The Truth About Saturated Fat and Cholesterol

Saturated fatty acids make up at least 50 percent of our cell walls. Without much saturated fat, our cells become weak and noodly, making it harder for them to resist infection and ultimately making it more difficult to maintain cell integrity. Besides this natural benefit to cellular integrity, saturated fatty acids also have some inherent antibiotic and antimicrobial properties.

They also play a large role in calcium absorption. Without at least 45 percent (by some estimates) of the human diet being saturated, calcium cannot be effectively or efficiently incorporated into the skeleton. Natural breastmilk contains large quantities of saturated fat--nature would not make this kind of mistake. Saturated fatty acids are vital for the development of healthy skeletal structure. This is, in part, why it is so disturbing to see the saturated-fat-less baby formulas being sported by many American mothers today.

Saturated fat forms a protective layer with the liver to prevent the body from being harmed by such toxins as Tylenol or alcohol.

Omega-3 fatty acids are able to be retained in the body more effectively when the diet is rich in saturated fats. Further, it is a complete myth that saturated fats are artery-clogging. It is a fact that the plaque in clogged arteries is only 26 percent saturated fat--and a large percentage of that saturated fat was rancid when it was eaten, due to the way it was cooked or due to spoilage.

Saturated fat is found in its highest concentrations around the heart; the heart draws on this reserve of fat when the heart is in stress. This reserve of fat has been clinically shown to be beneficial. Without it, heart attacks are much more common.

As for cholesterol, it, too, is widely misunderstood and the victim of fierce marketing campaigns by the vegetable oil industry.

Fact: cholesterol that you eat does not affect serum (blood) cholesterol, unless your body has some sort of severe metabolic problem. If you had such a problem, the last thing you would be worrying about is your cholesterol. You would be worrying about death.

Cholesterol is a vital precursor to Vitamin D, which is a vital nutrient for the production of insulin, for muscle tone, proper growth, and other things. Cholesterol itself is also a precursor to corticosteroids, which help us deal with stress. Cholesterol is also a precursor to sex hormones such as androgen, estrogen, and testosterone.

Some well-concealed research shows that cholesterol acts as an extremely potent antioxidant. An assumption can be made that this is why cholesterol levels increase with age--the body is trying not to let itself oxidize. When we try to reduce our cholesterol levels, we are forcing ourselves to oxidize, resulting in earlier death, higher cancer and heart disease rates, and more nasties.

In addition, cholesterol is found in large amounts in a mother's breastmilk. Again, nature would not make a mistake like this; cholesterol is vital for the development of the sexual, neurological, and metabolic systems in an infant.

I encourage you to continue to disbelieve what you are often told and what many people believe without ever checking the information for themselves. Just because the government told many founding doctors of modern medicine that cholesterol is bad for you and that saturated fat clogs arteries does not make it correct.

Not Eating Can Make You Fat

There are endless numbers of people who claim that they don't understand why they are overweight or even obese because they don't eat very much. Other people will roll their eyes at this comment, assuming that this person is either in denial or outright lying about their food consumption. How could someone be obese when they only eat one meal a day?

I am one of these people. On most days I will eat either nothing all day or sometimes a granola bar. Either Diet Coke or iced tea accompanies this. Dinner comes in around 6 pm and is a standard meal, nothing outrageous in calories or fat. Occasionally, I will have something salty or sweet for dessert. However, the calories simply do not add up to explain why I am so overweight. I am not alone in this.

We have heard it before that if you don't eat often, your body will go into starvation mode. However, the majority of people apply this to anorexics. No, it is true of overweight people as well. Really, that bowl of ice cream is going to go straight to my hips because my body is going to save it for energy because it doesn't know when it will get fed next. This ultimately slows down the metabolism. It is possible to eat minimal calories on any given day and gain weight.

There is a solution. The body and metabolism can be retrained. Many health professionals suggest eating five to six small meals every day to keep the metabolism active. This will also kick start the sluggish metabolism of those who do not eat enough. Once an overweight person begins to eat more and eat regularly, they must make the right food choices. Eating several meals a day doesn't mean eating an entire meal, but consists of much smaller portions. It can take weeks for the metabolism to speed up, so results will not be immediate. This is especially true if the body has been in starvation mode for a considerable length of time.

