WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Welcome to Politics and Science. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:12.360 Politics and Science can be heard weekly on WMRW LP1 95.1 FM, airing on Wednesdays at 00:00:12.360 --> 00:00:16.200 5 p.m. and Sundays at noon. 00:00:16.200 --> 00:00:23.920 And in the Bellows Falls area, it can be heard on WULL LP Bellows Falls at 101.1 FM, airing 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:30.560 from 3 to 4 p.m. on Sundays and from 9 to 10 a.m. on Mondays. 00:00:30.560 --> 00:00:34.340 Politics and Science presents the viewpoints of its participants and does not necessarily 00:00:34.340 --> 00:00:38.360 reflect the viewpoints of any other person or organization. 00:00:38.360 --> 00:00:47.800 And my guest today on Politics and Science is Raymond Peat, endocrinologist and physiologist 00:00:47.800 --> 00:00:48.800 from Eugene, Oregon. 00:00:48.800 --> 00:00:49.800 And Ray, how are you today? 00:00:49.800 --> 00:00:50.800 Good. 00:00:50.800 --> 00:00:51.800 Good. 00:00:51.800 --> 00:00:52.800 Good. 00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:53.800 Good. 00:00:53.800 --> 00:00:54.800 Hands like... 00:00:54.800 --> 00:00:59.280 And Ray, maybe you should give your resume a bit, Ray, because obviously you can do it 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:00.280 better than I. 00:01:00.280 --> 00:01:04.280 Oh, well, I'm not sure I can. 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:05.280 Okay. 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:14.400 I was a humanities person first, and while I was studying painting and literature and 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:23.440 such, I was interested in science and read widely in libraries and encyclopedias and 00:01:23.440 --> 00:01:25.120 such. 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:32.600 And my first teaching job while I was studying linguistics at Ohio State was in a little 00:01:32.600 --> 00:01:37.200 college where I got assigned to teach biology. 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:43.880 And that, because I had been reading in it for so long, the experience of teaching it 00:01:43.880 --> 00:01:45.440 was fun. 00:01:45.440 --> 00:01:52.040 So I taught art and English for a few years after that, but finally decided to go back 00:01:52.040 --> 00:02:01.440 to graduate school in 1968 to study biology, actually, in a university. 00:02:01.440 --> 00:02:10.880 And my first courses in the sciences didn't impress me that I would be able to learn much 00:02:10.880 --> 00:02:11.880 in a university. 00:02:11.880 --> 00:02:18.760 Same in English and philosophy and psychology and other departments I tried being a graduate 00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:19.760 student in. 00:02:19.760 --> 00:02:28.840 I basically felt that the institutions were anti-educational, that their purpose was to 00:02:28.840 --> 00:02:35.120 prepare people to conform, to get a job and go along with the system. 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:44.680 But by the time I finally decided to be a biologist, I had learned how to be quiet enough 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:51.320 that I could get through the degree program. 00:02:51.320 --> 00:02:58.920 The graduate school experience, I think most people, having done it, recognize that it's 00:02:58.920 --> 00:03:08.200 exercise in conformism rather than anything very special about learning. 00:03:08.200 --> 00:03:12.880 You mean that they're looking for certain behavioral patterns from their students? 00:03:12.880 --> 00:03:21.920 In the '60s, a psychologist at Oregon State University did a study of academic success 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:32.400 and how students had scored on the Miller Analogies test, which is somewhat a test of 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:33.400 cultural knowledge. 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:41.080 You have to know the language, but it's partly a study of mental flexibility and ability 00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:45.200 to reason about new problems. 00:03:45.200 --> 00:03:53.640 She found that the students who scored average on the Miller Analogies test were the straight 00:03:53.640 --> 00:03:58.880 A, very successful students in graduate school. 00:03:58.880 --> 00:04:05.840 The ones who deviated from the average, either up or down, were the less successful in graduate 00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:06.840 school. 00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:19.880 Meaning that having an average ability and conforming really is the way to be an outstanding 00:04:19.880 --> 00:04:23.520 graduate student. 00:04:23.520 --> 00:04:31.520 So after you were a graduate student, you got your PhD in... 00:04:31.520 --> 00:04:32.520 In 1972. 00:04:32.520 --> 00:04:33.520 Okay. 00:04:33.520 --> 00:04:44.200 And I actually took more courses in biochemistry than in biology, but the degree was in biology. 00:04:44.200 --> 00:04:45.200 Right. 00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:51.120 And since then you've taught at a number of universities, I believe. 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:52.800 Yeah. 00:04:52.800 --> 00:05:00.400 I taught some courses at the University of Oregon, but also in Mexico, University of 00:05:00.400 --> 00:05:06.800 Veracruz, and State University of Mexico. 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:13.240 And you write extensively in a newsletter that I know of called Ray Peat's Newsletter. 00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:14.800 Yeah. 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:27.280 I've been doing that since 1981, when I, having had essentially all of my research rejected 00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:34.480 by the journals, I decided just to go ahead and publish my own things and not have to 00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:38.360 deal with editors. 00:05:38.360 --> 00:05:47.960 I had sent some very simple, critical things as letters to editors, for example, Science 00:05:47.960 --> 00:05:56.840 Magazine, pointing out that they were drawing racist conclusions from evidence that had 00:05:56.840 --> 00:06:02.280 absolutely nothing to do with their conclusions. 00:06:02.280 --> 00:06:11.520 And even a little two sentence criticism like that was rejected as being more extreme than 00:06:11.520 --> 00:06:18.440 the authors of the study I was commenting on. 00:06:18.440 --> 00:06:28.080 And I considered science to be so political that I decided to publish my own books and 00:06:28.080 --> 00:06:29.080 newsletters. 00:06:29.080 --> 00:06:35.440 I think some of your writings are what prompted me to name the show Politics and Science, 00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:39.360 because the two seem very closely interwoven. 