How Fish Farms Destroy the Ecosystem and Threaten Your Health

Story at-a-glance

• Fish farming is one of the least sustainable approaches to farming. It also causes many environmental problems, and poses unique risks to your health
• Land-based fish farms have been shown to produce significant ecological changes downstream, reducing biodiversity and killing pollution-sensitive species
• Farm-raised fish develop all sorts of mutations and deformities, including deformed ear bones, which reduces their hearing. Farmed fish also tend to contain greater amounts of toxins than wild fish

24 May 2016

By Dr. Mercola

Fish used to be one of the healthiest foods on the planet, but pollution and farming perversions have made most fish a highly unhealthy food, and some types of farmed fish the most toxic food on the planet.

Fish farming, which began about 65 years ago, is considered by many to be one of the least sustainable approaches to farming. This is particularly true when it comes to carnivorous fish like salmon, which feed on other fish. To raise 1 pound of salmon, you need over 2 pounds of wild fish to produce its feed.

In addition to being an unsustainable practice, aquaculture also causes many environmental problems, and poses unique risks to your health. In fact, industrial fish farming raises many of the same concerns about chemicals and pollutants associated with feedlot cattle and factory chicken farms.

Feedlots of the Sea

Most wild-caught fish now suffer from some degree of contamination, due to widespread environmental pollution. Since most fish farms are placed in open waters or inland lakes, farmed fish are exposed to those same pollutants, but they're alsofed a concoction of pesticides, antibiotics1 and other drugs.

Toxic copper sulfate is also frequently used to keep nets free of algae. All of these toxins build up in sea floor sediments and are dispersed through the environment, affecting other fish and wild sea creatures.

Despite its many drawbacks, aquaculture is booming. Between 2008 and 2013, the farmed fish industry in the U.S. grew at a pace of 5 percent per year. As noted in the featured video, better solutions are needed.

One novel invention is the aquapod — a large, predator-proof geodesic sphere that can withstand being placed further out in the ocean. By dispersing the waste byproducts in deeper waters, the environmental impact is lessened.

However, in my view this is far from an ideal solution, as drugs and toxins are stillbeing dispersed into the wild, and while it may take longer to produce adverse effects, those effects are certainly not eliminated by this method.

It's similar to dumping toxic waste barrels into deep waters in the middle of the ocean. It may be out of sight and out of mind, but that doesn't mean it has no environmental ramifications in the long run!

Land-Based Fish Farms Also Wreak Ecological Havoc

Another solution has been to place fish farms on or close to land, but recent research2 shows that this isn't the answer either. As reported by CBC News:3

"The only peer-reviewed study examining the environmental impacts of Nova Scotia land-based fish farms has found some negative effects on downstream ecosystem.

A now-defunct unit of Environment Canada conducted research at five sites in 2011 which grow juvenile fish for transfer later to open ocean pens ...

Lead researcher Benoit Lalonde said they looked at the health of benthic invertebrates, 'the building blocks of what lives in the river or the stream' in areas where water that passed over hatcheries flowed ...

Researchers found significant changes in biodiversity ... [T]he only species that flourished were 'pollution tolerant species' ... 'What we lost there were all the sensitive species,' he said."

Humans living next to fish farms also suffer ill effects. In Vietnam, more than 100 families living near a canal that houses two fish farms report suffering from an array of diseases linked to water pollution.4

Prior to the installation of these fish farms, the water in the canal was clean and usable, but within a span of just two years, the farms have destroyed the water quality to the point that residents have to boil the water just to be able to bathe in it.

Half of All Farmed Fish Suffer Genetic Mutations and Deformities

Research also shows that farm-raised fish tend to develop all sorts of mutations, suggesting this method of farming is too far from nature's ideal. Some of the mutations have been linked to the pesticides used to combat sea lice and other pests, as these chemicals have been found to also affect the fishes' DNA.

According to Kurt Oddekalv, a respected Norwegian environmental activist, about 50 percent of farmed cod are deformed, and female cod that escape from farms are known to mate with wild cod, spreading the genetic mutations and deformities into the wild population.

Similarly, a recent study5 published in the journal Scientific Reports found that half of all farm-raised fish examined had deformed ear bones, which causes hearing impairment.

In larger, older fish, the odds of this deformity were even higher. Among farm-raised salmon weighing more than 9 pounds, all had this deformity in at least one ear. As reported by Newsweek:6

"The otoliths (ear bones) of these fish vibrate at a different frequency than the rest of the animal's body and are used to pick up and measure sound waves ...

In healthy fish, these bones are composed of aragonite, a crystalline form of calcium carbonate. But as Reimer and colleagues found, many of these otoliths were deformed and composed of a different material — vaterite.

Vaterite is also made up of calcium carbonate, but in an irregular and less dense crystal structure, thus changing the way that sound is absorbed and processed ... The presence of these vaterite deformities was 10 times higher in farmed fish than in wild animals ... "

What's Causing the Ear Bone Deformities?

The cause for these ear bone deformities is still unknown. Researchers suggest it may be triggered by some dietary factor, or may be related to their abnormally increased growth rate. Genetics is another possibility, and the researchers hope to investigate all of these hypotheses.

