So it turns out that eating a low-fat diet might not just make you crazy and violent — it can give you a heart disease or stroke!
Every time researchers discover (through the scientific method) a truth contrary to the bunk peddled by large agri-business, quacks who sell dieting books and programs and the regulators and legislators who are bought and paid for, they call it a “paradox” or a “conundrum.”
Take the “cholesterol conundrum” for example. High cholesterol is linked to higher serotonin and low cholesterol is linked to low serotonin. To put it simplistically, lack of serotonin leads to mental illness — depression, suicide, violence etc. This is a “conundrum” because we all supposedly know that cholesterol is evil, and yet we NEED it to not go insane. What a conundrum!
I wrote before about this article in Psychology Today, which asks: “Why do people on low-cholesterol diets die somewhat less often of heart disease, yet a lot more often of suicide, accidents, and homicide than the rest of the population?” Here’s an excerpt:
Jay Kaplan, Ph.D., looked at monkeys who were eating diets high in fat, but either low or high in cholesterol. After eight months, he found that the low-cholesterol monkeys, who had cholesterol readings of about 220, had no heart disease but were more hostile than the monkeys on a cheeseburger-like diet, whose levels hit 600.
These monkeys went at it hammer and tong,” says Kaplan, a professor of comparative medicine. “They engaged in more contact aggression–highly charged impulsive fighting–than the other monkeys.”
Impulsivity, an increasingly scrutinized category of behavior, plays out in violence, suicide, and risk taking. And, impulsive people are likely to have a deficit of serotonin. “People in cholesterol-lowering trials might have been experiencing impulsivity, which led to the higher rates of suicide and accidents,” suggests Kaplan.
He then measured serotonin levels in the monkeys’ cerebrospinal fluid. Sure enough, the low-cholesterol, aggressive monkeys had less serotonin than the high-cholesterol monkeys.
So now we have the “low-fat paradox” or to put it in language that will lull you to sleep: “Apparent Paradox of Low-Fat “Healthy” Diets Increasing Plasma Levels of Oxidized Low-Density Lipoprotein and Lipoprotein(a).” Click here for the paper.
Plasma oxidized whoosy-whatsit?
Well, in layman’s terms, Lipoprotein(a) or Lp(a) is a type of cholesterol that has recently been discovered as a strong link to disease. When found in blood at high levels there is increased risk for coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, atherosclerosis, thrombosis and stroke. Oxidized low-density lipoproteins, or OxLDL, is the “bad” cholesterol — LDL — that has been oxidized, which makes it even worse. By oxidized, they mean it has been bombarded with oxygen to yield those nasty free radicals so that when it enters into the wall of an artery, it promotes atherosclerosis (hardening) by attracting other cells and chemicals to the site, causing inflammation, and allowing cholesterol and other fats to build up within the artery.
So back to the “paradox.” The researchers were obviously befuddled to learn that eating the Whole Foods way — low fat, loads of veggies and fruits, no nasty saturated fats — actually led to heart disease. From the paper’s abstract:
There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that low-fat diets, particularly those rich in fruits and vegetables, are “healthy.” In this issue of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, Silaste et al1report what appears to be a paradox. Feeding a diet low in total fat and saturated fat to 37 healthy women volunteers, even when supplemented with vegetables, berries, and fruit, caused an increase in the plasma levels of oxidized low-density lipoproteins (OxLDL) and lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)].
Emphasis theirs.
They go on to try and explain this away. As Upton Sinclair so famously said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
If you have a science back ground, or just enjoy reading blogs with lots of big words, click here and here. This guy knows a hecka lot more about this than I do and goes into great depth on the subject.
In the meantime, have some butter.
Once again, glad I never went on a low-fat diet, even as a vegan. I have a strong predisposition to depression and aggressive behavior (hey, there’s a TMI for ya!), and I don’t even want to know what it would have done to me to avoid fat. It’s the universal lubricant, even in human relations.
Hah! I love your writing and your topics as usual. I’m basically a vegetarian (only eat a little grass fed beef as I can afford it etc). But about 2 years ago I got very worried about my cholesterol because, even if we skip the meat, DH and I eat tons of fat–and we eat the real stuff, thanks (butter, cream, cheese, dairy, eggs). When I do eat meat, I tend to eat fatty meat and I eat the fat too! Our cholesterol levels were ‘ideal.’ But we don’t eat any ‘fake’ food with fake oils and added sugars.
My in-laws in France both have high cholesterol and now have fake butter in the fridge. I find this highly disturbing.
They are cutting back on cheese and eggs, but continue to eat weird manufactured garbage food . . .I think I may read up on the links you provided. . .
“Eat butter now.” I LOVE that. Even when I was recovering from my fat-phobia, I didn’t reach my full potential for healing until I started eating butter and other saturated fats (like coconut oil, my other favorite fat). The funny part to me is that scientists never really proved low-fat was beneficial in any way whatsoever, but they continued to recommend it to the entire nation.
That explains why I scream (you scream) for ice cream…when I have not had it in a while.