[ploxolo]

Now that's health in context ;)

At this point in my life, and after careful study and application of Ray's work, I can only say I hope to never set foot in a hospital or doctor's office ever again. (Barring some accident or trauma, knock on wood). Put simply, I've never been as vital or radiantly healthy as now

[copperx]

Is your view on unsaturated fats similar to Ray's? Do you not consume olive oil and prefer saturated fats? If so, how are you cholesterol levels?

[ploxolo]

Yes, I would say he is completely right. I use mostly coconut oil, butter and on rare occasions olive for flavor.

The last numbers I have show LD/HD ratios all good, HDL good, Triglicerides good, and LDL slightly higher than normal (138 vs 130). Now putting it in context, that testing happened right after a month of eating multiple times out for dinner, so I'm not too concerned about LDL.

The thing with cholesterol is that you need to consider the context. I find the standard course of treatment with statins to be incredibly myopic (plus almost everyone I know who takes them have side effects). Cholesterol in a healthy body (adequate thyroid function and metabolism) simply gets transformed into hormones (and the good stuff, not cortisol and related stress hormones). Statins, sure they might block a pathway so cholesterol shows up lower when you measure, but how is that number in any way indicative of good health?

Not getting super detailed in here, but let's just say that I can easily picture different persons having the same number for cholesterol and radically different health outcomes. In one case cholesterol is properly used by the body to increase vitality, in the other some issue is causing less cholesterol generation but since little is being actually processed further the number remains stable.

Going back to saturated versus unsaturated, there is an angle that might help you clear the apparent disconnect between Ray's perspective and current mainstream.

In general, we can agree that life is at its core, self-organizing structure. Now this structure being self-organizing can deviate from equilibrium, due to disturbances in the environment, but it will try to adapt and preserve its structure as intact as possible; this is simply how life evolved, to be resilient.

Now, let's take a step back and consider for a moment fat rancidity. I think even the mainstream holds this view. "Rancid fat is very bad, don't overheat oil cause it will go bad." Rancidification is basically premature oxidation of the fat. Now, you know which fats never go rancid? Saturated; look it up, coconut oil (practically all saturated), chocolate, very hardly go rancid. Common cooking oils begin to go rancid just from being exposed to air, not to say high temperature.

Why is rancid fat so bad? At a cellular level, mostly because it both is more susceptible to free radicals and it creates more free radicals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation . Saturated fat on the other hand, due to its higher inherent stability, can be processed by cells at a more controlled rate or used as a better building block so to speak.

Tying back to life as structure. Radicals being highly energetic reactants and their creation occurring almost spontaneously in the presence of unsaturated fat, they are damaging of this structure. While sure, saturated fat is processed by our bodies to release energy, this energy release is a much more controlled process than for unsaturated ones, which occur spontaneously and thus stress our cells. This stress leads cells to take defensive measures but some damage is inevitable.

Downstream consequences of this, saturated fats actually speed up metabolism (in the context of an otherwise nutrient rich diet). There are studies where they tried to fatten animals with sat fat and the pesky creatures would get leaner.

Now, one last point that cements my perspective that mainstream understanding is misguided. Look at the history of unsaturated fat in our diets. Turns out about a century ago, some cotton farmers had no use for the seed left after processing cotton. It was so bad that it was used illegally to dilute olive oil and animal fats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottonseed_oil#Economic_Histor... Similar kind of motivations for the pushing of canola, soybean. Let's just say that a hundred years ago, most vegetable oil was held in very low esteem as it concerns edibility. Take flax for instance, no one in their right mind would consume it; it goes rancid so quickly it was used to finish wood furniture (linseed oil).

Hope this wasn't too long and it further piques your curiosity to investigate these topics.

PS. this was focusing mostly on fat, but to more or less follow Ray Peat's view, eat lots of nutrient dense food, plenty of carbohydrates (our body's structure is more adequate for using this energy source) inc fruit, and procure that the fat you eat (not in excess) is mostly saturated.

[copperx]

Your answer does pique my interest, but mostly to find data supporting or disproving your reasoning that sounds totally reasonable. But as you know, experimental results don't always support common sense.

For example, when your wrote "statins, sure they might block a pathway so cholesterol shows up lower when you measure, but how is that number in any way indicative of good health?", You're making way too many assumptions. Statins have been shown to reduce strokes and heart attacks. Does having a lower likelihood of having a stroke means you're healthier? Not necessarily. But what does it mean to be healthy, anyways? You can define it in so many ways.