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If you have ever jokingly admitted that you are “addicted to chocolate” or other types of foods that have high sugar content, you might be surprised at how right you were. While sugar has the power to make you fat more quickly than any other nutrient, it also has some addictive properties that are similar to those of heroin and morphine—and scientific studies have shown the exact mechanism of this process in your brain. Though for many people food itself has become a “drug,” with their compulsion to eat being similar to the behavior of a true drug addict, sugar is one food that really could be considered, in and of itself, a drug.

Consuming sugar causes a chemical reaction in your brain; specifically, it causes your brain to produce its own natural opioids—and these cause the drug-like effect. There is a very good reason why this happens. As was pointed out early on, you have the same biology as your ancient ancestors, who were always faced with a shortage of food. As such, your body always wants you to place a premium on eating. If an organism does not get enough food, eventually it will die. For any organism, the worst possible outcome is death—something your body will do everything in its power to avoid. To this end, it wants you to eat as much as possible, so that you can store fat. Your body will rely on this fat for survival during later times of famine.

Your body doesn’t know that you live in a world of fast food, supermarkets, and stocked refrigerators. However, your body is quite aware of its digestive capabilities. Even though processed sugar did not exist during man’s formative years, your body knows that it can convert this type of sugar into fat very, very quickly. By creating the sugar “high,” your body is giving you a little reward, to say thanks for feeding it sugar, and possibly for helping it to prolong its existence. Granted, mainlining heroin will give you a much more pronounced effect, but the “feel-good” effect of a drug is there regardless.

This is a rather large part of why people eat for emotional reasons, in particular why they use sugar to console themselves. Sugar will cause a reaction in your brain that will chemically and therefore emotionally make you feel better. This is exactly the same reason why people drink alcohol or use other drugs for emotional reasons. Attempting to lose weight while keeping sugar in your diet is a bit like allowing a recovering heroin addict to keep shooting up—though perhaps with smaller shots.

Sugar cravings are real and can be very powerful. Think of the last time you had something high in sugar, like for instance a donut. Your logical, conscious mind might be aware that the pleasure you got from the specific act of eating the donut was short-lived, lasting only a couple of minutes. However, the gravity of your physiological cravings will just about always supersede the value of your rational thoughts. For example: If you are a heavy sugar user, think about the next time you’ll have an opportunity to eat a donut. You probably won’t care that the pleasure will last only a couple of minutes. Maybe you won’t be concerned that you’ll feel guilty afterwards. You’ll worry about all that later. That’s not important right now. What’s important is eating the donut.

This might all sound curiously like the behavior and rationale of a drug addict. If you re-read the last paragraph and substitute “having a drink” for “eating a donut,” you’ll understand why so much sugar is consumed in this country, why there are so many overweight people, and why virtually all crash diets (which cause even more intense cravings) fail.

We tend to look at being a “sugar junkie” as campy and benign, but the physiological impulse to eat sugar needs to be taken seriously. Granted, in the short term, it’s totally harmless. Having a few cookies won’t cause you to crash your car, slur your speech, or wake up in a ditch. Since sugar is legal and very inexpensive, you won’t start robbing people or selling yourself to support your habit. Long-term use is a different story. Sugar does an excellent job of making you fat, or in the worst cases, obese. If you haven’t read it, the Why be thin? chapter outlines problems you will personally face from being overweight. But the use of sugar, just like traditional drugs, has an impact on people other than the user. If you become unhealthy, those that care for you will suffer. You will also require additional medical care, and you’ll be forced to rely on an industry that is already tremendously strained and increasingly inaccessible.

Sugar use is cheap in the short term, but you’ll pay in the long run, big time. Heavy sugar use will make you overweight and depressed. The more depressed you become, the more you’ll rely on sugar, since it can give you a noticeable (albeit brief) psychological lift. The process is something of an accelerating downward spiral, not unlike other types of chemical abuse. Completely removing sugar from your diet can be a critical part of becoming and staying thin. It can also be an important part of taking control of your life—since by eliminating sugar you will be exposing yourself to one less chemical with the power to obstruct that goal.

Some might think that a life with sugar is always better than a life without, but this is not true. If an omniscient entity were to account for the hypothetical pleasure or pain experienced over the course of a lifetime, it would almost certainly report that a life without sugar is happier than the opposite. Many people that do away with sugar report that they lead overall happier lives after making the change. Granted, you can have a happy and healthy life and still eat sugar, but the intake must be moderate or low. Sugar is an unnecessary and unhealthy (if not damaging and lethal) nutrient, with uplifting though brief effects and corresponding crashes and lows. Without sugar, you are “even keel.” Without it, you are also healthier, and in all likelihood, more thin. It is not an even tradeoff. A life without sugar is better.

Completely eliminating sugar is not necessary, but it will make things easier. As with all drugs, the following statement applies to sugar: The more you use it, the more you’ll want it. But this is also true: The longer you go without sugar, the less it will matter to you. In fact, the desire to eat sugar seems to have a “half life”: Sugar is most appealing when you eat it regularly. If you stop eating it, your desire to have more is slowly reduced. This rate of reduction can vary widely, depending upon how much sugar you eat on a daily basis, how long you have been using it, etc. For some people the half life might be a month: If they stop consuming sugar, after one month their desire for it will be about half as intense. After another month, the desire might be only a quarter of the initial level. And after yet another month, the level of desire will be an eighth. The appeal of sugar is continually reduced with time until it virtually ceases to exist. Just about all deliberately thin people—having sworn off sugar for a long enough period of time—report zero cravings for it. It has been long enough since their last servings of sugar that they don’t even remember what the craving feels like. Much to their benefit, they don’t know what they’re missing.

