Please educate me on fats!

"High levels of FFAs have been proposed as a determinant factor in β-cells apoptosis in different models [50]. Also, recent studies suggest this phenomenon depends on the degree of fatty acid saturation, rather than chain length, in addition to being considered a contributing factor for T2D evolution in patients with obesity [51]. In β-cells, prolonged exposure to high concentrations of long chain FFAs leads to the inhibition of insulin biosynthesis [52] and secretion [53]"

"… Palmitic acid (16C) is the highest saturated fatty acid present in the human body. This fatty acid can reduce β-cell proliferation capacity and induce cell death [60…. Another report using pancreatic β-cell culture observed that SFAs including palmitic and stearic acid induce lipoapoptosis, whereas UFAs showed opposite effects. "

Effects of Dietary Fatty Acids in Pancreatic Beta Cell Metabolism, Implications in Homeostasis
Paloma Acosta-Montaño and Víctor García-González*

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29565831/

I have a lowish carb food intake, which include plenty of meat, bacon fish, seafood, all dairy products except for cream as I have never liked it. I eat vegetables both above and below ground (we get low carb spuds here).

Same goes for low carb bread, rolls, wraps.

The only food I do not eat is rice, I can handle most other things by portion control and suck it and see with my meter.

I do not have any charts or science charts bits and bobs to explain wht can be worked out by common sence and the bgl meter to help you.

Yes, it's confusing at first. It's the mix of carbs with fat that is the problem. If you low carb then having more fat (not trans fats) is fine.

There's a book called Eat Fat: Step by step guide to Low carb living(version 3) It's by Trudi Deakin and is available on Amazon. I used an earlier version to help me.

My non diabetic hubby had a high ALT liver test a month ago, indicating fatty liver. The ALT score should be less than 50 in his case. It was 123. I gave him a low carb diet and increased fats so that he wasn't hungry. I switched from full fat milk to double cream in his coffee etc.

One month on his test is now marked as 'borderline' at 59.

Oh and his BMI was 25 pre low carbing, so I was only aiming to cure the liver, not for overall weight loss.

At the beginning of the month I used an online calculator to work out his BMR so that I made sure this was a low carb not a low cal diet. I used MyFitnessPal to log his food so I knew he was having at least his recommended amount of calories daily. Some days he had more. Every day was higher calorie than his normal diet.

He has lost 10 pounds without even trying. This is proof to me that dietary fats don't make you fat. It's the carbs you have with it that do the damage.

Now, most of us here know that T2s are carb intolerant. It seems carbs aren't great for nondiabetcs either. Hubby's pre low carb HbA1c was 32. That hasn't been retested as it was perfectly normal. He loves the new diet and won't be reverting to his carb laden one anytime soon.

Edit: I aimed for around 80g carbs daily. The lowest daily count was 60g and the highest was 135, but most days 80 - 100g was what was achieved.

Recommended reading: The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz.

MoorT2 said:

I 've been surprised how many criticise low fat advice and promote full fat dairy and meat fats etc. This goes against everything I thought I knew and I'm looking to understand more about why this is beneficial to our health and BG levels.

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Because there are many of us eating exactly those things who have put our T2 and many other health conditions into remission by doing it.

The low fat nonsense that has plagued humanity since the 70's is simply wrong.

bulkbiker said:

The low fat nonsense that has plagued humanity since the 70's is simply wrong.

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Bingo. Watch any multi-decade soap opera style TV show that started in the 1970’s and watch the cast balloon into the 1990’s whilst the scripts include references to low fat, calorie controlled diets. The ladies of the day would all be on the front page of the Daily Mail these days being accused of having an eating disorder.

Zand, just wanted to say what a lovely supportive wife you are.

Recent Insights Into Mechanisms of β-Cell Lipo- and Glucolipotoxicity in Type 2 Diabetes
These studies demonstrated that acute and chronic elevations of FFAs by lipid infusion have differential effects on insulin secretion. Acute exposure enhances glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS), compensating for lipid-induced insulin resistance [9], [10]. In contrast, a more prolonged elevation of FFAs (24–48 h) causes β-cell function to deteriorate, impairing the ability of β-cells to compensate for the prevailing insulin resistance [9], [11], [12]. Significantly, when lipids are coinfused with glucose, the FFA elevation inhibits the stimulatory effect of hyperglycemia on β-cell function [13].

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022283619305716

Tannith said:

"High levels of FFAs have been proposed as a determinant factor in β-cells apoptosis in different models [50]. Also, recent studies suggest this phenomenon depends on the degree of fatty acid saturation, rather than chain length, in addition to being considered a contributing factor for T2D evolution in patients with obesity [51]. In β-cells, prolonged exposure to high concentrations of long chain FFAs leads to the inhibition of insulin biosynthesis [52] and secretion [53]"

"… Palmitic acid (16C) is the highest saturated fatty acid present in the human body. This fatty acid can reduce β-cell proliferation capacity and induce cell death [60…. Another report using pancreatic β-cell culture observed that SFAs including palmitic and stearic acid induce lipoapoptosis, whereas UFAs showed opposite effects. "

Effects of Dietary Fatty Acids in Pancreatic Beta Cell Metabolism, Implications in Homeostasis
Paloma Acosta-Montaño and Víctor García-González*

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29565831/

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Palmitic acid as also been associated with cancer metastasis this week. But it specifically identified not all fatty acid we’re the same and that others definitely did not have the same effect eg linolenic from flax seeds. It’s dangerous to assume all fatty acids act identically and just because one type should be avoided they all should. Palm oil is found in a huge number of processed rubbish I refuse to eat anyway not least because of this awful oil. Stick to fats as nature made them from meat, dairy and nuts mostly and the only oil I use is olive.