While hearing loss may seem like a deformity of no consequence in farmed fish, it can indeed have adverse consequences. Most farmed fish will never be released into the wild where they'd have to fend for themselves and find their own food.

But some, such as Pacific salmon, are raised in hatcheries only to be released into the wild in order to repopulate the species. As noted by Newsweek:7

"Allison Coffin Ph.D., a researcher at Washington State University who wasn't involved in the study, says the deformity could possibly affect the survival of fish released to the wild ...

Importantly, though, the study provides 'more evidence hatchery conditions are causing problems with the fish, and we need to figure out what we're doing,' she says."

Farmed Salmon Has Many Other Abnormal Features, Including Highest Toxic Load of Any Food Tested

Farmed salmon also suffer other disturbing mutations. The flesh of the farmed salmon is "brittle," and breaks apart when bent — a highly abnormal feature. The nutritional content is also wildly abnormal, which may have consequences for your health. Wild salmon contains about 5 to 7 percent fat whereas the farmed variety can contain anywhere from 14.5 to 34 percent.

Many toxins readily accumulate in fat, which means even when raised in similarly contaminated conditions, farmed salmon will contain far more toxins than wild.

This elevated toxicity is quite significant. According to toxicology researcher Jerome Ruzzin Ph.D., in Norway, farmed salmon is one of the most toxic foods in the world! Overall, tests show farmed salmon contain five times more toxins than any other food product tested.

Shockingly, research reveals that the most significant source of toxic exposure is not actually the pesticides or the antibiotics, but the dry pellet feed. Pollutants found in the fish feed include dioxins, PCBs, and a number of different drugs and chemicals. The source of these toxins originates in the fatty fish used for the feed — fish that cannot be sold for direct human consumption due to their elevated pollution levels. These pollutants then get incorporated into the feed pellets.

Another problem stems from the manufacturing process. The fatty fish are first cooked and separated into protein meal and oil. While the oil has high levels of dioxins and PCBs, the protein powder further adds to the toxicity of the end product. To the protein powder, an "antioxidant" called ethoxyquin is added.

This chemical was developed by Monsanto in the 1950s — as a pesticide — and it really does not belong in fish food. In fact, Europe has strict regulations on this pesticide in other foods, such as fruits and vegetables.

The chemical helps prevent oxidation, which is why fish pellet manufacturers secretly began using it as an "antioxidant," but the effects of this chemical on human health have never actually been established. However, the one and only study ever done on ethoxyquin and human health found it has the ability to cross the blood brain barrier, and may have carcinogenic effects.

Farm-Raised Salmon Have Different Genetics Than Wild

Interestingly, recent research8,9 also shows that salmon born in hatcheries have vastly different genetics than those born in the wild. Turns out salmon adapt to captivity extremely fast. Within a single generation, their genetic makeup changes, and with it their natural ability to thrive and reproduce in the wild.

This is a problem, as not all farmed salmon are destined for the dinner plate. In areas like Oregon and Washington, salmon are bred in hatcheries and then released into the wild to replenish wild salmon populations.

Surprisingly, the researchers found no less than 700 different genetic differences between the hatchery-born salmon and the wild-born ones. The salmon tested was the steelhead trout. In the wild, these fish are solitary and territorial creatures. In fish farms, they're raised under densely packed conditions, and in a single generation they not only lose some of these instinctual traits, they also develop improved immune function and wound repair mechanisms.

According to lead researcher Michael Blouin: "This pretty much settles the question of whether hatchery fish can be genetically different after just a single generation of domestication. What is important is that this work is a step towards trying to figure out which traits are under strong selection in the hatchery, and what hatchery conditions exacerbate that selection."

Beware of Farm-Raised Catfish

Farm-raised catfish also tend to be loaded with dioxins, and the feed is the source here as well. As noted by Nutrition Facts:10

"In the 1990s, a supermarket survey found the highest concentrations of dioxins in farm-raised catfish. The source of dioxins was determined to be the feed, but that's surprising, since catfish aren't fed a lot of animal fat. Turns out it was dioxin-contaminated clay added to the feed as an anti-caking agent, which may have originally come from sewage sludge ... so, what may have started out in sewage sludge ended up on the plates of consumers in the form of farm-raised catfish ... "

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested ball clay be discontinued from use in fish feed. But they didn't actually ban or restrict it. As a result, no industry changes were made, and a belated 2013 follow-up investigation discovered that 96 percent of farmed catfish is now contaminated with dioxins. In the initial survey11 in 1997, only one-third of the catfish samples contained dioxins, so the problem has vastly escalated.

And, while imported fish often tends to be more contaminated than U.S. fish, this was not the case with catfish. Catfish imported from China or Taiwan was in fact 10 times less contaminated than those raised in the U.S.

As noted by Nutrition Facts: "[W]hen they checked the feed fed to U.S. catfish, more than half were contaminated, and so, it seems likely that mined clay products are still being used in U.S. catfish feeds ... This is a good illustration of how we can't necessarily rely on regulators to protect our families' health."

