2014 Cut, Part III: Fats, "Healthy Fats", Omega-3 Myths

So part 3 here will be dealing with fats, healthy fats, and sources of fats particularly Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs). You probably are more familiar with PUFAs as Omega-9, Omega-6, and Omega-3 fatty acids among other things.  There is about two decades of evidence that points to Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs) as being the main culprit in heart disease, cancers, and high cholesterol.   High cholesterol may actually be a reaction to damage caused by PUFAs to blood vessels, which then seek to reinforce themselves with cholesterol, but that particular point is still in its nascent phases of being researched.    You may be thinking that saturated fats are horrible for you, and yes, sometimes, in certain things they are.  Industrial corn-fed beef? Yup, probably horrible for you.  But PUFAs are implicated in a growing number of health issues.  There have actually been several studies comparing saturated / monounsaturated /omega-6s and their effects on heart health.  In one, people suffering from chronic heart disease had their diets supplemented with either saturated animal fat, olive oil, or High omega 6 oils (corn I believe). In several years, the saturated animal fasts group had the fewest deaths, the olive oil group was second and the omega-6 group had the most. The heart related deaths were about the same but the omega-6 group had 3 times the cancer deaths; if accounted for that would have shown that the rate of CHD deaths in that group actually greater. The conclusion of the researchers? CHD patients weren't good subjects for testing the healthiness of fatty acids. Incidentally they actually stopped the study early on account of their fears that cancer deaths were going to explode in the omega-6 group.

So are Omega-3s healthy? To an extent; they’re a mixed bag really. Here's a great study showing the good and bad.  I’m not saying PUFAs should be entirely cut out, but rather limited, quite a bit.  They do serve a purpose; your body needs some.  But the problem is there are so many recommendations out there now that push the idea of mega-dosing fish oil, and the scientific data just does NOT backup this recommendation in any way shape or form.  What gets lost is that a lot of the Omega-3 benefit comes from the fact that it helps balance out the excessive Omega-6 intake of most individuals. Put another way: Omega-3s are not great for you either, but they’re less bad than Omega-6s.   This does not mean however, that loading up fish oil, or any omega-3 is a good idea.  As the previous link notes, there actually haven’t been any studies on the long-term effects of fish oils (or omega3s) and the mid-range studies actually find increased mortality among users.  This is most likely because Omega-3s are heavily oxidative.   You’ve heard of anti-oxidants most likely; these compounds protect against oxidative damage to proteins, tissue, and DNA.  There are many oxidative compounds, and Omega-3s are actually worse than Omega-6s.  The reason for this is that the chemical composition of Omega-3s contains a backbone with several double carbon bonds which are highly unstable, and the breakdown of which causes oxidative damage, particularly to the linings of blood vessels, and which can also be carried into cells, damaging them as well. In the linked picture the "=" between the C's represents a double bond, in Linolenic acid.   Saturated fat contains none of those double-bonds, and monounsaturated contains one double-bond. There is evidence that among those who recently suffered a heart attack, supplementing with fish oil may help prevent death via arrhythmia.  However, there is no evidence showing any long-term benefit of supplementing with fish oil (or any omega-3 for that matter). So how did Omega-3s/PUFAs end up being the ‘savior’ compared to ‘evil’ saturated fats?  General government laziness of all things. More on that in a bit.

Now, before you go and flush all your fish oil, again, you do need some PUFAs/omega-3s/omega-6s.  But as shown, the typical American diet gets way too much PUFAs overall, and way too many 6s.  Men in particular have it bad, as another issue with Omega3s is that men need more DHA than EPA, but in most fish-oil supplements it’s actually flipped; Biotest’s Flameout being the exception that I can think of.  So all things in moderation, including PUFAs.  Research shows that Probably 15g total of PUFAs is the upper limit before you start running into issues (with about 10 from Omega-6s and 5 from Omega-3s).  I was getting closer to 40 on my high fat days last cut; which won’t be happening again.  The message here is moderation, things like walnuts are not bad for you, but look at it this way: the omega-6 to omega-3 ration in them is 5:1.  Human-beings should be around 1:1 or 2:1; I think there is the assumption that because a food has a ‘healthy’ reputation that you can overlook the actual composition of it.  This goes for any food; but in this particular case here is a link sums up my feeling on PUFAs pretty well.   So sticking with the walnut example; while they are a healthy food relatively speaking, you can’t ignore the fact that it’s got a ton of omega-6s when planning out how you eat.  In other words, include walnuts in your diet, they have many great features, but don't go hog-wild with them.  As per omega-3s, most of the studies that show benefits are very short term, and focus only on direct supplementation with just fish oil, or just omega-3s in pill form.  I’m going to pinch a quote from Kuipers et al. that appears in one of the earlier links, but really summarizes any supplementation study:

The fish oil fatty acids EPA and DHA (and their derivatives), vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) and vitamin A (retinoic acid) are examples of nutrients that act in concert, while each of these has multiple actions(7,8).

Consequently, the criteria for establishing optimum nutrient intakes via randomised controlled trials (RCT) with single nutrients at a given dose and with a single end point have serious limitations. They are usually based upon poorly researched dose–response relationships, and typically ignore many possible nutrient interactions and metabolic interrelationships.

So what about saturated fats then, and red meat as a source in particular.  People often associate red meat with death via saturated fat.  The problem with most red meat (and any farm food really), is the quality and where it came from. The average ground beef or red meat in the grocery store was likely fed corn, grains (making the animals super fat and unhealthy), antibiotics, hormones that are illegal in other countries, and the animal got no exercise, and is filled with preservatives. Organic, grass fed, free range beef is the closest thing we can get to being completely natural, the animals are fed what they're meant to eat, get exercise and are healthy. So, if you can get the good quality meat, you can probably eat it more consistently (All of this also goes for dairy; I like cottage cheese, and my shakes typically contain milk, but I have no idea where it’s been coming from, I'm hoping to change that).  But currently federal guidelines push things like omega 6s (think of virtually every vegetable based cooking oil) because it’s actually better than added sugar, and this of course ignores that we’re really talking about worst and 2^nd worst.  So foods can actually brag about their omega-6 oil laden products being healthier because they have no sugar.  You'll die of diabetes, general obesity, cancer, or some other awful disease, but hey, at least you didn't get any saturated fat! 

As an appendix, here is a list of foods and their Omega-3:Omega-6 ratio.