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:46.120 In fact, they seem to be able to not escape from each other, and to the detriment of science, 00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:47.120 I'm afraid. 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:48.120 Yeah. 00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:58.040 In the '50s, including when I first started teaching biology, my course was officially 00:06:58.040 --> 00:07:04.640 named Biology Introduction for Physics Majors. 00:07:04.640 --> 00:07:13.600 And since the students were planning to major in physics, I thought that the biological 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:19.640 work should find something that would relate to their interests. 00:07:19.640 --> 00:07:32.240 And I thought that information technology, how the organism was interpreted as information 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:40.280 and radiation biology, how the organism interacted with radiation, I thought those were things 00:07:40.280 --> 00:07:44.560 that would be important to physics majors. 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:52.640 And the radiation issue, when the students got interested in reading what the government 00:07:52.640 --> 00:08:01.360 was saying about the safety of radioactive fallout, that caused great turmoil in the 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:04.320 trustees of the university. 00:08:04.320 --> 00:08:14.720 And they invited a professor from the University of Illinois to apply for my job. 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:23.280 When he arrived, his invited speech on the topic of his choosing was on radiation biology. 00:08:23.280 --> 00:08:32.360 And he said he started his lecture looking at his wrist and saying, "You notice I'm not 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:33.360 wearing a wristwatch." 00:08:33.360 --> 00:08:42.760 He said, "I realized how much radiation was being emitted from the dial and threw my watch 00:08:42.760 --> 00:08:46.200 away in a radioactive disposal." 00:08:46.200 --> 00:08:54.600 And he not only didn't get the job he wanted to apply for, but he got fired from the University 00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:55.600 of Illinois. 00:08:55.600 --> 00:09:00.600 I wonder how many they had to go through before they found a proper replacement for you. 00:09:00.600 --> 00:09:01.600 I never heard. 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:09.000 Yeah, well, it sounds like you're not alone out there. 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:14.440 And I know at one point you recommended to me a book called Cold War in Biology, which 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:19.320 certainly speaks to the politics that are going with the science. 00:09:19.320 --> 00:09:29.920 Yeah, that's a good introduction to the politics of genetics in a broader sense, not just the 00:09:29.920 --> 00:09:36.680 racist genetics that they were teaching in American universities, but the whole history 00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:40.720 way back to the 19th century. 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:41.720 Yeah. 00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:43.080 And maybe at some point we can cover that again. 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:46.920 I was hoping today that we'd talk about fats somewhat. 00:09:46.920 --> 00:09:50.840 That's still a subject that's in the news all the time. 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:55.600 The government always makes recommendations for what kind of fats you should be eating, 00:09:55.600 --> 00:09:59.960 and they seem to change their minds about every five years or so. 00:09:59.960 --> 00:10:02.040 They come out with a new proclamation. 00:10:02.040 --> 00:10:04.760 For a while they were telling you to avoid... 00:10:04.760 --> 00:10:10.280 I remember when I was growing up, they told you to avoid greasy fried foods, which I think 00:10:10.280 --> 00:10:15.480 at that time was vegetable oil, or I suppose it could have been coconut at that point, 00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:17.840 but I think a lot of people were frying their foods. 00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:27.120 And Wesson oil was the standard in the '50s when I was born in '55, so probably 1960 I 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:30.800 became aware of things like that. 00:10:30.800 --> 00:10:36.720 So and then at some point they did tell you that those fats were good for you, the vegetable 00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:39.240 oils, and that the thing to avoid was butter. 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:42.440 Yeah, Wesson oil was cottonseed oil. 00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:43.440 Oh, was it? 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:46.960 I always thought that was corn. 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:54.800 Well maybe it was at some time, but in the '50s when I investigated it, it was cottonseed 00:10:54.800 --> 00:10:57.160 oil. 00:10:57.160 --> 00:11:06.880 That has a long history, way back Mark Twain in one of his books told about hearing a conversation 00:11:06.880 --> 00:11:15.880 in the, I think, 1860s, people were on his boat talking about how they were going to 00:11:15.880 --> 00:11:21.440 make Americans eat cottonseed oil instead of butter. 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:23.240 That's right. 00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:29.160 Yeah, talk about... there's a fat conspiracy for you. 00:11:29.160 --> 00:11:30.160 I think I read that. 00:11:30.160 --> 00:11:35.280 They were planning... they were taking olive oil from Italy and then cutting it 10 to 1 00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:39.120 with cottonseed oil. 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:46.480 About 10 years ago the FDA did a survey of all of the imported olive oil sold in the 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:51.080 U.S. and reported that 70% of it was adulterated still. 00:11:51.080 --> 00:11:54.080 Is that right? 00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:56.800 Well that's not too encouraging. 00:11:56.800 --> 00:12:02.120 So I thought, I was thinking if you feel like it, maybe we could start with a bit of the 00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:09.040 history of fat consumption, sort of what's traditionally been eaten by humans and how 00:12:09.040 --> 00:12:18.040 that's evolved in the last century or so. 00:12:18.040 --> 00:12:37.520 Well, in the 19th century my relatives were still preferring fat meat to lean meat and 00:12:37.520 --> 00:12:43.960 the taste of it seemed to be an important guide. 