Genetically Engineered Omega-3 Crops Have Devastating Effects on Butterflies

It seems the more scientists try to "fix" things, the worse it gets. To substitute omega-3 oils from fish, genetically modified (GM) canola and camelina that contain omega-3 have been developed. The U.K. approved GM camelina in 2014, and it's being promoted as an omega-3 supplement for both humans and farmed fish. Professor Johnathan Napier Ph.D., who led the GE project at Rothamsted Research, hailed the GM crop as a "truly sustainable" source of fish farm feed.

Alas, these crops turn out to have devastating ecological consequences. While reducing the burden on fish stocks seemed like a good idea, recent research has shown that when long chain omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil (EPA and DHA) are fed to the cabbage white butterfly — which feed on canola and camelina — the insects grew heavier and suffered a high frequency of wing deformities. As noted by the Cornucopia Institute:12

"The problem with GM omega-3-producing crops lies in the fact that genetic engineers have introduced a compound from the sea into a terrestrial environment. Neither this butterfly nor any other invertebrates that feed on these plants have ever been exposed to these molecules in their diets.

Some might rejoice that such GM omega-3-producing crops will have the unexpected added benefit of harming a butterfly that is considered to be crop pest. But that would be to ignore the potential effects on beneficial insects such as non-pest butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. It is also not known what effects may occur further up the food chain, such as on predators that consume such insects ...

The lesson to be learned from the new study seems to be that we should be wary of the claims of genetic engineers that their products are safe and sustainable when those claims are not substantiated through rigorous testing.

In making such claims, they often restrict their framework to narrow and self-serving considerations, such as whether the GM crop expresses the desired trait and delivers an acceptable product when fed to livestock — in this case, farmed fish. They ignore the wider context in which the GM crop is grown and consumed. In this way, the genetic engineer's claimed 'sustainability' success can turn out to be a hazard for ecosystems."

Fish Farms Create More Problems Than They Solve

It's become quite clear that fish farms are not a viable solution to overfishing. If anything, they're making matters worse, destroying the marine ecosystem at a far more rapid clip to boot ... So what's the answer? Unfortunately, the vast majority of fish — even when wild-caught — is too contaminated to eat on a frequent basis. Most major waterways in the world are contaminated with mercury, heavy metals, and chemicals like dioxins, PCBs, and other agricultural chemicals that wind up in the environment.

Radiation from the leaking Fukushima power plant in Japan is another concern, and many have simply given up on eating fish for fear of radioactive contamination, or they opt for farmed fish, thinking it's a safer option. Based on the evidence, choosing farmed fish to avoid radiation is not going to do your health any favors. You may avoid nuclear radiation, but you're getting far more of other toxins instead.

One answer to this conundrum is to contact the distributor of whatever wild fish you may be interested in, and ask them whether or not they test for radiation. Some companies do. Alternatively, you could get a Geiger counter and test it yourself.

Best Seafood Options: Wild Alaskan Salmon, Sardines and Anchovies

While many types of fish are best avoided these days, there are exceptions. For example, I believe the nutritional benefits of wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon still outweigh the risks of potential contamination. The risk of sockeye accumulating high amounts of mercury and other toxins is reduced because of its short life cycle, which is only about three years. Additionally, bioaccumulation of toxins is also reduced by the fact that it doesn't feed on other, already contaminated, fish.

Alaskan salmon is also not allowed to be farmed, and is therefore always wild-caught. My favorite brand is Vital Choice Wild Seafood and Organics, which offers a nice variety of high-quality salmon products that test high for omega-3 fats and low for contaminants. Their fish is also regularly screened for Fukushima radiation and found to be free of it. Canned salmon labeled "Alaskan salmon" is a less expensive alternative to salmon fillets.

Another exception is smaller fish with short lifecycles, such as sardines and anchovies, which I eat nearly every day. These also tend to be better alternatives in terms of fat content, so it's a win-win situation — lower contamination risk and higher nutritional value.

A general guideline is that the closer to the bottom of the food chain the fish is, the less contamination it will have accumulated. Just make sure they're not from the Baltic Sea, which is known for its exceptionally high levels of pollution. Other good choices include herring and fish roe, which are full of important phospholipids that nourish mitochondrial membranes.

Source:  http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/05/24/fish-farming-causes-environmental-problems.aspx?

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A fat lot of good – Part 3

After all the bad news about trans-fats, you might be relieved to know that there is one class of trans-fats which has been claimed to be actually beneficial to human health – they are known as conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) and are a family of around 30 isomers of a fatty acid known as linoleic acid.

MAY 22, 2016

BY CHRIS CHAN

It takes much more effort to digest and extract the energy from fat than from sweet foods but the body just loves to make and store fat, as fat is much more adept at producing energy than carbohydrates.

After all the bad news about trans-fats, you might be relieved to know that there is one class of trans-fats which has been claimed to be actually beneficial to human health – they are known as conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) and are a family of around 30 isomers of a fatty acid known as linoleic acid.

Isomers are molecules with the identical atomic constituents of another molecule – but with the atomic bonds arranged differently.

Where CLAs differ significantly from PTFs (plant trans-fats) is that these fatty acids have both the cis and trans molecular configurations.

You can see how the double-carbon bonds of these fats are joined (or conjugated) in the diagram of a CLA, producing a molecule with both cis and trans molecular characteristics.

Whether CLAs have significant health benefits for humans is still open to debate but at least there are no identifiably negative health effects of this trans-fat.

