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New research hints at a few ways fatty foods affect cells in the brain, a finding that could help explain the link between a high-fat diet and impaired memory—especially as we age. The study of cell cultures found the omega-3 fatty acid DHA may help protect the brain from an unhealthy diet's effects by curbing fat-induced inflammation at the cellular source. Separate experiments using brain tissue from aging mice showed a high-fat diet may lead specific brain cells to overdo cell-signaling management in a way that interferes with the creation of new memories. For this work, the researchers focused on...

The study, published in the journal Nature and part-funded by the UK charity Worldwide Cancer Research, uncovers how palmitic acid alters the cancer genome, increasing the likelihood the cancer will spread. The researchers have started developing therapies that interrupt this process and say a clinical trial could start in the next couple of years. Metastasis – or the spread – of cancer remains the main cause of death in cancer patients and the vast majority of people with metastatic cancer can only be treated, but not cured. Fatty acids are the building blocks of fat in our body and the...

Abstract Systemic metabolic alterations associated with increased consumption of saturated fat and obesity are linked with increased risk of prostate cancer progression and mortality, but the molecular underpinnings of this association are poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate in a murine prostate cancer model, that high-fat diet (HFD) enhances the MYC transcriptional program through metabolic alterations that favour histone H4K20 hypomethylation at the promoter regions of MYC regulated genes, leading to increased cellular proliferation and tumour burden. Saturated fat intake (SFI) is also associated with an enhanced MYC transcriptional signature in prostate cancer patients. The SFI-induced MYC signature independently predicts prostate...

As I get older, I’m finding out there’s less and less room for error in how I eat… and my tolerance for animal fat has shrunk. I’ve discussed meat eating and veganism HERE and HERE, and even Kosher Bodybuilding, which holds much promise for eating meat successfully (without blood and with lower fat). I’ve eaten red meat my whole life, starting when I was young when my dad would take us to Sizzler on many a Sunday evening. This is back when they had sawdust on the floor, so you know I’m talking old school! My favorite meal was always...

Be honest: That bacon, egg and cheese breakfast you scarfed down the other day was so delicious you’d love to have it for breakfast every morning. But like so many other health-conscious, weight-watching Americans, you just won’t allow yourself that indulgence. Instead, you opt for the usual low-fat, low-calorie and (oh-so-bland) oatmeal.

The scientific community is not immune to politics, bias, and self-interest.The headline looks like a hoax — saturated fat does not cause heart disease — but it’s real. This news is more than just another example of changing health guidelines. It’s a cautionary tale about trusting the scientific consensus. For more than 50 years, the best scientific minds in America assured us that saturated fat was the enemy. Animal fat, we were instructed, was the chief culprit in causing obesity, Type II diabetes, and heart disease. Throughout my adult life, I have conscientiously followed the guidelines dispensed by the health...

The headline looks like a hoax-- saturated fat does not cause heart disease -- but it's real. This news is more than just another example of changing health guidelines; it's a cautionary tale about trusting the scientific consensus. For more than 50 years, the best scientific minds in America assured us that saturated fat was the enemy. Animal fat, we were instructed, was the chief culprit in causing obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Throughout my adult life, I have conscientiously followed the guidelines dispensed by the health arbiters of our age. Trusting utterly in the scientific research of...

Those who love rib-eye steaks and double-cream Brie will feel better about their guilty pleasures after reading Nina Teicholz’s article in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, “The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease.” She writes, for example: Too much whole-grain oatmeal for breakfast and whole-grain pasta for dinner, with fruit snacks in between, add up to a less healthy diet than one of eggs and bacon, followed by fish. Gary Taubes covered some of the same ground in his excellent 2008 book, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health. Taubes argued...

"Saturated fat does not cause heart disease"—or so concluded a big study published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. How could this be? The very cornerstone of dietary advice for generations has been that the saturated fats in butter, cheese and red meat should be avoided because they clog our arteries. The new study's conclusion shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with modern nutritional science, however. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the...

<p>Many of us have long been told that saturated fat, the type found in meat, butter and cheese, causes heart disease. But a large and exhaustive new analysis by a team of international scientists found no evidence that eating saturated fat increased heart attacks and other cardiac events.</p>

The British Medical Journal has issued a clarion call to all who want to ward off heart disease: Forget the statins and bring back the bacon (or at least the full-fat yogurt). Saturated fat is not the widow-maker it's been made out to be, writes British cardiologist Aseem Malhotra in a stinging "Observations" column in the BMJ: The more likely culprits are empty carbs and added sugar. He musters a passel of recent research that suggests that the "obsession" with lowering a patients' total cholesterol with statins, and a public health message that has made all sources of saturated fat...

