PUFA free diet causes severe atherosclerosis?

Gadsie

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I’m very determined to avoid PUFA, and while I’m not at 0g, I think I’m usually at around 2 grams/day.

This study came as quite a shock to me:


“Group A was fed a semisynthetic diet containing 5% cholesterol and 16% hydrogenated coconut oil (HCO). Another eight dogs were fed diet B which differed from diet A only in that one-quarter of the HCO was replaced by safflower oil. Group C ate a controlled diet of meat and kibble. Diet A contained no essential fatty acids while diets B and C contained sufficient amounts of linoleic acid to satisfy established nutritional requirements. Severe aortic, coronary, and cerebral atherosclerosis was present at autopsy in group A dogs but no lesions were observed in any of the dogs fed diets B and C”

Any thoughts?
 

Jam

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Doesn't specify if the coconut oil is fully or partially hydrogenated. Partially hydrogenated coconut oil contains trans fat, and given the high (16%) amount of it in diet A, if it is actually partially, and not not fully hydrogenated, those results are to be expected.
 
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Gadsie

Gadsie

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Doesn't specify if the coconut oil is fully or partially hydrogenated. Partially hydrogenated coconut oil contains trans fat, and given the high (16%) amount of it in diet A, if it is actually partially, and not not fully hydrogenated, those results are to be expected.
hydrogenated coconut oil is very unlikely to contain much trans-fat, since it is already very saturated to begin with
 

Jam

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hydrogenated coconut oil is very unlikely to contain much trans-fat, since it is already very saturated to begin with
Sure, but 16% of the diet...
 

Eberhardt

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I am also curious to what Peat says and maybe the transfat is relevant. But there is very little info on what the dogs were actually fed and how was their diet and artherial health before this. Not saying these questions automatically invalidate the study but it also makes it jars to evaluate it. I think the exact diet would be relevant as some weird effects can be observed if the context is weird enough. One red flag is that since dogs in general/naturally (or wolves) eats not a lot of safflower oil and dont die from arthereosclerosis, it might be that aomething else is of. I am reminded of the research on dieatery cholesterol "proving" its causing arthereosclerosis by giving it in high dosis to rabbits which are an exception biologically as being unable to handle cholesterol as they are absolute vegans(most herbivors are not).

Maybe also its just that coconutoil doesnt agree with dogs?? Its definately not a natural part of their diet.
 

bk_

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The abstract said the diet was semi-synthetic. If the 5% added cholesterol was synthetic or oxidized that would explain a lot. Fred Kummerow did numerous experiments on oxidized and stable cholesterol. In particular, he found that it was oxidized cholesterol in the diet (from powdered eggs or other processed foods) that formed atherosclerosis. See his 2013 paper.

I doubt wolves in the wild eating raw high cholesterol flesh have these issues.
 

JKX

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Difficult to draw any conclusions from the abstract alone. The full study would be needed.

The Cholesterol ester cholesteryl oleate does appear to be correlative with primate atherosclerosis from several studies after a quick search.

We just don't know what form of cholesterol was fed to the dogs. Given that Sigma Aldridge supply cholesteryl oleate in power form I wouldn't put it past the study authors to have fed those poor dogs with this crap directly. However that may just be my prejudiced view point coming through...
 

haidut

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I’m very determined to avoid PUFA, and while I’m not at 0g, I think I’m usually at around 2 grams/day.

This study came as quite a shock to me:


“Group A was fed a semisynthetic diet containing 5% cholesterol and 16% hydrogenated coconut oil (HCO). Another eight dogs were fed diet B which differed from diet A only in that one-quarter of the HCO was replaced by safflower oil. Group C ate a controlled diet of meat and kibble. Diet A contained no essential fatty acids while diets B and C contained sufficient amounts of linoleic acid to satisfy established nutritional requirements. Severe aortic, coronary, and cerebral atherosclerosis was present at autopsy in group A dogs but no lesions were observed in any of the dogs fed diets B and C”

Any thoughts?

The title of the thread is misleading. The study did not just do a "PUFA free diet". It also had 5% cholesterol in the diet, which is an absolutely massive amount and when consumed in such amounts can raise the levels of oxidized cholesterol, and the latter is known to cause CVD. Assuming slightly higher metabolic rate of dogs compared to humans, the 5% in their diet corresponds to human intake of 10g+ cholesterol daily! For comparison, the average daily intake for most people rarely exceeds 400mg daily for males and 300mg daily for females. So, the title of the thread should at the very least be changed to "Coconut oil exacerbates the atherogenic effects of extremely high dietary cholesterol intake". That being said, it would be interesting to hear what Peat thinks about the higher amount of lesions/plaques in the coconut oil group.
FWIW, human studies have found that replacing PUFA with saturated fats has beneficial effects on heart health, and, conversely, replacing SFA with PUFA increased CVD.
 
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Gadsie

Gadsie

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Ray Peat:

Their definiition of EFA deficiency as a ratio of polyunsaturated fatty acids doesn’t make sense; 5% cholesterol in the diet is ridiculously high, and at least in some species would suppress thyroid funtion, leading to atherosclerosis. It’s a propaganda piece.
 

yerrag

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Nice one.

Once again, the decepticons.
 
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Gadsie

Gadsie

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I asked him what to make of the fact that despite the cholesterol, the PUFA diet group had less atherosclerosis. His response:

I would question whether their analysis of the blood vessels was meaningful; they didn’t understand the physiology of cholesterol esters. Most “science” publications are wrong.

I’m not entirely convinced. The study could be wrong, but I find it a bit easy to just dismiss the results under the assumption that “something must have gone wrong”.
 

