Eat Fat, Get Thin_Why the Fat We Eat Is the Key to Sustained Weight Loss and Vibrant Health

by Mark Hyman

  Soybean oil, our most abundantly consumed oil, is high in omega-6 fatty acids. Ninety-four percent of US soybean crops are genetically modified. A recent survey showed that most Americans use Wesson vegetable oil, which is now made from GMO soybeans.

  Genetically engineered soybeans are called Roundup Ready soybeans because they are “ready” to not be harmed by the herbicide called glyphosate (Roundup) used to selectively kill the weeds. There are many adverse health effects, including increased infertility rates with each passing generation.16 New research shows that the GMO Roundup Ready soybeans, made by Monsanto, produce formaldehyde (which is toxic) and deplete glutathione (a powerful natural antioxidant).17 The genes in these soybeans that produce these effects can be transferred into the bacteria in your gut. This means that long after we stop eating genetically modified foods, we may still have their genetically modified proteins produced continuously inside us. Do you really want to experiment with your health and your children’s health?

  An Austrian government study published in November 2008 showed that the more genetically modified corn fed to mice, the fewer babies they had, and the smaller the babies were.18 Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine accidentally discovered that rats raised on GMO corncob bedding “neither breed nor exhibit reproductive behavior.”19

  While the data is still coming in about the health effects of GMO foods, and there may be some benefits to these modified plants from an agricultural perspective (including a means to feed our ever-increasing human population), there are still some real concerns. At the very least, we need to be informed so we can make personal choices about what we eat and what we don’t.

  Research published in 2015 in Lancet Oncology and based on a review of the literature by seventeen independent experts from eleven countries found that Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup has been linked to cancer.20 The World Health Organization released a statement that glyphosate (Roundup) is a “probable carcinogen” in humans.21

  We need labeling and transparency in this country—something that is required in sixty-four countries, including the European Union (where GMOs are banned), Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia, and even China.22 In Argentina, 30,000 doctors and health professionals represented by the Federation of Health Professionals of Argentina have called for an outright ban on glyphosate (Roundup) because “glyphosate not only causes cancer. It is also associated with increased spontaneous abortions, birth defects, skin diseases, and respiratory and neurological disease.”23

  Monsanto, the company that brought us some of the most of the most toxic products over the last fifty years, including Agent Orange, PCBs and dioxin, DDT, saccharin, and aspartame, came out swinging against the World Health Organization and demanded they retract their position statement that Monsanto’s glyphosate “probably” causes cancer.24 It’s time to let Americans decide what they want to eat and provide clear labeling of GMO foods. The GMO soybeans are a problem for two reasons. They are the number one source of omega-6 oils in our diet and they contain harmful residues of glyphosate.

  7

  Meat—Doesn’t It Cause Heart Disease and Type 2 Diabetes?

  Fat is a controversial subject, but meat is an emotional one. It is hard to separate the scientific facts about the health effects of meat from the ethical concerns and environmental impact. What’s the truth: Is meat good or bad? Will it cause heart disease, obesity, and cancer and lead to a shorter life, or is it the key to health and longevity? The Plains Indians lived on buffalo and had the highest number of centenarians per capita, while the Seventh-day Adventists are vegetarians and are among the longest-lived people on the planet. What gives? Meat or veggies? Maybe we’re asking the wrong question.

  The answer seems to be that it is not the meat or veggies, but the sugar and refined carbs that are part of the typical meat eater’s diet and our highly processed inflammatory diet that we should be concerned with.

  There are so many questions about meat. Some are concerned about the saturated fat and cholesterol in meat, others about its potential to cause inflammation. Yet others worry about a possible link to changes in gut bacteria that produce a compound linked to heart disease called TMAO. Some stay away because of carcinogens such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or heterocyclic amines, formed when you grill or cook meat at high temperatures, or advanced glycation end products, which are formed when proteins and sugars combine in cooking to form that crispy outside. It’s enough to make you swear off steak forever.

