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marylin monroe
Showing posts with label omega-6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label omega-6. Show all posts

Standard American Diet Has 'Optimal' Fatty Acid Ratio to Induce Diabesity. Plus: Study Shows Doubling Saturated Fats Would Yield More Benefits Than Halving Them

Study confirms: The SAD diet yields 'optimal' results (img. forbes.com)
Since this post is already lengthy enough, I will spare you how saturated fatty acids have long falsely been accused as the sole driving force of the western obesity epidemic and how the tides appear to be slowly yet steadily appear to be turning, as scientists delve deeper and deeper into the interactions of the total fat content in the diet, its fatty acid composition and the interaction of both with the two other macronutrients and their specific forms and get right to the study at hand. A study that appears in the current issue of the Journal of Lipid Science and deals with the first of the aforementioned interactions. The one that focuses on the total fat content and the individual fatty acid make-up of the diet (Enos. 2012).

Fat shoot out: Saturated vs. mono vs. PUFA

As Enos et al. point out, the main purpose of their study was to examine the effects of three high fat diets differing only with respect to the percentage of total calories from saturated fats.
  • SFA-6% - contained 6% saturated fats,
  • SFA-12% - contained 12% saturated fats, and
  • SFA-24% - contained 24% of saturated fats
While the the high fat diets were set to have an identical fat (40% of the energy), carbohydrate (45% of the energy) and protein content, the two control diets were low in total fat (12%/68%/20% of the energy from fat/carbs/protein). They did however likewise differ as far as their fatty acid composition is concerned, with the modified chow mirroring the ratios (!) not the amounts of mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids of the high fat chow (see figure 1).
Figure 1: Fatty acid composition (left) and their sources (right) that were used in the different diets the rodents were fed for 16 weeks (based on Enos. 2012)
The diets were administered for 16 weeks. Body composition and metabolism (glucose, insulin, triglycerides, LDL-C, HDL-C, total cholesterol) were examined monthly.  Adipose tissue (AT) expression of marker genes for M1 and M2 macrophages and inflammatory mediators (TLR-2, TLR-4, MCP-1, TNF-α, IL-6, IL-10, SOCS1, IFN-γ) was measured and so on and so forth... and the results were... well, not exactly as you may have expected (the latter statement assumes that you expected the SFA to be either the savior or the doom of the human race, depending on which side of the LC/LF divide you are stading).
Figure 2: Body composition (left), adipocyte size (right) and fat pad weight (inset) of the rodents at the end of the study period (Enos. 2012) Values not sharing a common letter (abc) differ significantly over time within the given diet treatment (P≤.05)
If you take closer look at the data in figure 2, there are two things that will probably catch your eye right away. The first 'eye catcher' pertains to the influence of replacing a large amount of the omega-6 fatty acids by monounsaturared fatty acids, as you will find them in olive oil, for example.
  • The rodents who received the modified standard chow, with a fatty acid composition identical to the high fat diets (SFA-6%, SFA-12%, SFA-24%) had the exact same body composition as their mates who received the standard chow with its 3.7x higher n6:n3 ratio. The removal of omega-6 fatty did thus not have any beneficial effects on adiposity in the low fat groups.
The second 'eye catcher' is the non-linear increase in adiposity with increasing amounts of saturated fatty acids in the diets. This does not mean that the expected increase in obesity and adipocyte size was totally absent (read the latest "Get Lean & Stay Lean" item for more information about the association of large fat cells and metabolic syndrome), though:
  • The mice in the SF-6-24% did all gain significantly more body weight and body fat than their peers on the low fat diets, but there appears to be a turning point, when the saturated fat content exceeds 12%. After all the mice in the SFA-24% group had almost the same body composition as their peers on the SFA-6% diet.
So, what do we make of these 'eye catchers'? The first one, you could argue, shows that "omega 6 overload" is not a problem, as long as you are consuming a low fat diet, in the first place. Even with the major part of those 12.2% of energy your diet provides in form of various fatty acids belonging to the potentially inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, that's still way too low to do any harm. It does, by the way, yet explain why low fat diets work so well in a society, where most high fat foods the public consumes are laden with omega-6 fatty acids - not an insignificant result, I would say.

The 12%-SF diet, most closely mimics the standard American diet

Apropos public, the second 'eye catcher' is even more telling in term of public health,... wait, I should write sickness. Why? Well, the 12%SFA high fat diet, which supplies ...
  • 47% of energy in form of carbohydrates (380g sucrose, 100g maltodextrin, 50g cornstarch per 1kg of diet; identical for all SFA groups),
  • 40% of energy in form of fats (of which 12% were saturated fats), and
  • 13% of energy in form of protein (from casein),
... mimics, as the researchers point out, "most closely" (Enos. 2012) the standard American diet (SAD). And the result is obvious: Diabesity!

It's a fat balancing act of macro and micro ratios  - complex and far from being understood 

What's intriguing though, is that the adipogenic effects of the diet were ameliorated, when the SFA content was further increased and the diet contained 68.6g of lard per kg chow instead of just 35.4g and 96.7g of coconut oil instead of just 30g. Since this increase in SFA was at the expense of both mono- and omega-6 fatty acids, you could of course also argue that replacing at least the latter of the two with SFAs must be healthy. Unfortunately, even a brief glance back at figure 2 reveals that this is not necessarily correct. After all, the SFA-6% group was still better off than the SFA-24% group, although they had the highest amounts of oleic and omega-6 fatty acids in the diet.

By now you should actually have realized that this is once more a difficult balancing act. Where different baseline intakes of dietary fat and carbohydrates (total) are pair of setscrews and the individiual fatty acid composition of the diet is another one. And the way these setscrews are set will not just influence the body composition:
Figure 3: Serum IL-6, MCP-1, adiponectin and leptin levels, TNF-alpha mRNA expression in the adipose tissue (left), adipose tissue sample form the rodents receiving standard chow, the SFA-12% and the SFA-24% diet (Enos. 2012). The fat cells of the SFA-6% animals looked similar to those on the SFA-6% diets.
Based on the body composition data presented in figure 2 the marked increases in serum leptin and TNF-alpha mRNA expression in the adipose tissue of the rodents in figure 3 (left) should be about as unsurprising as the fact that the adipocytes of the SFA-12% group show the greatest macrophage infiltration and subsequent necrotic tissue.

If anything is surprising, it is the non-significance of the peak in IL-6 in the SFA-24% group (this was due to a very high standard deviation) and the fact that the serum level of MCP-1 a marker of increased macrophage activity was not elevated, while the adipose tissue mRNA expression was significantly higher (5-8x) in all SFA groups compared to both of the control diets. In the end this is yet only another clear sign that far more processes than we have previously thought happen locally and do not depend on circulating and thus endocrine signaling molecules.
Figure 4: Blood glucose and insulin levels of the mice over the course of the study period (Enos. 2012)
If you take the data from figure 4 into account as well, you will certainly agree with the statement Enos. et al. make pertaining to the negative effects of the SFA-12% diet, which is - just to remind you - the mirror image of the standard American diet:
"The 12%-SF diet, most closely mimicking the standard American diet, led to the greatest adiposity (absolute fat mass), macrophage infiltration, and IR [insulin resistance]." (Enos. 2012)
Figure 5: Total  cholesterol (TC, top) and LDL-C to HDL-C (bottom) ratios (Enos. 2012)
And I guess it would actually be about time to get to the bottom line, here, if it was not for the sentence that follows this assertion:
"Although the 24%-SF diet increased adiposity and produced IR, it did not significantly increase macrophage infiltration, it led to a lesser degree of AT inflammation, and it did not raise the TC/HDL-C ratio." (Enos. 2012)
Yep, you are reading right, as the data in figure 5 shows the total to HDL ratio of the SFA-24% group, which were those rodents who consumed the largest amount of "bad" saturated fat, was virtually identical to the one of the rodents on the standard and the modified standard chow and significantly lower than in those rodents who 'lived the American way of life' (SFA-12%). A similar trend was seen in the LDL:HDL radio and the triglyceride levels.

Bottom line: So, does that mean that we would just have to fry our potato chips in lard and all will be good? Not really, no. If we keep munching tons of plain sugar, even a saturated fat only diet is not going to save us from doom (I suspect there will be another inflection point at levels which exceed 50% SFA, anyway). What the study results do yet clearly implicate is that the macronutritent and fatty acid composition of the standard American diet is downright conspicuously obesogenic, pro-diabetic, inflammatory.

While the macronutrient ratio (high carb + high fat) appears to set the body into fat storage mode, the individual ratios of the fatty acids determine the efficacy of body fat storage, the negative effects on blood glucose management, and the degree of adipose tissue inflammation - and the standard American diet excels in all these disciplines.

As far as the saturated fats go (I wonder if it also plays a role that one of the main sources was coconut oil), the study suggests that you can achieve ameliorations of adiposity on both sides of the 'obesogenic optimum' of 12% saturated fats. If you take a last look at the data in figure 4, you will yet have to concede (or triumph?) that eating more not less saturated fat and thus frying your potatoes in lard, appears to be the more promising modification you could make, if the saturated fat content of the diet was your only set screw. Feels good to know it isn't right?

