From Fat to Fit (PUFAs) - by Udo Erasmus

[Guest guest]

From Fat to Fit (PUFAs) - by Udo Erasmus JoAnn Guest Jun 21, 2005 19:35 PDT

 

 

 

Introduction

http://www.udoerasmus.com/articles/udo/from_fat_to_fit_pv.htm

 

It’s not a mystery anymore. The steps are clear. The science is in. The

way it works has been nailed down, all the way to the biochemical and

genetic levels. And most important, the way it works is borne out

consistently in practice.

 

 

What we have been told to do (and are doing) for weight management and

for health is wrong. That’s why overweight has increased from 25% to 65%

(34% overweight, plus 31% obese) of the population over the past 20

years. That’s why obesity has more than doubled over the same two

decades. That’s why Type II Diabetes is up 70%.

 

 

So what are we doing wrong? We were told 20 years ago to reduce our

intake of fats. We were also told that carbohydrates are the best food

and that we should be eating more of them. We listened. At that time,

42% of our calories came from fats. Today, our fat intake is down to

less than 32% of calories. The reasons given for recommending that we

reduce our fat intake included:

Reduce cardiovascular risk

Reduce cancer risk

Reduce risk of diabetes

Reduce body weight

What has been the outcome of following this advice given by governments

and put into practice with the help of advertising campaigns from the

industry? In addition to overweight and obesity more than doubling,

cancer increased. Cardiovascular disease has not decreased. Diabetes

increased. There’s something wrong with this picture!

 

It’s What We Ate Instead: Carbs!

 

Given the results of this 20-year experiment on the entire population,

we must conclude that fat has never been the problem in weight

management. We ate less fat and got fatter. What, then, has been the

problem? What happened?

When we reduced fat intake, we began to eat carbohydrates instead. Low

fat and no fat foods. Convenience foods. Junk foods in crinkly bags.

It’s not that we didn’t eat them before. It’s just that we ate a whole

lot more of them. They replaced the fats we were not eating.

 

 

We also ate more bread, pastries, pasta, potatoes, fries, potato and

corn chips, corn, bananas and other sweet fruit, breakfast cereals,

popcorn, flour,

muffins, crackers, pretzels and refined carbohydrate products of all

kinds of different shapes and sizes, biscuits, pancakes, waffles, sugar,

honey, syrups, rice. You get the idea? This list includes most of the

favorite foods of overweight people. It is the foods loved by the

fat-phobic carbohydrate addicts—the ‘obese’ people.

 

What is wrong with eating carbs? Are they not the best fuels for energy?

That’s what we’ve been told, right?

 

The Carbohydrate Scam

 

The carbohydrate craze is driven, not by health considerations, but by

the fact that carbohydrates are cheap and easy to preserve.

 

Sweets and starches have a long shelf life, which makes manufacturers

happy. It gives them a large market, and little spoilage. In addition,

if health claims can be made for consuming carbohydrates because they

are low in fat, there is the probability that prices will increase as a

result; and that increase will be passed along to the consumer even if

the health claims are overstated. It does, however, raise profit

margins.

 

 

More insidious than the profit motive is the fact that carbohydrates

lead to a kind of addiction. Eating carbohydrates leads to high blood

sugar.

Then, in turn, the body’s desperate self-defense mechanism (involving

insulin) against the toxicity of high blood sugar (that can lead to a

‘diabetic’ coma) leads to low blood sugar accompanied by tiredness,

craving, and depression, which starts the next vicious high blood

sugar-low blood sugar cycle. I’ll explain that in more detail below.

 

For now, it is important to understand that low blood sugar can be

depressing, and so eating carbohydrates becomes comforting, and

carbohydrates become ‘comfort’ foods. Low blood sugar also leads to

hunger or food craving, and that leads to eating more. A vicious cycle

of high/low blood sugar ensues. Low blood sugar can make people very

tired and sleepy, and probably accounts for far more road accidents than

we care to admit. Even violence has a strong connection to low blood

sugar, estimated to be about 80% of non-premeditated violent crimes.

 

Overweight has many health consequences, including increased risk of

cancer, cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, gall bladder problems,

and many more.

 

The upsides of overweight are few. One is that bones become stronger

from carrying the extra weight around. Dying with strong bones is small

consolation for early death from the degenerative killer diseases of our

time.

