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Porridge Oats sucks up blood fats?

  • Thread starter Thread starter serenity648
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serenity648

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I was talking to one of the trainers in the gym today and he said he has a big bowl of porridge oats for breakfast every day, as it sucks up the fats in our bodies and lowers our cholesterol.

I dont have enough knowledge to agree or disagree with him, although it sounds a bit suspect to me, but did suggest he Google Jason Fung about nutrition in general. His family have several type 2's (the trainers family I mean)

Is my trainer right about porridge?
 
In my opinion he is not right. Porridge sucking up fat is about as wrong as it can get.
 
I know people used to say it was good for lowering cholesterol so i used to start my pre-low-carbing days off with a big bowl of it - then i found out you need to eat three times the amount I was eaating to get the cholesterol lowering affect.

It was the first thing to disappear from my diet after I got my BG meter. :(
 
Many people think porridge lowers cholesterol.

Many people eat it for that reason.
 
serenity648 said:
Is my trainer right about porridge?
Click to expand...

In a roundabout way yes, an explanation from Heart UK:

What is oat beta glucan?

Oats contain a form of soluble fibre called oat beta-glucan which is particularly concentrated in the outer layers of the grain. Much of the research into the cholesterol lowering effects of soluble fibre has centered around oat beta glucan. How does it work? Because oat beta glucan is a soluble form of fibre it dissolves inside the digestive tract where it forms a thick gel – a bit like wallpaper paste. This gel is able to bind to excess cholesterol and cholesterol like substances within the gut and help to prevent these from being absorbed into the body. The gel and the cholesterol is then excreted as part of the body’s waste.

https://heartuk.org.uk/images/uploads/healthylivingpdfs/HUK_factsheet_F09_OatBetaGlucanF.pdf

The following is good article explaining the many health benefits of eating oats:

https://authoritynutrition.com/9-benefits-oats-oatmeal/
 
bulkbiker said:
Without cholesterol we would all be dead.... just remember that when eating your porridge oats...
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..... and also remember that very little of your measured cholesterol actually comes from diet anyway, so, if you don't like porridge, or it causes raised blood sugar, forget it.
Sally
 
and if you do eat it - use the large grain oats (as these take longer to go through the digestive tract because they form a thicker gel)
 
Resurgam said:
Oh - that's good - I thought that it might actually have a grain of truth - if it only acts on cholesterol in the gut, and we make cholesterol in the liver, I can not eat porridge with a clear conscience.
Click to expand...

The link above says it also reduces cholesterol in the body.
 
Resurgam said:
it almost says that - but if the gall bladder is not producing bile to digest fats, you get gallstones as the bile is not used.
I'd rather use bile by eating fatty meals than let it accumulate by eating carbs.
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Good job I don't eat porridge any more cos that thought would put me right off. :) :) :)
 
My cholesterol is better since I started eating oatmeal nearly every morning but I also started eating more vegetables and salads at the same time so it may be a cumulative effect with all the changes. It is far better for my cholesterol than the cinnamon roll or croissant and coffee that I used to have for breakfast. Or sometimes instant breakfast drink with milk, or raisin bran or honeynut Cheerios with milk and coffee. Once in a while I had eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and whole wheat toast. I still do occasionally but have hashbrowns or toast-not both. I have wholegrain pancakes also once in a while also.
Having said all that I am having an off day due to dental issues-unrelated to the oatmeal.
 
noblehead said:
In a roundabout way yes, an explanation from Heart UK:

What is oat beta glucan?