References:
  • Enos RT, Davis JM, Velazquez KT, McClellan JL, Day SD, Carnevale KA, Murphy EA. Influence of Dietary Saturated Fat Content on Adiposity, Macrophage Behavior, Inflammation, and Metabolism: Composition Matters. J Lipid Res. 2012 Oct 28.

Sesame Powered High Omega-6 Diet Boosts Endurance Performance in Rodents - High Omega-3 Diet Sucks: Intra-Muscular Lipid Ratios Determine Exercise Performance

At least in rodents omega-6s appear to make abetter match with exercise than in human beings.
I actually referenced this study several times in the past. It came up in a Facebook conversation I had with Roy Nelson who pointed me to a press release telling me that (I quote) "Certain Fat Could Help Humans Lose Weight". Interestingly, the "certain fat" in this particular study is (brace yourselves) linolic acid, better known as "omega-6" (obviously a misnomer, since omega-6 is actually referring to a whole class of fatty acids).

In view of the fact that the corresponding study in which Rogowski et al. observed a significant correlation between the omega-6 fatty acid content in the muscle and mitochondrial uncoupling and fat oxidation. The problem with the study is however that it was conducted not just with mice, but with genetically modified mice.

The results of the said study by Rogoswki, Patin et al. may thus form the basis for further investigations, but should not be taken as "hard evidence" that a high intake of omega-6 fatty acids will have similar effects. The accumulation of linolic acid in the mouse muscles was after all a result of the genetic modification and not the consequence of high n-6 chow.

So what's the effect of dietary linolic acid, then?

Unlike Rogowski et al., Kerry J. Ayre and A.J. Hulbert from the University of Wollongong did not just use normal male Wistar rats as their test objects, they also did what the scientists from Texas Tech didn't do: They supplied their rodents with diets with different fatty acid profiles.
Table 1: If you have ever wondered about the "evolution" of the omega-3 vs. omega-6 ratio in our (=the human) diet, I suggest you take a closer look at the table to the right. According to this overview from a 2004 paper by Artemsis Simopoulus in Food Reviews International. As you will see, it has more than just reversed ever since the paleolithic era.
All diets contained the exact same macronutrient composition with 22%, 56% and 22% of the total energy being derived from fat, carbohydrates, and protein, respectively. The amount of essential fatty acids and their ratios in the 22% fat content of the diet did however differ significantly:
  • Irrespective of the fact that it sucks for rodent endurance, coconut oil could help you approach a flat tummy like the one above| learn more
    Coconut diet: Designed as (almost) "essentially fatty acid free", the coconut oil based diet had a saturated fatty acid / mono-unsaturated fatty acid / N-6 / N-3 ratio of 95:4:1:0
  • High N-6: Being based on sesame oil, the high N-6 diet had a SFA / MUFA / N-6 / N-3 ratio of 16:30:50:4 that translates to an N-3:N-6 Ratio of 0.08 (1:12.5); now that sounds crazily low, but the average Westerner consumes a diet with a N-3:N-6 ratio of 0.0625 (1:16; cf. Simpopoulos. 2004) in other words - that was not even "as bad" (?) as the Western diet
  • High N-3: By adding both sesame and a commercially available omega-3 supplement to the diet, the scientists hit a 21:25:35:16 ratio for SFA / MUFA / N-6 / N-3 - that's still far from "N-3 exclusive" but much more like what current expert advice tells us we should strive for, i.e. 1g of omega-3 for every 2g of omega-6
If we go by the contemporarily popular dietary paradigms, it should be obvious that the health of the rodents in the N-6 diet will take a beating. Against that background it is all the more surprising that it were the rodents in the high N-6 group that outdistanced their hairy competition in an endurance test at the end of the 9 week study period.
Figure 1: Fatty acid composition of the diets and corresponding endurance performance of male Wistar rats after 9-weeks on coconut, high n-6 and high n-3 diet (Ayre. 1997)
What's more, it's not as if the omega-6 mice had simply been running slower and were thus able to run for a longer time, they did also have higher workloads (=product of body mass, distance traveled, and percentage grade of the incline).

"So where is the connection to the new study from Texas Tech, then?"

If we look back at the initially mentioned results from the Texas Tech study, it appears logical to assume that the beneficial effects on the endurance capacity could be another downstream effects of an increased ability to oxidize dietary fats (which is basically what the Rogowski, Paton et al. argued). Compared to the minimal amount of blood glucose and the highly limited glycogen stores in the muscle and liver, the fat stores of mice (and man) do after all hold an almost inexhaustible amount of energy - they just have to be accessed.
Figure 2: Skeletal muscle fatty acid composition after 9 weeks (Ayre. 1997)
As you can see, in figure 2 the fatty acid composition of the skeletal muscle of the rodents in the Ayre study did reflect the fatty acid composition of the diets (remember: the changes in the Rogowski study occured on the same chow, simply due to a genetic mutation) and the significantly increased omega-6 content in the N-6 group mirrors the effect Rogowski et al. observed in response to their neat GMO tricks. It does therefore appear logical to assume that the rodents in the Ayre study experienced a similar upregulation of PPAR-delta (unfortunately back in the day scientists did not measure that). The latter would increase the oxidation of fatty acid and thus the energy availability during aerobic activity.

"Making the Right Fish Choices" is important for your healths, so I suggest you learn how in the same-titled SuppVersity article.
What should not go unmentioned is that the performance discrepancies were very long-lived. Even after 5 weeks on a regular diet, the rodents in the N-6 diet easily outperformed their coconut and omega-3 competition - probably because it takes months (in rodents and years in men) to restore a "normal" muscular fatty acid profile. Now this is an interesting thought, because it will eventually lead us to the hypothesis that the huge benefits we are currently seeing (at least in some individuals) from the consumption of supplemental omega-3 fatty acids would be a direct result of the their effect on a cellular fatty acid ratio that has been messed up over years!

In view of the profundity of the omega-6 overshoot in the SAD diet and considering the fact that many of us have been consuming diets containing 15x more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3s for decades, this does not appear unlikely. From a scientific perspective it would yet reaffirm that the "optimal n3:n:6 ratio" for someone with a well-balanced cellular level of the latter could be very different from the 1:1 optimum some experts currently recommend as target in the battle against diabesity - right?
Swine study says 1:5 ratio of N3:N6 or higher = optimal health | more
Let's ground ourselves: Don't take this post as an incentive to guzzle vegetable oil all day.

As a strength athlete you may actually harm yourself as it appears that the high omega-6 intake favors the oxidative over the glycolytic pathway. As an endurance athlete, however you may reconsider how important it really is for you to avoid all omega-6 fatty acids as a plague.

On a more general note, it may in fact be worth to take another look at "optimal ratios". While some of the effects of the polyunsaturated fatty acids are in fact acute, their major effects appear to be brought about by their accumulation in our bodies.

The "optimal intake" will thus necessarily depend on the status quo, i.e. the current tissue level of n-3 and n-6 fatty acids and their respective ratios. Against that background we should not be surprised that you can counter the negative effects of an imbalanced diet by administering another imbalanced diet. In our case this is a correction of a profound omega-6 overshoot that can be achieved by increasing our consumption of omega-3 rich foods and limiting our use of omega-6 laden vegetable oils and the products of which the "food" industry tells us they were good for us, because they contain only healthy vegetable oils... this is a practice I have recommended in the past and something I still recommend today.

What I would hope we could agree on, though is the idea that the study at hand, despite being conducted in rodents should remind us that simply switching from one scapegoat to another did not help us, when that scapegoat was saturated fat. Do you really believe the outcomes will be better, when we simply glue the "avoid like a plague" sticker to the omega-6s? Yes? Well, I guess the first thing you should do then, is take your beloved extra-virgin olive oil and pour it away! Why? Well, 10% omega-6 and basically no omega-3 - that's a no go ;-)
References:
  • Ayre KJ, Hulbert AJ. Dietary fatty acid profile affects endurance in rats. Lipids. 1997 Dec;32(12):1265-70. 
  • Pella D, Dubnov G, Singh RB, Sharma R, Berry EM, Manor O. Effects of an Indo-Mediterranean diet on the omega-6/omega-3 ratio in patients at high risk of coronary artery disease: the Indian paradox. World Rev Nutr Diet. 2003;92:74-80.
  • Rogowski MP, Flowers MT, Stamatikos AD, Ntambi JM, Paton CM. SCD1 activity in muscle increases triglyceride PUFA content, exercise capacity, and PPARδ expression in mice. J Lipid Res. 2013 Oct;54(10):2636-46.
  • Simopoulos, AP. Omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acid ratio and chronic diseases. Food Reviews International. 2004; 20(1).

Restore & Maintain Insulin Sensitivity - Basics: Turn Your Lifestyle Upside Down With These 5 "No-Quick-Fix" Tips

It is hard and it takes time, but as long as it's "only" insulin resistance and not full-blown diabetes (=pancreatic failure) most people can get rid of it by turning their lives upside down.
I am sure people are going to misunderstand this, but in the end, insulin resistance was, is and will always be a consequence of "obesity". Maybe not in the way it is currently understood with the BMI determining whether you are "normal" or "obese", but certainly if you define being obese as being fat and storing the most part of the fat in the visceral adipose tissue and the liver.

