Fat for thought…
After my earlier post where I mentioned regarding Short Chain Fatty Acids and Medium Chain Fatty Acids(SCFA and MCFA), I started digging more into it. I was intrigued as to why saturated fat like butter, a good source of SCFA and a very efficient source of energy would have such a bad reputation?
Turned out not just people, but food too can become the subject and target of politics. However, I am not here to go into the politics of it nor to promote butter, but something more poignant and important.
I think it was the American Diabetes Association in one of it’s papers in 2013 that mentioned High Carb and Low Fat Diet to be the mantra for weight loss and they compared it against a study group consuming High Fat and Low Carbs and reached whatever conclusion they did. The AHA too has been towing the same line since decades. Nobody however can argue that the obesity epidemic in the United States and the world has only hit a new high. I do not know if they have redacted the paper, since I can’t find it anymore. But, more importantly they have certainly made some changes to their website since then. We Indians rely more on Western scientific literature and dutifully follow it. So you get the reason for the keen interest.
If you think logically though as most people who vehemently oppose the High Carb Low Fat Diet do; when most of your body cells, a large portion of your brain cells and the hormones like your sex hormones and Vit D are all synthesized from lipids, how are these such a bad entity for consumption? On the other hand, simple sugars like the ones found in processed foods and sweeteners and all forms of carbs spike up your blood sugars and hence your Insulin levels more than meat or fats ever will. They follow the order of Carbs>Meat>Fats for peaking insulin levels. Fats, as it turns out has the least effect on Insulin.
Even as a layman if you understand none of the above, you will still grasp the concept that Insulin is an anabolic hormone. That is, putting it simply, it makes your body utilize fuel and then store the excess fuel as fat. It also prevents lipolysis i.e breakdown of fat. The main reason why diabetics on Insulin therapy will automatically gain weight. So considering the order of insulin spike with different food stuffs, it is only logical that sugars will cause the highest amount of weight gain and not meat or fats.
So, this entire bashing of fats and meat and over advertisement of veganism for whatever myriad reasons has turned it into a new cult of sorts. I have nothing against Vegans or anybody for that matter. To each his own, but let us be scientifically accurate and not blindsided by some popularity gimmick. I still enjoy my occasional cakes, pastries and confectionaries. We have however become huge proponents of fad diets and have completely disregarded the nutritional importance of a meal.
To quote a personal story. All I heard growing up from my dad was to limit meat intake and be very diet conscious. We almost always avoided red meat at home, lean meat would be once in a few months. My dad is one of the most disciplined people you will meet with regards to his health. He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, avoids fat in all it’s forms, gets regular exercise(in sunlight-the sunlight part is going to be important). His diet mostly comprises of cereals, veggies, pulses and the occasional fish. He has a normal BMI too. With this profile he had over the roof triglyceride levels, was deficient in Vit D and also suffered a pontine stroke in 2022.
I just recently started him on Vit B12 and Folate supplements, something he takes unwillingly. First reason being, he was deficient in both and second because deficiency of B12 and/or Folate increases your homocysteine levels thus predisposing the individual to blood clots and hence heart attacks and strokes. Even if that may not have been the cause of his stroke, you still need a healthy dose of both those vitamins for everything from preventing anemia, metabolizing your macronutrients (carbs/proteins/fats) and for optimum nerve conduction.
So, when you diss meat which can by the way provide you with Vit D too(fatty fish)and vouch for sunlight instead, I have my doubts and concerns. Association studies being the other comedy in the pipeline. When they found that people with heart diseases consumed saturated fat, they simply attributed their heart condition to saturated fat and completely disregarded the role of other confounding entities in their diet and lifestyle. In lay man’s terms, it’s like when you find a hundred people with an above average IQ with a cigarette and leave out all their other attributes, and conclude that cigarette contributes to intelligence.
Association does not prove causation.
So when my friend and colleague, a very bright guy posted this article on Vit D, all I had to tell him was “Association studies are mostly useless unless they are backed by more Randomized Controlled Trials and a definite causation is proven. It could be the first step in unravelling a connection between different entities, but definitely cannot be considered the gospel truth.” Now, I am no expert in statistics, but I guess this is common sense. And also for the same reason I am attaching below an other article on the statistics of the paper by an expert in the subject.
On the other hand, Ancel Keys as I get it wasn’t totally wrong about heart disease being associated with saturated fat though he decided to cherry pick data from 6 out of the 22 studies done worldwide to prove his point( no one knows why), plus he himself agreed that they never proved causation. (This deserves an other post.)
Anitschkow, a Russian scientist in 1913 was the first to prove the lipid hypothesis in rabbits, (note: a vegetarian animal) and other scientists rightly argued that other omnivores and humans metabolized lipids differently than rabbits and the same amount of cholesterol intake did not raise the blood cholesterol levels to the immense extent that it did in rabbits and hence one could not extrapolate the same findings in humans. This later paved way for other studies in the subject.
Honestly, this is turning too deep a rabbit hole to dig into.
Having said that I am not advocating for high fat and low carb diet as a blanket advice for weight loss. It has to be curated for each person and should be absolutely avoided in some select people with select health conditions. Also, your calorie count has to be restricted no matter what diet you are on. What goes in has to go out and also leave a certain deficit for weight loss to happen. This is apart from your hormonal milieu being optimum. Having said all this, all forms of sugar are definitely major culprits.
Not all fats as I understand are metabolized the same way and unsaturated fats are not better than saturated fats as widely believed. It is all about the type of fat you consume, as in it’s composition. Also another burning question-If LDL cholesterol is associated with reduced all cause mortality(again an association study) is it really bad cholesterol?
Well, that’s another rabbit hole ahead to be dug into!
The whole point of this exercise was not to diss or promote a certain school of thought or for being all jingoistic to bust myths, but to encourage all schools of thought. Most importantly, when you solve for the more complex matters, don’t trade your common sense.
Science has to be factually accurate and facts change with new evidence and that evidence has to be accurately and extensively studied and analyzed. Science is not supposed to be of anyone’s liking but should be open for debate and discourse. It is not an ego battle about who is right. It is about what is right.
References:
https://deniseminger.com/2011/12/22/the-truth-about-ancel-keys-weve-all-got-it-wrong/
