Over the course of the last century, human tissues as well as breast milk have accumulated a massive amount of polyunsaturated linoleic acid (omega 6). This is due to a massive rise in the consumption of vegetable oils, peanut butter, and eating the fat of pigs and poultry (and eggs) fed mostly soy and corn (what cows are fed has little impact on the total linoleic acid content of their meat and milk).
As proposed in Diet Recovery about how to RAISE YOUR METABOLISM, it’s hard not to suspect that these dietary changes have been responsible for many subsequent changes in our collective health. They have changed the composition of all of our cells and tissues in a multi-generational cumulative fashion, and this change in cellular composition has a lot of metabolic and inflammatory implications.
Okay I’ll stop sounding so freakin? nerdy? These fats slow down your metabolism and cause you to produce extra inflammation ? the commonality that modern scientists have found between countless seemingly unrelated health conditions.
Of course, one thing the modern world is faced with is this rising tide of hyperinsulinemia and rising blood sugars from our sucky glucose metabolism. Most blame this on carbohydrates despite utter failure of epidemiological evidence to back this theory up, and even more contradictions than what you see with the saturated fat kills hypothesis.
Anyway, Amy, a former La Leche League International leader, passed along an interesting study of the differences in the composition of breast milk in a diabetic mother. We know that children born to women with diabetes have a much higher risk of becoming obese and diabetic, and getting it younger than their parents did?
?Interestingly ? and distressingly ? we now see diabetes occurring ten to fifteen years earlier with each generation.
-Virginia Valentine; Diabetes: The New Type 2
So what the heck would be the differences in a diabetic mama’s milk during this key priming period during a human’s development? Most mainstreamists would probably assume it’s higher in saturated fat and cholesterol and lower in ?healthy fats,? like oleic acid found in olive oil and polyunsaturated fats found in nuts, seeds, and fish. In fact, in a mainstream book on type 2 diabetes, which the authors call ?incurable,? and I would agree 100% when using the approach they call for ?I found this?fine chunk of dietary wisdumb?
?Avoid saturated fats such as butter, shortening, fats on meats, bacon, and tropical oils like coconut and palm oil. These same foods are also high in cholesterol and promote high levels of LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream.
– Eisenstat, Stephanie A. and David M. Nathan. Every Woman’s Guide to Diabetes.
Actually, looking at the title of that book, one has to wonder if the book is a guide for having diabetes or a guide on how to get there.
Well hey, don’t worry Sweet Steph and Diabetic?Dave (Blooperheroes??). A diabetic mother has an innate wisdom to produce a diet for the young kid just like you advise. These were the differences between the diabetic mom’s breast milk and what is considered normal?
1) low cholesterol content, only one-fifth of normal milk;
2) decreased medium-chain [Saturated] fatty acids, suggesting impairment of fatty acid synthesis in the mammary gland;
3) increased oleic acid; and
4) high concentrations of polyunsaturated fatty acids, suggesting increased chain elongation.
Interesting, but sadly these wise guys still can’t manage to think outside the box, concluding?
?These results suggest that diabetes produces changes in lipid metabolism in the mammary gland that alter the composition of milk produced by the diabetic mother.
I think it’s far more likely that an excess of polyunsaturated fats causes diabetes (and an alteration of milk composition), not diabetes causing excess of polyunsaturated fats!!! How would that even happen anyway?
For more on Diabetes, CLICK HERE
And here’s the study referred to in this post. Not a particularly significant study in terms of numbers or any kind of statistical relevance, but there are certainly no surprises in their findings.
Milk composition and volume during the onset of lactation in a diabetic mother. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2596426
Matt, I think it's official, the majority of the researchers and scientist that we rely on for nutritional expertise are themselves loaded with pufas that are not only affecting their metabolism but also their intelligence/common sense. It's a vicious cycle that will continue to spiral future generations into the abyss of health problems.
I thought the movie idiocracy was just a dumb comedy not an actual prediction of the future…
Oh gosh–Idiocracy was chilling to me. And now we have the underlying science!
