A massive but very little known severe health danger....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 11-29-2012

A. “Almost the whole world has been misled to believe that saturated fats are a health hazard when, in reality, it is omega-6 industrial seed oils that are the actual health hazard.”

Dave Brown

Dave Brown found that when he eliminated eating excessive omega 6 oils, an injury he sustained at work that had failed to heal finally did so.

He was eating commercial “mayonnaise” and salad dressings and daily peanut butter sandwiches.

But commercial “mayonnaise” and salad dressings are virtually all made with oils high in omega 6 -- instead of using olive oil only to make them. 

Soy oil and canola oil are in them instead which are both high in omega 6 oils, cheap, and almost all from GMO crops.

And, he found that peanut butter was a massive source of omega 6 oils.

Of course, very high intakes of saturated fats ARE bad for you.

But, it now looks like the majority of good results in heart protection and lowering high blood pressure that come from eating less fatty meats, and eating only very lean meats or poultry -- and fish and beans instead  --

It now looks like come MUCH more from eliminating the very high omega 6 content of fats in animals fed corn which is sky high in omega 6 than it is and was from the saturated fat reduction.

It seems we are descended from people who ate animal foods that in turn ate their natural diets and NOT GMO corn or soy.

Eating animals that ate their natural foods as our ancestors did results in about a one to one balance in omega 3 intake and omega 6 intake.

And, omega 3 oils tend to turn down excessive inflammation while excessive intake of omega 6 oils above that ratio turn on high levels of chronic inflammation.

Many if not most people in the United States today eat well over 10 times as much omega 6 oils as omega 3 oils.  And it ranges from 17 times too much omega 6 to over 30 times too much and often is!

Oops! OMG! & similar comments!

That’s a horrible state of affairs and a major cause of nasty diseases and our extremely high health care costs!

Here’s why:

1.  Many other things cause heart disease.  But the high chronic inflammation such excessively high omega 6 intake causes, helps cause heart disease and multiplies the effects of the other causes!

“It’s well established, at this point, that inflammation, not high LDL cholesterol, is what causes plaque buildup in arteries. Moreover, since excessive intake of omega-6 fats promotes inflammation, and high tissue concentrations of omega-6 are associated with high risk of heart disease….”  Emily Deans, M.D.   She goes on to add other harms of high omega 6 intake caused inflammation as I do here. 

( Dr Deans has written several articles about omega 3 and omega 6.  One is available at:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201103/your-brain-omega-3 )

2.  In the book Anti-Cancer, the author shows research that finds that high chronic inflammation such excessively high omega 6 intake causes, helps cause many if not most cancers.

3.  How about having enough osteoarthritis that you are always in some pain and moving around or doing things in your everyday life always hurts a bit? 

You likely would prefer not to have a heart attack or stroke or cancer some time in the future.

But what about osteoarthritis where once you have it, your quality of life right now is made uncomfortable every hour of every day?

Would you like to avoid getting that?

Recent research found that high chronic inflammation not only makes the pains and discomforts of osteoarthritis hurt more, it ALSO helps cause osteoarthritis directly!

 4.  Is there more bad news for people who don’t know to avoid these excessive omega 6 oils?

YES.  Much more!

Dr Emily Deans lists this in her article that I found,

“Here's the real problem - too much inflammation mediated by a high dietary percentage of the omega 6 fatty acid linoleic acid can be reasonably associated with coronary vascular disease, insulin resistance, cancer, hypothyroidism and other autoimmune diseases, thrombotic stroke, headaches, asthma, arthritis, depression, and psychosis. 

So you can see that such a massive change in our diets in the short term of the past 50-70 years could potentially have equally massive effects on our health.” 

(The corn fed grain fed cattle are fed is super high in the omega 6 fatty acid linoleic acid.  That means its fat has enough to harm you if you eat it.  This has 3 remedies.  Eat only the leanest smallest serving of such beef as you can manage, eat other foods entirely such as wild caught fish or beans, OR only eat beef from cattle ONLY fed grass which does NOT have this problem!)

We covered heart disease and thrombotic stroke has the same causes as heart attacks.  We covered cancer and arthritis.

Here are the other diseases excessive omega intake and its high chronic inflammation cause:

This paragraph adds making insulin resistance worse and causing some cases of hypothyroid. 

a) Insulin resistance is a major cause of high blood sugar and high blood sugar high enough to qualify as type 2 diabetes. That causes heart disease and blindness and even at lower levels helps cause Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

b) Insulin resistance and hypothyroid help cause obesity and make it harder to lose excess fat.

c) Asthma is horrible to have, can cause death, and does harm quality of life and is expensive to treat.

d)  Autoimmune diseases – similar to asthma, are horrible to have, can cause death, and always harm quality of life and are expensive to treat.  Worse, the treatments tend to have bad side effects and don’t work very well.  Sounds well worth avoiding to me!

e)  The insulin resistance and the vascular diseases caused by it and those caused by the heart disease process help cause Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.  Dr Deans says they have been implicated in causing depression and psychosis too!