00:12:43.960 --> 00:12:52.720 People really didn't trim the fat from their meat because it tasted good. 00:12:52.720 --> 00:13:11.400 It was fairly isolated areas where they used the exotic oils like extracted oils. 00:13:11.400 --> 00:13:24.120 They just ate either oily fruits, the coconut itself, or avocados and sunflower seeds and 00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:30.680 fat poultry and fat beef and pigs and so on. 00:13:30.680 --> 00:13:43.200 I guess around the 18th century was when the industrial market started promoting cod liver 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:50.360 oil and some of the seed oils. 00:13:50.360 --> 00:14:00.440 Even fish oil was primarily used for varnish and lamps right up until the time of petroleum 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:04.240 when petroleum became so cheap. 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:18.760 Then the plant and fish oils became too expensive and they went looking for new markets. 00:14:18.760 --> 00:14:29.480 The coconut oil is easy to get out with primitive technology and so the oriental countries where 00:14:29.480 --> 00:14:40.560 it was grown, they would boil the semi-dried coconut meat and float off the oil. 00:14:40.560 --> 00:14:50.120 It was very cheap and was being used to feed chickens and pigs and such in the United States 00:14:50.120 --> 00:14:55.000 and to make Oreo cookies for example. 00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:01.000 Because of its cheapness it didn't get rancid. 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:10.520 But the agricultural industry in the 40s experimented and found that even though it was cheap it 00:15:10.520 --> 00:15:20.440 stimulated the animals appetites and metabolic rates and caused them to eat more food and 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:24.960 gain less weight. 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:30.880 One reaction was to use chemical poisons to slow their metabolic rate by poisoning the 00:15:30.880 --> 00:15:33.840 thyroid gland. 00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:43.080 Another discovery was that if they used fish oil or linseed oil or cottonseed oil, any 00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:50.000 of the unsaturated fats, they could slow the metabolic rate and make them put on fat more 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:52.840 cheaply. 00:15:52.840 --> 00:16:04.240 So the seed oil industry now had a fairly good market in feeding pigs. 00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:14.800 But around that time, around 1950, the petroleum chemists found a new use for petroleum other 00:16:14.800 --> 00:16:23.440 than fuel, making paints and plastics out of it, where the fish oil and linseed oil 00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:31.160 had been major bases for making paints and varnishes. 00:16:31.160 --> 00:16:34.560 Now those markets were lost. 00:16:34.560 --> 00:16:44.720 So the linseed oil industry in particular looked for new ways to sell their products 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:48.760 since the paint market was drying up. 00:16:48.760 --> 00:16:58.360 And that was when the oil as an essential nutrient idea started being promoted. 00:16:58.360 --> 00:17:10.760 The study that has been cited for many decades was performed in connection with the lard 00:17:10.760 --> 00:17:13.760 industry. 00:17:13.760 --> 00:17:20.520 That claimed that unsaturated fats were essential nutrients. 00:17:20.520 --> 00:17:31.120 And so the linseed oil industry, because their product is rich in unsaturated fats, picked 00:17:31.120 --> 00:17:41.880 up that isolated bit of research, which happened to be fairly unscientific because they had 00:17:41.880 --> 00:17:50.480 neglected or ignored or suppressed the studies which previously had demonstrated that animal 00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:59.240 thrived on a diet completely lacking the unsaturated fats or any fats in fact. 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:07.480 But that study was so promoted by the oil industry that it created the idea that the 00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:10.560 unsaturated fats are essential nutrients. 00:18:10.560 --> 00:18:15.600 So even though they claim they're essential, you're saying there was an experiment where 00:18:15.600 --> 00:18:17.880 animals thrived without them? 00:18:17.880 --> 00:18:27.680 Yeah, starting about 1910 to all through the 1920s, there were several experiments in which 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:34.160 animals were actually healthier when they didn't get any of the fats. 00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:43.680 A German study that I saw, an abstract in biological abstracts, it was published in 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:52.520 1927, showed that as the animals received less fat in their diet, the incidence of cancer 00:18:52.520 --> 00:19:02.200 decreased, and the cancer rate was directly proportional to the amount of fat in the diet. 00:19:02.200 --> 00:19:14.080 And the fat study and the others that showed increased longevity were ignored in the research 00:19:14.080 --> 00:19:18.680 that claimed the essentiality of the unsaturated fats. 00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:28.080 Yeah, I mean, you hear that from so many people that they're essential, and I know it's just 00:19:28.080 --> 00:19:32.440 sort of ubiquitous that these things are... 00:19:32.440 --> 00:19:40.640 The University of Texas had a famous nutrition lab under Roger Williams, who wrote Nutrition 00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:45.760 Against Disease in the '50s or '60s. 00:19:45.760 --> 00:19:56.960 And in his lab in the 1940s, the rat disease that was supposedly caused by a deficiency 00:19:56.960 --> 00:20:05.880 of essential fatty acids, the people in this Texas lab said, "That looks exactly like our 00:20:05.880 --> 00:20:09.520 vitamin B6 deficiency disease." 00:20:09.520 --> 00:20:18.120 And the B vitamins, only one or two of the B vitamins were known at the time the original 00:20:18.120 --> 00:20:19.120 research was done. 00:20:19.120 --> 00:20:26.800 But in the '40s, they had identified the deficiency disease specifically caused by a vitamin B6 00:20:26.800 --> 00:20:27.800 deficiency. 00:20:27.800 --> 00:20:42.400 And so they reproduced the diet fed in the 1929 research to their animals, but gave them 00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:52.040 vitamin B6, and it completely cured the essential fatty acid deficiency without any essential 00:20:52.040 --> 00:20:54.320 fatty acids. 