杏吧原创

Good fat, bad fat

Increasing attention is being paid by nutritionists to the role of a certain class of fats called polyunsaturated fatty acids, which were initially discovered almost 30 years ago. It seems that their absence in humans can lead to well-defined deficiency symptoms and also to general ill health.

All animals carry a store of these substances with them from birth, and the milk produced by mothers to feed offspring is also rich in these fats. So even if animals are placed on a diet that is deficient in these substances, it takes a long time before the effects of deficiency can be noted.

However, such a study has now taken place at the Hormel Institute in the US and it has shown startling results. Baby pigs became listless and remained small if their diet was deficient in these fats, although they recovered when they were added. Of more importance, however, is that the fats were clearly important in helping to form healthy arteries. If they were absent from their diets, the baby pigs suffered a severely damaged aorta, hardened arteries and atherosclerosis.

This has vital implications, and it probably explains why diets rich in cholesterol produce the same disease. Cholesterol is known to mobilise the deposits of the essential fats like polyunsaturated fatty acids and to bring about a depletion of the body鈥檚 reserves.

It鈥檚 clear that nutritionists must pay much more attention to the proper balance of fats found in the diet and that the different types of fats cannot just be lumped together under the one heading of 鈥渇at鈥�. In particular, it may be important to augment the diets of bottle-fed babies because the milk they consume contains far less essential fat than human breast milk. Fortunately, essential fats can be readily obtained from many sources, which range from vegetable oils to pig鈥檚 milk.

From The New 杏吧原创, 29 August 1957