To become thin, severely restricting or completely eliminating sugar is essential. Virtually all deliberately thin people would agree with this. You’re therefore going to have to choose one or the other: Restriction or elimination. Though it may seem slightly counterintuitive, it actually requires less willpower to completely remove sugar from your diet than to allow some in. If sugar is completely cut out, its appeal will diminish in a way similar to what is described above. Eventually you won’t even care about it. Moreover, in time you’ll become happy that you made the decision to exclude it. If you leave some in, the lure of sugar will forever be present. It might be a craving that you will forever be fighting—and one that you will occasionally give in to. If you continue to eat sugar, to some degree you will forever have a dependence on it. This will not be the case if you make the decision to do away with it forever.

Some people will wonder how you can deny yourself the pleasure of eating sweet foods. The answer is very simple. It’s not much different from denying yourself the pleasure of shooting heroine or snorting cocaine. All three drugs have users that love their effects. All three can have horrible and even lethal side effects. Sugar use just happens to be legal, far more common, and a lot cheaper.

You might be thinking that the drug-like effect of sugar is being exaggerated in this chapter, since you don’t really feel anything resembling the spacey high of an opiate after eating sugar. You may have come to this opinion partially because (in the terms of addiction specialists) you’ve built up a tolerance to it. Heroine addicts don’t feel much of a high after shooting up for years either, because their tolerance is high. Many addicts shoot up just to feel normal.

Anyone that doubts the drug-like effect of sugar is welcome to try the following experiment: Go without sugar for a year. Once a year has elapsed, quickly eat and drink sugar-filled items: Things like cake and soda or fruit punch. Since your sugar tolerance will be low due to your abstention, you will get to experience a true and unimpeded sugar high. You’ll feel light-headed, and maybe even giggly. You’ll be in a “cloud,” with its accompanying sensation of tunnel or even blurry vision. Yes, that’s right; your vision can actually get blurry. You might even get nauseous or throw up. You can get all of these effects from eating sugar.

When compared to the effects of other recreational chemicals, sugar is actually a rather inferior drug. Its effects are short-lived, tolerance is achieved rapidly, and it can indirectly lead to early death or disablement via the vast number of maladies that are listed in the Quality chapter. In the worst cases of rampant sugar consumption, the user is inviting a slow and painful death. Sugar abuse can indirectly lead to these things by directly elevating your fat levels. While it is true that there are no fattening foods, just fattening amounts of foods, recreational use of sugar will almost assuredly make you fat. And there should be no misunderstanding on this point: High-sugar items are eaten for recreational purposes, not because there isn’t a better food alternative.

The effect of sugar on the human body could be described as remarkable and even alarming. What is even more distressing, however, is the degree to which it is consumed. Sugar use is rampant. The consumption of sugar and syrups in the United States may very well be the most telling indicator of the human tendency to favor immediate over delayed gratification: According to the US Department of Agriculture, in 1999 the average American ate 158 pounds of sugar. If sugar is indeed a recreational drug, it is without question America’s favorite.

The importance of antioxidants is highlighted in the California pyramid, with the baseline here occupied by foodstuffs, notably fruits and vegetables, which are rich in these and other ‘phytonutrients’ (i.e. plant-derived nutrients). People living on plant-rich diets generally appear to have lower incidence of disease. This has prompted a search for the active ingredients, of which some are undoubtedly antioxidants. Others may regulate enzyme action and influence the production or elimination of relevant components. Thus there has developed a large market for herbal supplements. It is in this context that attention has been paid to the hop.

Phytochemicals are defined by the US Food Administration as substances of plant origin that may be ingested by humans daily in gram quantities and which exhibit the potential for modulating metabolism such as to be favorable for cancer prevention and cardiovascular protection (Rincon-Leon 2003). The word ‘nutraceutical’ has crept
into common parlance.

For those preferring their phytonutrients in food – as opposed to supplement – form, Gollman and Pierce (1998) offer one useful recipe book. The authors endeavor to present their recipes from an underpinning scientific perspective. Alas, beer is not featured. Wine is – yet  beer is likely at least the equal of wine from a health perspective.

Carbohydrate, fat and protein

Although carbohydrate, fat and protein are interchangeable through pathways of intermediary metabolism in the body, the relative amounts of each are not irrelevant. Carbohydrates, then, can ‘spare’ protein if they are present in adequate quantities. If they are not, then the body will use protein, which is a key component of muscles and other body tissues. Health experts suggest that about 60% of calorie intake should be as carbohydrate. Even within a category, there can be significant differences. More complex forms of carbohydrate, e.g. starch, will linger in the body longer than will simpler sugars, allowing the growth of microbes to take place and the attendant enrichment of vitamins in the food. The converse can apply. Some individuals are lactose-intolerant, with this sugar being poorly absorbed and leading to attendant diarrhea.

For proteins, a key feature of their value in the diet is their relative content of the various amino acids. The best proteins are those containing all of the essential amino acids (which the human body cannot synthesize) presupposing that those proteins are indeed taken up by the body. Meat, sh, milk and egg proteins are generally good. Barley protein is relatively deficient in two amino acids, lysine and (to a lesser extent) threonine, though high lysine variants have been developed (Kasha et al. 1993).