In our diets, CLAs are present mainly in grass-fed beef, butter and mutton, although the highest concentrations are found, oddly, in kangaroo meat.

The main CLAs appear to be vaccenic acid and rumenic acid, both created by the bacterial digestion of polyunsaturated fatty acids in the biomass processed by the stomachs and intestinal tracts of ruminants.

CLAs are one of the reasons why some people stridently reject advice about the avoidance of meat and saturated fats, for there have been some interesting (but not yet fully substantiated) claims about the anti-carcinogenic, anti-obesity and anti-atherogenic properties of CLAs, mostly based on experiments with rodents and pigs.

One thing is pretty certain though – if I ever have any rats or pigs at home, and if I like them, then they will definitely get fed CLA regularly.

Diagram of a CLA showing a molecule with both cis and trans molecular characteristics.

How free fatty acids get free

As mentioned, all fats are triglycerides – meaning that all fats consist of three individual fatty acids held together (or esterified) with a glycerol backbone. The individual fatty acids are not always the same – an example triglyceride might contain palmitic acid, oleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid.

Unsaturated fats have a lower melting point compared to saturated fats – the reason is because the The double-carbon bond structures in unsaturated fats have molecular “gaps” and therefore don’t fit as snugly together as the hydrogen-saturated molecules in saturated fats.

Triglycerides can break apart under various conditions, such as bad storage, heat, digestive processes, etc – and therefore release their fatty acids as free fatty acids (FFA). Like PTFs, FFAs can have both good and bad implications for our health.

Firstly, FFAs are produced by the digestive processes and are a perfectly normal consequence of eating. Confusingly, FFAs are also produced by the body by burning stored fat in cells – but there are very highly significant differences between the two types of FFAs.

The story of how FFAs arise from the burning of body fat for energy is a fascinating subject – and they also don’t tend to cause health issues. So for the moment, we will focus only on the FFAs arising from the digestion of fats and why they might be bad for us.

How FFAs get and then lose their freedom

Despite what you might think, fats from food cannot be easily absorbed directly by the digestive system to provide energy. Instead, triglycerides need to be broken down first by pancreatic juices (specifically an enzyme called lipase activated by a protein called colipase) which function only when fats are combined with water.

Therefore, before the pancreatic juices can work, dietary fats first need to be emulsified by bile salts. Digestion of fats then occur and the triglycerides end up as a mixture of tri-, di- and monoglycerides, FFAs plus other fat soluble compounds such as vitamins and cholesterol.

This mixture forms a blend of micelles (aggregates of the digested fats and water molecules) which are then absorbed by special cells (called enterocytes) lining the small intestine – these then reconvert the micelles back into triglycerides.

Why people tend to get fat first around the belly is simply because it is where most of the body’s adipose tissues are normally located.

Yes, the digestive process converts native triglycerides from food into different glycerides and FFAs and then recombines the mix back into other triglycerides in the small gut – the difference is that the triglycerides from digestion are the types which the body actually want, for the moment.

The triglycerides resulting from digestion are then packed into chylomicrons (becoming a mix called chyle) which are then released into the capillaries of the lymph system in the intestines.

There could be huge amounts of chylomicrons floating around in the lymphatic system, enough to cause blood plasma to turn milky in colour after a fatty dinner. And then it gets even more complicated.

A gene called LPL causes the cells that line the inside of capillaries of fat (or adipose) tissues and muscles to express an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase. This enzyme digests the chylomicrons floating by and turn them into FFAs, glycerol and chylomicron remnants.

The FFAs are then absorbed by the local adipocytes (fat cells) where the FFAs are once again resynthesised into triglycerides – these final triglycerides are stored as fat droplets inside the fat cells.

The convoluted processes for digesting fats explain why the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF, or energy needed for digestion) is much higher for meats than for many carbohydrates – it simply takes much more effort to digest and extract the energy from fat than from sweet foods.

This also explains why oily fried rice is probably safer for a diabetic to consume than fluffy steamed rice – though please don’t take this as advice for diabetics to cook every-thing in oil because that is really not good either, as explained later.

Despite the high TEF of fats, it clearly does not stop many people becoming obese, or even morbidly obese – and the main reason is that the body just loves to make and store fat, as fat is much more adept at producing energy than carbohydrates.

Fat is also efficient in that it can be stored in the body in a state which does not require much water, unlike carbohydrates – and hence it is lighter.

For the same energy as from one kilo of fat, it is estimated that the body would need to store 6.75 kilos of water-bound carbohydrates – so please be (a little) thankful for fats as otherwise many people would be bigger than cows, swimming would be much more difficult and shoes will crumble after a few days unless the soles are made of metal. And we would be even more prone to high blood pressure, with CHD as an end result.

Kinds of stored human body fats

Incidentally, there are normally three kinds of stored human body fat: visceral adipose tissue (VAT, usually called abdominal fat), intramuscular fat (found in muscles) and subcutaneous fat (found under the skin). Why people tend to get fat first around the belly is simply because it is where most of the body’s adipose tissues are normally located – and the probable reason is the location is conveniently close to the small intestine where there is first access to the chylomicrons after digestion.

