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(Saturated fat is good for you not bad.)

Well, a lot of people knew this years ago but the Sydney Morning Herald has just discovered it this morning!

The Age: ‘He turned grey’: Mother of child who fell ill after drinking raw milk speaks out’

The Age: Calls to ban raw milk after death of Melbourne toddler

mamamia.com: Raw milk is dangerous

ABC News: Raw milk company Mountain View Farm defends product after 3yo’s death

Newcastle Herald:OPINION: Pasteurisation essential to make milk safe

Courier Mail: A toddler is dead because of our unhealthy obsession with “healthy” living… 

“In this latest tragedy, five children were struck down with serious illnesses after consuming the contaminated milk in Victoria, including a three-year-old who contracted fatal haemolytic uraemic syndrome…”

ACCC reports that raw milk is recalled

And so on.

It seems everyone is interested in this… Google trend shows a huge spike in the search for ‘raw milk’ in Dec 2014.

UPDATE #1: 2 weeks later Victorian Government bans raw milk sales…

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-01/raw-milk-law-start-in-victoria/5996014

I wrote here about a great Catalyst documentary by the ABC on Saturated fat and Cholesterol. Well, this week, 6 months later, it’s been pulled from the ABC website.

This press release explains why.

No, they haven’t just issued a correction. No, they haven’t just removed the one episode that supposedly ‘breached the ABC standards of impartiality.’

They have completely removed both episodes from the ABC website!

A documentary on saturated fat get’s everyone so stirred up that they remove the entire double episode. It’s 1984.

It just goes to show you need to be very careful if you want to play with the big boys. And the drug industry is a big boy.

Sorry for those who missed it – it was a great documentary.

On ABC radio yesterday they reported on an Australian study by  Lisa Wood that shows saturated fat can worsen asthma. The article is transcribed here: “Associate Professor Lisa Wood discusses a new finding that an unhealthy diet high in saturated fats and low fresh food can exacerbate asthma and make it more difficult to treat.”

This was a little surprising to me because it goes against all the recent research showing that saturated fats are highly beneficial to our health. So I did a little bit of research only to find that the article itself by Lisa Wood says the exact opposite  of what ABC radio has reported it as saying.

Lisa Wood in her article says that polyunsaturated fat is what makes asthma worse.  But by the time this makes it to an interview on ABC radio they are reporting that it is saturated fat that makes asthma worse! How does misinformation like this keep being propagated?

GONE VIRAL!

It gets worse. A google search on ‘fat worsens asthma’ shows this Australian study has gone viral. Everyone is quoting it around the world as fact…

The United Kingdom

“High saturated fat diets can render asthma inhalers ineffective.” (Daily Mail UK)

Australia

“Inflammatory foods include those high in saturated fat and refined sugar.” (SMH Australia)

“We have shown that a higher saturated fat intake causes airway inflammation.” (ABC Australia)

USA

“High-fat foods may trigger airway inflammation, study finds.” (LA Times)

And the list goes on. They are all spring-boarding off one another with this sensational news that saturated fat worsens asthma.

THE ORIGINAL RESEARCH SAYS THE OPPOSITE!

So I checked out the Author Lisa Wood’s research.  She has written a book called “Asthma and inflammation, Nutrition and Physical Activity in Inflammatory Diseases”

So what does she say in the section on saturated fat and asthma?

It’s actually an increase in polyunsaturated fat that has lead to an increase in asthma, not saturated fat. Read it for yourself…

On the other hand Omega 3 fatty acids (found in grass-fed beef and fish) actually reduce asthma.

So what about saturated fat and asthma?

Well according to the book it’s inconclusive – read the quote below.

The first study of 1166 adolescents quoted in the paragraph above was  a study of teenagers in Taiwan filling in a diary of the food they ate. So yes, you can probably guess where the saturated fat came from… I doubt these teenagers were eating grass fed beef or coconut oil, more likely junk food full of sugar and carbs as well as fat.

On the other hand, 6  studies show that saturated fat does not worsen asthma. And she states that Omega 3 fats found in butter and lard are good for asthma.

But what ends up getting reported all over the world? The opposite! And people continue on with the myth that all saturated fat is unhealthy.

There is always more to the story than meets the eye.

A diet containing good saturated fats such as olive oil, egg yolk, coconut oil and grass fed beef may be good for asthma, yet the media is in a frenzy spreading the exact opposite message.

– The Australian newspaper reports public outcry over the episode. “ABC Health expert Norman Swan suggested Catalyst had been conned by people with a clear bias on the issue and warned “people will die” if they believed the program instead of their doctor.”

– The AMA and Heart Foundation have condemned the ABC.

– Drug companies have been surveying doctors since the episode to see if people are stopping their cholesterol medication.

– Media Watch has condemned the reporting as unscientific. (There is now a great debate on the Media Watch sight about their reporting being as bad as Catalyst.)

People are calling for an apology and resignations from the ABC. I hope the ABC stick to their guns.

If we can’t debate saturated fat without extreme responses and emotive replies, what can we debate?

In Australia there’s an add on TV with the punchline “There’s nothing healthy about a tan.”

This add  is complete a lie by the Australian Government, there’s  plenty healthy about a tan.

I’m not sure how the government can run this add in a nation where 1/3 of adults are vitamin D deficient.  Anyway, how much sun is good for us? How much is really unhealthy? Read on… 

Vitamin D comes from the sun. But how much sun do you need?

According to this article, you need 10-15 minutes (full body) on a standard UV index of 7 day. If you start to go pink that’s too much. (That’s significantly less that the Australian Cancer council claims we need – see here. You’ll have to work out which one you trust. One has 30 footnotes, the other has 2.)

Full body = front and back on the body, arms & legs. Any longer and you start to burn. Once you’ve received your 10 minutes for the day, you need to wait 24 hours before you body replaces the oils on your skin to make more Vitamin D. So getting a lot of Sun on just your arms or face is bad. Getting a bit of sun all over your body is great!

Where I live in Dubbo that’s about 5 minutes sun-baking on each side (full body),  in the middle of summer (UV index 14) or  30 min in the middle of the day each side in winter. (Max UV index 3).

UV index is here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/uv/index.shtml

This is a very  good article on Vitamin D:
http://www.overcomingmultiplesclerosis.org/Recovery-Program/Sunlight-and-Vitamin-D/

“This study showed that the correlation between low ultraviolet radiation and MS was considerably stronger than that between high UV and melanoma.”

Vitamin D and coeliac:

http://www.celiac.com/articles/21476/1/Vitamin-D-Preserves-the-Intestinal-Mucosal-Barrier/Page1.html