American Heart Association Comes Clean…Sort Of.
AHA and Your Heart. A Case of Fox Watching the Hen House?
Normal people dream about winning the lottery. Or kissing movie stars.
My dreams tend to be geekier.
I dreamt about the American Heart Association the other night. Guess that’s why I write blogs about fish oil for a living.
Anyway, in my dream, the American Heart Association (AHA) came to their senses, snapped out of acting like politicians and leveled with the American people about diet and heart disease.
AHA Tells It Like It Is
In the dream, some faceless suit standing behind a podium said the following:
“The AHA is sorry. Really, really sorry for misleading you about heart health for nearly four decades.
Please pay attention now, because we’ll only say this once. This is deeply embarrassing and we’d rather get it over with to clear our conscience.
We’ve known for some time now, that some of our dietary guidelines were simply wrong. Millions of you followed our advice and gave yourself heart attacks.
We even published dangerous and misguided information as recently as 2009.
We know better now and we want to set the record straight.
Making a Monkey Out of You
I’m sure you read the New York Times piece where scientists fed a monkey a strict AHA-recommended diet and the monkey quickly gained weight and developed heart disease. Just like most of you.
Poor monkey! Poor you!
But it began long before the monkey.
We started sending you wrong messages way back in 1961, back when our board had some questionable members. And one of them had published ‘pioneering’ research that said heart disease was caused by saturated fat and cholesterol.
This person, Ancel Keys, actually ended up on the cover of Time magazine that year!
He became a celebrity! And you know how much we love celebrities! So we never questioned his research.
Turns out his research was semi-bogus. He connected dots that ought not to have been connected because, well, it told a nicer story.
After that, we’ve been telling our kids to dress up as eggs and bacon for Halloween.
Since 1961, we’ve also been telling people to:
- Eat low-fat foods
- Toss out lard and other saturated fats
- Start cooking with vegetable oils
- And finally, we told people to eat more grains.
We were wrong to tell people to eat low-fat foods.
We were wrong…really, REALLY wrong to tell people to start cooking with vegetable (seed) oils.
And, yeah, we were definitely wrong about eating mostly grains.
What a hat trick! Those three recommendations probably killed a lot of people you know, well before it was their time.
Cholesterol, the Innocent Villain
Turns out high levels of cholesterol cruising through your blood vessels isn’t bad. Matter of fact, it is actually healthy and important. It’s when this cholesterol gets oxidized that you need to worry.
Umm…the stuff that we told you to eat, like vegetable seed oils and your non-stop soda drinking causes cholesterol to get oxidized.
Yikes! What the heck were we thinking?!
Before we knew it, the USDA, the American Diabetes Association, the Dietetic Association and a zillion other official sounding associations were saying the same things about diet. The echo chamber was really working.
By the late 1980s, if you were a scientific organization and you had not completely rejected cholesterol, you were weird!
Back to that vegetable oil thing…vegetable oils like corn oil, soybean oil, and oils from sunflower, safflower etc. have a ton of Omega-6 in it.
Your body NEEDS a little bit of Omega-6. It’s important. So you’d think more Omega-6 would be better.
Omega-6: More Is Not Better
You’d think that more Omega-6 would reduce heart disease. Wrong! Turns out more Omega-6 equals more heart attacks. The increase in vegetable oil consumption has paralleled cardiac deaths.
Why? Well, because excess Omega-6 creates a chronic, low-grade state of inflammation in your body. And that can cause coronary artery disease, hypertension and heart failure. This is not new information. We’ve known about this for a long, long time.
This chart by the highly respected Dr. Bill Lands shows how Arachidonic Acid, a byproduct of Omega-6 from vegetable seed oils like corn oil and soybean oil, is very closely associated with heart disease.
Oops!
Ahem. You’d think we’d know when to shut up. But no.
In 2009, we issued a press release telling people to eat more Omega-6.
We understand that we lost our credibility with a lot of you scientists out there. Well, hope this acknowledgement makes things better.
The Lyon Diet: Message Lost!
You know that fat monkey? Well, ten year earlier, there was a study in France where they compared people who ate an AHA-recommended diet versus people who ate a low-Omega-6 Mediterranean style diet. Guess what? The Mediterranean diet caused a 70% DECREASE in all-cause death.
(PUFA =polyunsaturated fatty acid = mostly Omega-6)
The results of Lyon Diet Heart Study were so significant that the researchers stopped the study early and told the people eating the AHA diet that they ought to stop and switch to the Mediterranean diet.