Red meat is blamed for one in 10 early deaths The Department of Health was last night urged to review its guidance on red meat after a study found that eating almost half the daily recommended amount can significantly increase the risk of dying early from cancer and heart disease. By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor 10:00PM GMT 12 Mar 2012 Small quantities of processed meat such as bacon, sausages or salami can increase the likelihood of dying by a fifth, researchers from Harvard School of Medicine found. Eating steak increases the risk of dying by 12%. The study found that...

The South Beach Diet produces rapid weight loss without counting carbs, fats, or calories. It started out simply enough. Arthur Agatston, MD, a cardiologist, decided to develop an eating plan that would improve the cholesterol and insulin levels of his patients with heart disease. Now, the South Beach diet has grown into something much bigger. That's because the plan Agatston created not only improves cholesterol and insulin levels, but it also has helped many people lose weight. "We've had people lose anywhere from five to 100 pounds on the diet," says Agatston, who is director of the Mount Sinai Cardiac...

Changing the way the world eats is an ambitious goal. The significant changes in the government’s dietary guidelines are an important step forward and a clear signal that the message Dr. Atkins long championed is increasingly heeded. I’m delighted to see the much-awaited dietary guidelines of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). A close look at the recommendations released last week shows how closely these recommendations reflect our efforts to raise carbohydrate awareness and emphasize the importance of weight management. It appears that government officials have listened to the Atkins’...

MABANK — For the first time in four years, a gourmet extravagance — authentic Japanese Kobe beef — is allowed back into the United States. The question is whether anyone will care. An American Kobe-style brand has taken its place on restaurant menus. Wagyu cattle began arriving in the United States in the 1990s, often flown over from Japan. They are fattened longer than the average American breed; they live about eight to 14 months longer than U.S. beef cattle. U.S. ranchers often crossbreed them with Angus cattle. The glossy black cows on Meliton Rincon's ranch in Athens are not...

Genetic changes that apparently allow humans to live longer than any other primate may be rooted in a more carnivorous diet. These changes may also promote brain development and make us less vulnerable to diseases of aging, such as cancer, heart disease and dementia. These key differences in lifespan may be due to genes that humans evolved to adjust better to meat-rich diets, biologist Caleb Finch at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles suggested. The oldest known stone tools manufactured by the ancestors of modern humans, which date back some 2.6 million years, apparently helped butcher animal bones....

Eating a high-protein diet can boost the release of a hunger-suppressing hormone, according to new study on mice. The research suggests that a diet rich in protein may be a good way to lose weight and keep it off. Mice fed a protein-heavy diet produced higher levels of an appetite-regulating protein called peptide YY (PYY), which has been linked to reduced appetite in human studies. What's more, the high-protein mice put on less fat than mice on a low-protein regime. The discovery boosts the theory that eating more protein might help to reduce appetite and lead to sustained weight loss,...

<p>The Atkins low-carb, high-fat diet is supposed to be simple, but it's raising complex medical and nutrition questions. Now two new studies show that those who follow the diet can lose significant amounts of weight, but other research is raising concerns about the safety of the program, linking it to an increased risk of kidney stones and bone loss.</p>

<p>With courage and care Dr. Ravnskov exposes the lack of experimental evidence for the diet-heart theory, which claims that eating less fat and cholesterol will prevent atheroslcerosis (hardening of the arteries) and myocardial infarctions (heart attacks). By examining original peer-reviewed literature, the author finds no support for the diet-heart theory. He gives examples of scientific fraud among efforts to support the theory, including the deliberate selective omission of data points, and the deliberate assignment of subjects in a clinical trial to treatment or to control groups by physicians with the subject's medical records in hand. He shows how the abstract or conclusions of a number of papers are at odds with the actual data in the papers. He demonstrates how the use of one statistical method in preference to another can give a false impression that there is an effect, where there is, in fact, none. He shows how the reporting of differences in fatality rates by per cent reduction (say, a 50% reduction in relative risk) is actually misleading when the actual death rates are quite small in both the treatment and control groups of subjects in diet or drug studies. For example, a treatment that changes the absolute survival rate over a multi-year period from 99.0% to 99.5% represents a 50% reduction in relative risk, from 1% to 0.5% absolute. This is often described in papers as a 50% reduction in death rate. However, when the difference is barely significant statistically, as was often the case, Ravnskov points out that there is no real reason to recommend adoption of the treatment, especially if there are serious side-effects.</p>

Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease1,2,3,4,5Patty W Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B Hu and Ronald M Krauss1 From the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute Oakland CA (PWS-TRMK)the Departments of Nutrition (QSFBH)Epidemiology (FBH) Harvard School of Public Health Boston MA. 2 PWS-T and QS contributed equally to this work. 3 The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the National Center for Research Resources (http://www.ncrr.nih.gov) or the National Institutes of Health. 4 Supported by the National Dairy Council (PWS-T and...