Thus our definition of what I would like to call "metabolically relevant adiposity" instead of "obesity" can apply to lean and "obese" people alike. In fact, the number of people with a "normal body weight" and insulin resistance is ever increasing. So, if you don't want to be one of them, you better keep the following five DOs and avoid the corresponding "DON'Ts", which would be sitting or lying around all day, eating and drinking sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, consuming alcohol (and other hepatoxic substances), smoking cigarettes, staying up late, eating 24/7, missing your daily time-outs and abusing stimulants.
Details on the optional use supplements & medications will follow next Sunday. What I can already tell you, though, is that can get rid of insulin resistance without a single supplement or pharmacological agent, but you will never get off the diabesity track, if you are unwilling (don't you ever tell me you are "unable") to change the way you eat and increase your daily activity levels.

And yes, lifestyle modification is all it takes for most of us to regain insulin sensitivity and rid ourselves of type II diabetes (in the early stages): With 50% of the subjects being able to normalize their blood glucose levels and more than 50% of the type 2 diabetics in the study being in remission on the follow up, he Malmö study was the first, but is not the only the large scale intervention study that demonstrated the potent anti-diabesity effects of diet and exercise (Eriksson. 1991).
I. Work out anaerobically, aerobically and frequently

Workout evolution: It goes without saying that I don't expect you to start working out 5x per week "cold turkey", i.e. if you have been sitting around 364 out of 365 days of the year for the most part of your previous life (I don't have to repeat that this is over, now, right?). On the other hand, I would be lying if I told you that you can actually make measurable progress without at least 3 workouts per week. I would thus suggest you start with a 2 + 1 strategy using 2 full body workouts and one light intensity cardio training, after a month you add another cardio session and after 3 month you will add in the additional strength training session. After 6 months you switch to a split routine and increase the intensity on your cardio sessions by 15% - this should not feel more intense now that your fitness has improved than the original regimen you've taken up 180days before.
There is nothing that helps your body clean up the mess like working out. Researchers from the University of Verona and Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Integrata of Verona have just published a paper on the differential effects of strength and aerobic training on the liver fat content in type 2 diabetic subjects with NAFLD. The results were pretty amazing.

After only 4 months in the course of which the subjects ate according to the (imho not exactly optimal dietary recommendations for type II diabetics; i.e. low fat) and 3 workouts per week, both the subjects in the 3x9 exercise in a circuit training fashion and their peers in the 60min aerobics @ 60-65% of the max. heart rate had lost 32.8% and 25.9% liver fat.
"Additionally, hepatic steatosis (defined as hepatic fat content>5.56%) disappeared in about one-quarter of the patients in each intervention group (23.1% in the AER group and 23.5% in the RES group." (Bacchi. 2013)
While there is no study that measured the effects of training fasted on the liver directly, I guess you can take it for granted that esp. the group doing the aerobics could have improved their results even further, if they had performed their 60min of cardio on empty.

Bottom line: Get active or stay active. Combine resistance and aerobic training. Get serious and start working your way up to 5 workouts per week with 2x aerobic (steady state walking on an incline treadmill or taking a fast walk for 45min) and 3x resistance training sessions (either a circuit training or a pull, push, legs, 3-way split; don't train to failure in more than one set per exercise, keep the reps in the 8-10 range, increase the weights appropriately, do max. 18 sets per workout, in & out of the gym in <30min) to get rid of your insulin resistance and at least 3 workouts (2x weights, 1x LISS) if you just want to keep your insulin sensitivity is already high and you want it to stay just there.

II. Minimize your sugar intake, control your carb intake

In case you wonder where the 120g come from and if this is just some random number, I suggest you go back to a previous SuppVersity post, namely "Carbohydrate Shortage in Paleo Land: New Data for A Scientific Outlook at the Low-to-No Carb Paleo Confusion. Will More Than 125g of Carbs Make You Fat?", you may also want to reread my interview w/ Sean Casey at CasePerformance.com
Sugar, irrespective of whether its plain table sugar or HFCS is a no-go from now. The same goes for all products that contain significant amounts of it. And no, you are not going to cut back slowly on your Coke, you know that you've failed miserably before and you will fail again. You simply won't buy and drink any sugar containing beverages (including "healthy" juices which have only recently been associated with an almost 25% increased risk of developing type II diabetes) and foods.

At the same time, you will reduce your carbohydrate intake to 120g per day with a 40g limit on a per meal basis. It should not be necessary and may even be detrimental to go further down, because you won't ever learn how to walk without a crutch if you sit in a wheelchair - or to leave the metaphors behind: Unless you intend to stay insulin resistant and metabolically unflexible for the rest of your life, you better not go "no carb", as this will effectively require a high degree of (physiological) insulin resistance to work (for the morbidly obese it may yet be necessary to take the ketogenic route).

Moreover, the "gray area" between 120g and no-carbs sets you up to hypoglycemic episodes as your body will not effectively switch into ketosis, which would be necessary to supply a steady amount of energy. This problem will become even more pronounced, when you try to make up for the lack of carbs by consuming exorbitant amounts of protein.

Unless you are "skinny fat" (normal or low BMI + insulin resistant) you will use the reduction in carb intake to generate a -15% to -20% caloric deficit to shed a couple of pounds of fat weight - and no, this is NOT going to happen without a caloric deficit.

Bottom line: 120-150g is an amount of carbs you should aim for as an intermediate goal. With <50g of carbs per serving you should be able to handle that without major blood sugar excursions, as long as you stick to your workout regimen and totally cut out processed foods with simple sugars. Also, fructose from whole fruit is not your enemy! You just have to make sure you account for it in your daily carb allowance. The latter is not the case for the minimal amount of carbs in green leafy veggies and co (broccoli, calliflour, zuccini, asparagus etc. you can safely fill yourself up on those)

III. Limit your alcohol intake, quit smoking and avoid medications

Contrary to its name, which is "non-alcoholic fatty liver disease", alcohol, does still play a major role in the etiology of NAFLD. It may not be the sole reason, but the way it inhibits the normal function of your liver makes it more susceptible to the junk-food assaults it's exposed to on an almost daily basis. The same goes for all medications / "supplements" with hepatoxic effects.

Compromised liver health as in beginning or full-blown (N-)AFLD is a totally underestimated risk factor for gyneco- & lipomastia as it hampers the not only the glucose, but also the hormone metabolism in the liver (learn more)
Cigarettes on the other hand may not be directly damaging your live, but they stimulate the central nervous system, promote gluconeogenesis and impair it's shut-down, when your blood sugar is already high, so that your liver will actively and acutely contribute to the deterioration in blood sugar metabolism. At the same time the increased efflux of free fatty acids (FFA) from the adipose tissue to the liver increases your risk of developing NAFLD.

Moreover, nicotine does also increase the chronic mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)/p70S6 K activity and insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) Ser636 phosphorylation and will thus directly promote skeletal muscle insulin resistance (Bajaj. 2012).

Bottom line: While the chronic ingestion of more than 1 glass of wine per day is going to give you alcoholic liver disease, regular weekend binges precipitate and accelerate the development of NAFLD and insulin resistance. Cigarettes will compromise your insulin sensitivity in multiple ways and the use of medication, let alone performance enhancing drugs with detrimental side effects on the liver will exponentially increase the negative impact of any dietary glitch on your insulin sensitivity.

IV. Sleep, de-stress and control your stimulant intake

Please remember: Sympathetic overtraining from heavy lifting can cause sleeplesness while para-sympathetic overtraining from training too much (you can easily make the transition from sympathetic to parasympathetic overtraining), will leave you exhausted 24/7 - the 5x/week scheme above is only sustainable if you stick to the given volume and intensity limits and light intensity steady state cardio training (if you want on empty early in the morning). The latter is a better complement to restistance training than HIIT for improving insulin resistance because there is less overlap between the metabolic pathways they target).
Not getting enough sleep, alone will hamper you ability to handle glucose. This is mostly due to changes in the hormonal profile with chronically elevated cortisol levels esp. in the evening, a lack of nightly growth hormone stimulation and a desynchronization of the central (brain) and peripheral (liver, muscle, other organs) clock.
Figure 1: After 6 nights with only 4h of sleep (left) your glucose insulin response to breakfast deteriorates compared to 6 nights with 12h spend in bed (not necessarily 12h sleeping; Spiegel. 1999)
Even if you are sleeping enough constant psychological stress will have very similar effects on your insulin sensitivity.

The latter is also true for the use of stimulants. It's scary to see how many of us depend on them to even make it through the day. Aside from circadian shifts, they will have the same detrimental effects on the FFA metabolism and gluconeogensis as cigarette smoking (see discussion under item III).