 

 

Overweight also has many psychological consequences. Self-esteem is the

greatest casualty. People find overweight unpleasant, and treat ‘fat’

people badly. And many ‘fat’ people don’t like themselves much either,

because they often begin to see themselves as gluttonous victims, out of

control of their appetites.

 

The Carbohydrate-Fat Cycle

When a person eats carbohydrate foods (sweets and starches), digestion

turns all these carbohydrates into glucose. Glucose is sugar, whose main

function is to act as fuel. The glucose is absorbed rapidly into the

blood stream, for delivery to the cells that need it. All of this is the

normal course of events in the body.

 

 

However, if glucose is absorbed faster than the body burns it, high

blood sugar results. Sweet foods are more likely to lead to high blood

sugar than white flour products, which in turn are more likely to lead

to high blood sugar than whole grains like brown rice. But any source of

carbohydrates will result in high blood sugar if more is absorbed from

the gut than is being burned by the body.

 

High blood sugar is a very toxic condition. It is the fundamental

problem in diabetes. High blood sugar can lead to coma and death.

Because this condition is so toxic, the body has a protective mechanism

for reducing high blood sugar. Insulin drives glucose into our cells,

where it is supposed to be burned for energy.

 

But, if the cells already have enough fuel and don’t need the extra

glucose, then glucose acts like a hormone and turns on a gene, a copy of

which is present in every one of everyone’s 70 trillion body cells. The

gene, called fatty acid synthase, has only one function. It turns excess

glucose into fat.

 

Insulin, involved in this sequence of events, is over-ambitious in its

action and overshoots its goal of normalizing blood sugar. The result is

increased body fat and blood sugar that is now too low. Hunger results.

Carbohydrate craving leads to another round of eating, and the cycle

repeats itself. This is the basis of carbohydrate addiction.

 

Low blood sugar also leads to depression. This is the reason why

carbohydrates are many people’s ‘comfort’ foods.

 

The summary on carbohydrates goes like this:

The body turns carbohydrates into glucose.

While glucose is clean-burning, good fuel, it turns off fat burning and

turns on fat production.

Glucose not needed for fuel turns into fat.

 

Our slogan about carbohydrates: " Burn them, or wear them—as fat " .

 

The biochemistry and genetics of carbohydrates is completely different

from what we’ve been told. 60% of the population (those who are

overweight) practice that inaccurate advice.

 

The truth is the opposite from what we have been led to believe. Now

doesn’t that make you mad?

 

Carbohydrates and Activity

 

Few people are equipped by nature to be able to eat as many

carbohydrates and do so little physical activity as we do without

getting fat.

 

Most people were equipped by nature to turn excess glucose into fat.

Our ability to turn excess glucose into fat served an important survival

function that evolved during a time when rare times of feasting were

followed by long famines. This survival mechanism, however, is

disastrous in affluent cultures where people live in uninterrupted times

of plenty.

 

 

Athletes can eat much more carbohydrate food than sedentary people can

because they burn it up during intense activity. The more active a

person, the bigger their muscles, and the more they exercise, the more

carbohydrates they can burn. The less active, the smaller the muscles,

and the more sedentary the lifestyle, the more important it becomes to

limit carbohydrate intake to prevent overweight and its negative health

consequences.

 

How do you know how much carbohydrate is too much? That’s easy. It

requires no counting of calories or measuring of portions. If you are

overweight, you are eating more carbohydrates than you’re burning. This

means that you need to lower your carbohydrate intake.

How much do you need to lower your intake of sweet and starchy foods?

That’s easy too. Reduce them in you diet until your weight is normal.

 

 

Note: There are a few other reasons for overweight:

Drug side effects

Lack of iodine due to low salt diets

Water retention from inflammation that is usually due to allergic

reactions, poor lymph drainage, lack of exercise, or heart failure

 

Carbohydrates: the LEAST Important Food

Let me make one more point about carbohydrates. They are fuels that

the body burns for energy. They are good fuels if you burn them. They

are bad for you if you don’t.

 

 

But, and this is the key point to understand about carbohydrates, there

are no nutrients in carbohydrates that you can’t get elsewhere.

 

The body can use proteins and fats for fuel, and small amounts of

carbohydrates (too little to make you fat) are also present in green

vegetables, which is where most of us should be getting them.

 

 

In other words, carbohydrates are the least important of all of the food

groups.

 

Essential fats are required in the diet because the body cannot make

them, and therefore are more important than carbohydrates. Proteins

provide essential nutrients that the body cannot make but must have to

live and be healthy, and therefore proteins are also more important than

carbohydrates.

