LEAVING THE FAT OUT

"Many more people by gluttony are slain
Then in battle of in fight, or with other pain"

UNKNOWN
Dialogues of Creatures, p.128. (c. 1535)

Food does more than satisfy hunger. Food brings disease; it cures disease. Food makes us happy ; it makes us sad. Food sustains life and it invites death. Essential to our body, food, can also be more lethal than any other offering of Nature to man. Not all types of food are bad; it is that touch of grease that kills. The human blood is already pretty greasy, adding more grease to it by eating fat-rich food is like adding insult to injury.

The level of fat in our blood is determined by many factors (table 6.1), the foremost being the diet; it does not take very long for the bite of hot dog or fried chicken to be felt on your heart. All types of saturated fats convert in our body to "bad lipids." The unsaturated fat, touted as a healthy substitute for saturated fat, is equally bad when it comes to causing plaques in the arteries. So, it does not matter, what type of food you eat; of it is fatty, it’s going to hurt.

TABLE 6.1
FACTORS CONTROLLING FAT IN THE BLOOD

The American love affair with fat is a heavy one. In the year 1985, we consumed over 15 billion pounds of fats in preparing our foods alone (table 6.2). it is difficult to estimate how many more billion pounds of fats were consumed as food itself, but it is substantial.

TABLE 6.2
COOKING FATS USED BY AMERICANS (1985)

There is a general misconception about the role of saturated vs. unsaturated fats in our body. The current consensus is that neither one is better than the other. The only way out of blocking our arteries is to avoid all fats, saturated or unsaturated.

Next t our diet, but directly related to it, is obesity which is now classified by the U.S. government as a disease and not merely a condition. The more we weigh, the more our body feels it needs to keep stores of fats to provide energy and the vicious cycle continues. As soon as you reduce your weight, blood fats decline immediately.

Our age has an important bearing on the amount of fat present in our body. With each passing year we lose muscles and become less lean causing the level of fat in the blood to rise.

Sex hormones and the hormones released when we are under stress have significant effect on blood fat. Male hormones increase the blood fat while female hormones keep it down. No wonder women have much lower incidence of heart disease. The effect of stress hormones such as epinephrine is about equally deleterious in both men and women.

Finally, genes are implicated as a causative factor for a rise in blood fat when we cannot explain it otherwise.

HOW TO REDUCE BLOOD FATS

Diets rich in vegetable oils reduce the floating levels of fats in our blood by reducing the supply of the raw material needed to synthesize these fats. In this regard, the polyunsaturated fats are much more effective than the monounsaturated fats, which have only neutral or mild ability to reduce fats or cholesterol in the blood. In Chapter 2, the degree of saturation of various cooking oils was listed in table 2.1. a quick way of telling which oil has polyunsaturated fatty acids is by their melting or freezing points. Highly unsaturated oils have lower freezing points and do not cloud at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Fish oil, for example, freezes at 70 degrees, while butterfat freezes at 32 degrees.

The advice to reduce intake of saturated fat has been well received by the American public as reflected in substantial reduction in the use of dairy product and animal fats (table 6.3)

TABLE 6.3
DECLINE IN THE USE OF SATURATED FATS DURING 1977-86

The significant decline in the use of saturated fat has resulted in an average reduction of about 5 percent in the blood fats, a small, but encouraging change. However, the incidence of heart disease, instead of declining proportionally, has risen during this time, a perplexing statistic. The reason for this discrepancy has recently been discovered. What has happened in recent years is that although Americans have reduced the consumption of saturated fat, they have, at the same time, more than compensated for it in the increased consumption of unsaturated fats.

Long-term studies from England show that from 1935 to 1960, the Britons increased their omega-6 fat consumption two-fold resulting in a seven-fold increase in deaths from heart disease. In subsequent years, from 1960 to 1975, when the use of omega-6 fats did not change, the risk of death from heart disease also remained unchanged.

