Re: Negative study on saturated fat? Any thoughts? --M...

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/14/03 7:38:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

paultheo2000@... writes:

> <A

HREF= " http://www.jlr.org/cgi/content/full/39/10/1972 " >http://www.jlr.org/cgi/con\

tent/full/39/10/1972</A>

This found that trans-vaccenic acid, which is found in small amounts in

animal fats and is a precursor to CLA, has a supposedly protective factor

against

atherosclerosis, and, along with caprylic acid, a saturated fat mainly from

coconut, and several other fats, did not raise cholesterol. They found that

longer-chain saturated fats, specifically myristic acid, raised cholesterol,

both

LDL and HDL.

I don't think their conclusion regarding atherosclerosis is justified,

because they are confounding the " fatty streak " phenomenon, which is normal deve

lopment that has no connection to any type of harm whatsoever, with

atherosclerotic legions.

So I don't think any conclusion of any significance can be drawn from this

study.

I'll look at the other ones later but have to leave.

Chris

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[Guest guest]

>>>>>I don't think their conclusion regarding atherosclerosis is justified,

because they are confounding the " fatty streak " phenomenon, which is normal

deve

lopment that has no connection to any type of harm whatsoever, with

atherosclerotic legions.

----->yes! i was thinking the same thing when i glanced at their conclusion,

except i was thinking that fatty streaks are not associated with " lesions " ,

although i doubt there's any correlation to atherosclerotic " legions "

either. LOL ;-)

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg

Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine

http://www.westonaprice.org

----------------------------

" The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause

heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times. " --

Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt

University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher.

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics

<http://www.thincs.org>

----------------------------

[Guest guest]

I see the following additional problems with that study. They looked

at 18:0, but omitted the results. Probably because the results

wouldn't support their conclusion (I don't buy their 'reasons' for

omitting them).

The saturated fats they looked at are not common in large amounts, so

that results are not very meaningful. It would have been much more

relevant to look at 12:0 (lauric acid) and 16:0 (palmitic acid)

instead of 8:0 and 14:0.

What would also be an interesting experiment would be feeding butter /

coconut oil / some partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening to

different test groups.

And then those were hamsters, not humans. The results are not

necessarily transferable.

--

> I apologize that I didn't read the whole study before my eariler

comment, but

> the abstract-- because I didn't realize the full text was right

below it.

> Please forget my earlier comments as I made some mistakes.

>

> > http://www.jlr.org/cgi/content/full/39/10/1972

>

> I commented earlier that they used trans-vaccenic acid, which is

wrong. For

> some reason I assumed that because it was trasn 18:1 (18 carbons

long, one

> double bond) but there are actually very many trans 18:1s, depending

on where the

> double bond is. This one was from partially hydrogenated vegetable

oil.

>

> The study essentially found that hydrogenated oil is good for you

and

> prevents heart disease.

>

> It's too bad they used caprylic acid instead of lauric acid, since

it would

> be impossible with the former, but possible with the latter, to get

half your

> dietary fat from it.

>

> A benefit of reductionist studies like this is you can look at

effects of

> different fatty acids, because they all have different physiological

effects. A

> drawback is these are comparing a bunch of different unnatural

diets, most of

> which can't be replicated naturally.

>

> It was interesting that they found cholesterol from saturated-fed

animals had

> *greater* risk of oxidation than that of unsaturate-fed animals.

However, I

> kind of wonder what the relevance is, since the oxidation was

measured by what

> the extracted and condensed LDL oxidized in a test tube rather than

what they

> oxidized in the body. This is particularly problematic because

they

> centrifuged them which essentially gave the unsaturate LDLs an

advantage of

> aggregation they wouldn't have in the blood. They suggest maybe the

non-aggregation in

> the blood allowed greater contact and connection with antioxidants,

but they

> ignore that the aggreagation of the saturate LDLs in the blood would

prevent

> oxidation. So it's probably a normal body response to add

antioxidants to the

> vulnerable LDLs and not the invulnerable (saturate) LDLs. So I

don't think any

> worthwhile conclusions can be drawn.

>

> And like Suze and I said before, since their discussion of

atherosclerosis

> rests wholly on the fallacy that " fatty streaks " are " early

atherosclerosis, " it

> can all be safely taken with a grain of salt, and perhaps laughed

at.

>

> Chris

>

>

>