Fats and Health

[l82start]

i have tried both coconut oil and MTC, and enjoyed the results from both, coconut oil in its semi solid state is pretty darn tasty, but results in lots of weird looks from family and friends if you are seen eating a spoonful straight from the jar 

the brand of MTC i tried is https://www.bulletproofexec.com/bulletp ... d-mct-oil/

[Pointedstick]

Coconut oil is indeed a rich source of MCTs. But it is also a virtually 100% saturated fat. For those of us that still believe saturated fats are unhealthy, tropical oils should probably be avoided.

That's the rub, I guess. What's the status of this? I remember reading some pretty convincing stuff back when Gumby was around that made me rethink my terror of saturated fats. Is that still considered true, or is the bleeding edge of nutrition back to the mainstream position on saturated fats?

[MachineGhost]

Coconut oil is indeed a rich source of MCTs. But it is also a virtually 100% saturated fat. For those of us that still believe saturated fats are unhealthy, tropical oils should probably be avoided.

MG, the oil in your link is made from coconut and palm kernel oil, and is 100% saturated fat. Can you recommend one without the saturated fat? otherwise, one might as well just stick with organic coconut oil.

No, that's an oxymoron as the MCT components in coconut/palm oil are all saturated.  There are many subtypes of saturated fats.  If you still buy the cholesterol lipid-saturated fat hypothesis malarky**, then the saturated fat subtypes that raise LDL levels are largely myristic, secondarily palmetic which are in animal fats and tropical oils.  The antibacterial component of coconut oil is in the 47% by weight lauric acid and is sold as a saturated-fat free extract called monolaurin: http://www.vitacost.com/health-from-the ... capsules-1
I believe lauric acid/monolaurin is one of the reasons why South Pacific Islanderss who eat a ton of coconut fat are so healthy along with the capric acid.

** Breast milk has 20% more saturated fat than lard.

BTW, despite the lofty name, the CSPI has no credibility.  Follow the money and you'll see who funds them.  They're the ones directly responsible for coercing tropical oils removed from all fast food back when it was actually tasty only to be replaced with tasteless and toxic trans-fat vegetable oils back in 1989-1990 only to reverse their position again to get trans-fats banned a few years ago.  They're also vehemetly anti-nutrition and anti-supplement.  They're nothing but a joke.

[MachineGhost]

That's the rub, I guess. What's the status of this? I remember reading some pretty convincing stuff back when Gumby was around that made me rethink my terror of saturated fats. Is that still considered true, or is the bleeding edge of nutrition back to the mainstream position on saturated fats?

The mainstream position is still that it is bad for you, but the latest scientific evidence has shot it down.  From Harvard Medical School, no less.  So the tune at the top is slowly catching up with reality.  Like the Soviet Union, it takes a very long time for the truth to set people free.  Most of the subterfuge has had to do with Big Pharma, public policy career agendas and horribly flawed studies and evil organizations like the CSPI.  I posted this in another forum awhile back:

Here are five short term, one long term, randomized human trials replacing animal fats with Omega-6 vegetable oils:

Doubled number of major cardiac events:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2166702/
No effect:
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.100 ... 95642-3_15
Increased mortality by 39%:
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.100 ... -0967-3_18
"No effect" but results reported halfway through!:
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.asp ... eid=337080
Small increase in mortality: http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/9/1/129.short
More atherosclerosis, marked increase in cancer risk*, total mortality slighty higher:
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/40/1S2/II-1.short
(Note that the butter group had 200% more heavy smokers and 60% more moderate smokers!  The Vitamin E was also deficient in the butter due to reuse after [re]cooking; the vegetable oil was specifically not reused:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14281370
)

Corn oil vs Coconut oil in rats:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0703002600

And out of sheer curiosity, here's the evil deed after the takeover of the AHA by Ancel Keys**, et al. that started the cholesterol lipid hypothesis ball rolling:
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/23/1/133.short

Of course theres many other negative health effects from Omega-6, but I'm limiting it to just CVD here.

Joe Sixpack

* Study at:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 3671910865
** The sordid history of Ancel Keys is best told here:
http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/12/22/the-tr ... -it-wrong/

[dragoncar]

That's the rub, I guess. What's the status of this? I remember reading some pretty convincing stuff back when Gumby was around that made me rethink my terror of saturated fats. Is that still considered true, or is the bleeding edge of nutrition back to the mainstream position on saturated fats?

