Where does fat come from?

[S.A.M.]

OK, so in obese people, roughly half of all adipose deposition can be attributed to dietary fat and the other half to dietary carbs right? fat has higher energy content but carbs constitute higher proportion of the meal. At the end of the day, all excess calories get stored in the most efficient way as possible - fat.

So really, the best way to lose fat is by following the simple energy balance principle. Eat less, excercise more.

Correct. And make sure you get all your nutrients not just the calories.

 

[Billy T]

...My POV is that most dietary conditions provide more than enough fat to suppress lipogenesis and not more carbohydrates than fat (no humans eat only grass)* so the conditions favorable for lipogenesis are not present. The body does not waste energy preparing things that are already available. Also, in the short term substituting one form of energy for the other simply shifts the metabolic substrate since the system is able to utilize both.

In the case where a primitive man ate only honey and had little access to oils, he would of course activate his lipogenic pathway.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you. I now understand that your earlier statements to the effect that “humans rarely make fat” (use the DNL process of the liver, etc) are really more a comment about the quantity of fats in most modern diets than comments about the capabilities of modern man's metabolic system.

I try** to avoid most fats that are solid at room temperatures, but as I think it wise to include some fat in my diet, my very routine breakfast is one banana, micro-waved one minute to make it soft, with nearly equal volume of raw, fine-ground, oats intentionally saturated with Canola oil, all mixed into a paste, plus a couple of cups of “US coffee” (I.e. relative weak, by Brazilian standards.)
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*BTW this not completely correct. About 25 or 30 years ago, some crazy English (who else? ) lady walked all the way across the US one summer with only some little grinding machine she used to process her sole food - grass - in. I think she was on some sort of crusade to make everyone become vegetarians or something like that.

**Never any butter, never add sugar to anything, eat red meat only when that is only main dish at someone else’s dinner party, only skimmed milk and yogurt made from it, no cheeses, skin of chicken always discarded, but I must also eat some solid fats in my other main meat, sardines. (I only eat small fish, as mercury and other toxic heavy metals concentrate greatly in fish food chain as bigger fish eat little ones. Also sardines are much cheaper than chunks of a big tuna that many eat as a “health food”). In Brazil, a wide variety of locally-grown fresh fruit and vegetable are available all year long. I get more than half my calories from them.

Part of motivation for this diet, getting good exercise swimming, etc. is due to my frugality and fact I have a greater than 8% return, from a life-time annuity contract, which has already returned about 150% of my purchase price for it. I intend to make them pay for at least 30 years more.

In case anyone thinks I suffer with this regime I note:
(1) Much of "what tastes good" is acquired. - I like, really enjoy, everything I eat very much. (Pure cacao powder, mixed with yogurt and half a pack of artificial sweetner, to cut the bitter taste of cacao, make a fantasticly good, and healthy dissert.)
(2) Good health and swimming do wonders for one's sex drives, even in your 70s! An attractive wife, who also swims and eats as I do (we cook at home together) also helps keep these drives under control.

 

[valich]

Fat takes in sugar from the blood:

The pancreas produces hormones which regulate blood glucose (sugar) levels. An increase in blood sugar level triggers the release of insulin by the pancreas. Insulin lowers blood sugar level by absorbing it into starch and fat.

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There is also a genetic disposition to obesity that is increasing more-and-more in our society. In other words, as a whole population, we are "evolving" into fatter and fatter people. The scientific research that I have read on this suggests that it is inherented genetically, through genetic expression, into the embryo's development from obese mothers, thus a continuing positive feedback cycle. Successful people, or in evolutionary terms, those most "fit" or those most wealthy who can afford to eat - wine and dine - compared to those who starve, who can eat more, get fat and have babies, will eventually produce fatter babies into the population. Aren't we as a society in America more prone to get fat because of increased income; health standards; welfare; fast-food restaurants, and our love of sweets, snacks, cookies, and pastry? We're nothing but a bunch of hereditary fat and lazy coach potatoes.

 

[John Connellan]

Insulin lowers blood sugar level by absorbing it into starch and fat.

Do u mean by "converting it"? It's an important point

 

[S.A.M.]

Insulin lowers blood sugar level by absorbing it into starch and fat.

That would be news to a lot of scientists.

 

[valich]

You know this is an overly simplified diagram:

Monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, galactose) transported via portal vein to the liver, stored as glycogen in liver or muscles, is converted to fat. Blood glucose levels and glucose metabolism is partially controlled by insulin. Cells absorb glucose from the blood (glycolysis-Krebs cycle, releasing ATP). Adipose tissue stores glucose as fat. Adipose tissue is fat.

Adipose tissue is divided into lobes by small blood vessels and cells called adipocytes. "Free fatty acid is liberated from lipoproteins by lipoprotein lipase and enters adipocytes where it is reassembled into triglycerides by esterising it onto glycerol (Wiki:Fat)." Adipocytes store fat derived from liver metabolism or degrades stored fat to supply fatty acids and glycerol to the blood circulation where the metabolic activities are regulated by several hormones, especially insulin.

 

[draqon]

fat comes from carbohydrates.

 

[Varda]

NO.... you dont understand...

every call... be it a stem cell... or a bone cell.. or a muscle cell... or an eyeball cell... or brain cell...

all cells... all... are based on semi-permiable layers of fat.

fats... will naturally form circular cell bodies... in warm water...

if a life form cannot produce fats... then, it cannot produce new cells, unless it eats that fat somehow.

i have no doubt... all lifeforms, can produce their own fats.

-MT

i'm very sorry for this comment, but I read all the "fats" in that post as "farts" and I LOLed in my head

 

[valich]

Sugar (glucose, fructose, sucrose) are carbohydrates. Insulin regulates blood sugar. Excess blood sugar is converted to fat. Fats are triglycerides. Tricylglycerides, from lipids and glycerol, form adipose fat cells. People who eat sugar get fat.

 

[Mosheh Thezion]

IT IS FUNNY... if you replace fat with fart as you read it... interesting.