Just thought I'd make a little discussion on the whole saturated fat thing. I'd like to hear sensible responses backed up with references. I tried not to be biased and looked at both sides... although I will admit by aim of this was to make you consider the implications of a diet high in saturated fat, I don't have a problem with a low carbohydrate diet itself.

I kept it quite short but later on I will go more indepth, I just don't have much time at the moment, lots of assignments need to be handed in by tuesday!

I've been around here a while now and would like to know, why not use olive oil instead, the evidence is more clear that it's good for health. Not the case with Saturated fat....

or you just want to be rebels?... ;p

Saturated fat bad for your health

Over many years, there’s been research done and published, based on epidemiological studies showing that populations who eat a diet high in saturated fat often have a high risk of Cardio vascular and Cerebral vascular disease. Research was done on mice and rats to find some sort of mechanistic link that would support the idea. Rodents are not as susceptible to heart disease as humans, humans are much more sensitive to fat intake. Causes of mortality are from renal failure and cancer.

Recent research suggests that elevated isn’t correlating well with the number of heart attacks, and in fact 50% of heart attack patients have what is considered normal cholesterol. This is the reason that the government agencies like the NIH are trying bring down peoples cholesterol even further. Treatments should focus on elevating HDL cholesterol whether it by the use of dietary interventions or drugs.

It’s still debatable about how bad LDL cholesterol is for your health, as it is critical for the cells and organism to develop and function properly. Lower total concentrations of cholesterol seem to give rise to an increased risk of cerebral hemorrhage. But this risk is smaller compared to having high cholesterol which can cause ischemic stroke. Having very low total cholesterol below < 160mg/dl is very protective, even more so with low-normal blood pressure, as high blood pressure and low LDL would not be a very good combination and studies indicate that the risk of CH is higher when a person has high BP and low TC.

Cognitive function, age related disease and saturated fat

Cognitive function - As saturated fat has been known for its negative impact on health, research was done on learning and memory in rats fed a high fat diet. In one study mice were separated into three different groups, each of them consuming 40% of their calories from fat. The three groups either ate SF (lard-based) polyunsaturated fats (soybean oil-based) or standard chow (Purina, 4.5% (w/w) fat. The three groups then performed tests on learning and memory using different maze tests. It was not surprising to the researchers that the diet based primarily on saturated fat scored low on all tests. The chow fed group scored the best memory and learning. This study confirmed what the basic biochemical evidence suggested.

Alzheimer’s disease – A recent study showed that calorie restriction reduces the symptoms of AD and may actually reverse it to some extent. [2]. To induce AD in these mice that have been genetically altered to be susceptible to AD and they are fed a high saturated fat diet. In this study they showed that mice which eat a high fat diet but eat 30% less, it prevents the build up of β-amyloid (Aβ). While mice that consume a diet high in saturated fat but do not reduce calories, they go on to develop a build up of (AB) and develop all the symptoms of AD.
This suggests that Calorie Restriction protects against AD, regardless of the dietary intake or composition. Saturated fat is known to increase AD but CR is a powerful intervention for preventing pathologies induced by dietary choices and normal aging as long as good nutrition is maintained (no deficnecies).

Parkinson’s disease – Evidence shows that a high caloric intake does increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease, as well as a diet high in animal fat [3]. Where as a diet high in polyunsaturated fat or high in monounsaturated fat have been associated with a significant lower risk of developing PD. [4]. Dietary Restriction is again effective in reducing the risk of PD and even reversing it at early stages. Low Carbohydrate may be protective against PD, but it has been shown that the majority of subjects who under go carbohydrate restriction experience a decrease in appetite and therefore a decrease in caloric intake (which is protective in itself).

Low Carbohydrate studies (Atkins) – Many studies that have been done show that diets such as Atkins improve type 2 diabetes mellitus, risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol, even when saturated fat content is high. The diet has also been proven good for weight loss. Although carbohydrate restriction clearly has beneficial effects, there has not been much investigation on the possibility that LCH results in a significant decrease in calories which is known to be protective against cholesterol levels, even when there is an abundance of saturated fat within the diet. I hypothesize that if Atkins diet were followed but had an excessive amount of calories or were not significantly restricted, then cholesterol levels would rise and disease risk profiles would change because of the presence of saturate fat.
I would recommend that people on a low carbohydrate diet reduce saturated fat and increase monounsaturated fat until more long term data is available. There are good mechanistic reasons to suggest why high saturated fat would be detrimental to health in the long run.

References:

[1] Learning and memory impairment in rats fed a high saturated fat diet.
Greenwood CE, Winocur G.
Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
PMID: 2302144 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[2] Neuronal SIRT 1 activation as a novel mechanism underlying the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease amyloid neuropathology by calorie restriction.
http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/M602909200v1

[3] Dietary lipids and antioxidants in Parkinson's disease: a population-based, case-control study.
Logroscino G, Marder K, Cote L, Tang MX, Shea S, Mayeux R.
PMID: 8572672 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[4] Dietary fatty acids and the risk of Parkinson disease NEUROLOGY 2005;64:2040-2045

All that research is done with a high fat/high carb diet. It just doesn't mean much, because there are too many uncontrolled variables. I doubt that the diet we evolved eating, which was "high" in saturated fats from what we can tell, is bad for us -- it flies in the face of reason. It would take a lot more research than this type of thing to convince me otherwise. When they have research showing a high saturated fat diet in the absence of lots of carbs is unhealthy, perhaps I'll change my mind. But it would have to be pretty good research, not the slop they usually deal out when it comes to this topic.