The interpretation of the mother's milk as suggesting changes in lipid metabolism is so blinkered and ridiculous…I guess if you can only look in one way, you can only see one thing.
My husband's dad was a type-2 diabetic, huge adrenaline and sugar junkie. Now my husband has high-cholesterol, and I'm really concerned that his dr will try to put him on those PUFAs–but he's open to other ideas and hears me ranting about omega-6's pretty regularly…
I'm glad that you're keeping on this issue–I agree with your suspicion (mentioned in a comment) that we don't convert LA to AA so fast because we're already 'saturated.'…
Just hope that it's something we can reverse within our own selves and generations. I'm curious now about your sugar experimentations and how one might be able to tell whether it helps to displace the 6's.
Reading (stupidity) stuff like that, really makes one fear the future of the world.
Good reading Matt.
Ok, so I have a question. If I can only afford "natural" beef but not grass-fed, is it still relatively better to eat that than organic, free-range chicken when considering the PUFA content?
Also, you say eggs have high omega 6 but is this only for commercially raised? Eggs are one of my primary sources of animal protien.. but I do buy them free range, organic, etc.
I know my diet can't be perfect but I want to be able to make the most-informed decisions for the amt of money I can spend (college budget…)
It makes me so angry when the 'gurus' lump butter and shortening together. As a breastfeeding mom, the one thing I make sure to stay away from is polyunsaturated fats. I eat coconut oil every morning with my oatmeal and make sure to eat grass-fed eggs. We only cook with butter or lard (still waiting to render the suet into tallow in the freezer). But one thing, I have eaten this way for 3 years now, and during pregnancy, but my son has curdled spit-up when I eat dairy, so I have had to avoid it. This is so upsetting because I lived for cheese and yogurt, making custard and ice-cream, and just recently got into whole, unhomogenized milk. I am avoiding these things for now and I hope his little body will mature. It is so hard to accept sometimes because I feel that I am the epitomy of "healthy" haha — gained 40 pds with pregnancy, now lost all but 5 lbs of it and eat all the time. Just wish my little guy could stop spitting up, the non-dairy is helping, but not a total fix, and I don't want to become one of those bfing moms who thinks their child is allergic to everything. Any suggestions?
@wheezy
I would not sweat too much about the PUFA in things like chicken. If you want to be a little more "careful" just remove the skin — of course saving it to use in stock because it contains a good amount of collagen, can give that awesome bowl of "chicken jello".
Hi Amy
my son was allergic to cow milk (casein) and we "cured" it with a medical reintroduction protocol we started at age 2 (taked 8 months).
we were told we could have started when he was 6 months old.
I would completely stop diary and try to reintroduce it step by step after a month or so.
by "step" I really mean babysteps(we started with 1 ml milk the first days…)
matt : amazing post.
One thing I learned in some nutrition coursework when I was considering becoming a dietitian a couple of years ago was, the only dietary factor researchers have been able to correlate with the development of diabetes is a high-fat diet (total fat, no breakdown was given). Sugar gets a bad rap but has never been proven to be a cause of diabetes. Looking at this, it proves that point. Also makes sense why a low-fat, high-starch diet would help – excess calories are converted to saturated fat in the body.
-Amy
I always suspected this… and why maybe i have always had a better metabolism than my brothers and sisters… My mom could only breast feed me for a month or two, and stopped producing milk. She raised me on raw goat milk from our neighbors grass fed goats for two years. A goat doesn't unexpectedly eat foods fried in soybean oil, soymilk, healthy soy burgers, etc etc.
And please don't say goats will eat anything… i have worked on a raw goat dairy farm, and sure their curious and playful, but they don't eat just anything…. they love grass, alfalfa, grain, and alot of them liked fruit. I saw them get into alot of things though… but just play and kick it around, never eat it.