Bottom line: Plan your sleep and time-outs across the day as rigorously as your workout & nutrition. Spend 8h in bet every night (if that does not help try 1-10mg of melatonin; learn more). Close the curtains and use ear-plugs if that helps you sleep. Schedule at least 15 minutes of idleness every 3h. That's about as much time as it takes to brew and drink a cup of tea. The emphasis here is on "a" (=a single) cup of tea. If you feel too tired to make it through the day without >400mg of caffeine, this is a clear cut sign you got to revise your sleep & destress routine.

V. Fast, get enough protein and watch your omega-6 intake

US childhood obesity map. Go back to the "Insulin Resitance Saga" to learn about the roots diebesity in the kindergarten.
I am aware that the general advice is different, but if you eat every 1-2 hours even the blood glucose levels of a normal person will hardly ever go back to those levels, where you want them for AMPK to go up and initiate the "decluttering" process in your liver and the rest of your body (learn more).

Also try and to get ~2x the RDA, i.e. 1.6g of protein per kg of body weight from food (learn why) and spread your protein intake across your meals in a way that ensures that you'll get at least 30g or quality protein per meal (find out why this is important). Consider using a protein shake after your resistance training sessions.

If possible include fatty fish in your diet on one, better two days of the week and keep an eye on your overall omega-6 intake. Try to reduce it to achieve a 5:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio (or lower; learn why). If you cannot force yourself to eat fish, consume 1-2g of fish oil in capsules every other day.

Too much of a good thing? Micrograph of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, caused by the same kind of lipid accumulations M-Shirazi et al. observed in rats after receiving high dose fish oil supplements in a 2011 study (learn more)
Don't discard the value of ALA (=short chain omega-3 fatty acids) and don't fool yourself to believe that saturated fats were totally benign. Increased levels of palmitic acid in the hypothalamus and skeletal muscle, for example, are mechanistically linked to local insulin resistance (Benoit. 2009; Hirabara. 2010). Everything in moderation!

In this context it is also worth mentioning that you do not want to totally eliminate omega-6 fatty acids from your diet. A 2012 study by Sawada et al., for example, showed that the allegedly bad arachidonic acid (ARA, the end-product of the enzymatic conversion of short-chain omega-6 fatty acids) is a 75x more potent activator of skeletal muscle glucose uptake than oleic acid and on par with it's omega-3 cousin DHA (Sawada. 2012).

Bottom line: Don't eat 2h before bed, and / or skip breakfast to extend your daily fasting period to at least 10h, but no more than 16h (you need that 8h window to fit in 2-3 meals). Get enough protein in your diet, but make sure you are not living off protein alone. Try to normalize your omega-6:omega:3 ratio. Strive for an 5:1 ratio of n-6:n-3 or less. Don't be fooled by the "saturated fat is not the problem"-lie and keep in mind that palmitic acid, not arachidonic acid is the bad guy, when it comes to skeletal muscle insulin resistance (things may look different when we are talking about endothelial inflammation, but this guide is about the remission of insulin resistance).
Dont forget to come back next week for Part II of this two part series.

References:
  • Bajaj M. Nicotine and insulin resistance: when the smoke clears. Diabetes. 2012 Dec; 61(12):3078-80. 
  • Benoit SC, Kemp CJ, Elias CF, Abplanalp W, Herman JP, Migrenne S, Lefevre AL, Cruciani-Guglielmacci C, Magnan C, Yu F, Niswender K, Irani BG, Holland WL, Clegg DJ. Palmitic acid mediates hypothalamic insulin resistance by altering PKC-theta subcellular localization in rodents. J Clin Invest. 2009 Sep;119(9):2577-89.
  • Eriksson KF, Lindgärde F. Prevention of type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus by diet and physical exercise. The 6-year Malmö feasibility study. Diabetologia. 1991 Dec;34(12):891-8
  • Hirabara SM, Curi R, Maechler P. Saturated fatty acid-induced insulin resistance is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction in skeletal muscle cells. J Cell Physiol. 2010 Jan;222(1):187-94.
  • Sawada K, Kawabata K, Yamashita T, Kawasaki K, Yamamoto N, Ashida H. Ameliorative effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids against palmitic acid-induced insulin resistance in L6 skeletal muscle cells. Lipids Health Dis. 2012 Mar 12;11:36. 
  • M-Shirazi M, Taleban FA, Abadi AR, Sabetkasaei M. Fish oil increases atherosclerosis and hepatic steatosis, although decreases serum cholesterol in Wistar rat. J Res Med Sci. 2011 May;16(5):583-90. PubMed PMID: 22091279; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3214368.
  • Spiegel K, Leproult R, Van Cauter E. Impact of sleep debt on metabolic and endocrine function. Lancet. 1999 Oct 23;354(9188):1435-9.

Switch From Chicken to Lamb to Rid Yourself of Belly Fat, Reduce Your Triglyceride and Basal Insulin Levels

If you consider this, i.e. you suprailaic body fat (here measured by a caliper, just as it was done in the study at hand), ditching the chicken for some lamb, may be one of the myriad factors that could help you "solve" the problem.
Chicken, rice and broccoli. That is still the dietary paradigm, most people have on their minds, when average Joes and Janes are talking (often with some disdain) about what "healthy eating must look like".

Now, a recent study from GENUD, the "Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development" Research Group at the Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain (Graffe. 2013) suggests that at least item #1 on that list, namely chicken, would have been better replaced with a protein source of which I suspect even most of you won't be consuming on a regular base: Lamb!

That a proper sleep hygiene is of utmost important for your health and body composition is something you, as a SuppVersity veteran will be highly familiar with (if you are a newbie read yourself smart, here).

"Switch out the light and dish up the lamb, bro!"

That the second part of the jovial imperative in the above headline could be another factor to take into consideration, on the other hand, is true news (even for me) and should - with only one study backing it up - be considered more of an empirically grounded hypothesis than a "100% certain scientific result".

Table 1: Cooking methods for both lamb and chicken (Graffe. 2013)
Nevertheless, the observations, María Isabel Mesana Graffe and her colleagues made, when they put a group of healthy 16-26-year old "men" and "women" (I know, when I was sixteen, I thought I was a man, too - little did I know ;-) from Teruel and Zaragoza on an 8-week dietary regimen containing either...
  • 150 grams of chicken, three times per week, or
  • 150 grams of boneless lamb, three times per week,
... are quite intriguing. The participants received their otherwise (roughly) identical diets in in their local university accomodation halls:
"To ensure harmonisation, product-rich diets were served during lunch time and with each chef of the designated university accommodation halls were given instructions on the cooking methods." (Graffe. 2013; cooking methods, see table on the right)
The whole study design was in fact pretty straight forward and resembles an ideal world, where the citizens obey to dietary recommendations like "eat at least three meals with 150g of lamb per week" as if their lives depended on it (is it ironic or just sad that it actually does depend on the pathetic advice people are given?).

After an initial visit at which the medical history of all participants was assessed, a first blood draw, as well as anthropometric, blood pressure and heart rate measures were undertaken. After an 8-week period, all subjects came in for a second visit and the second testing session and crossed over to the other other group, i.e. subjects who had been consuming chicken for the first 8-weeks were then assigned to eat lamb and vice versa.

2x 8 weeks + an intermediate 5-week washout later...

Thus, after 8 weeks on diet A, a 5-week washout and another 8-weeks on diet B, all subjects had been consuming one or the other diet for 8 weeks, when they eventually arrived for the third and last assessment of their cardiovascular risk markers, body composition, blood pressure and heart rate.
Figure 1: Changes in skinfold thickness (before vs. after) and corresponding arm, hip and waist circumferences in the participants after 8 weeks on the "chicken" vs. "lamb diets" (Graffe. 2013)
As I know that "looking good naked" is much sexier (in the literal, as well as the figurative sense), than being healthy, we'll take a look at the anthropometric data, first (see figure 1). It probably doesn't take much explaining on my side. The general trends speak for themselves and I guess, you won't complain that it is in the change of the amount of fat that's covering the abs, where the scientists observed the only significant inter-group differences - do you?
Figure 2: Changes in blood lipids cardiovascular parameters, glucose and insulin levels during the 8-week chicken / lamb diet phases; only non-pastel bars are statistically significant  (Graffe. 2013)
With the fat mass differences being most significant in the abdominal area, it is also no surprise that the major changes among the cardiovascular risk parameters were (a) reduced triglyceride levels and (b) improved insulin levels - exactly those parameters that are usually most closely related to abdominal obesity and "all things metabolic syndrome".

Not chicken or lamb, "chicken or egg" - that's the question!

These observation do obviously rise the usual SuppVersity question: "What's the mechanism, here?" What is certain is that the beneficial effects on abdominal fat, trigs and insulin are not due to the clenbuterol residues in chicken (up to 224ng/g; cf.Malucelli. 1994) cyclists love to use as an excuse, when they have once again been busted for the abuse of beta-agonists. Why? Well than eating chicken should help not hinder leaning out. Could it be the remnants of antibiotics in the chicken meat, as proposed by eg. Nicholson et al. (2005)? Or is it simply the bad arachidonic acid chicken common wisdom will tell you that it was so high in chicken meat?
Figure 3: Fatty acid composition of beef, lamb, pork, chicken, duck and turkey in % of total lipids (left) and arachidonic acid content in mg/100g (Li. 1998)
If you peek at the data in figure 3, which is obviously not based on the dietary intake of the subjects in the study at hand, but displays the general fatty acid composition of various meats, including lamb and chicken (both marked with grey boxes) as they were reported by Li et al. in 1998, it would appear as if "everybody's favorite devil", the essential omega-6 fatty acid arachidonic acid can hardly be blamed for the superiority of lamb - after all there is about the same amount of it in lamb as there is in chicken (for Ducks and dark poultry things are different!)