Oats contain a form of soluble fibre called oat beta-glucan which is particularly concentrated in the outer layers of the grain. Much of the research into the cholesterol lowering effects of soluble fibre has centered around oat beta glucan. How does it work? Because oat beta glucan is a soluble form of fibre it dissolves inside the digestive tract where it forms a thick gel – a bit like wallpaper paste. This gel is able to bind to excess cholesterol and cholesterol like substances within the gut and help to prevent these from being absorbed into the body. The gel and the cholesterol is then excreted as part of the body’s waste.

https://heartuk.org.uk/images/uploads/healthylivingpdfs/HUK_factsheet_F09_OatBetaGlucanF.pdf

The following is good article explaining the many health benefits of eating oats:

https://authoritynutrition.com/9-benefits-oats-oatmeal/
Click to expand...

from the above article:
Oats are loaded with important vitamins, minerals and antioxidant plant compounds. Half a cup (78 grams) of dry oats contains (5):
  • Manganese: 191% of the RDI.
  • Phosphorus: 41% of the RDI.
  • Magnesium: 34% of the RDI.
  • Copper: 24% of the RDI.
  • Iron: 20% of the RDI.
  • Zinc: 20% of the RDI.
  • Folate: 11% of the RDI.
  • Vitamin B1 (thiamin): 39% of the RDI.
  • Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid): 10% of the RDI.
  • Smaller amounts of calcium, potassium, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) and vitamin B3 (niacin).

This is coming with 51 grams of carbs, 13 grams of protein, 5 grams of fat and 8 grams of fiber, but only 303 calories.

But my google search says there are only 53 cals in 78g of dry oats, so what else is being included in the above figures in the article?

Many studies have shown that the beta-glucan fiber in oats is effective at reducing both total and LDL cholesterol levels (1, 14).

again from the article, but when i looked at the study linked to this claim, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25411276 then the benefit, from a reasonable sized portion of oats, appears to be minimal.

 
Chook said:
I know people used to say it was good for lowering cholesterol so i used to start my pre-low-carbing days off with a big bowl of it - then i found out you need to eat three times the amount I was eaating to get the cholesterol lowering affect.

It was the first thing to disappear from my diet after I got my BG meter. :(
Click to expand...
Me too, my doctor told me to eat plenty of oats to reduce my cholesterol along with plenty of baked potatoes, only then to find my BG shot up. Not her fault but all my blood tests had not come back. Then the dreaded hb1ca showed I was diabetic.....Bad advice from Dr, probably not as the full picture had not been seen. BG monitor, tells the truth that for me, oats are a no no, unless double figures are on my want list, which they are not.
 
Resurgam said:
it almost says that - but if the gall bladder is not producing bile to digest fats, you get gallstones as the bile is not used.
I'd rather use bile by eating fatty meals than let it accumulate by eating carbs.
Click to expand...

Some people maybe. There are a number of causes of gallstones, one being weight loss.

It's a complicated balance, as you suggest.
 
miahara said:
Anyone worried about cholesterol or just interested in it should have a read of this article by Dr Zoe Harcombe in which she analyses existing data on cholesterol and heart disease (CVD). Her bottom line is that there is a realtionship, but it is an inverse realtionship.
Well worth a read.:link:
http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2010/11/...is-a-relationship-but-its-not-what-you-think/
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When the data is taken off the WHO website, its a bath tub curve.
At least she has the honestly to clarify how accurate her 'inverse relationship' is.

' “r” tells us if there is some kind of a relationship: an r score of 0 would indicate no relationship; an r score of 1 would indicate a perfect relationship.'

Guess how well it fits?
0.7 is acceptable as proof a relationship actually is correct.
Only one bathtub curve could ever be acceptable to be twisted flat.
 
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Thanks @douglas99 ! I tried to find the WHO data on mortality and cholesterol and faffed about for ages on the WHO site but couldn't locate it. If you've got the precise URL I'd appreciate it as I'd like to play about with the data myself. I'd didn't look too closely at the numbers DR H. quoted and tended to concentrate on the narrative. If she's saying the correlation coefficient is 0.7, and not -0.7 then isn't this is a positive rather than negative relationship? In which case she's got the wrong end of the stick.
 
I asssume she's simply written it badly,
the 4 r values are
0.13
0.52
0.66
0.74
So varying from near enough no correlation to the line she has drawn, to one acceptable line.
Although to be fair, looking at the spread, and range on those plots, you could draw a line anywhere with about as much accuracy depending on what you needed to prove.
The WHO drew them in the correct format initially, the graphs have been posted recently, I can't remeber who by, but hopefully they will post the link again.
 
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