Fructose

Sources: This garbage is found in everything from soda to cereal. It’s literally in thousands of products. Read your labels.

The “fat carb” has been in our food supply for more 35 years. We’ve been led to believe that fructose from high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is akin to naturally occurring sugar, the same that’s found in fruit. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fructose from HFCS is not the same as the molecule from sucrose (table sugar), or fruit leveulose. [1] Is it any wonder they have worked so hard to link HFCS to something natural and healthy like fruit?

The problem is our bodies metabolize HFCS differently than sucrose or fruit leveulose. When we consume sucrose, our bodies convert it into glucose, which raises our blood glucose levels. We then get an insulin spike to shuttle the glucose where it’s needed. When we consume HFCS, unlike natural sugar, it is metabolized in the liver and produces high triglyceride levels which are linked to heart disease. In addition, HFCS does not induce insulin secretion, nor does it boost leptin production, both of which are key signals for decreasing hunger. Hence, the name “fat carb.” Eat it, get fat. Eat more, get fatter.

Russ Bianchi, a pharmacologist and toxicologist, explains: “There is no safe form of fructose available from any source, unless already existing in an unprocessed apple or other piece of fruit. The science is known and epidemiologically proven.” [2]

If you follow the obesity epidemic in the U.S., you’ll find that Americans are eating less fat. In 1965, men ate an average of 139 grams and women 83 grams of fat per day. In 1995, men ate 101 grams and women ate 65 grams of fat per day. [3] With the way fat has been demonized over the last four decades, you’d expect an increase in fat consumption to be the main cause of the obesity epidemic, yet it’s not.

What does mirror the increase in fat Americans is the consumption pattern of HFCS. Between the years of 1970 and 1990, HFCS consumption increased 1000% and today represents 40% of the sweeteners added to foods and beverages. In fact, HFCS is the sole caloric sweetener in soft drinks in the United States. Is it any wonder that obesity is an epidemic? One of the main ingredients in our food supply not only converts to fat when we consume it, it facilitates fat storage. And Americans as a whole are eating more and more and more.

Trans Fat

Sources: Any foods containing “shortening,” “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” or “hydrogenated vegetable oil” in the ingredients list.

These manmade fats, like fructose, are in thousands of products. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading food labels. However, do not be fooled by products that claim “zero trans fat”. Showing the power the edible oil and processed food industries have, the FDA agreed to allow food labels to list trans fat as zero if it contains a half a gram or less. And yes, small amounts of trans fat will yield negative consequences over time.

Decades of research show the consumption of trans fats to be detrimental to health. As early as the 1940s, researchers found a strong correlation between cancer, heart disease and the consumption of hydrogenated fats. [4]

What are trans fats? They are poison in our food supply. The latest government study confirms that trans fat is directly related with heart disease and increases LDL cholesterol. Because of that, the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, declared, “There is no safe amount of trans fat in the diet.” [5] “There should be a warning on food made with this stuff like there is on nicotine products. It’s that bad for you.”, says Dr. Jeffery Aron, a University of California at San Francisco professor of medicine and one of the nation’s leading experts on fatty acids and their effect on the body. [6]

Poison is the most appropriate description of trans fat I can think of. These man-made fats are literally toxins in our bodies. Trans fat is produced through the process of hydrogenation. This process turns polyunsaturated oils into fats that are solid at room temperature, which are used to make products like margarine and shortening.

1. Mercola, J. “Debate about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup.” Mercola.com
2. “Is lots of fructose water foolhardy? Apology, too.” Sugarshockblog.com, 13 September 2005.
3. Anand, Rajen S., “Is fat consumption Really Decreasing?” Family Econ and Nut Rev. Summer 1998.
4. USDA Economic Research Service.
5. Severson, Kim. “Trans fat in food: as bad as it gets. Scientists’ warning likely to bring listing on nutrition labels.” San Francisco Chronicle. 11 Jan, 2002. SFGate.com
6. Severson, Kim. “Hidden Killer, It’s trans fat. It’s dangerous. And it’s in food you eat everyday.” San Francisco Chronicle. 30 January, 2002. SFGate.com

Unless you’ve been in a vacuum, you’re aware that the U.S. has a little bit of a weight problem. As a matter of fact, if you’re born in this country your chance of being overweight is greater than 60 percent. One of the many great benefits of coconut oil, specifically the medium chain fatty acids (MCFA) it contains, is its ability to increase energy expenditure. In other words, it increases your metabolism.

