Fat

Fat doesn't cause cholesterol to go up. Carbs do; particularly Fructose.
Look at the talk by Dr. Robert Lustig
"Sugar the bitter Truth" Google for it
Hana

Hi Tony.
Your body uses saturated fat to make cholesterol. So, the best way to reduce cholesterol is by eating less saturated fat. A diet that is rich in unsaturated fats can help lower the levels of unwanted cholesterol even further.

So some fats are good, some are very bad. :? It also depends on whether or not you have other conditions which may require you to avoid fats, so a definitive answer is not really advisable. Only you will know after reviewing your medical history.

Here is a link to the Blood Pressure Association website which gives their views. Useful if you have high BP etc. Diabetes is not the only thing to consider here ?
http://www.bpassoc.org.uk/BloodPressure ... holesterol

Hi Tony,
Due to being a skinny T2 I was put on a high fat diet by my Dietitian. I now have whole milk, butter, full fat cheese, double cream etc., and never trim the fat off meat. You would think following this diet my cholesterol levels would soar, but this was not the case in fact they actually improved. Total down, LDL down, Trigs down, HDL up, others on Low Carb have seen the same results.
I have to agree with Hanna about the relationship between carbs and cholesterol, pre diagnosis mine was higher on a lower fat higher carb diet.

Regards
Graham

Sorry Ken
It's frutose primarily that makes cholesterol, not saturated fats. Any natural fat, of animal or plant origin is a good fat. It's trans fats made in the chem lab that are harmful.
Hana

Hi Hana.

So the Blood Pressure Association and the UK Heart Association are all wrong about the subject of saturated fats then ?

Extract.
The amount of cholesterol synthesised by the body varies
to a small extent with intake of dietary cholesterol, but
saturated fat is a more powerful influence. Excess saturated
fat in the diet increases blood cholesterol.

:?

Well I have very low LDL and trigs, but high HDL and I eat fats. Butter on my bread and cheese for example.
total cholesterol isn't all that significant, it's the ratio of Trigs to HDL which is the predicter of cardiovascular problems and a high trigs to HDL is closely tied to fructose ingestion.
Anyway why should the heart people be any better on dietary information than DUK?
Hana

hanadr said:

Anyway why should the heart people be any better on dietary information than DUK?
Hana

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Well. I know who I trust after a Triple Coronary Artery By-Pass Graft in 2004. My Cardiac Surgery team and the emminent Professor at Bimingham Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Medical School.

Don't get me wrong Hana. I do eat some fats, but avoid saturated fats like the plague. I don't want to go through that again, thank you !!

As for DUK.....enough said. :twisted:

I'm glad your surgery went well, but skill at surgery isn't dependent on understanding nutrition. Did you not see the Lustig talk?
Hana

Lustig talk. Yes. I did Hana.

I did say Cardiac Surgery team. That encompasses many different skills and disciplines besides surgery. I also have seen many other eminent professionals at the Medical School, discussed things.
Extremely interesting and you get many different points of view. You are not allowed to sit on the fence there though ? Most of them prefer a holistic approach, not just about Diabetes.

As I said, I know exactly who I trust for my advice on this subject thank you. Mr Lustig 'just doesn't cut the mustard' as they say, not for me anyway.

Each to their own.

Ken.

Like Hana and Graham, I can only confirm that my lipid profile has improved markedly since increasing saturated fats. Trigs have plumetted, HDL up, LDL down and normal blood pressure after years of high! I know the accepted 'truth' is that saturated fats increase cholesterol but I haven't found that to be the case.

The most startling effect was a complete reversal of fatty liver disease in two months. The doc told me I'd have to adopt a low fat diet and it could take as much as two years. She used the words 'remarkable' when I was 'clear' two months later. When I explained my diet I was fortunate that she said, "just carry on what you are doing"

It's a tough decision to ignore the standard advice, but until my body tells me otherwise I am going to continue to reap the benefits.