Very good article…. but i think i will get the diabetes book for women, than take your advice!!! haha!!!
troy
Good post Matt. I think that the whole totalitarian approach to diet is the problem. We are all different and I think food effects us all based on where we come from, how we live and what we have inherited
Hi all,long time 'silent' reader. I breast fed my first child for 6mths, pureed home cooked veggies etc for weaning. No allergies – now 27.
Breastfed for 1 month with 2nd child – childhood asthma. Now 21, and still suffers with it.
3rd child I didnt breastfeed at all – formula from day 1(2nd child was only 12 months old and mistakenly thought I wouldnt have the time!). 3rd child had very bad asthma – in and out of hospital as a baby. Also chronic screaming colic every day til 6 months old. She still suffers with asthma and has eczema and rhinitus.
Speaks volumes for me. I big-up breastfeeding to every expectant mum I see.
Lee
Very interesting stuff. Explains why breast feeding may not always be a good thing! I think my mum ate a pretty high saturated fat diet during the 80's when I was born and breast fed, she was not one to be swayed by dietary advice in the mainstream….
Suppose this breast milk ice cream that has gone on sale in the UK may not be the most healthy haha http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12569011
Sorry to rain on your parade Lee, but both of my kids were on formula, and have absolutely no observable health issues. My sister breast fed her 2 kids and they both have raging allergies/asthma…..so I don't regard breast feeding as a fail-safe.
Nice Troy-
That's kinda what I would suspect. A lot of the moms I know I'd much rather be drinking goats milk with a little added lactose.
People always want to breast feed bacause it's "more natural." But modern mama milk is often as unnatural as the foods eaten to produce that milk.
Chris –
Are you going to sign up to be a breastmilk inspector? I could see it being just like a scene from Napolean Dynamite…
"This woman's milk tastes like she got into a Funion patch."
If anyone in the UK is looking to add more PUFA's to their diet;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12569011
Breastmilk ice cream!
Undertow/Matt: the place serving the icecream is really near to where I live in London…. May have to sample some this weekend – Will give a testimonial haha
@ Undertow: How are you doing any updates? did you get around to starting some MET training?
Chris, ya let us know!
Update for me, things still getting better, digestion, sleep, skin, body comp, waking fatigue, etc. 17 months now RRARFing, slow battle, but progressing. Been eating lots more beans/legumes and I think its been helping me improve. Fruit/honey/molasses seem to be alright with me now too, not gorging on it though.
Oh basal is still 97.2! haha static it be! Setpoint still static too.
My gym membership activation through my work was delayed, will be starting next week.
Buncha guys chatting online about breast feeding. I've officially seen it all.
Troy, don't be ruining my image of goats as animals that will eat anything. My favorite song as a kid was "Old Grogan's Goat."
I breast-fed both my sons and they're both healthy, but the one I nursed longer (2 years) is less healthy than his brother, with some seasonal allergies — every fall he gets a bad cough. But his father, who was formula-fed, had terrible allergies as a child. Maybe the boob-milk saved my kid from much worse allergies.
I was fed formula and have none, though. There's clearly a statistical relationship but that doesn't it works in every case.
Great post, Matt. I knew you would do something great with that!
I'll probably write some sort of follow-up in the next week or so, as I got most of the PUFAs out of my diet between my two kids. Actually, I took coconut oil and cod liver oil when I was pregnant with my second.
I wonder if that's why my temps are so high, despite having the adrenal issues, and having been on Atkins for a year. I leaned very heavily on coconut oil, and I've had veggie oils out of my house for about 5 years now.
@Maggieo, that's a good point as it probably also depends on the nutrition of the fetus during the 9 months in the womb, plus the heredity passed on from the parents and perhaps even later generations.
Boob Juice is good food. Unless the mom is a jack ass junk food eater wino. Then, like half navajo, you are better off with a goat boob.
There are many types of moms. A kid would be lucky to get even formula rather than that toxic brew you describe.
xo
Anonymous @ 5.06 am,
nothing's a failsafe where natures concerned – there are too many variables. I'm merely giving feedback on my experience for what it's worth. Plus I was breastfeeding nearly 30 years ago – different world now.