Remember – the body likes to make and store fat. After that, the other areas that accumulate fat easiest tend to be the skin and the bigger (but unused) muscles where lipoprotein lipase is also expressed in the capillaries. So now you know why trousers are the first adjustments on the road to obesity.

Belly pork with sweet preserved mustard and egg.

Ironically, the fat cells themselves do try to stop you overeating – and adipocytes do this by producing a hormone called leptin which is designed to turn off your urge to overeat.

But if you consume a lot of fructose (found in fruits, sweets and desserts) or have the willpower (sheer greed), then you can overcome the effect of leptin and continue overeating.

Then more fat cells will be produced, more leptin will be issued and ignored – and sooner or later, leptin resistance will develop. After that, there are very few stops left on the highway to plumpness, obesity or morbid obesity, depending on your choice of destination.

The good and bad FFAs

In moderation, there is no such thing as a good or bad natural FFA unless it is a PTF (for reasons already explained earlier). The body is capable of creating some of the fatty acids it needs to maintain health, but there are two main classes of essential fatty acids which it cannot synthesize and hence they must come from the diet – they are Omega-6 fatty acids and Omega-3 fatty acids.

The ways these polyunsaturated fatty acids work are pretty cool, but perhaps in even more convoluted fashions than the way triglycerides are digested and stored – so, to avoid boredom, the summary is as follows:

Omega-6 fatty acids: These are much more prevalent in modern diets than in Palaeolithic times due to our higher consumption of plant-based press-extracted polyunsaturated oils (eg. corn oil, soy oil, sunflower oil, etc), which would simply not be available in the past.

Omega-6 fatty acids are implicated in many important bodily functions such as brain function, anxiety, appetite control, autonomic responses, neuron functions, immune responses – and also, unfortunately, inflammation.

Too much Omega-6 has been linked to inflammation diseases such as asthma, arthritis, rheumatism, etc, caused partly by the overexpression of an enzyme called PTGS2 (Prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2, also known as COX-2). A common example of an Omega-6 fatty acid is linoleic acid.

Omega-3 fatty acids: As a guess, I suppose we are consuming probably around the same amount of Omega-3 fatty acids as humans in Palaeolithic times but the ratio then was about 1:1 for Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids – this is as opposed to a rough average of 15.8 times more Omega-6 than Omega-3 these days in Western countries.

This current imbalance has been associated with many modern ailments, usually linked with inflammation – and one such ailment is atherosclerosis. Omega-3 counteracts some of the effects of Omega-6 because it competes for the same enzymes and precursors as Omega-6, thus reducing the probability of the overexpression of potentially damaging enzymes such as PTGS2, for example.

Common Omega-3 fatty acids are alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) – ALA is found in nuts and plant seeds, and EPA and DHA are commonly found in certain fish oils.

And curiously, there haven’t been any major negative effects associated with the overconsumption of Omega-3 fatty acids.

The strange side-effect of FFAs

A rather odd connection has been established between the presence of FFAs in plasma, and insulin: FFAs are known to actually inhibit the action of insulin, thereby reducing the ability of skeletal muscles to remove excess glucose from the blood.

At the same time, FFAs also promote the increased production of insulin, thereby compensating for the earlier inhibitory effect. This additional insulin spike due to FFAs would probably be tolerated quite well if the diet was based on meat – but modern diets typically include a lot of refined carbohydrates and sugar (eg. burgers, pizzas, noodles, end of meal desserts, etc).

The FFA-induced spike would come on top of the carbohydrate or sugar-induced tsunami of insulin – while at the same time FFAs are also inhibiting the effect of insulin.

In the end, prolonged exposure to this unsatisfactory situation can lead to chronic insulin tolerance, Type 2 Diabetes and arterial damage due to 

the persistent excess amounts of blood glucose (which can be toxic).

The situation is perhaps a little like a lousy marriage: people are pretty adept at complaining about a miserable partner – but what they seldom recall is why they got married in the first place.

http://www.star2.com/food/food-news/2016/05/22/a-fat-lot-of-good-part-3/

http://healthticket.blogspot.my/2016/05/a-fat-lot-of-good-part-2.html

http://healthticket.blogspot.my/2016/05/a-fat-lot-of-good-part-1.html

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Why the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Are Inappropriate For Most Americans

Story at-a-glance

• The U.S. dietary guidelines determine what foods will be served in feeding assistance programs that touch 1 in 4 Americans every month, and have great impact on the health of the U.S. public as a whole
• By restricting healthy fat, the 2015 guidelines end up having to include higher amounts of refined grains, because those foods are fortified with nutrients you’d typically get from fattier foods
• Factors that undermine the ability to create science-based policy include catering to industry interests, and protecting professional investments and reputations

May 22, 2016 

By Dr. Mercola

The 2015-2020 U.S. Dietary Guidelines were recently published,1 and while they include some positive changes, they still contain serious flaws as well. In this interview, Nina Teicholz reviews a number of them—a task for which she is particularly suited, considering she’s read the entire 571-page guidance report.

Teicholz is an investigative journalist and the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.” I previously interviewed her about that book, which delves deep into the topic of healthy versus unhealthy fats.

So, why should you care about the U.S. dietary guidelines? “They don’t affect me,” you might think.

