LURUS BENDUL

More Saturated Fat Attacks Written by Mary Enig, PhD 2009-Jun-23

2009-12-29T01:13:00.000-08:00

Butter consumption has been rising over the last few years—not by leaps and bounds, but steadily upward—both in the U.S. and in Europe. This shift in consumption patterns may explain a resurgence of anti-saturated fat messages in the U.S. and overseas.

Britain launched a “health” campaign in February of 2009 to “raise awareness of the health risks of eating too much saturated fat,” and lamenting the fact that “the UK is currently eating 20% more saturated fat than UK Government recommendations.”

The highly coordinated campaign includes a 40-second TV advertisement in which a "jug of saturated fat is poured down the sink, overloading and blocking a kitchen pipe to vividly bring to life the message that too much saturated fat is bad for your heart.” Print ads encourage Britons to cut the fat off their meat, switch to lower-fat dairy products and use vegetable oils instead of butter when cooking.

In New Zealand: Newspaper articles have urged the population to eat less bacon and sausage, avoid butter and pastries containing butter, and take children off of full-fat milk after the age of two “to avoid clogging their arteries.”

In the U.S.: As Americans are increasingly turning again to real food, newspaper articles have appeared praising the virtues of real butter, fatty meats and lard. A breakthrough was an article entitled “Dieting? Don’t fear the fat,” by Allison Boomer, published in the Boston Globe (January 7, 2009). Noting that fats provide satiety she writes, “You might feel quite satisfied, for instance, if you crumble two slices of crisp bacon and one ounce of cheese on your salad or eat that delectable golden skin on your broiled chicken. No one is advising you to eat mountains of fries or other foods made with commercially processed fats. The suggestion is a judicious amount (about 1 tablespoon per meal) of naturally occurring fats. Think of butter, cheese, chicken or duck fat, even well-marbled steaks, as a taste-enhancing complement to a meal.” Five years ago, no major newspaper would have published anything along the lines of this common-sense advice. Boomer’s article is a sign that the walls of the lowfat dungeon are crumbling.

Thus, in the U.S., the anti-saturated fat campaign has become more subtle, consisting not of blatant propaganda - the kind of finger wagging food Puritanism that is increasingly turning us off- but of spin-doctored reports on scientific studies.

Saturated Fat and the Liver:

One example is a study entitled “Saturated Fatty Acids Promote Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Liver Injury in Rats with Hepatic Steatosis,” published in Endocrinology (2006 147;(2):943-951).

In this study, markers for liver function worsened in rats on a diet high in sucrose (68 percent sucrose, 12 percent corn oil and 20 percent casein) or high in lard (45 percent lard oil, 35 percent corn starch and 20 percent casein) compared to a high starch diet (68 percent corn starch, 12 percent corn oil and 20 percent casein) or a high polyunsaturated diet (35 percent corn starch, 45 percent corn oil and 20 percent casein). The lard oil diet was described as high in saturated fat, hence the title of the study, which fingers saturated fatty acids. The title contains no mention of the similar adverse effects from the high sucrose diet; but even worse is the characterization of lard oil as high in saturated fat. The definition of lard oil is "oil consisting chiefly of olein that is expressed from lard.” Olein is a glyderide of oleic acid; that is, oleic acid joined to a glycerol molecule. Thus the diet described as high in saturated fatty acids was actually high in monounsaturated fatty acids! (None of the diets could be called normal diets.)

It would be surprising if saturated fats caused liver problems in experiments like these because for sixty years, research has shown that saturated fats protect the liver. A recent study, published in the Journal of Nutrition (145:904-912, April, 2004) found that saturated fat from beef tallow reduced alcoholic liver toxicity in rats whereas corn oil increased markers of liver toxicity. Moral: If you drink, eat plenty of butter and fatty meats.

Saturated Fats in Pregnancy Diet:

More spin doctoring comes with a November, 2008 study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (doi:10.1172/JCI32661) which compared the results of two diets fed to pregnant monkeys. One group got a “healthy” diet of fruits, vegetables and 15 percent fat. The other group got a high-calorie junk food diet with 35 percent of calories as fat, and which, according to a news report, included potato chips, peanut butter and chocolate. (A description of the diet does not appear in the scientific report.) In the latter group, fatty liver disease developed in the fetuses that were sacrificed for testing, and the offspring allowed to be born became obese.

