What fats and oils cause and prevent heart disease?....

Today's Post: Friday, 4-2-2010

Today I found another story online about the idea of giving people with normal looking total cholesterol but high CRP inflammation statins to prevent heart disease.

Given the high cost of long term statin use and the certain production of damaging side effects and side effects that harm the quality of people’s lives if thousands and thousands of people do this --AND the relatively small protective effect per dollar spent, this is extremely ill advised.

Ignoring for the moment that there are supplements that are heart protective that are more effective than statins and dramatically safer to take, it’s still extremely ill advised.

It’s thinking like this that has caused our health care and medical costs to skyrocket and is braking the economy and may do even worse soon.

Why?

If people knew what fats and oils cause and prevent heart disease AND acted on it, that alone would prevent a large percentage of people from having the high LDL and/or CRP inflammation statins are now being prescribed for and would therefore NOT have any need for statins.

(It would also help if those people kept completely away from tobacco smoke and use -- and exercised every week -- and took the right protective supplements. But knowing which fats and oils cause and prevent heart disease AND using the information, would solve over half the problem.)

There are four groups of fats and oils to know. I’ll introduce the 4 categories and then give details.

One is heart attack starter and should be illegal to use in any kind of food. Knowing to never eat ANY of this stuff and NEVER doing so, would solve over half the problem. Yet it’s still so common it was literally in the break room where I work yesterday and very few people knew to avoid it and ate it. Changing THAT will protect people far better than having them take statins after the fact.

The second is a group of oils that is cheap and very heavily used that increases CRP inflammation and may help cause cancer too perhaps because it’s so pro-inflammatory. If you eat some a few times a month it may be OK; but over 98% of the time, you should avoid the oils in this group.

The third group is the one that originally was targeted as being bad for your heart. Heavy intake IS that bad for your heart—particularly when you eat it with oils from the second group. But low moderate intake is far safer than we used to think.

The fourth group has the two oils that are heart protective and should be eaten virtually every day.


Here are the details.:

One is heart attack starter and should be illegal to use in any kind of food. Knowing to never eat ANY of this stuff and NEVER doing so, would solve over half the problem. Yet it’s still so common it was literally in the break room where I work yesterday and very few people knew to avoid it and ate it. Changing THAT will protect people far better than having them take statins after the fact.

Partially or fully hydrogenated vegetable oils increase inflammation and sharply increase the amount of small particle LDL cholesterol and BOTH of these results are causes of heart disease.
Why waste money on reversing these two problems with statins when removing this from people’s food would avoid the problem in the first place?

Safeway is a large grocery chain that is in many parts of the United States and even has some things to recommend them healthwise because they have a productive workplace wellness program. But virtually every piece of commercial baked goods they sell uses partially hydrogenated and cheap vegetable oils. The cookies, the pie crusts, the donuts, and the cakes are filled with this stuff.

The food in our break room yesterday was a cake. The cover and its label were in plain sight and said that they used any one of several inexpensive vegetable oils that had been partially hydrogenated to make it.

To be sure most of the people who ate some didn’t know they eat way too much of the refined grains and sugars that made up most of the rest of the cake either. But that the cake was loaded with heart attack starter too is totally inexcusable.

So, until this stuff is totally outlawed and virtually unavailable, having people take statin drugs to help partly reverse the damage caused by people eating it is a VERY stupid and extremely expensive remedy. Why do a bad job putting out this fire for BIG dollars when we could spend a tenth of that and stop starting the fires entirely in the first place?

People would suffer less and our economy would be far stronger. Our health care costs would drop and thousands of people would avoid heart disease and side effects from taking statins.

So, never, ever voluntarily ingest this stuff. Read the labels. And if you see hydrogenated oils are in the food, take a pass. Don’t buy it. Don’t eat it. And, throw it right in the trash if you can.

The second is a group of oils that is cheap and very heavily used that increases CRP inflammation and may help cause cancer too perhaps because it’s so pro-inflammatory. If you eat some a few times a month it may be OK; but over 98% of the time, you should avoid the oils in this group.

These are the oils that are high in omega 6 oils. Because most people eat lots of grain and grain fed meat and grain contains omega 6 oils AND eat oils high in omega 6, most people eat from 5o to 20 times too much of oils high in omega 6. That causes the release of inflammatory cytokines in such large quantities it causes cardiovascular disease. But because our bodies CAN safely process a little of this stuff, if you eat some 100 % whole grain foods or occasionally eat a food made with canola oil, that’s likely OK. Walnuts are even good for you and eating them is protective for your heart and walnuts have some omega 6 oils for another example.

But 98% to 10% of the time you should pass on eating or cooking with oils high in omega 6. Not only do they increase inflammation by a lot, they also lower your protective HDL cholesterol.