Of course most diets don’t usually contain just a solitary source of protein, and generally there is an appropriate mix of animal and vegetable proteins.

The fats provide the essential fatty acid, linoleic acid, which the human body cannot synthesize. Unsaturated fatty acids of this type are associated with a lower incidence of coronary heart disease: they lower cholesterol levels. Beer is essentially fat free.

Vitamins

Vitamins are organic substances that the human body cannot synthesize itself and which must be provided in the diet (Finglas 2003). They have various functions in the body and are customarily divided into the water-soluble vitamins and the fat-soluble vitamins; they are summarized in Table below. For the most part they are not required in very large quantities, but it must be borne in mind that the composition of the food matrix in which they are present can impact on their availability. One example is the higher requirement for thiamine if alcohol is present at high levels. It is equally important to stress that excessive intake of vitamins may have adverse effects. For the most part this pertains to two of the fat-soluble vitamins, A and D, though B6 at levels above 50 mg per day or nicotinic acid in excess of 2–6 g per day are of concern for neurological damage and liver damage respectively (Finglas 2003).

Minerals

The table lists the requirements of the human for minerals and their various impacts. Minerals comprise only 4–6% of the body (Freeland-Graves & Trotter 2003) and some of them are needed only in vanishing quantities. Calcium, chloride, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and sodium are the major minerals. Chromium, copper, fluoride, iodide, iron, manganese, silicon and zinc are needed in trace quantities. Arsenic, boron, molybdenum, nickel, selenium and vanadium are ‘ultra trace’ minerals.

Fibre

The term is unfortunate, for not all of the components generally considered under this heading are actually fibrous. Perhaps ‘roughage’ after all is no worse a term (Kritchevsky & Bon eld 1995).

The majority of materials considered to be dietary fibre are plant cell wall components including celluloses, hemicelluloses (such as are found in the cell walls of barley) and pectins. There can be a further division into soluble and insoluble fractions, though it must be remembered that this refers to what is solubilised in standard laboratory analytical procedures and not necessarily what happens in the gastrointestinal tract.

Insoluble components may serve to delay the digestion of other components via physical blocking. The soluble components, on the other hand, will afford increased viscosity if they are of high molecular weight, thereby lengthening transit time in the gut and also the rate at which digestion products (e.g. glucose) are taken through the gut wall. This may also explain the impact of dietary fibre in reducing the absorption of cholesterol.

These materials hold water, lead to a softening of stools and accelerate the passage of the stool through the large intestine. Research in recent years has demonstrated the merits of bre in lowering plasma cholesterol levels, reducing cancer incidence, lessening the need for diabetics to take insulin, and so on. The understanding of the precise structural features in fibre which lead to best effect is less than clear (see Johnson 2003). The beer carbohydrates comprising soluble fibre (which will include the degradation products of barley cell wall polysaccharides and also the dextrins produced during starch degradation;  escape absorption in the small intestine, thus becoming nutrients for bacteria located in the large bowel. The importance of these organisms to gut function and health has become well recognized in recent years and has led to the concept of probiotics and prebiotics. Probiotics are organisms, notably lactobacilli and bi dobacteria, which are added to diet to boost the flora in the large intestine. For example they are added to yogurt (Young 1998). Prebiotics are nutrients that boost the growth of these organisms. These may include oligosaccharides that may promote the growth of the appropriate organisms (Gibson 1999; Roberfroid 2001). Microbes in the large intestine produce methane and other gases as a result of their metabolism, and the flatulence experienced after drinking beer may relate to this activity.

It also needs to be borne in mind that materials capable of binding to the  fibre passing straight through the digestive system will also be less available to the body. This might include certain minerals and vitamins (Prosky 2003).

Water

The human body is almost two-thirds water. Loss of 5–10% of the body weight as water leads to symptoms of dehydration. Evidently the greater the risk of water loss, the greater the need for rehydration. Clearly if the water is also carrying away with it other nutrients, e.g. minerals, then these will need to be replaced in quantities that restore the status quo.

Balance

To reiterate: the diet needs to be in balance. And this includes ‘trendy’ food ingredients – the so-called functional food ingredients. Excessive fibre can lead to problems with intestinal gas, perhaps intestinal obstruction, and a reduced absorption of essential minerals such as zinc, iron and calcium. Uptake of minerals can also be restricted by chelating agents such as phytate and oxalate. Polyphenolics can bind metals such as iron and so reduce uptake. Phosphates reduce the uptake of zinc while calcium interferes with assimilation of manganese. Another example is that high levels of antioxidants such as vitamin C can switch over and become pro-oxidants. As is said more than once in this book, beer should be taken in moderation as part of a balanced diet. The same goes for all other foodstuffs.

While many people imagine that the term omega is synonymous with omega-3 fats, that impression is far from correct. It’s easy to get confused, because the fats and their names can be a bewildering tower of Babel, especially for the uninitiated. There are different omega fat families, which have completely different effects on health and disease. Even within the category of omega-3 fats, you’ll find more than one type. Then there are saturated and unsaturated fats(with the latter no longer universally viewed as the healthy class of fats).