Therefor it really did not matter that we reduced the saturated fats in our diet. It turns out that the unsaturated vegetable fats weren’t such a good substitute after all. Omega-6 fatty acids have now been implicated in gall stone formation, decreased resistance to disease, increased incidence of cancer and reduced breathing of heart and other muscles in addition to the effects on plaque formation described earlier. These incidents make vegetable oils just as, or perhaps more, undesirable than the saturated fats.

Another dangerous aspect of the use of unsaturated fat is its chemical instability. Unlike saturated fats, the unsaturated fats and oils quickly break down under heat or upon exposure to air, resulting in rancidity (the odor) and conversion of fat molecules to free radicals, which increase plaque formation and cause cancer. The fat ground with meat is particularly susceptible to breakdown and cooking food on an open fire simply makes it more carcinogenic and worse for the heart.

EFFECT OF FISH DIE T ON BLOOD FATS

Just like vegetable oils, but two to five times more effectively, the fish diet reduces the floating levels of fat in the blood. However, the nature of this change is different. In 1983, Dr. William Harris and his associates compared salmon oil with vegetable oil and found that the vegetable oil diet lowers the cholesterol levels slightly, while salmon oil not only decreases the most dangerous fat such as triglycrides and low density lipids, it also elevates the good cholesterol (table 6.4). this effect of fish diets is most helpful is preventing plaque formation.

TABLE 6.4
CHANGES IN BLOOD FAT DUE TO FISH FAT

It is now possible to explain why Eskimos and others who consume large quantities of fish (about 25 times more than an average American) have reduced fat in their blood despite their fat-rich food.

Americans do not eat large quantities of fish for many reasons, not the least of which is the wide choice of foods available to them. Few Eskimos would pass up piping hot sausage pizza if delivery could be made to their igloos.

Fish also fell into disfavor due to the bad publicity given some types of fish which are labeled fatty and, therefore, forbidden in the same vein as other saturated fats. Fish are labeled fatty because of an erroneous analysis of their fat content reported many years ago. Current reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture list crab and lobster roughly equal to the dark meat of chicken in cholesterol but with much lower concentrations of others fats. Shrimp has slightly higher cholesterol contents, but only moderately so. the "oily fish" such as salmon, mackerel, bluefish, lake trout, sardine, and herring have only about one-fifth to one-half the average fat content of the leanest beef. Shell fish such as shrimp, lobster, oysters, scallops, calms and crab are also low in fat. There is no fatty fish which are also low in fat. There really is no fatty fish can be harmful.

Recent studies conducted at the Oregon Health Science University show that highs in fatty fish, such as salmon, actually lower blood cholesterol and triglycerides. Even shell fish, taken on a daily basis, either reduced the blood cholesterol of has no effect on total blood fat content. Fish of all types are, therefore, beneficial in preventing atherosclerosis and its fee use is recommended.

Omega-3 oils in fish more than compensate for any undesirable effects they may have. To stay lean, we must take the omega-3 fatty acids content in our body high. Unfortunately, the body cannot store these acids and we must continue eating fish, which is how fish do it themselves. In recent by Dr. S. M. Boggio, it was shown that when rainbow trout are fed swine fat, the omega-3 content of trout decreases significantly. Fish eating other fish or algae rich in omega-3 fatty acids have high body content of omega-3 oils. Ever heard of fish needing a bypass?

If you are still not convinced, read the October 7, 1986 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, which reports that pigs fed light fat diets avoided heart disease if their diets were supplemented with fish oil. If it is good for pigs why not for those of us who love to pigout? Fish helps undo what other diets do to you. It will let you live despite yourself.

Currently, American talk more than 50 percent of their calories as fats-half of which are saturated fats. The unsaturated fat in our diet are mostly of the monounsaturated type, which is closer in properties to saturated fat. The polyunsaturated fats account for about 15% of all calories, of which only one-tenth is of omega-3 type. And even the type of omega-3 fat we take is mostly of the type which is not benefacial to the heart. This situation must be changed, if we are to have any hope of living long.