The fat you eat is not the fat in your blood !

 A 6-month trial just showed that a higher-fat, low-carbohydrate diet lowered circulating saturated fat compared with a higher-carbohydrate diet, even though people on the low-carb diet ate far more saturated fat. Palmitoleic acid, a marker of the liver making new fat from carbohydrates, also fell. All of this matches up with previously published data: when carbohydrate comes down, circulating saturated fat comes down with it.

That is the part the diet-heart story often misses. Much of the saturated fat in the blood is not arriving from the meal, but is being made. Cut the carbohydrates, insulin comes down, and the fat-generating signal to the liver turns down. All of this matters for insulin resistance. When circulating saturated fats in the blood come to a cell, they can be used to make ceramides--the very molecules that impair insulin signaling. Less saturated fat in circulation means less raw material for that process.

[source]

Effect of a 6-month low-carbohydrate diet on the circulating fatty acid composition in patients with type 2 diabetes: a secondary analysis of an open-label randomized controlled trial

Red alert for meat lovers

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High red and processed meat consumption is related to several diseases. In addition, cooking meat at high temperatures for a long duration forms heterocyclic amines, which have harmful health effects. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a significant public health burden and its formation is strongly related to insulin resistance. In this study, both were found to be more frequent in people who consume relatively high quantities of red and processed meat. In addition, a high intake of heterocyclic amines was associated with insulin resistance.

Research highlights

• High consumption of red and/or processed meat is related to NAFLD and insulin resistance.
• Consumption of meat cooked in unhealthy methods is related to insulin resistance.
• Consumption of HCAs is related with insulin resistance.
• These associations are independent of saturated fat and cholesterol intake.
• If confirmed prospectively, limiting the consumption of unhealthy meats may be advised.

[the full study is here]

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our comment :

we need to keep an eye on red and processed meat consumption.
This is the reason that red meat should be grouped independently to fish and white meat, as explained here.

novel research: olives and weigh loss

Olive Component Oleuropein Promotes β-Cell Insulin Secretion and Protects β-Cells from Amylin Amyloid-Induced Cytotoxicity.

Oleuropein, a natural product derived from olive leaves, has reported anti-diabetic functions. However, detailed molecular mechanisms for how it affects β-cell functions remain poorly understood. Here, we present evidence that oleuropein promotes glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) in β-cells. The effect is dose-dependent and stimulates the ERK/MAPK signaling pathway. We further demonstrated that oleuropein inhibits the cytotoxicity induced by amylin amyloids, a hallmark feature of type 2 diabetes. We demonstrated that these dual functions are structure-specific: we identified the 3-hydroxytyrosol moiety of oleuropein as the main functional entity responsible for amyloid inhibition, but the novel GSIS function requires the entire structure scaffold of the molecule.

[full paper is here]