The information available in numerous books and articles regarding an intelligent diet for our species is mostly opinion and certainly not based on scientific investigation. Once information becomes relatively ‘written in stone,’ it can be found in the major medical texts used in medical, dental, chiropractic, and naturopathic educational institutions.
Among those books are Guyton’s Textbook of Physiology and Mark’s Basic Medical Biochemistry. Unfortunately, doctors are too busy studying disease to spend any time studying the basics of a good dietary lifestyle as suggested by those texts. I will be basing my dietary recommendations on information from those authorities and from recent scientific publications that are rarely referenced when attempting to build a healthy dietary lifestyle/philosophy.
During this discourse it will be important to remember that the Governments Food & Nutrition Board is made up of representatives of businesses and organizations that have huge vested interests in our eating habits. These representatives are from cereal companies, agribusiness co-ops, food manufacturers, etc. These same companies and organizations hire marketers to persuade us to eat in such a way as to continue to make them profitable even if their recommendations are based on opinion and often outright misinformation.
Since I was a boy I have watched the heart disease, cancer, and diabetes statistics escalate as we have eaten ourselves into chronic ill health, guided by the businesses and organizations previously mentioned. I hope over the next year these newsletters will show you how to eat your way back to good health and then maintain that state.
I do not mean to suggest that all of our health problems are based on poor diet and lifestyle, just most of them. For example, even the World Health Organization’s research tells us that no more than 15% of all cancer has a genetic link, and that the remaining 85% is a result of a faulty diet and lifestyle, both of which are modifiable. So how big a role does diet play, and where does one start?
Obviously, if the body is to be healthy it must have genuine replacement parts on an ongoing basis. Consider this; your body replaces itself completely every twenty four months. Many tissues replace themselves much more quickly. For example, the intestinal tract replaces itself every two weeks. The brain (nervous system) is the slow poke at every two years. With that in mind we must ask, “What happens if we do not supply the genuine replacement parts for growth and/or repair?” The next question must be, “What are the most important replacement parts?” In the textbooks those replacement parts are called “essential.” Without the “essential” genuine replacement parts we become sick and eventually die.
Now, because the brain and nervous system control and coordinate all the other systems and the brain is sixty percent fat by weight, it might be a good idea to discuss fat next. Just like protein, fat is essential, it is a genuine replacement part. Without the essential fats you become sick and eventually die. Again, you can’t live without fat, it’s essential, and must be considered when we talk about giving the body genuine replacement parts for the healing of illness and the repair of daily wear and tear.
Unfortunately, fat has gotten a bad image over the last forty years while we Americans have been deceived by devious “authorities” promoting the health destroying “low fat diet.” Although the citizenry has by and large figured out this deception, that favors the food manufacturers and big agribusiness, the “authorities” that promoted it are holding on while their ship is obviously sinking. One of the great hero’s who helped educate us to the folly of this “low fat diet” has long since passed away, but his books remain the best selling diet books of all time… because when followed to the letter, they still produce excellent results. Dr. Bob Atkins (Bob Atkins’ Diet Revolution) was a brilliant physician, researcher, and teacher. I must add here that only one in ten of all the patients I have treated who have claimed to have been on the Atkins diet actually were.
The foundation of the Atkins Diet was a diet high in protein, high in quality fat, and moderate to low in carbohydrate with virtually no refined carbohydrate at all. A lot of new science has been discovered since Dr Atkins death, but the new discoveries continue to support the Atkins approach. That’s why virtually every successful diet book since Atkins death could be considered a spin off of the Atkins approach, with some of the new science included to make it different or up to date.
Fat takes many different forms. There are saturated fats like butter and coconut oil; monounsaturated fats like those found in olive oil; and there are polyunsaturated fats like those found in sunflower, evening primrose, canola, and flax oil. There are only two kinds of fat the body can’t make and those are linoleic acid and alpha linolenic acid. These two fatty acids are the essential fatty acids. Linoleic acid is the parent of the Omega-6 family and the body can make all the derivatives if we just get enough of the parent fatty acid. The same is true of the Omega-3 group. The parent of the Omega-3 group is alpha linolenic acid, and likewise, if we get a sufficient amount of the parent the body will make adequate amounts of its derivatives.