  The topic of meat is complex for sure (and could take up a whole book). I will put on hold for a moment the very real ethical considerations that motivate some to become vegans, and the serious environmental impact of factory farming of animals. We will get to these issues shortly. First, I want to tackle the question of animal protein in general—and red meat in particular—as it relates to health.

  THE PROBLEM WITH RESEARCH ON MEAT

  Even after reviewing most of the research on meat and health, it’s going to be hard to give a definitive answer on whether meat is good or bad. Why? Simply because, as we’ve discussed, good research on diet is very hard to do. And no one has done any really good studies on meat. The right type of studies (direct experiments comparing different diets, where all food is provided and all variables controlled, not association studies) would cost billions of dollars, take decades, and be almost impossible to conduct. We have to make do with the limited data we have—associations, not causes.

  Let’s look at the seemingly impressive National Institutes of Health–AARP Diet and Health Study of more than 500,000 men and women from fifty to seventy-one years old followed for 10 years. Researchers assessed their diet through a food frequency questionnaire. Do you really remember what you ate over the last year? How about even last week? That’s the first problem with the study. Food recall is not the best way to assess intake (though it is pretty much all researchers have to work with, which is why they use it).

  Then there is the problem of the population they were studying. They didn’t study the Plains Indians living on buffalo, berries, roots, and nuts. They studied an average American population that ate a highly processed, high-sugar diet with very little fruits and vegetables, a population that smoked too much and exercised too little and drank too much alcohol. Those who ate less meat were healthier, yes—but why? It may be because of something called the healthy user effect.1 That’s when people who want to be healthy avoid the things that our culture says will make them sick (meat, processed food, sugar, smoking, etc.) and do the things that make them healthier (exercise, eat more fruits and veggies, sleep, etc.). It’s their overall lifestyle that makes them healthier, which makes it hard to attribute their good health specifically to less meat.

  Take the case of hormone replacement therapy for women. The women who cared about their health went to the doctor more often, ate better, exercised more, and didn’t smoke. They were the healthy users of the hormone replacement. When their doctor told them to take hormones to prevent heart disease, they took the hormones. They wanted to do everything they could to get and stay healthy. This was why population studies showed a connection between hormones and health—it was the healthy user effect at work.

  Then along came the Women’s Health Initiative, which found, in fact, that the women who took the hormones had more heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. Overnight we did a scientific about-face. Experiments that prove cause and effect trump studies that find only associations (which could be explained by other factors). Studies that can’t prove cause and effect are plagued by what are called “confounders,” variables that confound or confuse the question.

  The National Institutes of Health–AARP Diet and Health Study did find a correlation of meat, heart disease, cancer, and death. But they also found that the meat eaters, on the whole, were a very unhealthy bunch. These people smoked more, weighed more, consumed on average 800 more calories a day, exercised less, ate more sugar, drank more alcohol, ate fewer fruits and vegetables (and thus less fiber
), and took fewer vitamin supplements. Are you really surprised they had higher rates of heart disease, cancer, and death? Sadly the only headline the media grabs is “Meat Kills.”

  The question is not, Do people who eat industrially produced meat, lots of refined sugar and carbs, and very little fruits or veggies, and who smoke, are overweight, don’t exercise, drink too much alcohol, and don’t take vitamins have more heart disease? The real question is whether grass-fed meat eaters who eat lots of healthy food, don’t smoke, exercise, and take vitamins have more heart disease.

