Zebee Johnstone wrote:
> In aus.bicycle on Fri, 16 Mar 2007 23:17:45 +1100
> Russ <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Zebee Johnstone wrote:
>
>> Some insurance companies treat bodybuilders and sportsmen and women in
>> the same category as obese people, due to the BMI.
>
> So does the Navy. I recall a newspaper article about some sailors who
> were prevented from ship duty for "obesity" because they were
> bodybuilders and their BMI was high. THey were stunned, their doctors
> were stunned, the Navy had "no comment".
>
> Sorta like "give someone a hammer and everything looks like a nail",
> but in this case, "give someone a simple number to demonise others
> with and they'll use it instead of their bloody eyeballs."
Yup, and common sense.
> http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/ has some interesting information
> about the obesity scare and the bad stats involved.
Interesting site, and I liked some of the information they had on the
history of diet marketing. But unfortunately the site as a whole
supports my belief that skeptics are just another kind of zealot.
They talk about the need to reexamine beliefs, provide evidence, and
read the fine print. They also have the casual arrogance of a
"myth-buster" in their demonising of others' "junk" science.
However from reading their articles, they seem to throw around enough
"junk" science articles of their own:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0813/is_n2_v15/ai_6482599/print
The article recommends people eat hydrogenated soybean, corn &
cottonseed oil, as well as margarine. It also recommends avoiding animal
fat, palm, and coconut oil. Lastly it says to decrease total fat. (I'm
not going to go into the science of hydrogenated fats, as admittedly I
don't know enough!)
There are too many things wrong with those recommendations. In other
words, it's a 'How To' guide for developing heart disease. Apologies for
the length, it is hard to be brief when going against popular belief
Saturated fat:
1) The mistaken belief that /fat/, especially saturated fat is bad for
you only leads to insane calls for low fat diets for children and
babies, despite the evidence that low fat intake is well associated with
failure to thrive in babies. Saturated fat is our primary fat type,
needed for our bodies to function correctly - being the preferred fuel
source of the heart among other things.
Cholesterol:
2) Cholesterol makes the bile that digests saturated fat, is needed for
production of necessary hormones, and strengthens arterial walls to
prevent haemorrhage. An increase of cholesterol above normal is a
mechanism to protect weakened arteries - and the most likely (in terms
of evidence) reason for this may explained by the vitamin C hypothesis
(see Linus Pauling). Although LpA levels are far better than
cholesterol, as they have the strongest positive correlation with heart
attacks.
Polyunsaturated fat:
3) The polyunsaturated fats are well known to increase your oxidative
load, in part due to the damage caused in the refining process - and
this free radical damage is strongly associated with a large number of
diseases, including cardiovascular disease;
4) Polyunsaturated fat forms the highest proportion of "clogged
arteries" (where one Lancet study show saturated fat to only make up
about 25% when they physically examined arteries);
5) Polys lower both 'good' and 'bad' cholesterol (you need to ask the
question of why cholesterol levels rises in the first place);
6) Polys increase your needs for omega 3s, through an imbalance of omega
6's - omega 6s produce substances that promote inflammation, which in
itself is part of the process of developing cardiovascular disease.
Saturated fat/cholesterol causing heart disease?
7) The link between saturated fat/cholesterol and heart disease is quite
poor, and the research in that original study was high in selective
bias. Basically, it included the data that fit, and ignored the data
that didn't - hardly at all the scientific process! Therefore should be
discounted.
Cardiovascular disease is new - refined oils/carbs are new:
8) Given that saturated fat has been high in our diets for centuries,
and cardiovascular a relatively new occurence - wouldn't it make sense
to look at /what has changed/? The emergence of novel foods, the refined
carbohydrates and refined vegetable oils has occurred alongside the rise
in cardiovascular disease.
Real world effect of low saturated fat, high polyunsatured diets:
9) There are many studies (surveys, clinical studies, etc) which tried
to demonstrate that a supposedly heart healthy diet was actually
healthy. They would compare those on a high polyunsaturated diet, with
another group on the "bad" high saturated fat diet. Invariably (except
in some cases where there was poor study design, and the conclusion
pre-ordained no matter what the results) the poly group would fare worse
in indicators such as body fat, cardiovascular disease, and overall
morbidity and mortality. There were a number of studies that showed the
saturated fat group had better cholesterol levels than the poly groups.
And margarine? Margarine is associated with increases in mortality and
morbidity, such has doubling the risk (compared to butter eaters) in
developing heart disease, and in doubling the occurence of heart attacks.
The funny thing is, coconut oil is particularly healthy. Lowers the bad
cholesterol, raises the good. Kills intestinal parasites. Would appear
to improve skin quality. It even purportedly helps people lose weight,
based on the story of cattle producers trying to fatten up their
livestock with coconut oil, only to find it lead to lean, healthy cattle.
I've read a fair bit over the years, trying to understand the saturated
fat/cholesterol thing as it didn't make sense to me - only to find that
it was all completely made up, and in fact the opposite of the truth.
Much of what I've said (and far more) is discussed below in these
articles. They also contain references, which I have neglected to
provide in my post
The articles are by a Mary Enig, considered a leading lipid biochemist.
I haven't examined every article, nor every claim on the site, but
regardless the information on fats and oils is quite comprehensive and
eye opening.
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/skinny.html [excellent rebuttal
of the diet-heart hypothesis]
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html [the index]
Russ, who has been called both fat and skinny over his life.
> Zebee
> - who has changed shape but not weight and therefore has the same BMI
> (And the same good marks in the blood test) as she's had for years.
