Dietary fats are greatly misunderstood. Most people don’t know which are healthful and which are harmful. Some people shun or limit all of them, while others make fatty foods the focus of their diet. Of all the fats, saturated fats may be among the most misunderstood of all. They’re found in red and processed meats, dairy, and eggs. For decades we’ve been warned that eating them would lead to heart disease. That’s when many people switched from eating butter (saturated) to using vegetable oils and margarines (polyunsaturated).

What happened next was unexpected.

A study appeared in the British Medical Journal that examined the results of the Sydney Diet Heart Study (SDHS). The SDHS is a randomized, controlled trial comparing the rates of heart disease in people who replaced saturated fats with safflower oil (omega-6 fats). “An increase of 5% of food energy from omega-6 PUFAs predicted a 35% and 29% higher risk of cardiovascular death and all-cause mortality, respectively.” The study concluded that polyunsaturated fats were more harmful than saturated fats. Still, the majority of people believe that saturated fats should be limited and unsaturated fats increased. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Flavia, a friend of mine, has been a vegetarian most of her life. But when she discovered that she was gluten-intolerant, she decided to bring small amounts of meat back into her diet to give herself more protein options. Most of the times when we ate out, she ordered something with saturated fat like lamb or beef. The first time she ordered a steak, Flavia looked a little guilty for choosing to eat something she had come to believe was harmful. Now she knows better and enjoys an occasional food high in saturated fat.

Today, I’d like to erase any guilt you may have around eating a little butter or eggs. You can eat an occasional burger without feeling that you’re compromising your diet, because recent studies like the SDHS found that for many people, reducing saturated fats actually increases the risk for heart disease.

That’s right. Unsaturated fats can be harmful, while saturated fats can actually be protective.

When it began

The myth surrounding the dangers of saturated fats began in the late 1950s when margarine and shortening producers believed saturated fats to be responsible for an epidemic of heart attacks. They were wrong.

It continued into the 1970s when a single study found a correlation between heart disease and cholesterol. This, in turn, correlated with the percentage of calories that came from saturated fats. “But correlation is not causation,” says Aseem Malhotra, a London cardiology specialist.

Recent studies have failed to find a significant association between saturated fats and heart disease. The National Institutes of Health tried to demonstrate a connection between eating saturated fat and heart disease. In fact, they spent several hundred millions of dollars on these studies. They could find no such connection. Still, we’re told to reduce all fats to 30% of our calories, and limit our intake of saturated fats to just 10%. It turns out that saturated fats — the fats from animals (meats, eggs, and dairy) — are not the nutritional culprits we’ve been led to believe they are.

The main problem with a diet high in saturated fats is that it’s proportionately lower in fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts — all components of a healthful diet. It’s not the saturated fats that are the problem, but the nutrients they displace.

How they’re protective

You may not have known this, but saturated fat surrounds your heart. It’s your heart’s preferred fuel. When you’re under stress — and who isn’t these days? — your heart draws from this reserve of fatty acids to give you energy. So saturated fatty acids can be an immediate source of energy.

In addition, we all know the importance of getting enough vitamins A, D, K, and E in our foods and supplements. You need enough of these fat-soluble vitamins to convert a number of chemicals into a useable form. But without sufficient saturated fats, you can’t utilize many of these important vitamins and minerals. The fat-soluble vitamins in your diet and supplements are useless unless you include them in a diet containing some saturated fats.

Bone health

That’s not all. Saturated fats protect you from osteoporosis as well. It’s not enough to get sufficient calcium. Something is needed to utilize it, and this “something” is saturated fats. You need them to carry calcium into your bones.
This is why Mary Enig, PhD, one of the world’s experts on dietary fats, has said that at least 50% of your dietary fat intake should be saturated. And it’s why I advocate eating full fat yogurt and butter instead of fat-free yogurt and margarine. You don’t need to eat huge amounts of saturated fats. The key is balance. A single serving of dietary saturated fats a day should give you the protection your body needs.

Eating fat doesn’t make you fat

It’s also a myth that high fat foods cause weight gain. In 1956, a study on obesity, published in The Lancet, compared diets that were 90% protein with those that were 90% fat or 90% carbohydrate. The most weight loss was found in the group eating the most fat. One problem with this diet is that it doesn’t leave room for healthful nutrient-dense foods like antioxidants and minerals. The issue isn’t whether or not a diet high in saturated fats is healthful or harmful. It has more to do with the other foods you eat along with fats. Carbohydrates, especially refined ones like cookies, white flour, and sugar will contribute to weight gain, not egg yolks.