Mary Enig, Ph.D., is one of the foremost world authorities on fats and the author of numerous papers and texts on the subject. Her book Know Your Fats is eye opening. Her findings are certainly not what the “authorities” have been telling us over the last forty plus years. That’s what we will be covering next.
Fat is essential to cellular health. Each of your cells is surrounded by a cell membrane, and its insides are configured the same way as that cell membrane. This membrane is made up of an outer protein layer, a middle layer of fat, and an inner protein layer. That means that at least a third of the basic substance of our cells is fat. The exception to this is brain and nervous system tissue which is sixty percent fat by weight. That makes fat very important to your health. The concept that any natural fat is bad is ludicrous.
Nevertheless, some fats are not only bad, but lethal. Man made, unnatural, trans fats, hydrogenated oils, preserved oils, and fats loaded with hormones and antibiotics are deadly when consumed regularly. Processed fats improve ‘shelf life’ and are therefore important to the food manufacturers, but deadly for the consumer. Now that the general public has been made aware of the dangers of trans fats, manufacturers are ever devising new ways to keep fats from going rancid and preserve shelf life, and each one is worse than the last.
Then what should we do to get the quality essential fats that we need? For your family’s sake, use organic cooking oils. The exception would be extra virgin olive oil, which is also good, but remember to use it only for low heat cooking. Heat will ruin olive oil and butter, so for high heat cooking, like frying, use coconut oil, palm oil, grapeseed oil, or even real lard. Remember, all of your great chef’s use lots of fat. Why is simple. Fat, besides being essential, provides healthy flavor and fulfills the appetite. Fat not only tastes good, it’s good for you.
We have been misled. Fat does not cause cancer and the low fat diet will not reduce your cancer risk. The February 8, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association published research that showed that a low fat diet did not reduce the risk of cancer at all. In fact, fat is the key to keeping cancer risk low. Remember, the middle layer of the cell membrane is fat. Some of that fat is saturated, and does not readily react with or absorb the oxygen that comes in contact with it. The other portion of the fat is unsaturated and it does easily attract or absorb oxygen, and that is its job. The saturated fat acts to protect the unsaturated fat which in turn attracts oxygen into our cells for cellular respiration, the production of energy. This is new science and may very well be the missing key in the cancer puzzle. When cells get adequate oxygen they remain non cancerous. When they are oxygen deprived they begin to produce most of their energy by burning sugar, glycolysis, which is common to the cancer cell. Fat is the oxygen attractor of the healthy cell.
The idea that natural (unadulterated) dietary fat may be the answer to the cancer riddle has been researched and elucidated articulately by a young MIT researcher, Brian Peskin. The information is too voluminous to cover here, but I personally think he has found the missing link where cancer of lining tissue is concerned, and that makes up eighty five percent of all the cancers of the industrialized world. His website for your further perusal is www.brianpeskin.com. I keep recommending his book, The Hidden Story of Cancer to other doctors, and they keep calling me back and thanking me. Don’t be put off by the fact that Professor Peskin is an electrical engineer. Many important discoveries in science come from sources outside the specialties being studied, and I believe his research is an excellent example of that.
Additionally, women’s hormonal health problems have skyrocketed since the processing of fats. Breast tissue is mostly fat and important hormones are made from fat, and when healthy fat is added to the diet many of the hormonal problems women are faced with disappear. Research also reports increased stamina and endurance in men when healthy fats are introduced to the diet in proper amounts. Adequate intake of the “parent essential oils” has been shown to reduce carbohydrate cravings, reduce appetite and increase energy and alertness. Only fats give you natural energy without the corresponding “sugar low” and exhausted feeling afterwards.
