating the saturated-fat cake and shake, the lining of the arteries was hindered from expanding to increase blood flow. And after six hours, the anti-inflammatory qualities of the good cholesterol were reduced.
But the polyunsaturated meal seemed to improve those anti-inflammatory qualities. Also, fewer inflammatory agents were found in the arteries than before the meal.
"They're looking at things in terms of real live living," said McCauley. "Carrot cake. How more real does that get?"
The study appears in the Aug. 15 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
"It's a simple study. Sometimes the best studies are those that are very straightforward," said Dr. Richard Milani, head of preventive cardiology at Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans, Louisiana.
He notes that the research isn't suggesting that people eat a steady diet of carrot cake and milkshakes.
However, he said, "given a choice between something with polyunsaturated fat and saturated fat, please avoid the saturated fat."
Nicholls said "the take-home, public-health message is this: It's further evidence to support the need to aggressively reduce the amount of saturated fat consumed in the diet."
Saturated fats are found mostly in food from animals, including beef, pork, lard, poultry fat, butter, milk and cheeses, and some plants, including coconut oil, palm oil and cocoa butter.
Polyunsaturated fats are found in oils from plants, including safflower, sesame and sunflower seeds, corn and soybeans, many nuts and seeds.
Dr. James O'Keefe, a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, said Nicholls' study shows "a really important concept -- when you eat the wrong types of food, inflammation and damage to the vessels happens immediately afterward."
Too many people simply are eating the wrong kind of fats, O'Keefe said.
"Even one meal of a double cheeseburger with fries and a Coke will mess up your system, let alone a steady diet of it, which is recipe for disaster," O'Keefe said.
Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
It just so happens that carrot cake and milkshakes, though high in saturated fat, are also very high in sugar. Could the measured effects be the results of some sort of synergistic reaction between the sugars and saturated fats? Should we be concerned?
__________________ You're not the only one improving yourself... I worked out with a dumbbell today -- I feel vigorous!!!
It just so happens that carrot cake and milkshakes, though high in saturated fat, are also very high in sugar. Could the measured effects be the results of some sort of synergistic reaction between the sugars and saturated fats? Should we be concerned?
Bingo. Saturated fat does not act this way when sugar is not in the picture. We feed high saturated fat test meals in the form of heavy cream and sugar free pudding mix (called the Volek fatty pudding...hehe), and do not see this effect. The total meal has 900 calories just from cream. That's a lot.
However, I still need to read this study to get a better idea of how the two test diets were exactely composed.
Last edited by Cassandra Forsythe : 08-10-2006 at 02:22 PM.
Thanks, Cassandra. I checked for that study on the American College of Cardiology homepage, but there was only an abstract available for free (to us laymen). As you can imagine, the abstract didn't detail what the meals were--only that one group ate foods with high polyunsaturated fat content while the other ate a high saturated fat content.
If you have any opportunity to look into it further, I'd be curious to know more. Thanks
__________________ You're not the only one improving yourself... I worked out with a dumbbell today -- I feel vigorous!!!
I realize that scientific studies have to isolate for specific variables, and that a single study is often aimed at answering a single very narrow question. But the results of a meal composed of Carrot Cake and a Milkshake does not seem to be very useful to anybody who eats even half way OK. But maybe I'm wrong. Rob
In my totally uneducated opinion, I would have to think that the choices of carrot cake and milkshakes biased the study. Those foods are essentially nutritionally worthless, and I would guess that the "damaging effects of saturated fats" are not to blame as much as the overall crappy food choices.
From what I've read, and from what I've observed with "healthy eating" trends, I'm pretty convinced that saturated fats eaten in their *natural* context are quite an excellent addition to a healthy diet and lifestyle. I think that this kind of study tends to merely promote the paranoia/fear that most "clean eaters" (like ourselves) have about eating saturated fats.
__________________ You're not the only one improving yourself... I worked out with a dumbbell today -- I feel vigorous!!!
Excellent thread, I had skimmed this article in the paper the other day.
__________________ 2009: No races, No times. Slow year. So, now you're 96 cals short. You're now in starvation mode. Doomed. - LostDog
Blog entry: November 1, 2009, Pancakes LiveSTRONG daily plate log
From what Cass mentioned on The FitCast, and what I've read before, all the saturated fats have unique properties and different roles in the body. Some sat fats have antimicrobial properties, for instance. Others (stearic acid, perhaps) don't actually contribute to an elevated blood cholesterol level.
Here are a few benefits of saturated fats:
Quote:
The benefits of saturated fats
The much-maligned saturated fats—which Americans are trying to avoid—are not the cause of our modern diseases. In fact, they play many important roles in the body chemistry:
Saturated fatty acids constitute at least 50% of the cell membranes. They are what gives our cells necessary stiffness and integrity.
They play a vital role in the health of our bones. For calcium to be effectively incorporated into the skeletal structure, at least 50% of the dietary fats should be saturated.38
They lower Lp(a), a substance in the blood that indicates proneness to heart disease.39 They protect the liver from alcohol and other toxins, such as Tylenol.40
They enhance the immune system.41
They are needed for the proper utilization of essential fatty acids.
