Trans Fats, High Fructose Corn Syrup and Migraine Brains

Trans fats in restaurants and retail baked goods are going the way of the dodo. At least in California.

"The new law signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is supposed to promote healthy eating and clean up the American diet. It phases out oil, shortening and margarine containing trans fats from restaurants’ menus by 2010 and baked goods by 2011."

ref:

California Bans Use Of Trans Fats

Trans fat is the common name for a type of unsaturated fat. They are created industrially (not naturally occurring) and their main attractiveness is the extended shelf-life.

Unlike other dietary fats, trans fats are not particularly healthy. The consumption of trans fats increases risk of heart disease by raising levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol and lowering levels of "good" HDL cholesterol. They are also not "essential" or, in other words, humans don't need to eat them to live.

There are plenty of opposition to getting rid of trans fat on the grounds that the only thing they can be reliably substituted are natural animal fats like butter or lard. The opponents say that these fats will still raise "bad" LDL cholesterol, just like trans fats.

ref:

Beware of Trans Fat Substitutes

In addition, the common wisdom holds that if one eats fat, one will get fat.

This is a misconception at best.

Naturally occurring fats are the primal source of energy that humans consume with food. As for getting fat on eating fats (unless one eats lard by the bucket-full, that is), reasonable consumption of fats actually promote the burning of both dietary and stored fat as fuel.
It could be explained by the fact that they have little or no impact on insulin. Insulin promotes taking nutrients from blood and storing them as a reserve fuel - the body fat. Therefore - less rise in insulin levels and less body fat.

ref:

The Definitive Guide to the Primal Eating Plan

Want to know what can get you fat faster than any amount of lard you can possibly eat? That would be fructose. High fructose corn syrup is practically in any of the foods we consume. And just like the name implies, it's pretty much a straight-up fructose and lots of it.

Unlike any kind of dietary fats, it takes fructose only 4 hours to become body fat.

"Our study shows for the first time the surprising speed with which humans make body fat from fructose," said Dr. Elizabeth Parks, Ph.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "Once you start the process of fat synthesis from fructose, it's hard to slow it down."

ref:

Fructose Converts Quickly to Lipids Triggering Hyperlipidemia

Fructose makes you fat?


The next time you drink that soda, my gentle readers, do remember that it will go directly into your thighs.

Lets leaving the body image issues alone for now. While it is important for migraine patients to keep our body fat low to prevent strokes and heart attacks, the most important thing for us is how all these fats and sugars affect our brains.

Here's yet another piece of a common knowledge - brains need sugar to run. But, there's always a catch. There are different kinds of sugars. And what brain takes as food is glucose. Fructose, not so much.

Sugar molecules are too large to get through the cell membrane without "carriers". Sugar carriers are proteins (glucose transport protein family, GLUT) embedded in the cell's outer membrane that get sugars inside the cell. These GLUT proteins have higher affinity for glucose. Fructose, on the other hand, they are not very attracted to.

This might explain why most of the fructose consumed with foods or drinks goes directly into storage fat without being used as a fuel. It's important to remember that fructose is not a direct energy source for muscles and the brain. It goes into body fat first and then, if we are lucky, gets released as energy for the cells.

The interesting thing is that a little bit of fructose will help glucose get to the brain but too much fructose might actually hinder this process.

ref:

Carbohydrate metabolism, medbio.info

Do your math, my gentle readers. Most things sweet that we eat or drink are fructose. Not a good fuel for brains, especially for our hyper-active migraine brains.

The natural fats could be a better alternative to fructose. In fact, the brain can run very efficiently on ketones (half-burned fats). Dr. Larry McCleary's research in this area applies directly to migraine patients. He suggests incorporating into our diets a so called Migraine Cocktail - a variation of ketogenic diet that involves MCT oil. Supplementation with MCT oil will increase the amount of ketons available as brain food. Just in case you are curious, the other ingredients are magnesium, taurine, Huperzine A and vinpocetine.

ref:

New Preventive for Your Migraines Helps You to Loose Weight?

Q&A: Dr. McLeary's Anti-Migraine Cocktail, somebodyhealme.dianalee.net

And so, good by trans fats, it was nice knowing you. It would be nice to say the same to high fructose corn syrup but one thing at the time.