Did you know that lamb is the #1 dietary source of CLA?

Lamb contains 5.6 mg/g CLA, whereas beef and veal contain only 2.9–4.3 mg/g and 2.7 mg/g, respectively.

Non-ruminant meats such as chicken and pork, contain 0.9 mg/g and 0.6 mg/g, respectively (Mulvihill. 2001).

Eggs contain no CLA, at all - unless the chicken are fed with CLA enriched diets and the yolk between 3mg and 14-32mg/100g total fat (Jones. 2000; Raes. 2002).

Whether the CLA is at the heart of the effects in the study at hand is yet questionable, after all one of the side effects is insulin resistance and that's the opposite of what the sign. decrease in insulin would suggest.
What could be a culprit, though is the overall higher n-6/n-3 ratio of chicken. There is no debating that there is a statistically significant difference between chicken with 9.73g of omega-6 fatty acids per omega-3 vs. lamb in which every omega-6 fatty acid is "appropriately (?) buffered" with 0.57g of omega-3s (the corresponding n3/n6 ratios are 1.59, 1.78, 13.92, 9.73, 10.82 and 10.53 for beef, lamb, pork, chicken, duck and turkey, respectively; data based on Li. 1998).

But is it really that easy? The n3/n6 ratio - again!? I 'd say no. Also, or rather particularly in view of the relatively lose dietary control... I mean, if you have to eat chicken at least three times a week in the canteen, you are certainly more likely to grab a burger with "red meat" (or whatever it is they put in-between the patties) on the weekends or in the evening.

This and other confounding factors would obviously negate neither the previously mentioned n3/n6 ratio hypothesis, nor the scientists' very own hypothetical explanation that the "the presence of unsaturated fats [...], such as oleic acid and conjugated linoleic acid" which are naturally high in ruminant meat (see infobox on the right), can have figured here, as well. It should however remind you that there is, if anything, only one single reason that "we are fat" and that's the way "experts" base their advice on observations like these, cherry pick those they like and discard the ones they don't like until the various net result - call it the "XY diet" or the "dietary guidelines" - confuse the hell out of the poor average Janes and Joes who are looking up to those "experts" to rescue them before the obesity pandemic carries them off just like the 35.7% of the US adults who are already obese (the latest data is still based on figures from 2009-10; cf. Ogden. 2012)



If you work anyway similar to a male rodent, 4g/day Tongkat Ali, could help with the abs, your testosterone levels and "other issues", as well (learn more)
Bottom line: My personal take away message from the study at hand is not "never eat chicken again" or "eat lamb everyday", but rather: "Don't forget about how lucky we are that we have so many foods to chose from." So don't get stuck on only one of them - and that regardless of what common wisdom, recognized or unrecognized experts or individual studies may suggest would be "best" for the way you look and feel!

There is no magic bullet and no singular reason that "we" are fat and I am 100% sure that eating chicken instead of lamb is the smallest obstacle standing between your and a shredded set of abs.

 References:
    • Jones S, Ma DW, Robinson FE, Field CJ, Clandinin MT. Isomers of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) are incorporated into egg yolk lipids by CLA-fed laying hens. J Nutr. 2000 Aug;130(8):2002-5.
    • Li D, Ng A, Mann NJ, Sinclair AJ. Contribution of meat fat to dietary arachidonic acid. Lipids. 1998 Apr;33(4):437-40.
    • Malucelli A, Ellendorff F, Meyer HH. Tissue distribution and residues of clenbuterol, salbutamol, and terbutaline in tissues of treated broiler chickens. J Anim Sci. 1994 Jun;72(6):1555-60.
    • Mulvihill, B. Ruminant meat as a source of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Nutrition Bulletin. 2001; 26: 295–299. 
    • Ogden CL et al. Prevalence of Obesity in the United States, 2009–2010. NCHS Data Brief No. 82 January 2012.
    • Nicholson JK, Holmes E, Wilson ID. Gut microorganisms, mammalian metabolism and personalized health care. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2005; 3:431–438.
    • Raes K, Huyghebaert G, De Smet S, Nollet L, Arnouts S, Demeyer D. The deposition of conjugated linoleic acids in eggs of laying hens fed diets varying in fat level and fatty acid profile. J Nutr. 2002 Feb;132(2):182-9.

    No DHA & EPA in Non-Fish Fed Catfish. No Recovery From Ischemia W/ Low Carb. No Endocannabinoid Effects Without Medium Intensity Exercise. No Need to Tow Only Light Sleds

    Sarah Reinertsen (click here to visit her webpage) was the first female leg amputee to participate and complete the Ironman (in 15h) and I bet she does not need the recent study by Galy et al. to be reminded of the benefits... no, the necessity of cycling your exercise intensity.
    In 2005 Sarah Reinertsen (image on the right) was the first female leg amputee to participate and complete the Ironman and honestly this would probably suffice as a figure of the week, but since this is a historic event, it does not necessarily qualify as the SuppVersity Figure of the Week.

    A figure that does qualify is the -15.7% decrease in post-exercise alveolar-capillary membrane diffusing capacity the highly trained triathletes in a soon-to-be-published paper by Galy et al. experienced after a 6-week "deload" (low training volume, intensity and frequency) period. What's interesting, though, is that the control group who remained on the same high training volume, intensity and frequency conditioning program all athletes had followed for the previous 30-weeks showed a similar, but less pronounced decrease in this measure of the diffusing capacity of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the lungs and the blood (-9.3%; Galy. 2013). This goes to show you that avoiding periods of lighter training in fear of the potential negative effects on your performance is no solution (learn more about detraining & co)

    Only fillets from "fish-fed catfish" are worth your money

    (Faukner. 2013) -- Feeding fish fish oil yields the highest concentration of omega-3 fatty acids in filets. That's the very unspectacular result of a recent study by scientists from the Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. The main reason I still mention it is that feeding the catfish a diet that was "enhanced" with soybean oil, as it is common practice to increase the weight gain of the fish, yielded fillets with exactly zero DHA & EPA and a 3x lower total omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. 
    Total n-3 & n-6 PUFA content (in % of total fat in the filets) and long-chain PUFA content (in % of PUFA content) + tabular overview of the fatty acid composition of the fillets from catfish on standard diet or diets supplemented with 2% additional fat from soy oil (SO), soy oil enhanced with CLAs (CLA), an algal source of DHA
    (Schizochytrium sp.) combined with soybean oil, and refined fish oil (FO; Faukner. 2013)
    Now you got to bear in mind that the latter figure includes the short-chain omega-3s which do not display the same health benefits as their long-chain cousins DHA & EPA. If we look strictly at these long-chains, the comparison would yield an n3/n-6 ratio that is at least 120x higher for the fish oil enriched diet (this is based on the assumption that the test had an accuracy of .01% n-3-LC-PUFA / % total fat)... ah, and in case you want CLA in your fish, you better make sure that it is part of the feed, 'cause fish quite obviously don't produce any of these omega-6 trans-fats in their tiny guts (soy-fed or not ;-).

    High fat + low carb not the way to go after ischemic heart disease

    (Liu. 2013) -- Despite the fact that the scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham obviously could not find human volunteers to participate in a controlled study into the effects of low carbohydrate (<10%) + high fat (60%; equal parts from milk fat, lard and vegetable oils) on the recovery of cardiac function after ischemia and reperfusion. The data the scientists gathered in a rodent study clearly suggests: High fat low carb diets are more than sub-optimal right after heart ischemic events.

    Diet dependent expression of selected antioxidant enzymes and determinants of mitochondrial biogenesis on day 3 after heart ischemic events in overweight Sprague Dawley rats (Liu. 2013)
    Compared to the obese rats in the control groups those being fat a high fat low carbohydrate diet (10%) after an experimentally induced ischemic episode of the heart (low blood / oxygen supply) showed increased ischemic myocardial injury and impaired recovery of function after reperfusion. Moroever, the low carb diet was associated with an attenuation of mitochondrial biogenesis and enhanced oxidative stress in the obese lab animals. And while it will still have to be seen, whether the same negative effects would occur in non-obese rodents, the majority of patients who are treated for ischemic heart disease have at least a couple of pounds too much on their waistline, so that "these findings may [in fact] have important implications for diet selection" (Liu. 2013) for the majority of patients with ischemic heart disease.