The obvious conclusion of this study is that a junk diet, high in sugar and processed vegetable oils, during pregnancy will adversely affect the offspring. But according to a public statement by Professor Jacob Friedman, one of co-authors, the study “implicates the saturated fat in the diet as the culprit.” Yet there was twice the level of unsaturated fat as saturated fat in the junk food diet. The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, which is firmly wedded to the hypothesis that saturated fats are the cause of chronic disease. Obviously, Dr. Friedman has funding for future studies in mind.

Blood Vessel Inflammation:

Another saturated fat attack comes from a February, 2009 study published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation Research entitled "Proinflammatory Phenotype of Pervascular Adipocytes: Influence of High-Fat Feeding.” The researchers found more markers of vascular inflammation in mice placed on a "high- fat Western diet.” But nowhere in the article or the accompanying press release do the authors disclose the type of fat fed to the mice.

After an email query, Neil Weintraub, the principal study author, provided us with the feeding formula they used—the fat used was indeed an animal fat, what the industry calls anhydrous milk fat; that is, butterfat with most of the moisture removed. The other main components of the formula were casein (20 percent by weight), sucrose (34 percent by weight) and corn starch (15 percent by weight) - all problematic ingredients that could have contributed to inflammattion. As there was no control group fed the same formula but with polyunsaturated oil instead of anhydrous milk fat, the researchers could make no comparison of the effects of mostly saturated versus mostly polyunsaturated fatty acids.

And anhydrous milk fat may not have the same fatty acid profile as butter. The industry has figured out how to add polyunsaturated fatty acids to milk fat through enzymatic interesterification. Weintraub believes that his results prove that “high-fat diets” can predispose individuals to heart disease even if they do not have high cholesterol levels. “. . . many patients who consume high fat diets do not exhibit abnormal lipid profiles but still develop atherosclerosis nonetheless. These new findings suggest a direct link between poor dietary habits and inflammation of blood vessels. . .”

The study was again funded by the National Institutes of Health, which preaches that “poor dietary habits” mean consumption of foods like meat, butter and cheese, high in saturated fat.

Watching Closely:

Why would the industry be concerned about a small group of people returning to butter, lard and other real foods? Because even small changes in consumption patterns can wreak havoc in an industry geared to foods based on vegetable oils. And the industry knows that small trends soon become big trends.

And the industry is watching carefully. A February, 2009 article published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (109(2):288- 96) entitled “Americans’ awareness, knowledge, and behaviors regarding fats: 2006-2007,” looked at consumer awareness and understanding of trans and other fats. The researchers found that during the study period awareness of trans fats had increased to the same level as awareness of saturated fat (92 and 93 percent respectively). But knowledge of food sources of trans fats remained low. Only 21 percent could name three food sources of trans fats in 2007, compared to 30 percent who could name three food sources of saturated fat.

Of course the industry would like for consumers to remain ignorant about which foods contain trans fats. Saturated fats are likely to be highly visible as butter, cream or fat on meat, whereas trans fats are hidden in the batter, dough and crust of chicken nuggets, cookies, crackers, chips and other junk foods. The current campaign to warn the public about trans fats always mentions saturated fats as a threat in the same breath, and since consumers recognize saturated fat much more easily than trans fat, the warnings about unhealthy trans fats often result in avoidance of healthy saturated fats.

Likewise, articles implicating “high-fat diets,” such as the one appearing in Circulation Research, also have the effect of scaring people away from visible butter and meat fats while encouraging the continued consumption of invisible fats and oils in processed and fried foods. And many people will assume that liquid oils are fine - after all, they are not usually referred to as fats. Since people know what saturated fats do to the pipes under the kitchen sink, they are likely to fall for the simplistic argument that saturated fats do the same thing in the human body—never mind the fact that your body is at least twenty-five degrees warmer than those fat-clogged pipes.