00:20:54.320 --> 00:21:05.720 And the apparent interpretation of what had happened, why the fat-free or low-fat diet 00:21:05.720 --> 00:21:13.960 caused those symptoms was that the essential fatty acids suppressed the metabolic rate 00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:17.760 as the pig farmers demonstrated. 00:21:17.760 --> 00:21:26.520 And when your metabolism is suppressed, you don't eat as much food or drink as much water, 00:21:26.520 --> 00:21:30.120 and so your nutritional requirements are depressed. 00:21:30.120 --> 00:21:41.880 But if you stimulate their metabolism by not giving them the suppressive essential or unsaturated 00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:48.920 fatty acids, then you will reveal a vitamin deficiency. 00:21:48.920 --> 00:21:57.880 And as your metabolic rate increases, you eat more protein, and to process that protein, 00:21:57.880 --> 00:22:04.160 you use up your vitamin B6 faster. 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:14.760 So do you think people are thinking that these symptoms that are caused by the vitamin B6 00:22:14.760 --> 00:22:20.120 deficiency, they're blaming it on the lack of these EFAs? 00:22:20.120 --> 00:22:29.520 There have been a few other isolated studies through the '50s and '60s. 00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:41.400 Usually one patient would get eczema, and that would get published as proof that the 00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:47.520 essential fatty acids deficiency disease existed. 00:22:47.520 --> 00:22:54.200 But at that time, when they were giving a fat-free diet, they were often giving intravenous 00:22:54.200 --> 00:23:06.720 feeding, and their concept of complete intravenous nutrition until well into the 1970s was radically 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:11.040 deficient in several of the essential known nutrients. 00:23:11.040 --> 00:23:15.680 Zinc, for example, wasn't included. 00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:25.120 And a biotin deficiency can produce some of the related symptoms, and when your metabolic 00:23:25.120 --> 00:23:32.560 rate is high and you metabolize more protein, that's one of the deficiencies. 00:23:32.560 --> 00:23:40.720 Zinc, biotin, B6 are among the first deficiencies to show up when you're having a high metabolic 00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:45.960 rate and eating protein, but not a very rich vitamin source. 00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:46.960 I see. 00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:54.000 So you're saying the control group that wasn't being given the "essential fatty acids" weren't 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:56.200 getting any minerals and vitamins? 00:23:56.200 --> 00:23:57.200 Yeah. 00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:07.720 Several of the publications were on intravenous feedings that they called "complete nutrition." 00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:17.360 Some hospitals were keeping babies on this intravenous feeding, and even though the nutrition 00:24:17.360 --> 00:24:26.920 journals knew what the essential nutrients such as zinc were, hospitals refused to include 00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:34.360 them because doctors weren't doing it, and it was just the nutritionists who said humans 00:24:34.360 --> 00:24:37.160 needed zinc. 00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:41.640 So it's a little confusing because I think people think they have a symptom, say eczema 00:24:41.640 --> 00:24:51.400 or something like that, and some naturopathic consultant tells them to eat flax oil or something 00:24:51.400 --> 00:24:52.400 like that. 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:53.400 Yeah. 00:24:53.400 --> 00:25:02.880 If you suppress your metabolism, you can get under the metabolic rate at which you need 00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:10.520 a certain amount of nutrition, and so you can cure a vitamin B6 deficiency or a biotin 00:25:10.520 --> 00:25:19.680 or a zinc deficiency sometimes just by taking a toxic thing that suppresses your metabolism. 00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:23.120 So you're saying in the long run, though, that has other bad effects. 00:25:23.120 --> 00:25:24.120 Yeah. 00:25:24.120 --> 00:25:32.080 The same with, for example, fish oil to suppress inflammation. 00:25:32.080 --> 00:25:41.720 But even people who were advocating its use published reports showing radical suppression 00:25:41.720 --> 00:25:47.120 of immunity by eating a moderate amount of fish oil. 00:25:47.120 --> 00:25:53.560 David Horvath, for example, went on advocating polyunsaturated fats therapeutically, even 00:25:53.560 --> 00:26:02.360 though he published evidence showing decisive suppression of the immune system. 00:26:02.360 --> 00:26:08.840 You can get away with that for six months or a year, maybe a couple of years, suppressing 00:26:08.840 --> 00:26:15.320 inflammation just by knocking out your immune system, but it's not good in the long run. 00:26:15.320 --> 00:26:16.320 Right. 00:26:16.320 --> 00:26:21.080 You also hear on the fish oil front, you hear that, I know some people take fish oil to 00:26:21.080 --> 00:26:25.640 fight depression, and what's your take on that? 00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:33.280 I've read all of the publications on it, and some of them say it makes depression worse. 00:26:33.280 --> 00:26:35.640 Some say it doesn't do anything. 00:26:35.640 --> 00:26:39.280 These are the studies you've seen. 00:26:39.280 --> 00:26:40.280 Yeah. 00:26:40.280 --> 00:26:52.200 And if you select the few that say it helped the certain group, you can truthfully report 00:26:52.200 --> 00:26:58.040 that this group improved, but someone else reporting that their group got worse on fish 00:26:58.040 --> 00:26:59.040 oil. 00:26:59.040 --> 00:27:09.640 If there's a bias in the journal, who gets published, then you don't actually see the 00:27:09.640 --> 00:27:15.720 empirical data that existed in the world, but not in the medical literature. 00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:16.720 I see. 00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:21.800 I just read a quote that you had used in one of your newsletters from somebody who used 00:27:21.800 --> 00:27:24.960 to be the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. 00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:25.960 Portia Angel. 00:27:25.960 --> 00:27:26.960 Yeah. 00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:27.960 What was that quote, Ray? 00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:28.960 Do you remember? 