Tag Archives: nutrition

MOA of MCTs – black magic or something less?

Posted on May 19, 2013 | 5 comments

MCTs provide a respectable boost in diet-induced thermogenesis (in some studies [eg, Kasai 2002  & Clegg 2012], but not others [Alexandrou 2007]), but I don’t think that’s what does it.

The alternative?  MCTs aren’t “linoleate.” (sorry for lack of suspense)

Alcohol + MCTs vs. corn oil (from Kirpich 2013):

Kirpich

Further, feed rats a diet rich in either coconut oil, olive oil, safflower oil, evening primrose oil, or menhaden oil… and eventually the fat stored in their bodies reflect those fats – eg, linoleate only accumulated in the tissues of those fed safflower & evening primrose oils (Yaqoob 1995) (expect similar results with soybean & corn oils).

Researchers constantly refer to MCTs & coconut oil as “saturated fats,” but I always thought the chain length should be recognized.  Perhaps.  But with regard to certain benefits (eg, hepatoprotection), perhaps not.

Cacao butter has a lot of stearate (a fully saturated 18-carbon fatty acid) but not much linoleate or MCTs.  This linoleate may very well be more of a detriment than stearate or MCTs are a benefit… (with regard to certain benefits [eg, hepatoprotection])Beef and chocolate

(Leslie Roberts, 1988) (she’s talking about stearate)

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, chocolate, coconut, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, liver, Trans fat

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Brown adipose tissue

Posted on May 6, 2013 | 13 comments

Once thought to be the holy grail of energy expenditure manipulators and a potential cure for obesity – fail.  I don’t have great evidence for this; it’s really just a hunch.

A new mouse study has provided some additional fodder for speculation, however.

The theory & background info: increased BAT activity can effortlessly burn away excess fat mass by using fuel to create heat instead of energy.  This model was most aptly summarized by the title of Dr. Efraim Racker’s 1963 ediorial: “Calories Don’t Count-If You Don’t Use Them.”  At best, I don’t think BAT is a panacea.  At worst, we might’ve learned our lesson long ago from DNP (circa 1938; also McFee et al., 2004; Miranda et al., 2006; Tewari et al., 2009; and Grundlingh et al., 2011).

drug banned

In a slurry of publications in 2009, researchers re-ignited the quest by showing cold-induced BAT activation in healthy humans (Virtanen et al., 2009):Virtanen BAT

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, empty calories, Energy balance, ephedrine, nicotine, TPMC

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Alcohol-proof your liver. SFAs.

Posted on April 29, 2013 | 16 comments

it probably has other benefits, too. 

Tissue lipid turnover, adipose vs. liver.

Can the saturated fat & MCTs in dark chocolate & coconut oil protect liver against the ravages of alcohol?  Tonight?

The studies discussed in “The liver is evil but need not be punished.  SFAs”  entailed chronic alcohol feeding in combination with a high saturated fat/MCT diet – the animals were given a liquid diet of complete nutrition and a LOT of booze.   Not very applicable to humans, imo [hopefully].  Which brings up the question: how long does it take for coconut oil & dark chocolate to flex their hepato-protective muscles?

wine and dark chocolate

Fortunately, [if tissue fat composition is in fact the relevant protective factor], unlike adipose fat which hangs around for years (Beynen et al., 1980 & Katan et al., 1997), liver fat appears to turn over quite rapidly.

For example, a single shot of radiolabeled oleate is cleared out of the liver within a few days, whereas it lingers significantly longer in adipose of rats (Iritani et al., 2005).  And this is actually enhanced in rats fed a higher fat diet.fat-free diet

Similarly, a study on diet-induced changes in liver fat in humans showed that after only 3 days of low carb dieting, liver fat significantly declined in 5/10 patients, and in all of them by day 10 (Hollingsworth et al., 2006):liver fat time course

Shoutout to Mike Eades for directing me to this study.  Whatever happens after 3-10 days, I suspect, will reflect the new dietary pattern – you are what you eat?  :/

I don’t put too much stock in generic nutrition textbooks, but those data are rather close to estimates put forth by Frayn, Arner, and Yki-Jarvinen (2006, free full text):Frayn

Translation: while a single meal of dark chocolate and coconut oil may not acutely protect the liver from alcohol [tonight], a few days’ worth just might.

Others?

Red meat.   While the saturated fat content of red meat is expected to similarly bolster liver resistance to oxidative stress, another component – carnitine (of the recent TMAO infamy) – may also provide some benefit by enhancing liver fat turnover (Kepka et al., 2011 sorry no full text, so only in theory).  Taurine, also found in red meat, also prevents some alcohol-induced liver pathologies [in rats] (Kerai et al., 1998 & Pushpakiran et al., 2005).