“Here’s why they matter,” Teicholz says. “They determine what foods are in the feeding assistance programs run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that touch 1 in 4 Americans every month.

Those include the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) (for many people the food that their kids are getting at school), programs for the elderly, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)...and military rations.”

Dietary Guidelines Dictate What Many Americans Eat Every Day

So while you may not peruse the dietary guidelines to influence your own eating habits, they end up directly influencing the diets of many Americans, including those with the least means to take control over their own food choices, such as those depending on food programs for their daily meals.

Moreover, when you go to your doctor, your nutritionist or dietician, the nutritional recommendations you’ll get are largely based on the dietary guidelines. If following the guidelines increases your risk of health problems, then seeking professional guidance certainly doesn’t do much good.

The guidelines even have international ramifications, as nations that don’t have the resources and scientific expertise to duplicate the process simply model their own guidance after the U.S.

The rest of the world really looks to the United States as a leader in this area, even though it’s readily apparent that the guidelines must be seriously flawed in some way, since they don’t produce very good results.

Even international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) follow, to a large extent, the nutritional guidance developed by the U.S. 

How U.S. Dietary Guidelines Gave Rise to the Obesity Epidemic

The dietary guidelines were launched in 1980. The first guidelines were actually written by a single Senate staffer who just so happened to be heavily influenced by certain scientists, and this first edition laid the groundwork for what has turned into decades of flawed advice.

Nowadays, an expert panel of about 14 members is convened every five years to review the latest evidence and make recommendations about what should remain and what needs to be changed. Statistics reveal just how influential these guidelines actually are.

In 1965, Americans ate about 40 percent of their calories as carbohydrates and another 40 percent of their calories came from fat.

The original guidelines issued in 1980 called for a diet lower in fat and higher in carbohydrates, and by 2010, Americans had indeed brought their fat consumption down below 35 percent, and increased carbohydrates to 55 to 65 percent.

The basic advice to eat more carbs has been followed ever since. Now granted, you need carbs. But not all carbohydrates are equal. Fiber-rich carbs (mostly vegetables), are essential for good health because they break down into short-chain fatty acids in your gut, which helps make ketones and nourish your body.

They also serve as fuel for beneficial bacteria in your colon. But most people don’t eat vegetables; they eat processed carbs like grains, pasta, rice, potatoes and other starchy vegetables.

As shown in the following graph,2 fruit and vegetable consumption is trailing far behind grains, having increased only slightly since 1970, whereas grain consumption has seen the largest increase.

Fiber Versus Non-Fiber Carbs — An Important Distinction That Can Improve Your Health

I believe most people benefit by restricting the net carbs to less than 50 grams per day (i.e. total carbs minus fiber). Subtract the fiber from the total carbs, and that’s your total non-fiber carbs.

For most people, it would be a good idea to limit that to 50 grams a day. If you exercise a lot and are particularly active, you might be able to increase it to 100 grams.

Ultimately, whether it’s whole grain, refined grain, or sugar, it boils down to the same question: Does it contain fiber, and if so how much? This is the distinction that needs to be made, because until you sufficiently restrict net carbs, you’re unlikely to see a change in health outcomes.

“The one point to understand here is that there’s a large body of science showing that restricting total carbohydrates is an effective way to fight obesity, diabetes, and heart disease,” Teicholz says.

“Excessive carbohydrates, if you have too many net carbohydrates and too little fat, that diet seems to worsen heart disease risk factors. The shifting away from fat to carbohydrates over the last three and a half decades is plausibly what has provoked obesity and diabetes.

In fact, there’s a very disturbing chart that shows obesity rates in America being relatively flat and low. In the 1980’s (when the dietary guidelines came out), they just shoot up. You could say 1980 was really the beginning of the obesity epidemic, and thereafter the diabetes epidemic began. There’s a plausible correlation there to suggest that the dietary guidelines actually cause those nutrition-related conditions.”

Two Realities That Undermine the Ability to Create Science-Based Policy

Ideally, policy should be based on the best possible science. Today, the medical literature tells us that the low-fat diet has consistently been proven ineffective. There are good clinical trials and metanalyses that show saturated fats are unlikely to cause heart disease.

So why don’t the dietary guideline committees review that evidence and change their recommendations accordingly? Teicholz believes there are two major explanations for this:

1.There are major industry interests at stake. The guidelines are part of the USDA, and part of the USDA’s mission is to promote agriculture. At the same time, they have a mandate to tell people to eat less of some foods and more of others. Those two mandates conflict.

The food and agricultural industries also have the ability to influence the guidelines. As it stands, the industries benefitting from the guidelines include makers of carbohydrate-based foods, as well as the corn and soy industries, as corn and soybean oil are used in most processed foods.

The guidelines, which call for avoiding saturated fats, have led to a 91 percent increase in unsaturated fat consumption (mainly vegetables oils) over the past three decades. According to Teicholz: “The manufacturers of those are huge corporations: ADM, Unilever, Monsanto, and Bunge, and they clearly work closely with the scientists who are most influential over the guidelines.”

2.Another major factor that keeps the guidelines from changing is the professional investment that has grown out of the advice. Entire careers are at stake, should a guideline be admitted wrong and altered too dramatically.

