By Dr. Mercola of mercola.comSaturated Fats are Good for You

Conventional medical authorities say that consumption of saturated animal fats is bad for you and causes heart disease.

But a hundred years ago, fewer than than one in one hundred Americans were obese, and coronary heart disease was unknown.

The Procter and Gamble started marketing Crisco as a new kind of food — the first commercially marketed trans fat. Crisco was originally used to make candles and soap, but with electrification causing a decline in candle sales,

Procter and Gamble decided to promote the fat as a “healthier” all-vegetable-derived shortening

According to LewRockwell.com:

“Feeding high doses of fat and cholesterol to omnivores, like rats and dogs, does not produce atherosclerotic lesions in them … 

In fact, it turns out that people who have highest percentage of saturated fat in their diets have the lowest risk of heart disease … 

The last word on this subject should go to Julia Child … Enjoy eating saturated fats, they’re good for you!”

The demonization of saturated fat began in 1953, when Dr. Ancel Keys published a paper comparing saturated fat intake and heart disease mortality. His theory turned out to be flimsy, to say the least, but the misguided ousting of saturated fat has continued unabated ever since. Fortunately, the truth is finally starting to come out, as medical scientists have begun to seriously question Keys’ findings.

Time to Put Ancel Keys’ Theory to Rest

Keys based his theory on a study of six countries, in which higher saturated fat intake equated to higher rates of heart disease. However, he conveniently ignored data from 16 other countries that did not fit his theory. Had he chosen a different set of countries, the data would have shown that increasing the percent of calories from fat reduces the number of deaths from coronary heart disease.

And, as illustrated in the featured article, when you include all 22 countries for which data was available at the time of his study, you find that those who consume the highest percentage of saturated fat have thelowestrisk of heart disease.

Furthermore, many have now realized that it’s the trans fat found in margarine, vegetable shortening, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that is the true villain, causing far more significant health problems than saturated fat ever could!

Still, despite the scientific evidence, the low-fat dogma remains a favorite among most government health authorities. Case in point: the most recent food chart issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in December of last year, recommends reducing your saturated fat intake to a mere seven percent of caloric intake—down from its previously recommended 10 percent…

Newer Studies Debunk Keys’ Theory

The USDA’s lowered recommendation is illogical when you consider the evidence available today, which supports saturated fat as a necessary part of a heart healthy diet. For example, as discussed in the featured article, a number of indigenous tribes around the world are living proof that a high-saturated fat diet equates to low mortality from heart disease.

These include:

Tribe Primary Diet Percentage Saturated Fat
Maasai tribe in Kenya/Tanzania Meat, milk, cattle blood 66 percent
Inuit Eskimos in the Arctic Whale meat and blubber 75 percent
Rendille tribe in NE Kenya Camel milk, meat, blood 63 percent
Tokealu, atoll islands in New Zealand territory Fish and coconuts 60 percent

 

And then there’s human breast milk, which contains 54 percent saturated fat. Since breast milk is the most perfect diet in existence for developing infants, the presence of high amounts of saturated fat cannot easily be construed as a “mistake.”

Furthermore:

  • meta-analysis published last year, which pooled data from 21 studies and included nearly 348,000 adults, found no difference in the risks of heart disease and stroke between people with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat.
  • Ina 1992 editorial published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. William Castelli, a former director of the Framingham Heart study, stated:

    “In Framingham, Mass., the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the person’s serum cholesterol. The opposite of what… Keys et al would predict…We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least and were the most physically active.”
  • Another 2010 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a reduction in saturated fat intake must be evaluated in the context of replacement by other macronutrients, such as carbohydrates. 

    When you replace saturated fat with a higher carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate, you exacerbate insulin resistance and obesity, increase triglycerides and small LDL particles, and reduce beneficial HDL cholesterol. The authors state that dietary efforts to improve your cardiovascular disease risk should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intake, and weight reduction.

I believe that last point is very important, and is likely a major key for explaining the rampant increase in obesity, heart disease and diabetes. And once you can pinpoint the problem, turning it all around becomes that much easier.

(cont)

Read the rest of the story: Saturated Fats are Good for You.

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By Dr. Mercola

Could poor sleeping habits cause brain damage and even accelerate onset of Alzheimer’s disease? According to recent research, the answer is yes on both accounts.

According to neuroscientist Dr. Sigrid Veasey, associate professor of Medicine and a member of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, this is the first time they’ve been able to show that sleep loss actually results in the loss of neurons.

A second study also suggests that if you sleep poorly, you’re at increased risk for earlier onset of severe dementia.

Sleep Loss Linked to ‘Massive Brain Damage’

The first study in question, published in the Journal of Neuroscience,1, 2, 3 found that sleep is necessary for maintaining metabolic homeostasis in your brain. Wakefulness is associated with mitochondrial stress, and without sufficient sleep, neuron degeneration sets in.

The research also showed that catching up on “sleep debt” on the weekend willnot prevent this damage. To reach their conclusion, the researchers submitted mice to an irregular sleep schedule similar to that of shift workers.

Inconsistent, intermittent sleep resulted in a remarkably considerable, and irreversible, brain damage—the mice actually lost 25 percent of the neurons located in their locus coeruleus,4 a nucleus in the brainstem associated with arousal, wakefulness, and certain cognitive processes. As reported by Timemagazine:5

“The scientists believe that when the mice slept inconsistently, their newer cells would create more sirtuin type 3, a protein meant to energize and protect the mice. But after several days of missing sleep, as a shift worker might, the protein creation fell off and cells began to die off at a faster pace.”

 

 

Read the rest of the story: Sleep Loss Linked to ‘Massive Brain Damage’.

To slim down, it helps to get up early and see the light, study says | News & Features | ArcaMax Publishing

To slim down, it helps to get up early and see the light, study says

 

LOS ANGELES–To maximize your chances of fighting flab, new research offers some simple advice: Wake up early and go outside.

People who loaded up on light exposure at the beginning of the day were most likely to have a lower body mass index, according to a study published this week in the journal PLOS ONE. That relationship between morning light and BMI was independent of how many calories the study participants consumed.

It may sound crazy, but there is sound scientific evidence to back up the link. Circadian rhythm plays an important role in regulating metabolism, and studies have shown that exposure to morning light can influence body fat and the hormones that regulate appetite.

In one study, for instance, sleep-deprived subjects whose levels of the hormones leptin and ghrelin were out of whack saw those levels improve after being exposed to light for two hours after waking up. In another study, obese women who were exposed to bright light for at least 45 minutes between the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. dropped some of their body fat after three weeks. And studies in animals have found that altering light exposure changed their metabolism, resulting in weight gain even when the animals consumed the same amount of calories as before.

Read the rest of the story at http://www.arcamax.com/currentnews/newsheadlines/s-1500813#X3eQUqzBMPXhqR40.99via To slim down, it helps to get up early and see the light, study says | News & Features | ArcaMax Publishing.