Elongated omega-3 fatty acids are better retained in the tissues when the diet is rich in saturated fats. 42
Saturated 18-carbon stearic acid and 16-carbon palmitic acid are the preferred foods for the heart, which is why the fat around the heart muscle is highly saturated.43 The heart draws on this reserve of fat in times of stress.
Short- and medium-chain saturated fatty acids have important antimicrobial properties. They protect us against harmful microorganisms in the digestive tract.
The scientific evidence, honestly evaluated, does not support the assertion that "artery-clogging" saturated fats cause heart disease.44 Actually, evaluation of the fat in artery clogs reveals that only about 26% is saturated. The rest is unsaturated, of which more than half is polyunsaturated.45
*Note: I'm a bit skeptical of that website still, as it is promoting coconut oil (a saturated fat)... but still there seems to be a good chunk of research that suggests sat fats have some great properties.
__________________ You're not the only one improving yourself... I worked out with a dumbbell today -- I feel vigorous!!!
I have the full text of the study. Here is what the researchers did:
PROTOCOL: Subjects, aged 18 to 40 years, without cardiovascular risk factors or established cardiovascular disease, provided written informed consent and attended after an overnight fast on 2 occasions, separated by 1 month. Subjects consumed 1 of 2 isocaloric meals comprising a slice of carrot cake and a milkshake containing 1 g of fat/kg of body weight. The first meal contained safflower oil (fatty acid composition: 75% polyunsaturated, 13.6% monounsaturated, and 8.8% saturated fat). The second meal contained coconut oil (fatty acid composition: 89.6% saturated fat, 5.8% monounsaturated, and 1.9% polyunsaturated fat). The order of meals ingested was determined by random allocation and was blinded to the investigators. Female subjects attended within 7 days from the commencement of menstruation to control for the effect of hormonal variation during the menstrual cycle on vascular function. Venous blood was collected and assessments of venous plethysmography followed by brachial artery reactivity were performed in the fasting state and 3 and 6 h after the meal.
Now, I just read the results... and I'm very, very skeptical of their findings.
I've analyzed brachial artery reactivity like these researchers did, and I don't believe the results that they are producing. It's easy to screw up the findings by not analysing the artery correctly!!! (Believe me: you're only measuring an artery that is 4 to 6 millameters in diameter on a computer screen and then trying to determine how much it dilates !) They said that the SFA meal impaired Flow-mediated dilation (FMD - which is the ability of the artery to dialate after occulsion, or as the author put it: the lining of the arteries was hindered from expanding to increased blood flow )
However, the SFA group started at baseline (hour 0) with a artery diameter expansion of 6.9%, whereas the PUFA group had an expansion of only 5.2%. Then, by hour 3, the authors claim that the expansion of the artery was reduced to 4.7% in SFA, whereas the PUFA group was reduced to 4.2%. In this case, just because the SFA group started out with a larger dilation, it looks like their dilation was more impaired. However, the SFA group was still larger than the PUFA group, and if the researchers incorrectly measured the %dilation at hour 0, then their results would be incorrect. By hour 6, the SFA returned to 6.2%, and the PUFA group was at 4.8%.
Then, as far as the ant-inflammatory properties of HDL are concerned... I don't know about his conclusions. I'll have to read more to see if that's truly correct.
Unfortunately the article can only be seen for the low, low price of $30.00... so I think I'll pass. Instead I'll go have a brick of cheddar cheese and a safflower oil chaser--just so I'm straddling both sides of the fence here. :p
__________________ You're not the only one improving yourself... I worked out with a dumbbell today -- I feel vigorous!!!
Unfortunately the article can only be seen for the low, low price of $30.00... so I think I'll pass. Instead I'll go have a brick of cheddar cheese and a safflower oil chaser--just so I'm straddling both sides of the fence here. :p
Haha, I hope you puke!
__________________
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
__________________ 2009: No races, No times. Slow year. So, now you're 96 cals short. You're now in starvation mode. Doomed. - LostDog
Blog entry: November 1, 2009, Pancakes LiveSTRONG daily plate log
I didn't find it, it was on Adam Campbell's blog. He found it
__________________ 2009: No races, No times. Slow year. So, now you're 96 cals short. You're now in starvation mode. Doomed. - LostDog
Blog entry: November 1, 2009, Pancakes LiveSTRONG daily plate log
__________________ 2009: No races, No times. Slow year. So, now you're 96 cals short. You're now in starvation mode. Doomed. - LostDog
Blog entry: November 1, 2009, Pancakes LiveSTRONG daily plate log
Something I wanted to point out...I am also leery of studies that only use 14 people...small test group. They might not have gotten results in their favor had they used a larger group.
Excellent thread..can't believe I missed it..thanks Og for pointing me to it. Thanks Cass for your educated input...very informative!
Special question for Cassandra
Linear Mode
