Corn Oil and Cancer: Reality Strikes Again

The benefits of corn oil keep rolling in. In a new study by Stephen Freedland's group at Duke, feeding mice a diet rich in butter and lard didn't promote the growth of transplanted human prostate cancer cells any more than a low-fat diet (1).

Why do we care? Because other studies, including one from the same investigators, show that corn oil and other industrial seed oils strongly promote prostate cancer cell growth and increase mortality in similar models (2, 3).

From the discussion section:

Current results combined with our prior results suggest that lowering the fat content of a primarily saturated fat diet offers little survival benefit in an intact or castrated LAPC-4 xenograft model. In contrast to the findings when omega-6 fats are used, these results raise the possibility that fat type may be as important as fat amount or perhaps even more important.

The authors seem somewhat surprised and pained by the result. Kudos for publishing it. However, there's nothing to be surprised about. There's a large body of evidence implicating excess omega-6 fat in a number of cancer models. Reducing omega-6 to below 4% of calories has a dramatic effect on cancer incidence and progression*. In fact, there have even been several experiments showing that butter and other animal fats promote cancer growth to a lesser degree than margarine and omega-6-rich seed oils. I discussed that here.

I do have one gripe with the study. They refer to the diet as "saturated fat based". That's inaccurate terminology. I see it constantly in the diet-health literature. If it were coconut oil, then maybe I could excuse it, because coconut fat is 93% saturated. But this diet was made of lard and butter, the combination of which is probably about half saturated. The term "animal fat" or "low-omega-6 fat" would have been more accurate. At least they listed the diet composition. Many studies don't even bother, leaving it to the reader to decide what they mean by "saturated fat".


* The average American eats 7-8% omega-6 by calories. This means it will be difficult to see a relationship between omega-6 intake and cancer (or heart disease, or most things) in observational studies in the US or other industrial nations, because we virtually all eat more than 4% of calories as omega-6. Until the 20th century, omega-6 intake was below 4%, and usually closer to 2%, in most traditional societies. That's where it remains in contemporary traditional societies unaffected by industrial food habits, such as Kitava. Our current omega-6 intake is outside the evolutionary norm.

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19.00 | 0 comments

Healthy Do it Yourself Finger Foods

They are great at parties and family get-togethers. They are a wonderful alternative to a filling meal at important functions of just about any type. For those who don’t know, I’m talking about finger foods. Easy to prepare and even easier to eat, make some healthy finger foods for yourself and see how versatile they can be.

Finger foods make great snacks on the go. Take cheese for instance. It provides calcium and protein which we need each day. At about ten in the morning, it’s not quite time for lunch, but it is a good time for cheese snack. Cut a slice off of a block and enjoy. Buying a block of cheese is more economical than a bag of cheese sticks if you plan on using it as a snack quite often. Saving money is just one more reason to turn to cheese as a healthy snack.

When it comes to finger foods, think about how you can recreate some of your own favorites at home. There are two benefits to making your own. One, you save money. Two, your foods are fresher. If you’ve eaten a lot of processed food, it might take a bit of getting used to when it comes to eating fresh fare. The taste is like no other. Even beans have a sweet taste when they are fresh. Fresh foods are not only better for you, but they taste better, are crunchier and taste clean.

Chicken is the most all around food you can find. You can bake, broil, roast, sauté, and fry (but because we are aiming for healthy, we won’t do that) it. It can be cubed, sliced, julienne, and diced. Cut it into strips and bread them to make chicken fries. These are great for those days when you should eat lunch but you don’t really feel like it. A few chicken strips and a piece of cheese will replenish your protein.

Crackers are also a perfect snack food. They are good on their own, but taste even better with some type of topping. For instance, a piece of cheese between two crackers with a little slice of ham is a handy and tasteful snack. You can also spread some cream cheese or peanut butter on your crackers. Kids may enjoy strawberry jam or grape jelly between two crackers. This is definitely a healthy alternative to cake or a piece of candy. Make up a few of your favorite cracker snacks the night before and chill them for the next morning.

If all else fails, go for some snacks that you can pick up in the store. Be careful though. Read food labels to check fat, cholesterol, and sodium content per serving. Some excellent choices are baked chips, granola bars, and roasted nuts. Low fat luncheon meats can be wrapped around cheese or fruit slices for a healthy little snack.

