Matt Metzgar

I thought I would point out this interesting study on a Mediterranean version of a ketogenic diet.

I am not a big fan of ketogenic diets, but in this study they went from 100% of patients having the metabolic syndrome at baseline to 0% twelve weeks later.  By anyone’s definition, those are good results!

There is some discussion of the Paleo diet and other interesting aspects near the end of the paper.

While I’m on the subject of butter, I thought I would point out a new study showing the effects of olive oil and argan oil versus butter in young men.  Subjects consumed butter for 2 weeks, and then olive oil or argan oil for 3 weeks.

Consumption of olive oil compared to butter led to a 17.4% increase in testosterone!  Argan oil also led to an increase in testosterone over butter.

Food for thought…

Following up on previous posts, I wanted to point out how sometimes a food is positioned as being positive when it really is just “less bad” than other foods.

For example, many of the saturated-fat-is-good crowd refer to this study.  Some claim this study shows that consumption of saturated fat reduces heart disease.

But read carefully!  It says: “saturated fat intake is associated with less progression of coronary atherosclerosis”.  That means it’s still progressing, but just at a slower rate.  This is not the same as no progression or reversal.

I’ve been seeing the same thing in regards to red palm oil.  One study showed red palm oil is “less atherogenic than coconut oil”.  But this is just a backwards way of saying that it does promote atherosclerosis, but again just at a slower rate!

Just because something is “less bad” does not make it good!

This is a follow-up to the series on refined oils.  For some reason, its seems like saturated fat, and really butter in particular, has taken on the role of a health food in the Paleo community.  This is in spite of the fact that there is no evidence for this.

In efforts to fight the conception that “saturated fat is bad”, I think people have become brainwashed that saturated fat is good.  But again, where is the evidence that this is so?  (I’m concerned here with cardiovascular health.)

Well, butter tastes good.  And butter has been around for a while.  But so what!  Sugar tastes good and also has been around for a while, but that doesn’t make it a health food.

So let’s look at the evidence…

Here’s a 10-year study with over 120,000 people.  The conclusion:

“The role of dairy product consumption in mortality generally appeared to be neutral in men. In women, dairy fat intake was associated with slightly increased all-cause and IHD mortality”.

Here’s a study from 2012 on the subject:

“No associations were observed between plant or butter SF and CVD risk, but ranges of intakes were narrow.”

Here’s a study published in 2013:

“Cross-sectional analyses indicated that across increasing quartiles of butter intake, insulin (P trend=0.011), triacylglycerol (P trend=0.023), total cholesterol (P trend=0.002), and diastolic blood pressure (P trend=0.027) were higher.  The present results confirm that consumption of milk predicts prospective blood pressure, whereas dairy product consumption, excluding butter, is not detrimental to arterial stiffness and metabolic markers”.

And there are a number of other studies.  So let’s start with the premise that there is no association between butter intake and cardiovascular disease, or in other words, the relationship is neutral.  How has a neutral relationship been transformed into a beneficial relationship?

If reducing heart disease is the goal, then why are some people advocating butter even though there is no evidence that it will lessen heart disease?  Fruit and vegetable consumption has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, so if people are substituting butter for fruits and vegetables then they are statistically worse off.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among men and women.  As such, the goal should be to reduce heart disease, not have a neutral effect on it.

Butter consumption does not reduce the risk of heart disease.  Making vague references to “short-chain fatty acids”, “medium-chain triglycerides”, or “Weston Price” does not change any of this.

Neutral is not the same as beneficial!

Hopefully, I have given readers something to consider in terms of refined oils.  I see no evidence that refined oils are healthy, and to the contrary, there is substantial evidence that they are a negative.  Simply substituting high-fat foods like nuts for oils would appear to be a health-promoting switch.

Let me add that all this evidence is linking refined oils to health, and not necessarily weight or fat gain.  I am speaking strictly in terms of health, specifically cardiovascular health, here.

So why are all these health gurus and Paleo-ish gurus telling people to dump oil on their food?  I have no idea.

Lastly, let me say that all this is not an original concept.  Dr. Esselstyn states “no oil” in his heart disease reversal program.  Art Devany said in his book that no oil is particularly good for you.

Given all available evidence, I think refined oils are neutral at best, and most likely oils have a negative impact on cardiovascular health.

Let me now show an indirect study linking to my hypothesis.  I have said that refined oils, detached from vitamins and minerals, cause oxidative stress.

Now separately, there has been a lot of discussion about declining male fertility in society, and its potential connections to diet.  I came across this new study that looked at dietary fat and semen quality among men attending a fertility clinic.  Here is a table from the paper:

(click to enlarge)

For virtually all types of dietary fat (except omega-3 fat), an increasing amount of fat in the diet leads to lower sperm count and sperm health.

Why is this so?  In my opinion, the higher levels of dietary fat are probably brought about from the increased use of oils (though of course this can’t be proven from the paper).  But it would go along with the theory that more refined oil = more oxidative stress = lower fertility.

On to part 6…

Continuing from the last post, my hypothesis was that refined oils are detrimental because they are stripped of their nutrients as compared to a whole food.  If this is correct, than nuts (a high-fat whole food) should lead to better vascular function than oils.  Is this the case?

Yes, as a number of studies show.  Here is one: “flow-mediated dilation (FMD) was worse after the olive oil meal than after the walnut meal.”  And another one: “Endothelial function significantly improved after consumption of a walnut-enriched ad libitum diet…”.  And another one: “Consumption of a hazelnut-enriched diet significantly improved FMD (56.6%)…”.

On to part 5…

Continuing on, if it appears that oils have a detrimental effect on the cardiovascular system, then why is that so?  There are varying explanations, but my view is that oils are stripped of most of their nutrients, and as “free fats” they cause oxidative stress.  For example, olive oils that are less refined, or alternatively more “food-like” appear to be better for health.  This study shows that olive oil with high phenolic content leads to less oxidative stress.

Now the question will arise, what about those Pacific cultures eating high fat that are still healthy?  I would argue that they are eating high fat foods and not refined oils.  In other words, they is a big difference between eating a coconut (a high-fat food) and pouring coconut oil on food.

For example, look at the nutrition data for coconut oil: there’s virtually no vitamins or minerals in it!  Now compare this to the data for a coconut: there is a much higher level of minerals.  In fact, this goes along with an older study that shows the addition of vitamins prevents the fall in FMD that usually goes with a high-fat meal.

On to part 4…

One of my goals for this year was to look into cardiovascular disease.  Along those lines, I have been looking into how refined oils affect health.  This is the first of a multi-part series on oils.

First, let me define some terms.  A lot of the studies I will cite discuss endothelial function.  This is essentially the function of the inner lining of the blood vessels, or a marker of vascular health in general.  One way to test endothelial function is through flow-mediated dilation (FMD).  Flow-mediated dilation has shown to be a significant predictor of cardiovascular events.  One other note, usually the FMD studies are one-off tests, but if something is beneficial or detrimental to FMD in the short run, this relationship tends to hold true in the long run as well.

On the Part 2…