Dare I ask-saturated fat question?

[noblehead]

Unlike the drug companies, the food manufacturers, and the public and private health agencies that have intimate financial ties to these industries, I don't profit from cultivating cholesterol paranoia.

Does the proceeds from his book sales go to charity.........does anyone know?

I don't know Nigel. but I can't say I am that bothered. My guess is the book was written to dispel myths around sat fat. There will be other sides of the fence views out there, it's all about reading things then going with what resonates best with you personally I guess.

I agree Jo but I'd like to think that any proceeds from his work would go to a worthy cause given he says he doesn't 'profit from cholesterol paranoia'.

[Defren]

I agree Jo but I'd like to think that any proceeds from his work would go to a worthy cause given he says he doesn't 'profit from cholesterol paranoia'.

I would love to see many more of the wealthier people donate to charity. I honestly don't know if this particular author does, or even if he is wealthy. But, I have to say I do agree with his views. I think many of us have gone ahead believing all Ancel Keys said, even though to this day there is no hard science to back up many of his claims.

Personally I had high cholesterol, I changed my diet and eat lots of sat fat, my cholesterol is now well under the 'safe' range. There again, is low cholesterol safe for woman? Another question with many differing opinions.

[librarising]

noblehead wrote, quoting Kendrick
Unlike the drug companies, the food manufacturers, and the public and private health agencies that have intimate financial ties to these industries, I don't profit from cultivating cholesterol paranoia.


Does the proceeds from his book sales go to charity.........does anyone know?

I doubt it. Do you work for free ? Does that affect how well you do your job ? If you were paid more, would you do unethical things ? I would hope not.
Is it your turn to have a pop at someone who's written a book and to cast aspersions on his motives ?
He's done us a service in uncovering how money/reward-led the current obsession with cholesterol levels really is.

I initially borrowed the book from a library - for free.
I liked it so much I bought a second-hand copy. Someone made some money from me. No sweat.
Or are you against capitalism ?

Geoff (enjoying it while the ad hominem attacks had diminished)

[noblehead]

I would love to see many more of the wealthier people donate to charity.

Now wouldn't that be good, in these hard economic times it would be nice to see some worthy causes benefit from the rich

[Cobra3164]

Hello, I find this subject about saturated fats fascinating. The cause of my diabetes was pancreatitis, and some of the digestive enzymes are dedicated to breaking down fat (All types). After a big bout of this disease I was advised to take up a low fat diet. I have switched some of my eating habits like switching from butter and other high fat spreads to seed oil spreads and fry now in olive oil.

As for saturated fat (not to be mistaken with trans fats) the human body requires small amounts of saturated fat, I do this by just controlling what I eat once a week I will have a pork chop as my dinner which does contain saturated fat. I dont think it is a question of cutting out fats in diet its more about dietry balance and taking control of what you allow into your body, again a small amount of cholesterol is required to help the body function, the only time it becomes dangerous is when cholesterol and saturated are consumed too often causing the body to store it as fat and with cholesterol stays in the bloodstream for some time hence excess can cause a slow but sure buildup on the walls of bloodvessels, and could lead to heart disease. I do believe they key is trying to keep a healthy balance.

Thnx for reading

Simon aka Cobra3164

[anna29]

Hi All.
Reading this thread 'bill gates' popped into my head
He loves to help the more needy than himself !
He was in one of the daily papers only this week and it covered
this fact.
Anna.

[ladybird64]

I hope not Patch..

It was a genuine question, not intended to debate who should donate proceeds from their books to charity..please don't let this drift away from my original question.

It just seem such a dramatic turnaround..I think our Viv may have hit on the reasoning behind it all. It probably is as simple as putting (a possibly dodgy) two and two together.

I haven't time to read all the links, not at the moment but I will. Thank you.

[borofergie]

Unlike the drug companies, the food manufacturers, and the public and private health agencies that have intimate financial ties to these industries, I don't profit from cultivating cholesterol paranoia.

Does the proceeds from his book sales go to charity.........does anyone know?

