It may be that blood levels of trans fats play a role in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the following two studies suggest a causative role for oral bacteria.
The first, by the Swiss neuropathologist J. Miklossy, finds that more than 90% of autopsied AD brains are infected with spirochetes originating in the human mouth:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21816039
The second, by the NYU periodontist A. Kamer, finds that just 4 biomarkers (3 of which are antibodies to periodontal bacteria) predict Alzheimer's with 80% accuracy:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19767111
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@Peter Kraus - The question then is which foods in the diet might be feeding the growth of those oral bacteria. With that in mind, it would be useful to look at research on trans fats and the microbiome.
Interesting that the researchers found a new metric (e. acid). Wonder where more study might lead.
It's really not that hard to avoid trans fats. I avoid meat, eat non-fat dairy with good fats like avocado and/or a few seeds or nuts and margarine made without trans fats. I also avoid dessert products made with hydrogenated fats. Unfortunately, that keeps my cholesterol down but not low enough.
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@Barbara
Those are real good dietary habits, for sure, but it's hard to be sure which desserts have trans fat, especially when eating out. Then, too, nobody is sure yet that the trans fat naturally occurring in dairy is ok for us.
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@Barbara
Meat and dairy have very little amounts of trans fats. And even that little amount, is not harmful to health.
@Woodley Lamousnery - Yep. It's sad there is so much misinformation out there. The amount of trans fats in whole foods is miniscule. But it's also a different form of trans fats. There is zero evidence that the trans fats in whole foods contribute to ill health. In fact, research shows eating more nutrient-dense animal foods improves health outcomes.
Here we go again. You take the extremes, such as the blissfully ignorant who eat fast food every day, and compare to the wise who never do so. Many differences between those two groups besides the single variable under study and there's no way to 'suss them apart through the magic of statistical tricks.
What researchers (and NYT reporters) should do is post a "scatter plot" - that has dots for everybody in the sample and we can see where they sit. Or at least some means of showing how the middle groups are faring and just how variable matters are.
Another factor often missing is the relative importance or scope of the difference in practical life terms. And that would be both in terms of how big the "stimulus" has to be to make a difference and how big is the result in years or pounds or whatever.
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Brain and heart sharing the same susceptibility? One might think that they inhabit the same body.
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I'm skeptical as to whether the conclusions reached by this "observational study" are justified by the data themselves. This appears to be a very organized data collection project with little or no control over the variables that produced the results.
@Sequel the conclusions are that this is an observational study, finding an association between the variables only. As the researcher stated it therefore does not establish causation.
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Here we go again. You take the extremes, such as the blissfully ignorant who eat fast food every day, and compare to the wise who never do so. Many differences between those two groups besides the single variable under study and there's no way to 'suss them apart through the magic of statistical tricks.
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@Ben
What researchers (and NYT reporters) should do is post a "scatter plot" - that has dots for everybody in the sample and we can see where they sit. Or at least some means of showing how the middle groups are faring and just how variable matters are.
Another factor often missing is the relative importance or scope of the difference in practical life terms. And that would be both in terms of how big the "stimulus" has to be to make a difference and how big is the result in years or pounds or whatever.
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It's so sad that at least two generations were told to eat margarine and crisco. Good intentions lead to the guessing that if you reduced saturated fat you would be healthier but not questioning trans fats. And all without really testing the results of the switch even in the short run.
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@Betty in LA - Also, it turns out that saturated fats were probably being blamed all along for what trans fats were doing. Saturated fat intake hadn't been increasing during the time metabolic diseases were increasing. Specifically, red meat intake has actually declined over the past century. So, blaming saturated fat never made sense. And if you look at Asian research, saturated fat, red meat, and animal foods in general are strongly linked to better health and longer life. The longest lived populations around, such as Hong Kong, are also those that eat the most red meat.
Italians in Sardinia live on average much longer than average with most people reaching 100 years. Their diets are low in meat consumption, high in vegetables and legumes and local wine, olive oil and cheese.
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also... high in daily exercise (walking hills) and socializing and family supports! Yay Sardinia!
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@Jacquie - That is not true. People who live and have spent time in Sardinia attest to the two favorite foods being cheese and meat. Their plant food intake is smaller and more seasonal.
As the author of the study said, correlation is not causation. I would be very curious to understand how the digestive system transforms fats before they are absorbed. As a related point, dietary cholesterol - from food you eat - is NOT the source of the cholesterol lining your arteries. One theory is that clogged arteries are an immune disorder. We will see. Most dietary advice is based on best guesses. Even worse, many people process food differently, both from genetic underpinnings and the microbiome. So, what works for one, doesn't necessarily work for another.
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@Bruce Maier,
I’ve read that saturated fatty acids up-regulate genes that code for the enzymes that synthesize cholesterol, which means that cholesterol levels go up. And saturated fatty acids are found at high levels in foods with cholesterol, which means animal products, as well as in the plant oils coconut oil and palm kernel oil (even palm oil is about 50% saturated fatty acids).
And there are very good sites with the best available evidence based nutrition information; these include https://nutritionfacts.org/, https://www.pcrm.org/, and https://www.forksoverknives.com/.
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@Dr. J
That's my understanding.
And thank you for the websites.
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@Dr. J
Fabulously informative websites! Thank you for posting.
Peter Kraus
What role does the gut microbiome play?
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@Rich
A lot of the food we eat gets eaten, in turn, by our microbiome, resulting in different metabolites from if there weren't any microbiome.