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Is lard missing something important?

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Today we will look at how the composition of fats in a low-fat diet affects metabolism in mice, for example how it affects fatty liver development. The low-fat diet is an important factor here; the researchers did not overload the mice’s bodies, so in my opinion we are getting fairly relevant results. So what does the study tell us ? We’ll take it slowly. There are six diets here: lard (L1, L2), soybean oil (S1, S2), and a mixture of lard and soybean oil (LS1, LS2), each with either 10% or 15% fat in the diet. For example, this is the difference in blood free fatty acid levels between diets containing 10% and 15% lard. Isn’t that interesting? Such an ordinary low-fat diet. And if it contains 10% fat in the form of lard, it still works reasonably well. But if we increase the lard content by 50%, to 15%, the level of free fatty acids in the blood rises by about 75%. Clearly, something is not right here. What happens if instead of pure lard we provide a mixture of lard and soybean oil in ...
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Is Atherosclerotic Vascular Damage Related to Liver Damage?

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I would like to loosely follow up on the previous post about conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) as a potential treatment for atherosclerosis. We saw that a 1% CLA mixture in the diet was able to almost completely heal blood vessels in mice within eight weeks; the previously formed atherosclerotic plaque in the aorta almost disappeared. This was not a slowing of plaque deposition processes, but its removal! What could the mechanism be? Could this work in humans as well? In one older post , I showed how the number of unsaturated bonds in polyunsaturated fatty acids determines the degradation rate of apoB100 molecules, and therefore also the liver production of VLDL/LDL particles. The greater the susceptibility to peroxidation, the faster the degradation of apoB100 and the lower the export of fats and cholesterol from the liver. Take a look at the following findings. Unlike the previous study, linoleic acid and palmitic acid behave the same way here. Human liver cells were used, which could ...
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Does linoleic acid protect our blood vessels? Yes—but only CLA, which is found in butter!

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If you think that vegetable (seed) oils protect your blood vessels, that is probably not true . This is suggested by studies examining their effects in older age or looking at lifespan. Vegetable oils may lower cholesterol, but low cholesterol levels are associated with shorter lifespan. But what would you say to the information that simply adding 1% of a special mixture of polyunsaturated oils—specifically processed linoleic acid—to the diet causes vascular plaque to disappear in an animal model within a few weeks! However, the processing of these vegetable oils was not carried out by any industrial food company. No—the processing was performed by bacteria in the cow’s stomach! The resulting product is called CLA, conjugated linoleic acid. There are several types, but the most interesting is rumenic acid, c9,t11-CLA. Another is t10,c12-CLA, but the first one is found in butter at ten to twenty times higher levels than the second. Could it be, then, that full-fat dairy products—especia...
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Is it a good idea to suppress glucose production in the liver?

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Overweight and obesity are fairly common nowadays, much more common than they were, say, fifty or a hundred years ago. There are many opinions on the causes, but to me it currently appears to be the result of poisoning from food, drink, or the environment—whether the air we breathe or contamination by foreign electromagnetic signals. I assume that the environment and food simply play a role. Let’s review the most important processes that influence fat storage and obesity. First of all, rapid and easy storage into adipose tissue does not cause a problem and quickly removes fats from the blood. To achieve this, it is necessary to maintain metabolically healthy adipose tissue protected by the glutathione antioxidant system. How much fat will be stored is determined by excess—some fat is constantly being burned, and excess is stored. So it is determined by the ratio at which fats and glucose are burned. With any change in the ratio of fats and carbohydrates in the diet, suppression of fat...
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Is the reduction of cholesterol by vegetable oils actually caused by their peroxidation?

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By chance, I looked at an older study from 2004 , which shows that oxidative stress affects the export of fats from the liver in the form of VLDL particles. Imagine that each lipoprotein particle VLDL/LDL contains exactly one molecule of the ApoB100 protein, so they are absolutely essential for the export of fats from the liver. So we already have three essential products needed for successful fat export from the liver, i.e. oleic acid, H2O2 , and ApoB100. We obtain oleic acid from food or from saturated fats through the slow process of DNL. With a relatively low-fat diet, this is not a problem. Saturated fats, when in excess, also produce enough H2O2 to activate the enzymes synthesizing VLDL. What about ApoB100? It is also easily produced. But the study tells us that there is a system that controls the quality of exported fats in VLDL particles. If peroxidized polyunsaturated fats are present, the enzymatic system PERPP degrades ApoB100 molecules and no VLDL particles can be exported,...
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Is intestinal permeability part of a regulated response to bacterial infection?

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Many times here I have come across the idea that processes usually considered negative are actually perfect regulatory loops, i.e., processes that respond in a controlled way to the surrounding environment. They are not random malfunctions or mistakes of nature. They are long-tested regulatory processes. Today we will look at intestinal permeability and the endocannabinoid system (eCB). Nowadays, no one doubts intestinal permeability anymore; that is a great success. I remember how about 20 years ago it was a topic that all professionals in the field laughed at, and only a few individuals (e.g., Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride ) tried to convince them to take a closer look, that it is very important. It took a long time, but eventually they did look into it, and intestinal permeability really began to be thoroughly studied. This is also evidenced by the study that will be discussed today . But as usual, I will again try to bring a few of my own thoughts into this issue. It simply seems st...
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