How do you keep it all straight? Before we delve into the specifics of omega-3 fats and how to get them to work best for you (let alone get enough of them), let’s get familiar with the various types of fat. Figure 2.1 provides a general overview of how the different fats we eat are interrelated.

Meet the Omega Families

Omega actually refers to the system of how the fatty-acid atoms are counted and named (see sidebar). Each fat family is very different from the other, as in a neighborhood, where families reside on the same street but each at a different address, which signifies a completely different household. (You don’t expect the family living on 33 Main Street to be the same family living on 66 Main Street.) We will focus primarily on the omega-3 and omega-6 families, but you might like to know that olive oil comes from the omega-9 fat family, which is considered healthful.

Each omega family has individual members called fatty acids, each with a different name. Each omega-3 and omega-6 fat family has a parent fatty acid, from which the other individual fats can originate. Notably, each of these parents is considered an essential fat, meaning the body cannot make it and it needs to be supplied by the diet. Table 2.1 identifies dietary sources of the major types of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

What Is “Omega”?
The term omega refers to how the various fat families are
named, based on a counting system. Fat molecules are long;
the typical fat molecule found in food is between 12 and 22 carbon
atoms long. Think of each carbon atom as a link in a bracelet. We
would represent a 22-carbon “bracelet” this way:

C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C

That’s a lot of carbons to count. To save time, scientists count from
the end of the chain, where the fi rst unsaturated pair of carbons is
located (known as a double-bond arrangement). So that everyone
remembers this counting system, the beginning of the chain is designated
as the alpha side, named after the fi rst letter in the Greek
alphabet. The end of the chain is the omega side, named after the
last letter in the Greek alphabet.

C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C

Alpha Omega
In the case of the omega-3 family, the double-bond arrangement
is located three carbons from the end (the omega side):

C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C=C-C-C

Similarly, in the case of the omega-6 family, the double bond is six
carbons from the end:

C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C=C-C-C-C-C-C

This difference may seem inconsequential, but it’s huge. It’s like
the impact the location of a decimal point has on a number (especially
money!). For example, would you rather have $1.500000 or
$1500.000? Both quantities have the same digits, but the values
of these amounts differ considerably, just because of where the
decimal is placed. The one dollar and fifty cents is like the omega-
6 fats; the decimal point is six digits from the end. Likewise, the
fifteen hundred dollars is like the omega-3 fats; the decimal point
is three digits from the end. Just as a decimal point can make numbers
far different, the location of the initial omega bond on a fat
molecule makes a huge biological difference to the body.

The individual fatty acids differ in significant ways. The omega-3 fat found in plants is very different from the omega-3 fatty acids found in seafood. It’s possible to eat plenty of plant-based omega-3 fats but still be deficient in the other omega-3 fatty acids found in marine foods. This is a big source of confusion for consumers. Here’s a brief
description of the key omega-3 fatty acids:

• Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). The parent of all the fatty acids in
  the omega-3 family is known as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Technically,
  all the omega-3 fatty acids can be made or originate from
  ALA, but research shows that this is rarely the case. ALA is one
  of the shortest among the omega-3 fats, making it a short-chain
  fatty acid (see Table 2.2). ALA is found in plants, green leafy vegetables,
  flax oil, canola oil, and hemp.

• Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
  EPA and DHA are known collectively as long-chain fats and are
  found primarily in fish and fi sh oil. Stories about the marvelous
  benefits of omega-3 fats usually involve one (or both) of these
  powerful fatty acids.

Here’s the problem. Although laboratory tests showed that ALA can be made into EPA and eventually DHA, recent studies on humans indicate that this is not what the human body actually does. Therefore, you cannot assume that if you eat the parent form of omega-3 fats, ALA, it will indeed create EPA and DHA. If you take flax seed oil supplements or eat a lot of flax foods as your primary source of omega-3 fats, they provide ALA, but you could still be deficient in
EPA and DHA. In fact, the latest research shows that less than 1 percent of ALA gets made into EPA, and seldom (if ever) does it make DHA. That’s why many researchers believe that all three of these omega-3 fats are essential.

Omega-3 Fats Improve Heart Rate Variability

Heart rate variability reflects your heart’s autonomic function, which allows your heart to beat automatically, without you thinking about it. Omega-3 fats, especially DHA, improve this heart function.

EPA and DHA Are Comparable to Anti-Arrhythmia Medication

A Harvard research team evaluated the effects of the long-chain omega-3 fats, EPA and DHA, on heart rhythm. In every instance, the omega-3 fats stopped violent fibrillation (deadly heart beat rhythm) and helped the heart cells resume a normal beat.

Omega-3 Fats Slow the Pace of Beating Hearts

Lowering your heart rate a few beats may appear trivial, but it may help prevent sudden death, as shown in a French study that followed nearly 8,000 healthy men for 23 years. The men who remained healthy had a slower heart rate by four beats per minute.

A review of 30 studies indicates that omega-3 fats lower heart rate by nearly two beats per minute. This effect occurs after 12 weeks of fish oil supplementation, which is how long it takes omega-3 fats to get holstered into your heart cells.

Clearly, omega-3 fats help maintain a healthy heartbeat, which is why scientists believe they are protective against sudden cardiac death.

I contacted a prominent omega-3 fat researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He began the interview by asking me a rhetorical question: “Do you know why omega-3 fats affect so many parts of our body and so many diseases?” He continued, “It’s because too much omega-6 fats in our diet prevent omega-3 fats from doing their normal course of work in our body.” Then he proceeded to describe how he balanced the fat in his own diet by cutting out omega-6 fats, food by food. Wow.

