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Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#31

Post by acconrad »

Jdoemk2 wrote: post #16
alextgordon wrote: post #7

Fat is calorie dense. There's ~380 calories per 100g of sugar but 880 calories per 100g of olive oil. 70% of the US population is overweight. Being overweight is bad for you. If your diet contains a lot of fat, you're consuming more calories than if you substituted the fat with something else (e.g. by avoiding deep fried foods, and eating leaner meat). If you are not overweight, then feel free to eat as much fat as y…

Fatty foods are often more satiating than carbs, meaning you eat less overall. All things being equal calorie-wise fat is better for weight loss than carbs are.

This is simply not true. You are oversimplifying the issue. As an example, I'd like you to go take a shot of olive oil and tell me you feel fuller than having a cup of steel cut oatmeal with a cup of blueberries. In fact, in 1 shot of olive oil, that's 3 tbsp, which is roughly 360 calories, whereas the oatmeal and berries clocks in around 250 calories. "All things being equal", I just put fat against carbs and the oatmeal just won because 3 tbsp of olive oil will not satiate the way 2 cups of carbs will.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#32

Post by CuriouslyC »

lsniddy wrote: post #17
CuriouslyC wrote: post #2

A large part of the issue is that in the traditional American diet, a significant portion of fat intake is in the form of saturated fat. There is a decent amount of research showing saturated fat has inflammatory effects in the body and directly causes insulin resistance. For a long time doctors have had success encouraging patients to eat diets excluding America's primary sources of saturated fat (red meat, bacon/la…

That is curious, considering our rates of heart disease and diabetes were a fraction of what they were today when people ate more saturated fats (e.g butter). And when switching to a diet where saturated fat is the primary energy source, people tend to lose weight and see an increase in insulin sensitivity.

The thing with carbohydrates is that when you consume more than your body can shunt into glycogen stores/fat cells or use immediately for energy, glucose just accumulates in the blood. Glucose is an inflammatory molecule (at least to endothelial cells) and inflammation has been shown to directly modulate insulin resistance; thus you end up in a downward spiral with metabolic syndrome as the result.

I haven't seen any research that controls for calories while varying the saturated fat content of the diet which shows improved weight loss and improved insulin sensitivity for the saturated fat case. I have seen ad libitum feeding studies where people were instructed to eat fatty foods of their choice with that result, but I strongly suspect that the results in those cases were due to reductions in calorie intake.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#33

Post by LanceH »

mason240 wrote: post #23
alextgordon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans could not sustain a ketogenic diet for any amount of time, so it is pointless for the purposes of a national health body.

>Most Americans could not sustain a ketogenic diet for any amount of time Why not?

Because they grew up with a ton of grains on the bottom of the officially government sponsored food pyramid.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#34

Post by msandford »

cornholio wrote: post #25

Because fat has 9 calories / gram, carbohydrates have 5 and water has zero. So while a tint of olive oil in your salad might have some theoretical health benefits if you are skinny, replacing those deep fried chips with baked chips has immediate benefits if you are overweight - you will probably eat the same quantity anyway but half the calories. Fat makes you fat without a proportional decrease in your appetite, it'…

Right, because carbs do wonders for satiety and fat doesn't do anything...

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#35

Post by someuser1 »

jerf wrote: post #21

Because they can't change their recommendations without admitting they were wrong , and governments generally can't do that . Or, at least, the speed with which they can change their recommendations is sharply bounded by ensuring they never quite have to admit fault. Admitting you were wrong is basically begging to have your funding cut, your reputation trashed, your influence removed, your job cut. The closest thing…

> the public will very likely and entirely rationally start asking very pointy questions about how such volume could be combined with such error, and what else being communicated with such volume and confidence today may also be wrong.

Probably a good idea

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#36

Post by drzaiusapelord »

acconrad wrote: post #19

We don't know much about our bodies. I feel like every time a major news publication publishes an op-ed or a study, they're contradicting themselves[1]. One week eggs are bad, the next they're good. Same with dairy, carbs, and red meat. Then you mix in the whole "diet" complexity: Atkins? Paleo? Keto? Vegan? How do I choose? When you study the longest-living peoples of the world, you also find extremely varied diets:…

When I visit Greece, I find it very surprising how little my relatives eat per meal.

I think at the end of the day, we're just going to find that calorie in, calorie out is what's really going on here. Sure, heavy eaters binge on carbs or fats or whatever, but that's not the root problem here. Its our portions and snacking culture that might be the real culprits.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#37

Post by acconrad »

mason240 wrote: post #23
alextgordon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans could not sustain a ketogenic diet for any amount of time, so it is pointless for the purposes of a national health body.

>Most Americans could not sustain a ketogenic diet for any amount of time Why not?

