Thursday 18 November 2021

Listen To The Experts?

Why should I?
For decades we have been warned that eating too much dairy such as milk, butter and cheese could raise our risk of serious conditions such as heart disease and strokes — only for more recent studies to suggest they might actually protect us from these by lowering our risk of developing high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes.

But we're supposed to believe they are spot on about everything else, like covid? 

While scientists generally agree that eating saturated fats raises the level of fats in your bloodstream and may increase other risk factors for heart disease, such as inflammation, it is not clear that it directly leads to heart or cardiovascular problems.
Some researchers say saturated fat has been unfairly demonised. Arne Astrup, a professor in the department of nutrition, exercise and sports at Copenhagen University, argues that focusing on saturated fat alone ‘does not make sense’ as there are different types of saturated fatty acids which all have different effects on the body.

As the old wisdom goes, a little of what you fancy does you good. So listen to your granny a lot more, and far less to the self-proclaimed 'experts' who tell you that science is settled... 

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

It’s the quality of the animal’s diet that determines whether beneficial fatty acids like CLA(conjugated linoleic acid) derived from grass are present or inflammatory ones derived from grain are present. The cow/sheep/goat/mare uses what it’s fed and cannot magically transform essential fatty acids(ie have to be made lower on the food chain by plants) into beneficial ones.

Lord T said...

I haven't listened to them for some time. It is where they mandate things that I have the issue with. They remove or limit our capability of getting them.

Bunch of tossers. I'm at the stage where I wish they would all just die.

Anonymous said...

A friend of mine once remarked as we were about to tuck into fish and chips from a chipshop that anything eaten occasionally (and I assume here that he excluded poison and contaminated 'off' food) was a treat, but quite a lot of things eaten regularly or in excess could constitute a bad diet. I'm sure that he was right.

Obsessively avoiding foods so that you don't even have the occasional treat is self-flagellation.

Bucko said...

I don't care what they say either way. You should see the incredible amount of cheese and eggs in our fridge. We like cheese and eggs :-)

Sobers said...

"While scientists generally agree that eating saturated fats raises the level of fats in your bloodstream"

Utter bullsh*t. Read Dr Malcom Kendrick's new book 'The Clot Thickens' for a slam duck takedown of the 'Saturated fat raises cholesterol and give you blocked arteries' so called scientific theory. It has zero scientific backing to it. The human body is incapable of manufacturing cholesterol from saturated fat. However it does make it from carbohydrates......

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/books-by-dr-malcolm-kendrick/the-clot-thickens/

Mudplugger said...

The human body is an omnivore, not only is it capable of digesting all food types, it is optimised when provided with the full range of food types in balance.
An excess of any type challenges the machine, a lack of any type also challenges it - 'everything in moderation' is the key to fuelling the machine for optimal performance.

Want proof? Have you ever seen a vegan smiling?

Ripper said...

My definition of 'expert'..

Ex = has been
Spurt = a drip under pressure.

Astrup said...

It is correct that saturated can may increase total and LDL-cholesterol in the blood, BUT it is the large particle fraction of LDL that are inert, whereas the small "dangerous" dense particles are decreased. It is actually carbs in the diet that tend to increase the small dense. you can read more here. https://www.jacc.org/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jacc.2020.05.077

Kind regards
Arne Astrup

professor, MD, DMSc

Sobers said...

"The human body is an omnivore, not only is it capable of digesting all food types, it is optimised when provided with the full range of food types in balance."

However it evolved in an environment where its main food inputs were meat and vegetation, with some seasonal fruits and seeds. Thus its entire digestive and metabolic system is optimised for that sort of input, not large amounts of carbohydrates, whether from grains (not widely available until farming developed about 10,000 years ago) or from sugars (not widely available until the last few hundred years) or from potatoes (not available to most of the globe until 500 years ago). And humans having as much of any of these food items as they can stuff down their necks has only been the case within the last 50 years. We are attempting to eat modern diets with a digestive system optimised by evolution for an entirely different one. Just because we 'can' eat a high carb diet does not mean we do it very well.

Its like putting the wrong sort of fuel in your car - it can work for a while, even a decent period of time, but eventually the incompatibility between the design requirements and what you're putting in it damages something crucial and the engine stops.

JuliaM said...

"It’s the quality of the animal’s diet..."

Luckily, that's highly regulated. In this country, at least.

"Bunch of tossers. I'm at the stage where I wish they would all just die."

I'd be happy if 'journalists' simply stopped printing their crap. Surely we still have skateboarding ducks somewhere?

"You should see the incredible amount of cheese and eggs in our fridge. We like cheese and eggs :-)"

I'm with you on the cheese!

"The human body is incapable of manufacturing cholesterol from saturated fat. However it does make it from carbohydrates."

Which is what most 'poor diets' consist of, when you watch those 'what we're eating' programmes...

JuliaM said...

"Want proof? Have you ever seen a vegan smiling?"

😁

"...BUT it is the large particle fraction of LDL that are inert, whereas the small "dangerous" dense particles are decreased. "

Yes, it's another 'the science is settled' approach.

"...or from sugars (not widely available until the last few hundred years) ..."

Apart from honey?