Saturated fats are not the baddies

daisyduck

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988
Type of diabetes
Type 2
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Diet only
I was just flicking through Twitter and saw a link to this article. Pleased to read that it reinforces as good, what a lot of us are doing on LCHF
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...ign=20170121_saturated-fat-heart-disease-risk

Just part of the article. Good news for me as I'm 61 :)

What Are the Real Risk Factors for Heart Disease?
By failing to differentiate between trans fats and saturated fats, massive confusion has arisen. There’s also confusion about the relationship between saturated fat and cholesterol. Adding to the complexity, there are also different types of saturated fats, which may have different biological effects.

Many saturated fats will raise LDL, the so-called “bad” cholesterol. But LDLs come in various sizes. Large type A particles are less atherogenic and are influenced by saturated fat. Saturated fat also increases HDL, the “good” cholesterol.

“What’s interesting is the saturated fat, even though it may raise LDL, your lipid profile may actually improve [when you eat more saturated fat], especially when you cut the carbs. On top of that, LDL has been grossly exaggerated as a risk factor for heart disease, with the exception of people who have a genetic abnormality (familial hypercholesterolemia),” Malhotra says.

“Certainly when you get over the age of 60, the cardiovascular association between LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular mortality diminishes. It becomes almost negligible. For overall mortality, there is an inverse association with LDL. The higher your LDL, if you’re over 60, the less likely you are to die.

So what is the major issue when you look at heart disease and heart attacks? Insulin resistance ... The reason it’s being neglected is partly this flawed science on cholesterol. But also because there’s never been any effective drugs that target insulin resistance.

Therefore, because [there isn’t a] big market around something to sell, there aren’t many people that know about it. As you and I know, if you target insulin resistance through the right kind of diet and lifestyle changes, stress reduction, right kind of exercise, that’s going to have the biggest impacts on your health.”
 

miahara

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1,019
Type of diabetes
Type 3c
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Insulin
Thanks for flagging up the article - very, very interesting reading
 

daisyduck

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Messages
988
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Thanks for flagging up the article - very, very interesting reading
I thought so too and as he's a cardiologist I'd think he knows what he's talking about :)

Dr. Aseem Malhotra is an interventional cardiologist consultant in London, U.K.,
 
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Confucius

Member
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Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Human body is so complex and there are so many different factors affecting us, that scientific research may not always get the whole picture. What science says right may be overturned 30 years later. So my current attitude is to use science as a rough guidance and avoid going into extremes. If we have things balanced and keep feeling better, it's fine. So a balanced intake of natural fats should be fine for most of us.
 

Gadget_man

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Type of diabetes
Prefer not to say
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I do not have diabetes
I thought the comment that was made about over medication of patients, particularly the elderly, was spot on. I was medicated without explanation of the side effects after a heart attack and only recently did I investigate the drugs. Having done that I self-reduced my medication by 50% and monitored my blood pressure to make sure I wasn't doing the wrong thing. Guess what? Despite increasing my activity levels dramatically my blood pressure actually stayed the same, lowish, and I've not had any heart problems either. My GP wasn't happy, but she has had to admit that it doesn't seem to have caused any adverse reactions ...... yet.

I also think it's about time the NHS started to aggressively push prevention rather than cure, the cost of doing so would be recouped from the reduction in medication prescribed, and unfortunately wasted a great deal of the time. It's estimated that stock-piling of meds by patients and the throwing away of unopened, unused meds costs the NHS about £300,000,000.00 a year! That'd pay for an awful lot if health education.
 
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