OT:Fasting & detoxification
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4949
Posts: 29378 Alba Posts: 0 Joined: 4/25/2006 Member: #1126 USA |
8/7/2008 1:22 AM
I enjoyed this thread so much that I changed my sig.
I'll never trust this' team again.
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BlueSeats
Posts: 27272 Alba Posts: 41 Joined: 11/6/2005 Member: #1024 |
8/8/2008 12:53 AM
Code, got some stuff for your perusal.
-------- http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/news/20041208/are-saturated-fats-heart-healthy Are Saturated Fats Heart Healthy? Study Shows Possible Benefits for Older Women at High Risk for Heart Disease By Salynn Boyles WebMD Health News Dec. 8, 2004 -- For decades we've been told that eating saturated fat is bad for our hearts, but new research shows that the opposite just might be true for those at risk for heart disease. In a study involving older women with heart disease, women who ate the most saturated fat had the least atherosclerosis disease progression in coronary arteries over a three-year period.... In an editorial accompanying the study, Knopp wrote of an apparent "American paradox" suggesting that a high-fat diet may be more protective against heart disease for this specific, high-risk population than one that is low in fat. "This is counterintuitive to say the least, and so the first instinct is to dismiss it out of hand as an accident," he tells WebMD. "But what intrigues me is that there are clues that there might be some truth to this." ---------------- Cholesterol, coconuts, and diet on Polynesian atolls: a natural experiment: the Pukapuka and Tokelau island studies. Prior IA, Davidson F, Salmond CE, Czochanska Z. Two populations of Polynesians living on atolls near the equator provide an opportunity to investigate the relative effects of saturated fat and dietary cholesterol in determining serum cholesterol levels. The habitual diets of the toll dwellers from both Pukapuka and Tokelau are high in saturated fat but low in dietary cholesterol and sucrose. Coconut is the chief source of energy for both groups. Tokelauans obtain a much higher percentage of energy from coconut than the Pukapukans, 63% compared with 34%, so their intake of saturated fat is higher. The serum cholesterol levels are 35 to 40 mg higher in Tokelauans than in Pukapukans. These major differences in serum cholesterol levels are considered to be due to the higher saturated fat intake of the Tokelauans. Analysis of a variety of food samples, and human fat biopsies show a high lauric (12:0) and myristic (14:0) content. Vascular disease is uncommon in both populations and there is no evidence of the high saturated fat intake having a harmful effect in these populations. Sorry, no link. ------------------ Brief excerpts of lengthy article: Saturated Fat What if Bad Fat is Actually Good for You? For decades, Americans have been told that saturated fat clogs arteries and causes heart disease. But there's just one problem: No one's ever proved it Suppose you were forced to live on a diet of red meat and whole milk. A diet that, all told, was at least 60 percent fat -- about half of it saturated. If your first thoughts are of statins and stents, you may want to consider the curious case of the Masai, a nomadic tribe in Kenya and Tanzania. In the 1960s, a Vanderbilt University scientist named George Mann, M.D., found that Masai men consumed this very diet (supplemented with blood from the cattle they herded). Yet these nomads, who were also very lean, had some of the lowest levels of cholesterol ever measured and were virtually free of heart disease. Scientists, confused by the finding, argued that the tribe must have certain genetic protections against developing high cholesterol. But when British researchers monitored a group of Masai men who moved to Nairobi and began consuming a more modern diet, they discovered that the men's cholesterol subsequently skyrocketed. Similar observations were made of the Samburu -- another Kenyan tribe -- as well as the Fulani of Nigeria. While the findings from these cultures seem to contradict the fact that eating saturated fat leads to heart disease, it may surprise you to know that this "fact" isn't a fact at all. It is, more accurately, a hypothesis from the 1950s that's never been proved...... ....But if you're living a healthy lifestyle -- you aren't overweight, you don't smoke, you exercise regularly -- then the composition of your diet may matter much less. And, based on the research of Volek and Dr. Krauss, a weight-loss or maintenance diet in which some carbohydrates are replaced with fat -- even if it's saturated -- will reduce markers of heart-disease risk more than if you followed a low-fat, high-carb diet. "The message isn't that you should gorge on butter, bacon, and cheese," says Volek. "It's that there's no scientific reason that natural foods containing saturated fat can't, or shouldn't, be part of a healthy diet." http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category= heart.disease&conitem=a03ddd2eaab85110VgnVCM10000013281eac____&page=1 ------------ Cut Out Your Fat and Increase Your Risk of Stroke A study has found that a diet extremely low in saturated fat may raise the risk of a rare type of stroke in some women. The researchers analyzed data from the long-running Nurses' Health Study that began in 1980 with nearly 100,000 women. By 1996, the ones who ate the least saturated fat (about 20 grams per day) were about twice as likely as women eating moderate amounts (25 to 36 grams) to have suffered a particular type of stroke called an intraparenchymal hemorrhage. Most strokes are ischemic strokes, which result from the blockage of an artery carrying blood to the brain. Hemorrhagic strokes occur when a blood vessel in the brain leaks or bursts. Intraparenchymal hemorrhage is one of the rarer forms of hemorrhagic stroke. Of the 690 strokes observed in the study group nearly 11 percent, were intraparenchymal, or occurring within the brain tissue. The increased stroke risk in the low-fat group occurred primarily among women with high blood pressure. The extremely low fat intake, combined with high blood pressure, may contribute to a structural weakness in blood vessels that causes them to rupture. The researchers believe that the findings probably apply to men, too. Circulation 2001 Feb 13;103:856-863 ---------- There are several interesting articles on saturated fat and/or cholesterol here. http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html Couple I've read are these: Cholesterol: Friend Or Foe? By Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/cholesterol-friend.html The Benefits of High Cholesterol By Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/benefits_cholest.html |
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BlueSeats
Posts: 27272 Alba Posts: 41 Joined: 11/6/2005 Member: #1024 |
8/8/2008 12:56 AM
Excerpts from a fantastic article:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/08/17/saturated-fat1.aspx The "Evidence" Supporting The Lipid Hypothesis These "experts" assure us that the lipid hypothesis is backed by incontrovertible scientific proof. Most people would be surprised to learn that there is, in fact, very little evidence to support the contention that a diet low in cholesterol and saturated fat actually reduces death from heart disease or in any way increases one's life span. Consider the following: Before 1920 coronary heart disease was rare in America; so rare that when a young internist named Paul Dudley White introduced the German electrocardiograph to his colleagues at Harvard University, they advised him to concentrate on a more profitable branch of medicine. The new machine revealed the presence of arterial blockages, thus permitting early diagnosis of coronary heart disease. But in those days clogged arteries were a medical rarity, and White had to search for patients who could benefit from his new technology. During the next forty years, however, the incidence of coronary heart disease rose dramatically, so much so that by the mid fifties heart disease was the leading cause of death among Americans. Today heart disease causes at least 40% of all US deaths. If, as we have been told, heart disease results from the consumption of saturated fats, one would expect to find a corresponding increase in animal fat in the American diet. Actually, the reverse is true. During the sixty-year period from 1910 to 1970, the proportion of traditional animal fat in the American diet declined from 83% to 62%, and butter consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four. During the past eighty years, dietary cholesterol intake has increased only 1%. During the same period the percentage of dietary vegetable oils in the form of margarine, shortening and refined oils increased about 400% while the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased about 60%.2 The Framingham Heart Study is often cited as proof of the lipid hypothesis. This study began in 1948 and involved some 6,000 people from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts. Two groups were compared at five-year intervals-those who consumed little cholesterol and saturated fat and those who consumed large amounts. After 40 years, the director of this study had to admit: "In Framingham, Mass, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the person's serum cholesterol. . . We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least and were the most physically active."3 The study did show that those who weighed more and had abnormally high blood cholesterol levels were slightly more at risk for future heart disease; but weight gain and cholesterol levels had an inverse correlation with fat and cholesterol intake in the diet.4 ....... Studies That Challenge The Lipid Hypothesis While it is true that researchers have induced heart disease in some animals by giving them extremely large dosages of oxidized or rancid cholesterol-amounts ten times that found in the ordinary human diet-several population studies squarely contradict the cholesterol-heart disease connection. A survey of 1700 patients