Off Topic · OT:Fasting & detoxification (page 3)

Posted by ramtour420:

I'd just like to add to this discussion. Personally i cannot truly fast as i am a diabetic and my blood sugar goes crazy even if i skip 1 meal. However i have done a great deal of research on fasting and here are some things:
After 2nd or 3rd day of true fasting(nothing but water) the body goes into a detox mode. The digestive system starts to work the opposite- expelling stuff rather than absorbing. There are groups out there that believe that we get sick because of excess flegm and while fasting thgat stuff has a chance to exit the body. these guys swim in lakes during the winter and do all sorts of crazy stuff in subzero temperatures and don't get sick. Their philosophy is that we catch a cold cause of excess flegm and we expell it by catching a cold. Fasting is another way to do it and we get rid of a massive amounts of of that stuff while fasting. Once u have no xtra flegm your body literally has no reson to catch a cold so they are able to do some amazing things if they fast consistently. They even collect the urine and let it evaporate after a week or so of fasting just too see all the gunk that leaves our body.

The personal testemonials show thats its at least an incredible way to get rid of ulsers since the stomach stops producing acid together with some other factortors that come into play while fasting. Supposedly u'll never catch a cold if you fast and also a great way to get rid of one( cold or common flue) is by getting rid of as much flegm as possible( blowing the nose and spitting it out as well when u do get sick). There are other benefits to fasting as well many of which only a handful of ppl are able to reach.

One of the most important things during a fast is refraining from any negative thoghts and emotions. When u fast your senses are hightened and any negativity as well as positive thoughts are multiplied. Its also an ideal time to pray and meditate since we are more receptive and it carries xtra meaning when u fast. Overall it has incredible benefits even for ppl that are not professionals at it. So if you are planning to fast be strong and try to gather as much positive energy during that time as u can. Also, fasting will not rob you of much energy(suprasingly) so u can work and do your daily activities as normal- as long as u are not gonna go for a marathon run :)

Very good info. Some of my family members are diabetic. They have to really take care of their diets and absolutely no drinking. My mother just had her eyes worked on, because they were swelling from behind the ball. She also went in for laser treatment. Luckily, they don't have the severe type of diabetes. I knew a guy who had to shoot himself in the arm several times a day. Poor guy. Good luck with that.

And man, about the positive energy thing (I know, I should speak) that is just as crucial as anything else to good health. Stress will break you down and could end up killing you.

Posted by VDesai:

You really wanna feel better? Don't eat fried foods for a month. You'll probably drop 10 pounds and you're arteries will be the better for it too.

Anyone worried about arteries, if you want to watch your cholesterol (listen up people, very important) almonds, fish (salmon), turkey, salads (greens), certain fruits go a long way in cleaning out those arteries. A steady diet of exercise also helps. My level was 21 points over a few years ago. That scared me, so I did a three months diet of no cholesterol foods and knocked 50 points off. That's how I learned about good vs. bad cholesterol. You can be the strongest man in your neighborhood, a marathon runner, the best shape of your life. But if your arteries aren't clear, then your virtually a dead man just waiting to drop. That's no joke.

Posted by oohah:

I'm going to try the "Fried Foods Fast" where you fry everything you eat for up to 8 weeks. Unlimited portions.

oohah

lol

Posted by Cookdcokehop:

For thos eof you that want good health and a lean looking body without fasting or juiceing yourself to death, I reccomend you buy "The Men's Health Hard Body Plan"

This calls for a health ad above.

Posted by Paladin55:

Forgot entirely about Native-American sweat lodges. My sister and her late ex-husband, who was actually a well known Native American leader in Canada, used to run sweat lodges in New York sometimes- usually during the summer. I expect that you can still find them around the area. Don't know if they have them minus the Native American spiritualist stuff. There was fasting involved, and if you were lucky, you would have some kind of "vision quest," a form of spiritual event where you are visited by some kind of spirit and given guidance. I always told my sister that this probably had something to do with the fact that you were fasting and sweat lodging during the summer, and you were probably delirious, but to each his own.

Check out some of F-Troop shows, I think they showed a sweat lodge every now and then.

Maybe you can have some sort of Knicks "vision quest."

You had it going, but 'F-Troop'?! Oh God!

I've seen them and there no joke. In my travels across this nation, I've come across all walks of life and American Indians know how to fast. I'm talking about the spiritual ones. Not every Indian knows how to do those things. You have City Indians and reservation Indians. But the point is, they can't eat anything before a sweat and women and men cannot have them together in the same lodge, because if a woman is in her period, it brings bad vibes, or in other words, bad spirits. In the open lands, the Plains Indians have something called 'The Sundance'. Fascinating! A group of people are chosen to participate within a large circle in which they go four days and nights without food and barely little water. For four days and nights they pray to the spirit world, starting at Sunrise. No one else is allowed in the circle and many people stay with this event throughout it's entirety, outside of the circle. It's one of the most beautiful things I ever seen and great to know that some things are still done the same way they been done for practically thousands of years.

Posted by colorfl1:

On a serious note:

Fasts are used often by many cultures as a tool to weaken the individualistic/ animalistic ego and free oneself to ascend spiritually.

Many individuals subconsciously have exiled themselves from spiritual intimacy because they have felt guilty or abandoned by something they perceive to have done or failed to do.
Thus, the fast works to help the individual overcome their personal guilt/ embarrassment and pride to then attain spiritual intimacy and ascend.

Agreed. In other words, freed from the 'materialistic box' we all have been brought up in.

I enjoyed this thread so much that I changed my sig.

Yeah man this has been an awesome thread......when is this guy EnySpree gonna be promoted to moderator round these parts? He's the man.

Btw, Good Stuff Blueseats. I believe I read your last two post over a few times. Knowledge is power.

Posted by EnySpree:

Yeah man this has been an awesome thread......when is this guy EnySpree gonna be promoted to moderator round these parts? He's the man.

Btw, Good Stuff Blueseats. I believe I read your last two post over a few times. Knowledge is power.

haha, you wanna lock some people out? Not much more to moderating.

LongIslandfan is a raw vegan......I'm vegetarian myself, but if raw vegan is considered a pure and all natural? Then I must be a dirty vegeterian. I tend to eat anything as long as there is no dead animals in it, lol. I'm a sloppy eater, and when I go out If there's only fries available? Dude I'm ordering all of them. Not particularly healthy.

I would like to try to eat a lot more cleaner and eat more from the earth. That's gonna be my new limproved lifestyle after my fast is over.

Btw.....I'm in day 2 now of my liquid fast. The night before I started I drank a large cup of dieters tea so I can begin "unloading" as soon as I wake up and boy was it of epic proportions! The next day, which was yesterday, I drank 2 12oz cans of V8 vegetable juice, some aloe vera juice, I vitamin water, 2 mucle milk protein drinks, and another cup of dieters tea. Not really a true fast but I'm exploring a little.

Today I been drinking one of those "Naked" drinks since about 130pm....haven't finished it yet. Its pretty good. I'm drinking one of the protein versions. I will probably repeat what I did yesterday.....Im gonna also try to get some regular WATER in my system as well......lol. I can't believe I forgot to drink water! Sheesh.

All in all day one was fine. I just had to remind myself a few times what I was trying to accomplish, and I was fine. Last night was killer though cuz I usually like to binge as I relax at home. That's where the muscle milk shake came in.

Hey Eny, it's awesome you've jumped right in. I always need to psych myself up for at least a week before I can start.

I'd just like to make one bit of constructive criticism. If you had started this by saying something like you're thinking of fasting because you're feeling bloated and you want to de-load your digestive tract a bit I'd say you're doing great. However, if you really want to heighten your spirituality, I think you'd be well served taking this to the next level.

V8 and Naked drinks are much better than crap like sodas and Gatoraid, but they aren't live foods. They're boiled, filtered, pureed, condensed, reconstituted, preserved etc. They are dead products removed from the natural world. They are man-made, industrialized goods design to "suggest" health and last a long time on the shelf.

This is just me, speaking from my heart, but I can't imagine myself feeling spiritual without respecting my body and it's relationship to the natural world as perfectly provided to us by god (or the universe, for agnostics like me). Go back to off-the-shelf stuff later on, if you must, but while you are trying to cleanse and connect with your proper place in the universe eat real frikken food! Is there a Jamba Juice, or other juice bar, nearby where you can obtain the fresh juice of a live fruit or vegetable? Is there a green grocer where you can buy some veggies, onion and garlic that you can simmer up for some hot broth? Don't you dare buy some god damn broth from a can. You need enzymes, cultures, nutrients in their natural form. Give yourself the gift of life, consume the stuff your body is designed to consume, even if just for a few days.

If I understood you correctly, this isn't supposed to be some fad diet, this is supposed to be life altering process. You've already demonstrated the WILL to go for it - which is far more than most of us have on any given day - now do it the right so that you can obtain the benefits you desire for the efforts you put in.

Off my soapbox. Just telling ya like a friend.

One more thing. I see you're vegetarian and using a bunch of protein powder. That's all well and good, just try to get your protein from egg, whey, or basically anything but soy. They're finding that soy produces a lot of estrogen - something men do better without - and can mess up your thyroid and other neuro-endocrine systems. Ditto for tofu and soy milk.

Apparently the fermented stuff, like miso and tamari sauce, is okay, but the non-fermented stuff is probably best left for menopausal women.

Posted by BlueSeats:


In fact, the whole business that saturated fats cause cholesterol, and that cholesterol causes heart disease, is highly speculative and seems to be on shaky ground these days.

Thats not at all true - its based the most robust clinical evidence you'll find on any medical hypothesis, the most impressive longitudinal study being the Framingham Heart Study, if you're interested. The bottom line is that the commercial message that an elevation in LDL or "bad" cholesterol increases cardiovascular incidents and mortality is absolutely true. Conversely, reducing LDL with dietary decreases in saturated fat or statin therapy invariably prevents heart attacks and strokes in a population. To give you a feel for the numbers, prospective studies have long shown that statin therapy reduces non-fatal cardiac events by 35% and fatal cardiac events by 25%. The correlation between LDL levels and mortality has been so bulletfroof that there are guidelines that all clinicians follow:

LDL level
<100 Optimal
100-129 Near optimal
130-159
160-189 High
>190 Very high

Lifestyle change and pharmocotherapy are instituted based on your risk factors and coronary heart disease equivalents.

Posted by codeunknown:

Posted by BlueSeats:


In fact, the whole business that saturated fats cause cholesterol, and that cholesterol causes heart disease, is highly speculative and seems to be on shaky ground these days.

Thats not at all true - its based the most robust clinical evidence you'll find on any medical hypothesis, the most impressive longitudinal study being the Framingham Heart Study, if you're interested. The bottom line is that the commercial message that an elevation in LDL or "bad" cholesterol increases cardiovascular incidents and mortality is absolutely true. Conversely, reducing LDL with dietary decreases in saturated fat or statin therapy invariably prevents heart attacks and strokes in a population. To give you a feel for the numbers, prospective studies have long shown that statin therapy reduces non-fatal cardiac events by 35% and fatal cardiac events by 25%. The correlation between LDL levels and mortality has been so bulletfroof that there are guidelines that all clinicians follow:

LDL level
<100 Optimal
100-129 Near optimal
130-159
160-189 High
>190 Very high

Lifestyle change and pharmocotherapy are instituted based on your risk factors and coronary heart disease equivalents.

Hi Code.

I understand your position represents the mainstream view, but it certainly isn't universally held. In fact, most low carbohydrate advocates feel otherwise. As I said, these are places I personally am not qualified to go, but I'll see if I can dig up some of the stuff I've read.

I think the distinction though is between such levels being a cause of heart disease vs being associated with heart disease. For instance, some laymen think that the stuff that can line and clog arteries is the saturated fat that we ingest, but you know that cholesterol is produced in the liver, it is essential to human function, and our bodies will produce it whether we ingest saturated fats or not. So the saturated fats don't quite go straight to our heart, as some might have it. There is a school of thought that believes cholesterol may be produced in higher amounts to bolster inflamed, weak, brittle or otherwise distressed vessels. If true, it would not be a cause of heart disease but a response to it.


You also have to consider the quality of the saturated fats used in the studies. Where they good stuff like virgin coconut oil or industrialized shortening like Crisco? Homogenized milk, or organic butter. This is significant because the molecular structures are altered when fats and oils are altered for shelf-life and such. And many of the industrialized saturated fats were transfats as well. Nobody in the health field believes that Crisco and transfats are good, but many do advocate quality saturated fats like virgin coconut oil, fish oils, palm oil, etc.

I'm sure you've also heard that before industrialized foods were introduced to the indigenous peoples of the Arctic circle they subsisted very well (without heart disease) on little more than fish and whale blubber (saturated fat). If true, that's a good indication that saturated fats are not the prime component in heart disease.

I think it stands logically that humans would have evolved to do well on natural saturated fats from animals and vegetables, especially as a NEEDED source for fuel in the absence of carbohydrates. It's far more likely (again, logically, if nothing else) that it's the co-mingling of too many carbs and the introduction of man-made bastardized/industrialized/trans-fat-laden saturated fats that are the problem.

More to follow...


[Edited by - blueseats on 08-08-2008 12:04 AM]

Code, got some stuff for your perusal.

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http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-managem...

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...

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

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

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There are several interesting articles on saturated fat and/or cholesterol here.

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats...

Couple I've read are these:

Cholesterol: Friend Or Foe?

By Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats...


The Benefits of High Cholesterol

By Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD

http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseas...

Excerpts from a fantastic article:


http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articl...

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]

Posted by BlueSeats:

One more thing. I see you're vegetarian and using a bunch of protein powder. That's all well and good, just try to get your protein from egg, whey, or basically anything but soy. They're finding that soy produces a lot of estrogen - something men do better without - and can mess up your thyroid and other neuro-endocrine systems. Ditto for tofu and soy milk.

Apparently the fermented stuff, like miso and tamari sauce, is okay, but the non-fermented stuff is probably best left for menopausal women.

Well I'm sorry to say I am a tofu eating, tree huggin hippie.

I do eat eggs and cheese, but most hardcore vegetarians will frown on me for that. I also follow my workouts with a whey protien shake. That's supposed to be a no no. If I don't eat tofu/textured protien products how else do I get my protien. Nuts?Beans? They're good for your heart but the make you fart.

Well as far as being really natural? I haven't had time to really prepare. There's no Jamba juice where I work, and not much else so I'm going off what's readily available to me.

Naked brand beverages are convienent cuz they sell them right in the store they have in the train station. They have this really yucky green one that I drank today. Their products and V8 are basically all I can find at the moment. I don't have a juicer.....but I plan on getting one to continue my quest to improve my lifestyle.

I'm trying my best....I guess my best isn't good enough for you, huh?

Posted by EnySpree:

I'm trying my best....I guess my best isn't good enough for you, huh?

Respect. Just trying to share the knowledge. If you want to squander it and burn in hell that's up to you.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by codeunknown:

Posted by BlueSeats:


In fact, the whole business that saturated fats cause cholesterol, and that cholesterol causes heart disease, is highly speculative and seems to be on shaky ground these days.

Thats not at all true - its based the most robust clinical evidence you'll find on any medical hypothesis, the most impressive longitudinal study being the Framingham Heart Study, if you're interested. The bottom line is that the commercial message that an elevation in LDL or "bad" cholesterol increases cardiovascular incidents and mortality is absolutely true. Conversely, reducing LDL with dietary decreases in saturated fat or statin therapy invariably prevents heart attacks and strokes in a population. To give you a feel for the numbers, prospective studies have long shown that statin therapy reduces non-fatal cardiac events by 35% and fatal cardiac events by 25%. The correlation between LDL levels and mortality has been so bulletfroof that there are guidelines that all clinicians follow:

LDL level
<100 Optimal
100-129 Near optimal
130-159
160-189 High
>190 Very high

Lifestyle change and pharmocotherapy are instituted based on your risk factors and coronary heart disease equivalents.

Hi Code.

I understand your position represents the mainstream view, but it certainly isn't universally held. In fact, most low carbohydrate advocates feel otherwise. As I said, these are places I personally am not qualified to go, but I'll see if I can dig up some of the stuff I've read.

I think the distinction though is between such levels being a cause of heart disease vs being associated with heart disease. For instance, some laymen think that the stuff that can line and clog arteries is the saturated fat that we ingest, but you know that cholesterol is produced in the liver, it is essential to human function, and our bodies will produce it whether we ingest saturated fats or not. So the saturated fats don't quite go straight to our heart, as some might have it. There is a school of thought that believes cholesterol may be produced in higher amounts to add lubricity to weak, brittle or otherwise distressed vessels. If true, it would not be a cause of heart disease but a response to it.


You also have to consider the quality of the saturated fats used in the studies. Where they good stuff like virgin coconut oil or industrialized shortening like Crisco? Homogenized milk, or organic butter. This is significant because the molecular structures are altered when fats and oils are altered for shelf-life and such. And many of the industrialized saturated fats were transfats as well. Nobody in the health field believes that Crisco and transfats are good, but many do advocate quality saturated fats like virgin coconut oil, fish oils, palm oil, etc.

I'm sure you've also heard that before industrialized foods were introduced to the indigenous peoples of the Arctic circle they subsisted very well (without heart disease) on little more than fish and whale blubber (saturated fat). If true, that's a good indication that saturated fats are not the prime component in heart disease.

I think it stands logically that humans would have evolved to do well on natural saturated fats from animals and vegetables, especially as a NEEDED source for fuel in the absence of carbohydrates. It's far more likely (again, logically, if nothing else) that it's the co-mingling of too many carbs and the introduction of man-made bastardized/industrialized/trans-fat-laden saturated fats that are the problem.

More to follow...

Blue, as always, good to talk to you. I understand that patients/people have different approaches when it comes to healthcare. I've seen both sides of the spectrum. Some are unreasonably cynical and non-compliant with evidence based therapies while others are so passively agreeable and almost removed from the process that that they lose the motivation to follow through with a plan. In this day and age, with universal accesibility to MD consult, webMD, pubmed and other resources, those patients who are especially engaged in their care present a special challenge to physicians to remain up to speed with the most cutting-edge research and therapies. And I like the accountability that that brings. But, at the same time, I think that there has to be a degree of respect for the mainstream, evidence-based view held by clinicians and researchers who have spent their entire lives studying the intricacies of these phenomena.

No position is ever universal, so its not impressive that there are dissenters here; needless to say, dissenters in the minority are more often wrong than right. Moreover, the "lipid hypothesis" of atheroma formation and coronary artery disease (CAD) is as widely held a position as there is in science among clinicians and researchers alike. To claim that its on shaky ground, I think, is a little misleading at best. The representation that most "low carbohydrate advocates feel otherwise" is also false as most advocates of reducing LDL cholesterol are usually also advocates of reducing carbohydrates and sugars, especially in the diabetic setting. The reason for this, however, is the secondary advantage of weight loss and the reduction of diabetic complications including retinopathy/blindness, nephropathy/chronic renal failure and neuropathy/subsequent non-healing infection. Of importance, reducing fasting sugars have not been shown to reduce the risk of macrovascular disease despite repeated attempts. So, with respect to CAD, the involvement of carbs appears relatively minor whether alone or "co-mingling" with atherogenic factors, as you suggested.

The distinction between association and causality can be difficult when the causal relationship is indirect and situational and if an unknown confounder exists. Thats clearly unlikely here; it would be a more relevant concern if we were dealing with preliminary case-control studies, where parallel or reverse confounders are more prominent. Randomized, controlled, double-blinded clinical trials are the gold standard in establishing causality and confounding risk factors in the diet (ex. carbs) or epidemiology of the cohorts are painstakingly minimized. Similar relationships have been demonstrated with smoking and hypertension and CAD.

I'd like to see the data on the arctic folks who subsisted on fish and blubber - how were they assayed? do those folks have a better genetic endowment than the rest of us? was there a control population? how much blubber did they eat exactly? How much excercise did they do? From the information you've given me about these folks so far, I'd have to disagree wholeheartedly (pun intended) with your rather preemptive conclusion that its somehow an indication that saturated fats are not a culprit; the glaring problem is the lack of an appropriate control and the inability to even approach isolating the dietary variable of saturated fat.

If you're interested in the technical details, I'll talk about the current atherogenic model of CAD later as it will lend more credence to the statistical associations.

Blue, I looked at some of the excerpts you posted. I found a couple of them interesting and I will try and get to them later.