Eat Fat to Heal Inflammation:
Fat is not bad. Make better FAT choices for better health.
I have always been a big advocate of eating fat; some of my biggest arguments with people in my field are over the vital importance of fat in the diet.
What can fat do for you? Fat is important both in your diet and stored in your body.
1) Fat is energy: your body uses fat as a source of fuel when it runs low on carbohydrates.
Low-fat, low-protein diets inhibit the body from producing serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter produced in the brain and in the digestive tract. It is necessary to regulate your mood and contributing to a sense of well-being.?
2) Fat makes cholesterol.
Your brain needs cholesterol to function correctly.
3) Fat is needed for hormone production
Leptin, which reduces a person's appetite by acting on the brain to reduce their urge to eat. May also control how the body manages its store of body fat.
Fat made cholesterol is the precursor for hormones like testosterone, estrogen, progesterone and other essential hormones.
4) Fats help nutrient absorptions of vitamins A, D, E and K as well as antioxidents like carotoids.
cell growth
5) Fat insulates you.
Your adipose tissue insulates you from the cold and help you feel warm: if you feel cold all the time it may be that you are not eating enough fat in your diet. Brown and beige fat cells burn energy to help regulate body temperature.
6) Fat influences energy production,
Medium chain fatty acids (FAs) upregulate genes in the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation (mostly those dealing with energy metabolism in adipose tissue)
7) Medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) downgrades the immune system and reduces inflammation.
MCFAs downregulate genes related to the complement system (part of the immune system) and inflammation
long-chain fatty acids may influence hypothalamic neurons, which regulate food intake, energy expenditure, and thus control body mass stability. (Araujo et al. 2016)
Please check out https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35334794/ (Grosso et al. 2022).
8) Branched chain fatty acids reduce inflammation
BCFAs inhibit inflammation. They may suppress lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced gene expression of pro-inflammatory transcription pathways (NF-kB and TLR-4) (Yan et al. 2018). Pro-inflammatory transcription pathways activate transcription factors such as NF-kB and TLR-4 that code for inflammation.
9) Nuts, seed and oils reduce inflammation.
Your body cannot make some omega-6 fatty acids such as linoleic acid (18:2 n–6). Linoleic acid is common in nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils. Higher levels of linoleic acid in the blood decreased inflammatory markers.
In 2,133 people (women and men, mean age 50 years), higher serum linoleic acid levels lowered inflammatory markers hs-CRP, glycoprotein acetyls, and sICAM-1 concentrations. SAA and sVCAM-1 were not affected (Maki et al. 2026).
Fat protects organs.
Fats are necessary for brain health. Our brains are made of fat - so being called a fat head is actually a compliment! Good fats, like DHA, promote brain growth. Supplementing with omega-3 fats may help manage mental health issues.
Higher plasma blood levels of long chain SFAs (VLSFAs) is associated with less decline in verbal fluency as people age (Li et al. 2020). These fats are found in peanut, peanut butter, canola oil, sunflower oil, and macadamia nuts. VLSFAs can also be made in the body using other SFA commonly stearic acid (C18:0).
VLSFAs circulating in the blood are associated with lower risk of heart failure, dying from all causes, coronary heart disease, T2D and aging healthily (Lemaitre et al. 2018, Lemaitre and King 2022).
Omega-3 FA
see Rey et al. 2019
Zivkovic et al. 2011
Dighriri
There are main types of omega-3 FAs: alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA),
Saturated fats are not all the same
General guidelines for healthy fats in diet (based on current scientific knowledge):
Fats should make up 25-40% of the calories in your diet.
People with metabolic syndrome or any of its risk factors such as T2D should consume more fats and/protein and a moderate carbohydrate diet (25-35% carbohydrate) (Feinman et al. 2015, Vadiveloo et al. 2015, Liu et al. 2017, Hyde et al. 2019).