The vegetable oil industry and its cohorts in the scientific community choose their words and images carefully!

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2009.

About the Author

Mary G. Enig, PhD is an expert of international renown in the field of lipid biochemistry. She has headed a number of studies on the content and effects of trans fatty acids in America and Israel, and has successfully challenged government assertions that dietary animal fat causes cancer and heart disease. Recent scientific and media attention on the possible adverse health effects of trans fatty acids has brought increased attention to her work. She is a licensed nutritionist, certified by the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists, a qualified expert witness, nutrition consultant to individuals, industry and state and federal governments, contributing editor to a number of scientific publications, Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and President of the Maryland Nutritionists Association. She is the author of over 60 technical papers and presentations, as well as a popular lecturer. Dr. Enig is currently working on the exploratory development of an adjunct therapy for AIDS using complete medium chain saturated fatty acids from whole foods. She is Vice-President of the Weston A Price Foundation and Scientific Editor of Wise Traditions as well as the author of Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol, Bethesda Press, May 2000. She is the mother of three healthy children brought up on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.

CHANGE OF NAME

2009-12-28T03:32:00.000-08:00

Well, out of the blue, today I decided to change the name of the blog from Reflexionate to "Lurus Bendul". Its totally impulsive, you know! But why? Nothing significant, I guess....its just that time changed, so does mind. But then do you know what LB (Lurus Bendul) means? Its simply "straight" and maybe also to some extent "narrow". "Lurus" means straight. "Bendul" is not exactly narrow. Its actually the beam you lay down connecting the wooden floors between two contiguous areas or rooms or spaces in a Malays house. The beam is definitely straight and quite narrow also.

Am I the blogger kind of LB? Well, somebody (and maybe a lot of other people too), thinks so....and he said as much in one gathering which totally caught me by surprised. Never thought of myself that way.....thats why I was surprised!

Whether it does describe me or not, I do think LB could be an appropriate name for my blog.....haha!

WHICH STOCKS TOMORROW?

2009-12-27T04:12:00.000-08:00

After the long Christmas weekend, theres only a few more days to the new year. Is the market (the Malaysian Bourse) going up these last few days of the year? Looking at the index, theres a likelihood that it will, but not by much of course. The big move is possibly coming shortly into the new year.

Perhaps its a good time to consolidate or take up some positions in stocks that are poised to go uptrending or better still break out. Just for interest sake, I'll just list out the stocks that I like for tomorrow:

1. Swing trade - to join an uptrend: 3A, GPACKET, GHLSYS
2. Daytrade - possibility of an upside break-out: Keladi, Melewar-WA, DPS, EFFICEN

Just remember, my selection lie more towards the speculative side of the spectrum. Another thing, please read the disclaimer again...its right up there.

Good trading!

BEEN A LONG TIME.......

2009-09-27T21:54:00.000-07:00

Been a long time since my last posting. Whats its gonna be today? Well, the only idea I have right now is the trade that I am having now. I would love to unload my shares in LCTH at a good price. Made a few hundreds the last time I sold. Can I make a few more.....thousands? We'll see.

Now, I saw a kind of decoupling between the kind of shares I speculate in with KLCI. This was obvious eversince KLCI was changed to FBM KLCI which features only the top 30 blue chips listed on Bursa KL. Mine is kind of belong to either small cap, fledgling or ace, any two of them or all three. So, looking at the KLCI alone I cannot really gauge the directions my shares were going. So, what do I do?

I now have to really look at the individual shares I'm interested in especially those ripe for breakout play.

CHOLESTEROL LEVELS

2008-06-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

If you believe in mainstream medicine which says that cholesterol levels affect the health of your heart, you will want to increase the level of your HDL (the so called 'good cholesterol') and lower your LDL (the 'bad cholesterol'). One way to increase the HDL is by having regular exercise. I have been doing that at the behest of my cardiologist for the past one year or so. I went walking up a 200m hill in a public park, jogging up after reaching the half-way point, walk back down, then up again, repeating the whole thing from 4 to 7 times, depending on my mood on a particular day. I do this from Monday to Friday every week without fail except when it rains heavily or I have to go out of my hometown. After finishing the walk-jog, I went to do some upper body exercises using the mechanical contraptions available at the park for that purpose. You definitely need some disciplines to do all these for its too easy to find excuses otherwise.