A strong immune system

Your immune system needs saturated fats. Some of them have antifungal qualities, like lauric acid and caprylic acid and are used to reduce colonies of Candida albicans. Butter and coconut oil are both high in two saturated fats: myristic acid and lauric acid. If your white blood cells don’t have enough of these fatty acids, it becomes more difficult for them to recognize and destroy viruses, bacteria, and fungi.

Feeding your brain

Your brain is mostly a mixture of cholesterol and saturated fats – substances that the majority of people are trying to reduce. That’s not smart. You’ve no doubt heard that the brain needs omega-3 fatty acids like those that come from fish and walnuts. Well, omega-3s can’t be utilized without enough saturated fat. A diet that’s low in saturated fats doesn’t have the raw materials your brain needs to function optimally.

In addition, hormone production needs saturated fats. The bottom line is that a fat-free or low-fat diet will not only prevent weight loss, it keeps you from utilizing healthful vitamin-rich foods.

What about your heart? Saturated fat helps increase your HDL (healthy) cholesterol and lower your Lp(a) (bad) cholesterol. In fact, since there are no drugs that lower your Lp(a), you need to be on a diet high in saturated fat to get the needed balance of good to bad cholesterol.

British Medical Journal, February 5, 2013.

Leas, Connie, Fat: It’s Not What You Think, Prometheus Books, 2008.

What to Do When You Keep Running Out of Energy

There’s a difference between needing to take a short, revitalizing afternoon nap and being so tired that you can hardly move. I was experiencing the latter once or twice a day. One minute my energy was a little low, and the next minute I would crash. After I lay down for from half an hour to two hours, I felt better. Then the cycle would repeat. At first, this happened only occasionally. Then I crashed almost daily.

None of my doctors had found an explanation for this extreme sudden fatigue. They ruled out cortisol production, thyroid, blood sugar, dehydration, and a host of other possibilities. Then I remembered what an acupuncturist friend had told me decades ago: when you can’t find an explanation in Western medicine, look to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It is based on a system of balance and offers a different way of looking at health that is hundreds of years old. Perhaps it could lead to an explanation and solution.

So, during a brief vacation when I found myself within a few hours’ drive of this friend, I looked her up. Within minutes she had read my pulses and found the answer to my fatigue. My reserve energy stores were depleted and needed to be restored. Simply speaking, I was running on empty. I kept spending what little energy I had, called Chi, or Qi, rather than building and storing it.

There are numerous ways to restore Chi, including exercises like Chi Gong, dietary changes, meditation, drinking water throughout the day, and acupuncture. But I learned about a simple and overlooked therapy based on TCM that takes just minutes a day and costs nothing. It consists of making and storing energy in the body’s center. This center is called Dan Tien.

Dan Tien is located between your belly button and pubic bone. Physically,
it relates to digestion, elimination, and reproduction. Whenever I have had an upset stomach, I have automatically placed my hands over my Dan Tien. And this position is the first step in building sustained energy.

Dan Tien Breath

You can build your Dan Tien energy in any of three positions: sitting in a
chair with a straight back, lying down, or standing. Begin by breathing slowly through your nose. Exhale completely to clear the air out of your lungs, and then gently exhale a little more. This will allow you to inhale more deeply with your next breath.

Then, inhale into your belly, letting it expand. This allows your diaphragm to relax, and move air still deeper into your lungs.

Exhale again, squeezing the air out of your lower abdomen, then inhale deeply keeping your chest relaxed.

The final step in this simple exercise is to visualize a golden ball of energy in your Dan Tien becoming brighter with each breath.

That’s all there is to it. What’s amazing to me is that this deep breathing with visualization for just three to ten minutes a day will build and sustain your energy.

If you like, you can take one or two Dan Tien breaths during the day. Remember
to visualize the bright golden ball of energy.

After a week or two you may feel so good that you’re tempted to spend this energy. Don’t. Bank some of it. Remember that you reached this state of depletion by doing too much. Listen to your body and get plenty of rest during this time. The combination of breathing and resting will work best.