That study was published in, well, ahem, in our own publication about 10 years before we told you to eat more Omega-6.
Oops!
In our defense, there have been recent studies that showed swapping out saturated fats for Omega-6-rich vegetable oils did not increase heart disease. Ahem, but what we didn’t tell people is that once your tissue percentage of Omega-6 is high, say 4%, then glopping on more doesn’t worsen your chances of kicking the bucket. Because you’re already half way there.
But, hey, I’m getting tired of beating up on myself and my colleagues.
Cut us some slack, will ya, at least we’ve been telling people to eat salmon and salads for a while. I’m sure that saved a few lives.
Oh, and a few parting disclaimers:
We promise to align ourselves with public health.
We promise to pay more attention to scientists like Lands, Hibbeln, Simopoulous and Sears.
We are not going to apologize for the absurd ‘less fat, more whole grain’ disaster that’s been foisted on you. We’ll apologize for that in the year 2035.
Because that’s how long it will take for people to figure out that low-fat-more-grains was a colossal disaster. Well, may be longer.”
Oh, and Jimmy Hoffa died of an Omega-6 overdose. He is buried at…
And then I woke up.
| DISCLAIMER: The contents of this blog do not constitute medical advice. This is merely an open discussion of the science behind health and nutrition. Please consult your physician for medical advice. |
About the Author: Vin Kutty is OmegaVia’s Scientific Advisor and Chief Blogger. He is a nutritionist, author, and Omega-3 expert with over 20 years of experience. Email him.
April 1st, 2012 at 12:32 pm
To: Mr.Vin Kutty:
Whereas you seem to be an excellent writer, who can cleverly intertwine selectively
your facts, your proprietary biases is blatantly obvious, and significantly detracts
from your arguments. Whole Foods is hardly the pillar of Ethical and Moral groceries,
and as only 2% of Krill harvested is processed into Krill oil, the “whole” story is simply
laughable. Why not direct your comments toward the environmental destruction of
natural lakes caused by the fish farming of tilapia (1), and the low omega 3/omega-6 ratio in farm raised tilapia. Why not also address all of the many nutritional evils of eating
more than 1 lbs of non-line caught fish/month (2).
But you lost all your nutritional credibility w/me when you pushed “statins” along with
the company you sold your soul to and it’s prescription and expensive fish oil Lovaza,
which furthermore most 3rd party payers will not for ! There is a ever cascading avalanch
of negative literature on statins, for which the AHA also has pushed, even in patients
who have normal cholesterol, but only elevated high sensitivity CRP’s. As a nutritionist
you should know that excellent studies demostrate that a gram of vitamin C / day will
dramatically lower patient’s CRP, which has a much higher correlation coefficient w/ pending heart disease than cholesterol levels. Furthermore, the deleterious side effects of statins
on exercise performance is unquestionable !! (3) . Shame on you for pushing statins !
With respect to fish verses krill oil, I might add that one of the most powerful and interesting
anti-oxidants is Astraxanthin, that which makes flamingo’s feathers pink, and yet another
reason, for meat color purposes, that the fish farm industry uses krill for feed. This anti-oxidant
is NOT found in fish oil. Finally, any discussion of DHA and EPA would not be complete
w/out a nutritionist being a strong advocate of the whole food Chia seeds, Salvia hispanics L. !!
In closing I’d also suggest that you explore a lot deeper the whole flax seed scam. Coffee grinders don’t fracture the seeds, and the human alimentary tract won’t even digest the majority of the broken seeds. This is to say nothing off the whole flax seeds found in all of the commercialized products in the “health food section” of your grocery, the Co-op, or your local Natural Health Food store you so dearly trust ! Of the small percentage of flax seed oil
which is absorbed, the following should be noted ; the omega-3 fatty acids in flax seeds
slow the formation of blood clots and increase bleeding times. Patients taking blood thinning medications like Coumadin or aspirin, or similar herbal remedies like gingko biloba and saw palmetto for prostratic hypertrophy, should not be adding flax seed to their diet. Women with health problems related to hormonal imbalance, such as endometriosis, should also be cautious about taking because flax seed oils can mimic the biological effects of estrogen. Something you never see on all the flax seed chips, frozen waffles, and whole grain breads is a warning regarding women who are pregnant or breastfeeding to not consume flax seeds in any form !
All flax oils are good for is furniture oil.