Which oils are these bad guys? Corn, soy, safflower, and canola are the big ones that now sell the most. Corn and soy oils are particularly cheap and so tend to make their way into foods made from oils including many if not most salad dressings, “mayonnaise” so called, and packaged foods of all kinds.

Canola is the best of this bad bunch. It does have a bit less omega 6 oils and some plant based omega 3 oils. But for most people it simply is too high in omega 6 to be OK to eat often.

The third group is the one that originally was targeted as being bad for your heart. Heavy intake IS that bad for your heart—particularly when you eat it with oils from the second group. But low moderate intake is far safer than we used to think.

These are the animal based saturated fats. Butter, cream, full fat cheese, whole milk, and fatty meats have this. Eggs have some but turn out to be a bit of a special case.

In people who are otherwise healthy and who exercise every week, low to moderate consumption of these kinds of saturated fats tends to increase HDL more than it does LDL. However, the people who think we should get to have all we want have been proven wrong – twice! In both China AND in France, the regions that consumed the most animal based saturated fat reliably had the most heart attacks. Similarly, the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet that have been proven to protect people’s hearts include very limited amounts of animal based saturated fats. They include some; but it’s a secondary food on some occasions – NOT a primary food. In addition these diets include a LOT of vegetables with fiber that removes a good bit of the saturated fat they do include.

Secondly, meats etc from animals fed their natural diets tend to be lower in fat and saturated fat and to have virtually no omega 6 oils. They even have some omega3 oils from the fourth and beneficial group. In contrast, meat etc from grain fed animals is high in fat , higher in saturated fat, and quite high in omega 6 oils. So, one way to have OK saturated fat is to eat foods like beef and lamb and butter from animals never fed grain but fed grass instead.

Eggs are a special case for two reasons. They have very little saturated fat per egg; and though they are high in cholesterol, eating them increases HDL cholesterol instead of LDL because of the high choline in egg yolks.

The fourth group has the two oils that are heart protective and should be eaten virtually every day.

Monosaturated oils from extra virgin olive oil, nuts, and avocados, increases or leaves HDL the same while reducing the worrisome LDL compared to other oils AND it does NOT increase inflammation AND the other nutrients in extra virgin olive oil, nuts, and avocados are beneficial to health in many other ways. Over 95% of the time use extra virgin olive oil instead of butter or an omega 6 oil. And, unless you are allergic eat nuts or avocados daily.
(Nuts fried in omega 6 oils or partially hydrogenated oils should be avoided totally. Their health value has been destroyed. Eat nuts raw or dry roasted only.) These sources of monosaturated oils are one of the biggest reasons that the Mediterranean diet has proven to support and create health. In fact it may be the biggest reason other than high consumption of organic vegetables.

The second kind of oil that is beneficial is omega 3. It LOWERS inflammation and prevents excessive blood clotting. At least in some people, it helps avoid heart rhythm problems. And omega 3 oils have recently been reported to lengthen telomeres which slows or reverses aging.

The most effective two kinds are in fish oil from fatty fish. But some fish are very high in mercury such as swordfish. Some are moderately high such as tuna. Mercifully smaller mackerel, herring, sardines, and anchovies – and to a bit lesser degree wild caught salmon are both high in omega 3 and low or very low in mercury. Eat some of one or more of those two or three times a week—but if and only if it’s wild caught. (Note that virtually all river fish and ALL farmed fish are so heavily polluted they are unsafe to eat.)

The other source for omega 3 oils is from supplements. The ones that get their omega 3 oils directly from the algae from which the fish get theirs are safe to take. So are those that contain purified fish oil if it’s well done. (There are likely several other OK brands of omega 3 supplements but Carlson and Nordic Naturals are the most known and available.)

In short, if you want to protect your heart and stay healthy, do the following.

For fats and oils mostly eat extra virgin olive oil, nuts, avocados, eat some fatty fish that are wild caught from unpolluted water and that are very low or low in mercury, and take safe and purified omega 3 supplements daily.

Eat beans and lentils and lowfat and very lowfat dairy products for other protein sources.

Eat modest and occasional amounts of eggs, naturally fed poultry and meat from animals fed only grass and full fat dairy from such animals.

Eat somewhat more modest amounts of very lean grain fed poultry and meat from grain fed animals, butter, cream, and or full fat cheese –AND, only do this if you also exercise and eat a lot of nonstarchy vegetables every day.

Except for eating walnuts or occasionally eating something made with canola oil, completely avoid omega 6 oils, particularly corn and soy.

And, treat hydrogenated vegetable oils like the heart attack starter that they are. ALWAYS read labels and simply refuse to eat any foods that contain them!