Welcome back. So today we're gonna be talking about lipids, other wise known as fat. So, some facts about lipids, lipids are the most concentrated form of energy. In fact, it produces nine calories, which is a K cow per gram of fat compared to four calories for every gram of protein or carbohydrates, so fats are much more energy dense fats are the building blocks for the cell membrane, flip it by layer and we looked at that in the earlier lecture, and we saw how fats are incorporated into every membrane, in every cell in our body. Fats are also responsible for creating a very large variety of hormones and hormone like substances. They are incorporated in many of the chemical messengers that allow ourselves to communicate with each other.

So lipids also act as carriers for the fat soluble vitamins, so actually getting quality fats will increase our chances of absorbing the fat soluble vitamins. The most common ones, again are A, D, E, and K. That are also needed for the absorption of minerals, the conversion of carotene to vitamin A, and a myriad of other different metabolic processes that coats the nerves in our bodies, which allow us to think react, move and perform any activity that you might think of. So as we've seen, lipids are responsible for a vast number of functions in the body. And because they're needed in so for so many different functions, they're not readily given up and used as energy. It This is because glucose is the main source of energy in the body, and we're going to use up most of our glucose and glycogen stores before we start breaking down fats for energy and this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.

Early humans went long periods without food. So they had extra stores of fat, the body would begin to start breaking those down for energy chain, transforming them into glucose and use them for energy. So, lipids are organic substances that are water insoluble, and we'll get into why that is important when we talk about their digestion. Now, fatty acids are chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms filling all the other bonds along the chain, if they're available. Most of the fats consumed are in the form of triglycerides. And in triglyceride, if you look at the picture below, it's made up of three chains of fatty acids attached to a glycerol molecule and you can see on the left is the glycerol molecule.

And each of those tails is considered a fatty acid. So essentially We brought up triglycerides. Let's talk about them a little bit. So when you have high triglycerides, it's true, the person is more susceptible to something like heart disease and type two diabetes. However, these triglycerides are not necessarily coming from the foods you eat. Instead, they come from excess sugars and poor quality animal products that we consume.

The sugars are then transformed into triglycerides in the liver, because they're not used for immediate energy. And we just talked about how fat is stored to be used for energy in cases of starvation. Therefore, the triglycerides are usually not derived from fats, necessarily. Instead, they're derived from carbohydrates. In most cases, they come from things like white flowers, refined sugars, poor quality meats, and other processed carbohydrates. So moving on to liquid metabolism.

Digesting fats is much different than proteins or carbohydrates, because they're water insoluble like we mentioned earlier. So if they were able to get into the blood, they would immediately clog smaller arteries and capillaries and that would just lead to devastating health effects. Instead, liquids need to be transported using the lymphatic system and the lymphatic system is a series of vessels that accompany every blood vessel in the body. The lymphatic system is really important in proper immune system function. It filters roughly 20 liters of blood per day. It drains fluids that are pumped out of tissues and they transport them throughout the body.

It also contains immune cells to ensure nothing goes wrong while all these fluids are being transported. So if there is some sort of unwanted pathogen immune cells come along and take care of it appropriately. So lymph vessels differ a bit from blood vessels because They're very thin. And this is because they lack the muscular walls that blood vessels have. And instead they respond to gravity and movement. So frequent exercise is really important for a properly functioning lymphatic system.

So if we walk around, move around, muscles contract, and this pushes the limp throughout the body so it can circulate well. So staying active is really important for a proper lymphatic system function. Fat terms are absorbed into the lymphatic vessels, and these vessels are located adjacent to the small intestine and this allows for the safe passage of these fat droplets without the risk of clogging the blood vessels as we talked about before. So once the fats are absorbed into these lymphatic vessels, they all go to the ductus the races and this pierces the diaphragm and travels upward, upward toward the heart. And this is where poor quality fats from say like, like fried foods or are bad oils compared to high quality fats makes a huge issue because all fats end up in the heart before they are sent to the liver for detoxification. And this is different from proteins and carbohydrates.

So the detoxification part of lipid metabolism only starts after the fat has been circulated through the heart. So once these lipids leave the venous system and end up in arteries, they eventually end up in the liver. So up until that point, we were at the mercy of the quality of the fats we eat in terms of the effects that could have on our body and these could have a huge impact on our overall health. So once these fats enter the liver, they finally go through the detoxification process and this is very similar to proteins and carbohydrates. Now, we talked about metabolism a bit, let's talk about how these fatty acids are classified. So there's two ways one ways to classify them is by saturation and saturation refers To the amount of hydrogen atoms that are attached to the available binding sites on carbon atoms, and they're usually set they're classified in three ways.