  Thankfully, some researchers have asked this question. Scientists studied 11,000 omnivores (57 percent) and vegetarians (43 percent) who were health conscious; in other words, meat eaters and vegetarians who shopped at health food stores.2 This is a more conclusive study because other than their meat intake, the two groups were similar in their overall lifestyle and health habits. The researchers found that the overall rates of death were cut in half for both health-conscious meat eaters and vegetarians when compared to the average person eating a Western processed-food diet. No benefit was found for vegetarians or harm for meat eaters in terms of risk of heart disease, cancer, or death. Most studies on meat eaters vs. vegetarians do not compare “healthy” meat eaters who eat only grass-fed meat without hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides; who eat no processed food; who enjoy lots of fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds; who eat a diet that is very low in sugar and refined carbs and high in fiber; and who exercise, don’t smoke, and take vitamin supplements to vegetarians who shared the same health habits (with the exception of eating meat). As was found in the study just cited, I suspect there would be very few differences between these groups.

  In most studies, the meat consumed is industrially raised from confined animal feeding operations. Industrial grain-fed meat is full of hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides and has more inflammatory omega-6 fats (from corn feed) and fewer anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats than grass-fed meat. So it’s very hard to get an accurate reading on meat’s effects on the body.

  There is stronger data on processed meats such as bacon, hot dogs, bologna, and luncheon meats, showing them to be harmful. The EPIC study of nearly 500,000 people found no association between unprocessed fresh meat and heart disease or cancer, but it did show a link between processed meat and cancer and heart disease.3

  As I said, I could fill an entire book with the subject of meat. But for now, let’s just zero in on the most common—and toughest—questions people have about meat.

  DO SATURATED FAT AND CHOLESTEROL IN MEAT CAUSE HEART DISEASE?

  We have covered the debate about saturated fat and cholesterol already. The bottom line is that everyone, including the American Heart Association and our government’s Dietary Guidelines Committee, have debunked any connection between dietary cholesterol and heart disease. Saturated fat is still under debate. Part of the confusion is that elevated saturated fat levels in our blood do in fact cause heart disease. But—and pay close attention, because here’s the key point—the types of saturated fats in the blood that cause heart disease, stearic and palmitic, don’t come from eating meat. They are produced in your liver when you eat sugar and carbs. I know I’m probably beginning to sound like a broken record, but for the vast majority of questions out there about whether fat is harmful, the “uh-oh” needle repeatedly points instead to sugar and carbs.

  There is no consistent evidence that saturated fat in our diet from meat raises our blood cholesterol.4 In fact, there is plenty of evidence that eating meat actually improves our cholesterol profile when consumed in the absence of sugar and refined carbs. How? By raising the good cholesterol and boosting protective, or large, LDL particles.

  In randomized controlled studies on what some call the Paleolithic diet—a diet more like that of our caveman ancestors, of good-quality fresh meat, eggs, lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, but no grains, dairy, beans, or processed food—heart disease and diabetes risk factors and blood tests got better, not worse.5

  In one amazing experiment, a researcher sent ten Australian aborigines with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar back into the bush to hunt kangaroo and alligator and gather roots, nuts, and berries. In seven weeks, all their numbers normalized, enabling them to come off their medications, and they lost significant amounts of weight.6

  In study after study,7 feeding obese, diabetic, or heart disease patients a diet higher in fat and high-quality animal protein resulted in better outcomes for everything, including weight, body fat, waist circumference, muscle mass, metabolism, blood pressure, triglycerides, HDL, and LDL. People on diets such as these found them much more satisfying and were less hungry than when on high-carb, low-fat, low-meat diets, even when the number of calories was exactly the same.8 These effects are profound.

  DOES RED MEAT CAUSE HEART ATTACKS BY PROMOTING BAD GUT BACTERIA?

  In science we often try to pick apart one thing and blame it for the problem. However, in medicine and health there are many variables that may explain the observations we make.

  In a recent elegant study published in the journal Nature Medicine,9 researchers from the Cleveland Clinic linked red meat to a chemical called TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), which has been associated with heart disease. These researchers wondered whether it was something in meat besides saturated fat and cholesterol that seemed to link it to heart disease. They measured levels of TMAO in meat eaters and vegans, and it was higher in meat eaters. They fed meat eaters a steak and found that their TMAO levels went up. The researchers then managed to convince an individual vegan to eat a steak and found the TMAO did not go up. Then they gave the meat eaters antibiotics and found their TMAO levels did not go up after eating meat.