Daft

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What leads you to believe hydrogenated saturated fats doesn't become trans fat? Isn't hydrogenated palm oil the most commonly used trans fats in products?

Also for everyone else: Does oxidized cholesterol not easily form when you cook things with high heat, such as fried eggs or a steak? I would be surprised then that dietary cholesterol is said to not cause atherosclerosis (in it's recent update a few years ago in the official U.S. dietary guidelines).
 

Dr. B

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I asked him what to make of the fact that despite the cholesterol, the PUFA diet group had less atherosclerosis. His response:

I would question whether their analysis of the blood vessels was meaningful; they didn’t understand the physiology of cholesterol esters. Most “science” publications are wrong.

I’m not entirely convinced. The study could be wrong, but I find it a bit easy to just dismiss the results under the assumption that “something must have gone wrong”.
PUFA lowers cholesterol through a negative mechanism. I forgot what Ray said. cholesterol is used up by the body to protect from it or something.

The abstract said the diet was semi-synthetic. If the 5% added cholesterol was synthetic or oxidized that would explain a lot. Fred Kummerow did numerous experiments on oxidized and stable cholesterol. In particular, he found that it was oxidized cholesterol in the diet (from powdered eggs or other processed foods) that formed atherosclerosis. See his 2013 paper.

I doubt wolves in the wild eating raw high cholesterol flesh have these issues.

that's unfortunate, so dried milk powder, especially dried whole milk powder, or whey protein powder would have the same issue? wouldn't pasteurized milk, cooked eggs, cooked meats contain oxidized cholesterol too? especially since eggs and meat are cooked well done, pasteurization has strict requirements for the heat amount and duration etc.
if liver is freeze dried vs cooked in a pan or oven which form would have more oxidized cholesterol?
 

yerrag

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Difficult to draw any conclusions from the abstract alone. The full study would be needed.

The Cholesterol ester cholesteryl oleate does appear to be correlative with primate atherosclerosis from several studies after a quick search.

We just don't know what form of cholesterol was fed to the dogs. Given that Sigma Aldridge supply cholesteryl oleate in power form I wouldn't put it past the study authors to have fed those poor dogs with this crap directly. However that may just be my prejudiced view point coming through...
Really.

Did the dogs die by injecting them with a mercy killing drug and them subjecting the dogs to blast freezing and then examining them?

Would the SFA dogs' intima then seem to have more plaque simply because the higher proportion of SFA in the plasma lipids make a thicker frozen layer of lipids lining the intima?

This reminds me of when the example of coconut oil in a glass jar would be compared to soya oil in a similar jar in a refrigerator. The former would be frozen and the latter would still be liquid. This would be used to convince us that coconut oil would clog our arteries.

The propaganda is effective.

Most don't get to think past that we're warm blooded, and that our body temps don't reach refrigerator temps unless we're dead and in a morgue.

And did the abstract ever care to tell us if the SFA dogs or Group A dogs ever lived much much longer than the SFA+PUFA or Group B dogs? Not asking about the Group C dogs because not enough data is there to use it for comparison.

It is a very flawed study and one can't even access the study at all. All I have left is to resort to my imagination.
 
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Ritchie

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This study could be used as part of an argument to supplement some PUFA alongside a diet containing SFAs.
One possibility is that SFAs and PUFAs work synergistically in vivo.
 

Dr. B

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This study could be used as part of an argument to supplement some PUFA alongside a diet containing SFAs.
One possibility is that SFAs and PUFAs work synergistically in vivo.
so a coconut oil, whole milk, beef fat diet, with a fish oil supplement?
 

JKX

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Really.

Did the dogs die by injecting them with a mercy killing drug and them subjecting the dogs to blast freezing and then examining them?
Yes. Really. Without knowing the exact breakdown of a study how can anyone possibly expect to fully discern the conditions within which it was carried out based on an abstract alone?

Perhaps. They were fed a semi-synthetic diet. As the abstract does not define what this was, how can anyone possibly know? Including you.

Would the SFA dogs' intima then seem to have more plaque simply because the higher proportion of SFA in the plasma lipids make a thicker frozen layer of lipids lining the intima?
Cholepopsicles.

This reminds me of when the example of coconut oil in a glass jar would be compared to soya oil in a similar jar in a refrigerator. The former would be frozen and the latter would still be liquid. This would be used to convince us that coconut oil would clog our arteries.

The propaganda is effective.
Not really effective at all though is it.

And did the abstract ever care to tell us if the SFA dogs or Group A dogs ever lived much much longer than the SFA+PUFA or Group B dogs? Not asking about the Group C dogs because not enough data is there to use it for comparison.
No. Because it's an abstract. The exact point I made.

It is a very flawed study and one can't even access the study at all. All I have left is to resort to my imagination.
I dont believe I said otherwise. Thank goodness for your imagination. Without it you wouldnt be able to pick out innocuous forum posts and attempt to turn them into some sort of manufactured argument. Were you tiggered by the dog related study? Being a cat person and all.
 

Ritchie

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so a coconut oil, whole milk, beef fat diet, with a fish oil supplement?
Thinking about the study constructively and taking it for what it’s worth - the indication is that some PUFA alongside SFA like coconut oil is protective relative to SFAs on their own. It’s only one piece to form part of an argument but it’s still a piece.

So looking at it that way.. maybe some nuts like walnuts and almonds, or some fatty fish. Raw as well, can’t imagine cooking PUFA at high temps could ever be good… Same for cholesterol in general, definitely don’t want to be eating a lot of cooked/oxidised cholesterol.
 
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