    Addendum: Just a note on the "must be the omega-6 hypothesis" you are just pondering (a) the ratio of "bad" vegetable oils was as mentioned before 1/3 (the rest was lard and milk fat), (b) there is no chance you blame the observed effects on the "bad" omega-6s, alone, simply because they, or rather the long-chain n-6 PUFA arachidonic acid is a ligand to the PPAR-delta receptor and the latter is responsible for the health of the mitochondria in your heart including the mitochondrial DNA copy number (Wang. 2010)

    Endocannabinoid modulation is a prerogative of moderate intensity exercise

    Effect of treadmill running at different heart rates on the level of anandamide one of the major and best studied endocannabinoids (Raichlen. 2013)
    (Raichlen. 2013) -. Despite all the advantages of high intensity interval training over classic moderate steady state cardio, the latter still yields surprisingly beneficial results especially in those trainees who still carry large amounts of body fat, are insulin resistant, inflamed or suffer from other metabolic derangements. In addition to that there is overwhelming evidence for the beneficial effects this type of exercise has on the psyche and overall cognitive health. A recent study from the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson suggests that this could be result of their ability to restore normal endocannaboid function and thus yield both physiological and psychological benefits (e.g restoration of the reward system, learn more; Glass. 1997).

    Now this certainly doesn't mean that you should all of a sudden give up on high intensity exercise completely, after all Rakobowchuk et al. have just demonstrated that HIIT training (learn how it works) will not just improve your aerobic capacity, it will also decrease arterial stiffness and optimize heart rate dynamics (Rakobowchuk. 2013).  The results of the Raichlen study should however remind you that working out is exactly like dieting. Training and eating too single-sided is at least sub-optimal in most cases even detrimental.

    Huskies will prevail: Heavy sled towing is way more effective than light sled towing

    (Kawamori. 2013) -- Huskies will prevail: Heavy sled towing is way more effective than the widely recommended light load sled towing, where the weight of the weight will slow you down by only 10%. That's the result of a recent study from the School of Exercise and Health Sciences at the Edith Cowan University in Joondalup, Western Australia.
    Outline of the training protocol used in the study. The groups differed only in the weight that was used on the sled to elicit a slow down of 10% (light group) and 30% (heavy group), respectively. All subjects trained twice per week.
    After training with a sled that decreased the velocity by 30% and would thus be three times to heavy (according to the prevalent notion that 10% was best) the 10 physically active men who had been allocated to the heavy (=30% slow down) group increased both their 5- and 10-m sprint time by 5.7 ± 5.7% and 5.0 ± 3.5%, respectively (P < 0.05). The 11 subjects in the light sled (=10% slow down) group, on the other had increased only their 10-m sprint time and this increase was 2% lower than the one observed after heavy sled towing.



    That's it for today's installment of On Short Notice! I hope you are all enjoying the Easter weekend and that irrespective of whether this is or isn't a holiday in the the original sense for you, or not. And in case you ever feel the urgent desire to get up to speed with what's going on in the world of exercise, nutrition and supplementation science before the next SuppVersity post hits the Net, feel free to visit the SuppVersity Facebook wall.


    References:
    • Faukner J, Rawles SD, Proctor A, Sink TD, Chen R, Philips H, Lochmann RT. The Effects of Diets Containing Standard Soybean Oil, Soybean Oil Enhanced with Conjugated Linoleic Acids, Menhaden Fish Oil, or an Algal Docosahexaenoic Acid Supplement on Channel Catfish Performance, Body Composition, Sensory Evaluation, and Storage Characteristics. North American Journal of Aquaculture. 2013; 75(2). 
    • Galy O, Maimoun L, Coste O, Manetta J, Boussana A, Préfaut C, Hue O. 6 Weeks of Low Volume, Low Intensity Training Aggravate Pulmonary Diffusing Capacity in Highly Trained Athletes. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2013 Mar 26.
    • Glass M, Dragunow M, Faull RLM. Cannabinoid receptors in the human brain: a detailed anatomical and quantitative autoradiographic study in the fetal, neonatal and adult human brain. Neuroscience. 1997; 10:1665–1669
    • Liu J, Lloyd SG. High-fat, low-carbohydrate diet alters myocardial oxidative stress and impairs recovery of cardiac function after ischemia and reperfusion in obese rats. Nutrition Research. March 26, 2013 [Epub ahead of print].
    • Kawamori N, Newton RU, Hori N, Nosaka K. Effects of weighted sled towing with heavy versus light load on sprint acceleration ability. J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Mar 27. 
    • Rakobowchuk M, Harris E, Taylor A, Cubbon RM, Birch KM. Moderate and heavy metabolic stress interval training improve arterial stiffness and heart rate dynamics in humans. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2013 Apr;113(4):839-49.
    • Raichlen DA, Foster AD, Seillier A, Giuffrida A, Gerdeman GL. Exercise-induced endocannabinoid signaling is modulated by intensity. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2013 Apr;113(4):869-75.
    • Wang P, Liu J, Li Y, Wu S, Luo J, Yang H, Subbiah R, Chatham J, Zhelyabovska O, Yang Q. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor {delta} is an essential transcriptional regulator for mitochondrial protection and biogenesis in adult heart. Circ Res. 2010 Mar 19;106(5):911-9.

    There is More To Glucose Control Than Carbohydrates (2/?): Non-Carbohydrate Nutrients And Their Effects On Blood Glucose Management ➲ SFA, MUFA PUFA, TFA & Co - Fats!

    Some say "fat is a mistake" others say "it was our fattest mistake to believe just that" - who is right? Or are things eventually more complicated than that?
    In the last installment of this series, we've covered the relatively well-known, but rarely well-understood beneficial effects of protein on glucose homeostasis in humans (⤷ go back and read it).

    This week we will make a fat transition (all puns intended) to the 2nd macronutrient that exerts non-carbohydrate dependent effects on glucose homeostasis: FAT!

    We have known for decades that the acute glycemic response is affected by the fat content of the diet.

    As my German "friends", Martina Heer and Sarah Egert, whose recent paper in the scientific journal Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews inspired me to write this article series point out, a recent meta-analysis of the existing literature on low-carbohydrate + high-fat diets suggests that these diets, unlike high-carbohydrate and high glycemic index diets, may be effective in improving glycemic control, weight, and lipid profiles (Schwingshackl. 2011).
    You can learn more about this topic at the SuppVersity

    Proteins, Peptides & Blood Glucose

    SFA, MUFA, PUFA & Blood Glucose

    Read these ➲ while waiting

    Low Fat Advantage on IF

    16 Weeks High Fat Diet

    Fat to Blunt Insulin?
    In view of the fact that I may probably safely assume that you haven't been living under a rock for the past 10 years, I would be impressed if you consider the results Schwingshackl et al. presented in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism news.

    We all know that there is hardly a better way to reduce blood glucose levels than not eating carbohydrates, but if you look at the title of this series and my goal to present an analysis of the effects of non-carbohydrate nutrients on blood glucose homeastasis in humans, it should be obvious that low carb diets must be excluded from this overview. What we will focus on in this installment is thus
    • the general effect of dietary fat on the absorption, appearance and clearance of glucose from the bloodstream, and
    • the different effects of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated short- and long-chain fatty acids on glucose homeostasis
    Now that you all know our plan of attack, let's get right straight to the facts and our close analysis of the contemporarily available data. There is a myriad of different fatty acids in our diets, but we don't even understand the role of the most abundant ones, which are oleic acid, linoleic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid completely.
    Where are the short chains? If you are honest, this is an unwarranted question. We are, after all talking about "non-carbohydrate nurtients" from your diet, here and last time I checked, the production of short chain fatty acids in our guts required dietary carbohydrates. If we discard the 3-4% of butyrate quality butter, you will thus have to consume resistant starches to benefit from the proven anti-diabetic, anti-obesity effects that is brought about by the interaction of gut derived short chain fatty acids with "their" receptor, ie. GPR43 (den Besten. 2013; Kimura. 2013).
    The ratio of these monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and saturated fatty acids in our diet determines our own molecular built, meaning: The dietary acid composition of our diet has both acute mechanistic, and chronic structural effects on our cells, which are mediated by the storage of fatty acids in tissues and cell membranes (Carlson. 1986).
    • 27nmol/L LDL Per 1% Reduction in Trans Fat Intake | learn more
      A high intake of trans-fats for example will lead to an accumulation of trans-isomers of linoleic acid in the heart and a highly significant 50% risk increase for cardiac arrest (Lemaitre. 2002).
    • A high concentration of linoleic acid (n-6) in the erythrocyte membrane has been shown to be negatively, a high palmitic acid content positively associated with incident type 2 diabetes in 1346 Finnish men aged 45–73y researchers from the University of Eastern Finland followed for 5-years in recently conducted a population-based study (note: The researchers detected no protective effect of omega-3 fats; cf. Mahendran. 2014).
    I could easily extend this list, but I assume that you're getting the idea of the significant interactions between the fatty acid composition of cell membranes and the various functions and attributes of the cells (eg. membrane fluidity, ion permeability, and insulin receptor binding or affinity), which can affect both, local as well as systemic insulin sensitivity.
    Fatty acid ⇆ PPAR interaction (Kota. 2005)
    "More recent experimental data also point toward other mechanisms which involve direct regulatory effects on gene expression and enzyme activity.