Coffee, too (Gallus et al., 2002; Tverdal et al., 2003; Klatsky et al., 2006; Lopez-Garcia et al., 2008; Sugiyama et al., 2010).  Probably has more to do with prevention of lipid peroxidation via antioxidant polyphenols.  just sayin’     …compared to the SFA’ers, would those on a high PUFA diet benefit more from coffee in this regard?

The culprit isn’t red meat or TMAO, its cigarettes & sedentary obese HFCS PUFA empty calories – the bona fide confounding factors in most anti-nutrition propaganda.

 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, chocolate, coconut, diet, Dietary fat, fat, wine

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Molested fats, Op. 139

Posted on April 23, 2013 | 10 comments

or
Trans fats, part IV

Proceed with caution, this is an exploratory post.  Replacing CakesCookiesPiesPastriesBreadCerealsBiscuitsPizzaMuffins with [insert any whole food item here] is just a good idea.  And more reasons to eat dark chocolate.

In Inflammatory, trans, or linoleate? the idea was explored that it might not be the theorized textbook pro-inflammatory end products of omega-6 fats that give them a bad rap, but rather the foods that contain them – ie, “cakes, cookies, pies, and pastries” (Kris-Etherton et al., 2012 NHANES), or “bread, cereals, cakes, biscuits, pies, pizza, and muffins” (Meyer et al., 2003 from down under).

dark chocolate

Further, what starts out as an omega-6 fat can easily become peroxidized or isomerized into an oxidized or trans fat, respectively, via industrial molestation or just plain old cooking (eg, Romero et al., 1998, Marmesat et al., 2012, & Minami et al., 2012) – even just a few minutes in the microwave (Herzallah et al., 2005)!  I don’t know exactly what all of these end products are for sure, but they might look something like this:ox linoleate

Thus, the culprit may not be native Dc9,c1218:2n6 linoleate.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, Dietary fat, empty calories, fat, Trans fat

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Liver is evil but need not be punished. SFAs.

Posted on April 17, 2013 | 25 comments

What to serve with a liquid lunch, and a recipe for chocolate.

It’s like a feed forward downward spiral.  If you don’t eat saturated fat & MCTs prior to imbibing, then liver intentionally makes more PUFAs for the alcohol-induced burning ROS to molest.  Liver is evil but need not be punished.  SFAs.

Brief background: (Kirpich et al., 2011 & 2013)

Researchers studying alcohol in rodents know where they’re going and like to get there fast.  70 drinks per day fast.  Granted, rats metabolize faster than humans so it’s likely a little less… but a little less than 70 is still a lot of sauce.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, insulin, pair-feeding, Sugar, TPMC

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Non-sequiter nutrition V. The neglected fats

Posted on April 10, 2013 | 4 comments

update: I learned a new trick.  If you haven’t been receiving the regular updates to which you subscribed, it’s probably due to spam filters.  Cure: find the update in your spam folder and reply to it.  You don’t have to write anything, but the mere act of replying somehow tells your spam filter that the email wasn’t spam.  It works for gmail, fwiw.

I [still] predict public approval of dietary fat will come along at a snail’s pace, and it won’t be a pan-approval of dietary fat at all.  Instead, it will be selective approval of individual fatty acids.  First, it was the medium chain fatty acids found in MCTs and coconut oil.  Then, it was the fish oil fatty acids eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids (EPA and DHA, respectively).  Then, palmitoleic acid.  Corn and soybean oil, on the other hand, are being appropriately recognized as bad.  The utter hatred and fear of saturated fats is starting to wane, and we might even see a transition back to lard before I die (circa 2113).  But today’s post is on another topic: trans fats, oxidized fish oils, and dairy fat.

What happens when dietary fat is abused?

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, fat, Fish, Protein

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salt makes you thirsty, soda makes you hungry.

Posted on April 3, 2013 | 5 comments

As previously discussed, DRINK was a randomized intervention study that gave children either regular or diet soda for a year and surprise surprise, the regular soda drinkers gained about more body fat than the diet soda drinkers (de Ruyter et al., 2012).  And in the follow-up, with an opposite study design, overweight & obese children who continued to drink regular soda gained twice as much weight as those who cut their intake (Ebbeling et al., 2012).  There was no apparent black box in the latter study as the kids who stopped drinking soda also decreased their intake of other foods…

-does not compute-fructose

wait a minute … By switching from regular soda to diet, you just end up compensating by eating more of something else, right?  My initial response to that has always been that it doesn’t matter – ANYTHING else is better than a straight shot of 100% HFCS (+ some other chemicals).  But those kids didn’t do that.  they ate less of other foods.