They're called saturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated. The other main way to classify fatty acids is by length. And this is you by counting the number of carbon atoms linked together. So first, we're going to start off with talking about classifying fatty acids in terms of saturation, so we'll start off with mono unsaturated fatty acids. And these are fatty acids that have one double bond. So if we look at the graphic here on the right, you'll see in the middle, there's one, there's a connection between two carbon atoms that have two lines, that's what's known as a double bond.

And these double bonds form kinks in their structure. So the more kinks and double bonds fatty acid has, the less they stick together and pack easily and this is actually a reason why many mono unsaturated fatty acids are found as liquids at room temperature. They're used for cooking because they don't easily go rancid and a very common one is olive oil. Other common ones come from avocado oil, from certain nuts like pecans and almonds, peanuts and cashews as well. polyunsaturated fatty acids are fatty acids that have two or more double bonds. And that means you're losing at least four hydrogen atoms because that the bonds must be made between carbon atoms as opposed to extra hydrogen atoms.

There are two main types of polyunsaturated fatty acids that are that are commonly found in food and those are omega sixes and omega threes and the omega threes are generally found in things like walnuts, sunflower seeds, fatty fish and flax seeds. The omega in the name represents the position of the first double bond in the carbon chain. So If we're looking at the graphic here on the right, you'll notice that double bond. In the top graphic, the linoleic acid is six carbons in each bend in the picture is considered a carbon atom, so you'll have to count from the end 123456. And then there's the double bond. Same thing is done in the omega three, except it's only the third carbon.

Polyunsaturated fatty acids are considered essential because humans can't manufacture them. They contain multiple kings, and again, each double bond is considered a kink. And they're found at liquid at room temperature. polyunsaturated fatty acids are also very highly reactive because they have more unpaired electrons due to these double bonds, and this makes them less and less stable. And because they're less stable, they tend to go rancid more easily than other fatty acids. in their natural state.

Double bonds are found in their cysts form which means hydrogens next to the double bonds are on the same side. So if we look at again, the little lake acid, the bread in the middle, you'll see the double bond and the two hydrogen atoms on the same side. Now, this differs from trans fats, where if we look down and look at the trans linoleic acid, you'll see the hydrogens attached to the carbons in the double bond on opposite sides. And that's actually where the name trans fats comes from. Okay, moving on to saturated fatty acids. So when all the carbon bonds are taken up a hydrogen atom, so in other words, there are no double bonds.

That's when a fatty acid is considered saturated. So again, if we look at the graphic on the right, the top, the top structure has no double bonds, and all of the extra bonds are taken up by hydrogen atoms. Because of this structure, they're highly stable and they rarely go rancid, even during the cooking process, because they're aligned and Don't have these kinks. They packed together nicely and they're usually either solid or semi solid at room temperature. saturated fatty acids are mostly seen in things like animal fats and tropical oil. So you're thinking things like butter or lard or coconut oil.

Humans actually are able to make saturated fatty acids from carbohydrates in the diet. So, all fats, regardless of if they're from an animal or vegetable source, contain a combination of all three types of these fatty acids. So things like butter or lard or tallow. They range from 40 to 60%, saturated fatty acids, and they're usually solid at room temperature. vegetable oils from northern climates tend to be higher in polyunsaturated fatty acids. And you'll notice that these tend to be liquid at room temperature something say like an olive oil, tropical vegetable oils, so things like coconut oil are very high in saturated fatty acids and they're solid in northern climates because The temperatures are colder, but if you find them in their more native lands, they will tend to be liquid tropical vegetable oils or higher unsaturated fatty acids because they help maintain the stiffness of the plant leaves.

So it's actually more of a protection protection and structural mechanism. So the other way we can classify fatty acids is by length. So starting off, we're going to talk about short chain fatty acids. And if you're a short chain fatty acid, that means you contain somewhere between four and six carbons in that carbon tail. These fatty acids have been shown to have some antimicrobial properties. They do not need to be acted on by bile salts.

Now, bile salts are actually needed to properly break down most fats in the small intestine, and said, these can be quickly absorbed for energy. These small chain fatty acids are very important for proper gut health. They play a role in maintaining proper function of the immune system. Most of the immune system is actually located around the gut, which is our barrier between ourselves and the outside world. So two very common pet short chain fatty acids are butyric acid and capric acid. These are found in high amounts in dairy products from goats.

So when we talk about medium chain fatty acids, we're talking about the length being between eight and 12 carbons. These are broken down by bile salts. They tend to be found mostly in tropical oils and butter. But they also actually display similar functions compared to their short chain relatives. long chain fatty acids are defined by having 14 to 18 carbon atoms in the length of their tail and they can be either monounsaturated polyunsaturated or saturated fatty acids. So some common ones out there are oleic acid which is found olive oil stearic acid which is found in beef, and palm it oleic acid, which is usually found in animal fats, and it's also been known to have some antimicrobial properties.