Lee
Amy said:
"One thing I learned in some nutrition coursework when I was considering becoming a dietitian a couple of years ago was, the only dietary factor researchers have been able to correlate with the development of diabetes is a high-fat diet (total fat, no breakdown was given). Sugar gets a bad rap but has never been proven to be a cause of diabetes. Looking at this, it proves that point. Also makes sense why a low-fat, high-starch diet would help – excess calories are converted to saturated fat in the body."
I've thought about that myself after upping my own starch intake via Matt's recommendations. Definitely provided much better fasting glucose than on low-carb. While low-carb, fasting glucose in high 80s or in the 90s was common. Reading around the comments on other paleo type blogs seems to confirm this phenomenon.
The question is why. The answer may be as simple as: want good carbohydrate metabolism? Then eat plenty of unrefined carbohydrates!
Rrarf Week 5 Update (Long):
After reading a bit more Peat this past week I have reintroduced some sugar. Oranges, ice cream, and yogurt w/ fruit. However, the bulk of my diet continues to be potatoes, rice, milk, coconut oil, butter, and various proteins. I have occasionally eaten some potato chips, which aren't exactly "whole foods", but are at least made with high oleic varieties of vegetable oil. Ah, wouldn't it be nice to have potato chips fried in coconut oil!
I'm still on a bit of roller coaster in terms of health effects, but some trends continue to emerge. And that's encouraging, because over the last 10 years I've tried a billion different things, and I've gotten pretty good at telling what effects are real, and which are just temporary. Nothing else I've tried has had effects that lasted more than a week or two (and thus were perhaps placebo effects).
The good trends:
– I continue to generally feel warmer, such that I usually don't need anything more than a t-shirt at work (office environment), whereas I used to need a sweater or multiple layers. There are still days where I'm cold, but much less so. This extends to my hands/feet, which are now warm more than 50% of the time, as opposed to basically never before.
– Less nervousness. This is very welcome indeed. As I've said before, I used to be both tired and nervous at the same time, and that's pretty much gone. I wouldn't say I'm 100% as calm as I used to be 20 years ago, but it's definitely getting there. I think my blood pressure is down — it used to be borderline hypertension, and I could often feel my heart beating when trying to sleep. That's gone completely. I'll have to measure the BP.
– Concentration improved / less brain fog. Not perfect, but it's definitely improving. I feel like I'm being more productive at work.
– Strength. Before Rrarf, I think I was significantly undereating, and I feel that my strength & endurance were seriously impaired. This seems to be going away. Even puttering around with chores around the house, I'm starting to feel stronger.
Things that aren't improving:
– Joint pain. I don't have this too bad, but I do have some sore, 'clicky' joints — particularly the knees. This has not improved much, if at all. It *might* be a bit worse. Some folks suggest that milk can cause this. I dunno, but I'm not ready to cut back too much on milk just yet, since overall recovery is going well.
– Itchy skin/scalp. Same as joint pain. In fact, they usually both come on at the same time.
– Weight. I've definitely put on some belly fat. Again, I'm not too worried about this, though one or two pair of jeans are now out of the rotation.
– Digestion has slowed down again. I'd say it's still above before Rrarf, but slower than a few weeks ago.
Things that are random still:
– Energy levels. Some days I have energy to spare, and some days I plop on the couch and watch TV. I will say that high-energy days do not feel like they are fueled purely by adrenaline. And it's probably true that my mood is better than it used to be on low-energy times.
– Sleep. On the whole I'd say my sleep has improved. But about a week ago I started waking around 4-5am for 10-20 minutes. Wasn't too bad, on the whole. After adding sugar back to the diet, this seems to have gone away. I've read that fructose is superior to glucose in replenishing liver glycogen. I dunno, maybe topping off the liver has reduce the need for adrenaline during the night. /shrug
@ ZOgby: Always good to see a good detailed RRARF update. All I can say is that your results seem promising and you are only 5 weeks in! After a year back on eating the food and especially eating the starch improvements are still coming as are ups and downs so stick in there and go with the flow.