Then it gets worse.

These same oils that are cheap, mostly from GMO crops, and very high in omega 6 oils are often hydrogenated to make a fatty tasting food with a very long shelf life for the foods it goes into.  Partially or fully hydrogenated oils and the artificial trans fats in them are a direct cause of cardiovascular disease.  In their case, the damage to your blood vessels happens directly and then the high inflammation follows too!

With Crisco and other hydrogenated oils cottonseed oil is often used.  Not only it is it cheap, high in omega 6 oil, and mostly from GMO crops, since cotton is not really a food crop, it’s often heavily sprayed with pesticides and herbicides even more than food crops are.

B.  So, besides avoiding the fats of animals fed grain, how to avoid this scourge of diseases all caused by excessive omega 6 oils?

a) Almost every food in your grocery store that is a baked good or a packaged snack or a packaged dessert or a prepared dinner has these oils.

Mercifully it’s on their labels as one or more of their ingredients.

But avoiding these foods has an extra health bonus too!  High fructose corn syrup, excessive sugar, excessive salt, MSG, and refined grains are all fattening or as harmful to your health or both!

In fact, once you remove the oils high in omega 6 both regular and saturated and that list of ingredients there is often nothing else in these foods!

In addition, all these oils are all high in omega 6 and best avoided:

( Never buy or eat them voluntarily!):

Corn oil and soy oil are the most common.  But safflower oil, cottonseed oil, and even canola oil are high in omega 6 oils too.  And, I found out from this research, so is peanut oil.

Similarly if the label has ANY partially hydrogenated oils listed at all, it not only has excessive omega 6 oils, its health harm is like it had the afterburner turned on!  Never, ever eat a food including any of a food with hydrogenated oils of any kind listed on the label!

b)  But some cooking and foods need some kind of oil.  Isn’t there an oil that avoids this problem?

YES!  Extra virgin olive oil has almost no omega 6 oils OR saturated fats.  It’s mostly monosaturated omega 9 oil.

If omega 6 oils are that harmful, it would follow that people who eat olive oil only would have better health.

Has that been tested?  Yes again!

One diet that only uses olive oil is the Mediterranean diet.  People who follow it well including only using olive oil HAVE tested to have less heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic diseases.  Note that the Mediterranean diet is also extremely low in fatty meats from grain fed animals!

c)  You may have noticed that even more than the total omega 6 intake, it’s the one to one ratio with omega 3 oils that is health producing.

Does this mean that it also helps avoid these inflammatory diseases to ensure you get enough omega 3 oil by taking supplements and eating wild caught fatty fish high in omega 3 oils two or more times a week?  (Farmed fish are best 100% avoided because they are heavily polluted and fed grains too!)

Yes again!

I found this in an Everyday Health email article about super foods:

“Eating fish helps cut the risk of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, stroke, diabetes, and arthritis. The fatty varieties may also help alleviate depression.

The American Heart Association recommends that adults eat at least two fish meals per week, especially wild salmon, herring, and sardines, because those varieties provide the most heart-healthy omega 3s.

Avoid mercury-containing varieties like shark, swordfish, king mackerel, tilefish, and albacore tuna, says Roberta Anding, M.S., R.D., national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. (Chunk light tuna is okay.)”

Omega 3 oils are anti-inflammatory!

And the omega 3 oil DHA is so powerful for brain function and nerve growth, it is likely wise to supplement for it directly in addition to a general omega 3 supplement and eating wild caught fatty fish NOT high in mercury.

C.  Summary:

These oils are in so many foods that it IS a lot of work to avoid them.

And the real foods like wild caught fish; and beef from cattle fed only grass; and cheese and butter from grass fed cows, Kerrygold from Ireland is; eggs from pasture fed hens; and extra virgin olive oil; each DO cost more than the cheap but harmful stuff. 

(Whole Foods is a store now in most communities that carries these foods.)

So is eating organic vegetables and fruits.

But buying the cheap stuff as most people still do in part because they don’t know any better is penny wise and 100 dollar bill foolish because of the resulting health care costs.

And, that doesn’t even count the avoidable suffering and early death and diminished life and capacities that consuming the cheap stuff gives you!