If you have never heard of omega-6 fat, you are not alone. When people hear the term omega, they often assume omega-6s are beneficial and related to omega-3 fats. While both groups of fats work together very closely, they have opposite effects in the body, like a seesaw. And as with children on a seesaw, the actions of one affect the other. If these fats are not balanced in your diet, they can dramatically affect your health. That’s the problem. The American diet is bombarded with unhealthful levels of omega-6 fats, which impede the benefits of omega-3 fats.

Omega-6 Fats Promote Disease

The problem with eating too much omega-6 fats is that they are disease promoting. In fact, the NIH’s Essential Fats Education program makes a profound declaration on its website: excessive omega-6 fats in the diet trigger a rise in health problems, including heart attacks, blood clots, arthritis, asthma, menstrual cramps, headaches, and
tumor metastases.

Eating too much omega-6 fat is a predicament affecting most Westernized countries, not just the United States. This quandary has been documented in many cultures and is referred to as a health paradox or omega-6 fat syndrome.

Most Omega-6 Fats Are Found in “Healthy” Oils

The paradox is that omega-6 fats have been indiscriminately promoted as “heart-healthy fats.” Many well-meaning health organizations touted “heart-healthy” oils (including corn oil, soybean oil, and margarine) to lower blood cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. Consumers were (and are) urged to replace artery-clogging saturated fats in their diet with heart-smart polyunsaturated oils, which consist primarily of omega-6 fats.

Unwittingly, this health advice triggered people to eat more of the fats that work against the omega-3s. The so-called heart-healthy omega-6 oils displaced other fats in many people’s diets. Grocery store shelves overflowed (and still do) with foods containing “heartsmart” oils. But it turns out that the idea of eating polyunsaturated fats to prevent heart disease was based on an incomplete picture; emerging studies have shown otherwise.

Countries including Israel embraced heart-healthy eating by eating more polyunsaturated oils (omega-6 fats). Israel is especially notable because it consequently has one of the world’s greatest intakes of omega-6 fats. But with the increase of omega-6 fats came an increase in Western diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

Researchers used the term omega-6 fat syndrome to describe the cause of chronic illness plaguing an unusually healthy group of people in Okinawa, a region of Japan. The scientists discovered that Okinawans were eating too much omega-6 fat at the expense of omega-3 fat, and this imbalance was at the root of their new chronic health problems.

We Eat Fat That Did Not Exist 100 Years Ago

Today, we eat fats that didn’t exist a century ago, including cottonseed oil. Check the ingredients list on some of your favorite foods. More often than not, it will be listed, as it’s among the top four oils consumed in the United States. Our foods are now filled with omega-6 fats because of technology and pressure to eat more heartsmart fats.

Farming Practices Increase Omega-6 Fats in Meats and Plant Foods

Lastly, agricultural practices have dramatically altered the content of omega-6 and omega-3 fats in our diet. Plant foods used to have higher omega-3 fat levels, which had a positive trickle-down effect on the rest of our diet. In the bygone days of cattle grazing, cows used to nibble on plants containing omega-3s. And in the you-are-what-you-eat manner, these cows incorporated omega-3 fat into their own body. Voilà: the cows yielded milk and meat containing omega-3 fats, which in turn would be eaten by consumers. Today the amount of omega-3 fat in commercial beef is virtually undetectable. Instead, feedlot animals eat a grain-based diet, which offers little in the way of omega-3 but is higher in omega-6. Consequently, their meats are also higher in omega-6 fat.

We Need to Fix the Omega Fat Imbalance

Indeed, the typical Western diet delivers a double whammy: insufficient omega-3 fats and too many omega-6 fats. The consequence is many chronic diseases, from osteoporosis to inflammation disorders, which we can’t cure simply by reaching for a fish oil supplement. If you have too much omega-6 fat in the diet, it interferes with the benefits of omega-3 fats! A healthy balance of omega-6 fats and omega-3 fats in our diet is a key health factor that has been ignored for too long. Whereas our ancestors ate equal proportions of these fats, today the omega-6 fats in the American diet outnumber omega-3 fats by 10- to 20-fold!

Vegetarians are not off the hook, because studies show that they eat even more omega-6 fat in their diets than the typical person who eats meat. At the other extreme, those indulging in bacon and cream cheese in the name of weight loss, dieting Atkins style, also have a problem. These fats—saturated fats—also compete against the omega-3s.

The research is quite stunning, showing that omega-3 fats play a key role in preventing many illnesses and conditions:

• Inflammation
• Stroke
• Allergies
• Cancer
• Alzheimer’s disease

They may also be effective in treating:

• Depression
• Attention deficit disorder
• Dyslexia
• Cystic fibrosis
• Asthma
• Arthritis

Lastly, omega-3s have been shown to play a key role in:

• Brain development and function
• Learning and IQ

The Greenland Eskimos

In the 1980s, the Greenland Eskimos were discovered to have an unusually low rate of heart disease compared with Danes, although both groups had similar blood cholesterol levels. In fact, the Eskimos ate twice as much cholesterol as the Danes, which puzzled the researchers. The healthy difference turned out to be the amount of fish eaten by the Eskimos. Soon the world was buzzing about the benefits of eating fish and omega-3 fats.