 

Does HFCS soda make you eat more?

A recent study has put a little more fuel on this fire.  Similar to the abovementioned two, it’s not a sophisticated study designed to accurately assess the impact of regular soda on appetite, satiety, hunger, etc., but it supports the theory that diet soda negative calories are NOT compensated for by eating more of something else.


Food and beverages associated with higher intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (Mathias et al., 2013)

It was another big cross-sectional NHANES study that simply asked how much regular soda, diet soda, and other foods kids were eating.Mathias data 1

They showed that as soda intake increased, so did total calories, which could simply mean the soda was adding calories to their diets.  This would indirectly support the opposite of the above mentioned theory, namely, that soda calories aren’t compensated for.  But it gets better (or worse, depending how you look at it):Mathias data 2

soda didn’t simply add to the total calorie intake.  More often than not, calorie intake increased above and beyond that contributed by the soda.  And it wasn’t just that bigger kids were drinking more soda and eating more food – these data were controlled for body weight.  The authors estimated that for every 100 kcal of soda drank, an additional 36 – 86 kcal of food was eaten.

salt makes you thirsty, and now soda makes you hungry?

 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, Fructose, Leptin, Sugar

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Obesity is not permanent

Posted on March 27, 2013 | 15 comments

Take a group of obese people (> 250 lbs) and put them on a massive calorie restricted diet.  They lose weight and metabolic rate plummets.  Weight loss fail?  In most cases, yes.  But a recent study showed that the decrepit post-weight loss metabolic rate gradually improves in parallel with an increase in dietary fat ingestion to such a degree that even after two long years: totally food intake was almost back to normal, energy expenditure improved, and all this happened despite continual weight loss.  In other words, obesity is not permanent. 

creme brulee

Decreased energy density and changes in food selection following Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (Laurenius et al., 2013)

Statistically speaking, no diet on Earth comes close to RYGB in terms of weight loss success.  Long term.  Seemingly permanent.  It’s the closest thing to a cure we’ve got.

Laurenius

Body weight is down by 30%, and energy expenditure is rising faster than a speeding bullet.  because food intake is increasing while body weight is dropping – they’re probably more active too ** weight loss than more exercise –

But there’s a more mystical aspect to RYGB that warrants attention.  (it could be the increasing fat intake, but for now let’s just say it’s RYGB per se).  According to this pearl, weight loss of only 10% via diet alone causes energy expenditure crash by 394-500 kcal/d, and physiological replacement of leptin via subcutaneous injection can increase this by 234-454 kcal/d (Rosenbaum, Murphy, Heymsfield, Matthews, and Leibel, 2002).

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, Leptin, Sugar, TPMC

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How to define a “healthy” diet. Period.

Posted on March 13, 2013 | 7 comments

Whether you’re strictly adhering to a diet or just doing your own thing, if year after year your GP is prescribing more and more medications to stave off morbidity and keep you intact, then the diet you’re following is most likely Fail.  The same is true if your body weight is creeping upward or your quality of life is creeping downward.lunchables

The glaring Fail of all 3 diets in the recent Mediterranean Diet Study for the medications criteria threw up a huge red flag.  As a brief refresher, at baseline and 5 years later, prescription medication usage was as follows:

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, insulin, Ketosis, mortality, Protein, Sugar, TPMC

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Fat mitochondria

Posted on February 17, 2013 | 14 comments

No, not heavyweight powerhouses.  Mitochondria IN fat cells.
electricity is required for your space heater, not your long johns.

mito

At first glance, the mere presence of mitochondria in adipocytes seems perplexing.  On one hand, there’s tons of fat to burn, so why not have the capacity to do it?  Well yeah, but on the other hand, adipose doesn’t do very much.  It doesn’t contract like skeletal muscle or crank out glucose like liver.  Mitochondria in BAT is understandable, to generate heat and what not.  electricity is required for your space heater, not your long johns.

My best guess is that adipose tissue mitochondria are there to do something else – make shorter acyl chained FA’s, or free radicals, etc., to signal something.  Just not primarily to generate energy.

But drop an anvil on adipose tissue mitochondria and you get some interesting mice indeed.  Impossible mice.

TFAM – in brief, the enzyme that goes by the acronym TFAM makes mitochondria work.  Global TFAM KO is lethal.  But adipose tissue (AT)-specific KO is interesting.  Uncoupling goes through the roof and fat literally burns away.  kind of***.

Adipose-specific deletion of TFAM increases mitochondrial oxidation and protects mice against obesity and insulin resistance (Vernochet et al., 2012)

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, Dietary fat, Energy balance, fat, insulin, muscle

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