 

Green foods are more important than carbohydrates because they make and

supply us with most of the essential components of health.

 

 

We can live without carbohydrates, because the body can make them from

scratch.

 

The Truth About Food Fats and Body Fat

The first truth about fats is that they do not make us fat. This is

because they suppress appetite, and because eating fats does not produce

the blood sugar swings, the fat production, the craving, and the

bingeing cycles produced by carbohydrates.

 

The second truth about fats is that certain fats, especially those

missing from most people’s diets (called n-3 essential fats) will help

us lose body fat.

 

Did you read that right? Yes, you did. Good fats help to make and keep

us slim.

 

How can they do that? After all, all fats, good or bad, contain 9

calories per gram, whereas carbohydrates contain only 4 calories per

gram. That was the old argument against eating fats.

 

As with carbohydrates, the answer lies in our genes, in the way the

human body works.

 

Slimming Fats

 

Research has established that n-3 and n-6 essential fatty acids, but not

monounsaturated, saturated, or trans- fatty acids play a major role in

the body’s ability to burn fat.

 

N-3 does it better than n-6.

 

N-3 is inadequately supplied in the diets of 95-99% of affluent

populations worldwide. In fact, our intake of n-3 today is only 1/6th of

that found in diets

in 1850, and diets 150 years ago did not supply optimum amounts of n-3.

Our n-3 intake has declined to unprecedented lows.

 

 

N-6 intake, on the other hand, has doubled in the past 100 years for

people who eat the diets common in affluent populations.

 

People on low fat, no fat, fake fat, fat blocker, fat substitute, and

fat remover diets are likely to get too little n-6 as well as too little

n-3.

 

The ratio between n-3 and n-6 is far out of line with what it ought to

be for good health and normal weight, and this has implications, both

for health in general and for body fat and fat burning in particular.

 

How do essential fats help burn body fat and make us slim? The answer

has several parts. All fats including essential fats suppress appetite.

 

Unlike carbohydrates, fats keep blood sugar and insulin levels stable,

and prevent the high/low blood sugar cycle.

Essential fats improve thyroid function, and normalize metabolic rate

and energy levels provided enough iodine is present in the diet.

 

N-3 essential fats decrease inflammation and water retention in tissues,

(which is a large part of some overweight), and speed the removal of

water held in tissues by means of the kidneys.

 

N-3 essential fats improve kidney function, making removal of excess

water more efficient.

 

N-3 essential fats increase energy production, making it more likely

that a person will be physically active. This, in turn, leads to more

calories being burned, and increased muscle mass as a result of

increased physical activity.

 

N-3 essential fats elevate mood and lift depression. Depressed people

often experience loss of interest in life, and often sit around doing

nothing. The better the mood, the less likely people are to eat more

calories than they burn, and the more active they tend to be.

 

Genes, Fats, and Healthy Weight Management

Most important, n-3 essential fats affect the function of genes1,2,

turning up several genes that increase fat burning, turning down the

gene that leads to fat production, and turning on a gene that increases

heat production in the body. Specifically, n-3 essential fats:

 

 

Decrease fat production, by turning down the gene responsible for fat

production (fatty acid synthase)

Increase fat burning, by turning up at least 9 genes required for

burning fats in the body

Shift the body from using carbohydrates as fuel to using fats as fuel

instead (fuel partitioning)

Turn on a gene (uncoupling protein-3) that is responsible for

thermogenesis. Thermogenesis is the process by which fats are burned off

as heat, without work being done.

 

So you can see that n-3 fats, which are especially lacking in the

fat-phobic, carbohydrate junkie diets eaten by overweight people, are a

major key for reducing body fat, and many different weight normalization

mechanisms in the body are turned up by n-3 fats.

 

Remember, however, that n-6 essential fats are also essential for

building health and that the ratio between n-3 and n-6 must be right.

Too much n-3 can lead to many health problems due to n-6 deficiency. Too

much n-6 can lead to many health problems due to n-3 deficiency.

 

Over the years, I have found that a ratio of 2: 1 of n-3 to n-6 in the

diet gives optimum benefits in weight management without producing

deficiency of either of the essential fats.

 

Sue Government and Industry?