Because most people of any culture can't stick to restrictive diets [1]. Restricting calories is ultimately the goal - how you do it is largely irrelevant, outside of eating mostly whole, unprocessed foods. When you apply further restrictions, people (up to 66% of them) rebound and gain the weight back (or more).

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469900

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#38

Post by CuriouslyC »

Jdoemk2 wrote: post #12
CuriouslyC wrote: post #2

A large part of the issue is that in the traditional American diet, a significant portion of fat intake is in the form of saturated fat. There is a decent amount of research showing saturated fat has inflammatory effects in the body and directly causes insulin resistance. For a long time doctors have had success encouraging patients to eat diets excluding America's primary sources of saturated fat (red meat, bacon/la…

I think you're really far off with that assessment. The vilification of saturated fat has been widely shown to be based on poor evidence, and there are many arguments for it being healthy. Furthermore, it is not clear-cut that mono- and poly- unsaturated fats are as healthy as you say they are.

Just some research studies on the metabolic effects of saturated fats that might prove interesting:

Overfeeding Polyunsaturated and Saturated Fat Causes Distinct Effects on Liver and Visceral Fat Accumulation in Humans. http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2014/02/1...

Substituting dietary saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat changes abdominal fat distribution and improves insulin sensitivity. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00125-001-0768-3

Saturated fat stimulates obesity and hepatic steatosis and affects gut microbiota composition by an enhanced overflow of dietary fat to the distal intestine. http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/303/5/G589

The influence of the type of dietary fat on postprandial fat oxidation rates: monounsaturated (olive oil) vs saturated fat (cream). http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/12037652

Saturated Fatty Acid-Mediated Inflammation and Insulin Resistance in Adipose Tissue: Mechanisms of Action and Implications. http://jn.nutrition.org/content/139/1/1.short

Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase-1 Mediates the Pro-lipogenic Effects of Dietary Saturated Fat. http://www.jbc.org/content/282/4/2483.short

A saturated fatty acid–rich diet induces an obesity-linked proinflammatory gene expression profile in adipose tissue of subjects at risk of metabolic syndrome. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/90/6/1656.short

Substitution of saturated with monounsaturated fat in a 4-week diet affects body weight and composition of overweight and obese men - Here they show consuming monounsaturated fat instead of saturated fat causes weight and fat loss. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

I would love to look at counterpoint articles if you have any.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#39

Post by jerf »

LanceH wrote: post #28
jerf wrote: post #21

Because they can't change their recommendations without admitting they were wrong , and governments generally can't do that . Or, at least, the speed with which they can change their recommendations is sharply bounded by ensuring they never quite have to admit fault. Admitting you were wrong is basically begging to have your funding cut, your reputation trashed, your influence removed, your job cut. The closest thing…

The next wave of food bans are worse because "everyone is an eventual consumer of healthcare" so the choice to ignore the government on some things is also being taken away.

This is one of the important reasons for my general vague libertarianism. Governments can be wrong, markets can be wrong, individuals can be wrong, clubs can be wrong, companies can be wrong, all people and all elements of the powerset of all people can be wrong. (Except perhaps the null one, but it's also not known for being very right....) But the incentives for what happens next varies widely, and very-large-organizations have horrible horrible ones to double down, triple down, indefinitely keep throwing money on the number that keeps losing over and over, because they seem to inevitably settle on political structures that work that way.

I say "very large organizations" like it's one word because I fully consider "big business" and "government" to merely be two instances of that general problem, and I'm against both in general. It isn't really "government"... it's "the big organizations that humans tend to produce once you have an organization that is fully confident (rightly or wrongly!) that there is absolutely no meaningful threat to its continued existence". Large navel-gazing organizations are dangerous, in general.

Re: Why Is the Federal Government Afraid of Fat?

#40

Post by merpnderp »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #2

A large part of the issue is that in the traditional American diet, a significant portion of fat intake is in the form of saturated fat. There is a decent amount of research showing saturated fat has inflammatory effects in the body and directly causes insulin resistance. For a long time doctors have had success encouraging patients to eat diets excluding America's primary sources of saturated fat (red meat, bacon/la…

I think that is based on pretty crappy science. People who cut out refined carbs and sugar, yet eat a very high fat diet have healthy levels of triglycerides and LDL. The science is to the point that the only real danger of high fat diets is colon cancer. But adding fiber to the diet can offset those risks.

And of course people want mono and poly unsaturated fats, but they're more expensive and harder to eat in quantity than saturated fats.

Plus when I went on a high fat diet (nothing but fat, protein, fruit and vegetables), I cut my triglycerides and LDL in half, lost 40lbs, dropped my blood pressure to well into the athletic level, and felt better than ever before. All in 6 months.

[Edit to add personal note]

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