Don’t forget fresh fruits and veggies. For a vegetable treat, cut up some broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, carrots, or other favorites and serve with ranch dip. Mix it up by cutting up some fresh fruit such as apples, pears, strawberries, and watermelon and serving with a bit of cream cheese for dipping.

These are great finger foods to keep around for those days when you’re busy and don’t have time to prepare something. Keep fresh fruits in a bowl on the counter to grab as you’re going out the door or for the kids when they get home from school. Keep containers of vegetables and your favorite dip or dressing in the refrigerator to do the same.

Finger foods aren’t reserved just for parties. Choose quick and healthy finger foods and eat them anytime you get the urge for a snack.

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05.21 | 0 comments

Cookies You CAN Eat

Have you ever met a person who didn’t like cookies? I haven’t. But, I often feel guilty about the calories I’ve consumed while eating those scrumptious treats. We all know that cookies can be fattening. I try to eat just one but that works about as well as it does with the potato chips. So, this just means that we need to get creative with our cookie baking in order to make them healthier. Here are some ideas to make your next batch of cookies, ones you can get away with eating without feeling guilty.

First, let’s start with the ingredients. Avoid using prepared cookie dough in the store. It is loaded with preservatives even if the cookies are sugar free. Making homemade cookies gives us an advantage in this aspect because we don’t need to preserve our dough or the finished cookie. They will probably be eaten long before they pass their freshness date so only fresh ingredients should be used.

When making cookies, the basic dough is usually the same for most recipes. You need flour, eggs, and sugar. Cholesterol watchers can mix in egg substitute instead of regular eggs. Splenda is now formulated for use in baking even though it is a sugar substitute and can be used in our homemade healthy cookies. Be prepared though, the cookies may taste differently and require more or less baking time when using these substitutions so be sure to keep this in mind when using them.

Now, it’s time for some fun. You get to add the special ingredients to the cookies. You know, the yummy ingredients that make the cookies taste oh so good. For chocolate chip cookies, instead of using regular chocolate chips, add a few of the mini chocolate chips. You use less chocolate even though it looks like more. There will be just enough sweetness in every bite to keep you satisfied, but not enough to expand your hips and waist.

Fiber is a nutrient that helps us to stay regular. Certain fibers latch on to fats in the digestive system and flush them right out of the body. The more fiber you eat the more fat it can potentially flush out of your system. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Fiber comes in many forms. Whole grains provide fiber so to add this healthy ingredient to your cookies, include some wheat germ, quinoa, oat bran, or whole oats to your cookie mixture. You can also add a bit of nutmeg or cinnamon to bring a somewhat spicy flavor to cookies.

Another tasty ingredient that goes well in cookies is dried fruit. Dried fruit not only gives you the goodness of fruit to your cookies, but it also can add color to them. We traditionally see raisins in cookies, but it’s time to shake things up. How about dried dates, apricot pieces, or cranberries? Give it your best shot. Experiment and see what inventive cookies you and your family members can come up with.

Remember, you don’t have to put all of these ingredients in one cookie. You can make several batches of tasty, healthy cookies, so try a new taste every day and see how many you can come up with.

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05.19 | 0 comments

Snacks – How Many and How Often are Good for You

There are many schools of thought about how many snacks are ok to eat and how often to eat them. Snacking has long been thought to be a bad thing. If, like me, you disagree and feel that snacking is the best way to avoid overeating keep reading. Whether one is trying to maintain their current weight, trying to lose weight, or eat healthier overall here are some tips and suggestions for snacking the healthy way.

When most think of snacking, things like French fries, candy bars, ice cream cones, or potato chips, come to mind. It’s no wonder the majority of people associate snacking with something negative. All of these “bad snacks” can add just as many, if not more, calories than a regular meal. Don’t despair, however. It is possible to snack without adding all the fat and calories.

Think of the examples named above. Instead of giving up their favorites, snack lovers need only change their snack choices to a better for you substitute. For instance, a bag of fast food fries can easily become a baked sweet or russet potato fries with fresh herbs or cinnamon sprinkled on top. Now, that sounds like a tasty snack and it’s healthier.