Unlike long chain fatty acids (LCFA’s), MCFA’s are processed very easily by the body. When they are consumed, MCFA’s are absorbed directly into the blood stream from the small intestines and go right to the liver. Once in the liver, they are easily burned as fuel. Because of their size and the ease in which they are processed, MCFA’s are not readily stored as fat. On the contrary, because of their size, LCFA’s are not as efficiently processed and the body prefers to store them in fat cells.

MCFA’s metabolism boosting effects have been known for decades and are heavily documented through research:

In a study, researchers compared the thermogenic effect between MCFA’s and LCFA’s after single meals. The meals of 400 calories consisted entirely of either MCFA’s or LCFA’s. The thermogenic effect of MCFA’s over six hours was three times greater than that of LCFA’s. Researchers concluded that as long as the calorie level remained constant, substituting MCFA’s for LCFA’s would result in weight loss. [1]

Farmers found that when they fed their livestock feed that contained polyunsaturated oils like soy and corn oil, animals readily gained weight. However, when they used feed that incorporated coconut oil, the animals got leaner. The main reason for this is that polyunsaturated fats suppress thyroid function, which decreases the animal’s metabolic rate. Soy oils are the worst offenders because of the goitrogens (anti thyroid substances) they contain. [2] This is what happens to us. Is it any wonder the obesity epidemic is so bad when our consumption of vegetable fats has increased more than 400%? [3]

Researchers at Vanderbilt University compared the thermogenic effect of liquid diets containing 40 percent of fat as either MCFA’s or LCFA’s. All subjects were studied for one week on each diet in a double blind, cross-over design. Resting metabolic rate did not change during the week. The thermogenic response to MCFA’s was roughly twice that of the LCFA’s. [4]

A study was published last year conducted by researchers at McGill University to evaluate existing data describing the effects of MCFA’s on energy expenditure and to determine their efficacy as agents in the treatment of obesity. They reported that several different studies have shown weight loss equivalent to 12 to 36 pounds a year simply by changing the types of oils used in everyday cooking and food preparation. Animal and human studies have shown greater energy expenditure, less body weight gain, and decreased size of fatty deposits when using MCFA’s as opposed to LCFA’s. [5]

Sources of Coconut oil:
Only use organic virgin coconut oil. I am currently using Tropical Traditions Virgin Coconut Oil. This oil is truly unrefined and made from organic coconuts. It contains a very high lauric acid content between 50 and 57 percent. I use between two and four tablespoons per day, which is what is recommended.

References
1. Seaton, T.B., et al. “Thermogenic effect of medium chain and long chain triglycerides in man.” Am J of Clin Nutr. 1986;44:630

2. Daniel, Kayla T. The Whole Soy Story. Washington, New Trends Publishing, 2005.

3. Enig, Mary., and Sally Fallon. “Myths and Truths about Beef.”westonaprice.org www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtbeef.html

4. Hill, J., et al. “Thermogenesis in humans during overfeeding with medium chain triglycerides.” Metabolism. 1989 July;38(7)641-8. www.ncbi.nlm.gov

5. Jones, P. “Physiological effects of medium-chain triglycerides: potential agents in the prevention of obesity.” J Nutr. 2002 March;132(3):329-32. www.thyroid.about.com

Trans fat roles in the body include:
• Lowers high density lipoproteins (HDL), otherwise known as the “good
cholesterol”.2
• Raises low density lipoproteins (LDL), otherwise known as the “bad cholesterol”.2
• Raises C-reactive protein, a substance in the blood that indicates arterial inflammation and is said to indicate proneness to heart disease.3
• Raises Lipoprotein (a) (Lp(a)), a substance in the blood that indicates arterial inflammation and is said to indicate proneness to heart disease.4
• Raises C-reactive protein, a substance in the blood that indicates arterial inflammation and is said to indicate proneness to heart disease.5
• Promotes improper management of blood sugar thus having detrimental effects in diabetics.6
• Interferes with the function of the immune system.7
• Decreases the bodies ability to utilize and decreases the amount of the healthy omega-3 fatty acids in our tissues.7

What are trans fats? They are poison in our food supply. “The latest government study confirms that trans fat is directly related with heart disease and increases LDL cholesterol. Because of that, the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, declared there is no safe amount of trans fat in the diet.”8 “There should be a warning on food made with this stuff like there is on nicotine products. It’s that bad for you, says Dr. Jeffery Aron, a University of California at San Francisco professor of medicine and one of the nation’s leading experts on fatty acids and their effect on the body.9

(Fats, cholesterol, and the lipid hypothesis)

Sources of saturated fat: Beef, beef tallow (fat), dairy, palm oil, coconut oil.