“Many institutions have invested in this particular hypothesis about what makes people healthy,” Teicholz says. “The entire federal government invested in this hypothesis about what makes people healthy. The American Heart Association (AHA).

These giant institutions cannot be seen as flip-flopping on their public. They can’t be wrong. That prevents backing out of any advice that might be flawed. When they do, they’re really called out on it as they shouldn’t be. That’s embarrassing and difficult, and ultimately erodes the public’s confidence in our institutions.”

Contradictions and Scientifically Weak Advice Abounds

The report from the expert panel is 571 pages long. Teicholz actually read the entire report, and wrote an article about her findings for the BMJ last year.3 She notes the panel report contains a number of contradictions and recommendations that aren’t supported by the actual evidence. “It was very disappointing to see that this was the document that was guiding our national policy,” she says. Her article sparked a great deal of controversy—so much so the BMJ eventually retracted it.

 “This article [was] the first high-level critique of the way the science is reviewed for the dietary guidelines and it makes a number of points,” Teicholz says. “It says that some of these reviews did not happen in a systematic way. They have their own system within the USDA called the Nutrition Evidence Library (NEL), which is supposed to do systematic reviews of the literature.

On a number of key topics, they did not use the Nutrition Evidence Library... including on unsaturated fats where there’s been a tremendous amount of new research in the last five years, and yet they did not do a systematic review of that literature. In quite a few cases, recommendations are based on what’s called the Grade III inconclusive evidence. There are three grades that they give evidence to judge its quality – Grade I, II, and III for available evidence.

There are a number of recommendations – including the vegetarian diet – based on what they consider to be Grade III evidence, which seems to be problematic to me. They are not supposed to, according to their own procedures, make recommendations based on such weak evidence. Probably one of the more controversial parts of the article was that I talked about what kinds of bias might have entered into the report.”

Strangely enough, committee members are not required to reveal their conflict of interest, which in and of itself raises questions. Despite bringing forth a number of important concerns, her article raised many angry and defensive responses. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which is closely allied with the government, got more than 170 scientists to sign a letter asking for a retraction of the article, based on 11 points they consider to be grievous flaws.4

“It does seem to be an effort to try to silence this article, a kind of censorship to prevent these issues from being discussed and debated as they should,” Teicholz says.

“The main point is that the dietary guidelines are clearly not working... The nicest thing you can say is that they have failed to fight obesity and diabetes. The meanest thing you could say is that they caused those conditions. The truth has to be somewhere in that range of possibilities...Scientists in this field ought to be curious. Why aren’t the guidelines working? Here’s a clue: maybe they aren’t based on good science. Take the clue and run with it—that ought to be the response to this article.”

Processed Vegetables Oils Have Done Great Harm

Unfortunately, there are very real consequences to getting the dietary guidelines wrong. One example of this is the vilification of saturated fats and the encouragement to decrease fat consumption. That left us with polyunsaturated fats, which can be healthy as we need some omega-6 fats, but not in the form of processed vegetable oils. These   have likely caused more harm than the overall increase in carbohydrates.

As noted by Teicholz, the rise in heart disease in the U.S. goes in perfect lockstep with the rise in vegetable oils in the early 1920’s and 30’s. It was an unintended consequence of getting rid of saturated fats—a move partly orchestrated by the industry, which developed ways to extract oils from seeds and beans.

Today we’re dealing with another, very similar fallout. Once the FDA banned trans fats, the food industry started using interesterified fats and traditional vegetable oils, which produce extremely toxic byproducts when heated. One category called aldehydes are highly inflammatory, and may promote heart disease and Alzheimer’s.

So by not going far enough, and failing to make the recommendation to switch back to lard and other healthier fats, we may simply have jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.

Saturated Fat Is Still Wrongly Vilified

The 2015-2020 dietary guidelines still recommend capping saturated fat consumption at a maximum of 10 percent of your daily calories. Personally, I eat a whole lot more than that, and there’s evidence to suggest some people may benefit from as much as 50 to 80 percent. Teicholz has done serious study in this area, and she offers the following rebuttal to those who insist saturated fat should be limited to protect your heart health:

“Saturated fats were condemned in the 1950s because they raised total cholesterol. When they could do better measurements, it shifted from total cholesterol to LDL cholesterol. But neither total nor LDL cholesterol, it turns out track very well with your heart attack risk. In other words, you’re just as likely to get a heart attack if you have high LDL as you have low LDL. That’s been shown in a number of clinical trials with thousands of people.

It turns out that, according to more reliable biomarkers – HDL cholesterol, your triglycerides, your LDL particle number, your LDL subfraction size, more up-to-date biomarkers that have now been developed that more reliably track with heart attacks – saturated fats looks perfectly good, if not healthy. In fact, saturated fats are the only food you can eat if you were to raise your HDL...

There’s also the fact that in the ‘60s and ‘70s, there were many large clinical trials on tens of thousands of people... where they took out saturated fats and replaced it with vegetable oils...reducing saturated fats down to 9 percent. In all of those trials, they could not demonstrate that reducing saturated fat reduced cardiovascular mortality. Those trials, a huge body of evidence, have basically been suppressed and ignored for decades.”