As for that candy bar, it’s really the chocolate most are after when they grab their favorite one. The nougat, peanut butter and caramel are good but don’t be fooled, it’s the chocolate craving that gets candy bar lovers. In place of those pound adding candy bars, make some granola bars. Use rolled oats, bran, crunchy clusters, and chocolate chips. Dark chocolate is supposed to be better for us, so try some dark chocolate pieces inside or drizzle a bit of dark chocolate on top. Anytime you need a snack, grab a granola bar instead of a candy bar.

For many die hard snack addicts, ice cream is a big one to overcome. If this sounds like you, have confidence in yourself and try something just as cool and sweet, but even better for you. Whip up some smoothie mix and freeze it in a container for at least twenty-four hours. When that ice cream craving hits, scoop some smoothie into a bowl and top it with nuts and a dab of whipped cream. Before you know it, you’ll be craving yummy fruit or veggie smoothies instead of that fattening ice cream.

Next, let’s talk about how often to snack. The more times you eat, the more revved up your metabolism will be. However, it’s necessary to eat the right foods in order for this not to backfire. Unfortunately, this is where many people go wrong. If you keep only the freshest and healthiest foods in your home, all of your choices will be good. So, as hard as it may be, curb that urge to load up on sweet, junk food on your next trip to the grocery store.

Ideally you should have 3 snacks a day; one during the middle of the morning, another mid-afternoon, and lastly, one after dinner. That’s three snacks to complement three meals. Also, remember that quantity matters when it comes to snacks, just like it does meal portions. Snacks are not meant to be entire meals but they are supposed to be delicious or you won’t eat them. By not snacking at all you actually make yourself too hungry. This leads to overeating at meal times. Beyond that, you will opt for dining out more often if you feel starved because you haven’t munched on a few healthy snacks throughout the day.

Contrary to popular belief, snacking is good for you, but only if you make your treat choices healthy ones. Keeping good for you snacks on hand will make snacking healthy even easier. So, snack away, but make them good snacks in order to reap the most benefits.

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05.41 | 0 comments

Magnesium and Insulin Sensitivity

From a paper based on US NHANES nutrition and health survey data (1):

During 1999–2000, the diet of a large proportion of the U.S. population did not contain adequate magnesium... Furthermore, racial or ethnic differences in magnesium persist and may contribute to some health disparities.... Because magnesium intake is low among many people in the United States and inadequate magnesium status is associated with increased risk of acute and chronic conditions, an urgent need exists to perform a current survey to assess the physiologic status of magnesium in the U.S. population.

Magnesium is an essential mineral that's slowly disappearing from the modern diet, as industrial agriculture and industrial food processing increasingly dominate our food choices. One of the many things it's necessary for in mammals is proper insulin sensitivity and glucose control. A loss of glucose control due to insulin resistance can eventually lead to diabetes and all its complications.

Magnesium status is associated with insulin sensitivity (2, 3), and a low magnesium intake predicts the development of type II diabetes in most studies (4, 5) but not all (6). Magnesium supplements largely prevent diabetes in a rat model* (7). Interestingly, excess blood glucose and insulin themselves seem to reduce magnesium status, possibly creating a vicious cycle.

In a 1993 trial, a low-magnesium diet reduced insulin sensitivity in healthy volunteers by 25% in just four weeks (8). It also increased urinary thromboxane concentration, a potential concern for cardiovascular health**.

At least three trials have shown that magnesium supplementation increases insulin sensitivity in insulin-resistant diabetics and non-diabetics (9, 10, 11). In some cases, the results were remarkable. In type II diabetics, 16 weeks of magnesium supplementation improved fasting glucose, calculated insulin sensitivity and HbA1c*** (12). HbA1c dropped by 22 percent.

In insulin resistant volunteers with low blood magnesium, magnesium supplementation for four months reduced estimated insulin resistance by 43 percent and decreased fasting insulin by 32 percent (13). This suggests to me that magnesium deficiency was probably one of the main reasons they were insulin resistant in the first place. But the study had another very interesting finding: magnesium improved the subjects' blood lipid profile remarkably. Total cholesterol decreased, LDL decreased, HDL increased and triglycerides decreased by a whopping 39 percent. The same thing had been reported in the medical literature decades earlier when doctors used magnesium injections to treat heart disease, and also in animals treated with magnesium. Magnesium supplementation also suppresses atherosclerosis (thickening and hardening of the arteries) in animal models, a fact that I may discuss in more detail at some point (14, 15).