The mainstream position is still that it is bad for you, but the latest scientific evidence has shot it down.  From Harvard Medical School, no less.  So the tune at the top is slowly catching up with reality.  Like the Soviet Union, it takes a very long time for the truth to set people free.  Most of the subterfuge has had to do with Big Pharma, public policy career agendas and horribly flawed studies and evil organizations like the CSPI.  I posted this in another forum awhile back:

Here are five short term, one long term, randomized human trials replacing animal fats with Omega-6 vegetable oils:

Doubled number of major cardiac events:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2166702/
No effect:
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.100 ... 95642-3_15
Increased mortality by 39%:
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.100 ... -0967-3_18
"No effect" but results reported halfway through!:
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.asp ... eid=337080
Small increase in mortality: http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/9/1/129.short
More atherosclerosis, marked increase in cancer risk*, total mortality slighty higher:
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/40/1S2/II-1.short
(Note that the butter group had 200% more heavy smokers and 60% more moderate smokers!  The Vitamin E was also deficient in the butter due to reuse after [re]cooking; the vegetable oil was specifically not reused:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14281370
)

Corn oil vs Coconut oil in rats:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0703002600

And out of sheer curiosity, here's the evil deed after the takeover of the AHA by Ancel Keys**, et al. that started the cholesterol lipid hypothesis ball rolling:
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/23/1/133.short

Of course theres many other negative health effects from Omega-6, but I'm limiting it to just CVD here.

Joe Sixpack

* Study at:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 3671910865
** The sordid history of Ancel Keys is best told here:
http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/12/22/the-tr ... -it-wrong/

MG, you've done a ton of research on this.  I've heard that canola oil is maybe the best mainstream oil you're going to find, if you are picking the best of bad choices.  Agree/disagree?

[MachineGhost]

MG, you've done a ton of research on this.  I've heard that canola oil is maybe the best mainstream oil you're going to find, if you are picking the best of bad choices.  Agree/disagree?

Disagree.  It's refined to death at lofty pizza oven temperatures, has too much oxidized Omega-6 damaged by the refining, may contain toxic erucic acid.  Stick to unrefined, genuine olive oil.

[Benko]

MG, you've done a ton of research on this.  I've heard that canola oil is maybe the best mainstream oil you're going to find, if you are picking the best of bad choices.  Agree/disagree?

Disagree.  It's refined to death at lofty pizza oven temperatures, has too much oxidized Omega-6 damaged by the refining, may contain toxic erucic acid.  Stick to unrefined, genuine olive oil.

Agree.  But that still leaves what to use for cooking:  I believe you can only use good olive oil at low temp and perhaps medium temps.  Plus there are some things that don't taste good with olive oil taste. 

I would suspect that butter might be good for many people.  I can't use butter (I have food allergy to dairy including butter) so I just use "regular" coconut oil (nutiva)  or the kind without the coconut taste (Jarrow makes some).    Other thoughts  MT?

[MachineGhost]

I would suspect that butter might be good for many people.  I can't use butter (I have food allergy to dairy including butter) so I just use "regular" coconut oil (nutiva)  or the kind without the coconut taste (Jarrow makes some).    Other thoughts  MT?

I use EVOO for all cooking and baking.  It has enough antioxidants to be okay against the heat.  So long as you don't reuse it, the antioxidant depletion is nothing to worry about.  Finding what is called light olive oil with no taste that is also 100% pure is a real problem nowadays, though.  I think [refined] coconut oil, red palm oil, grass-fed ghee, grass-fed butter, non-hydrogenated lard, animal fat, etc. are all good to use for cooking and baking if you can handle them.  I'm not one of them.

[Mark Leavy]

MG, you've done a ton of research on this.  I've heard that canola oil is maybe the best mainstream oil you're going to find, if you are picking the best of bad choices.  Agree/disagree?

I'm not MG, but I'll pile on to his very sound answer.  Just for fun.

There is no such thing as a "canola" plant.  Canola oil is rapeseed oil.  But, clearly, no one will buy something called rapeseed oil and feed it to their children.  Some brilliant marketeer contracted the phrase "Canada Oil" into canola.  And thus a star was born.