In all of the excitement, an important finding was lost. The Eskimo fish diet was also much lower in omega-6 fat than the Danes’ diet (see Table 3.7). The omega-6 dietary factor is quite telling when comparing the diets from Japan, Okinawa, the United States, Denmark, and Greenland. Note how much higher omega-6 fat levels are in the American diet. This was reflected in their blood, too. Lower levels of omega-6 fats in the body meant more health protection. But excitement over the omega-3 fat discovery eclipsed the significance of the low levels of omega-6 fats in the Eskimo diet.

The Mediterranean Diet: It’s Not Just the Olive Oil This oversight happened again in 1994, with the Lyon Diet Heart
Study, which popularized the Mediterranean-style diet for its health benefits. A significant feature of the Mediterranean diet is that it is low in omega-6 fat levels, yet that aspect receives little if any mention, even when leading researchers demonstrate its importance.

In the Lyon Heart Diet Study, French researchers led by Michel de Lorgeril used the key dietary components of the Mediterranean diet and applied them to residents of the city of Lyon. The results of the study, which was supposed to last five years, were so striking that it was halted midway by an ethics committee. Remarkably, there was a complete prevention of cardiac sudden death in participants eating a Mediterranean-style diet; the control group, which followed the classic heart-health diet (which does not distinguish between the types of polyunsaturated fat) had no such benefit.

A subsequent follow-up of Lyon Diet Heart Study participants was even more remarkable—an unprecedented lower death rate from all causes, especially cancer. This was an unexpected finding. The stunning results were published in the American Heart Association’s scientific journal, Circulation, in 1999, accompanied by an editorial, which emphasized that only the diet with the lower omega-6 fat and higher omega-3 fat successfully lowered the death rate from all causes, including cardiac. The classic cardiac diet—which does not distinguish between the types of polyunsaturated fat, therefore mostly omega-6 fat—failed to improve the overall prognosis.

Michel de Lorgeril continues to write extensively on the need to lower dietary omega-6 fat, as it is one of the hallmarks of his famous study. Yet that advice seems to have had little impact. At least he is not alone. In 2000, an international group of scientists that specialize in omega-3 fats issued guidelines to cap omega-6 consumptiontoward a balanced level. Two years later, Japan issued similar public health recommendations to limit the amount of omega-6 fat in the diet. In Australia, patients participating in the Early Arthritis Clinic are advised to reduce their omega-6 fats to keep inflammation at bay. Keep in mind that no health agency or omega-3 fat expert is recommending we get rid of omega-6 entirely—only that we bring it back into balance.

Benefits of Balancing the Omega-6/Omega-3 Ratio

A clever study from Harvard Medical School showed dramatic results when a gene spliced into worms gave them the ability to make their own omega-3 fats. The worms began automatically producing a balanced fat ratio of 1-to-1 in their cells, with incredible benefits:

• Heart cells decreased susceptibility to irregular heartbeats.
• Cancer cells were naturally destroyed (a natural process known as apoptosis).
• Inflammation was reduced in cells that line and protect the entire circulatory system.
• Brain cells were protected from premature death.

In 1993 researchers from Israel tested the optimal balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fats for brain performance, using incremental fat ratios, ranging from 3-to-1 to 6-to-1. They found the ratio of 4-to-1 was the most effective for improved learning, sleep, and pain threshold. Other studies have demonstrated similar results. This same research team also used this ratio on Alzheimer’s disease patients, who experienced significant improvement in quality of life.

Less Omega-6 Fat Dramatically Reduces Artery Clogging

Researchers looked at the impact of balancing fats on preventing atherosclerosis in a particular strain of mice susceptible to clogged arteries. The mice were fed diets with the identical quantity of fat, but the proportions of omega-6 to omega-3 fats varied. The researchers found a dose-dependent effect on the development of heart disease: the lower the ratio, the better the outcome. Notably, the low-ratio group had the best HDL (good cholesterol), lowest blood clotting, and least clogged arteries.

Balanced Ratio in Early Life Prevents Childhood Asthma

The Australian Childhood Asthma Prevention Study (CAPS) found that high-risk kids placed on a balanced omega diet since birth (modest omega-3 supplement with diet low in omega-6 fats) had significant reduction of a type of cough that is a strong predictor of asthma.

Arthritis Improves with Lowering Omega-6 Fat in Diets

Researchers put one group of rheumatoid arthritis patients on a diet low in arachidonic acid (the most potent omega-6 fat) and supplemented them with fish oil. The other two groups of patients either were given fish oil and a regular diet or served as the control, with a regular diet and placebo supplement. The group following the low-AA diet had the most improvement (less pain, less tenderness and swelling of joints). Notably, those on the regular diet with fish oil had improvements, too, but that treatment was less effective than the low-AA diet. Researchers also found that the more AA eaten, the higher the disease activity.

Omega-3 Supplements Do Little Without Balanced Omega-6 Fat Levels

As indicated in the arthritis study, for you to get the most benefit from fish oil supplements, you have to lower the level of omega-6 fat in your diet. Here are more examples:

Volunteers were given 4.4 grams of fi sh oil daily. It effectively suppressed the growth of cells that occur in colorectal cancer, but only if the ratio of dietary omega-6 to omega-3 fat was limited to 2.5-to-1.0. When the ratio was increased to 4-to-1, there was no such benefit.