In the previous study, participants were given 2.5 g magnesium chloride (MgCl2) per day. That's a bit more than the USDA recommended daily allowance (MgCl2 is mostly chloride by weight), in addition to what they were already getting from their diet. Most of a person's magnesium is in their bones, so correcting a deficiency by eating a nutritious diet may take a while.

Speaking of nutritious diets, how does one get magnesium? Good sources include halibut, leafy greens, chocolate and nuts. Bone broths are also an excellent source of highly absorbable magnesium. Whole grains and beans are also fairly good sources, while refined grains lack most of the magnesium in the whole grain. Organic foods, particularly artisanally produced foods from a farmer's market, are richer in magnesium because they grow on better soil and often use older varieties that are more nutritious.

The problem with seeds such as grains, beans and nuts is that they also contain phytic acid which prevents the absorption of magnesium and other minerals (16). Healthy non-industrial societies that relied on grains took great care in their preparation: they soaked them, often fermented them, and also frequently removed a portion of the bran before cooking (17). These steps all served to reduce the level of phytic acid and other anti-nutrients. I've posted a method for effectively reducing the amount of phytic acid in brown rice (18). Beans should ideally be soaked for 24 hours before cooking, preferably in warm water.

Industrial agriculture has systematically depleted our soil of many minerals, due to high-yield crop varieties and the fact that synthetic fertilizers only replace a few minerals. The mineral content of foods in the US, including magnesium, has dropped sharply in the last 50 years. The reason we need to use fertilizers in the first place is that we've broken the natural nutrient cycle in which minerals always return to the soil in the same place they were removed. In 21st century America, minerals are removed from the soil, pass through our toilets, and end up in the landfill or in waste water. This will continue until we find an acceptable way to return human feces and urine to agricultural soil, as many cultures do to this day****.

I believe that an adequate magnesium intake is critical for proper insulin sensitivity and overall health.


* Zucker rats that lack leptin signaling

** Thromboxane A2 is an omega-6 derived eicosanoid that potently constricts blood vessels and promotes blood clotting. It's interesting that magnesium has such a strong effect on it. It indicates that fatty acid balance is not the only major influence on eicosanoid production.

*** Glycated hemoglobin. A measure of the average blood glucose level over the past few weeks.

**** Anyone interested in further reading on this should look up The Humanure Handbook

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21.00 | 0 comments

Lindeberg on Obesity

I'm currently reading Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's magnum opus Food and Western Disease, recently published in English for the first time. Dr. Lindeberg is one of the world's leading experts on the health and diet of non-industrial cultures, particularly in Papua New Guinea. The book contains 2,034 references. It's also full of quotable statements. Here's what he has to say about obesity:

Middle-age spread is a normal phenomenon - assuming you live in the West. Few people are able to maintain their [youthful] waistline after age 50. The usual explanation - too little exercise and too much food - does not fully take into account the situation among traditional populations. Such people are usually not as physically active as you may think, and they usually eat large quantities of food.

Overweight has been extremely rare among hunter-gatherers and other traditional cultures [18 references]. This simple fact has been quickly apparent to all foreign visitors...

The Kitava study measured height, weight, waist circumference, subcutaneous fat thickness at the back of the upper arm (triceps skinfold) and upper arm circumference on 272 persons ages 4-86 years. Overweight and obesity were absent and average [body mass index] was low across all age groups. ...no one was larger around their waist than around their hips.

...The circumference of the upper arm [mostly indicating muscle mass] was only negligibly smaller on Kitava [compared with Sweden], which indicates that there was no malnutrition. It is obvious from our investigations that lack of food is an unknown concept, and that the surplus of fruits and vegetables regularly rots or is eaten by dogs.

The Population of Kitava occupies a unique position in the world in terms of the negligible effect that the Western lifestyle has had on the island.

The only obese Kitavans Dr. Lindeberg observed were two people who had spent several years off the island living a modern, urban lifestyle, and were back on Kitava for a visit.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who has a scholarly interest in health and nutrition, and somewhat of a background in science and medicine. It's extremely well referenced, which makes it much more valuable.

