The Ongoing Debate between the Brain and Saturated Fats
Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. Through it, in particular, we think, see, hear and distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the bad from the good, the pleasant from the unpleasant. It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with fear, brings sleeplessness and aimless anxieties. . . . In these ways, I hold that the brain is the most powerful organ in the human body. – Hippocrates
Forged over millions and millions of years of life on Earth, your brain is capable of storing nearly eight thousand iPhones’ worth of information.
Everything you are, do, love, feel, care for, long for, and aspire to is enabled by an incredibly complex, invisible symphony of neurological processes.
Elegant, seamless, and blisteringly fast: when scientists tried to simulate just one second of a human brain’s abilities, it took supercomputers forty minutes to do so.
Your brain consumes up to 20% of the energy used by your body, more than any other organ.
It is the one in command of your nervous system which is responsible for coordinating your actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body.
It works in tandem with your endocrine system to respond to such events.
Today, we’re going to talk about how saturated fats affect this guy.
Table of contents
- Basic structure & metabolism
- Saturated fat and their negative effects on cognitive health
- Saturated fat and its positive effects? Now, this is confusing
- Common dietary sources of saturated fat
1. Basic structure & metabolism
Your brain is the central organ of your nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system.
It has internal carotid arteries supplying oxygenated blood to the front of it and the vertebral arteries supply blood to the back of it.
The larger arteries throughout the brain supply blood to smaller capillaries.
These smallest of blood vessels in the brain, are lined with cells joined by tight junctions and so fluids do not seep in or leak out to the same degree as they do in other capillaries, thereby creating the blood-brain barrier.
The barrier is less permeable to larger molecules, but is still permeable to water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and most fat-soluble substances (including anesthetics and alcohol).
You can watch how eating the wrong type of facts can affect your brain in this video
2. Saturated fat and their negative effects on cognitive health
Short-chain fatty acids (e.g., butyric acid, propionic acid, and acetic acid) and the medium-chain fatty acids, octanoic acid and heptanoic acid, can cross the blood–brain barrier and be metabolized by brain cells.
However, long-chain fatty acids cannot cross the blood–brain barrier, but the liver can break these down to produce ketone bodies.
In this study, among 6813 participants were measure their fat intake for over 4 years.
The results we’re that higher saturated fat intake was associated with worse global cognitive and verbal memory.
Thus, different consumption levels of the major specific fat types, rather than total fat intake itself, appeared to influence cognitive aging.
Although ketone bodies show promising signs for being a therapeutic alternative for people with cognitive decline not all of us are in such a precarious situation (ketogenic diet).
3. Saturated fat and its positive effects? Now, this is confusing
In an interview with Dr. David, author of the book Grain Brain which states that it’s not fat and cholesterol, but carbohydrates and certain fats—and not the fats that you would think—that are the true enemies of heart and vascular health.
He states that “Two forms of fat that are vitally important for brain health are cholesterol and saturated fat.” - he's partially right.
Saturated fat is a fundamental building block for brain cells and we need cholesterol (HDL, not too much LDL) as well. The problem is that meat, poultry and fish are not good at balancing this and they offer us way too much, more than we actually need.
It’s certainly interesting to consider that one of the richest sources of saturated fat in nature is human breast milk.
However, consider the growth stages of a human being and how nutritional needs may change overtime. This is why you no longer feel need to suck titties unless you are interested in “recreational purposes”.
To back his claims, a 2015 systematic review also found no association between saturated fat consumption and risk of heart disease, stroke, or diabetes.
However, this study only looked at observational studies (not the gold standard for medical literature), and can therefore not be used to determine cause and effect.
Funny enough, once the interview was done Dr. David proceeded to show what was inside his fridge:
“I really love to eat and maintain the diet described in Grain Brain. I generally start my day with a three-egg omelet made with kale or spinach and covered with olive oil. I drink a cup of coffee with breakfast along with water. At lunch I might have steamed vegetables, salmon, a green salad and an iced tea. And at dinner I again load up with above-ground vegetables by themselves or along with wild fish or grass-fed beef. I drink one or two glasses of wine each week, but statistically, I should drink more. That’s a work in progress.”
