Free Mediterranean Diet

Saturated fat is fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids have no double bonds between the carbon atoms of the fatty acid chain (hence, they are fully saturated with hydrogen atoms). There are several kinds of naturally occurring saturated fatty acids, with their only difference being the number of carbon atoms - from 1 to 24. Some common examples of saturated fatty acids are butyric acid with 4 carbon atoms (contained in butter), lauric acid with 12 carbon atoms (contained in Breast milk, coconut oil, palm oil, and cocoa butter), myristic acid with 14 carbon atoms (contained in cow milk and dairy products), palmitic acid with 16 carbon atoms (contained in meat) and stearic acid with 18 carbon atoms (also contained in meat).

Fat that occurs naturally in living matter such as animals and plants is used as food for human consumption and contains a varying proportion of saturated and unsaturated fat. Foods that contain a high proportion of saturated fat are butter, ghee, suet, tallow, lard, coconut oil, cottonseed oil and palm kernel oil, dairy products (especially cream and cheese), meat as well as some prepared foods.

Dehydrogenation converts saturated fats to unsaturated fats, while hydrogenation accomplishes the rever

Health issues

Diets high in saturated fat correlate in some studies with an increased incidence of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. Some studies suggest replacing saturated fats in the diet with unsaturated fats will increase one’s ratio of HDL to LDL serum cholesterol.

Controversy

It has been alleged that the many studies of saturated fat in the diet do not distinguish between saturated fat and trans fat. Some claim that saturated fat (in the absence of trans fat) is healthful; for example, foods such as peanuts and pure peanut butter (peanut butter having no added partially hydrogenated vegetable oil) contain saturated fat but no trans fat. Such foods may be beneficial or may be a health hazard; no research specific to this question has as yet been done.

Another confounding issue may be the formation of exogenous (outside the body) Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) and oxidation products generated during cooking, which it appears some of the studies have not controlled for. It has been suggested that, “given the prominence of this type of food in the human diet, the deleterious effects of high-fat foods may be in part due to the high content in glycotoxins, above and beyond those due to oxidized fatty acid derivatives.” (Koschinsky, 1997) The glycotoxins, as he called them, are more commonly called AGEs.

Table

Source: Composition of Foods. Fats and Oils. AH No. 8-4. U.S.D.A.

he French paradox refers to the fact that people in France suffer relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite their diet being rich in saturated fats. The phenomenon was first noted by Irish physician Samuel Black in 1819.

According to FAO data[1], the average French person consumed 108 grams per day of fat from animal sources in 2002 while the average American consumed only 72, a difference of 50 percent. The French eat four times as much butter, 60 percent more cheese and nearly three times as much pork. Although the French consume only slightly more total fat (171 g/d vs 157), they consume much more saturated fat because Americans consume a much larger proportion of fat in the form of vegetable oil and most of that as soybean oil[2]. However, according to data from the British Heart foundation [3], in 1999, rates of death from coronary heart disease among males aged 35-74 years was 230 per 100,000 people in the US but only 83 per 100,000 in France.

It has been suggested that France’s high red wine consumption is a primary factor in the trend. This theory was expounded in a 60 Minutes broadcast in 1992. The program catalysed a large increase in North American demand for red wines from around the world. It is believed that one of the active ingredients in red wine is resveratrol.

Resveratrol and other grape compounds have been positively linked to fighting cancer, heart disease, degenerative nerve disease, and other ailments. Although many people wrongly assume that red grapes have the most health benefits, the fact is that grapes of all colors have comparable benefits. Red wine has health benefits not found in white wine because many of these compounds are found in the skins of the grapes and only red wine is fermented with the skins.

The first scientific study of the relationship between alcohol consumption and atherosclerosis was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1904. The first epidemiological study to report that moderate drinkers exhibit greater longevity than abstainers or heavy drinkers was published in 1926 by Raymond Pearl. Hundreds of studies have followed in recent decades.

There is a lack of medical consensus about whether moderate consumption of beer, wine, or distilled spirits has a stronger association with longevity. Of ten major studies, one-third found stronger evidence for wine, one-third for beer, one-third for liquor, and one study found no difference between alcoholic beverages. Most researchers now believe that the most important ingredient is the alcohol itself.

The major cause of death in the U.S. is heart disease and most research finds that moderate consumption of alcohol reduces coronary fatalities in the range of 40% to 60%. The mechanisms by which alcohol reduces coronary events are becoming increasingly documented. Research has found that alcohol improves blood lipid profile (increases HDL and reduces LDL), decreases thrombosis (reduces platelet aggregation, reduces fibrinogen and increases fibrinolysis), reduces blood pressure, increases coronary blood flow, and reduces blood insulin levels.

Nevertheless, the medical causes of the French paradox are still not entirely clear and research continues.

The French paradox is often confused with the related but different notion of the Mediterranean diet.