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17.18 | 0 comments

Dissolve Away those Pesky Bones with Corn Oil

I just read an interesting paper from Gabriel Fernandes's group at the University of Texas. It's titled "High fat diet-induced animal model of age-associated obesity and osteoporosis". I was expecting this to be the usual "we fed mice industrial lard for 60% of calories and they got sick" paper, but I was pleasantly surprised. From the introduction:

CO [corn oil] is known to promote bone loss, obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, insulin resistance and thus represents a useful model for studying the early stages in the development of obesity, hyperglycemia, Type 2 diabetes [23] and osteoporosis. We have used omega-6 fatty acids enriched diet as a fat source which is commonly observed in today's Western diets basically responsible for the pathogenesis of many diseases [24].

Just 10% of the diet as corn oil (roughly 20% of calories), with no added omega-3, on top of an otherwise poor laboratory diet, caused:

• Obesity
• Osteoporosis
• The replacement of bone marrow with fat cells
  
• Diabetes
• Insulin resistance
  
• Generalized inflammation
• Elevated liver weight (possibly indicating fatty liver)
  

Hmm, some of these sound familiar... We can add them to the findings that omega-6 also promotes various types of cancer in rodents (1).

20% fat is less than the amount it typically takes to make a rodent this sick. This leads me to conclude that corn oil is particularly good at causing mouse versions of some of the most common facets of the "diseases of civilization". It's exceptionally high in omega-6 (linoleic acid) with virtually no omega-3.

Make sure to eat your heart-healthy corn oil! It's made in the USA, dirt cheap and it even lowers cholesterol!

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17.43 | 0 comments

Healthy Eating Meals

Why People Need to Do Healthy Eating Meals

Body should be maintained, and to take care of one way to provide sufficient weapons on human bodies such as Carbohydrate, fat, protein, and nutrients to the human body can remain healthy and run normal. And one way that the body can get enough input to make healthy eating meals on regular basis

Healthy eating meals need be done because human beings need energy to perform various activities such as walking, thinking, breathing, and other actions, and this energy is taken from the existing fat in the body or from the food consumed daily, and if you do not make healthy eating meal, then gradually in the body's fat reserves will be exhausted, and the body will begin the porch collapsed, and slow, and if ignored will eventually fall ill, so healthy eating meal regularly is important for body health.

Eating healthy is very important since we were in the womb until we are old, because a newborn baby in the womb needs good nutrition in order to develop normally obtained from the mother's placenta, as well as children, they will grow rapidly if the nutrients that the body can need adequate by directly consuming healthy foods because foods contain many nutrients into fuel for our lives everyday, and also have benefits for body such as build bones, organs, muscles, and muscles in the body tissue. And if the body is going through excess or deficiencies of various nutrients such, it will affect the health of the body, which will be made the body sick, and therefore healthy eating meals in a balanced amount needed by the body

Healthy eating meals are also important to prevent the diseases. When we are not getting proper nutrition or a natural body defense system against diseases weakens, so that viruses and bacteria will be easier to attack body, without healthy eating food and lots of water, our bodies can not operate on a daily basis. So it is important to be able to consume healthy foods regularly throughout our lives

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00.24 | 0 comments

FOOD FOR LONG AGE

Many people are willing to pay handsomely for the efforts that could be used to prolong life. A millionaire in America once said : that he was willing to pay $ 1,000,000 to the person who can extend the age for each year. But unfortunately, humans have many limitations, just like any other God's creatures who have limitations in their lives. For example :

1. A dog, on average can only live for over 15 years
2. A bear, on average can only live for 16 years
3. An orang-utan, the average can only live for 26 years
4. A cow, the average can only live for 30 years
5. An elephant, the average can only live for 75 years

What about humans? Some live for the under 10 years, some live to 50 years or 65 years. But not often we find people who live to 100 years more.

A man named Thomas Parr lived as a farmer, died at the age of 152 years in 1635. Similarly Burrinton Joseph, died at the age of 160 years in the year 1790 in Bergen Norway.

In Indonesia the country is also no shortage with their long life. For example, former wife of Bung Karno, Mrs. Garnasi Inggit, has over 100 years of age.

