Plant Diet Increases Risk Of Cancer And CVD Due To PUFA

haidut

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This article is a little odd but I decided to post it anyways. It basically claims that humans have a mutation that was caused by eating high plant diet and that mutation makes arachidonic acid so dangerous. I don't know if buy the genetics argument, but I do like the fact that the author openly talks about arachidonic acid being a driver of cancer and CVD. I also like the fact that it suggests eating plant/vegetarian diet is really not that good for us.
In addition, despite the disinformation we get blasted with every day by popular media, the food industry is apparently well aware of the connection between omega-6 intake and disease, and has switched to selling oils form genetically modified seeds that have altered ratios of omega-6 in favor of the more neutral omega-9 oleic acid. So, they sort of kill several birds with one stone. The highly profitable seed oils will continue to be produced and sold but the industry will claim credit (and innocence) when the truth about PUFA eventually becomes mainstream knowledge. And when cancer and CVD deaths drop, it will be attributed to advancing medicine and not phasing out PUFA.
As I said in some of my other posts - the toxicity of PUFA is common knowledge in some scientific circles and it is really not as esoteric as some enemies of Peat would have you believe.

Human genome shaped by vegetarian diet increases risk of cancer and heart disease

"...Brenna: Both heart disease and cancer are increasingly recognized as diseases enhanced by chronic low level inflammation. Omega-6 arachidonic acid mediates and enhances inflammation and thus may well be a contributing factor to the decades long development of heart disease, as well as accelerating the development of cancer cells and tumors."

"...The plant omega-6 linoleic acid – from which the arachidonic acid is derived – is normally at low levels in traditional whole food diets as well as in fruit oils such as olive oil and avocado oil, or in dairy fat. However, it is a factor of 10 or more higher in industrially produced oilseeds such as traditional sunflower, safflower, corn, soy and peanut oils. The increasing availability of high omega-6 seed oils in the developing world will be most pro-inflammatory and pro-clotting for those persons with the genetics of traditional vegetarians because their genotype will maintain higher omega-6 arachidonic acid in their blood and tissues."

"...In the U.S., the situation is different. The U.S. oilseed industry is now shifting production of the oilseeds I mentioned, sunflower, safflower, corn, soy and peanut, to high oleic varieties that have similar omega-6 linoleic acid composition as the fruit oils I mentioned, olive and avocado oil, and milkfat as well. As that shift continues, the effects are expected to become less pronounced. My sense is that it is of the utmost importance to introduce these high oleic oils into traditional vegetarian populations."
 
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Ray Peat’s daily diet is, by definition, “vegetarian:” “Daily - milk, fruit (mainly orange juice), eggs, butter, cheese, and coffee.”

20 Questions With Ray Peat

Or “lacto-vegetarian." Peat makes it work for him so not all “lacto-vegetarian" approaches may be bad. But the term "vegetarian" can mean many different things. The study may actually show that some people might have a problem with dairy which is why they use the term “lacto-vegetarian” in the actual study. It’s weird that they use the word “vegetarian” so loosely in the title but in the study they say “lacto-vegetarian” with their Indian cohort.

Too much arachidonic acid, and/or the conversion from linoleic acid can easily be avoided. If one is so concerned with arachidonic acid then they need not consume eggs, fish, meat and dairy, some of the highest sources of AA, and they come direct from the non-plant foods.

This is a strange study. They chose a group of “lacto-vegetarians” from Pune, India, a city of three million people, and some americans from Kansas, New York, and Canada:

“A total of 311 human samples (blood, breastmilk, and placenta) were obtained from Kansas City, Rochester NY, and seven breast milk banks around the U.S. and Canada. Similarly, a total of 234 human blood samples were obtained from Pune City, India. All were used for genotyping. Only RBC (Red Blood Cells) samples from Kansas City were used for fatty acid profiling.”

“Over many generations in India, approximately 35% of the population follows the traditional lacto-vegetarian diet practice (Raheja, et al. 1993; Key, et al. 2006); our Indian cohort followed this trend with responses to dietary pattern questions indicating 38% vegetarian (unpublished), congruent with our dietary instruments applied to research participants in other studies that consistently show a vegetarian dietary pattern and generally low meat consumption in this region (Gadgil, et al. 2014).”

“Arachidonic acid is found at trace levels in plant foods but is present in animal foods, especially meat and fish.”

Low meat dairy eaters. So what does the other 65% follow traditionally? And if they are going to go off of generations in India, then they must use the generations from the Americans as well, which is impossible as they are all likely immigrants from only a century ago. The real question is, what was the diet of the 234 Indian people, those specific people tested, living in a modern city of three million in India? But that wouldn’t matter much anyway because as they conclude:

“The plant omega-6 linoleic acid – from which the arachidonic acid is derived – is normally at low levels in traditional whole food diets as well as in fruit oils such as olive oil and avocado oil, or in dairy fat. However, it is a factor of 10 or more higher in industrially produced oilseeds such as traditional sunflower, safflower, corn, soy and peanut oils. The increasing availability of high omega-6 seed oils in the developing world will be most pro-inflammatory and pro-clotting for those persons with the genetics of traditional vegetarians because their genotype will maintain higher omega-6 arachidonic acid in their blood and tissues.”

So yes, eating a natural, whole foods diet keeps LA and therefore AA low, and then the rise of seed oils changed this, just like everywhere else. Nothing new.

“The mutation occurred once or twice perhaps a million years ago, we don't really know when, and then evolution based on diet took over.”

With that statement, I’m not sure if the author knows that humans broke off only around 100k-250k years ago, which makes referring to a mutation “perhaps a million years ago” almost meaningless.
 
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Tarmander

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“The mutation occurred once or twice perhaps a million years ago, we don't really know when, and then evolution based on diet took over.”

With that statement, I’m not sure if the author knows that humans broke off only around 100k-250k years ago, which makes referring to a mutation “perhaps a million years ago” almost meaningless.

I think it's pretty obvious that the author must have sequenced homo erectus, identified the gene, and that's why she said this ;)
 

Peater Piper

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Too much arachidonic acid, and/or the conversion from linoleic acid can easily be avoided. If one is so concerned with arachidonic acid then they need not consume eggs, fish, meat and dairy, some of the highest sources of AA, and they come direct from the non-plant foods.
That was my thinking as well. The biggest sources of preformed arachidonic acid are animal products. Linoleic acid is a concern, but the conversion to arachidonic acid is considered to be low. In addition, overall PUFA consumption can be kept quite low on a vegetarian diet.
 
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haidut

haidut

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That was my thinking as well. The biggest sources of preformed arachidonic acid are animal products. Linoleic acid is a concern, but the conversion to arachidonic acid is considered to be low. In addition, overall PUFA consumption can be kept quite low on a vegetarian diet.

It is not only the arachidonic acid, the linoleic and linolenic acids are also a problem. All fats have hormonal-like effects and act like signals. The PUFA are a signal of stress and SFA are not. I think the point of the study was the effects of a "plant diet" not vegetarian one. I will change the title.
 

Xisca

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"The fat you eat is the fat you wear; your fat tissue is comprised of the type of fat you eat most."
Is our fat tissue not also comprised of the fat we make from extra sugar? And in this case, a vegetarian diet that is high in sugar and low in fat would work best. PUFA cannot be synthetised by our body, so our body must certainly store extra sugar as saturated fat?
 

skycop00

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Pretty difficult to make FAT from PROTEIN last I heard...so FAT makes fat and SUGAR makes fat right???
 
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