Losing weight the right way means eating regularly and eating the right amount of food. Not eating can be just as detrimental as overeating and reaps the same repercussions. While it may seem odd to force food into your mouth when you are not hungry, it is necessary to kick start the metabolism. Eventually, your body will expect this food and respond with hunger pains if the food isn't supplied. As with any nutritional changes, it is always a good idea to speak to a physician. For added measure, request a referral to a nutritionist and really take the leap. Eating AND losing weight sounds like the perfect diet to me.

More kids having weight-loss surgery

As the popularity of stomach surgery has skyrocketed among obese adults, a growing number of doctors are asking, "Why not children, too?"

For decades, the number of kids trying weight-loss surgery has been tiny. The operations themselves were risky, with a death rate of about 1 in 50. Children rarely got that fat, and when they did, pediatricians hesitated to put the developing bodies under the knife. Only 350 U.S. kids had such an operation in 2004, according to federal statistics.

But improvements in surgical technique and huge increases in the number of dangerously obese children have begun fueling a change of heart.

A group of four hospitals, led by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, are starting a large-scale study this spring examining how children respond to various types of weight-loss surgery, including the gastric bypass, in which a pouch is stapled off from the rest of the stomach and connected to the small intestine.

Three more hospitals have approval from the Food and Drug Administration to test how teens fare with a procedure called laparoscopic gastric banding, where an elastic collar installed around the stomach limits how much someone can eat.

The FDA has hesitated to approve the gastric band for children, but surgeons at New York University Medical Center reported in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery this month that the device holds promise.

The 53 boys and girls, aged 13 to 17, who participated in NYU's study shed nearly half their excess weight over 18 months, while suffering relatively minor complications.

Crystal Kasprowicz, of St. James, N.Y., said she lost 100 pounds from her 250-pound frame after having the band installed at age 17.

"I'm a totally different person," she said.

Before the procedure, Kasprowicz said she took medication for a rapid heartbeat and was showing signs of developing diabetes. Every effort she made to stop getting bigger failed. Dieting didn't work, she said. Her heart problems made it hard to exercise. Even walking up stairs was a challenge.

Now, she's off the heart drugs. Her blood-sugar levels are in check. She also feels better about herself.

"I'm very outgoing now," said Kasprowicz. "I hike a lot ... I go to the beach in the summer now. I'm not as self-conscious when I go shopping for clothing."

Similar studies are under way at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago and at the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, which recently opened a weight-loss surgery center for teens. Doctors there expect to conduct about 50 operations this year.

Children are only considered candidates for surgery after they have spent six months trying to lose weight through conventional methods under hospital supervision. But so far, not a single one has slimmed down enough to take surgery off the table, said Dr. Jeffrey Zitsman, associate attending surgeon at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital.

"That battle can only be won in a few instances," he said.

The studies have followed a huge surge in the popularity of obesity surgeries among adults. The American Society for Bariatric Surgery estimates that more than 177,000 Americans had weight-loss surgery last year, up from 47,000 in 2001.

Not everyone is pleased that kids might be next.

"I don't think altering the human digestive tract is a solution to the problem of excess weight," said Joanne Ikeda, a nutritionist emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's one of these quick-fixes that isn't a fix at all."

Doctors, she said, still know relatively little about the long-term effects of such operations on the very young.

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released a study in July that said four in 10 weight-loss surgery patients develop complications within six months. Among adults, mortality rates among gastric bypass patients remain at between 1 in 100 and 1 in 200 patients.

Laparoscopic gastric banding has been shown to have a much smaller death rate В— about 1 in 1000 patients В— but complications do occur.

Of the patients who participated in the NYU study, two needed a second operation to adjust a slipping band; two developed hernias; five got an infection; five suffered mild hair loss and four had iron deficiencies related to their new diet. After the study was complete, one patient asked to have her band removed because of discomfort, said Evan Nadler, a pediatric surgeon and co-author of the study.

Nadler said those complications were minor compared to the chronic diabetes and cardiovascular disease teens would face if they remained that heavy into adulthood.

"These are people who have tried everything they could possibly try," he said, noting that their mean weight at the study's start was 297 pounds. "Once they reach this level of morbid obesity, the vast majority go on to be obese adults," he said.

Thomas Wadden, an obesity expert at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said surgery can be of immense benefit to some teens, especially those already experiencing health problems.