    For example, in vitro studies and studies in animal models suggest that fatty acids could act directly on insulin-sensitive tissues (Risérus. 2008)." (Heer. 2014)
    In the six years that have passed since the overview by Risérus et al. (2008) Heer and Egert cite in their paper has been published, we have learned much about these direct effects. You all know the effects fish oil, conjugated linoleic acid and co have on the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) and the corresponding downstream effects on glucose uptake and the storage of superfluous energy in the adipose organ (Kota. 2005. Grygiel-Górniak. 2014).

    PUFAs, PPARs and the key to becoming a healthy obese individual

    According to the most recent review of the literature, the PPAR-gamma receptor which is activated primarily by unsaturated fatty acid and their metabolites (15- hydroxy eicosatetraenoic acid, 9- and 13- hydroxy octadecadienoic acid, 15-deoxy  12,14-prostaglandin J2, and prostaglandin PGJ2), is the master regulator of glucose homeostasis and lipid storage. Against that background it is no wonder that Risérus concludes his previously cited review on the note:
    "Substituting saturated fat with unsaturated fat seems to have beneficial effects on insulin sensitivity, although the clinical significance of modifying fat quality alone is still unclear." (Risérus. 2008)
    It's after all an increase in insulin sensitivity that is - at least in the chronic overfeeding scenario, we call the "standard American diet" - an increase in insulin sensitivity that is paid for with increased adiposity - a phenomenon that's related to the pro-adipogenic effects of PPAR-gamma and one that diminishes the usefulness of  thiazolidinediones like pioglitazone, which are mostly pan(=all) agonists of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, in the battle against diabetes. At least, if you share my opinion and think that treating an already overweight diabetic with a drug that will lead to significant weight gain (Khan. 2002) could do more harm than good in the long run.
    The fact that the anti-diabetes effects of PUFAs are mediated by their adipogenic effects does not mean that you have the choice between pest and cholera, but the PUFA induced increase in insulin will always be a double-edged sword, as long as you are consuming significantly more energy than you're expending.
    Still, if our main concern is blood glucose management in an overfeeding scenario (=the Western real word), the international recommendations to reduce the intake of saturated fatty acids (SFA) to ≤10% of total energy intake (Aranceta. 2012) do appear warranted. And if replacing them with carbohydrates is not an option, because (a) we are talking about the influence of non-carbohydrate nutrients and (b) "[n]o clear association between SFA intake relative to refined carbohydrates and the risk of insulin resistance and diabetes has been shown" (Astrup. 2011), we will probably have to resort to protein (see last installment) or mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Both have been shown to exert beneficial effects on glucose and lipid homeostasis, as well as other important health markers.
    • MUFAs boost resting energy expenditure: Next to its beneficial effects on blood glucose and lipid management, a high intake of monounsaturated fatty acids can also increase the resting energy expenditure in humans by 3% in the fed and 4% in the fasted state, respectively (Kien. 2013).
      Monounsaturated fats - MUFAs -- Gadgil et al. report that 2 weeks on high MUFA diets lead to prompt improvements in insulin sensitivity in 64 individuals with prehypertension or stage 1 hypertension without diabetes (Gadgil. 2013). Two years before Gillinghan et al. wrote in a review of the effect of high mono-unsatuarated fatty acid intakes that the "[c]onsumption of dietary MUFA promotes healthy blood lipid profiles, mediates blood pressure, improves insulin sensitivity and regulates glucose levels" (Gillingham. 2011).
    • Polyunsaturated fats = PUFAs -- Similar beneficial effect on heart health have been reported for the replacement of saturated fat with polyunsaturated fatty acids (both, omega-3 and omega-6; see Flock. 2014). Evidence for the beneficial effects of omega-3 fatty acids, in particular, dates back to the late 1980s, when Popp-Snijders et al. observed that 8 weeks of daily supplementation of 3 g of the omega 3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acid improves the insulin sensitivity of subjects with non-insulin-dependent diabetes (Popp-Snijders. 1987).

      Unfortunately, studies like this have triggered an unwarranted euphoria even among healthy individuals, whose hope for further improvements in insulin sensitivity are not just unwarranted (Risérus. 2008), but could actually mislead them to mimic the high-dose fish oil supplementation regimen of the diabetic subjects in a 2006 study by Mostad et al. (1.8 g 20:5n−3, 3.0 g 22:6n−3, and 5.9 g total n−3 fatty acids from fish oil) to end up with a similar negative effect on blood glucose levels and glucose utilization (see Figure 1).
      Figure 1: Blood glucose levels (left), glucose utilization and C-peptide levels (right) of 26 diabetic subjects after 8 weeks of high dose fish oil vs. corn oil supplementation (Mostad. 2006)
      It must be said, though, that the Mostad study is an exception. Most fish oil supplementation studies used lower amounts of fish oil and showed improvements in lipid metabolism, but no effect on insulin sensitivity, similar to those Kabir et al. observed in 2007. Accordingly, reviewers agree fish oil supplementation in moderate dosages (equivalent to 1-2 g/day n-3 LCPUFA) has no significant adverse effects on fasting glucose, HbA1c, fasting insulin, or insulin sensitivity (McManus. 1996; Friedberg. 1998; Montori. 2000; Lombardo. 2006; Akinkuolie. 2011; Lee. 2013) - unfortunately, it does not improve these parameters, either.
    If we take a look at the null-results (=no difference in insulin sensitivity between groups) Lovejoy et al. present in their 2002 study on the effects of "high" MUFA, SFA and trans-fatty acid diets with only 9% of the total energy being based on the corresponding fatty acids, it is yet questionable how "high" the saturated fat intake has to be to elicit negative effects (Lovejoy. 2002).
    Are transfats fat burners? It is certainly counter-intuitive, but in the Lovejoy study, the 9% transfat (elaidic acid) diet did not leave the insulin sensitivity of the 25 healthy men and women who participated in the trial unchanged, they did also increase the oxidation of fatty acids by 21% compared to the high MUFA diet (Lovejoy. 2002).
    If we compare the results of the Lovejoy study to those Vesby et al. present in their 2001 paper, it would appear that the perviously cited 10% of the total energy intake could actually be a realistic upper intake level. With 17% of the total energy the diet in Vesby's 3 months study had a significantly higher saturated fat content - high enough to produce a -10% reduction in insulin sensitivity compared to baseline (-12% compared to high MUFA control). Similar negative effects have been observed in the Rosquist (2014) study, I wrote about only a couple of days ago (see "Saturated Fat Makes You Fat!" | read more).

    This wouldn't be the SuppVersity, though, if I didn't list at least two of the "on the other hands" we haven't discussed yet. Firstly, there are no long-term dietary intervention studies that would support the results of these and other 4-12 week interventions.

    Is palmitic acid the bad guy? If SFAs impair insulin action, are all SFAs equally bad? Possibly not, but there is still insufficient evidence to prove this. Vessby et al. proposed that especially high proportions of palmitic acid may promote insulin resistance, and that a major role of SCD-1 may be to reduce the availability of palmitic acid in body tissues by converting it to palmitoleic acid. And while it appears as if palmitic acid had most significant negative effects on cellular glucose transport, fat oxidation, ceramide synthesis, cellular signalling, apoptosis and lipogenesis, conclusive evidence that "it's just palmitic acid that's the problem", is still missing.
    And secondly, and probably more importantly, none of the studies investigated the interactions between the saturated fat and carbohydrate content of the diets. As I pointed out right at the beginning of this article, there is little doubt that a high fat diet with a minimal carbohydrate content will lower the average blood glucose levels of (pre-)diabetic individuals - in this case, the negative effects of palmitic acid on the insulin sensitivity of skeletal muscle (Sawada. 2012), fat cells (Kennedy. 2009), and the hypothalamus (Benoit. 2011) are irrelevant, anyway. No carbs, no increase in blood glucose, no need for insulin stimulated glucose uptake... ah, and not a topic for this article series, since it is about the influence of "non-carbohydrate" nutrients on blood glucose levels.

    Another of these non-carbohydrate nutrients that got an honorable mention as purported fat burner in a couple of paragraphs before are cis- and transfats. Isomeric fatty acids with the same number of carbon and hydrogen atoms, but very distinct health effects. Transfats include:
    • "unnatural" cis- and trans monounsaturated fatty acids as they occur in partially hydrogenated fats, but also
    • "natural" ones such as vaccenic acid and the conjugated isomers of linoleic acid (CLA) in dairy
    about which Mensink et al. write in their 2005 review of the literature, that "it is [still] not clear if effects of ruminant and industrial trans fatty acids on cardiovascular risk are different" from those of the non-ruminant ones (Mensink. 2005).

    Before we are taking a closer look at how bad the "bad" unnatural transfats actually are, I would thus like to suggest that we remind ourselves of the benefits of their ruminant cousins.

    Contrary to the benefits of supplemental CLA, the beneficial effects of vaccenic acid and other ruminant transfats in dairy are beyond doubt | more
    If you are, as I would hope a SuppVersity fan and follow all the recent events (which means >9 news items per day) on www.facebook.com/SuppVersity, you will that the evidence to suggest that the effects of hydrogenated vs. ruminated transfats are completely different has been accumulating ever since the publication of Mensink's paper.

