Deadly Saturated Fat?

[MikePollard]

Beats me why anyone would want to reduce their total cholesterol. Note I said total cholesterol. The fractions (HDL/small dense LDL) do matter.

Without going into the usual ins and outs consider this:

Human breast milk is about 54% saturated fat and after 12 or so hours after birth babies are fully adapted to burn ketones (as opposed to glucose). Funny that nature gives us such a shocking start in life!

Now, think about a Scottish man who went on a 382 day long fast (look it up). He started at 455lb and at the end of the fast weighed 180lb. He regained some weight (about 12lb) and maintained from there on.

His was a medically supervised fast and apart from a little yeast (?) and a vitamin/ mineral regime ate absolutely nothing for the entire year and seventeen days!

So logically the energy he needed to maintain his life came 100% from saturated fat from his adipose stores. In essence he ate nothing but saturated fat for 382 days, yet all his blood markers were stellar.

Funny that nature gave him a break!

My only question is how did he maintain his protein/muscle mass without ingestion?

I guess that his HGH (human growth hormone) levels were permanently high (on a fast they increase by 2000% after only 24 hours) therefore protecting muscle and bone mass, and maintenance was by the body's hugely efficient recycling system:

asknature.org/strategy/6eb3...

Still puzzled or scared?

[sandybrown]

Thank you. I have read it again to get a better understanding.

[MikePollard]

Absolutely, but leaving aside exercise (I doubt he did anything significant - my opinion) and 'most people' the fact remains that this guy ate nothing whatsoever for over a year yet remained healthy. Gluconeogenesis (glucose from protein) could not have been a factor, so he must have been in total ketosis for the whole time, and his brain must have been thriving entirely on ketones.

Isn't the body wonderful given a chance?

[Penel]

I did look it up. It's a fascinating read. Poor man was 32 stone when he started. I guess the yeast supplement was for the B12.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

[MikePollard]

Good comment!

[elliebelle]

Good one, Mike. Like your wry humour!

[sargrith]

My cholesterol has never been above 4.9 but it hasn't stopped my right carotid artery becoming 70-80% blocked. No, I've never been overweight; had a job that kept me on my feet for much of the day with certain amount of physical activity;played a lot of sport; always ate a healthy diet.Oh, have been on steroids for several years but each time I had an ultra scan over these years the blockage still increased. That's medical science for you.