Rapeseed oil has a long use in the US as an industrial lubricant.  Cheap, light machine oil.  You wouldn't use it for food as it [used to be] poisonous.  That was a serious loss of profitability - considering the large amount of cheap oil you can get from rapeseed.  Science to the rescue.  After decades of selective breeding and hybridization, rapeseed is no longer deemed to be poisonous.

Probably.  Maybe...

Pretty non biased wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed

[Mark Leavy]

Eating a lot of saturated fat can increase the cholesterol in your blood. High levels of cholesterol can increase your risk of heart disease, which includes heart attack and strokes.

Hi Sunny.  Welcome to the board.

The posters here are, by and large, extremely well read, disciplined, experienced and successful.

When someone on this board says something that doesn't agree with your worldview - you would do well to think, "hey... these very smart people have mentioned something that doesn't agree with my worldview.  I wonder if they know something I don't?"

Just a thought.  And again, welcome to the board, and happy investing.

[gizmo_rat]

I think [refined] coconut oil... are all good to use.

Typo or have I missed a twist in the debate ? I thought that that refining was doing nasty things to oils and fats to disguise rancidity, so to be avoided if possible.

[MachineGhost]

Typo or have I missed a twist in the debate ? I thought that that refining was doing nasty things to oils and fats to disguise rancidity, so to be avoided if possible.

Oh in the case of coconut oil, I'm talking about gentle refining to get rid of the coconut taste.  You have to be on the ball and inquire with the companies about their processing as many are just cashing in and using moldy coconuts just sitting around the warehouse and not caring a whit about their processing temperatures.  I can confirm Nutiva brand does it right for EVCO.  Tropical Traditions is also safe for refined EVCO/CO.

I think you're missing the point though that refining oil at pizza oven temperatures damages heat sensitive oils (Omega-3/Omega-6) which are not saturated.  So perhaps you can nuke saturated fats and not worry about it, but I you have to ask yourself: Is doing so natural?  Is doing so healthy?  Where in natuare does biology eat nuked saturated fats short of after a Bambi-style forest fire?



I don't agree with a large majority of the cold uses, of course.  But the majority of people that look into this topic aren't hip to the dangers of excess Omega-6 per se, just the oxidization of it.

[MachineGhost]

There is so much conflicting information on this topic, both here and elsewhere, it is very difficult to decide what to believe.

You have to follow the money trail so you can see who is funding the propaganda mouthpieces.  A poignant example would be Coke, Pepsi, GM, Kraft, etc. funding the American Dietectic Association (oh I'm sorry these jokers now think they're nutrition experts so they've renamed themselves to the "Academy of Nutrition and Dietectics" and are actively trying to pass nutritionist licensing laws favorable only themselves).  There is no objectivity in America -- everyone is a crony capitalist to one degree or another.  Even me, although I have no financial interests in Big Farma, Big Pharma, junk food, dietary supplements or the sickcare system so I'm very relatively objective.  And I care about my health as a #1 priority, not making a profit for myself, my family, my company, my cronies, my alumni network, my community or suppporting all the fragile, tenuous egos involved in public policy bureaucracy (I'm sure WiseOne can relate to that one!).

I've never said that saturated fats are pro-healthy.  My anecdotal experience indicates otherwise.  But not being heathly is not the same thing as being unhealthy or dangerous.  The body is far more complex and context dependent than a simple universal "eat x and get y disease" shtick.  The dietary saturated fat/cholesterol lipid hypothesis has no evidence that stands up to objective scrutiny**.  Study the history of Ancel Keys and all the pieces will fall into place.

** Propaganda mouthpieces, undergraduates, journalists, publish or perish non-tenured academics doing meta-analysis of previously flawed studies and conflict-of-interest studies all declaring that "x causes y disease" are simply not credible.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of published "scientific evidence" is now of this type.  The real problem is a dearth of critical thinking skills, lazyness and a lack of time.

[dragoncar]

Why does everyone mention that canola is made from rapeseed? The name of the plant is never used in packaging, so it's not really germane to the discussion.  I can only conclude that it's included as FUD. 