Saturated fats’ roles in the body include: [1]

• They constitute at least 50% of our cell membranes and give our cells integrity.
• They play a vital role in the health of our bones.
• They lower Lp(a), a substance in the blood that is said to indicate proneness to heart disease.
• They protect the liver from alcohol and other toxins like Tylenol (Acetaminophen).
• They enhance the immune system.
• They are needed for proper utilization of essential fatty acids.
• Stearic acid and palmitic acid, both saturated fats, are the preferred energy source of the heart. This is why the fat around the heart muscle is mainly saturated. The best sources for palmitic acid are beef, butter and palm oil.
• Short and medium chain saturated fatty acids have strong antimicrobial properties. They help protect us from harmful microorganisms. The best sources are tropical oils such as coconut oil and palm oil.
(Enig, Mary., and Sally Fallon. “The Skinny on Fats,” westonaprice.org

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/skinny.html#benefits)

A recent meta-analysis with almost 347,747 subjects assessed the correlation between saturated fat consumption and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Conclusion: A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CVD. More data are needed to elucidate whether CVD risks are likely to be influenced by the specific nutrients used to replace saturated fat. Gee, wonder what those nutrients could be…vegetable oil anyone. (Wise Traditions Spring 2010;11(1):15) (Amer J Clin Nutr)

Take note of the lack of fan fare for studies going against established dogma like the lipid hypothesis. Did you see this study’s results in magazines or TV? The mainstream media deems studies like this to be politically incorrect. None-the-less,the lipid hypothesis is simply archaic and untenable.

Symptoms of low testosterone levels in men include decreased libido, erectile dysfunction, depression, osteoporosis, weight gain, muscle loss, diabetes, heart disease, and decreased physical performance. Unfortunately, 1 out of 4 men above the age of thirty in the US has lower than normal testosterone levels and will experience some of these symptoms.

Age, which we have little control over, obviously plays a big role in lower testosterone. Are there other factors that we can control, such as nutrition?

A study involving 42 men with normal blood sugar levels, 23 with pre-diabetic blood sugar levels, and 9 with type 2 diabetes was performed to make testing for testosterone levels more accurate. In the process however, researchers discovered that eating sugar cuts a man’s testosterone levels significantly.

Each participant was given a sugary solution and then had their testosterone levels checked. Regardless of whether the participants had diabetes or not, blood levels of testosterone dropped by as much as 25% and remained low for a period of 2 hours. 15% of the participants with normal testosterone levels before the test experienced a drop in testosterone so low they could be classified as having hypogonadism, which would require hormonal replacement therapy. (Alternatives.13(9);2010)

If nothing else, you’ll lose body fat and achieve a higher level of overall health by cutting out sugar. Sugar has been associated with diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and many more. Now you can add improved testosterone levels to the list

Nutritional and Physical Degeneration is one of the most ground-breaking books ever written on the link between nutrition and health. Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist from Cleveland, became very disturbed by what he saw in his patients. He started to see a link between the decay he found in the mouths of his patients and pathologies found elsewhere in the body like diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, gastrointestinal complaints, and more. Dr. Price also found that crowded, crooked teeth were becoming more and more common, along with facial deformities like overbites, narrow faces, lack of well defined cheek bones, and underdevelopment of the nose. Dr. Price did not believe these problems to be in any way normal; He believed they were the result of poor nutrition. The worse a person’s diet was the more decay he found in their mouth. The more decay a person had in their mouth, the higher the rate of pathologies in other areas of the body.

More than 70 years ago Dr. Price decided to search the world for primitive people who lived entirely on indigenous foods. His travels took him from islands in the South Seas to Alaska to Africa and many places in between. He visited Australian Aborigines, Swiss villages, Eskimos, traditional American Indians, Amoazonian Indians, African tribes, and more. Dr. Price and his wife Florence traveled for ten years during the 1920′s and 30′s when groups of people completely isolated from civilization could be found.

Throughout his travels, Dr. Price kept a record of his findings with pictures and detailed assessments. What he found, to be called astounding, is an understatement. Dr, Price discovered that primitive people untouched by civilization, who subsided on a diet of indigenous food, had outstanding physical development with little to no dental problems, heart disease, diabetes, or any other diseases we know believe to be a normal consequence of life.

