Ken Ward's Health and Nutrition Pages

Fats

The answer is, of course, that there are good fats and bad fats.

Here are a few of the things that fat does for your body:

• It is an essential part of every cell in the body.
• It is used to build nerves and brain. The brain is 40% fat.
• It insulates the body. The skin has a fatty layer as do the kidneys
• It is involved in many of the bodies metabolic processes.
• It is necessary to produce certain hormones, in particular, the sex hormones and adrenal cortex hormones
• It is necessary to produce the hormone-like prostaglandins that are involved in many operations in the body, such as contracting smooth muscle and easing pain.
• It produces cholesterol (essential for cell membranes and bile salts, for example).
• It is essential to absorb certain vitamins (A, D, E, and K).
• It is used to store energy.

Fats are sometimes called lipids. Most of the fats in the body are called triglycerides. Triglycerides are used to make phospholipids, which are an essential component of all cell membranes, all tissues, and all organs of the body. Fat deficiency affects, for example, the bones, the brain and the major organs.

Therefore fat is essential to health and wellbeing.

Saturated and Unsaturated Fats and Oils

Saturated fats are fats usually from animals, that are associated with increasing cholesterol. They include the fat in beef, pork, chicken, etc. The fat in these foods is often part of the food in addition to being a distinct fatty part, as the fat on a pork chop. Therefore, when you eat these animal products, you take in more saturated fat.

Unsaturated fats are fats, usually of vegetable origin and most vegetable oils are unsaturated. Unsaturated fats (or oils) are less likely to increase the blood cholesterol, and they are preferable to animal fats, provided they have not been damaged by heating or will be damaged by cooking at high temperatures. Where this occurs, as in certain margarines or in frying, then saturated fats (or oils) are preferable. So if you must fry food, then it is better to use butter or olive oil than other vegetable oils, because the damaged fats may be more unhealthy. Butter is preferable to margarine in spreads (and cooking) because margarine contains trans-fatty acids that are produced by the high temperatures in processing.

Even though many people changed from butter to margarine, the death rate from heart disease has continued to rise.

Eating less animal fat enables some people to reduce the amount of cholesterol in their blood, and reduces the risk of certain diseases, particularly heart disease. However, eating unsaturated fat or oil that has been damaged by heat, as in some margarines and especially in fried foods, such as chips (potatoe fries) may be worse.

Essential Fatty Acids

Essential fatty acids are fatty acids that are important for the body and that cannot be made by the body - they must be obtained from your diet. Therefore, these essential fatty acids are needed either in their pure form, or better, in a complex form that can be used by the body. The essential fatty acids are:

1. Lenoleic Acid (Omega 6)
2. Lenolenic Acid (Omega 3)
3. Arachidonic Acid

The last one is of less improtance than the others and is not discussed here.

The issue with the Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids is not only a deficiency in Western diet of Omega 3 fatty acids, but an inappropriate ratio of the acids. The ideal intacke of these acids in the ratio of 4 of Omega 6 series to at least one of Omega 3. The current ratio is estimated to be about 12 of Omega 6 to one of Omega 3.

The significance of these fats is that deficiency diseases associated with a poor balance of these fatty acids mirrors the main diseases of Western society.

The Arthritis Example

During the 1980's, medical doctors began to examine the role of food in rheumatoid arthritis. Some found that:

When people stopped eating:

• cheese
• butter
• whole milk
• red meat
• cakes
• pastries, and
• any fried food

When they avoided these foods, there arthritis usually improved. The theory being, that when you eliminate fats that are used to form prostaglandins that worsen inflammation, then by starving people of the means of making them, then these people often feel better.

On the other hand, other researchers advised people with rheumatoid arthritis to eat mainly fish, particularly, salmon, mackerel, tuna and herring, then they, too, feel better. In this case, the patients were given a diet that had a balanced amount of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids. This diet supported the production of pain-releaving prostaglandins, which eased and oiled painful joints.

Both approaches worked, starving people of fat and giving them a balanced fat diet, both eased symptoms of arthritis.

It seems reasonable, that Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids have something to do with our health. Whether this has something to do with the hormone-like prostaglandins, may not be certain.

Omega 6 Series

Although the basic essential fatty acid for this group of fats is linoleic acid, it may be obtained from various substances. These substances that provide linoleic acid are the Omega 6 Series.

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