  To follow this up, they gave a group of long-term vegans and vegetarians carnitine (a compound derived from dietary amino acids in protein that is important in fat and energy metabolism) and found that this group “had markedly reduced capacity to synthesize TMAO from oral carnitine.” Vegans seem to have healthy gut bacteria, and meat eaters do not. And the antibiotics can kill the bad bugs that make the TMAO in meat eaters. So is the solution to cut out meat or live on antibiotics? Probably neither.

  Interestingly, in a subsequent study with mice, some of the same researchers found that mice with gut bacteria that protected against atherosclerosis (the plaques that cause heart disease) didn’t show any plaque in the arteries on the high-choline diet even though the choline caused super elevated levels of TMAO.10 Together these findings indicate that we should be cautious about jumping to conclusions about TMAO. We have already learned this lesson from our belief that saturated fat causes heart disease. In fact, since we have replaced saturated fat in our diets with refined carbohydrates, the rates of heart disease have gone up.11 What these studies do seem to provide strong evidence for is the importance of gut bacteria in heart health.

  Let’s look at how this theory about meat and gut bacteria and TMAO holds up and what we should do about the findings: First, if red meat increased the risk of heart disease, then we should have better epidemiological evidence—but we don’t, as we have just reviewed. Yes, if you are a smoking, drinking, non-exercising, potato-eating, soda-consuming meat eater, the evidence is there, but otherwise not so much. If red meat were really the problem, we should have seen it in the research. Yet in a study of over 1.2 million people, no link was found between red meat and heart disease, stroke, or diabetes.12 Some studies show a link,13 but as we learned earlier, there are a lot of confounders. Also, if eating meat caused more heart disease, we should see lower risks in vegetarians and vegans. We do see this a little, but it is likely because they are more health conscious in general. Remember the healthy user effect. In meat eaters who shop at health food stores, there is no difference in heart disease or death rates between them and vegans and vegetarians. Eating meat in the context of an overall healthy diet does not increase the risk of heart attacks or death as shown in a study of more than 65,000 health-conscious
meat eaters and vegetarians.14

  When the effects of increasing meat intake was studied in Asian countries—using a sample of almost 300,000 people who generally have healthier diets heavy in fish and vegetables and light in processed sugary foods—they found red meat was actually associated with a lower risk of heart disease in men and cancer in women.15

  A key insight from this study is that your gut bacteria matter and can produce compounds that cause heart disease and, more importantly, that what you eat influences your gut bacteria. If a vegan who eats a steak is safe, then how do we all get this protective gut bacteria? The answer is simple: Eat mostly plant foods, then the meat won’t be a problem. Don’t be a meat eater who drinks too much alcohol, smokes, doesn’t eat veggies, and has very little fiber and more refined oils, sugar, and refined carbs. Those behaviors are a perfect prescription for growing a very toxic inner garden.16 The problem isn’t the red meat. It is the gut bacteria. Eating the right fibers (like resistant starch), taking probiotics, and avoiding antibiotics are part of a good plan to cultivate your inner garden.

  And there’s another sticky issue. The level of TMAO in meat is far less than that in fish.17 So we should see big increases in heart disease in fish eaters. In fact it is just the opposite. Fish eaters have the lowest risk of heart disease.18 The data around TMAO is interesting yes, but doesn’t prove that meat causes heart attacks, only that the average American meat eater has a crappy diet and lifestyle that leads to a very bad gut environment. And we know that a bad gut is connected to bad health.

  The right way to design a research study would be to test two groups, the first being health-conscious meat eaters who have an overall healthy diet and lifestyle and perhaps even take probiotics, the second being healthy whole food vegans. My guess is there wouldn’t be much difference in each group’s risk of heart disease.