00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:29.960 No. 00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:35.600 It was something to the fact that you can't really tell the truth of the studies that 00:27:35.600 --> 00:27:41.240 you're reading unless you know all the studies that they rejected, or something to that effect. 00:27:41.240 --> 00:27:52.640 If you have probability at the 5% level, but if you rejected 10 or 20 or 100 publications 00:27:52.640 --> 00:28:00.160 with negative results, you're biasing the statistics. 00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:07.160 Well, maybe we should ... I don't think we've quite actually covered all the different fats. 00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:13.720 Most people have questions about ... They probably want to know what is bad and what 00:28:13.720 --> 00:28:14.720 is good. 00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:20.280 Is canola as bad as cottonseed oil and those kind of things? 00:28:20.280 --> 00:28:23.280 Maybe you could cover the spectrum there for a minute. 00:28:23.280 --> 00:28:33.360 In the 1960s, there was a lot of concern that there was a special toxic fat in mustard oil, 00:28:33.360 --> 00:28:34.920 rapeseed oil. 00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:44.080 So, they bred a variety that didn't have that particular fatty acid, and that became canola. 00:28:44.080 --> 00:28:56.720 But meanwhile, Hans Selye was experimenting, and he showed that giving rapeseed oil would 00:28:56.720 --> 00:29:05.040 typically cause spots of tissue in the heart to die. 00:29:05.040 --> 00:29:12.840 The mainstream medicine said that was because of the toxic fatty acid that the breeders 00:29:12.840 --> 00:29:14.520 were eliminating. 00:29:14.520 --> 00:29:27.280 But Hans Selye gave purified linoleic acid, a major component of rapeseed oil, and showed 00:29:27.280 --> 00:29:36.280 that that was the actual toxic agent to the heart, not the so-called special toxic fatty 00:29:36.280 --> 00:29:37.280 acid. 00:29:37.280 --> 00:29:43.480 It was the most essential fatty acid itself that was killing heart cells. 00:29:43.480 --> 00:29:53.320 And he added chocolate fat, cocoa butter, to the diet, and that protected the heart. 00:29:53.320 --> 00:30:02.720 In spite of the same amount of linoleic acid in the diet, adding spuric acid in the cocoa 00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:03.720 butter was protective. 00:30:03.720 --> 00:30:04.720 I see. 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:10.860 So, it's the ratio that is important. 00:30:10.860 --> 00:30:19.680 One of the early rat studies that got me interested in coconut oil was putting, I think there 00:30:19.680 --> 00:30:33.360 were 15 different groups of rats on one series with pure coconut oil, high fat, low fat, 00:30:33.360 --> 00:30:35.120 and medium fat. 00:30:35.120 --> 00:30:41.720 Another one was pure, unsaturated, I think it was corn oil, high, medium, and low. 00:30:41.720 --> 00:30:46.040 And they kept them on that diet throughout their lifespan. 00:30:46.040 --> 00:30:54.560 And at the end of the normal lifespan, the fat rats were the ones on an unsaturated fat 00:30:54.560 --> 00:30:55.560 diet. 00:30:55.560 --> 00:31:00.840 The lean rats were the ones on the coconut saturated fat diet. 00:31:00.840 --> 00:31:07.320 And the quantity of fat they ate didn't make any significant difference. 00:31:07.320 --> 00:31:17.320 It was the ratio, the degree of unsaturation, corresponded to the degree of obesity at the 00:31:17.320 --> 00:31:18.320 end of their lifespan. 00:31:18.320 --> 00:31:27.840 So, the high fat, low fat isn't the issue, it's the unsaturation that is the problem. 00:31:27.840 --> 00:31:29.680 I see. 00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:38.720 And a series of French publications in the 1980s really defined what the pig farmers 00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:42.080 had demonstrated practically. 00:31:42.080 --> 00:31:55.280 The French showed biochemically how it works by using specific fatty acids on animals and 00:31:55.280 --> 00:32:02.400 examining the effects on different components of the thyroid system. 00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:16.080 And they showed that increasing the number of unsaturations, the two double bonds was 00:32:16.080 --> 00:32:37.120 worse than mono-unsaturated, and three double bonds was worse than the two double bonds, 00:32:37.120 --> 00:32:38.120 and the worst was the multiply unsaturated. 00:32:38.120 --> 00:32:39.120 And every component of the thyroid system that they examined from the secretion of the 00:32:39.120 --> 00:32:48.040 thyroid gland, its transport on proteins through the blood, and the cells response to it, each 00:32:48.040 --> 00:32:57.000 of those components was selectively inhibited in proportion to the unsaturation of the oil 00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:00.000 that the animal was getting. 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:05.440 It very neatly explained what the pig farmers found out economically. 00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:08.880 That by slowing down the metabolism of the pig it would gain weight. 00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:09.880 Yes. 00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:13.760 With the unsaturated fat diet. 00:33:13.760 --> 00:33:18.600 This is probably we should devote a whole show to the thyroid itself, but perhaps you 00:33:18.600 --> 00:33:23.400 could just, I think a lot of people are not knowledgeable about what the thyroid does 00:33:23.400 --> 00:33:32.840 for them and their body, and perhaps you could just summarize that. 00:33:32.840 --> 00:33:40.760 The real thyroid hormone, the active part of it wasn't discovered until the 1950s, but 00:33:40.760 --> 00:33:55.240 the function of the thyroid was studied since the mid and late 1900s, and it was known to 00:33:55.240 --> 00:34:05.600 activate all of the organs of the body to respire, consume more oxygen, and perform 00:34:05.600 --> 00:34:06.600 more perfectly. 00:34:06.600 --> 00:34:16.480 And the deficiency of thyroid very early was learned to cause mental retardation or even 00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:29.760 under development of the brain and idiocy and infertility that developed later was a 00:34:29.760 --> 00:34:32.680 very early observation. 00:34:32.680 --> 00:34:41.040 In some areas of the world, Cretans were good employees because they were passive and stupid 00:34:41.040 --> 00:34:42.040 and didn't reproduce. 00:34:42.040 --> 00:34:51.480 So there was the medical establishments in those areas didn't want to cure it because 00:34:51.480 --> 00:34:56.600 they were good for herding sheep and such chores. 00:34:56.600 --> 00:35:00.760 You're saying it was a form of eugenics or the opposite of eugenics actually? 