This recent study from Japan found that middle-aged men and women who ate more saturated fat had a lower risk of stroke. The rate of strokes was 30% lower in the highest intake quintile compared to the lowest quintile. There was a non-significant reduction in heart disease.
Other big differences were correlated with saturated fat intake. For example, those in the highest quintile had more college education than those in the lowest quintile and were more likely to do sports >1 hr/week. These data by themselves won’t convince anyone that saturated fats are beneficial. But they should push you in that direction. Contrary to what you’ve heard a million times.
As far as I can tell, eating lots of butter has lowered my blood pressure. High blood pressure is associated with greater risk of stroke.
Although pig fat certainly helped me (I slept better), I’ve found butter is even better. Butter has considerably more saturated fat than pig fat. The fat in butter is 60% saturated fat, whereas pig fat is 40% saturated fat. My consumption of 60 g/day of butter gives me 36 g/day saturated fat. In this study, persons in the highest quintile of intake averaged 20 g/day. The highest intake in the whole study (60,000 people) was 40 g/day. In addition to butter, I eat cheese, whole-fat yogurt, and meat, so I’m surely higher than that.
Via Whole Health Source.
At my Quantified Self talk I described data that suggested butter improved my mental function. During the question period, a cardiologist in the audience said something about me killing myself — butter is unhealthy. The usual view.
I said I thought the evidence for the usual view was weak. He said, “The Framingham studies.” That was epidemiology, I said. It is notoriously hard to understand. My data was from something like an experiment. Much easier to understand. (And the Framingham study is a terrible example of the supposed evidence. To quote from it: “In the period between the taking of the diet interviews and the end of the 16-year follow-up, 47 cases of de novo CHD developed in the Diet Study group. The means for all the diet variables measured were practically the same for these cases as for the original cohort at risk.”) He replied that the reduction in heart disease in recent years was more support for the usual view. I said the recent decline in heart disease could have many explanations other than a reduction in animal fat intake. Many things have changed over the last 20 years.
There is epidemiological evidence that saturated fat is bad, yes, but it is not the Framingham study nor the recent decline in heart disease. And it really is difficult to interpret. The butter-is-bad interpretation could easily be wrong. The obvious problem is that, after people are told butter is bad, people who try hard to be healthy avoid butter. And they do a lot of other things, too, to be healthy. So butter consumption ends up confounded with a dozen other variables believed to affect your health. When I was growing up, my parents avoided butter because margarine was much cheaper. So butter consumption is confounded with income, another problem.
My tiny experiment, whatever its problems, was much easier to interpret.
On Tuesday I gave a talk called “Arithmetic and Butter” at the Quantified Self meeting in Sunnyvale. I had about 10 slides but this one mattered most:
It shows how fast I did simple arithmetic problems (e.g., 2*0, 9-6, 7*9) before and after I started eating 1/2 stick (60 g) of butter every day. The x axis covers about a year. The butter produced a long-lasting improvement of about 30 msec. (more…)
This pharmaceutical-company handout (thanks, Jen!) about their Vitamin K2 includes a description of an experiment where subjects took the tablets on an empty stomach or with a meal. The variation in stomach contents made a huge difference: absorption, measured by blood concentration, was 7 times higher when the K2 was taken with a meal.
This is going to change how I take supplements, such as selenium, for the rest of my life. I’ve often taken them on empty stomach. I never realized the effect of doing so could be so large.
You are currently browsing the archives for the nutrition category.