Hey matt, just a quicky;
what are the top 15 books that you would want an aspiring self educated type to read that would best sum up what you know? I know that you've recommended considerably more than a mere 15, but I'm looking for the best of the best. Mucho gracias amigo.
@Chris,
Thanks! I hope my weekly reports aren't too boring. :)
The really strange thing is how up and down it all is. I guess if it wasn't complex, we'd have figured it all out by now.
Today, for example, I was absolutely exhausted almost the whole day, and had a killer headache. Who knows what caused it. The overall improvements I'm seeing make me think Rrarf is helpful, but the lack of consistency make me think it's not the whole picture. Not that I have any better ideas at the moment.
Oh, great, another thing I've done wrong to my kids, when I thought I was doing the right thing. *Sigh.* But I don't think my diabetes was caused by a diet high in polyunsaturated fats, so maybe it doesn't apply to me.
In fact, I have trouble believing that the difference in breast milk composition was caused by the diets of diabetic mothers, whose diets probably don't differ much from their non-diabetic peers' – just their sensitivity to said diets do. I don't buy that people who get Type II diabetes are doing something uniquely wrong that those who don't aren't doing. Most Americans have a "SAD" diet, but only some get diabetes.
Anonymous – Check out Matt's reading lists.
http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2011/01/2010-reading-list.html
http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2010/01/2009-reading-list.html
Helen,
I agree that diabetic aren't doing anything uniquely wrong. As you say, some people are just more susceptible than others.
As a country we're doing some things wrong, and it's just than some of us break in different ways than others. Some get fat, some get diabetic, some get depressed, some get heart attacks, some get arthritis, some get all of these, and some (the lucky ones) get nothing (obvious).
We think this is all normal because there's so many sick people. Is it reasonable that 10% of Americans are on anti-depressents? No.
Hey Anonymous … here's an idea. Why not just buy the books Matt has written that would sum up what he knows in less than 15 books. :)
buy em here
http://180degreehealth.com/shop.html
Matt said: "I think it’s far more likely that an excess of polyunsaturated fats causes diabetes (and an alteration of milk composition), not diabetes causing excess of polyunsaturated fats!!! How would that even happen anyway?"
I don't know the exact way that might happen, but having diabetes leads to higher urinary excretions of certain minerals and vitamins, such as zinc and thiamine. (I don't know if the body disposes of lipids differently in diabetes.)
Thiamine, for example, is excreted at 15 times the normal rate in BOTH Type I and Type II diabetics. Yet thiamine is highly protective against the microvascular complications of high glucose levels, so why would your body do that?
Zinc is a similar scenario. These increased excretions appear to be the opposite of protective against diabetes and diabetic complications, so rather than being an adaptive response to high glucose levels, or the result of a dietary imbalance, they appear to be instead either ways that the body is thrown off by diabetes, or part of the entire metabolic picture that comes with diabetes – perhaps fellow travelers but not cause or effect.
Additionally, although levels of choline, omega-3s, and conjugated linoleic acid will rise and fall in breast milk in accord with the mother's diet, it isn't a simple rise or fall in a straight line. Choline and omega-3s (I don't know about CLA) are preferentially liberated from the mother's tissues to supply them to the infant, so if they are in short supply in the diet, this puts the mother in a deficiency state before the breast milk is depleted of them. (The same thing happens in pregnancy with iron and probably other nutrients as well. The mother will become anemic, but the developing fetus won't.)
So it's plausible to me that diabetes could alter the composition of breast milk independent of a woman's diet, either by adaptive design, or via metabolic dysfunction related to diabetes.
I haven't read the study myself, but was there a control group, and do we know what they ate? Again, I seriously doubt that the diabetics' diets differed significantly from those of most women's, unless the diabetics were carefully following a specific diet to control diabetes.