 

Some people want to sue governments for telling us that carbohydrates

are the base of the food pyramid, mis-educating us to believe that

carbohydrates are the most important food, and encouraging industries to

make and falsely advertise foods high in carbohydrates as good for our

health.

 

Others want to sue industry for listening to government, for not doing

their own research, falsely advertising high carb foods as better for

health, and profiting by making consumers sick or even killing them.

Recent US estimates put the figure of overweight-related deaths at

300,000 per year.

 

 

Wrong carbohydrate advice, based on scant research, has misled hundreds

of millions of people for 20 years, and probably has caused the deaths

of millions from the consequences of overweight on health—increased

cancer, increased cardiovascular disease, and increased diabetes. These

are in addition to the addiction and depression caused by high

carbohydrate diets. Even highway deaths due to sleepiness induced by low

blood sugar may be an issue although that possibility has never been

addressed.

 

 

 

 

Weight gain from eating more carbohydrates than we burn also has serious

social consequences. Overweight is unpopular. If a person wants to avoid

social contacts, getting fat is one of the easiest ways to ensure one’s

isolation.

 

To be fair, there are people who choose overweight as a way to avoid

life, and this possibility must also be addressed by those who work with

overweight and obese people claiming to want to normalize body weight

and get healthy. But for most overweight people, the problem is just a

matter of having been led to believe by industry and government

something that simply is not true for the human body or for health.

 

Is the Epidemic of Overweight Genetic?

 

Assuming that a person really does want to get to normal weight and

health, and most do, how should we eat to fix the problems of

overweight, obesity, and their degenerative consequences?

 

First, we must establish that the recent epidemic of 60% of the

population being overweight is nutritional in origin, and is not a

genetic problem. We know that because 20 years ago only 25% of us were

overweight. One hundred years ago, less than 10% were overweight.

 

Genes take much longer than that to take over a population, and they do

so by improving survival (longer life), greater reproductive success

(more children), and greater child survival. It takes at least 7 to 10

generations for a very strong and positive gene to take over a

population. With regard to overweight, the epidemic started only 20

years, less than one generation ago.

 

But the most critical factor why overweight is not a genetic issue is

this. Overweight people live shorter lives. They do not have more

children, but fewer children. And the health of the children of

overweight parents is not better but worse than the children of healthy

parents. In other words, this is not survival of the fittest. It is

exactly the opposite. It is shortened survival of the fattest.

 

Right Eating, Lifelong

A new food pyramid supporting good health must be developed.

 

1: Greens. This new food pyramid must have greens as its base as the

most important food for health and normal weight. Why green foods, you

ask? The answer is that Earth is the green planet. Imagine a world

without greens. There’d be no air, no water, no animals, no people, no

life. Why?

 

We owe everything to greens.

 

They make our oxygen. Researchers have calculated that green plants took

2.5 billion years to fill our atmosphere with the oxygen we need to

breathe. Only after green plants had done this important job could

air-breathing creatures like us begin to live here.

 

Greens absorb water and hold water in the soil. Without them, our planet

would turn into a desert.

 

Green plants absorb light energy from the sun, store it in bonds between

atoms to make food molecules which, when we eat them, release that

energy for us to live on.

 

Greens draw minerals from the soil, and make them available to us in a

form that our body can use—we can’t suck rocks to get our minerals, but

plants do exactly that for us.

 

Greens also manufacture the other components of health—molecules that we

need to build and maintain a healthy body but cannot make ourselves.

Greens make the vitamins, essential amino acids (proteins), and

essential fatty acids (good fats) that we need.

 

Greens make fiber (important for bowel regularity, detoxification, and

blood sugar stabilization), anti-oxidants (that slow down the processes

that lead to aging), phytonutrients (potent healing molecules which are

the basis of herbal medicine), and fuel (to burn for energy).

 

Raw, greens also provide enzymes (for digestion and against viral

infection), and probiotics (friendly microorganisms/flora that protect

our digestive tract from being ravaged by nasty, toxic bacteria like

Salmonella, E. coli, fungus, and yeasts like Candida). Cooking destroys

enzymes and probiotics.

 

 

In short, greens provide all of the building blocks that our genetic

program—our built-in program for building a healthy body—needs to build

maintain, repair, and replace cells, tissues, glands, and organs.

 

In addition, greens inhibit infections and cancer.

 

Greens provide magnesium, which improves cardiovascular and insulin

function and has anti-cancer benefits.

 

Further, greens are great tonics for our digestive system.

Their alkalinity protects us from diseases due to acidity.