Australian patients with rheumatoid arthritis were put on a diet containing less than 10 grams of omega-6 fats and were given a fish oil supplement. They had superior improvement in symptoms relative to members of the control groups.

Asthmatic adults took fi sh oil while eating a typical American diet high in omega-6 fats (ratio of 10-to-1), but they still had diminished breathing capacity. However, when the omega-6 fats were lowered to a ratio of 2-to-1, they experienced improved breathing and decreased asthma-triggering compounds.

Omega-6 fats, when eaten in excess, can cause a variety of health problems. The omega-6 fat problem is a bit like Americans’ excess consumption of salt (sodium). Sodium is a nutrient that is very easy to get in the diet without ever lifting a saltshaker. Similarly, omega-6 fats are in nearly every food we eat, so we really don’t need to make an extra effort to eat them. Here’s a brief description of the key omega-6 fatty acids:

• Linoleic acid (LA). The omega-6 parent, linoleic acid (LA),
  accounts for the majority of polyunsaturated fats in the American
  diet and is considered an essential fat. (Yes, you are reading this
  name correctly; it is remarkably similar to the omega-3 fat parent,
  alpha-linolenic acid.)
• Arachidonic acid (AA). Arachidonic acid can be found in animal
  products but is readily made from the parent omega-6 fat, LA.
  (This is unlike omega-3 fats, where there is limited conversion of
  the parent to its potent “kids.”) Too much of this fat in the body
  can trigger inflammation and cause blood clotting. AA is also
  known as the long-chain omega-6 fatty acid.

Fat Family Rivalry: Omega-6 Versus Omega-3 Fats

Both omega-3 and omega-6 fats make powerful substances in your body that play key roles in the structure and function of every cell and ultimately your health and well-being. But they are chemically distinct families with opposite effects on your body. For example, a diet high in omega-6 fats promotes blood clotting, while omega-3
fats prevent the blood cells from clumping. Omega-6 fats act to raise blood pressure, while omega-3 fats work to lower blood pressure.

Once you eat these fats and they enter your body, they are in direct competition with each other. Like rival gangs, both of these fat families compete for the same limited resources (enzymes) to make their subsequent potent compounds. The bigger family will “win” the resources that ultimately shift your body toward health
or disease.

Saturated Versus Unsaturated Fat: A Big Difference to Your Health

No fat that you eat, whether oil or butter, is made up of just one particular type of fatty acid. For example, butter is known as a saturated fat (and indeed has a high level of this fat), but as shown in Table 2.3, it still has a bit of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Olive oil is known as a monounsaturated fat but contains some saturated
and polyunsaturated fat. And canola oil is 7 percent saturated fat, 59 percent monounsaturated fat, and 30 percent polyunsaturated fat. Its polyunsaturated fat consists of 69 percent omega-6 fat and 31 percent omega-3 fat.

Fats commonly thought of as healthful are not necessarily so. Researchers realize that it is no longer adequate to assume that all fats within a class behave the same way in our bodies. This is especially true for polyunsaturated fats, including omega-3 and omega-6 fat families. But let’s begin with the saturated fats, as little has changed—they are still widely considered a health problem.

The Meat (and Dairy Foods) We Eat Reflect the Diet of the Cow. The typical cow fattened on grain has 14 times more omega-6 than omega-3 fatty acids in its meat, far more than the grass-fed cow. This has a trickle-down effect in the food chain. The commercial meat and dairy products we eat also lack omega-3 fats while yielding a much higher load of omega-6 fats. This significance is aptly illustrated when you look at cheeses made from grazing cows versus feedlot-fed cows.

Why Too Many Omega-6 Fats in Our Diet?

A convergence of well-meaning health advice, food processing, and industrialization resulted in a wide variety of foods overflowing with omega-6 fats, from frankfurters to granola. Many of those fats come from vegetable oils. Today only four oils—cottonseed oil, corn oil, soybean oil, and canola oil—account for 96 percent of the vegetable oil consumed in the United States (see Table 3.3). With the exception of canola oil, these oils are particularly high in omega-6 fats and low in omega-3 fats. These oils are used to make margarine, shortening, and salad dressings—which amplify your omega-6 fat intake.

Industrial RevOILution

Advances in technology increased worldwide vegetable oil production and introduced new edible oils, such as cottonseed oil. The large-scale addition of newfangled oils to our food supply significantly altered both quantitative and qualitative aspects of fat in our diet, causing our consumption of omega-6 fats to skyrocket. Vegetable oil is inherently higher in omega-6 fats, while being low in omega-3 fats. As our consumption of vegetable oil has grown, it has become our main source of polyunsaturated fatty acids. (Keep in mind that polyunsaturated fats are synonymous with omega-6 fats.) Figure 3.1 shows that in 1909 only 32 percent of our polyunsaturated fats came from oils; by 2000 that share had more than doubled. So if you eat vegetable oil (whether by using it for cooking or eating it in salad dressings, margarine, and mayonnaise), you will almost always increase your omega-6 fat intake. With the exception of olive oil and canola oil, vegetable oil is synonymous with omega-6 fats.