To lower the LDL, one way is to take statins, the other - according to the technician ministering to my most recent stress-test, is to refrain from taking too much starch-rich food, especially 'ubikayu'. But oh my, most delicacies from ubikayu are my favourites eg. bingka ubi, lepat ubi, talam ubi and pengat ubi - just can't say 'pass' when they were laid down invitingly on tables, be it at mum's or the neighborhood stalls. The most nutritious and healthiest stuff concocted from ubikayu ie. tapai ubi (where most of the starch had been fermented away) does not appeal that much to me - what a pity. The other foods best avoided were of course, those with the most saturated fats eg. fatty meats, butter, milk etc.

Its true, my HDL level went up from a range of 1.06-1.12 before starting the regime to 1.38-1.40mmol/L after. However, I seem to have reached a plateau, where the level remains at this upper range for the past 4 months or so. My cardiologist wasn't so impressed though, simply saying theres improvement. He should have been more forthcoming - so I wonder if he ever goes anywhere near a hill all his life.

Of course all these while I'd been gorging on all kinds of homecrafted delicacies from ubikayu as well as all the fats from beef, sup tulang kambing, real butter and cheese, raw milk from both goats and cows and plentiful eggs (why I do this, I'll explain in a moment). Hence, my LDL level has been staying up at the 5mmol/L level most of the time, spiking up to 8.5 at one point, while the recommended level is at <3.4. My cardiologist was not at all pleased everytime he sees the results of the periodical blood tests. He asked whether I'd been neglecting my statins (he later excused me from taking statins due to my body being badly affected by the side-effects) while putting away all the fatty stuff and promptly launched into a tirade on how bad I'd been behaving and all the ramifications and so on and so forth. No fair, I scowled to myself, bet he never touched the ubikayu and fatty goodies - much to his loss, served him right!

I learned somewhere that actually its the triglycerides level that should be watched. Happily I can report that my level had steadily gone down from a high of 1.85mmol/L to a low of 0.76 (the lowest so far), which is now maintained at around 1.02 to 1.11, all of which were well below the reference point of 2.28. True to his inscrutable almost expressionless face, my cardiologist never say anything on this, and if he did, he gave the impression that it wasn't all that important anyway. Harrummph.....!!

However, I've to tell you about the time when my LDL went down to as far as 2.5 for a while before going back up to 7.2 and now back to 5. This was the time when I was practising the low-carb diet, where I took almost zero carbohydrates and my energy was solely derived from fats, saturated animal fats, that is. At that time, my HDL was 1.38 and triglycerides was 1.02mmol/L. My weight went down to a comfortable level compared to my BMI.

Now, all of the above are for believers of mainstream medicine, the so-called gold standard of medical knowledge and care. Frankly, I am not a believer myself. I do not swear by the lipid's theory of coronary diseases. To me, cholesterol levels do not in any way influence the health of your heart. Before I go further and be accused of being a charlatan, let me introduce (if not already known to you) a host of individuals and organisations which forsook conventional medicine, at least on the cholesterol thingies, for something more palatable (well at least to them and me) which among others are:

1. The Weston A. Price Foundation: http://www.westonaprice.org/splash_2.htm

2. Dr Barry Groves from Second Opinions: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/

3. The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics: http://www.thincs.org/

4. Dr Uffe Ravnskov: http://www.ravnskov.nu/

Theres more, but you can always get their links from the above websites. If you take the trouble to have a look at those sites, you may be able to see their points of view in these health subjects.

Okay, back to whats I'd been eating when I enjoyed 'good' lipids levels and why now those levels were no longer maintained.

