Posted on 10/23/2013 7:24:23 PM PDT by Rusty0604
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 verboten to the health-conscious, have failed to reduce heart disease.
Indeed, he writes, they have set off market forces that have put people at greater risk. On the question of which is worse -- saturated fat or added sugar, Lustig added, "The American Heart Assn. has weighed in -- the sugar many times over."
Real food includes saturated fat, Lustig said, and real food lives up to the principle that food should confer wellness, not illness. "Instead of lowering serum cholesterol with statins, which is dubious at best, how about serving up some real food?"
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
BS to blood type...
“Fats are considered saturated if they are solid at room temperature. I do not recall breast milk becoming solid in the fridge, so it is most likely unsaturated (trans, not cis).”
Depends on room temp and the saturated fat, exDem...Coconut oil is a medium chain saturated fat and it is liquid above 76 deg F. Fats in solution or in suspension will not solidify, as in milk...milk from the cow, human or bovine, will not turn solid in the refridgerator. And butter fat, bovine, is mostly saturated...one of those no-no’s if you listen to the no fat folks. I know you are an ‘expert’, exDem, we have had conversations before. But where do you come up with the ‘fats are considered saturated...’ comment?
Fats are saturated if they have no double bonds. The fats in Omega 6 fats/oils are polyunsaturated, meaning that they have two double bonds in the chain. Olive oil is a monounsaturated fat...it has one double bond in the chain. Omega 3’s have 3 (or sometimes more) double bonds in the chain.
Medium chain staturated fats, such as those found in coconut oil are very beneficial. And animal fats in general are beneficial. The polyunsaturated fats, the Omega 6 fats from corn, soy, canola, etc are bad for us. As for the Omega 3 fats, there is still much controversy. Are they good? or bad?. I am not going to argue that point. I could site good or bad, depending on the argument.
I would never, ever allow DMSO anywhere near my body. We used to use it in lab because the DMSO causes anything dissolved in it to go right inside cells. So, if the DMSO is placed in a plastic syringe, it will leach plasticizers from the syringe. Then if you put that DMSO anywhere on or in your body, those plasticizers will be delivered right into your cells—no filtration through the liver or kidneys. DMSO works to put *any* substance into your cells.
“I was just going to say. My breast milk containers always had a separated layer of fat when I stored them in the fridge. It didn’t remelt on the counter.”
Cream rises to the top, whether it be human milk or bovine milk. It is not a matter of ‘remelting’. Shake it up, and it is no longer floating on top, but leave it sit on the counter or in the refrigerator and it will again rise to the top. Fat floats.
I'm a biochemist; I know very well the chemistry of lipids. Just because I simplify so that laypeople can understand does not mean I do not know what I am talking about. I simplify because I want them to understand as well as possible.
FYI... if a fat has a single double bond, it is unsaturated.
It wasn’t liquid. It was a layer that was immiscible. It left a 3d ‘stripe’ around the top when I dumped it out.
This is from wiki:
“Mother’s breast milk provides a higher proportion of cholesterol than almost any other food. It also contains over 50% of its calories as fat, much of it saturated fat.”
There is apparently a really big difference in fat content based on the moms diet. Low fat diets mean low fat milk which has been linked to neurological issues with the babies.
I was carb counting when I breastfed, not low carbing per se, but definitely eating more protein and fat than starch/sugar.
The baby that was breastfed the longest taught *herself* to read at age 2.25 years. She’s 6 now and reading anything you or I could read, with comprehension.
YMMV.
There are a couple of things that could be going on there. First, you never put them in the fridge, so they never hardened up in the first place. Second, different fats have different temperatures at which they congeal. I keep olive oil in the cupboard, and it stays liquid, but if I stick it in the fridge, it will solidify. And fats have very odd melting/solidifying profiles; they do not melt at the same temperature they harden.
Indeed.
“And fats have very odd melting/solidifying profiles; they do not melt at the same temperature they harden.”
Did you have pchem in college?
Ah, my expert Mom, good for you. We saved the life of a foal who had a severe head injury. The vet injected DMSO into her carotid artery and saved her life. He did that several times over about 10 days.
DMSO administered topically or taken orally will stop a stroke. It is the only thing that will dissolve bloodclots. If EMT units were allowed to use DMSO in an IV on the way to the hospital with a stroke victim, 95% of them would leave the hospital, walking, if they choose, with no after affects.
DMSO is a powerful solvent, and it has many uses, healthwise. Just remember to wash your hands before using it. It is not dangerous. And it’s ability to carry things in through the skin is a benefit.