But he also advised caution.

Egged on by TV shows and commercials expounding the benefits of weight-loss surgery, adult patients have begun showing up at Penn's Center for Weight and Eating Disorders demanding an operation as an easy first step to thinness.

"When we ask them, 'What have you done so far to lose weight?' The patients say, 'Nothing,'" Wadden said. "They're going right to a $25,000 operation for which they are ill-prepared."

It would be tragic, he said, to see the same phenomenon repeated among children.

"They have to be selected with caution to make sure that this aggressive step is absolutely necessary."

Obesity poses larger diabetes risk than inactivity

Although obesity and lack of physical activity both raise the risk of type 2 diabetes in women, obesity appears to be the more important factor, researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care.

Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues note that the relative contribution of obesity and inactivity to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes remains controversial.

To investigate further, the researchers monitored 68,907 women taking part in the Nurses' Health Study, a large ongoing study that is evaluating women's health over time. The women in the current trial had no history of diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer at study entry. During 16 years of follow-up, there were 4,030 incident cases of type 2 diabetes.

After allowing for age, smoking, and other diabetes-associated factors, the risk of type 2 diabetes increased progressively with increasing body mass index (BMI - the ratio of height to weight often used to determine if someone is overweight or too thin). The risk also increased with waist circumference, and decreased with physical activity levels.

Using women who had a healthy weight (BMI of less than 25) and were physically active as the reference group, the relative risks of type 2 diabetes were 16.75 in women with a BMI of 30 or more and were inactive. The corresponding risk in obese women who were active was 10.74. In women who were lean but inactive, the relative risk was 2.08.

Although both variables were significant predictors of type 2 diabetes, the researchers found that the association for waist circumference was substantially stronger than that for physical inactivity.

They researchers conclude that "the magnitude of risk contributed by obesity is much greater than that imparted by lack of physical activity," and therefore "weight loss and maintenance of healthy weight should be emphasized as an eventual goal to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes."

What Can Obesity Do to Your Health?

More importantly than being physically unappealing, obesity is hazardous to your health. Every part of your body needs to work harder to sustain your life when you are carrying excess weight. Try lifting a 40 pound bag of pet food. Now, imagine carrying it or two or three ft them with you all the time. Despite the fact that you may feel fine now, over time you will be at an increased risk for any or all of the following health problems:

Cancer: Nobody really knows why you are higher risk for cancer when you are overweight, but research shows that you are. Nearly 50 percent of all breast cancer cases occur in obese women. A post menopausal woman that gains even a small amount of weight increases her risk for several types of cancer.

High Blood Pressure: You are at twice the risk of having high blood pressure if you are obese. Almost 75 percent of American adults, that are obese, also have high blood pressure. The upside to this is that if you lose even a small amount of weight, you should see a positive change in your blood pressure.

Diabetes: Type 2 diabetes is specifically connected to being overweight, with more than 75 percent of obese people suffering from type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is becoming much more common in obese children. However, here again, a small weight loss have a big impact on your sugar levels and how your body utilizes insulin.

Heart Disease: Your heart can be significantly affected by just a weight gain of 20 pounds. More than half of all cases of heart disease occur in obese people. Once again, even a small change in your weight will help your heart health.

Respiratory problems: Sleep apnea is common in overweight people. Sleep apnea occurs when your airway collapse while asleep, causing you to stop breathing. This will also subside with weight loss.

Gallbladder problems: As your weight increase so do your chances of having gall stones. This is true especially in women.

Osteoarthritis: This disease causes the bone and cartilage in your joints to deteriorate, causing joint pain. A small weight gain can cause joint pain, however a minor weight loss decrease your chances of getting arthritis.

Psychological and social implications: Being overweight has a big effect on your self-esteem and how other people view you. I believe overweight people to be one of the most discriminated against groups of people in today's society. Society assumes that because you are overweight, you are lazy and don't care about yourself.

These are the major health affects associated with being overweight. This does not take in to considerations the annoyances associated with obesity, such as; bladder control problems, depression, shortness of breath, having a hard time putting on your shoes, not being able to cross your legs and not being able to keep up with your children.

There are many reasons that people decide to lose weight, but at some point in time it will come down to your health. In America, there are many programs and groups available to help you get started. There is no time like the present to get started on a journey towards a new lifestyle.