Fat is a word that evokes fear in most Americans. I hear “I eat a low fat diet, I don’t understand why I’m gaining weight.” It is not the fat that we should fear — it’s the carbohydrates.
The human body runs on two main fuel sources: carbohydrates and fats. Most of the energy needs for the metabolic processes on top of our daily expenditure are met by what we consume in our diet. The average American consumed a significantly larger portion of their calories from fat prior to 1971. However, the medical community started to notice that rates of heart disease and cholesterol were on the rise. An initial study pointed to fat, specifically saturated fat, as a potential culprit. Our diets gradually converted to a higher portion of carbohydrates in lieu of fat consumption. I remember being a child in the 80s and hearing everyone asking if something was low-fat. I grew up drinking low-fat or skim milk. My lunches contained pre-packaged items labeled low fat.
But a tricky thing happened. The American population continued to gain weight and lose health. Obesity became more and more commonplace and disease continued to spiral out of control. This time we have added autoimmunity and cancer on top of heart disease. The pharmaceutical community has spent billions of dollars “managing” all of the diseases that have stemmed in large part from our dietary consumption.
Cholesterol underwent scrutiny next as the American Heart Association and the government noticed that reducing fat consumption alone was not producing the results that they had expected. Now on top of low fat the labels donned cholesterol free or low cholesterol. Sounds like a brilliant plan… a brilliant plan for complete health disaster. So while we continued to perfect our diets by eliminating the cholesterol from our food sources, we again started adding in sugar and other carbohydrates as a way of replacing what was lost. In addition, the amount of chemicals used to hold the foods together where the fat and cholesterol used to be increased. These chemicals are typically not found in nature and those that could be found in nature were so quickly bastardized that they no longer resemble anything that the human body knows how to metabolize.
The human brain holds about 25% of the body’s cholesterol. Cholesterol is essential for hormone production and regulation, membrane function, and functions as an antioxidant. Statins hit the pharmaceutical market and quickly became one of the most prescribed drugs. So we began an all-out war against cholesterol. The down side of this wasn’t only the numerous side effects of the statins, but also that the cholesterol for some was being lowered too low! A 2008 study by West, R. and Beeri, MS. Et al, showed that some elderly subjects actually show better memory function when their cholesterol levels were higher. Brain function is dependent upon cholesterol in the body and when we reduce the necessary cholesterol levels to a point where the brain is basically starving and the hormones are unable to synthesize we see problems forming in a cascade-like pattern.
As we slowly re-examine the studies that claimed that fat and cholesterol were the major culprits in our diets that led to disease, we can see that the original assessment was incorrect. It isn’t these two entities at all, but it is the carbohydrate consumption. This is particularly true for the processed, packaged food items that are devoid of nutrients. The increase in sugar and overall carbohydrate consumption has driven the American people right in to a health care disaster. It’s time that we turn things around and start replacing the abundance of carbohydrates with good, healthy fats and cholesterol that our bodies need for optimal health and functioning.
Aller, E. E., Abete, I., Astrup, A., Martinez, J. A., & Baak, M. A. V. (2011). Starches, sugars and obesity. Nutrients, 3(3), 341-369.
Ruth, M. R., Port, A. M., Shah, M., Bourland, A. C., Istfan, N. W., Nelson, K. P., … & Apovian, C. M. (2013). Consuming a hypocaloric high fat low carbohydrate diet for 12weeks lowers C-reactive protein, and raises serum adiponectin and high density lipoprotein-cholesterol in obese subjects. Metabolism, 62(12), 1779-1787.
West, R., Beeri, M. S., Schmeidler, J., Hannigan, C. M., Angelo, G., Grossman, H. T., … & Silverman, J. M. (2008). Better memory functioning associated with higher total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in very elderly subjects without the apolipoprotein e4 allele. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 16(9), 781-785.