00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:01.760 Yeah. 00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:12.760 And Brode Barnes in the 1930s did studies both on rabbits and in Europeans and showed 00:35:12.760 --> 00:35:23.200 that the goiter gulps were highly susceptible to heart disease at a very young age. 00:35:23.200 --> 00:35:29.600 In their 30s, they started having atherosclerosis and heart attacks. 00:35:29.600 --> 00:35:42.120 And when iodine was introduced to those regions, the heart disease mortality decreased considerably. 00:35:42.120 --> 00:35:50.120 But those areas also had a very high cancer rate, especially breast cancer. 00:35:50.120 --> 00:36:02.800 And as recently as the 1980s, when I talked to some cancer biologists in Mexico, they 00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:10.600 were reporting that the iodine deficient regions in the mountains around Mexico City still 00:36:10.600 --> 00:36:15.920 had a very high rate of tuberculosis, heart disease and breast cancer. 00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:22.160 All of the things that Brode Barnes had noticed in Eastern Europe in the 30s. 00:36:22.160 --> 00:36:28.800 So, excuse me, but the iodine, deficiency of iodine slows your thyroid function? 00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:30.680 Yeah. 00:36:30.680 --> 00:36:40.920 In those regions, some specific regions, iodine deficiency or iodine deficiency resulting 00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:51.280 from some particular food or contaminant, in those areas, iodine deficiency was the 00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:53.040 thing that could be remedied. 00:36:53.040 --> 00:37:02.160 But in many areas, the diet interacts with limited iodine so that it isn't just an iodine 00:37:02.160 --> 00:37:10.600 deficiency, but it's eating vegetables that interrupt the formation of thyroid, even though 00:37:10.600 --> 00:37:15.480 there is some iodine in their diet. 00:37:15.480 --> 00:37:23.560 The cabbage family and the unsaturated fats are the two most famous causes of interrupted 00:37:23.560 --> 00:37:26.160 formation of the thyroid hormone. 00:37:26.160 --> 00:37:31.120 And people with low thyroid get goiters, which are big protrusions. 00:37:31.120 --> 00:37:39.320 The pituitary gland produces thyroid stimulating hormones that compensate when your thyroid 00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:41.280 is being blocked. 00:37:41.280 --> 00:37:47.240 Naturally, estrogen inhibits the thyroid release too. 00:37:47.240 --> 00:37:54.960 And so the body is designed so that if the estrogen is inhibiting the gland, the thyroid 00:37:54.960 --> 00:38:03.000 stimulating hormone increases to overcome that block and activates the thyroid to work 00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:04.440 harder. 00:38:04.440 --> 00:38:12.520 And if you keep your estrogen or goitrogen high, the TSH works harder and harder and 00:38:12.520 --> 00:38:21.600 the gland gets bigger and bigger until sometimes it gets to be as big as a cantaloupe. 00:38:21.600 --> 00:38:30.880 Women at puberty and during pregnancy often get a fullness in the neck. 00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:39.960 And that typically causes women to have creases in the skin of their neck above and below 00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:41.720 the region where the thyroid is. 00:38:41.720 --> 00:38:51.240 The thyroid gland is at the base of the neck on both sides of your windpipe. 00:38:51.240 --> 00:39:01.840 Most women, but almost no men, have a defining crease right above their collarbone and just 00:39:01.840 --> 00:39:07.280 above their Adam's apple. 00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:10.840 And that defining crease is from a low thyroid? 00:39:10.840 --> 00:39:18.440 Yeah, because at puberty, the thyroid gland naturally enlarges to overcome the effect 00:39:18.440 --> 00:39:19.440 of estrogen. 00:39:19.440 --> 00:39:27.040 And that makes a fullness so that the bending of the neck causes those creases to outline 00:39:27.040 --> 00:39:32.000 the puffy area where the gland is. 00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:34.520 And is that something that's completely normal? 00:39:34.520 --> 00:39:42.680 Yeah, that's part of what makes women look attractive because it corresponds to the years 00:39:42.680 --> 00:39:47.600 between puberty and menopause. 00:39:47.600 --> 00:39:55.720 One of the things, going back to the essential fatty acids, which is ostensibly the subject 00:39:55.720 --> 00:40:01.600 of the show, you said that one of the reasons it's ridiculous to call them essential is 00:40:01.600 --> 00:40:02.600 that they're ubiquitous. 00:40:02.600 --> 00:40:06.560 They're in everything, every green vegetable you eat. 00:40:06.560 --> 00:40:10.840 And it's actually hard to get away from them. 00:40:10.840 --> 00:40:15.800 So how we can have a deficiency is a good question. 00:40:15.800 --> 00:40:23.600 It's a question of marketing and the idea that you could be deficient in something that 00:40:23.600 --> 00:40:29.960 is in every organism, even tropical organisms. 00:40:29.960 --> 00:40:36.960 Coconuts have about 2% of those fats, 1 to 3%. 00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:49.080 And ruminants, sheep and cows and deer and such, have an organ to grow bacteria which 00:40:49.080 --> 00:40:52.360 detoxify those plant fats. 00:40:52.360 --> 00:41:01.040 But still, 1 or 2% of the fats get through the detox system of the rumen. 00:41:01.040 --> 00:41:12.760 And so beef fat and lamb fat still have, unavoidably, about 2% of those unsaturated vegetable oils. 00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:24.640 So even if you ate nothing but beef and lamb and coconuts, you'd still have more than anyone 00:41:24.640 --> 00:41:30.680 ever claimed the essentiality required. 00:41:30.680 --> 00:41:38.080 So by the most extreme ideas of essentiality, it's impossible, unless you eat a laboratory-prepared 00:41:38.080 --> 00:41:40.480 diet, to have a deficiency. 00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:49.040 But the marketing departments of the Linseed Oil companies and the Wesson Oil and so on, 00:41:49.040 --> 00:41:57.320 they convinced people that since it's essential in a trace amount, it must be much better 00:41:57.320 --> 00:42:00.920 in a very large amount. 00:42:00.920 --> 00:42:09.920 But several more recent studies have demonstrated that as you increase the unsaturated fats 00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:19.680 in the diet, the cancer incidence goes up more or less in proportion to the amount. 00:42:19.680 --> 00:42:29.040 And when you extrapolate it to zero, the cancer incidence, just like the 1927 study, approaches 00:42:29.040 --> 00:42:31.600 zero. 00:42:31.600 --> 00:42:36.160 When you say extrapolate to zero, you mean no unsaturated fats? 00:42:36.160 --> 00:42:37.480 Yeah. 00:42:37.480 --> 00:42:38.800 Okay. 00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:45.600 And fish oil, there's a lot of marketing of fish oil too as a supplement, just as a dietary 00:42:45.600 --> 00:42:48.200 supplement, not necessarily for depression. 