Natural Living

Greetings. 
It’s been an interesting few months since my last article. I finally made the courageous decision to have surgery to remove a growth from my lumbar spine. Sounds easy, but it involved letting a neurosurgeon tinker around with my central nervous system and the vertebrae that protects it from injury. While Dr Justin Pik who performed the surgery may not be a God, he is very good at what he does. I still find the thought of bone saws and the presence of 2 screws in my lower back disconcerting.

My current topic of study is functional nutrition. I’m learning so many interesting things that I’d like to share some of them with you. This month I thought I’d share some information about fats, also called lipids or fatty acids. Fat performs important functions and is needed in the diet.

Low fat foods are something that get me a bit tense. Eating low fat foods can fool you into thinking that you’re saving calories. Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. Sometimes low fat foods are high in sugar, which adds calories just as much as fat does. Also, low fat foods may make you think that it’s ok to consume the product, but it still adds fat to the diet. The only way around this is to learn to read the nutrition panel on all food products.

For the record, the only low fat foods I buy are mayonnaise and cream, but I still treat them as fatty foods and limit how much I eat. And, there is no such thing as low fat cheesecake 
If you’re looking at learning more about fat, the book Fats that Heal Fats that Kill by Udo Erasmus is an excellent source of information. It does have a bit of chemistry in it, but it’s easy to understand, and if chemistry isn’t your thing, then move on. This book tends to change the way people think about fat.
Here’s a trivia question. In a healthy person, what is the fattest organ in the body?

Wishing you many good things
Moonhawk

From an energy perspective, fat provides almost twice the calories per gram as carbohydrates. In other words, fat is energy dense, which is why reducing fat is seen as a way of cutting calories.

For many years (decades) fat has been seen as bad and something to be reduced or eliminated from the diet. Many people do not understand the vital role fat plays in the diet and ongoing health and wellbeing.

There is also confusion as to how much fat should be in the diet. Recommended daily intake of fat varies from 20% to 35% of total kilojoules intake. This can vary from 27 to 110g of fat a day, depending on the number of kilojoules a person consumes and how much energy they expend on a daily basis. 5g of fat is a level teaspoon. I generally recommend a fat intake of 25-30g per day.

Sources of dietary fats are equally as important as quality and functionality. The simple approach has been to recommend replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat, or even replacing monounsaturated fat with polyunsaturated fat. Doing this may achieve an overall increase in good fats over bad fats, but it may be to the detriment of health. Simply reducing fat intake may not necessarily lead to improvements in health. It may actually lead to skin conditions or even inflammatory diseases.

Fat has a valuable role in physiological functions. Like carbohydrate, it is able to provide fuel for energy production, either from recently consumed or stored fat. Fat also provides the building blocks for cell membranes (phospholipids, cholesterol), the basis for synthesis of steroid hormones, for the synthesis of bile, and for a range of neurological functions. Body fat also provides insulation, fat storage for later use, and assists in sparing protein from conversion to glucose for energy production.

Fatty acid supplements are often utilised by health care practitioners to treat a range of medical conditions. For example, omega 3 and omega 6 oils are used to treat skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis; insulin resistance and high cholesterol may be treated with omega 3 fatty acids. In this case it may not be a matter of reducing dietary fat, rather there may be an overall increase in fat, however the quality of the fat will change for the better. This functional approach would better balance the fatty acids in the diet.

There is also some misunderstanding about the source of dietary fats. Often fried foods that are savoury e.g fried fish, hamburgers, red meat, are more easily recognised as high fat. Whereas, sweet, high fat foods e.g doughnuts, croissants, pastries, cookies and cakes, are seen as sources of carbohydrate rather than fat. Nuts and seeds are also often not seen as high fat, particularly if they have not been roasted or processed in some way. Nuts and seeds are generally sources of unsaturated fats, however consuming a large amount of nuts/seeds and/or nut/seed products may add excessive kilojoules to the diet. Understanding what foods are high in fat, and what type of fat (saturated, unsaturated) can help you to make healthy choices about what you eat, and balance your fat intake rather than simply reducing it.

Burning fat is not as easy as it sounds. The breakdown of fat for energy needs oxygen i.e it is aerobic. This means that fat burning exercise needs to leave you breathing easily, if you start puffing your body switches to anaerobic energy production, which doesn’t burn fat.. A simple test is if you cannot easily hold a conversation, you’re not burning fat. Also, you need to exercise for a minimum of 20 minutes before the body starts to break down fat for energy. I usually recommend brisk walking for 40+ minutes to burn fat. Other brisk exercise is just as god, so long as it’s for 40+ minutes.

Now for a word or two that other misunderstood fat - cholesterol. The liver manufactures around 80% of total body cholesterol, while 20% comes from the diet. The liver adjusts the synthesis of cholesterol i.e synthesis increases if total body cholesterol is reduced, or if dietary intake is low and cholesterol is needed to meet functional needs. It is interesting to note that high levels of dietary cholesterol do not necessarily lead to reduced cholesterol synthesis. Also, many natural supplements prescribed by herbalists and naturopaths act by getting the liver to produce less cholesterol.

Cholesterol is essential to ongoing health. It is integral to the structure and function of cell membranes, it is a precursor for steroid hormones (oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone) and adrenal corticosteroid hormones (aldosterone). Cholesterol is also needed for the synthesis of bile and vitamin D. Four of the hormones synthesised from cholesterol are critical to the regulation of body functions: cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), testosterone and oestrogen.

DHEA is involved in a number of body systems and is important to metabolic health. Supplementation with DHEA may ease cardiovascular disease, may assist with the treatment of some allergies and cancers, and is implicated in periods of high stress, particularly emotional stress and in postmenopausal women. DHEA is also converted to oestrogens and androgens.

Reducing dietary cholesterol may impact negatively on the various hormones dependent on cholesterol. Therefore care is needed when managing cholesterol levels through diet.
Here’s another thought. Coconut milk is high in saturated fat and therefore high in cholesterol. It’s one of the few plant products that is high in cholesterol. So keep those yummy Asian style curries to a minimum, and always use the lighter style coconut milk in cooking.

It is beneficial to consult with a qualified practitioner before using fat supplements like fish oil and evening primrose oil, or changing the fats in your diet. The NHAA and ATMS has a list of accredited herbalists and naturopaths. 

Answer to the trivia question: The brain. Yes, that’s right, the brain is the fattest organ in the body. The reason is that white matter is made up of neurons covered in a myelin sheath, which is a lipid based substance.

References:
Bland, JS, Costarella, L, Levin, B, Liska D, Lukaczer D, et al (2004), Clinical Nutrition: A Functional Approach (2nd ed)
Erasmus, Udo Fats that Heal, Fats That Kill, (13th Printing) 
Wardlow, Gorfdon M & Hempl, Jeffery S (2004) Perspectives in Nutrition (6th Ed)
Whitney, E & Rolfes, S.R (2007) Understanding Nutrition (11th Ed