What is toxic fat?
Toxic fat represents
excess levels of a natural fatty acid called arachidonic acid. As
arachidonic acid levels increase, increased inflammation is produced
throughout the body. Your diet determines the amount of toxic fat in
your body.
Why is it important
to reduce the levels of toxic fat in the body?
Short answer is that
toxic fat makes you fatter, sicker, and dumber.
What is the Perfect
Nutritional Storm?
This is the underlying
nutritional cause of the epidemic increase of toxic fat. The Perfect
Nutritional Storm occurs when the diet becomes unbalanced.
Specifically, there is an overabundance of omega-6 fats and refined
carbohydrates coupled with a deficiency of omega-3 fats. The end
result when all three dietary factors come together are increased
levels of toxic fat.
If you are fat, it’s
not your fault.
One consequence of
recent changes in the American diet has been the activation of a fat
trap in genetically predisposed individuals. Dietary calories
are consumed, but they are trapped in the fat cells preventing the
formation of the chemical energy the body needs to survive.
The underlying cause
of obesity is not lack of willpower, but the increased expression of
certain genes caused by the diet.
Increased consumption
of refined carbohydrates increase insulin levels that activate the
fat trap in genetically predisposed individuals. Accumulation of
toxic fat in the brain causes your appetite to increase by increasing
the levels of another group of hormones known as endocannabinoids.
Eating less
and exercising more will not give rise to permanent weight
loss.
This is especially true
if you have an active fat trap. Since the fat remains trapped in the
fat cells, the body’s only response to eating less and
exercising more is the cannibalization of muscles and organs
to supply the chemical energy needed to survive. To permanently
lose fat, you must lower the levels of insulin that activates the fat
trap, and simultaneously reduce the levels of hormones derived from
toxic fat that causes increases in hunger.
Overweight
individuals live longer than normal weight individuals.
This is true,
especially if they have low levels of toxic fat in the blood. For
many overweight individuals, excess body fat can act as a toxic waste
dump to encapsulate toxic fat in the fat cells thus preventing its
spread into the blood stream where it can begin to attack other
organs. This increased inflammation induced by toxic fat is the
underlying cause of chronic disease.
Obesity is like a
cancer.
Toxic fat can spread to
your other organs just like any cancer. Once that happens, chronic
diseases (diabetes, heart, neurological, and cancer) are more likely
to occur. You are never cured of obesity, but you can manage it.
Individuals who easily gain weight simply have a genetic
predisposition to develop obesity especially in the presence of high
levels of toxic fat.
An anti-inflammatory
diet can begin to reverse the underlying cause of obesity within 30
days.
Unless you reduce the
inflammation caused by excess levels of toxic fat, your body will be
under constant attack leading to premature development of chronic
disease. The only way to reduce toxic fat is follow an
anti-inflammatory diet like the Zone Diet. Beneficial results in the
blood can be observed within 30 days. But you have to follow an
anti-inflammatory diet for a lifetime to control toxic fat.
What are the health
benefits of excess body fat?
Excess fat can act as
(1) a toxic waste dump to encapsulate toxic fat as well as (2)
preventing the spread of fat (lipotoxicity) into other organs that
are not capable of storing excess fat.
Tell me of your work
with the heaviest man in the world.
Manuel Uribe of
Monterrey, Mexico weighed more than 1,200 pounds when I first started
working with him. In the past two years, he has lost more than 400
pounds, and is probably one of the healthiest men in Mexico even
though he remains severely obese.
How did all the so-called experts in obesity get it so wrong?
They still cling to the
belief that a calorie is a calorie. From this viewpoint, obesity is
simply due to lack of willpower and that simply eating less
and exercising more is the obvious answer. It how those
calories are or are not transformed into chemical energy to run the
body that is the key that is the key to understanding what causes
obesity . If a person has an active fat trap, they will constantly
be hungry as many of the calories they are consuming never get
transformed into chemical energy the body needs to survive. Those who
are genetically unlucky will gain weight rapidly when they are
exposed to a pro-inflammatory diet that increases the production of
both insulin and toxic fat.
Describe the
implications of the growing epidemic of toxic fat on the future of
the US health care system.
The first clinical
condition that indicates that toxic fat has become malignant and
spreading to all the other organs is the development of diabetes.
Because of the great expense of treating diabetic patients, the
epidemic rise of this disease driven by toxic fat threatens to
destroy the financial base of our health care system.
Describe how the
food we eat can change the expression of our genes.
Food causes hormonal
changes that can alter the expression of your genes. If you have
genes that predispose you to gain weight, you can’t change
that. But you can change the expression of those genes by changing
your hormone levels by treating your diet like a drug to be taken at
the right time and the right dose.
How do you know if
you have silent inflammation?
Although the best
indicator is a blood test, there are several subjective indicators
that may indicate its presence. One of those first signs is the
accumulation of excess body fat. However, many normal weight people
also have silent inflammation. Unless this silent inflammation is
reversed and controlled, it will lead to the development of chronic
disease at a much earlier age.
What percentage of
Americans have elevated levels of silent inflammation?
At least 75%, and
probably closer to 90%.
|
