THANK YOU Dr Bass, excellent timing.
This paper is being discussed in various nutrition fora at the moment.
It's a classic. You read the abstract and realise a high fat diet is mangling your brain. Oh no! Quick, don't bother reading the paper, get rid of the fat. Oh, you can't read the paper unless you have an account. Well, by chance, I have the full paper.
Ok, it's a "High Fat" diet alright. Up at, you guessed, 45% of calories from fat, mostly as lard. In fact it is the D12451 rodent diet. A quick Google of D12451 gives you this page. You don't get this info in the full text of the paper, you have to want to know!
You can see that the carbohydrate composition is a smidge of cornstarch (73g), a mass of maltodextrin (100g) and a huge mass of sucrose (173g) in an 858g block of food. This diet is designed to produce sugar addiction, obesity and diabetes. Adding some healthy lard will not save the poor mice from Bass et al's "High Fat" sucrose diet.
This paper does not involve a high fat diet. It's junk.
Peter
Quote from the D12451 mouse diet data sheet: "Most diets require storage in a cool dry environment. Stored correctly they should last 3-6 months."
ReplyDeleteMy comment: if that was the real pork lard it would have lasted much shorter! I suspect they used hydrogenated "lard" just like in this study: http://www.ptbo.igs.net/~stanb/InDigest3.htm#a3
Where in the US would they be able to buy real unhydrogenated pork lard? It disappeared from the supermarket shelves around 1990. Perhaps they bought some home-made from Russian or Polish ethnic shops? I doubt it.
I am curious as to why almost all the protein is caseine? Does it not make any difference for the mice?
Stan
Hi Stan,
ReplyDeleteI have to say I've largely shifted from pork lard to beef dripping here in the UK as I noticed that certain brands of lard contain BHT (?) as an antioxidant and dripping, being that little more saturated, doesn't need this. Alas my supply of unprocessed beef suet (for rendering down to make may favourite deep frying oil) just kept failing to deliver so I've given up and supermarket dripping it has to be.
Caseine was probably chosen for D12451 as it is insulogenic due to a preponderance of certain amino acids, compared to, say chicken, which seems largely insulin neutral. No doubt in combination with the fructose and glucose loads this would encourage insulin resistance and the desired "high fat" problems.
You can see the logic of caseine being insulinogenic as it will help convert little calves in to big calves!
Peter
Is Hydrogenated Lard Bad? It is the only type of Lard we have been able to find where we live (hawaii).
ReplyDelete