with hardening of the arteries, conducted by the famous heart surgeon Michael DeBakey, found no relationship between the level of cholesterol in the blood and the incidence of atherosclerosis.9 A survey of South Carolina adults found no correlation of blood cholesterol levels with "bad" dietary habits, such as use of red meat, animal fats, fried foods, butter, eggs, whole milk, bacon, sausage and cheese.10 A Medical Research Council survey showed that men eating butter ran half the risk of developing heart disease as those using margarine.11 Mother's milk provides a higher proportion of cholesterol than almost any other food. It also contains over 50% of its calories as fat, much of it saturated fat. Both cholesterol and saturated fat are essential for growth in babies and children, especially the development of the brain.12 Yet, the American Heart Association is now recommending a low-cholesterol, lowfat diet for children! Commercial formulas are low in saturated fats and soy formulas are devoid of cholesterol. A recent study linked lowfat diets with failure to thrive in children.13 Numerous surveys of traditional populations have yielded information that is an embarrassment to the Diet Dictocrats. For example, a study comparing Jews when they lived in Yemen, whose diets contained fats solely of animal origin, to Yemenite Jews living in Israel, whose diets contained margarine and vegetable oils, revealed little heart disease or diabetes in the former group but high levels of both diseases in the latter.14 (The study also noted that the Yemenite Jews consumed no sugar but those in Israel consumed sugar in amounts equaling 25-30% of total carbohydrate intake.) A comparison of populations in northern and southern India revealed a similar pattern. People in northern India consume 17 times more animal fat but have an incidence of coronary heart disease seven times lower than people in southern India.15 The Masai and kindred tribes of Africa subsist largely on milk, blood and beef. They are free from coronary heart disease and have excellent blood cholesterol levels.16 Eskimos eat liberally of animal fats from fish and marine animals. On their native diet they are free of disease and exceptionally hardy.17 An extensive study of diet and disease patterns in China found that the region in which the populace consumes large amounts of whole milk had half the rate of heart disease as several districts in which only small amounts of animal products are consumed.18 Several Mediterranean societies have low rates of heart disease even though fat-including highly saturated fat from lamb, sausage and goat cheese-comprises up to 70% of their caloric intake. The inhabitants of Crete, for example, are remarkable for their good health and longevity.19 A study of Puerto Ricans revealed that, although they consume large amounts of animal fat, they have a very low incidence of colon and breast cancer.20 A study of the long-lived inhabitants of Soviet Georgia revealed that those who eat the most fatty meat live the longest.21 In Okinawa, where the average life span for women is 84 years-longer than in Japan-the inhabitants eat generous amounts of pork and seafood and do all their cooking in lard.22 None of these studies is mentioned by those urging restriction of saturated fats. The relative good health of the Japanese, who have the longest life span of any nation in the world, is generally attributed to a lowfat diet. Although the Japanese eat few dairy fats, the notion that their diet is low in fat is a myth; rather, it contains moderate amounts of animal fats from eggs, pork, chicken, beef, seafood and organ meats. With their fondness for shellfish and fish broth, eaten on a daily basis, the Japanese probably consume more cholesterol than most Americans. What they do not consume is a lot of vegetable oil, white flour or processed food (although they do eat white rice.) The life span of the Japanese has increased since World War II with an increase in animal fat and protein in the diet.23 Those who point to Japanese statistics to promote the lowfat diet fail to mention that the Swiss live almost as long on one of the fattiest diets in the world. Tied for third in the longevity stakes are Austria and Greece-both with high-fat diets.24 As a final example, let us consider the French. Anyone who has eaten his way across France has observed that the French diet is just loaded with saturated fats in the form of butter, eggs, cheese, cream, liver, meats and rich patés. Yet the French have a lower rate of coronary heart disease than many other western countries. In the United States, 315 of every 100,000 middle-aged men die of heart attacks each year; in France the rate is 145 per 100,000. In the Gascony region, where goose and duck liver form a staple of the diet, this rate is a remarkably low 80 per 100,000.25 This phenomenon has recently gained international attention as the French Paradox. (The French do suffer from many degenerative diseases, however. They eat large amounts of sugar and white flour and in recent years have succumbed