Why? Because consuming over 1/3 of your calories as carbohydrates promotes inflammation in people with metabolic disorders. You need to have 2/3 of your calories as tasty fats and proteins. This is very individual; some people are extremely sensitive to carbohydrates and some are not. As a general rule, if you have any of the signs for metabolic syndrome, such as central obesity, fatty liver, high triglycerides, abnormal cholesterol, hypertension, OR any signs of meta-inflammation; you should keep your carbohydrate levels to 35% or less.
If you do not have metabolic disorders or problems with whole body inflammation you can consume up to 45% of your calories as carbohydrates. Note: don't panic, I didn't say you have to consume no carbohdrates.
Eat whole food sources of fat; avoid fat in overly processed foods (Martínez Steele et al. 2017). The fat in salmon, avocadoes and whole dairy is good for you. The fat in a deep fried twinkie wrapped in beer batter and dipped in hot vegetable oil to crisp up is not healthy.
Fat quality matters:
Choose high quality fats found in whole foods such as olives, whole fat dairy, avocado, grass-fed beef, nuts, dark chocolate, egg yolks and seeds (Astrup et al. 2020). Eating more nuts decreases your chance of MetS and obesity; both are inversely correlated with nut consumption (Julibert et al. 2020).
Use cold pressed and/or virgin oils which retain more antioxidants than refined oils. This prevents lipid oxidation and contamination; see Grajzer et al. 2020 for a good discussion about this process. Cold pressed oils should be stored in the refrigerator and used quickly.
Avoid low quality refined fats. These are found in overly processed, bleached and deodorized oils as well as repeatedly heated oils such as those used in deep fat fried foods [291, 292].
Do not consume foods with industrially made trans fatty acids (TFAs). These are man made trans fats. One study reported a dose-response increase in cardiovascular disease (CVD) with TFA consumption. That meant the more TFAs a person ate, the more likely they were to have heart diease. Industrial TFAs confer a 30% increase in the risk of CHD events and an 18% increase in the risk of CHD mortality (Zhu et al. 2019).
Choose the best fatty foods:
Add more MUFAs to your diet. MUFAs are found in olive oil, tree nuts, avocados, olives, red meat and peanuts.
Use full fat dairy which improves cardiometabolic health [94].
Choose some foods that contain medium chain SFAs. These include coconut, vegetable oils, dark chocolate and whole fat dairy products [282].
Do not be afraid of SFAs. High quality SFAs are fine if not over eaten. There are many health benefits from short and medium chain SFAs. SFA foods include meats, animal fats, avocado, full fat dairy products, and dark chocolate [82, 83, 94].
Your body cannot make PUFAs:
Add both omega-6 and omega-3 FAs foods to the diet.
To balance the omage-3 omega-6 ratio, try to consume more foods rich in omega-3 FAs and reduce foods high in omega-6 FAs; especially oils. Adding 3-4 grams of omega-3 FAs to the diet will lower TG and blood pressure [280].
Red meat is fine [309]. Choose organic and/or grass-fed beef if possible. Organic beef is 47% higher in omega-3 FAs than conventional beef. This is probably due to the fact that organic cattle are more likely to be pasture raised. Omega-3 FAs are higher in meats from grass fed ruminants; ground beef from grass fed steers contains 676 α-linolenic acid/100 g total fatty acids compared to 207 mg α-linolenic acid/100 g total fatty acids in ground beef from grain-fed steers [310].
Your body can make SCFAs.
Make your own fatty acids by adding fiber rich foods to the diet [311, 312].
Foods that are rich in fiber; such as bananas, raspberries, carrots, peas, tomatoes and onions; contribute to SCFAs which are metabolically healthy. [60, 61, 59].
Butter, cheese and goat’s milk also contains SCFAs [53].
Take ethnicity, genetics and epigenetics of your clients into account.
People with a family history of metabolic disorders are more likely to have problems from over consumption of fats and sugars.
Genetic and epigenetic changes are involved in T2D (Kwak and Park 2016). Epigenetics can be influenced by environmental factors such as dietary fats (Gonz?lez-Becerra et al. 2019).
No diet is perfect for everyone.
Add fiber to your fat
Fiber plus fat promotes "drove an increase in gut microbiota diversity, SCFAs, and energy expenditure.�" see mouse study Wang et al. 2020 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7589760/
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