 

Chlorophyll cleanses and detoxifies. Phytonutrients and anti-oxidants

in greens help us in many ways—some inhibit tumors; some regulate

hormones; some are anti-inflammatory; and some prevent damage caused by

free radicals.

 

Greens and their seeds are so rich in nutrients that we could live for

years on them. Greens are nature’s basis of primary health care and

primary medicine. They maintain healthy cardiovascular, immune, and

digestive systems; strong bones; and optimally functioning glands and

organs.

Since cows are made from grass, greens even make our steaks!

 

 

 

 

2: Good Fats. In addition to greens, good fats are the second most

important food group. The good fats are essential for health, but the

body cannot make them. They must therefore be provided by foods. Too

little leads to deterioration of the health of every cell, tissue,

gland, and organ, accompanied by many symptoms of degeneration that

resemble the degenerative diseases that we suffer and die from. Complete

absence will kill anyone who avoids fats long enough.

 

Good fats, made up of n-3 and n-6 essential fats, are the most

neglected, confusing, misrepresented part of the pyramid.

 

Good fats are easily damaged by the destructive influences of light, air

(oxygen), and heat, and must therefore be made, stored, and used with

care.

 

Most commercial food fats are made with shelf life rather than health in

mind, and the processes used to improve shelf life of good fats damages

them, producing toxic molecules that increase cancer, cardiovascular

disease, insulin resistance, inflammation, and other diseases.

 

Of the good fats, n-3 is inadequately present in the diets of almost the

entire population.

 

Lack of adequate n-3 is the greatest single nutrient deficiency in

modern diet.

 

As a result, n-3 holds the most powerful key to improving health for

the largest part of the population. To do so, however, n-3 must be made

with great care, taken in adequate amounts, taken in the right ratio

with the other (n-6) essential fat, accompanied by adequate antioxidants

and phytosterols, and used as part of a total program for good health.

 

 

 

 

3: Protein. The third, equally important food group, is protein. Protein

is adequately supplied in the diets of most affluent people. We are

protein-conscious, and too much rather than too little protein is more

prevalent in industrialized nations. Our sources of protein include red

meat (pork, beef, lamb), organic eggs, fish, white meat (chicken,

turkey), and organic dairy (milk, cheese).

 

 

Protein is also present in all whole foods, including greens, grains,

beans, seeds, and nuts. If one eats whole foods in the form in which

God/Nature provides them, protein malnutrition is inconceivable unless

one does not have enough of them to eat.

 

 

Protein under-nutrition (kwashiorkor) is a problem during famines in

underdeveloped countries, especially during times of war. In developed

nations, protein deficiency is found only among very poor, aged, and

infirm people incapable of looking after themselves.

 

 

 

4: Carbohydrates. Fourth are the carbohydrates. It bears repeating that

carbohydrates do not supply any nutrients that one cannot get from other

foods. Contrary to food pyramid advice, they are therefore the least

important of all the major foods.

 

Whole grains cause fewer blood sugar and weight problems than polished

grains such as white rice and flour, which in turn are better than white

sugar, syrup, and honey.

 

The difference is the rate of absorption.

 

The faster the absorption, the quicker blood sugar goes high. The more

digestion is required, the more time it takes to turn starch into

glucose. Slower digestion slows down the absorption of glucose into the

body. Slower absorption makes it less likely for blood sugar to get so

high that insulin spikes and drives the sugar into our cells as

self-protection against the damage that high sugar does to cells,

tissues, and organs.

 

 

It is vitally important for health that sugar is absorbed no faster than

the rate at which the body burns it for energy.

 

 

 

Excess sugar (the amount not needed for the production of energy) from

excess carbohydrate intake causes the following problems:

 

 

 

Leaches minerals from bone

Cross-links proteins, leading to wrinkles and aging

Leads to blood sugar fluctuations, which lead to:

 

Hyperglycemia (high blood sugar)

Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)

Insulin resistance

Depression

Food cravings (addiction)

Tiredness and the inability to stay awake (accidents; poor classroom

behavior in children; violence)

 

Promotes weight gain, accompanied by:

Increased cancer risk

Increased cardiovascular risk

Increased risk for diabetes (Type II)

Increased inflammation

 

 

Sugar also rots teeth, increases risk of bacterial infections, and

speeds the growth of cancer.

