Comments on: A Guide to Dietary Fats

By: Jean paulo

Jean paulo — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:12:14 +0000

Again, thanks for writing another great article. I just hope that more people will visit your site. There’s too many confusions going on about “cholesterol.”
How true is it that our body has a feedback loop that prevents the body from storing dietary cholesterol?

By: admin

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:07:17 +0000

Abel: Water weight does goofy things to weight loss. That’s all it is. Weight loss is rarely consistent week in week out and women moreso than men are prone to weirdness with water balance. The article i posted last week on Whooshes and Squishy Fat talks a little bit about it. As long as she’s losing that much consistently, don’t worry about it.

Jack: Parillo has long been a believer in VERY low fat diets but usually supplemented with enormous amount of MCT’s. I imagine a lot of his ideas come from the old literature suggesting that overfeeding with fat led to more fat gains than overfeeding with carbs. That’s my best guess though.

Nick: What literature exsists on the issue of blood lipids and full blown ketogenic diets (The Anabolic Diet is a cyclical ketogenic diet) suggests that as long as fat is being lost, blood lipid levels typically improve. But if it is gained or maintains, things often get much worse. I discuss what research exists in my book The Ketogenic Diet

Chris: Yeah, what you said. As I noted, I find the extremists in both camps to be a bit myopic. Clearly blood cholesterol isn’t the ONLY issue at stake for heart disease risk. Triglycerides, homocysteine, anti-oxidant levels (early research suggesting that it was only oxidized blood cholesterol that caused plaque build up) all play a role. But going from “It’s not the ONLY cause” to “It’s not a risk factor at all” is just jumping from one dumb extreme to the other.

By: Chris D.

Chris D. — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:11:03 +0000

I liked your quick treatment of the cholesterol controversy (try saying that five times fast). For people who are left wondering, there is a marginalized minority (try saying THAT five times fast) of scientists/physicians who believe serum levels of the various forms of cholesterol correlate with heart disease but are not causally involved in cardiovascular pathology. They gave some interesting ideas and theories but IMHO their credibility and objectivity is seriously impoverished by the nuts in their group that throw in the whole AMA/AHA conspiracy theories that entail this grand subversive political machine that maintains this facade due to the the profitability of treating heart disease with statins and a host of things. These are the people who rightfully belong on the fringes of academia and the clinical community who will also tell you that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS and that America has a cure for cancer but makes too much money treating the disease to release it or whatever. Yes, that makes perfect sense; it’s not that the etiological underpinnings of cancer and resultant metastasis is dictated by a set of distinct and independent physiological processes that are so complex and diverse that finding a universal cure is an exceedingly difficult and arduous task despite our best efforts. No, it’s because we don’t want to cure cancer because it keeps the population down and/or we make much more money treating it vs. curing it. I’m sure that’s it.

I really shouldn’t lump all the cholesterol dissenters into this group; many of them are rational and truly believe their lines of evidence contribute enough reasonable doubt to question the causality of blood cholesterol and heart disease, I’m just not on board with them. When the data came out that showed statin use reduced all cause cardiovascular mortality that pretty much sealed the deal for me. i dunno, it’s interesting.

By: Nick Andrade

Nick Andrade — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:25:58 +0000

Great article! i was just wondering what your thoughts are on the “Anabolic” style bodybuilding diet. I have been following the guidelines of this style of eating and have gains 10 lbs of muscle mass in only 5 weeks! The results for me have been amazing. Do you think that there is a problem with consuming high amounts of dietary fat and dietary cholesterol on a daily basis? Just wondering what your thoughts are.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:39:50 +0000

Lyle,

On the topic of fats, I’ve noticed that the folks from Parrillo seem to treat them as something of a bogeyman and often recommend fairly low intakes to prevent fat gain. Do you have any theories on what would precipitate such a view? It seems to fall into one of those “extreme” viewpoints, but I’d be interested in your quick thoughts on the matter.

I look forward to part II.

Thanks.

~Jack

By: Abel Gomez

Abel Gomez — Wed, 13 May 2009 03:17:37 +0000

Mr. McDonald, first off just wanted to add that i respect your work and always look forward to your posts. I have an honest question that I ‘m hoping you might have an incite to. One of my clients is a female that has been quite overweight since her youth. She’s not one of those who just let herself go and put on pounds. Her parents are actually quite thin yet her and her sisters are all overweight. She came to me at 340 and is currently at 295. The problem for us and the question that I have for you is that she is making a good 3-5 lbs. loss every other week and the week in between, she either stays put or even gains a pound! I change her workouts about every two weeks and I change her calories intake every so often as well. She follows a high protein, mod fat, and low carb diet which seems to be working somewhat but these weeks of zero progress are killing us. Do you have any ideas?