00:42:48.200 --> 00:42:49.680 Yeah. 00:42:49.680 --> 00:43:03.120 A few years ago, the FDA warned that the total shouldn't exceed, I think it was three grams 00:43:03.120 --> 00:43:08.920 of DHA and EPA. 00:43:08.920 --> 00:43:19.680 But they more recently have dropped that and have begun promoting it without the warning. 00:43:19.680 --> 00:43:29.120 But it definitely becomes toxic as the immune suppression studies demonstrated. 00:43:29.120 --> 00:43:36.280 And the odd thing about the fish oil is that it's so unstable. 00:43:36.280 --> 00:43:42.800 The only reason it was a good varnish is that it oxidizes almost instantly at room temperature 00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:43.800 even. 00:43:43.800 --> 00:43:50.400 And in your body, it's mostly oxidized before it reaches your bloodstream. 00:43:50.400 --> 00:43:56.920 It has to pass through your digestive system to reach the bloodstream. 00:43:56.920 --> 00:44:05.760 And by the time it gets there, it has been heated and circulated in tiny particles exposed 00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:06.760 to oxygen. 00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:17.600 And so those so-called beneficial anti-inflammatory effects are actually produced by the oxidative 00:44:17.600 --> 00:44:22.920 breakdown products of the fats. 00:44:22.920 --> 00:44:31.760 And so even in the biochemistry of it, it's a toxic effect that is being sold as a benefit. 00:44:31.760 --> 00:44:33.420 I see. 00:44:33.420 --> 00:44:37.960 So it's suppressing your immune system and that's what's getting rid of some of your 00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:38.960 symptoms perhaps. 00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:39.960 Yeah. 00:44:39.960 --> 00:44:48.440 It's the free radical oxidative decomposition products that are circulating in your blood 00:44:48.440 --> 00:44:49.440 system. 00:44:49.440 --> 00:45:03.260 A very small part of it reaches your tissues as the original starting DHA and DPA. 00:45:03.260 --> 00:45:05.900 And Raymond, would you like to touch? 00:45:05.900 --> 00:45:07.180 We're talking to Raymond Peat, by the way. 00:45:07.180 --> 00:45:09.700 I should say that more often. 00:45:09.700 --> 00:45:13.260 Endocrinologist and physiologist from Eugene, Oregon. 00:45:13.260 --> 00:45:18.900 We're talking about mostly about fats today, but also we're talking about the marketing 00:45:18.900 --> 00:45:24.380 of them and the scientific research that's gone into fats. 00:45:24.380 --> 00:45:27.580 And how much does the marketing affect the scientific research? 00:45:27.580 --> 00:45:36.980 You know, the media seems to still be very down on saturated fats and still promoting 00:45:36.980 --> 00:45:38.380 unsaturated fats. 00:45:38.380 --> 00:45:39.380 Yeah. 00:45:39.380 --> 00:45:47.220 And they apparently have taken over the government because I see the government has basically 00:45:47.220 --> 00:45:53.820 a promotion of fish oil on their website. 00:45:53.820 --> 00:45:54.820 Would that be the FDA? 00:45:54.820 --> 00:45:57.340 Is that the FDA or what's the website? 00:45:57.340 --> 00:45:58.340 Okay. 00:45:58.340 --> 00:46:09.460 And the industry, just like the soy oil industry has subsidized research on the health value 00:46:09.460 --> 00:46:20.580 of soy oil, the fish oil industry is now rich enough that they are sponsoring conferences 00:46:20.580 --> 00:46:28.740 and paying researchers to produce studies and getting people on boards of editorial 00:46:28.740 --> 00:46:31.740 boards of the journals. 00:46:31.740 --> 00:46:46.140 So just like the atomic energy industry controlling the research on the safety of radiation, the 00:46:46.140 --> 00:46:53.900 health effects of the fats are being promoted by the industry, not by objective science. 00:46:53.900 --> 00:46:54.900 Yeah. 00:46:54.900 --> 00:47:00.980 And I think a lot of people are familiar with the global warming being contested by the 00:47:00.980 --> 00:47:07.580 oil industry and all of the money they spend on research. 00:47:07.580 --> 00:47:11.700 Now you mentioned cancer in terms of unsaturated oils. 00:47:11.700 --> 00:47:12.700 Does that apply? 00:47:12.700 --> 00:47:20.900 I guess fish oil is also very unsaturated oil and that applies to fish oil as well? 00:47:20.900 --> 00:47:33.460 Except that the shorter 18 carbon oils that you get from seeds fit into our enzyme systems 00:47:33.460 --> 00:47:41.740 more powerfully and so inhibit our own enzymes more powerfully. 00:47:41.740 --> 00:47:52.580 The fish oils are very long and don't directly attack our enzymes in the same way. 00:47:52.580 --> 00:48:00.540 They're unstable and spontaneously all by themselves turn into these free radical and 00:48:00.540 --> 00:48:03.140 aldehyde toxins. 00:48:03.140 --> 00:48:10.620 But they are safer to our enzyme systems because their number of carbons is very different 00:48:10.620 --> 00:48:15.860 from the fats that we make or that we get from seeds. 00:48:15.860 --> 00:48:19.060 And they also come with quite a few vitamins too that are good. 00:48:19.060 --> 00:48:20.060 Yeah. 00:48:20.060 --> 00:48:29.380 And when you squeeze an oily fish, you can't help getting some vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin 00:48:29.380 --> 00:48:38.660 D and a little E. But the E pretty much is destroyed quickly by the oxidative process. 00:48:38.660 --> 00:48:50.140 But the B comes through very strongly because it's harder to oxidize the K and A probably 00:48:50.140 --> 00:48:58.340 usually have enough activity to be of some benefit when you eat the fish oil. 00:48:58.340 --> 00:48:59.340 I see. 00:48:59.340 --> 00:49:02.060 So we have about five minutes left, Ray. 00:49:02.060 --> 00:49:07.020 And I thought maybe we could quickly, people are probably wondering, well, what would you 00:49:07.020 --> 00:49:09.580 think would be good to eat? 00:49:09.580 --> 00:49:14.580 For instance, is olive oil okay, coconut oil, margarine? 00:49:14.580 --> 00:49:16.300 Maybe you could run through the... 00:49:16.300 --> 00:49:17.300 Okay. 00:49:17.300 --> 00:49:23.940 The coconut oil is around 10% of the polyunsaturated fats. 00:49:23.940 --> 00:49:32.600 And if you're only going to use half a teaspoon or so for flavoring a food or a teaspoonful 00:49:32.600 --> 00:49:38.220 every other day or something, that is small enough that it isn't harmful. 00:49:38.220 --> 00:49:42.060 As a minor flavoring, olive oil is fine. 00:49:42.060 --> 00:49:43.060 I see. 00:49:43.060 --> 00:49:52.580 But as a major part of the diet, I think butter, beef fat, lamb fat and coconut oil are the 00:49:52.580 --> 00:49:59.780 safe ones and cocoa butter, chocolate. 