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Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

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Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#121
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's undisputed (aside from most keto blogs) that an increase in serum cholesterol and especially LDL-C increases the risk of heart disease. Sure, but show me where cholesterol intake correlates to LDL. At some point someone managed to convince the public subconscious that food fat = body fat, and that food cholesterol = body cholesterol. And it's a ridiculous notion. I don't eat protein to become protein.

For starters, saturated fat increases cholesterol and that is almost exclusively in animal products. Animal products are basically the only products to contain dietary cholesterol. So there you have at least a strong correlation. As for the dietary cholesterol itself, see here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.549... "Serum cholesterol concentration is clearly increased by added dietary choles…

> For starters, saturated fat increases cholesterol and that is almost exclusively in animal products.

You conveniently fail to mention that it increases HDL and LDL in proportion, when a common marker for heart disease is the LDL/HDL ratio. [1]

> Animal products are basically the only products to contain dietary cholesterol. So there you have at least a strong correlation.

No, that's a non-sequitor. It would have been a correlation if a higher LDL/HDL ratio was contributed to dietary cholesterol, which it isn't. [2]

From your link:

> High-density lipoprotein (HDL) was consistently increased in most studies, with HDL2 increasing more than HDL3 after cholesterol consumption (42,43). Interestingly, the increase in serum HDL cholesterol re- sulting from cholesterol feeding appears to be greater when the background diet is high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (29). .....

> These subtle changes in lipoprotein composition and concentration-apart from changes in serum total or LDL cholesterol concentrations may help explain recent epidemiologic findings that implicate dietary cholesterol as an independent risk factor for coronary disease after fasting serum total cholesterol and other known cardiovascular risk factors have been controlled for (67, 68). However, because changes in LDL cholesterol accounted for most of the changes in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol will be the focus ofthe remaining discussion.

Even the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee doesn't state that cholesterol over consumption is of no concern. [3]

While dietary carbohydrates don't raise cholesterol, they do lower HDL, thus raising the LDL/HDL ratio. [4]

If you'd like, I'll admit that eating animal fats can increase LDL, but it's not the whole picture.

Some bonus sources for low carb (high fat) diets improving cardiovascular health: [5] [6]

But as I've read a lot of them, there's also opposing studies, like: [7]

My point is: approach this from an attempt to find truth, not from trying to prove that animal fat is bad, because it really shines through which one it is.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22037012

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24075505

[3] https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015-BINDER/meeting7/do...

[4] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/02/25/ask-...

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24075505

[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3530364/

[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16256003

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is: Butter contains 3 % trans fats. And even keto fanatics admit that trans fats are extremely unhealthy. You could say it doesn't have a huge impact and that might be true because it's only a small part of the diet. However, any amount of trans fat is dangerous. The body's enzymes can hardly remove any trans fat build up in the arteries.

> Butter contains 3 % trans fats. _No_ it does not. Trans fats are a completely artificial creation originally thought to avoid weight gain because it's specifically _not_ butter. They don't exist naturally in any butter.

The Google Instant answer for the question [does butter contain trans fat?] says 100 g butter contains 3.3 g of trans fat.

http://imgur.com/a/i7qw0

Trans fats sometimes occur naturally in food. They're created by bacteria in an animal's stomach.

Trans fats were nothing to do with weight loss. Trans fats were used because they're cheap and have long shelf life.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#123
Like almost all nutritional studies, the evidence here is circumstantial and should be read with significant skepticism. Stephen Pauker, a professor of medicine at Tufts University and a pioneer in the field of clinical decision making, says, “Epidemiologic studies, like diagnostic tests, are probabilistic statements.” They don’t tell us what the truth is, he says, but they allow both physicians and patients to “estimate the truth” so they can make informed decisions.' (Excerpt from Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy by Gary Taubes http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/magazine/16epidemiology-t....)

If you look at the larger body of evidence beyond this study, there are major reasons why institutional wisdom continues to advocate for the consumption of mono and polyunsaturated fats over saturated fat. For example, a larger 2016 cohort study of 115,000+ participants concluded high dietary intakes of saturated fat are associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease (http://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5796).