Dr. Price’s findings were not surprising to other investigators and explorers. However, the excepted explanation at the time was that primitive people were “racially pure” and that the maladies we see in civilization were due to “race mixing”. This theory was untenable to Dr. Price who found that the individuals in groups he studied who abandoned their traditional diets for foods provided by traders or missionaries, or who moved to a more civilized area were found to develop tooth decay and degenerative conditions.

The diets of these primitive groups of people were vastly different. Some were mostly cooked food while in others most of the food was consumed raw including animal sources. Some diets were based on sea food, others on domestic animals and others on wild game. Some diets were based on dairy while others consumed a variety of fruits and vegetables and grains.

The common thread between all the groups Dr. Price investigated was none of them contained any refined devitalized foods like white sugar, flour, pasteurized or skim milk, and refined or hydrogenated vegetable oils. All the diets contained animal foods of some type and some salt. Dr. Price analyzed the primitive diets and found they all contained four times the amount of water soluble vitamins and minerals, and ten times the amount of fat soluble vitamins compared to the modern American diet.

Unfortunately, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, the permanent record of his travels, is nonexistent to today’s modern medical community. This book is more important to our health and welfare today than it was 60 years ago. Our food supply, if it could be classified as food, is devoid of almost all nutritive value. We need to incorporate the fundamentals of primitive nutrition and return to nutrient dense whole food. We need to get back to local farming and turn away from manmade supermarket garbage that is destroying our health.

Anyone interested in becoming truly healthy needs to read Nutrition and physical degeneration

Today in the United States one person will die from CVD every 37 seconds. This year in the U.S. over 1.2 million people will have a heart attack and just short of half will die. Approximately 80,000,000 people or roughly 25% of The U.S. has cardiovascular disease(CVD). It became our number one killer in the 1950′s and has not slowed down.(1)

Do you believe consuming saturated fat and cholesterol cause CVD? Do you believe eating polyunsaturated oils like canola and corn oil are not only good for you but lower your risk of CVD. If you answered yes to both of these questions, you are among the 10′s of millions who need to be enlightened by reading my article “Fats, Cholesterol and the Lipd Hypothesis”.

The truth is, saturated fat and cholesterol have nothing to do with your risk of cardiovascular disease. As a matter of fact there are many studies that show that people who have heart attacks do not eat anymore saturated fat than people who don’t have heart attacks. More-over the degree of atherosclerosis at autopsy, in heart attack victims, is unrelated to diet. It is also interesting to note that half of all heart attack victims do not have “clogged” arteries.

I have personally witnessed and cared for many patients who were experiencing (the big one) massive heart attacks in the emergency room. The degree of blockage had a wide range with the most common seemingly being between 80, 90 percent. But the interesting thing was, some people literally had no plaque what-so-ever according to cath lab reports. It was during my time working in emergency department, because of so many discrepancies, that I became very curious about what actually caused CVD.

“Behold: the world’s 10 fattest countries” a recent article published on the GlobalPost, discusses the world-wide rise in obesity and ranks the top 10 fattest countries. Although the author mentions processed food and inactivity as the causes of obesity, she fails to go into detail. I do not feel an article on the obesity epidemic is doing justice by not mentioning sugar, in particular high fructose corn syrup, or vegetable oils. These two foods, and I use the term “foods” loosely, Are increasing in use around the world as they have in the US. Vegetable oil consumption in the US, including hydrogenated oils, has increased 437%. (1) Sugar consumption went from 5 pounds per year in 1900 to 163 pounds per year today. From 1970 to the present, fructose and vegetable oil consumption have increased over four fold.(2) During this same time saturated fat has decreased over 20%.

Because we’ve decreased saturated fat consumption and increasing vegetable oil and carbohydrate consumption like the “experts” at the AMA and the ADA (American Dietetics Association) have advised for decades, you’s think we’d be getting healthier. However, we in the US are getting fatter and more unhealthy and are taking the world with us.

1. America Samoa 93.5% – percent of population that is overweight
2. Kiribati 81.5%
3. U.S. 66.7%
4. Germany 66.5%
5. Egypt 66%
6. Bosnia-Herzegovina 62.9%
7. New Zealand 62.7%
8. Isreal 61.9%
9. Croatia 61.4%
10. United Kingdom 61%

HFCS has been marketed as a “natural sugar” being just like the sugar found in fruit. Well nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is it molecularly unlike leveulose, fruit sugar, it is also metabolized and absorbed differently. HFCS is very cheap and has made its way into literally tens of thousands of products from bread to beer. And unfortunately it’s even used in health foods from protein bars to powders. Read about why this heavily marketed product should be avoided completely here.