to the timesaving temptations of processed foods.) A chorus of establishment voices, including the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and the Senate Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, claims that animal fat is linked not only with heart disease but also with cancers of various types. Yet when researchers from the University of Maryland analyzed the data they used to make such claims, they found that vegetable fat consumption was correlated with cancer and animal fat was not.26 ...... The Benefits Of Saturated Fats The much-maligned saturated fats-which Americans are trying to avoid-are not the cause of our modern diseases. In fact, they play many important roles in the body chemistry: * Saturated fatty acids constitute at least 50% of the cell membranes. They are what gives our cells necessary stiffness and integrity. * They play a vital role in the health of our bones. For calcium to be effectively incorporated into the skeletal structure, at least 50% of the dietary fats should be saturated.38 * They lower Lp(a), a substance in the blood that indicates proneness to heart disease.39 They protect the liver from alcohol and other toxins, such as Tylenol.40 * They enhance the immune system.41 * They are needed for the proper utilization of essential fatty acids. Elongated omega-3 fatty acids are better retained in the tissues when the diet is rich in saturated fats. 42 * Saturated 18-carbon stearic acid and 16-carbon palmitic acid are the preferred foods for the heart, which is why the fat around the heart muscle is highly saturated.43 The heart draws on this reserve of fat in times of stress. * Short- and medium-chain saturated fatty acids have important antimicrobial properties. They protect us against harmful microorganisms in the digestive tract. The scientific evidence, honestly evaluated, does not support the assertion that "artery-clogging" saturated fats cause heart disease.44 Actually, evaluation of the fat in artery clogs reveals that only about 26% is saturated. The rest is unsaturated, of which more than half is polyunsaturated.45 What About Cholesterol? And what about cholesterol? Here, too, the public has been misinformed. Our blood vessels can become damaged in a number of ways-through irritations caused by free radicals or viruses, or because they are structurally weak-and when this happens, the body's natural healing substance steps in to repair the damage. That substance is cholesterol. Cholesterol is a high-molecular-weight alcohol that is manufactured in the liver and in most human cells. Like saturated fats, the cholesterol we make and consume plays many vital roles: * Along with saturated fats, cholesterol in the cell membrane gives our cells necessary stiffness and stability. When the diet contains an excess of polyunsaturated fatty acids, these replace saturated fatty acids in the cell membrane, so that the cell walls actually become flabby. * When this happens, cholesterol from the blood is "driven" into the tissues to give them structural integrity. This is why serum cholesterol levels may go down temporarily when we replace saturated fats with polyunsaturated oils in the diet.46 * Cholesterol acts as a precursor to vital corticosteroids, hormones that help us deal with stress and protect the body against heart disease and cancer; and to the sex hormones like androgen, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. * Cholesterol is a precursor to vitamin D, a very important fat-soluble vitamin needed for healthy bones and nervous system, proper growth, mineral metabolism, muscle tone, insulin production, reproduction and immune system function. * The bile salts are made from cholesterol. Bile is vital for digestion and assimilation of fats in the diet. * Recent research shows that cholesterol acts as an antioxidant.47 This is the likely explanation for the fact that cholesterol levels go up with age. As an antioxidant, cholesterol protects us against free radical damage that leads to heart disease and cancer. * Cholesterol is needed for proper function of serotonin receptors in the brain.48 Serotonin is the body's natural "feel-good" chemical. Low cholesterol levels have been linked to aggressive and violent behavior, depression and suicidal tendencies. * Mother's milk is especially rich in cholesterol and contains a special enzyme that helps the baby utilize this nutrient. Babies and children need cholesterol-rich foods throughout their growing years to ensure proper development of the brain and nervous system. * Dietary cholesterol plays an important role in maintaining the health of the intestinal wall.49 This is why low-cholesterol vegetarian diets can lead to leaky gut syndrome and other intestinal disorders. Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease but rather a potent antioxidant weapon against free radicals in the blood, and a repair substance that helps heal arterial damage (although the arterial plaques themselves contain very little cholesterol.) [Edited by - blueseats on 08-08-2008 01:10 AM] |
OT:Fasting & detoxification