ExRx.net

Interesting (and long) article by the controversial Dr Mercola. I like reading his stuff. Some may be put off by the odd plug and the tendency to go on about conspiracy theories(follow the money) but I think for the most part he provides good info and always makes you think.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... mbers.aspx

There's so much I don't understand about this stuff but what I do know is I no longer believe any conventional information anymore. I've been pro Saturated Fat for a while now but still have a lot to understand. Would be good to hear opinions from some people more clued up than me about the above article.

KPj

I think there are some important points here. If you compare total Cholestrol to all cause mortality you get a U shaped graph with the lowest mortality in about 200-250. It appears that the causality in conventional wisdom is skewed. Cholestrol may be protective in cases and it may be reactive in cases. To say it's a causal factor of anything is unproven. To lower it artificially is like taking the battery out of the smoke detector to prevent fires.

In my opinion the key number to look at is the Triglyceride/HDL ratio which should be below 1. A high saturated fat/low carb diet will lower this number.

In general, everything in this article is consistant with what I've been reading although not with what my doctor's telling me.

I like this:

Thanks for that. I thought it all made sense but I don't really know any better at the moment so was hoping some of you guys would either say it seems consistent or it's a lot of rubbish

KPj

Well margarine is usually just pile of trans-fat, which I think is pretty well established to be deadly.

A lot of people still cling to the idea that plants sources are better than animal sources. Even without the trans-fats, margarine is unhealthy due to the inflamitory omega 6.

Well I only know of one brand, smartbalance, that isn't ridiculously high in trans-fat, and I think all the smartbalance brands have decent O-3.

I suppose Smartbalance is the closest you can come to duplicating butter with an artifical product but it's still an artificial product..

Yeah, I think they do all have soy in them for instance, though I'm not 100% certain.