First, as I said this non-conventional look at medicine says that lipid levels do not matter as far as coronary health is concerned. In fact my low-carb eating habit actually reduced LDL and triglycerides levels, increased HDL and made me lost weight. Although at first my doctors prescribed statins, they agreed that I not take them due to their side effect on me - muscle discomfort and pains. So, whether lipid levels are relevant or not, this (low-carb) diet seems good for health reasons, as amply explained by the various websites above.

Secondly, the lure of rice and flour-based foods were too much (after a lifetime of devouring such delights), I started eating them again a few months later until now resulting in weight increases and changes in lipid levels as mentioned above.

Having seen and experienced the above personally and being able to compare them factually or empirically, I am planning to go back to such a diet while continuing my exercise regime. Next write-up, I'll go into further details on the diet.

BURSA MALAYSIA: DAYTRADE STOCKS FOR MONDAY 9 JUNE 2008

2008-06-08T06:28:00.000-07:00

Let me start off with a disclaimer:

"All mentions of stocks and strategies in this blog do not represent buy or sell recommendations. This is a sort of a digital diary where I express my thoughts and opinions on all or any in this world including finance, trading and investment. Whatever action you take in these respects is ultimately your own responsibility".

My stock picks for Monday 9/6/2008:

STOCKS @ MAX BUY PRICE

1. HOVID-WA RM0.065

2. EQUATOR 0.050

3. INSAS-WA 0.030

4. INGENS 0.110

5. ECOFIRS-WB 0.025

6. DENKO 0.165

7. NEPLINE-WA 0.035

Just seven to start with. From time to time I'll post between 5 to 10 stocks for daytrading purposes the next trading day. As you can see, I am heavily biased on penny and speculative stocks. But that doesn't mean I will not post any other higher cap stocks. I'll do so if it takes my fancy.

I will also post some rationale for each stock selected, but not for this first list.

My stock selection is based mainly on technical analysis ie. reading the most recent charts on each stock. The charts could be daily, weekly or of even shorter periods if available. Right now, the charts are mainly sourced from TradeSignum.com, a wonderful but dying site for technical analysts. There used to be lots of comments and discussion on the site, but now theres hardly any. For some reasons, members are put off commenting/discussing.

I definitely would not claim to be right in my selections. Although the selections are based on a high probability scenario for each selected stock, the probability that a scenario would not pan out as envisaged still exists. Once the expected move fails to materialise, the technical reasons for trading the stock disappear, and a relook at the chart is needed before a new decision is made. Its not going to be a walk in the park........nevertheless, I certainly hope to be right most of the time and whatever the case, profit from my trades.

Good trading and so long now!

INTRODUCTORY POST

2008-06-08T05:27:00.000-07:00

Let me start off with a disclaimer:

"All mentions of stocks and strategies in this blog do not represent buy or sell recommendations. This is a sort of a digital diary where I express my thoughts and opinions on all or any in this world including finance, trading and investment. Whatever action you take in these respects is ultimately your own responsibility".

Now thats out of the way, you may ask: Reflexionate? Whats that? Yeah, theres no such word in English, but theres no harm creating a new one. (However, if you google the word, you can see several results on how its being used). As in 'passionate' derived from 'passion' so is 'reflexionate' from 'reflexion'. If I can't put a precise meaning to it, lets just take it or use it in the spirit similar to the use of the word 'passionate'. Enough said for now.

This blog as said above is meant for me to put down digitally my thoughts and opinions, upon reflexions of course, on all or any events/phenomenon/findings/musings and opinions of others etc. that caught my fancy at any moment in time. Lets agree to disagree if thats seems to be most appropriate as the case may be for an opinion is after all an opinion, which to most is only 2 sen worth. No use getting worked up over something worth that much/little, right?

Most time, though I will be covering subjects such as tradings in stocks, currencies etc.; health and diets; politics - Malaysian and across the world; a few other things that I am passionate about which will be revealed as I go along.

So, if you happened to drop by and read something on this blog, thank you very much. If you have anything to say, anything at all, please post a comment. Just do not be obnoxious about it in the sense of being racist; insensitive religion-wise; pornographic; a spouter of obscenities; and anything that you yourself find offensive - you be the judge, and of course executioner! Put a pseudonym if you are unwilling to identify yourself.