[Mark Leavy]

Why does everyone mention that canola is made from rapeseed? The name of the plant is never used in packaging, so it's not really germane to the discussion.  I can only conclude that it's included as FUD.

I use it to show that it is not a new oil, but it has a long history in industrial uses.  The canola oil brand was created to distance the oil from it's historical use as a commonly known industrial lubricant.  If you want to read about the development of the oil for it's food use, it helps to do web searches using the name it has had for most of history.

[MachineGhost]

Why does everyone mention that canola is made from rapeseed? The name of the plant is never used in packaging, so it's not really germane to the discussion.  I can only conclude that it's included as FUD.

It's because mustard gas is derived from the erucic acid in rapeseed oil.  So there was a marketing fiction problem when trying to cash in on the vegetable oil fad.

[Pet Hog]

It's because mustard gas is derived from the erucic acid in rapeseed oil.

As an organic chemist, I must object!  The chemical structure of erucic acid (a long-chain fatty acid) is completely unrelated to that of mustard gas (a short sulfur-containing molecule).  There is no way anyone would synthesize it that way.  The only connection I can think of might be if the oil was used in the formulation of mustard gas, but that doesn't appear to be the case either.  I suspect the misunderstanding has come about because erucic acid is a component of mustard oil, which is completely unrelated to mustard gas (so named because its odor is similar to that of mustard).

By the way, canola oil contains at most 2% erucic acid (5% in the EU), whereas rapeseed oil can contain up to 54% of the stuff, so the two oils are not exactly the same thing.

[MachineGhost]

As an organic chemist, I must object!  The chemical structure of erucic acid (a long-chain fatty acid) is completely unrelated to that of mustard gas (a short sulfur-containing molecule).  There is no way anyone would synthesize it that way.  The only connection I can think of might be if the oil was used in the formulation of mustard gas, but that doesn't appear to be the case either.  I suspect the misunderstanding has come about because erucic acid is a component of mustard oil, which is completely unrelated to mustard gas (so named because its odor is similar to that of mustard).

Right you are, sir!

]Mustard gas is not made from rape seed oil, but by treating a chemical called ethylene with sulphur chloride or dihydroxyethyl with hydrochloric gas. In other words, mustard gas is produced synthetically and is not derived from rape oil at all;

It seems that the mustard gas connection was an Internet urban legend back in the day: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/canola.asp

Amusing that I still have crap like that floating around in my brain.

[dragoncar]

MG, in the article you just quoted, it states:

• Canola oil contains linolenic acid, which increases one of the essential omega-3 fatty acids called EPA in human tissues and actually reduces the stickiness of red blood corpuscles and therefore reduces blood clotting tendencies.

and

• Canola oil contains high levels of omega-3 fatty acids as mentioned above and omega-3 fatty acids help to stimulate the immune system, not put it to sleep.

The article goes on to basically state that canola oil is not toxic and is even good for you. The fact that is was once an industrial oil is really irrelevant. So what's your beef with it?

To be fair, MG didn't mention industrial oil, that was Mark Leavy.  I guess I'm not old or industrial enough for "it's really rapeseed oil!" to make me think of industrial lubricants, beyond the scary sounding word "rape."

[Benko]

1. "Canola oil is low in saturated fat and contains both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in a ratio of 2:1"

This is from wikipedia, and I think they meant all of the above as selling points (which is sad)

2.  Conversion of omega 3 precursors to e.g. EPA is limited by many things (including age).  This is why flax is not a good substitute for "fish oil" and there are studies to demonstrate this.

3.  Omega 3 precursors only convert to EPA, not DHA.

EDIT:  I should add the olive oil has omega 6 fatty acids also, but it has (if you actually get the good stuff) benefits as well.

[Benko]

Pug,

Examine.com makes some very good points on this:

http://examine.com/blog/fish-oil-and-your-prostate/

The whole page is worth reading, but here is the bottom line:

What Should I Know?


Stating "fish oil causes cancer" due to this study would be a mistake, as it is a case-cohort study (conducted at one time point only), and a temporal relationship is not made. While unlikely, with the data available, it could also be possible to state "prostate cancer causes a higher n3 concentration in the blood."