Week 6 Update:
This past week wasn't that great. Definitely saw a regression in energy, and some nervousness reappeared. Was it the fructose, which I re-added in moderate amounts these past 2 weeks? Maybe. Also, joint soreness was on the rise.
To combat the joint issues, I've added gelatin/glycine. I've basically been sprinkling gelatin and/or beef stock over most of my home meals. If anyone has any tips on easy gelatin consumption, I'm all ears.
So my diet is basically a blend of Rrarf and Peats at this point. I'll try this for a few weeks and see what happens.
Zoggy Zogg –
Adding a little bit of fructose to a diet high in meat and fat is usually very aggravating to any number of conditions. Even fruitarians know not to eat too much coconut or mac nuts with fruit.
If you are going to play around with it, try eating an all-fruit meal until you are totally stuffed to start the day, followed by carrying on as normal the rest of the day. It's a tough ride at first – blood sugar rollercoaster, headaches…
But there's no doubt that fruit is a powerful energizer and very good at packing glycogen into the muscles and liver.
@Matt,
Fructose is an interesting thing. So reviled in so many places, and maybe with good reason. But ya can't get more natural than fruit, and it's pretty obvious that we're set up to like it.
What are your thoughts on the fructose / vitamin C connection? One study shows that in rats, fructose alone is bad (causes hypertension), but fructose with vitamin C (or vit E, actually) was ok. I'm not sure this has been proven true in humans, though, with our weird vitamin C biochemistry.
fruit/sucrose is fructose and glucose. if that study is pure fructose then i wouldn't pay any attention to it because its totally unrealistic to eat such a high ratio of fructose to everything else. any food with fructose has vit c so they clearly work together. if only they had caffeine and fizzy carbon dioxide like soft drinks, then we'd have a real superfood haha
i have no problems at all with fruit (or anything else) but i still find it hard to see humans evolving eating lots of it. i can't picture lots of big juicy fruits around the place and anyway there would be a lot of competition for it. find some roots/tubers and you've got all the carbs and calories you need. much easier
Totally off topic here: but what is the general feeling about the HCG diet? I have a co-worker who is wanting to try it and I did some reasearch because I knew nothing about it. Even if the HCG made me not hungry I just don't think I would be happy eating only 500 calories of specific foods. I think I would rather weight more than do that!
I really appreciate your post and you explain each and every point very well.Thanks for sharing this information.And I’ll love to read your next post too.
Wheelchairs
"If anyone has any tips on easy gelatin consumption"
Put it in water and let it soak for a while, then can you put that stuff in soups or stews, it dissolves very easily.
Wow this explains so much! I was pumping and freezing my breast milk for my son to drink at daycare. However, he wasn’t too keen on it and began to refuse to drink it. I noticed that it started to ‘sour’ extremely quickly, even though I had been informed that breast milk should last at least 24 hours, 6 or 7 days if refrigerated. So I researched and found out that this ‘sour’ milk was quite common and thought to be caused by excess lipase in the milk….which is caused by, yep…too much PUFA! I thought I was following a ‘healthy, low fat diet, dairy & gluten free (I have food sensitivities to both, I WISH I could eat eggs but they are problematic for me) but when I really scrutinized it I realized I relied heavily on store bought salad dressings made with canola oil! Now I’m making my own dressing, using more butter to cook (instead of olive oil…yikes!) and adding more coconut oil. But this has certainly opened my eyes to what I believed was a perfect food for my baby, I always wondered how much difference a mothers diet made on the composition of BM
I don’t know what to make of any of this. I know that Diabetic breastmilk is different from normal breastmilk. I can’t access the full article to view results and conclusions which I want to see. I want to know if there is any way a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic can supplement their diet to reduce the risk of their insulin and higher calorific milk from impacting upon their baby. (I’m a pregnant type 1) Re: Higher calorific…its here: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/25/1/16.full.pdf+html