Brief discussion from off blog about this study:
Hi Jeniffer,
Finally got to download supplementary data, table 1. Unfortunately the authors lied about this giving the diet composition! While giving a detailed breakdown of the evil fat, no suggestion was made as to the composition of the carbohydrate. "Lab chow" (is almost always starch) is being compared to a "high fat" diet of unspecified carbohydrate composition which produces fatty liver. It probably tastes sweet too.
There was a time when this sort of research was published only in hard copy, which was useful as an emergency source of loo roll. Now it's all electronic and even the supplementary data are useless for that delicate purpose...
However, the supplementary data do tell us that the high fat mice were obese, hyperglycaemic and hyperinsulinaemic. So I guess they were eating their fat in the form of concentrated Fanta...
But no one is saying in the methods or supplementary data. This is not science!
Peter
In addition to your point about the unknown sugar content of the high fat diet, the high fat diet also had a lot of PUFA -- nearly 3:1 PUFA to saturated fat. And, I doubt it was fish oil.
ReplyDeleteI guess I am just not surprised that a fructose/omega 6 diet produces some negative results...
By the way, thanks for pointing me to the supporting tables -- I saw that study yesterday and couldn't find the info on the composition of the high fat diet. Now I understand why they hid the info in the separate supplement... Sneaky scientists!
ReplyDeleteDaniel,
ReplyDeleteIt would be useful if it gave the diet composition. But fructose is fructose and glucose is glucose and even mainstream seems to be aware of this nowadays. The study is valuable as it (probably) says that drinking 8 litres a day of HFCS sweetened cola is going to give yourself and your child fatty liver. I think we know that now. After that what do you say about all the fancy gene induction stuff? Drop the sugar!
Peter
Fully agreed. You seem to focus a little less of omega 6 as the culprit of fatty liver disease. I thought Stephan made a good case in this series of posts: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/liver.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that sugar plays a big role, but we don't know for sure the researchers gave sugar in the high fat group but we do know for sure they gave lots of PUFA - and since they don't say which kind, I think it's the omega 6 kind. Of course, if they gave a high sugar & high omega 6 diet the study becomes even more laughable.
True, I would completely agree that the omega 6 pufa are involved too. But I still suspect these people used a lever they didn't mention...
ReplyDeletePeter
HILARIOUS Peter!!
ReplyDeleteWheat? Wheat is in most lab chow too right?
Gluten-enteropathy and autoimmune processes can lead to fatty liver quickly as well... Poor rodents.