00:49:59.780 --> 00:50:09.220 And some studies have found that the longer saturated fats are very protective. 00:50:09.220 --> 00:50:15.940 They're being investigated for curing cancer, heart disease. 00:50:15.940 --> 00:50:25.260 And some of the best studies are using the long-chain saturated fats as well as ordinary 00:50:25.260 --> 00:50:31.460 butter fat and so on for treating liver disease. 00:50:31.460 --> 00:50:39.180 Alcoholic hepatitis, for example, is being successfully treated with saturated fat because 00:50:39.180 --> 00:50:50.300 about 20 years ago, they noticed that alcoholic liver injury requires polyunsaturated fats 00:50:50.300 --> 00:50:51.300 in the diet. 00:50:51.300 --> 00:51:01.940 And some Hindus noticed that in the areas of India where they have primarily butter, 00:51:01.940 --> 00:51:08.540 alcoholics don't get liver disease at the high rate that they do in the areas that get 00:51:08.540 --> 00:51:10.620 the unsaturated fats. 00:51:10.620 --> 00:51:20.500 And so the animal studies finally led to human studies in Chicago in which they are finding 00:51:20.500 --> 00:51:28.140 actual cures of alcoholic liver disease just with a good diet plus the saturated fats. 00:51:28.140 --> 00:51:30.340 Those ongoing studies now or there's something that... 00:51:30.340 --> 00:51:32.540 Are they old or... 00:51:32.540 --> 00:51:35.740 I haven't seen anything new in the last year or two. 00:51:35.740 --> 00:51:36.740 Okay. 00:51:36.740 --> 00:51:37.740 Yeah, they're recent. 00:51:37.740 --> 00:51:39.380 I see. 00:51:39.380 --> 00:51:42.580 And when you say long-chain, is that coconut oil? 00:51:42.580 --> 00:51:51.420 Well, that goes up to 16 carbons and butter is 18 carbons. 00:51:51.420 --> 00:52:05.220 And they are using experimentally some derived from sugarcane wax and other unusual long-chain 00:52:05.220 --> 00:52:10.420 fats, but those are being used therapeutically in cancer too. 00:52:10.420 --> 00:52:11.420 I see. 00:52:11.420 --> 00:52:17.940 And the unsaturated oils are just in everything now because of course the government has sanctioned... 00:52:17.940 --> 00:52:22.340 Our government has sanctioned them and you can't buy a potato chip that isn't cooked 00:52:22.340 --> 00:52:27.020 in canola oil or some other vegetable, unsaturated vegetable oil. 00:52:27.020 --> 00:52:29.100 So how do we... 00:52:29.100 --> 00:52:34.500 If you say you go out to dinner, is there anything you can do to protect yourself? 00:52:34.500 --> 00:52:42.620 About 15 years ago, there was this big campaign to get coconut oil off the market. 00:52:42.620 --> 00:52:51.100 It in recent years is coming back and I think if people just nag the cooks in restaurants 00:52:51.100 --> 00:52:59.180 and buyers in grocery stores, they can change things. 00:52:59.180 --> 00:53:07.300 And it's changing back in the last few years to people demanding that they get real butter 00:53:07.300 --> 00:53:14.820 and other saturated fats in products. 00:53:14.820 --> 00:53:18.860 And finally, I think most people are worried about getting fat when you say butter, even 00:53:18.860 --> 00:53:20.660 though we all love it, I think. 00:53:20.660 --> 00:53:23.660 There's nothing that tastes better on things, but... 00:53:23.660 --> 00:53:32.100 The animal studies from the industrial agriculture level all the way down to lab studies show 00:53:32.100 --> 00:53:44.180 that the polyunsaturated are extremely fattening in proportion to their role in the diet. 00:53:44.180 --> 00:53:51.220 The proportion to the saturated fats is more important than the actual quantity of fats. 00:53:51.220 --> 00:54:04.820 I noticed in Finland where dairy foods are very common, basically probably the most common 00:54:04.820 --> 00:54:16.980 food, just going across the border from Russia to Finland, you go from a starch-eating, vegetable-based 00:54:16.980 --> 00:54:23.700 diet where everyone's fat over to a lean, healthy population where they eat lots of 00:54:23.700 --> 00:54:28.820 butter fat. 00:54:28.820 --> 00:54:38.300 In general, Americans who eat milk and milk products are lean, and it's partly the calcium 00:54:38.300 --> 00:54:44.340 and vitamin D, but also the butter fat itself is helpful. 00:54:44.340 --> 00:54:50.620 I guess that's the French paradox, again, that they always talk about. 00:54:50.620 --> 00:54:54.620 How come the French are so healthy when they eat all that nasty saturated fat? 00:54:54.620 --> 00:54:55.620 Yeah. 00:54:55.620 --> 00:55:00.700 Well, Ray, I guess we're basically out of time. 00:55:00.700 --> 00:55:02.780 Is there anything else you'd like to add? 00:55:02.780 --> 00:55:07.580 We're talking to Raymond Peat, endocrinologist and physiologist from Eugene, Oregon. 00:55:07.580 --> 00:55:14.620 People are concerned about skin health and appearance, and experiments with rabbits is 00:55:14.620 --> 00:55:15.620 interesting. 00:55:15.620 --> 00:55:24.460 Rabbits were put on either a corn oil diet or a coconut oil diet and shaved, and so the 00:55:24.460 --> 00:55:27.100 sun would hit their skin. 00:55:27.100 --> 00:55:33.140 Those on the unsaturated corn oil diet got wrinkly, sun-damaged skin, and the ones on 00:55:33.140 --> 00:55:40.620 the saturated fat diet, as it's sun, it was relatively harmless to their skin. 00:55:40.620 --> 00:55:44.060 Yeah, that's kind of telling, isn't it? 00:55:44.060 --> 00:55:47.260 Well, Ray, thanks so much for being on today. 00:55:47.260 --> 00:55:54.220 The hour flew by in what seemed like a couple minutes, and I appreciate you doing it. 00:55:54.220 --> 00:55:55.220 Okay, thank you. 00:55:55.220 --> 00:55:59.740 And I'll give out your website and contact, just your website information for people. 00:55:59.740 --> 00:56:00.740 Okay, very good. 00:56:00.740 --> 00:56:01.740 Thanks, Ray. 00:56:01.740 --> 00:56:02.740 Bye-bye. 00:56:02.740 --> 00:56:03.740 Bye-bye. 00:56:03.740 --> 00:56:08.140 And that was Raymond Peat. 00:56:08.140 --> 00:56:10.740 I hope you could hear some of that. 00:56:10.740 --> 00:56:12.700 His voice was very weak. 00:56:12.700 --> 00:56:17.820 But Ray Peat's website is rayPeat.com, if you're interested. 00:56:17.820 --> 00:56:19.100 It's that simple. 00:56:19.100 --> 00:56:28.020 Ray Peat, spelled R-A-Y, and then P-E-A-T.com, and he has a lot of excellent articles on 00:56:28.020 --> 00:56:29.820 his website. 00:56:29.820 --> 00:56:39.540 If you have any questions for Politics and Science, you can direct them by email to politicsandscience@madriver.com. 00:56:39.540 --> 00:56:45.100 That's politicsandscience@madriver.com. 00:56:45.100 --> 00:56:49.620 Archive shows can be found at radio4all.net. 00:56:49.620 --> 00:56:53.820 That's radio, the number 4, all, dot net. 00:56:53.820 --> 00:56:57.600 Politics and Science presents the viewpoints of its participants and does not necessarily 00:56:57.600 --> 00:57:01.980 reflect the viewpoints of any other person or organization.