    Only a couple of days ago, on Friday, to be precise, I posted a blurb about a recent study from the Konkuk University in Korea, which demonstrated direct anti-cancer effects from the "CLA precursor" vaccenic acid (Lim. 2014). The #1 ruminant transfat in full-fat milk and dairy products (read more on the SuppVersity Facebook Page).
    If you wanted to destroy your body fat, you'd have to consume exclusively the prodiabetic, inflammatory tans-10,
    cis-12 isomer | learn more
    Stay away from mixed CLA supplements: Contrary to the health-benefits of their food-borne brethren, the usefulness of the transfats you will find in gel-caps at each and every supplement store are still "controversial" it is clear that "more research is needed before the widely available CLA supplements (racemic mixtures of both isomers with prodiabetic effects; cf. Risérus. 2002) should be advocated as an adjunct to control body weight" (Heer. 2014) - and this is specifically true in view of the opposing effect of cis-9,trans-11 (anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic | Moloney. 2007)  and trans-10,cis-12 (inflammatory | Poirier. 2006) conjugated linoleic acid on blood lipids and glucose metabolism (Halade. 2010)
    Now, we've (as so often) been talking about weight loss, and blood lipids. Before we go on, I would thus like to point out that, earlier this year, Nestel et al. have been able to show that lysophosphatidylcholine, lyso-platelet-activating factor, and several phospholipid fatty acids did not only correlate with the number of servings of full-fat dairy foods of 86 overweight and obese subjects with metabolic syndrome, but also with their insulin sensitivity (Nestel. 2014).

    Surprise: No evidence to support benefit of reduction of dietary TFA on glucose homeostasis

    If we take a look at the corresponding effects of transfats, the picture that emerges is less clear. A recent meta-analysis ofseven randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials, for example, has shown that an increase in TFA intake from 2.6% to 7.8% of total energy intake did not lead to any significant change in circulating glucose or insulin concentrations (Aronis. 2012). The meta-regression analysis the researchers from the Harvard Medical School conducted also revealed that there was no dose-response relationship between the amount of transfats their subjects consumed and the corresponding effects on blood glucose and insulin concentrations. In spite of the very real detoriations of the HDL/LDL cholesterol ratio, there is thus, as Aronis et al. rightly point out, "no evidence to support a potential benefit of the reduction of dietary TFA intake on glucose homeostasis." (Aronis. 2012)

    Let's not forget the acute effects!

    I mentioned them right at the beginning of this article: The acute effects dietary fats can and will have on the blood glucose, insulin and incretin (~satiety hormone) response to a meal. 

    Figure 2: Blood glucose (mmol/L, left), GIP (pmol/L, top-right), and insulin (mU/L, bottom-right) response to a standardized mashed potato meal 30min after the ingestion of water, olive oil, or both (Gentilcore. 2006)
    As Figure 2, a compilation of data from a 2006 study by Gentilcore et al. shows, the pre-ingestion of 30ml olive oil 30 min before a standardized mashed potato meal that was prepared based on 65 g powdered potato and reconstituted with 250 ml water and 20 g glucose (total carbohydrate content of the meal was 61 g) lead to a significant reduction of the postprandial glucose surge (see Figure 2, left), significant increases in GIP and a prolonged elevation of insulin (Figure 2, right). As beneficial as the acute reduction in glycemia may seem to a type II diabetic. In the long run it were these prolonged phases of hyperinsulinemia that triggered the development of his diabetes (Marangou. 1996).

    The pro-inflammatory effects of high fat meals, of which a recent paper by Mohammed Herieka and Clett Erridge would suggest that they have been underestimated in the common analyses of plasma borne markers of inflammation, such as cytokines and soluble adhesion molecules (Herieka. 2014), on the other hand depend largely on the type of dietary fat that is consumed. While cooking oils and foods that are high in saturated fats appear to have consistent pro-inflammatory effects (Williams. 1999), high MUFA and or omega-3 enriched meals, walnuts, almonds, pistachios and, obviously, fatty fish will ameliorate the postprandial inflammation and exert beneficial effects on the vascular reactivity (West. 2005).
    Figure 3: Pro-inflammatory dietary fats are only one of the components that drive the contribution of the postprandial inflammatory response to the self-intensifying circle of metabolic inflammation (Margioris. 2009)
    In conjunction with the caloric value, the glycemic index, and the lipid profile, as well as inter-personal parameters such as obesity, adult onset diabetes and a sedentary life-style, the whole issue of high fat induce post-prandial increases in inflammation and their potential effects on glucose metabolism is yet to complex to be addressed, here. In view of the fact that it is only indirectly related to the topic at hand, you will have to read up on this, yourself. In that, the 2009 paper by Andrew N. Margioris, from which I took Figure 3, could serve as a starting point (Margioris. 2009).

    Don't worry if your head feels ready to explode

    It's about time, we sum things up, anyway. While we certainly have a lot to learn, the contemporary scientific evidence would suggest that...
    • the commonly cited negative effects of dietary fat on insulin sensitivity are real - even a high fat, low carb diets will lead to acute reductions in glucose tolerance (Hales. 1963),
    • the negative effects on insulin sensitivity are partially mediated by increases in free fatty acids (Roden. 1996),
    • the ill health effects of the high fat-induced reduction in glucose tolerance depends on the presence and amount of carbohydrates, as well as the total energy intake and -expenditure and other non-nutrient dependent parameters (Margois. 2009),
    • in the postprandial phase, the impaired / slowed influx of glucose and the prolongation of the postprandial hyperinsulinemia may provide an acute relief for people with already elevated blood glucose levels (Gentilcore. 2006), eventually, they will yet promote the development and progression of insulin resistance (Marangou. 1986)
    • Figure 4: Insulin secretion rates in response to isocaloric meals based water (CONT), palm oil (SFA), olive oil (MUFA) and safflower oil (PUFA) in overweight and obese but otherwise health non-diabetic men (Xiao. 2006)
      the postprandial inflammation that occurs after the ingestion of a high fat meal is problematic for individuals with an already high baseline inflammation (Peairs. 2011),
    • based on epidemiological evidence it would appear that the replacement of saturated with mono-unsaturated fats will result in long-term improvements in blood glucose management (Gillingham. 2011),
    • compared to saturated fat, an increase in polyunsaturated fats improves the acute insulin response to an otherwise isocaloric meal (see Figure 4; safflower vs. olive vs. palm oil in Xiao. 2006),
    • the anti-inflammatory effect of omega-3 fatty acids do not produce consistent improvements in blood glucose management (Akinkuolie. 2011),
    • Figure 5: Paleo-lovers listen up! Aside from a higher protein and a sign. lower N6/N3 ratio, the alleged "paleo diet" or rather the diet, Cordain, Eaton & co tell you our ancestors ate had a 50% lower SFA:PUFA ratio (Simopoulos. 2002)
      there are concerns that very high intakes of omega-3 fatty acids (>6g of LCPUFA for months) could lead to reductions in insulin sensitivity similar to those we are seeing with the imbalanced omega-6 intake of the Western diet (Simopoulos. 2002; Mostad. 2006),
    • the anti-diabetes effects of high(er) PUFA intakes come hand in hand with a pro-obesogenic increase in PPAR-gamma activity similar to, but less pronounced than those of thiazolidinedione-based anti-diabetes drugs like pioglitazone - keyword: "obese, but healthy"
    • the existence and even more so the extent of the often-claimed negative effects of transfats on glucose metabolism are dubious (Aronis. 2012); if anything, they occur as long(er) term down-stream effects of more general pro-inflammatory and hyperlipidemic effects of non-ruminate trans fatty acids and the foods that contain them (Remig. 2010), and lastly
    • there is accumulating evidence that the natural blend of ruminant transfats in high fat dairy exerts beneficial effects on glucose metabolims (Mensink. 2005; Lim. 2014)
    As you will have realized by now, there is no definitive answer to the question, whether fats are good or bad. When it comes to diabetes and insulin resistance, it's not even possible to point with a finger on the bad trans-fats without having to ask yourself, if they aren't yet another scapegoat for a problem that's nor nutrient, but rather food related. A problem for which the overabundance of energy dense nutrient-poor foods is a perfect growth medium.
    The superior lean mass and significantly reduced fat gains, Mendes-Netto et al. observed in 2011 with an extreme high carb + low fat diet are a perfect example of the fact you better stay away from fat, when you feel the need to overeat on carbs on a bulk or whenever else | more.
    When it's all said and done, the central message of this extensive analysis is probably that it is simply impossible to look at the effect of dietary fat on glucose homeostasis in man in isolation. In combination with high amounts of 'preferably' fast-digesting carbs dietary fats - specifically saturated ones - are pro-diabetic villains and their sixfold unsaturated cousins are not a tad better.

    In concert with a balanced whole-foods diet, regular physical activity and quality sleep, however, your health and insulin sensitivity are not going to be threatened by the consumption of reasonable amounts of saturated fats and their potentially pro-inflammatory omega-6 cousins whose overabundance and not their inclusion in the modern Western is a highly obesogenic problem (see Figure 5).
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