 

 

 

Good and Bad Carbohydrates

 

We can speak of good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates. Good ones are

all the carbohydrates we burn. Bad ones are all the ones we don’t burn.

The ones we don’t burn are bad because they cause all of the problems

listed above.

 

As stated before, athletes’ bodies can burn far more carbohydrates than

sedentary people’s bodies. Muscles burn more glucose than any other

tissue. The bigger the muscles, the more carbohydrates the body can eat

and burn without problems.

 

An athlete may be able to eat 70% of his foods in the form of starchy

carbohydrates and burn them all (produce no body fat). A sedentary

person may be unable to burn even 40% of foods in carbohydrate form, and

must severely limit carbohydrate intake in order to prevent body fat

gain.

 

Fiber Slows Down Glucose Absorption

 

Sugar absorption can be slowed down with certain kinds of fiber. The

best kind of fiber to do this is water-soluble mucilage fiber. Such

fiber is found in flax, slippery elm, dulse and kelp seaweed, and okra.

 

The way these kinds of fiber slow down sugar absorption is that glucose

in the gut is caught up in the mucilage. As the mucilage churns its way

down the digestive tract, the glucose is released slowly to be absorbed

into the body slowly, at about the same rate at which it is burned. When

that happens, blood sugar remains stable.

 

In other words, mucilage fiber can turn bad carbohydrates into good

carbohydrates, because if they are burned at the same rate at which they

are absorbed, no excess carbohydrates will be flooding the blood stream

to cause the usual carbohydrate problems.

 

Practical Confirmation from Practical Experience

 

The effect of n-3 essential fats on fat burning and heat production in

weight management has been established by research on the most basic

genetic and biochemical levels.

 

The key question to be answered is: Do the research findings prove out

in practice? The answer is: Yes, they do.

 

 

My son, Tai, is an outstanding fitness coach who works with a wide range

of clients, from movie stars to elite athletes to overweight

businessmen, civilians, and professionals. He proves the research in

practice every day. Here is his approach:

 

 

Anyone on the continuum of wanting to get rid of body fat to wanting to

get in shape for a body-building competition is encouraged to take the

following steps:

 

 

 

Increase intake of essential fats in a 2: 1 ratio, sometimes up to 10

tablespoons per day, but usually between 3 and 6 tablespoons/day.

Reduce intake of carbohydrates, sometimes way down, to almost zero.

Increase green vegetable intake, as sources of slowly released

carbohydrates and essential nutrients.

Get into a serious exercise program.

Increase protein intake, because they are going to be put on a

muscle-building, fat-burning exercise program.

 

 

Tai tailor-designs both a personal meal plan and an individual exercise

program for each client. The program is based on where the client is

starting and what the goals are.

 

Tai finds that ‘the fat just melts off’ those who follows his program.

He has coached many clients using these personalized programs based on

certain specific measurements he takes. He has worked with people remote

via the Internet as well as working with them up close and personal. He

has coached some people from overweight to winning body-building

competitions within 6 months. He can be reached at ta-.

(Check out his website at www.taierasmus.com)

 

What research has shown to be true about essential fats and body fat

reduction lines up perfectly with what happens in practice. What

research has shown about carbohydrates is also confirmed in practical

application. Theory and practice are in agreement.

 

A shift to increasing good fats and greens and limiting carbohydrates

results in stable blood sugar also. This prevents diabetes and the

increase in cardiovascular and cancer risks.

 

Limitation on carbohydrate intake also helps to prevent inflammatory

problems in tissues, organs, and joints, such as arthritis, lupus, and

fibromyalgia.

 

The excess carbohydrate diet (eating more than one burns) is not good

for health. Our bodies were simply not designed to flourish on such a

diet. 60% of overweight is testament to that fact. If the other 40% of

the population ate such a diet, most of them too, would develop

overweight, high/low sugar swings, and diabetes. That’s just how human

biology works.

 

Food History

 

Carbohydrates were much less abundant in our past than they are in our

present. Grains were smaller and therefore contained less starch.

 

The agricultural revolution began only 20,000 years ago. Before that,

far fewer grains and far more greens were eaten. Seeds and nuts provided

fats and protein. The hunt provided more protein and fat.

 

White flour and white sugar (refined, processed carbohydrates) are

inventions less than 200 years old.

 

Before that, white flour could not be mass-produced, which meant that it

had to be made by hand and only the very rich could afford to eat

products made with ‘refined’ white flour.

