Insulin resistance and sat fat

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Here's a question I'm looking at via a comparison of the following diets:

1. Optimal Nutrition (Homo Optimus by Jan Kwasniewski)

2. Atkins

3. The Schwarzbein Principle II (let's say TSP)

4. Ron Rosedale's recs (metabolic medicine doc whose transcribed talk on

" Insulin and its Metabolic Effects " is on Mercola's site)

All are in the same ballpark as far as recognizing the need for healthy

fats including saturated fats, and all recommend relatively low-carbs. The

discrepancy I'm trying to tease out and explore is the issue of how much

sat fat, for whom, and when.

The ON diet recs high sat fat and says that people shift over to

fat-burning usually fairly quickly, younger people especially. His recs

seem simpler than the others, at least as they're laid out in his book,

whereas in his clinic he individualizes more.

Atkins also says you can plunge right in with the fat rec, as far as I've seen.

TSP, by comparison, outlines four different metabolic types. She uses the

parameters of insulin sensitivity/resistance and adrenal health/burnout, so

those combine for 4 different types. While she says we need sat fat in the

diet, she recs that the two insulin resistant types minimize the amount of

sat fat *during the transition phase of the program*.

She stresses that for some people, that transition stage can take even up

to a few years to go through before the metabolism has shifted to

fat-burning and the sat fat can finally be utilized for energy and not be

stored as fat. (ON also describes this as a rebuilding phase, but doesn't

discuss the time frame).

So for those who are already insulin resistant, TSP says it would be a

stress on the metabolism that is already storing fat, to be dealing with

more sat fat at that time. Then once the metabolic damage has healed, they

would increase their sat fats up to a maintenance level.

TSP outlines a therapeutic diet for that particular transition period to

help take people from insulin resistance back to insulin sensitivity, and

that diet is quite low in sat fat although it contains mono and good PUFAs

(I don't agree completely with her choices of veg oils, but that's not the

issue here).

So her approach is markedly different from the other two which seem to say

just go ahead with the sat fats and everything will come out in the wash.

Ron Rosedale takes the same approach as TSP, limiting sat fat while a

person is insulin resistant. Some quotes:

>>My take on fat is that if I am treating a patient who is generally

hyperinsulinemic or overweight, I want them on a low saturated fat diet.

Because most of the fat they are storing is saturated fat. When their

insulin goes down and they are able to start releasing triglycerides to

burn as fat, what they are going to be releasing mostly is saturated fat.

So you don't want to take anymore orally.<<

>>There is a ration of fatty acids that is desirable, if you took them

from the moment you were born, but we don't, we are dealing with an

imbalance here that we are trying to correct as rapidly as we can.

You have plenty of saturated fat. Most of us here have enough saturated fat

to last the rest of our life. Truthfully. Your cell membranes require a

balance of saturated and poly-unsaturated fat, and it is that balance that

determines the fluidity. As I mentioned, your cells can become over-fluid

if they don't have any saturated fat.

Saturated fat is a hard fat. We can get the fats from foods to come mostly

from nuts. Nuts are a great food because it is mostly mono-unsaturated.

Your primary energy source ideally would come mostly from mono-unsaturated

fat. It's a good compromise. It is not an essential fat, but it is a more

fluid fat. Your body can utilize it very well as an energy source.<<

I'm tending to go with him and TSP on this issue, even according to ON's

message that you shouldn't " mix fuels " (high carbs with high fat). Because

when you're insulin resistant, even if you've started a low-carb diet, your

metabolic processes are still geared toward sugar burning not fat burning.

So that's a special condition that seems to call for a special temporary

measure. And if temporary for you really means a year or two, as opposed to

a week or two for a youngster, this could be a significant issue.

I can see going easy on the sat fat temporarily, but also it occurs to me

that eating a lot of fats is what mainly helps people overcome their carb

cravings, and it's hard to get the amount of fats that will accomplish that

without much sat fat. Maybe a person in that situation can do the high fats

for a few days or a week at first just to get over that hump, and then cut

back for the duration of their transition period.

Then there's the question of the insulin resistant person who is

*underweight*, how do they prevent further weight loss with this approach.

My guess is that TSP would say that the weight isn't an issue at that

stage, that the metabolism has to be healed first before the weight can

normalize.

I think the main overriding issue here is finding out what are the special

needs of a damaged metabolism. Looking at traditional diets may not be

enough of a guide in this area, since traditional people were maintaining

their already healthy metabolism, not challenged to heal one that's been

damaged over years. So how do we get from where we are now, to a baseline

level of health that then puts our dietary needs more on a par with theirs.

I may not be able to respond to many replies here, but I'd really

appreciate some discussion on this.

Thanks,