Then who the subject of our thoughts, whether longevity secret? Is that distinguish the age of a person with other people age?

DESCENDANTS FACTOR

Many who thought that the problem of longevity is due to heredity. So when our parents reach the age of 90 years, then we shall reach the age of 90 years. The scientists assume that this theory is true, because in a theory of Dr. Ernest Weser, head of Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York in 1962 on the vital force, said that each human being has a vital force that includes human survival, how long humans can live.

Each human being has a different energy but vital particular. This vital energy can not be increased, but can be reduced, in accordance with the human body's activities. Generally known that a vital energy is closely linked to heredity. So they have a high vital energy, the possibility of their offspring have a high energy is also vital. Thus those who have parents with a long life, the children have the possibility of long lived too. However, this can not fully guarantee a person will have a long life. For example, many people who have a vital energy to live for 75 years, but due to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, then he could have died at the age of less than 75 years. This means that vital energy can be decreased by a factor for bad habits.
One thing to note yag related to hereditary factors is the close relationship with the illness, particularly for heart disease and blood vessel disease. If the structure of the blood vessels that are derived from parent to child was narrow, it will be easier to suffer from heart disease. Families who have heart disease will have a double chance to have a heart attack.

GENDER FACTOR

The research expert on the human age of women reported that age are generally longer than the age of man. The possibility of miscarriage of male babies is twice the baby girl. The death of baby boys is higher than the death of a baby girl. It seems that the gender factor influencing the age not only occurs in humans, but also in animals. A female mice live longer compared with male rats. So it is with a female pigs live longer than the male pig.

FOOD FACTOR

The scientists used a lot of time, effort and money to conduct research on the relationship between food and human life. In the magazine "Time", dated October 28, 1967, there was an article titled "Adventist Advantage". The article contains the news that the aged people in Southern California Adventist 6.2 years longer than in any other population. Dr. Richard Walden and Dr. Frank Lenon said that one reason why the Advent has a long life is that they do not smoke. In other research says that the age of people who do not smoke 3.2 years longer than the age of people who smoke, with the condition of the food you eat is the same. But why the Advent could have 3 years of age even longer than research? The answer turns out to be the food factor. 50% of people in the region Adventist Southern California is a vegetarian. Another example is the Hunza tribe who live below the Himalayan foothills to live up to the age of 90 years to 100 years, at this age have their blood pressure was normal, cholesterol levels are still good and still electrocardioraphy normal. Factor plays an important role of food, food is the Hunza tribe of fruits, nuts, vegetables and grains, a little milk, goat's milk is. They only eat meat once or twice a year. Conclusion vegetarian food provides a greater possibility for a longer life, because many diseases can arise caused by eating meat.

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05.47 | 0 comments

Saturated Fat and Insulin Sensitivity

Insulin sensitivity is a measure of the tissue response to insulin. Typically, it refers to insulin's ability to cause tissues to absorb glucose from the blood. A loss of insulin sensitivity, also called insulin resistance, is a core part of the metabolic disorder that affects many people in industrial nations.

I don't know how many times I've seen the claim in journal articles and on the internet that saturated fat reduces insulin sensitivity. The idea is that saturated fat reduces the body's ability to handle glucose effectively, placing people on the road to diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Given the "selective citation disorder" that plagues the diet-health literature, perhaps this particular claim deserves a closer look.

The Evidence

I found a review article from 2008 that addressed this question (1). I like this review because it only includes high-quality trials that used reliable methods of determining insulin sensitivity*.

On to the meat of it. There were 5 studies in which non-diabetic people were fed diets rich in saturated fat, and compared with a group eating a diet rich in monounsaturated (like olive oil) or polyunsaturated (like corn oil) fat. They ranged in duration from one week to 3 months. Four of the five studies found that fat quality did not affect insulin sensitivity, including one of the 3-month studies.

The fifth study, which is the one that's nearly always cited in the diet-health literature, requires some discussion. This was the KANWU study (2). Over the course of three months, investigators fed 163 volunteers a diet rich in either saturated fat or monounsaturated fat.

The SAFA diet included butter and a table margarine containing a relatively high proportion of SAFAs. The MUFA diet included a spread and a margarine containing high proportions of oleic acid derived from high-oleic sunflower oil and negligible amounts of trans fatty acids and n-3 fatty acids and olive oil.