Alarming Study Questions Resveratrol’s Safety

Whenever a nutritional product becomes popular, a negative study appears in the news that finds it to be worthless or dangerous. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. You can’t patent vitamins, minerals, or herbs, but you can question their effectiveness and safety and drive people to pharmaceutical companies for patented drugs. This is what’s happening with resveratrol.

Resveratrol is a molecule found in the skin of red grapes and in peanuts. Most studies have found that it’s highly beneficial and protective against cancer and heart disease. But a recent study warns that it’s harmful in autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS).

In fact, this MS study is quite alarming. If you’ve heard about it, you may have considered throwing away any resveratrol supplements you may have. Don’t. Let’s first take a closer look at this recent study to see if it really is dangerous.
This study, published in The American Journal of Pathology, says that resveratrol could be harmful to people with MS. To come to this conclusion, researchers simulated an experimental autoimmune disease in mice and fed them either a control diet or a diet containing resveratrol.

Initially, all of the mice experienced some paralysis. Then, after five weeks, the mice on the control diet recovered with mild, or no, symptoms. Tests on the spinal cords of the affected mice showed signs of demyelination — a symptom of MS. But there was no indication that the resveratrol in this study had anti-inflammatory properties. Past human studies found it was, indeed, anti-inflammatory, while this study concluded that it worsened inflammation.

The researchers then cautioned against using resveratrol for human inflammatory demyelination diseases like MS. Where did this recommendation come from? Out of left field?? No one ever said that resveratrol is or should be a treatment for autoimmune diseases.

However, one of resveratrol’s basic functions is to regulate inflammation. Numerous past studies have shown that indeed, it does reduce inflammation in
conditions like cancer and heart disease.

It’s time we looked at the type of study that came to this conclusion about resveratrol and MS. It was a mouse study. Studies performed on cells in petri dishes and on laboratory animals do not necessarily translate to humans. In case you haven’t noticed, people and mice are not the same. And they don’t necessarily respond the same to drugs or natural substances. Cell and animal studies give us early indications of a direction. They are not the final word.

In three recent human clinical trials, resveratrol was shown to lower inflammation. It also lowered blood pressure, balanced blood sugar, and increased HDL cholesterol (the good kind). In fact, I could find no other studies than this initial study that indicated resveratrol is harmful.

This says to me that anyone with MS should be cautious and watchful if they’re taking resveratrol. But a single study wouldn’t keep me away from an anti-inflammatory nutrient.

What’s going on here? It looks suspicious to me to be just another attempt to discredit a nutrient that can’t be patented and direct our consumer dollars to pharmaceutical companies.

Another use for resveratrol

We know that resveratrol protects the heart in many ways, but we’re still finding new applications. Studies are now under way to develop an oral drug that can prevent atrial fibrillation and help regulate the heart’s electrical activity. Atrial fibrillation is the most common cause of irregular heartbeats. It increases your risk of stroke, heart failure, and death.

Researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada are working now to improve resveratrol’s solubility, absorption, and metabolism. They found that drugs based on this nutrient help regulate electrical activity in the heart and reduce the length between episodes. Now they’re looking for a better drug.

They believe that since resveratrol is a natural product, it may be better tolerated than the present drugs without their side effects. And they’re probably right.

The American Journal of Pathology, October 2013.

Years of Irregular Heartbeat Gone!

This solution to atrial fibrillation may not work for everyone, but it worked for me. I found a supplement that tonifies and strengthens the heart that’s completely natural. What’s more, it has already eliminated my own atrial fibrillation. It’s called Circutol, and it was developed by Dr Isaac Eliaz, MD, an expert in Tibetan and Chinese herbs who formulates some of our supplements. This one worked better than I believed was possible.

I had had atrial fibrillation for several years. While my cardiologist said it was not the kind that was dangerous, it still bothered me. After a few months on Circutol (two capsules twice a day), they disappeared.

Then I stopped taking this supplement and my irregular heartbeats came back. I now take one capsule once or twice a day and am completely symptom-free. You can get Circutol from Advanced Bionutritionals (800-791-3395). If you’d rather take resveratrol itself, you’ll find it in Advanced Resveratrol Formula. Either of these supplements should support your heart and immune system. And for all I can see, both are safe and effective.