The two essential fatty acids omega three and omega six that cannot be made by humans are in this group. Important polyunsaturated long chain fatty acid is gamma linoleic acid which is also known as GLA. It has three double bonds and is 18 carbons in life. So a healthy human can actually use omega six fatty acids to make GLA and this is then used to make something that's known as a prostaglandin. And prostaglandin is a local hormone like substance so it's a substance that acts like a hormone, but only in the immediate vicinity. They are responsible for regulating many cellular processes.

Very long chain fatty acids. contain between 20 and 24 carbon atoms, and they're usually greatly unsaturated so they contain a lot of double bonds, usually somewhere between four and six. These are found in things like fish oils, butter, egg yolks, and even organ meats. So there are four major fatty acids that qualify for this category. One is done by homo gamma linolenic acid, one is arachidonic acid, another is the Casa hexa noack acid, and the other is icaza penta noack acid. Now, with the exception of dhk, if you look at the group on the right, all of these play roles in the creation of prostaglandins, arachidonic acid, and the cause, docosahexaenoic acid or da che also play roles in the function of the nervous system.

So we talked about how fats are energy dense, but it's easy for our bodies to overdo it, whether they're good or bad. Simply too many fats can have negative effects. Facts on our health. Many nutritional physiologist, recommend somewhere in between the range of 20 to 25% of our caloric intake being made up of fat and that works out to something between two and two to two and a half ounces daily or somewhere between 55 and 56 grams per day. There is a little bit of variance to this. Larger people are more athletic types might be able to consume a little bit more, while smaller.

People are people who live more sedentary lifestyle should probably be eating a little bit less. So we're going to talk a little bit more about arachidonic acid and this is found in eggs, animal meats and dairy products. It's actually found in much smaller amounts in fruits and vegetables. Now, arachidonic acid is involved in pain sensation, and also mediating the production of pro inflammatory prostaglandins in the body. So when you're looking at arachidonic acid in this graph on the right, the series two and the series four are considered the pro inflammatory prostaglandins Most plant oils contain higher amounts of alpha linolenic acid, also known as a la and this is a known anti inflammatory fatty acid. And these can be found in other omega three fatty acids, as well as olive oil, which has similar properties.

And just as the bad fats that contain arachidonic acid do us harm, the good fats can be great for us. So HLA can help relieve symptoms associated with chronic diseases things like inflammatory conditions like autoimmune diseases, regular headaches, menstrual pains and others. Chronic pain levels can be reduced in those who consume more vegetable fats than animal fats. So one of the things I use a lot to help me with my fat intake is extra virgin olive oil on this because it contains a number of health benefits. So although it can help protect against diseases like arteriosclerosis, stress, macular degeneration, I and even outsiders It has been shown that it might be beneficial for certain chronic inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, lupus eczema, it can help protect against certain forms of cancer and as it is known to block an enzyme known as fatty acid synthase.

And this enzyme is used to create new fatty acids out of leftover carbohydrate. So this is how you convert those excess carbohydrates into fat. So a quality olive oil might cost a bit more but it's definitely worth the investment. So if you're looking to buy one, there's a few things to consider. The tea should be fruity and green. It should have a kind of peppery taste in the back of the throat.

You want to avoid rancid oils as best you can. And unfortunately, many companies out there actually use low quality vegetable oils or hydrogenated vegetable oils and mixed them with low amounts of extra virgin olive oil and Sell them as extra virgin olive oil. And the best way to really kind of get a feel is to buy a few and try ones out for yourself. So let's talk about cholesterol. Cholesterol always comes up when we talk about fat. Now, cholesterol is implicated and implicated as important here as the primary suspect in clogging our arteries.

However, when we look at the mechanisms of blood vessel damage, there's actually a few ways that can happen and it could be due to viruses, free radical damage, or just weak structural and tech integrity. So when these kind of things happen, the body begins its healing process by bringing natural substances to do the repair part. And one of these substances is actually cholesterol. Cholesterol is important because it's also a precursor to vitamin D and vitamin D is important for healthy skeleton proper nervous system function, proper growth in children. Healthy metabolism overall proper muscle tone, normalizing insulin production, which is really important for diabetics or people with metabolic syndrome and healthy immune system function. So cholesterol and saturated fatty acids play a role in giving our cell membranes their rigidness and stability.

Cholesterol is a precursor molecule needed to manufacture corticosteroids. corticosteroids are needed to help us deal with stresses whether they be emotional, physical, psychological, all types of stress. They also play a role in protecting us protecting us from heart disease and cancer and this is where it might begin to get confusing. sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone are examples of thing of corticosteroids. Cholesterol is also needed to produce bile which is important for breaking down fats. And bile is released and stored in the gallbladder to neutralize these fats and aid in exciting Question.