Yummy. After three months of these diets, there was no significant difference in insulin sensitivity between the saturated fat group and the monounsaturated fat group. Yes, you read that right. Even the study that's selectively cited as evidence that saturated fat causes insulin resistance found no significant difference between the diets. You might not get this by reading the misleading abstract. I'll be generous and acknowledge that the (small) difference was almost statistically significant (p = 0.053).

What the authors decided to focus on instead is the fact that insulin sensitivity declined slightly but significantly on the saturated fat diet compared with the pre-diet baseline. That's why this study is cited as evidence that saturated fat impairs insulin sensitivity. But anyone who has a basic science background will see where this reasoning is flawed (warning: nerd attack. skip the rest of the paragraph if you're not interested). You need a control group for comparison, to take into account normal fluctuations caused by such things as the season, eating mostly cafeteria food, and having a doctor hooking you up to machines. That control group was the group eating monounsaturated fat. The comparison between diet groups was the 'primary outcome', in statistics lingo. That's the comparison that matters, and it wasn't significant. To interpret the study otherwise is to ignore the basic conventions of statistics, which the authors were happy to do. There's a name for it: 'moving the goalpost'. The reviewers shouldn't have let this kind of shenanigans slide.

So we have five studies through 2008, none of which support the idea that saturated fat reduces insulin sensitivity in non-diabetics. Since the review paper was published, I know of one subsequent study that asked the same question (3). Susan J. van Dijk and colleagues fed volunteers with abdominal overweight (beer gut) a diet rich in either saturated fat or monounsaturated fat. I e-mailed the senior author and she said the saturated fat diet was "mostly butter". The specific fats used in the diets weren't mentioned anywhere in the paper, which is a major omission**. In any case, after 8 weeks, insulin sensitivity was virtually identical between the two groups. This study appeared well controlled and used the gold standard method for assessing insulin sensitivity, called the euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp technique***.

The evidence from controlled trials is rather consistent that saturated fat has no appreciable effect on insulin sensitivity.

Why Are We so Focused on Saturated Fat?

Answer: because it's the nutrient everyone loves to hate. As an exercise in completeness, I'm going to mention three dietary factors that actually reduce insulin sensitivity, and get a lot less air time than saturated fat.

#1: Caffeine. That's right, controlled trials show that your favorite murky beverage reduces insulin sensitivity (4, 5). Is it actually relevant to real life? I doubt it. The doses used were large and the studies short-term.

#2: Magnesium deficiency. A low-magnesium diet reduced insulin sensitivity by 25% over the course of three weeks (6). I think this is probably relevant to long-term insulin sensitivity and overall health, although it would be good to have longer-term data. Magnesium deficiency is widespread in industrial nations, due to our over-reliance on refined foods such as sugar, white flour and oils.

#3: Sugar. Fructose reduces insulin sensitivity in humans, along with many other harmful effects (7).

As long as we continue to focus our energy on indicting saturated fat, it will continue distracting us from the real causes of disease.


* For the nerds: euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp (the gold standard), insulin suppression test, or intravenous glucose tolerance test with Minimal Model. They didn't include studies that reported HOMA as their only measure, because it's not very accurate.

** There's this idea that pervades the diet-health literature that all saturated fats are roughly equivalent, all monounsaturated fats are equivalent, etc., therefore it doesn't matter what the source was. This is beyond absurd and reflects our cultural obsession with saturated fat. It really irks me that the reviewers didn't demand this information.

*** They did find that markers of inflammation in fat tissue were higher after the saturated fat diet.

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21.00 | 0 comments

Healthy Valentine’s Meal Ideas

Everyone used to look forward to Valentine’s Day. They got to eat sweets from their sweetie. We are trying to be a bit more health conscious these days so that holidays won’t show in our bodies. If you want to indulge in a sweet treat on Valentine’s Day, make room for it with a healthier meal.

It is not too hard to sneak in a few healthy additions to the meal that your loved ones won’t mind at all. Whether it is a romantic dinner for two, family dinner, or a couples’ dinner party, employ some savvy to come up with a leaner meal.