New Foods Created: Margarine and Shortening

In 1897 the invention of hydrogenation (adding hydrogen to oil) allowed vegetable oils to become solid. Voilà—shortening and margarine were born. The timing was just right, too. The escalating prices and scarcity of butter during World War I paved the way for lower-cost alternatives. Toss in the medical community’s recommendation to replace butter with modern vegetable fats, and margarine’s place at the kitchen table was assured. In the last century, U.S. consumption of shortening quadrupled. The typical American ate about one pound of margarine per year in 1909 and now eats more than 6 pounds per year. Hydrogenated oils also helped extend the shelf life of convenience foods, which became popular for saving time in the kitchen, especially as more women entered the workforce.

Heart-Healthy Oils

The “heart-healthy” polyunsaturated fats have a distinguished history. Since the 1950s, the cholesterol-lowering effects of these fats dominated research. And for good reason: early studies showed that when polyunsaturated fats replaced the saturated fats, blood cholesterol was lowered. Thanks to the well-meaning “war on saturated fat” to reduce heart disease, polyunsaturated fats were heralded as the lifesaving fat and were indiscriminately promoted. Meanwhile, an important group of polyunsaturated fats—omega-3 fats—were simply ignored.

Foods with “heart-healthy” oils proliferated, and omega-6-rich fats increased in the American diet. Manufacturers jumped on the heart-health bandwagon, and foods were marketed as being cholesterol free and low in saturated fat. But this was achieved by using omega-6-rich oils, many of which were hydrogenated.

Ironically, hydrogenated oils appeared to be the more healthful alternative to saturated fats at that time. Even fast-food restaurants replaced the beef fat in the fryers with partially hydrogenated oils (shortening).

You are probably aware that hydrogenation introduced its own set of health hazards. Not only does this process create the infamous trans-fatty acids, which increase the “bad” LDL cholesterol, but hydrogenation also destroys omega-3 fats. For example, when soybean oil (which has 920 milligrams of omega-3 fats per tablespoon) is hydrogenated, its omega-3 fat content drops to 30 milligrams per tablespoon.

Now there is a new twist. In an effort to mitigate the problem of trans fat, food manufacturers are using new strains of soybeans to make more stable oil that contains negligible amounts of the omega-3 fats and higher levels of omega-6 fats! This is significant because soybean oil is the number-one oil used in the United States.

In December 2005, Kellogg, the world’s largest cereal maker, made headlines when it announced its commitment to using low-linolenic soybean oil (soybean oil that is low in omega-3 fat) to replace trans fat that had been used in its foods. That decision has helped fuel a tremendous demand for low-linolenic soybean oil. About 80 million
pounds of low-linolenic soybean oil were produced in 2005, with five times that output (400 million pounds) estimated for 2006, according to the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils. But this trend is double trouble. This oil has an even higher omega-6 fat content than regular soybean oil (see Table 3.4).

Meanwhile, manufacturers of cottonseed oil jockey for their market share by offering their product as a more healthful replacement for trans fat in processed food. But it has a much worse omega-6 profile. In cottonseed oil, omega-6 fats outnumber its omega-3 content by 234 to 1! Of all the fats ranked in Table 3.5, cottonseed oil is the worst in terms of its ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats.

Digestion is simply the series of physical and chemical changes that the food and drink we consume go through so that they may absorbed into our body.

Starting at our mouth, we take food into it. I know you know this already, but stick with me. As soon as we stuff the food into our mouth, we start the chewing process. What does this accomplish? The chewing process breaks large pieces of food down into much smaller and manageable pieces of food in preparation for the rest of the digestive journey.

Our saliva actually moistens the food as we chew it thus, making it easier to chew and eventually swallow. A fairly slow and wave like motion begins after we swallow. This is known as peristalsis. Peristalsis pushes the food-mass through the esophagus down to the stomach.

The chemical part of the digestion process starts in the center portion of the stomach. This is where all that food we swallowed is mixed with water, hydrochloric acid, and enzymes. These are the gastric juices you’ve probably heard so much about.

Now, after one to four hours (depending on the combinations of food), peristalsis once again moves the broken down food (which is now in liquid form) out of the stomach and down to the small intestine. The broken down food arrives at the small intestine in the following order:

1. carbohydrates
2. protein
3. fat

The absorption part of the digestion process is where the nutrients taken from the food we’ have eaten are absorbed by the intestine and passed on into our bloodstream. Most of this process takes place in the small intestine. Remember the carbohydrates, protein, and fat that lines up here? From the carbohydrates, we absorb glucose. From the protein we absorb amino acids. From the fat we absorb fatty acids and glycerol. All these nutrients are sucked up by the intestines and passed on into the bloodstream. Once inside the bloodstream, this process aids our body in cell metabolism.

Fats and fat-soluble vitamins go right to our body cells. The other nutrients make their way to our liver. Think of your liver as a receiving and shipping station. The liver receives nutrients other than fats and fat-soluable vitamins and turns them into completely different nutrients and ships or releases them into specific body cells for specific purposes.

The digestion process is the most important part of the Negative Calorie Diet. Don’t disrupt it! It literally takes hours and hours for proper digestion to take place. Let it progress freely and in its own time.

Some things that can disrupt your digestion are

1. anxiety
2. fatigue
3. stress
4. worry
5. gulping down your meals
6. exercise
7. weather

I realize we don’t live in a perfect world. Sometimes we can’t help having the things mentioned above in our lives. Stress is always going to be there and I haven’t figured out how to change the weather yet. Be aware of these problems and that they exist. Try to plan ahead when you know one is waiting for you – lurking in the shadows.