Fat is also good for your heart because it is a super source of energy. We have been misled again by the processed food industry, but recent science gives us a different picture. In a research article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it was shown that persons from southern India who eat one tenth as much natural fat as northern Indians had fifteen time more heart disease. Now that’s just the opposite of what we have been taught. In fact we have been taught that fat, especially saturated fat, is bad and clogs the arteries. Yet we can go back to the mid nineteen nineties where an article in the British Medical Journal, Lancet, showed that there was no saturated fat at all in aortic plaque. Let’s repeat that… aortic plaque contains no saturated fat. So what is the primary component of a clogged artery? It was and is the adulterated fats sold by the manufacturers of processed food. Clogged arteries were clogged with trans fatty acids, man made manufactured fat.
Can these cellular changes be reversed? Thank goodness the answer is yes. The adulterated Omega 6 unsaturated fatty acids (trans fats, etc.) in our cell wall structure can be replaced by healthy Omega 6 parent essential fats if we supplement them sufficiently. The supplement can be found under the heading Essential Oils & Fatty Acids as Parent Essential Fatty Acids, which are also referred to as Parent Essential Oils (PEOs). When these PEOs are taken for a sufficient period of time they start to displace the trans fats and other adulterated fats in the arteries, reducing cardiovascular risk. When they displace the adulterated fats in the cell walls of our lining tissue (skin, digestive lining, lung lining, urogenital lining, joint lining), those tissues can begin to properly attract oxygen again, and that reduces the cancer risk for those tissues. Cancer of those tissues makes up 85% of all cancer according to the World Health Organization. So you can see that this new scientific information regarding fats is of enormous importance even though it threatens the food processing industry.
Doesn’t eating fat make us fat? Well, that’s just another piece of misinformation disseminated by the “authorities.” In order to make fat your body must make insulin first. Insulin is a response to carbohydrate intake. Fat intake does not produce an insulin response. Eating fat can’t make you fat. Biochemistry texts tell us what really happens. Glycerol-3 phosphate must be present to convert dietary fat into body fat, and you get your glycerol-3 phosphate from carbohydrates and only carbohydrates. What’s more, Harper’s Illustrated Biochemistry clearly states that a high fat intake inhibits creation of more body fat.
‘Low fat’ and ‘no fat’ products are those in which sugar has been added. For your families sake, do not purchase products with ‘low fat’ or ‘no fat’ on the label.
Remember, the Eskimo’s ate a protein and fat diet from whale, seal, walrus, and the occasional polar bear (if it didn’t eat them first), and had virtually no heart disease or cancer. They ate no vegetables or fruits. Protein and fat are essential, carbohydrate is not.
At the office I have been experimenting with supplementing the parent essential oils (Omega-6 family with Omega-3 in a 2:1 ratio) along with Preventics fish oil Omega-3. Professor Peskin’s research demonstrates that the body needs more Omega-6. In fact, lining tissue, where 85% of all cancer occurs, contains Omega-6 to Omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids at a ratio of 1000 to 1. We may as well say that lining tissue (skin, lung lining, stomach lining, intestinal lining, urogenital lining, joint lining, and blood vessel lining) doesn’t require any Omega-3 at all. Muscle, which makes up half or more of body weight uses Omega-6 to Omega-3 fats at a 7 to 1 ratio. Brain and nervous system requirements are the highest for The Omega-3′s, and the ratio there for Omega-6 to Omega-3 is 1 to 1.
Professor Peskin recommends a blend that provides a ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 at 2 to 1. The work we have done at the office tends to support this recommendation. As more patients have begun the new Parent Essential Oil supplements I have received feedback of more floating stools, much improvement with dry skin, and fewer symptoms of inflammation of all types. Increased stamina is another plus for the new product over the old Omega-3 supplement. Testing so far confirms that the body prefers this blend of Omega-6 to Omega-3′s over products previously recommended. I personally have noticed an improvement in overall energy since starting the program.
Update: Eat Your Way Thin… Here are the four articles which are in the series.
- Part 1 – Protein Is Our Most Misunderstood Food
- Part 2 – The Importance Of Fat… And The Misinformation Surrounding It
- Part 3 – Carbohydrates
- Part 4 – Let’s Talk About Weight Loss
