Does A Low-Fat Diet Lower Free Fatty Acids?

Kasra

Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Messages
53
I've found some evidence that high-fat diets can increase fasting serum FFA, but surprisingly little on the effect of low-fat diets.

Any insight on this?
 

jaguar43

Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2012
Messages
1,310
Not always. High estrogen, growth hormone, and prolactin can increase free fatty acids. So basically being stressed will elevated free fatty acids even with a low fat diet.
 

jyb

Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2012
Messages
2,783
Location
UK
jag2594 said:
Not always. High estrogen, growth hormone, and prolactin can increase free fatty acids. So basically being stressed will elevated free fatty acids even with a low fat diet.

Release of FFA in times of stress doesn't serve the same role as fasting FFA (emergency response vs energy supply). The diet will decide the amount of latter I'm guessing, it's a choice you make depending on what foods or supplements you take, but I'm not sure about the former.
 

kiran

Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2012
Messages
1,054
Kasra said:
I've found some evidence that high-fat diets can increase fasting serum FFA, but surprisingly little on the effect of low-fat diets.

What's considered a high-fat diet? You got a link?

I ask because Im feeling a bit better after increasing the fat content of my diet.
 
OP
Kasra

Kasra

Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Messages
53
Here, 10 men were given a 60% fat diet (up from 30%) for a week and their average fasting FFAs increased from 251 to 334 μM/L.

Here, obese subject who were instructed to eat a very-low-carbohydrate diet (<20 g/day) had a substantial increase in 24h plasma FFAs.

Here, 10 trained athletes had no difference in plasma FFAs when switched between a 17% and 41% fat diet.

Here, 10 men who were fed a 50% fat diet (up from 35%) had no change in fasting FFAs.

Here, rats on a high-fat diet (42% energy) had about twice the plasma FFA concentration of rats on a standard diet (12.5% energy from fat.)

Here, rats fed a chow diet (10% energy from fat) had higher plasma FFAs than rats fed a safflower oil-based high-fat diet (59% energy from fat.)

I realize none of that paints a coherent picture.
 

johns74

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
501
so the question is, what level of fat intake (and maybe other factors) minimize free fatty acids?
 

jaguar43

Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2012
Messages
1,310
jyb said:
jag2594 said:
Not always. High estrogen, growth hormone, and prolactin can increase free fatty acids. So basically being stressed will elevated free fatty acids even with a low fat diet.

Release of FFA in times of stress doesn't serve the same role as fasting FFA (emergency response vs energy supply). The diet will decide the amount of latter I'm guessing, it's a choice you make depending on what foods or supplements you take, but I'm not sure about the former.

Recent papers are reporting that the estrogen used to "treat menopause" causes an increase in free fatty acids. Spellacy and Carlson suggested that estrogen's effect was mediated by growth hormone, and that is now the consensus. Women are much more likely than men to develop diabetes.

Estrogen increases secretion of growth hormone (GH; it's closely associated with prolactin, also increased by estrogen), and GH causes an increase in free fatty acids in the blood. Estrogen promotes iron retention, so it sets the stage for oxidative stress. At least in some systems, both estrogen and PUFA promote the entry of calcium into the cell.

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/diabetes.shtml
Since stress increases the amount of free fatty acids circulating in the blood (as well as lipid peroxides), and since lack of oxygen increases the intracellular concentration of free fatty acids, stored unsaturated fats would seem to represent a special danger to the stressed organism.

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/diabetes.shtml

I think it would depend on your stored fats if you would want to lower free fatty acids using a low-fat diet. However other hormonal conditions could elevate your FFA's as well.
 

kiran

Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2012
Messages
1,054
So a high fat diet would approximately be between 50-60% for man. Coherent enough.
 

paymanz

Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2015
Messages
2,707
Connective tissue that surrounded the fat cells,the quality of extracellular matrix of fat tissue may have a role in how easy it releases FFA?!

Pure speculation!!

Btw the original topic of this thread is very interesting... Bad it didn't get a conclusion!
 

exile

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2022
Messages
149
Location
O
Has anyone ever done a FFA blood test. I just did one (fatty acids non ester) and my fasting results were .9 (range was .1-.9). Just curious others results if you’ve done one. Anyone know if Ray ever said what they should be. Only quotes I’m seeing is that they should be low and “Keep the free fatty acids low in relation to albumin, they will largely be carried bound to the albumin to the liver.” My albumin as I did a hepatic panel at the same time was 4.8 (range 4-5).
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom