Fat Head and the Lipid Hypothesis

[PaloAltoCougar]

We watched Fat Head last night and found it very interesting. It starts out as an amusing rebuttal to Super Size Me, but gets more serious as it rebuts the “Lipid Hypothesis.” In the early ‘50s, Dr. Ancel Keyes gained fame (and the cover of Time) for his hypothesis that showed a correlation between diets high in saturated fat and heart disease in seven industrialized nations. For decades, the ideas that high fat diets lead to higher cholesterol, and higher cholesterol leads to heart disease, were pretty much unassailable, or so I thought. Turns out Keys intentionally omitted studies from several other nations where the results were inconsistent, and at times completely at odds, with the hypothesis.

The movie observes that man evolved over millions of years subsisting on fairly high fat and high protein diets, and the very recent introduction of agriculture has changed our diets, and not in a good way. Fruits and veggies are great, but too many grains, certainly of the refined variety, and trans fats are far more dangerous than saturated fats.

I’ve made this its own thread in the hope others will see and comment on the movie (stream it on Netflix), and that our health professionals will comment on the idea that saturated fats don’t have nearly the effect on heart disease as do inflammation and elevated blood glucose, which is the movie’s point.

I’m skeptical about some of the points made, but overall, it’s an interesting take. cowboy would love this movie. Taekwondave would not approve.

[creekster]

This is one of the ideas behind the atkins diet.

[ERCougar]

The inflammation model of heart disease is pretty unassailable (and universally accepted) at this point. Everyone seems to still be working out the details of how this relates to diet, but the saturated fat model is certainly not unassailable now.

How's that for a vague "non-answer"? Nutrition studies are just unimaginably difficult to carry out well. The best you can really hope for is association type studies, which lead us down the false paths that your documentary discusses. I'll have to check it out. It sounds interesting.

[cowboy]

I don't know about heart disease, but my cholesterol certainly doesn't chane with my diet. I'm always over 200 whether I eat steak or hamburger. Interestingly, my lowest ldl levels are in the winter when I'm not exercising much, and my highest levels are in the fall when I'm in shape to run a marathon. I was exceedingly pleased last week to see my total cholesterol had dropped 30 points to 213 since September.

[Katy Lied]

my cholesterol certainly doesn't chane with my diet. I'm always over 200 whether I eat steak or hamburger.

Bwaaah!

[PaloAltoCougar]

The inflammation model of heart disease is pretty unassailable (and universally accepted) at this point. Everyone seems to still be working out the details of how this relates to diet, but the saturated fat model is certainly not unassailable now.

How's that for a vague "non-answer"? Nutrition studies are just unimaginably difficult to carry out well. The best you can really hope for is association type studies, which lead us down the false paths that your documentary discusses. I'll have to check it out. It sounds interesting.

Actually, I appreciate the vagueness, as there seem to be a lot of very knowledgeable people with different views. Clearly the human body is so complex, and individuals can differ so greatly, that one clear answer or approach probably isn't in the cards.

I'm pretty content with what I do, which includes a bit more meat than is traditionally recommended. But I also eat a lot of fresh veggies and fruit, and I exercise, often pretty strenuously, six days a week. I watch most of these movies and commentaries as much for entertainment as for enlightment.

Oh, one other thing about the movie was interesting: the cause of childhood obesity. The writer/narrator described how throughout his youth, he walked a total of 2.5 miles every day to/from school, and spent a couple of hours after school playing outside (that was true for me, too). Nowadays, parents drive their kids to/from school (there are traffic jams around every school in our town, something unheard of 30 years ago), and when the kids get home, they're on the computer, and drinking lots of soda. Fast food has nothing to do with their weight gain.

[woot]

I haven't seen the movie, but I think it can be said that regardless of which factors are most important in the increase in heart disease and related diseases, McDonald's is contributing to them. I heard one time that there are only a handful of things on the McD's menu that don't contain sugar, for instance.

I do think that processed grains are likely to be more at fault than saturated fats are, but neither is likely to be very good for you in the quantities most Americans eat.

What is certain is that there are a great number of cultures around the world that eat a huge range of foods and yet produce healthy people. Folks from those areas are much healthier in their home countries than they almost immediately become upon moving to the US. There is simply no doubt that the American diet is extremely and uniquely unhealthy. And it's spreading.

[happyone]

I don't know about heart disease, but my cholesterol certainly doesn't chane with my diet. I'm always over 200 whether I eat steak or hamburger. Interestingly, my lowest ldl levels are in the winter when I'm not exercising much, and my highest levels are in the fall when I'm in shape to run a marathon. I was exceedingly pleased last week to see my total cholesterol had dropped 30 points to 213 since September.

Just to add another data point - when I lost my weight (130 lbs) my cholosteral went from 221 to 122. I didn't significantally change the amount of meat/beef I was eating. I have know idea what it means if anything, but my Doc was estatic I was also walking 40-50 miles per week. Even after I put 30 lbs back on it is still at 162 - the doc is pleased with that, but not about the weight gain