So it might get a little bit more confusing, but we're going to come full circle, so don't worry about it now, research has come out that has shown cholesterol might have any oxygen properties that protect us from things like heart disease and cancer. Cholesterol is needed for serotonin receptors in the brain for them to function properly and these are feel good neurotransmitters in the brain. low cholesterol is actually linked to violent behaviors, depression and suicidal tendencies. Cholesterol also plays a role in maintaining the gut wall. And people with low cholesterol levels tend to develop leaky gut syndrome or other disorders disorders associated with the gut lining. So when you talk about something like malabsorption, which is the inability to absorb nutrients we need from our foods while mal digestion is the inability to break it down.

And we already talked about that issue when it comes to bile salts and their the importance of their role in fat metabolism and fat digestion. So cholesterol actually acts as an antioxidant, and helps prevent free radical damage. Now, unfortunately when cholesterol gets damaged, and this could be due to heat or oxidative stress due to free radicals, cholesterol comes to do its job and aid in the repair by being an antioxidant. And it recruits more healing factors. And when it recruits more healing factors, this is actually what builds up the plaque. So it becomes almost a downward cycle.

And this is the reason why today, cholesterol is considered a culprit for many of the common chronic illnesses we deal with. So things like diabetes and heart disease and high blood pressure. But it's important to realize that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causality. So, instead of thinking that cholesterol is causing the problem, high cholesterol levels should actually indicate that the body needs cholesterol to decrease itself against the free radicals that are actually causing the damage. This is why we need to address the cause and not the high cholesterol. So here's an analogy for cholesterol, think of cholesterol as the police force, and you call upon it to prevent the crime.

So when the body's poorly nourished, and diseases are happening or going on, the crime rate rises in the neighborhood, the body, and when the crime rate rises, you want your police the cholesterol to come keep the area safe. So if you think about it, why are we going to blame the high amount of police or in this case, cholesterol for the major crimes, these disease processes happening? They're only trying to stop the crimes from happening in the first place. And that's cholesterol. So, moving on, and we're going to talk about the standard American diet and its role in fat consumption. So we've gone over this before, but it's important to realize the American diet, the standard of Diet is so high in refined sugars and carbohydrates, things like white flowers, vegetable oils and hydrogenated oils.

This sets up the bad environment, the bad neighborhood that we were just talking about. And this drains us of many essential nutrients and vitamins and minerals we need for proper function. Most importantly, we're depleted of the ones that we need to help fend off free radical damage. So things like vitamin E, and selenium, and antioxidants. These all get depleted when consuming the standard American diet. So high cholesterol levels have also been associated with hypothyroidism.

And what happens here is there's poor thyroid function and this leads to more cholesterol getting out into the bloodstream. And again, it becomes the cops being sent out to clean up the damage the crimes going on. And this and actually, many times this poor thyroid function is due to the diet being high in refined sugars. And also things like low iodine and low numbers of fat soluble vitamins. Interestingly, those with hypothyroidism tend to be more susceptible to infections, heart disease and cancer. So, bringing it all home, it's important to realize that high levels of cholesterol alone are not necessarily an indicator of future heart disease.

However, something like homocysteine, when that's high, it's associated with the pathological increase in plaque formations and arteries. So again, this comes back to the diabetes and heart disease and the congestive heart failures. homocysteine is just as important and this could lead to eventual clot formation. So certain vitamins are needed to prevent this from happening. These are things like vitamin B, six b, 12, and folate, and even subclinical deficiencies in these vitamins can lead to something that's known as a macro Siddiq or big cell anemia. So overall, the choices we make When we consume fats is really important.

That's especially important in the development of children and infants. So proper consumption of fats in your early ages is really, really important. Interestingly, breast milk contains a very high content of fat, and only about 5% protein. Although these numbers begin to change as infants grow. Avoid all processed oils and hydrogenated fats, because all they're going to do is deplete vitamin and mineral stores and increase the chances of you developing some of the serious diseases we talked about earlier. Instead, stick to traditional oils like cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil and others on the forms provided.

If you're going to eat eggs, eat the whole egg. The whole egg contains good fats and essential nutrients that aren't found in the egg whites. If you're going to be cooking high quality meats, don't be afraid to eat the Fat attached to the bones occasionally, these include high levels of collagen, which is the main structural protein found in our connective tissue like skin muscles, hair, nails, and things like that. Good quality fats are an essential part of any meal plans and the best places to get them. We went over some of them but things like nuts and seeds and fatty fish. The high quality oils, we talked about the olive oil, the coconut oil, avocado oil, sunflower oil.

These are all great sources of fats. Fats are responsible for the integrity of every cell's membrane, the production of many hormones in the body, and many other important functions. So make sure you're investing in high quality fats as long as they go a long way in improving your health in the short and long term.