So, I guess we’re not taking into account the role of vegetables in your diet and leaving all the credit to fats huh?
4. Common dietary sources of saturated fat
Examples of foods containing a high proportion of saturated fat include animal fat products such as cream, cheese, butter, other whole-milk dairy products and fatty meats which also contain dietary cholesterol.
Certain vegetable products have high saturated fat content, such as coconut oil and palm kernel oil – plant-based eaters watch out for this!
Many prepared foods are high in saturated fat content, such as pizza, dairy desserts, and sausage.
Do you see a pattern? Well, you can either get saturated fat from plant-based sources as well as from animal ones.
The key is the right amount.
Highlights
• Dietary fat may have a bad reputation, but fat isn’t always a bad thing. Your brain actually needs fat and your body needs it for energy and to process certain vitamins and minerals.
• Based on consistent evidence from human studies, replacing saturated fatty acids with polyunsaturated fat modestly lowers coronary heart disease risk, with ~10% risk reduction for a 5% energy substitution; whereas replacing SFA with carbohydrate has no benefit and replacing SFA with monounsaturated fat has uncertain effects.
• A ketogenic diet may be a good approach, but only for small populations!
• Opt for the less dietary-processed options. The more processed a food is, the more likely is to have saturated fat or even trans.
• Saturated fat is not a problem on a whole foods plant-based diet. Consuming a lot of processed meat and even grass-fed meat it’s what actually spikes your cholesterol levels (another double-edged sword).
What do you think?
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Bibliography:
- LUGAVERE, MAX. GREWAL. 2019. GENIUS FOODS. 1st ed. [S.l.]: HARPERCOLLINS.
- “Human Brain - Wikipedia,” n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_brain.
- “How Eating a High Fat Diet Affects My Brain - YouTube,” n.d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lGBfkkq3UI.
- Okereke, Olivia I., Bernard A. Rosner, Dae H. Kim, Jae H. Kang, Nancy R. Cook, Joann E. Manson, Julie E. Buring, Walter C. Willett, and Francine Grodstein. 2012. “Dietary Fat Types and 4-Year Cognitive Change in Community-Dwelling Older Women.” Annals of Neurology 72 (1): 124–34. doi:10.1002/ana.23593.
- Veech, Richard L. 2004. “The Therapeutic Implications of Ketone Bodies: The Effects of Ketone Bodies in Pathological Conditions: Ketosis, Ketogenic Diet, Redox States, Insulin Resistance, and Mitochondrial Metabolism.” Prostaglandins Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids 70 (3). Churchill Livingstone: 309–19. doi:10.1016/j.plefa.2003.09.007.
- “Your ‘Healthy’ Diet Could Be Quietly Killing Your Brain | Psychology Today,” n.d. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-optimalist/201310/your-healthy-diet-could-be-quietly-killing-your-brain.
- Micha, Renata, and Dariush Mozaffarian. 2010. “Saturated Fat and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors, Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes: A Fresh Look at the Evidence.” Lipids. doi:10.1007/s11745-010-3393-4.
This is a curated post made from different sources. The health information here is provided as a resource only and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic or treatment purposes, nor intended to be medical education, nor creating any client-coach relationship, and should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment. Always do your own research and consult your health care provider before making any healthcare decisions, for guidance about a specific medical condition or fitness purposes. Edward Casanova shall have no liability, for any damages, loss, injury, or liability whatsoever suffered as a result of your reliance on the information contained in this site.
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Hi @zen.fit
Why do you say it is only for small population?
This may not be true. Many vegetarians and vegans do have high cholesterol.
Yeap indeed. However, have in mind that vegetarians and vegans often go to the wrong approach (consuming plenty of highly processed oils as well as enormous amounts of seeds).
P.s: coconut oil, peanut oil, etc are often overused in the preparations of foods.
And when it comes to the ketogenic diet:
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