I’ve already blogged on the vagaries of oil. You’ll remember back in October of 2011 I
made some salient points about the research on oil:
- The
Lyon Heart Study turned olive oil into a health food when they found that
the Mediterranean Diet, high in olive oil, helped people who had had at
least one previous heart attack reduce their chance of further cardiac
events by 50-70%. HOWEVER, what you
never heard was that a full 25% - one
out of every four people on the Mediterranean diet – still had another
heart event or died. (de Lorgeril,
et al. Mediterranean Diet, Traditional Risk Factors, and the Rate of
Cardiovascular Complications After Myocardial Infarction; Final Report of
the Lyon diet Heart Study.
Circulation, 1999 Feb 16;99(6):779-85.)
- Dr. Caldwell
Esselstyn, on the other hand, published his results of patients who had
had an average of three previous cardiac events before he put them on a
vegan diet with no added fat – including oil – and not one patient ever
had another cardiac event in twelve
years! (Esselstyn CB
Jr. Updating a 12-year experience with arrest and reversal therapy for
coronary heart disease (an overdue requiem for palliative cardiology). Am J Cardiology. 1999 Aug, 84(3):Pages 339-341)
- In
yet another study, students were assigned to a group who ate a fat free
breakfast of 900 calories versus a fatty breakfast of 900 calories. The arteries of the group that had no
fat in their breakfast bounced right back after being constricted for five
minutes; but the arteries of the group that had the fatty breakfast took
up to six hours to regain their ability to dilate and contract
normally. All oil is 100% fat. Even olive oil. (Vogel RA.
Brachial artery ultrasound: a
noninvasive tool in the assessment of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins. Clin Cardiol. 1999 Jun;22(6 Suppl):II34-9.)
- Researchers
at the University of Maryland found that eating bread dipped in olive oil
reduced the arteries’ ability to dilate by 31%. (Vogel
RA, Corretti MC, Plotnick GD. The postprandial effect of components
of the Meditterranean diet on endothelial function. J of Amer Col Card. 2000 Nov;36(5))
In addition to all this disconcerting research on oil’s
affects on your heart and blood vessels, there is new evidence that vegans may
be putting themselves at a health risk that meat and dairy eaters don’t face to
the same extent: Their omega 6 versus
omega 3 ratio is dangerously high.
Omega 6 fatty acids have the potential to increase blood
pressure, inflammation, platelet aggregation, thrombosis, vasospasm, allergic
reactions and cell proliferation; omega 3 fatty acids have the opposite affects.
We need both, but we don’t want to let
omega 6 acids get too high in our bodies compared to our omega 3s. A healthy omega 6:omega 3 ratio is approximately
4:1 - 6:1. However, now that the vegan
diet has become so popular and physicians are getting more data about vegan
health, they are finding that, while other measures like cholesterol, blood
pressure and glucose levels are astoundingly good, the omega 6:omega 3 ratio is
not: Many vegans’ ratio is shockingly
high – even as high as 120:1.
If the
vegan diet is so healthy, why are many vegans’ omega 6:omega 3 ratios so
bad? Because many types of oil are high
in omega 6 fatty acids, and most vegans eat diets high in oil.
Omega 6 and Omega 3 essential fatty acids compete for
enzymes involved in their conversion, so eating high amounts of omega-6 fatty
acids can compromise the omega 3’s ability to work, and this can harm your
health and cause disease. If you use
huge amounts of oily salad dressings, eat out at restaurants often, or cook
with a lot of oil, you could actually be putting yourself at a high risk for
future health problems.
Here are some tips from Brenda Davis, RD, for keeping
your omega 6:omega 3 ratio healthy as a vegetarian or vegan:1
1.
Avoid the worst types of oil for their high omega 6
acids: corn, grapeseed, safflower, sesame and sunflower oil.
2.
Include omega 3s in your diet by eating flaxseeds, hempseeds,
walnuts, green leafy vegetables and soybeans.
3.
If you are going to use oil, use flax oil, hempseed oil
or canola oil.
4.
Avoid saturated fats.
Vegans can do this easily by avoiding coconut and tropical oils;
vegetarians must give up most all dairy and eggs!
Be healthy! Don’t
assume that as a vegan, you are immune to disease and poor health. There are still a few things that you need to
be mindful of to have optimum health, and eating a diet with an appropriate
omega 6:omega 3 ratio is one of them!
1. http://www.brendadavisrd.com/articles.php?id=26