In the last five years, however, nearly a dozen systematic reviews and meta-analyses have looked at that clinical trial data, concluding that saturated fats have no adverse effect on cardiovascular mortality.

Yet the dietary guideline committee did not systematically review this evidence, even though they’re tasked with reviewing any new evidence that has emerged in the past five years. “They left a lot out, and that’s why they could come to the conclusion that the evidence against saturated fats was still strong in their view,” Teicholz says.

For the First Time, Dietary Guidelines Must Undergo Peer-Review

Interestingly, for the first time ever, Congress is getting involved. A meeting was held in October 2015, during which members of Congress asked USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell (who are jointly responsible for the dietary guidelines) a number of questions, including: ‘Why did your experts not use the Nutrition Evidence Library like they’re supposed to?,’ ‘Why are you issuing recommendations on children when there’s no data on children?,’ and “Why are the guidelines still a one-size-fits-all recommendation?’

“That level of concern is much higher than it has been in recent history, if ever, again, because the dietary guidelines haven’t worked. Anybody can see that, so there is a high level of concern in the Congress about it,” Teicholz says. In the end, Congress mandated the first ever peer-review of the dietary guidelines by the National Academy of Medicine.

They also asked members of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines expert committee to recuse themselves from the process. It’s unclear how long it will take to complete this review, but it will certainly be interesting to see the results.

Silver Linings

While there are still many problems with the dietary guidelines, a few recommendations have shifted in the right direction. For example, for the first time ever, they now recommend limiting sugar to a maximum of 10 percent of your total calories. They also suggest reducing refined grains. Another first: coffee and alcohol were singled out as being healthy in moderate amounts.

However, even though the guidelines tell you to avoid refined grains and eat more healthy whole grains, the actual diet model distributed to all the food assistance programs show the same amount of refined grains as before—three to five servings of refined grains, and three to five servings of whole grains. Why did they do that?

Teicholz theory on this is that it has to do with fortification. Refined grains, like breakfast cereals are typically fortified, allowing them to get specific nutrients into the food supply, because, believe it or not, the dietary guidelines do not actually meet nutrient targets for vitamins and minerals. And why don’t they meet nutritional sufficiency?

“My hypothesis is because they limit saturated fats. Most the nutrient-dense foods where those are found are organ meats, meat, dairy, and eggs – that’s where you’ll find the nutrients. So bizarrely, that’s why you have to recommend Americans to eat three to five servings of refined grains every day. That’s one reason,” Teicholz says.

Why the Dietary Guidelines Are Inappropriate for Most Americans

Another positive change is the shift in focus from individual nutrients to dietary patterns. As Teicholz says, “Nobody goes to dinner and says, ‘Can I have 25 percent fat, please?’ You talk about food.”

Examples of food patterns include the vegetarian and the Mediterranean style diet. On the downside, when Teicholz analyzed the actual amount of food in these dietary patterns, the same old patterns were found again. They all consist of about 55 percent carbohydrates, 32 to 34 percent fat, and they all recommend most of the same foods.

“The issue is that people do respond very individually to diet. There are different nutritional needs for children. Women respond differently from men. The elderly have different nutritional needs. There are genetic factors that influence people’s responses. To continue with the one-size-fits-all diet seems too foolhardy and not a good kind of policy to have,” she says.

“There’s also the particular variation in the American population now, which is metabolic health. If you are obese or have diabetes, that is a sign of your intolerance to a certain kind of carbohydrates. There needs to be included in the guidelines a recommendation for those people, because who are those people?

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. More than half are pre-diabetic or diabetic. The guidelines are not for those people. So you’re talking about a policy that doesn’t address the majority of America. But there’s no big caveat that comes with the guidelines saying, “Hey America, most of these are not for most of you.”

Basic Advice: Eat Real Food

Perhaps the broadest dietary recommendation for health is simply to eat real food. Sure, people might eat more fat, but if it’s processed vegetables oils, you’ll simply get sick and die prematurely. By eating real food, as close to its natural state as possible, you’re likely to be much healthier simply because you’ll avoid a lot of processed foods.

Science actually confirms that a wide variety of diets can be healthy — provided they're based on real food, as unadulterated foods contain all the nutrients your body needs, and in far more ideal ratios than nutritional scientists can guesstimate.

Another requirement is that your diet be nutritionally sufficient and have the basic nutrients needed for life. “I think if you say eat real food that is nutritionally sufficient, that would be enough. That would narrow down your options,” Teicholz says. There are some really good databases out there that can help you determine whether or not you’re meeting your nutritional needs.

Beware that even this strategy has its shortcomings though. As noted by Teicholz: “The subtle twist is that nutrients are not all equally bioavailable from all foods. You need to eat, for example, fat-soluble vitamins with fats ... If you don’t have the vitamins, you can’t absorb the minerals.

So it’s more complicated than just simply tallying it up. But it’s a good start.” It can be especially useful for determining the ratios of nutrients in your diet, such as the percentage of protein, carbohydrates, and fat, or the ratio of saturated versus polyunsaturated fat.

For more guidance on what makes for a healthy diet, I recommend reading through my optimized nutrition plan. You may also print out my version of the food pyramid.

Source:  http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/05/22/us-dietary-guidelines-flaws.aspx?

This post is on Healthwise