Why should he? Do you donate all of your salary to charity?

[borofergie]

yes, that's right - big randomised controlled trials that showed if you decrease your saturated fats, you lower your risk of heart disease. If you go to Google Scholar you can see pages and pages of academic articles about it:
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl= ... 5&as_sdtp=

Ummmm, no they didn't: almost every high-quality (prospective) observational study ever conducted has found that saturated fat intake is not associated with heart attack risk (or with increased cholesterol):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648
http://www.ajcn.org/content/77/5/1146.short
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1386252
http://www.ajcn.org/content/67/5/828.short
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0711003145

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 CHD or CVD. More data are needed to elucidate whether CVD risks are likely to be influenced by the specific nutrients used to replace saturated fat.

Saturated fat is only implicated in heart disease as part of the defunct: "diet-heart hypothesis", which states that increased cholesterol causes heart disease, saturated fat increases cholesterol, therefore saturated fat causes heart disease.

This is wrong because (a) it's based on childish logic and (b) saturated fat has only be observed to increase cholesterol in short term trials, over the longer term it has no significant effect.

Stephan Guyenet has a great overview of all that research that links saturated fat consumption with increased cholesterol (spoiler alert: there is none) http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2 ... rease.html

Don't take my word for it (or even Stephan's), you can listen to one of the leading researchers in the field telling you that carbohydrates increase cholesterol, not saturated fats:
http://www.meandmydiabetes.com/2012/04/ ... t-depends/

We looked carefully at the saturated fat effects. With more saturated fat in the diet, we did see a signal for an increase in the overall amount of cholesterol in their blood. But when we looked more carefully, that slightly increased amount of total cholesterol was not being carried by more of the dangerous, small particle LDLs. It seemed to be carried more by larger particles. Actually, in the people eating more fat, and fewer carbs, the total particle concentration, which most people in our field think is a stronger signal of risk that total cholesterol, the total number of particles did not go up.

When people ate more fat and less carbohydrate, the number of small particle LDLs remained low, and switching from monounsaturated to saturated fat didn’t increase their number at all. In fact, when people switched from mono- to saturated fat in this study, the large particle LDLs might have gone up a little bit, and the small particles went down. So by anybody’s current criteria about whats’s important for heart disease risk, saturated fat caused no increase in risk. That was clear to people who understand the role to the lipoprotein particles, as opposed to the overall cholesterol level, which I’m sure for some people is a subtle distinction.

[borofergie]

Rather than plough through the history you might like to look at the last link first which summarises mainstream opinion in 2010 (there is of course more recent research but you have to stop somewhere!)
The role of reducing intakes of saturated fat in the prevention of cardiovascular disease: where does the evidence stand in 2010?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3138219/

Ho hum.

Meta-analyses of cohort studies with self-reported SFA intakes are not associated with CHD, stroke, or CVD

Well at least they are prepared to admit that.

The fact that SFAs raise total and LDL cholesterol (lipid hypothesis) is well established by evidence from metabolic studies

Oh yeah? Where are they then?

As Guyenet says:

the hypothesis that dietary saturated fat increases serum cholesterol. This idea is so deeply ingrained in the scientific literature that many authors don't even bother providing references for it anymore. When references are provided, they nearly always point to the same type of study: short-term controlled diet trials, in which volunteers are fed different fats for 2-13 weeks and their blood cholesterol measured

Overall, the literature does not offer much support for the idea that long term saturated fat intake has a significant effect on the concentration of blood cholesterol in humans. If it's a factor at all, it must be rather weak. It may be that the diet-heart hypothesis rests in part on an over-reliance on the results of short-term controlled feeding studies.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2 ... rease.html

The bottom line is this: if saturated fat does cause increased cholesterol and/or CVD, then the extent of the influence is so small that it does not consistently show up in scientific studies (check out all the flip-flopping in Phoenix's link). It is probably fair to make the assumption that there is no link between saturated fat on cholesterol / CVD or that the effect is so small that it is unlikely to have any clinical significance.

The same cannot be said of dietary carbohydrate.