The temporal aspect is important, since fish oil supplementation can drastically change serum levels of omega-3s in the blood. It is quite common for people diagnosed with prostate cancer to supplement with fish oil, as it is commonly touted to be cancer-protective (which would mean that prostate cancer precedes fish oil supplementation). A previous study using persons from SELECT using a design that could assess this temporal relationship found no relation (either protective or harmful) with prostate cancer incidence.

Furthermore, this study did not measure mortality. When looking at mortality, fish oil seems to be associated with reduced mortality. In simpler words, it was found to not help prevent prostate cancer, but reduced your chances of dying from it.

Also of interest is the large ranges observed (as in, the 71% value had an actual range of somewhere between 0% and 192% with a 5% margin of error), which either suggests other factors are at play influencing the results or large differences in how one’s body responds to omega-3 ingestion.

At the most, we can state that prostate cancer is associated with higher omega-3 ratios in your blood. This study poses a chicken-egg problem - which causes which?


This study and no other studies in existence can causatively state that fish oil causes prostate cancer. If anything, this study begets a plethora of questions in regards to the relationship between prostate cancer and omega-3 but proves nothing.

[Benko]

From Chris Kresser's weekly roundup of useful info:

Cardiologist in the British medical Journal:

But Dr. DiNicolantonio says there is insufficient evidence to suggest that reducing saturated fat intake helps to reduce the risk of heart disease, and consuming refined carbohydrate or polyunsaturated fat, such as omega-6, may even increase the risk of heart disease and other conditions.

So cutting sat fat and adding canola may give you heart disease.

[MachineGhost]

The article goes on to basically state that canola oil is not toxic and is even good for you. The fact that is was once an industrial oil is really irrelevant. So what's your beef with it?

I didn't post those links for truth in accuracy but to address the mustard gas myth.  So it's marketing fiction from vested interests.  ALA is barely converted to EPA or DHA in the body if theres no LA obstruction and is not considered a credible dietary source of either EFA anyway.  Furthermore, the whole point of refining is to get rid of the LA/ALA because it is what oxidizes the oil and makes it shelf unstable.  Whatever LA/ALA remains in refined oil is sort of a frankenstein trans-fat produced by refining as opposed to hydrogenation.

Compared to unrefined olive oil with its array of polyphenols and aspirin-like olive water, refined canola has nothing healthy to offer.  It is a shelf-stable, refined, junk food product created just to cash in on the vegetable oil craze that has been going on since toxic trans-fat Crisco came out over 100 years ago. 

Besides, the main problem with canola oil is it contains too much toxic Omega-6 and is about 22% by weight.  Natural state EVOO, tropical oils and animal fats are all 12% or less.  All Omega-6 oxidizes during digestion (assuming its not pre-oxidized to begin with) and it is harmful past 4% max of calories.  Anyone concerned about their health reduces Omega-6 intake as if it is the plaque.  Like all vegetable oils, canola is a hybridized frankenfood and is not a natural-state food that we evolved to eat.

Also, I may have tried unrefined canola oil at one time and still had a negative inflammatory reaction to it just as I do to refined canola

[MachineGhost]

Benko/MG:
What is your opinion of the studies that now link fish oil supplements to substantial increase in incidence of prostate cancer?

I think that was one of the typical, flawed, biased studies with a poor methodology that the mainstream media loves to parrot without any real investigative journalism.  The study was not about dietary fish oil supplements and the one-time serum levels were still 60% below the marker for optimal health.  There were also many confounding factors.  Junk science.  Sadly, this is the norm nowadays as making a public health career depends on making a splash and what better way than to kowtow to Ceasar?  Critical thinking and facts be damned!

So if not outright crony corruptism, then it is just outright naivety and ignorance.  People in the public health field have very little experience with optimal nutrition and optimal dosing of nutrients.  How can they?  We're talking largely about undergraduate and postgraduates here.  They're still young adults that barely know diddley squat about anything.  Theory is not practice.

[Benko]

Somewhat off the topic, but since we're touting the benefits of olive oil, people should know that claims that olive oil is actually extra virgin are only true about half the time (perhaps 40 or 60% I don't remember exactly) as there is big time fraud in the olive oil industry.  There are some articles around reviewing different brands, but basically there is no easy way unless you have a store in town that buys from known suppliers and charges correspondingly.