@MoorT2

The main take from this is that the fats that come with real food (single ingredient stuff, freshly cooked) are fine for us and humans have eaten them for millennia with no problem.

All the "studies" that @Tannith has posted are about fatty acids in the blood which are usually there due to overconsumption of carbohydrate and seed oils.

Avoiding carbs and seed oils is a very good idea anyway so...

Tannith said:

Recent Insights Into Mechanisms of β-Cell Lipo- and Glucolipotoxicity in Type 2 Diabetes
These studies demonstrated that acute and chronic elevations of FFAs by lipid infusion have differential effects on insulin secretion. Acute exposure enhances glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS), compensating for lipid-induced insulin resistance [9], [10]. In contrast, a more prolonged elevation of FFAs (24–48 h) causes β-cell function to deteriorate, impairing the ability of β-cells to compensate for the prevailing insulin resistance [9], [11], [12]. Significantly, when lipids are coinfused with glucose, the FFA elevation inhibits the stimulatory effect of hyperglycemia on β-cell function [13].

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022283619305716

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC5682332/

If it is not in the diet, then we make it since our body likes Palmitic acid. It is the most efficient way of storing lipids in adipose tissue, and our bodies synthesize it when necessary. Even low fat advocates are full of it.

i seem to remember that linked paper in the OP as being produced as evidence that WFPB diets are better than any other diet, and has been shown to have a certain bias in it. The SFA;s they measured do indeed flow throught the blood stream, but are carried by the chylomicrons direct from the gut to the liver, where the refractory process takes place Some lipid breakdown starts in the gut by the lipidase enzyme, but most of the trigs and lipids in LDL and HDL are manufactured by the liver, and are not dietary SFA's at all.

If you research NAFLD, then it becomes clear that the fat in the pancreas is not dietary fat, but is believed to be caused by an overproduction of lipids that exceeds the normal storage capacity of the body or where insulin resistance prevents normal storage..

MoorT2 said:

@zand thank you for the very informative reply!
That really did help put a lot of things into context.

@bulkbuilder I wasn't being negative about anyone on this forum, just expressing my surprise against what I have always believed (perhaps because I am a child of the 70's).

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I hadn't logged food for a while but this is the summary from MyFitnessPal for yesterday. Historically I may have been a bit concerned about those fat numbers but perhaps not, would welcome some critique. The scales seemed to be happy though, was down 400g today.

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I find that not all fats are the same. Much of the negative research reports are about fats which go through lengthy processes to make them fit for Humans to digest.

I eat whole fat foods like cheese, full fat milk, and the fat naturally occurring on my meat. I use butter and virgin olive oil. I avoid any seed oils. As a result my good cholesterol has improved, and I have found I can low carb without hunger. I have been diet controlled only for a decade now.

MoorT2 said:

@zand thank you for the very informative reply!
That really did help put a lot of things into context.

@bulkbuilder I wasn't being negative about anyone on this forum, just expressing my surprise against what I have always believed (perhaps because I am a child of the 70's).

View attachment 52030

I hadn't logged food for a while but this is the summary from MyFitnessPal for yesterday. Historically I may have been a bit concerned about those fat numbers but perhaps not, would welcome some critique. The scales seemed to be happy though, was down 400g today.

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I’d swap the fat and carbs around for the goals lol. Are you a large human? I eat a lot of protein and this seem high even to me. Something in the realm of 1 -1.5gper kilo of body weight is typical. Some do higher though.

MoorT2 said:

The goals haven't been set up properly so don't pay too much attention to those.

I'm not a large human, male, 5ft 8(ish), weigh ~85kg

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I'm more interested in what you are eating.
We don't eat "protein, fat and carbs" we eat food.

MoorT2 said:

@bulkbuilder I wasn't being negative about anyone on this forum,

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I didn't take any offence but after a while being bombarded with incorrect nonsense becomes tiring and when it is on occasion from medical professionals who should know better s gets rather frustrating.

MoorT2 said:

Being newly diagnosed as T2 I'm trying to (re)educate myself about nutrition to help me manage my condition without the need for medication.

-Eliminate sugar - no brainer
-Lower carbs, completely understood
-Higher fats - this is blowing my mind.

Fats are bad right?? Obviously not, fatty fish oils, nuts and avacado's etc I understand but reading this forum for a few days nowI 've been surprised how many criticise low fat advice and promote full fat dairy and meat fats etc. This goes against everything I thought I knew and I'm looking to understand more about why this is beneficial to our health and BG levels.

I also understand not all fats are equal, with trans, saturated, mono and poly all being about.

So please educate me, thanks

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Although the body needs some fat (a very small quantity) it does not actually need any saturated fat whatsoever. I try to reduce mine as much as I can though I have found that difficult during pandemic as we can't always get the food we order. I had got used to having soy milk instead of dairy before the pandemic started but now, as the person I live with doesn't like cooking done with soy milk I have gone back to dairy for the duration as it's too much faff to get 2 sorts and cook separately. I am also planning to try to learn to like low fat yoghurt (plain) again after covid, but it really doesn't keep well so it's not convenient while I have to buy things in larger quantities to reduce delivery costs. I have found I actually like low fat cheese better than the greasier cheddar I used to get so that's a change for the better.

Googling the history of how the low fat stance came about, and the errors and downright lies behind the 'low fat is good/cholesterol is bad' ideas, is an eye opener. I strongly suggest people read up on it.

Likewise, reading about how some seed oil fats are made is useful.

Another useful thing, when making dietary decisions about fats, is to check what fats were used in research, what quantity and proportion relative to the size of the test subjects, and if other things and foods were also involved.