Ken
Where is that hospital with a holistic approach?
Our lot here, look at conditions, NOt patients.
When T1 ended up as an in-patient a few months back on IV antibiotics, It was 3 days before they found the thorn in his foot, because nurses and doctors don't examine feet and there was no podiatrist available.When we got him home after a week, he got a letter asking him to come in for a treatment, which they could have one whilsst he was there.
Hana

I'm curious to know just why you need to increase the fat intake anyway. I don't eat a lot of fat and actually don't feel hungry anyway on what I eat so see no need to increase fats which I can't tolerate anyway.

There's loads of interesting stuff on saturated fat coming out in recent studies, much of which is casting doubt on the conventional stance that sat fat is "bad". And more broadly, reviews of the older literature aren't finding significant links between sat fat and CHD; at worst it seems to be relatively benign, whereas some studies are showing links between certain saturated fatty acids and improved markers for coronary health (increased HDL, decrease in small, dense LDL and increase in large, "fluffy" LDL, decrease in VLDL etc.)

The "Track Your Plaque" program in the US has a lot of good information on this, well worth a read. There are also plenty of anecdotes of people improving their lipid profiles on high sat-fat low carb diets, some posted here (and I'll include myself; HDL rose significantly on a high sat-fat diet while LDL and trigs stayed low; blood pressure dropped enough that I've come off lisinopril). Whether the improvements are due to eating more fat, eating less carbohydrate, a combination of the two, or some other factor isn't as easy to pin down, but it certainly doesn't seem that sat fat is causing any problems in these people.

sue, if you find you don't tolerate fat well then of course you need to bear that firmly in mind; only you know what your body can deal with. However, you do need to eat something; there's a limit to how much protein you can safely ingest, which only leaves carbs and fat as the alternatives (or alcohol I guess!) I suppose it becomes a balancing act between higher carbs and the subsequent effect on blood sugar control vs. higher fats and whatever issues you face with those.

That's the point Nick, I do eat plenty and that is on about 40-50 gm carbs a day.I do eat some fat, usually just what is on the meat, cheese etc without the need to add extra.

sugarless sue said:

I'm curious to know just why you need to increase the fat intake anyway. I don't eat a lot of fat and actually don't feel hungry anyway on what I eat so see no need to increase fats which I can't tolerate anyway.

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For me the fats merely replace the carbs. I have tried to maintain my protein intake at my pre diabetes level.

The body manufactures its own cholesterol for whatever it needs it for. If cholesterol is high in the blood that may well mean that there is arterial damage going on somewhere that the body needs cholesterol to repair.

Whilst fats don't affect the cholesterol levels adversely - well, not the good saturated fats, what does affect them is carbs because it is the acids and dehydration they cause that leads to the damage. If they can rot our teeth then I see no reason why they can't rot our arteries (or the rest of our body) too.

Like all these things though, the understanding is only as good as the current piece of research. Understanding changes all the time - some takes longer than others, but change it usually has to at some point.

People have been eating saturated fat for millennia and have lived well on it - why it has suddenly become a 'dangerous' substance is all down to our 'beloved' science. When there is absolutely no doubt that Science has got it all right, then I might start to believe in it.

The trouble is how do you reference a study like this? How do you quantify which part of people's diet is the culprit? When they did the original studies was the group eating a 'normal' high carb Western diet? What type of fats did they consume? Yes, probably even saturated fats could contribute to high cholesterol if taken with lots of carb. Data can so easily be manipulated to show the answers that are wanted by whoever is funding the study, how can we ever really have any faith in what any of them 'publish'?

If you Google carbohydrate and cholesterol there are quite a few references that come up on this that make interesting reading. I can't post them because I will get my hand slapped for posting advertising stuff, but there are so few sites out there that don't fund through advertising in one form or another they are pretty difficult to find!

hanadr said:

Fat doesn't cause cholesterol to go up. Carbs do; particularly Fructose.
Look at the talk by Dr. Robert Lustig
"Sugar the bitter Truth" Google for it
Hana

Click to expand...

Eating an apple a day is going to give me a heart attack?

OK... suuuuuuuuuuuure. :roll:

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/5

Might help to know a little about the metabolic processes involved before dismissing things out of hand UPB.

All the best,

fergus

Useless Pretty Boy said:

Eating an apple a day is going to give me a heart attack?

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Of cousre not - the same way as eating a piece of cheese every day won't give you a heart attack.