Start off with a healthy snack that everyone can eat while dinner is baking. Instead of cookies and candies, put out a tray of veggies and fruit. The vegetables can be jazzed up with a vegetable cream cheese or Ranch dressing. For the fruit, use flavored fruit dip. Yogurt flavors like strawberry, peach, or blueberry work well also as a dip.

Get rid of the hot wings for appetizers and opt instead for chicken chunks breaded with Shake-n-Bake or regular breadcrumbs. Cubing boneless, skinless chicken breasts and rolling them in batter saves a lot of calories. Serve them with hot pepper sauce or regular hot sauce and your metabolism will rev up from the heat.

Toss a salad to go with dinner. Instead of store bought croutons on the top, use cubed pieces of wheat bread. Wash them with a little butter or reduced fat margarine and pop them into the oven to bake. They still add crunch to the salad with less fat than regular croutons. Even better would be to sprinkle the salad with shelled sunflower seeds to add crunch.

Soups are a great way to hide lots of vegetables for those who don’t take a shine to them. for Valentine’s Day, serve a simple soup like potato, vegetable, chicken noodle, or tomato. What soup you serve will depend on the meal. The point is that soup helps to fill you up without eating a lot of it.

Now for the meal. It is hard to eat healthy sometimes, especially if there is a holiday celebration going on. Well, Valentine’s Day is no different. Stick with recipes that use lean cuts of beef, pork, or chicken. Seafood can also be used.

Opt for lower fat ingredients in your recipes. If the main course recipe calls for heavy cream, substitute with half and half or light cream. Substitute margarine with butter. Avoid using too much salt. Use salt less seasonings to add flavor to the meal.

Let your healthy meals extend to Valentine’s Day. After all, we are supposed to show love to those who mean the world to us. Keep their heart healthy.

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11.04 | 0 comments

Green Tea Health Benefit

Green tea has long been used in China for over 4000 years as one of the Herbs to treat various diseases in the human body, and one of the green tea health benefit is as antioxidant for the body because green tea contains EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) as one of the antioxidants The most powerful in nature which can help the body from free radical attack, free radicals are one cause of cancer in the body as well as other diseases such as diabetes

Other Green tea health benefit is also beneficial for lowering cholesterol in which the green tea in combination with other nutrients can lower the bad cholesterol or LDL (low density lipoprotein) and keep the good cholesterol or HDL (high density lipoprotein) which can help prevent hardening of the arteries , thus significantly reducing the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Health benefits of green tea also help reduce the effects of aging and also enhance the natural skin color and also reduce body weight because green tea also works to increase metabolism, in which the body can burn more fat and thus can reduce body weight

Green tea benefits health as well help prevent tooth decay because there are nutrients in green tea help destroy bacteria that cause dental plaque, but it also can help prevent food poisoning, and magnesium contained in green tea health beneficial for bone growth, and good for the development of the body. Other minerals are useful for example potassium helps keep the heart work well, and maintain fluid levels in the body.

With any kinds of green tea health benefit above, then there is nothing wrong if you make green tea as a regular beverage to drink that has a delicious taste and many nutrients are beneficial for health bodies.

Green Tea Health Benefit

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17.06 | 0 comments

Thank You

I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has supported me through donations this year. The money has allowed me to buy materials that I wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford, and I feel it has enriched the blog for everyone. Here are some of the books I've bought using donations. Some were quite expensive:

Food and western disease: health and nutrition from an evolutionary perspective. Staffan Lindeberg (just released!!)

Nutrition and disease. Edward Mellanby

Migration and health in a small society: the case of Tokelau. Edited by Albert F. Wessen

The saccharine disease. T. L. Cleave

Culture, ecology and dental anthropology. John R. Lukacs

Vitamin K in health and disease. John W. Suttie

Craniofacial development. Geoffrey H. Sperber

Western diseases: their emergence and prevention. Hugh C. Trowell and Denis P. Burkitt

The ultimate omega-3 diet. Evelyn Tribole

Our changing fare. John Yudkin and colleagues


Donations have also paid for many, many photocopies at the medical library. I'd also like to thank everyone who participates in the community by leaving comments, or by linking to my posts. I appreciate your encouragement, and also the learning opportunities.

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22.21 | 0 comments