Sleep well my friend.
respectfully;
J.A.Winfield,MD.PhD.
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/science/earth/02tilapia.html?pagewanted=all
2. http://www.nutritionresearchcenter.org/healthnews/farm-raised-fish-not-so-safe/
3. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/do-statins-make-it-tough-to-exercise/
April 12th, 2012 at 7:23 am
Dr. Winfield,
Replying in parts, as I have a lot to say to your snarky comment.
Re: Whole Foods Market and Krill oil. I’ve been meaning to write a follow up to my original blog about this. It’s been a few years since Whole Foods banned krill from its aisles. In retrospect, I don’t think it was environmentally motivated, but rather wanting to appear environmentally-conscious. They’re no angels. They are a publicly listed corporation acting within the character of their brand. It’s their choice and that’s merely my current opinion of it. As of now, krill biomass DOES appear to be sustainable and at current harvest volumes, will not be at risk of over-harvesting for at least 5-10 years. No one can predict beyond that because global krill consumption has been almost doubling every year. I don’t think we disagree on the subject.
Tilapia farming can be highly destructive…but it’s too far from the scope of what this blog is about. Not that I’m uninterested in the topic…the low Omega-3/Omega-6 ratio is within the scope of the blog, so I might blog about it.
Re: pushing statins. I don’t like statins. Their risk-benefit profile is laughable. I think 90% of the people taking them do not need it. I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to get my 75 and 80 year old parents to stop taking them. I’ve read all the major clinical studies on statins and unless you’re a middle-aged male with existing heart disease, there is no significant benefit. Even then, the risk reduction is not great. And the risk reduction may be coming from its anti-inflammatory ‘benefits’ rather than the reduction of cholesterol. My stance on statins is clearly negative. See my three recent cholesterol-related blogs:
http://www.omegavia.com/fish-oil-red-yeast-rice/
http://www.omegavia.com/fish-oil-cholesterol/
http://www.omegavia.com/cholesterol-when-to-panic/
I once experimented with statins to see what stain-induced muscle myopathy felt like. Will never, ever do that again. After reading the three blogs above, I have no idea how you can come to the conclusion that I am pushing statins!
- Vin
April 12th, 2012 at 7:25 am
Part 2 of my reply to Dr. Winfield:
Re: selling my soul. It’s mine to sell. Do with yours as you please.
Re: Lovaza. Great fish oil. High levels of Omega-3. Fair to good rancidity markers. Except it’s unnecessary to have a fish oil drug. There are quite a few supplements that are reliable alternative for it. Lovaza costs $200 per month and an increasing amount of insurers are no longer covering it. Still, doctors and patients who feel drugs are superior to supplements seem resigned to paying a 10X premium for it. It’s a money grab by big pharma. And the uninformed play along.
To safely reduce triglycerides, cut out sugar, soda, candy and refined grains. Simple.
- Vin
April 12th, 2012 at 7:27 am
Part 3 of my reply to Dr. Winfield:
Re: Astaxanthin. It’s a very good antioxidant. I take it occasionally. I buy mine here: http://www.vitacost.com/vitacost-natural-astaxanthin-featuring-hawaiian-bioastin Just $9 for 2 months. Taking krill oil just for astaxanthin is like buying a convertible to dry your hair.
Re: Chia. Tastes nice on salads. But being a seed, it’s too high in Omega-6. Linoleic (O-6) content is about 25% (of the fats.) That’s WAY too high for me. Roughly half of the fats are Omega-3, but it’s in the alpha-linolenic form, which barely converts to EPA and does not convert to DHA. I feel the same way about Flaxseeds. Seed and nut consumption is generally a bad idea due to their high Omega-6 content. I don’t eat Flax and neither does my family.
See this blog about Flaxseed vs Fish Oil.
Re: Omega-3 and bleeding time: See this blog from a while back.
Re: my trusting health food stores dearly. I do?
I agree with you on Cholesterol, krill, Whole Foods, Tilapia, Lovaza and Astaxanthin. Disagree on Chia, bleeding risk and health food stores.
- Vin
April 22nd, 2012 at 8:41 pm
Hi,
I have just discovered this site from Australia while researching Krill oil v fish oil.
I have found the information & discussions very helpful.
A special thank you to Omegavia for the link he/she gave.
Keep up the good work everyone. I will keep tuned
Elizabeth
April 23rd, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Thank you, Elizabeth!
- Vin