Hope you never have a stroke. DMSO could be a life saver. Sorry you will miss out on that one of many, many benefits.
It also has significant benefit in various cancer treatments.
Vetinarians and athletes have used DMSO for years (since the mid ‘60’s when Dr Stanley Jacob, MD did his initial work on the health benefits of DMSO).
Hope you never need an organ transplant. Dr Jacob’s was head of the transplant team at a University Hospital in Oregon, and discovered that the best way to preserve organs was immersed in DMSO as they were delivered from donor to recipient. That is still the case today.
I keep DMSO on hand and we use it for various things, including joint pain, and to have in case of stroke or other health issue benefited with DMSO.
In the 1960’s, in an industrial environment, we used DMSO as an industrial solvent because it is SAFE.
Are you also afraid of MSM (Methyl Solfonyl Methane? MSM and DMSO are cousins, just different oxidation states. Either in the body will go back and forth as one or the other. Only you and the FDA are afraid of DMSO...the FDA is afraid of it because it has benefits over drugs that Big Pharma wants to sell, and the FDA is in the business of protecting Big Pharma, not you or me.
You are right on...low fat, low cholesterol is bad for babies and for us. Yours is a story to tell loud and clear! Thank you for sharing that. What you have shared is also saying loud and clear...Breast Feed!
The brain requires cholesterol. God knows best! For human infants, human breast milk from a properly fed mother is essential. It is pure brain food. And it is also food for all the rest of what is developing in the infant/young child.
One of the worst substitutes is Soy Milk. Soy is poison, and causes premature puburty in young females, and retarded development in young males, with more female characteristics. Estrogen like soy be damned!
Soy formula is bad for a number of reasons.
I don’t feed my kids anything with soy.
Yes, that was among the many chemistry courses I took.
Were fats compounds that exhibited hysteresis?
Many chemicals (natural and man-made) in our environment are toxic, but have no chance to exert their toxicity because our bodies have several lines of defense against them. Your skin has a layer of dead cells, called the stratum corneum, that serves mostly as a physical barrier, although some of its action is chemical. If you ingest or breathe in a potential toxin and it manages to bypass the epithelial layer of the respiratory or digestive tract and gets into your blood, your liver attacks it with detoxifying enzymes, which changes it to a form that can be filtered by the kidneys. Cells do not like to have chemicals enter; very few chemicals can pass freely into cells, and they are choosy about the chemicals they internalize.
DMSO is a wonderful solvent, and can leech chemicals from containers. It is not normally stored in plastic because of this property, but if stored in a glass bottle and the wrong kind of stopper or lid is used, it will leach chemicals from the stopper or lid liner.
Knowing how susceptible DMSO is to dissolve any chemical in its environment, and knowing that it permeabilizes the cell membrane and acts as a carrier to carry all of those chemicals right into the cell where they have no natural access and have no business being, I do not want that stuff anywhere near me. Or, to illustrate: if you spill ricin on your skin, not much will happen. But if you spill ricin dissolved in DMSO on your skin—well, it was nice knowing you.
DMSO also interacts with DNA and changes its structure. I have used it in PCR experiments for that property. The fact that it interacts with DNA, however, is a red flag for me—any chemical that directly interacts with DNA and changes its structure is a potential carcinogen. Altering the DNA structure can cause mistakes in the DNA during cell division; even without changing the DNA sequence, a change in structure can alter gene expression, causing too much or too little of the gene product, which has pathologic consequences.
I am well aware of the use of DMSO as a cryoprotectant, since I have used it countless times to freeze cells. Your use of the example of using it to protect organs (from ice crystal damage) for transplant is a bit misplaced on me: with my strong moral convictions against organ transplantation, I would never be a transplant recipient.
Yes, I am aware that “alternative medicine” advocates have promoted the use of DMSO. However, as a medical professional, I am also aware that “alternative medicine” practitioners rely minimally, if at all, on evidence to inform their practices. I firmly support basing medical practice on evidence, which means on exhaustive testing and observation.
Yes. Fats (as they occur in nature) are not at all homogeneous substances, which makes their melting/solidifying profiles chaotic. Furthermore, substances with elongated structures (fats, agar, gelatin) all have that pattern of melting at a higher temperature than they harden. This is because it takes time for the molecules to stack on each other to achieve the lowest energy state, which lowers the solidification temperature, but once they find that state, it takes quite a bit of energy to disrupt it. Fats that are completely unsaturated have side chains that are straight zig-zags in shape (think VVVVVVVV) (but without the serifs); since the zig-zags can stack fairly easily, those fats solidify at a fairly high temperature (above room temperature). The addition of unsaturated bonds causes bends in the zig-zags; those bends prevent the side-chains from stacking easily, thus causing the temperature to solidify them to decrease.