Eating healthier is all about what categories of food replace current calories. If similar studies continue to show vegetable oil consumption is not protective against heart disease, it will probably make more sense to advocate replacing vegetable oil calories with fatty nuts and avocados that are much more nutritiously dense than oils (my preference for where to get fats). To jump to the conclusion we should all eat more butter based on this one study of n=9,423, however, is bad logic.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#124

Like almost all nutritional studies, the evidence here is circumstantial and should be read with significant skepticism. Stephen Pauker, a professor of medicine at Tufts University and a pioneer in the field of clinical decision making, says, “Epidemiologic studies, like diagnostic tests, are probabilistic statements.” They don’t tell us what the truth is, he says, but they allow both physicians and patients to “esti…

Completely agree. One mechanism for the effect that oil had here could be the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 that most oils completely obliterate.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#125

Like almost all nutritional studies, the evidence here is circumstantial and should be read with significant skepticism. Stephen Pauker, a professor of medicine at Tufts University and a pioneer in the field of clinical decision making, says, “Epidemiologic studies, like diagnostic tests, are probabilistic statements.” They don’t tell us what the truth is, he says, but they allow both physicians and patients to “esti…

I would normally agree with you, but did you actually read this study or the article? This is not the usual "epidemiologic" nutritional study. This was a "rare randomized controlled trial." It was in fact a double blind randomized controlled study: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1246

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#127
post #109
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we focus on diet over environment too much. It isn't just what you eat but how you get around that is vital to tackling the cardiovascular epidemic. The only evidence that I currently have available is the Netherlands. The only western country to have a reducing obesity index, by 2030, predicted to be 8.5% down from 10%. Their diet is a very typical western diet. However their transport system and their urban…

In Netherlands it is common to have rather cold temperatures in houses even if people can afford to pay for warmth. And cold requires body to spend much more energy that is coming directly from burning body fat unless one shivering from cold. In fact if one wants to loose like 10 kilos quickly, just climb to Everest. Most of that weight will be spent on body heating, not muscular work. That also explains why butter d…

Do you have any references on that? I was under the impression being cold didn't really burn that many more calories. I'll stop wearing a jacket if I can burn hundreds of calories.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#128

Cholesterol isn't bad, it's in fact very important for the production of testosterone among other things. The problem comes from the inability to use it because the body isn't healthy. Polyunsaturated fats will produce bad byproducts when it breaks down and over time makes the body sick. We crucially lack magnesium and potassium in our diet. There are tons of studies showing the benefits of magnesium against heart di…

The grey matter in your brain is mostly cholesterol. I've personally lost 10 pounds in 10 days eating a high fat, low carb diet, with light excercise about 3 days a week. Kerrygold is my #1 choice for butter, because it comes from grass-fed cows.

In fact that's the only grass fed butter I can find anywhere I've looked. I always wonder how do you know it's really grass fed?

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#129
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problems are in the longer term with elevated cholesterol... From your link: > These differences were not significant at 24 months. ----------- > and increasing insulin resistance. I'm going to need to insist on sources on this.

Insulin resistance: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20427477 As for the cholesterol, the study I linked was probably not a very good example - sorry. Saturated fat does raise cholesterol however - so unless you are on a vegan low carb diet, you will see it rise. (IF you keep your weight steady, weight loss almost always lowers cholesterol)

Counter source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4264021/

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#130
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Netherlands it is common to have rather cold temperatures in houses even if people can afford to pay for warmth. And cold requires body to spend much more energy that is coming directly from burning body fat unless one shivering from cold. In fact if one wants to loose like 10 kilos quickly, just climb to Everest. Most of that weight will be spent on body heating, not muscular work. That also explains why butter d…

Do you have any references on that? I was under the impression being cold didn't really burn that many more calories. I'll stop wearing a jacket if I can burn hundreds of calories.

Sitting in a cold room burns an extra 50+ calories an hour if you are not dressed for it. That does add up, but is also unpleasant.
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