NUTRITION DETECTIVE

Why Chronic Ear Infections Won't Go Away -- And What You Can Do to Get Rid of Them

I've talked in past articles about biofilms. These are colonies of bacteria throughout the gastrointestinal tract that are surrounded by a protective cage. This cage prevents antibiotics from reaching and destroying the bacteria. Meanwhile, the pathogenic bacteria that form biofilms "talk" and strategize amongst themselves, finding ways to stay alive. This is why they're able to develop antibiotic resistance. But now we're learning that biofilms are not just in the GI tract.

Scientists have found two of them combined in another part of the body — the ears. The condition is otitis media (OM). While it strikes children more often than adults, if the infection persists, it can become chronic in adults as well. OM is the number one cause of new antibiotic prescriptions to children. But it often lasts a long time and is resistant to the antibiotics. When OM recurs or is difficult to eradicate, chances are biofilms are the root cause.

Ear infections are hard to get rid of because they often occur when multiple species of bacteria begin talking. In order to clear up the infection, you often have to remove the communication between the different types of bacteria. Researchers from Wake Forest University examined the communication patterns and they figured out how they can use these patterns to fight OM.

First, the researchers found two specific bacteria were frequently present in these types of infections. Then they examined the relationship between the two to find that a chemical called the H. influenzae secreted autoinducer-2 was involved in their communication process.

They determined that this chemical helps the bacteria, and therefore the infection, persist through its signaling process. Knock out this chemical, and you make the bacteria much more vulnerable. It may even be possible to vaccinate against this chemical. More research is necessary, but scientists now have a target to focus on.

Biofilms are difficult to eradicate. Using different antibiotics is the traditional solution, but this often leads to antibiotic resistance. If you or anyone you know has chronic ear infections, have their doctor contact Dr. Stephen Olmstead, MD, at Klaire Laboratories (888-488-2488). He cannot speak with you directly, but he will assist doctors in finding a non-antibiotic solution.

Dr. Olmstead has developed gastrointestinal anti-biofilm enzyme formulas called InterFase and InterFase Plus that break through biofilms' protective cages and destroy the biofilms. You can find these online and by calling the number above. While these are designed to work in the gut, they might be helpful in fighting these persistent ear infections.

Source: ScienceDaily, July 6, 2010.

LETTERS

Q: I have been taking MK7 instead of a calcium pill. I get 200 mg of calcium in my multivitamin. I take magnesium taurate separately. I am 77 and have never had a broken bone. — N.P., Las Vegas, NV

A: You’re either very lucky or have terrific genes. The amounts of supplements you’re taking are a little low, in my opinion. MK7 is best known as vitamin K2, and it helps drive calcium into your bones. But strontium is equally important, and you’re not taking it.

Plus, 200 mg of calcium is a little low unless calcium-rich foods are part of your daily diet. I suggest taking 500 mg a day along with an equal amount of magnesium.

You don’t say how much magnesium you’re taking or how much is in the foods you’re eating (whole grains, legumes, and nuts). Getting enough magnesium can be even more important than getting enough calcium.

I like Ultimate Bone Support from Advanced Bionutritionals (800-791-3395) — not because I helped formulate it — but because it contains enough of the co-factors your body needs to keep forming flexible and dense bones. In addition to this formula, add calcium and magnesium.

Depending on your diet, the supplements you’re taking could be enough. But maybe not.

I suggest you increase your protection by taking the bone support formula on an empty stomach, and 500 mg each of calcium and magnesium with food. I’ve talked about this combination for years and have seen it work again and again. It’s so effective that I’ve seen it duplicated by other supplement companies.

Q: In a recent newsletter you mention using melatonin to soothe GERD (heartburn). My husband and I were ready to buy and use it when we read the last paragraph of the article. In it, you stated that if we have an autoimmune disease we should not use melatonin. Both of us have autoimmune conditions. Could you please explain why someone with an autoimmune disease should not use melatonin? — L.U., e-mail

A: As you may know, I’m extremely cautious when it comes to taking hormones. Melatonin is one of the safest hormones for you to take on a regular basis. There are no known side effects. And most people can take it without any problems – even most people with autoimmune problems. However, because of the results of this one study, I mentioned the autoimmune exception out of an abundance of caution.

This one study is the only research I’ve seen that suggests this exception. The researchers conducted this study in 2008. They found that melatonin didn’t improve rheumatoid arthritis. Since then, many other studies found melatonin to be both safe and effective for autoimmune problems. This is due, we believe, because of its anti-inflammatory properties.

So go ahead and use it for your GERD, and let me know what results you get. I think you’ll be pleased with its results.