Breast milk has to be somewhat unsaturated, because it needs to be fully liquid at body temperature in order to exit the breast. Other fats in the body are more saturated.
“However, as a medical professional...”
Would you care to explain your being a ‘medical professional’? What are your credentials? Do you work for the FDA? Some other government agency? Please, if you are so much an expert, give us reason to have confidence in what espouse.
I consider Dr Stanley Jacobs, MD a medical professional. Do you consider him so?
I know many MD’s I consider to be medical professionals. But not just because they have MD after their name.
DMSO has been studied more than any drug company drug, and has not been found wanting. Many drug company drugs kill people. DMSO does not. And there has never been any evidence that DMSO is a carcinogen.
I am a PhD trained medical researcher, with specialization in the field of toxicology. My expertise is in understanding the molecular basis of the function of cells, and in how cells and tissues interact with each other and their environment, as well as how they react to chemicals of all types. I tell people that if they are sick or injured and want to understand the full molecular characteristics of their pathology, to come to me. But if they want treatment for their illness, they need to go to an MD.
MDs are experts in diagnosis and treatment, and that's it. Most of them know next to nothing about research methodology--and that includes many who have long lists of publications in the medical literature. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that many MDs are encouraged or required to do some sort of research without any true understanding of what research is, we wouldn't have situations like that described in the article opening this thread, where a cardiologist is writing to the BMJ to say that just maybe, saturated fats are *not* the culprit in heart disease. Well, duh! Many medical doctors attempting to do research are experts at falling for the fallacy that correlation=causation, and almost never pick up on the fact that a correlation means that more research must be done to establish whether there is a mechanism that links the putative effect to the cause, or if there is another reason for the observed correlation. Enough on the soapbox (MDs being minimally trained in research methodology is a pet peeve of mine).
Now, as for the claim that DMSO has been "studied more than any company drug"--well, the only place I could find that claim is in an alternative medicine site's "information" paper on DMSO. That claim is simply not true. That same website only has a few links to references where DMSO has been investigated for medicinal use--belying the site's own claim of extensive studies. I should point out that the way Dr. Jacobs (MD) became interested in DMSO through his observation that it penetrates skin easily would have caused anyone with an in-depth understanding of biochemistry to immediately recognize that this substance needs to be handled with great care. Think about everything that may be on your skin--lotions, residues from laundry detergent and fabric softeners, plant sap, soap, etc., and ask yourself if you really want that mixture of unknown chemicals shot directly into your cells with DMSO. I also note that that "alternative" medicine website allows you to buy "ultra-pure" DMSO packaged in translucent plastic bottles. Ouch. Remember what I said before about how DMSO leaches plasticizers? I'll add that laboratory grade DMSO is sold in amber bottles to protect it from degradation by light, and we *always* take care to keep it in the dark.
You can check out for yourself exactly how much DMSO has been studied at www.pubmed.org, which is the database where medical research is cataloged; many of the references are linked to the original research article. If you type in the search term "DMSO", you will get over 24,000 articles--but the majority of them have DMSO as a keyword because of its use as a solvent, and not as an investigational drug.
Now, I will link for you an MSDS sheet for DMSO. Note that in section 3, it says, "Mutagenic for mammalian somatic cells." If you will recall, I described in my earlier post that it interacts with DNA and changes DNA structure. Mutagenesis is a direct consequence of this interaction, for the reasons I explained previously. Most chemicals that are shown to be mutagenic are not studied further for carcinogenicity, because mutagenicity is widely accepted as a proxy for carcinogenicity.
Last, I will link a review article about interstitial cystitis. Down in the section discussing treatment options, intravesical therapies, it states that, "Despite limited clinical trial data, dimethyl sulfoxide is the only FDA-approved intravesical agent to treat painful symptoms of interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome." Limited data, and it's still approved--why???
When we carefully stir the cream until the fat globules stick together and water separates out we get butter. It is stands as a solid and is known to be a mixture of fats, largely saturated. So the fat in milk is also. Or does magic occur?
“On the question of which is worse — saturated fat or added sugar, Lustig added, “The American Heart Assn. has weighed in — the sugar many times over.” “
And how long will it be before a study comes out that says “sugar is not bad for you”?
Everything in moderation... including moderation.
Thank you for pointing that out.
I have used his lifestyle diet over the years, and more strictly when I need to lose a few pounds, it works, but it gets a bad name by those who abuse food and over indulge on meats etc, even on a diet that works.
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