as a member of a family with a genetic predisposition to heart disease, i've been aware of fat content in foods all my life. my great uncles all died in their 40s. the women last longer, 70s and 80s with modern health care, albeit not necessarily the healthiest lifestyles.
1. For most people, dietary cholesterol is irrelevant, and fatty acid content doesn't matter much either. (IIRC, the two healthiest populations on the planet had a dietary fat intake of over 30%. The Trobidor Islanders eat something like 21% satfats.
Know why? Because our bodies adjust to our dietary cholesterol intake. Eat bacon and eggs Sunday? Your liver's production of cholesterol downregulates. Eat none: the liver's production upregulates. BTW, your body typically produces the equivalent of 7 eggs worth of cholesterol a day.
2. For others (hyper- and hypo-responders), however, we are more sensitive to dietary _fatty acid_ intake, the bigger and more important issue
2 a. Most SFAs (satfat acids) raise blood chol., but not always.
For instance, stearic acid (in beef) is saturated, but it
has a neutral doesn't impact on blood cholesterol.
Oleic acid (monosat fat in olive oil) is neutral.
Butter is 31% Oleic acid (neutral), 19.8% myristic acid
(raises HDL and LDL), and 15.2% pamitic acid, a "bad" fat.
w-3 and w-6 (the essential fatty acids) found in polyunsat
fats generally lower blood chol. levels.
2 b. another culprit is probably arachidonic acid, found in eggs
and red meat. AA is an eicanisoid--precursors to
prostoglandins. Only recently discovered, not well understood.
3. What turns out also to be a problem for folks like me is that chronically high insulin levels from a diet too high (in CHO for us. this is very important: too high for us!
that bears repeating: TOOOOOOOOO high for US.
3 a. igh insulin levels also increase blood triglyceride
levels.
3 b. Insulin fucks with HMG-CoA reductase is a rate-
limiting in liver chol
my point is: what if it turns out that i'm one of those people who can eat that much butter and remain healthy as a horse. who does anyone give a crap enough to even say, "it's your life, put whatever you want in your mouth." What the HELL do you know about that person's particular response to protein, carbs, fatty acids, insulin levels, dietary cholesterol intake, exercise levels, fiber intake, etfuckingcetera?! that person may not even know and why should you care that s/he doesn't know when probably 99.9% of the people on this list--highly educated, well-informed people--don't know the above.
what if it's the case that it's not so much that i have bad eating habits because they those habits are
Oh
My
God
BAD FOR EVERYONE. BAD! BAD!
but, rather, they are only bad for me. they are not bad for Carrol Cox or Budge or Suzie Scotchenwater. they are bad for me.
Not you, the person who doesn't have a sensitivity to arachidonic acid. but for those of US who do. you can eat whatever you want and, in fact, i won't even add the bit about "it's your own life." yes, it's your life and i have NO idea what is or isn't good for your body. i, in fact, am going to assume that you do and that you can take care of yourself without my condescending, 'whatever you want is fine by me, it's your funeral....errrr life' commentary. obviously, it's not fine by me if i feel compelled to add the comment.
we are different. if someone plows into bacon and eggs everyday, it isn't just none of my business, it's freaking not even something i should notice or worry about.
the other reason i won't bother imposing MY dietary habits on everyone else is that, while i might know that a person is like ME and should watch the types and quantifies of dietary fats and carbs, i can hardly fault people for not knowing this stuff. i have to do a lot of work to learn all this crap and i'm highly motivated--i'll die young if i don't-- with a family who regularly keeps up with the literature so the burden is shared.
who knows all this? except people that go out and actively search. i'll guarantee you that the average physician doesn't know this crap==because they don't have to and they were trained five, ten, twenty years ago and still think eggs are bad and if you walk into their office with a pile of research from Pubmed and the capacity to interpret it all, they're almost invariably going to raise their eyebrows and gaze at you over their bifocals and say, "thanks but no thanks, dearest. i'm the doctor here."
and even if you "know" all this, it always must come with the caveat: the jury's always out here since it's science, not absolute invariably truths. i could be eating my hat five years from now when new evidence comes out contradicting what seems to be the best available now.
c'est la vie!
but man, i'll tell ya: this issue is one of the reasons i grow increasingly concerned about the issue that bodi raised on another thread: the poilticization of consumer choices.
ugh. they are already politicized now, of course, but i can't imagine what happens when those choices become a topic for public debate where we're talking about "socialist planning". ughfuckingughughugh.
kelley