I'm not sure, by the way, why you haven't been to the thincs site, or Anthony Colpo's web page, which I know have been recommended to you in the past, where they go over a lot of the anti-saturated fat arguments.

Alright I understand... One of the studies did show that when mice were put on a high fat diet they performed bad in the maze test. When the carbs were added they were significantly better. Although this could have simply been because they didn't have enough time to adapt?

Two things I am looking for:

(1) High fat improving health in the absence of calorie restriction (most studies done on obese or fat, with a signficant decrease in calories).
(2) High fat withouts lots of carbs

I'll be looking for the studies over the weekend... I encourage anyone here to help find them too, particularly (1).

It's simply that the normal rat diet is 82% carbohydrate, 8% protein and 10% fat. Take any animal off its natural diet and you have a disaster metabolically.

Confounding variables galore....trans-fat, saturated fat, simple sugars, complex carbohydrate, starch, quality of protein, total protein to body weight, medications in use, etc.

When researchers have strictly controlled for, and eliminated trans-fat and starch an interesting thing happens - cardiovascular disease actually improves. I don't have the citations handy, but Hayes at Christiana Health Center in Delaware has done the most extensive work in this research using a very high saturated fat diet (50% of calories) with strict restriction of starch in patients with diagnoised cardiovascular disease and his findings are amazing.

I'd really like to the research... was there a reduction in calories? (CR prevents the 'supposed' harmful affects of SF). The most convincing study for me would be high saturated fat diet improves health WITHOUT a reduction in caloric intake. This would show that a diet high in saturated fat is without the help of CR.



This doesn't answer the fact that rats who consumed the saturated fat performed worse out of the three diets. Even though one of the groups had to make the adaptation to a high fat diet but using Polyunsaturated fat instead.

Sorry, I missed something... Refering to [1]. The rats had plenty of time to adapt, they were all on the diet for 3 months before being tested. Anyone got an explanation why saturated fat group came off worse? even though the other group had a high fat diet but using PUFA. Also "glucose injections would result in improved cognitive performance" in the high fat groups.

You don't mention what percentage of carbohydrate the saturated fat rats were eating. High carb plus high fat is a very bad mix. Also, most commercial lard is partially hydrogenated. I submit that saturated trans fats are not equal to naturally saturated fat.

Have you read Mary Enig's research on fats? I found it compelling.

Many of the problems currently being attributed to high cholesterol and fats could be equally attributed to consistantly high insulin levels, but aren't. Why not?

I am certainly no conspiracy theorist, but it is not in the best interest of researchers to find evidence that directly counters the best interests of their financial backers.

But we're not rats... Like Regina mentioned above, a rat's optimal diet is mainly carbs, so it's only logical that their bodies will run worse without them. My point is that animals eat what their bodies are meant to eat naturally. Because humans make choices across the board about what's "healthy," it's hard for me to see what exact relevance a rat-study would have on the saturated fats issue. If I'm not mistaken, saturated fats mainly come from animal sources, and rats do not primarily eat other animals in their natural diet. So an artificially-induced diet with an abundance of this type of fat would cause ill effects. What does it prove for humans, though?

The "saturated fat is bad for health" thing is similar to the notion when people once insisted the Earth was flat.

How long will it take for people to stop believing it? 50 years? 100 years? LOL

Agreed. Meanwhile, obesity and diabetes spin out of control as they cling to their outdated beliefs about a low-fat diet.

CR research is based on the outmoded beliefs about cholesterol and saturated fat, however, so isn't it flawed just from that standpoint?

How long would someone with blood sugar issues last on "standard" (non-low-carb) CR? I thought plans like Weight Watchers, et. al, were based on restricted calorie regimes (perhaps not quite equaling strict CR, but getting down there nonetheless). Eventually, many people would want to eat the wallpaper off the walls if it meant not being hungry. It seems like fighting hunger would be a daily battle.

This thread isn't about low fat, and I don't believe people should go on a diet very low in fat. This thread specifically about why choose to have a lot of saturated fat in the diet rather than say, monounsaturated fat which has some good evidence backing it... I fully support going low carb, but want to make interesting discussion and learn new things. I really want to see evidence that low LCH does anything near what has been shown without anyone restricting calories. I'm finding it very difficult to find a study that does this.

I'm really not interesting in debating conspiracy theories, just science. It's a real shame that there are still few studies done on low carb, maybe it will get more funding soon.

From a Harvard School of Public Health study as reported in Science News:

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041127/food.asp


From the Study:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/80/5/1175

thanks... will read in the morning

From a Malcolm Kendrick analysis of the data from the MONICA study.


I cannot get graphics to post, here is an extracted list (from graphs) of the data he is talking about.

%saturated Fats Death rate (CVD) (per 100000/year)
5 550
5.5 400
5.8 700
6 600
7 300
7.2 450
7.5 260
8 700
13.8 200
14 220
14.5 240
14.6 150
14.7 160
14.8 200
15.2 130
15.5 90