 

Therefore, during that period, only the very rich got the degenerative

diseases that now plague everyone—dropsy, obesity, sugar disease, and

others. These were the " kings’ ailments " brought on by the ‘refined’

" kings’ foods " .

 

With the industrial revolution came mass production, and thereafter we

could all enjoy the ‘foods of kings’, and within one generation, we

could all enjoy the kings’ ailments.

 

The emphasis on carbohydrates that has led to the present epidemic of

overweight began only 20 years ago, and was promoted through

advertising.

Summary

 

Traditional food fare has always been the same as the above

recommendation for lifelong healthy eating. Let me repeat what the

program looks like. Healthy eating emphasizes

 

Green foods

Good fats

Proteins

and limits carbohydrate intake to the amount the body can burn. We use a

slogan about carbohydrate consumption: ‘Burn ‘em or wear ‘em—as fat.’

 

References:

 

 

 

 

Clarke SD. Polyunsaturated fatty acid regulation of gene transcription:

a mechanism to improve energy balance and insulin resistance. Br J Nutr.

2000 Mar;83 Suppl 1:S59-66. Graduate Program of Nutritional Sciences,

University of Texas at Austin 78712, USA. steved-

 

 

This review addresses the hypothesis that polyunsaturated fatty acids

(PUFA), particularly those of the n-3 family, play essential roles in

the maintenance of energy balance and glucose metabolism.

 

The data discussed indicate that dietary PUFA function as fuel

partitioners in that they direct glucose toward glycogen storage, and

direct fatty acids away from triglyceride synthesis and assimilation and

toward fatty acid oxidation.

 

In addition, the n-3 family of PUFA appears to have the unique ability

to enhance thermogenesis and thereby reduce the efficiency of body fat

deposition.

 

PUFA exert their effects on lipid metabolism and thermogenesis by

upregulating the transcription of the mitochondrial uncoupling

protein-3, and inducing genes encoding proteins involved in fatty acid

oxidation (e.g. carnitine palmitoyltransferase and acyl-CoA oxidase)

while simultaneously down-regulating the transcription of genes encoding

proteins involved in lipid synthesis (e.g. fatty acid synthase).

 

The potential transcriptional mechanism and the transcription factors

affected by PUFA are discussed. Moreover, the data are interpreted in

the context of the role that PUFA may play as dietary factors in the

development of obesity and insulin resistance.

 

Collectively the results of these studies suggest that the metabolic

functions governed by PUFA should be considered as part of the criteria

utilized in defining the dietary needs for n-6 and n-3 PUFA, and in

establishing the optimum dietary ratio for n-6: n-3 fatty acids.

 

Clarke SD Polyunsaturated fatty acid regulation of gene transcription:

 

a molecular mechanism to improve the metabolic syndrome. Nutr 2001

Apr;131(4):1129-32 Graduate Program of Nutrition and the Institute of

Cell and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin,

Texas 78712, USA. steved-

 

This review addresses the hypothesis that polyunsaturated fatty acids

(PUFA), particularly those of the (n-3) family, play pivotal roles as

" fuel partitioners " in that they direct fatty acids away from

triglyceride storage and toward oxidation, and that they enhance glucose

flux to glycogen.

 

In doing this, PUFA may protect against the adverse symptoms of the

metabolic syndrome and reduce the risk of heart disease.

 

PUFA exert their beneficial effects by up-regulating the expression of

genes encoding proteins involved in fatty acid oxidation while

simultaneously down-regulating genes encoding proteins of lipid

synthesis.

 

PUFA govern oxidative gene expression by activating the transcription

factor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha. PUFA suppress

lipogenic gene expression by reducing the nuclear abundance and

DNA-binding affinity of transcription factors responsible for imparting

insulin and carbohydrate control to lipogenic and glycolytic genes.

 

In particular, PUFA suppress the nuclear abundance and expression of

sterol regulatory element binding protein-1 and reduce the DNA-binding

activities of nuclear factor Y, Sp1 and possibly hepatic nuclear

factor-4.

 

Collectively, the studies discussed suggest that the fuel

" repartitioning " and gene expression actions of PUFA should be

considered among criteria used in defining the dietary needs of (n-6)

and (n-3) and in establishing the dietary ratio of (n-6) to (n-3) needed

for optimum health benefit.

 

http://www.udoerasmus.com/articles/udo/from_fat_to_fit_pv.htm

 

 

 

 

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" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

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