Bulletproof Diet: Fructose Is Bad? Fish Oil Is Great?

Hey everyone

I just came across this article

https://www.bulletproofexec.com/how-fru ... you-smart/

It basically describes an experiment where animals drinking a fructose solution fared worse than animals drinking the same solution with DHA added.

Another thing I want to know is, another experiment showed fructose to be aging. Is that because the kind of fructose they give them isn't from fruit? Because I'm sure fruit is good for us

Thanks for your help

The article Sugar Issues on Ray Peat's web site explains his views.

Yes but this experiment disproves that

Maybe fructose accelerates metabolism and need for nutrients and DHA decreases need for nutrients.

I think in humans sugar enhances liver conversion of T4 into T3.

I think studies stating that a lack of some sort of polyunsaturated fat causes a problem typically don't ensure that the increased needs for nutrients due to accelerated metabolism are satisfied. If they don't do that, those studies are very poorly designed and don't show that PUFAs are beneficial.

M134 said:

Yes but this experiment disproves that

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Sorry I misunderstood and thought you wanted Peat's views.

"The Bulletproof Diet supplies ample high quality omega-3s from grass-fed meat, wild-caught/low-mercury seafood, and select fish and krill oil supplements. If you overdo your fructose intake for a day, these fats will help limit the damage. On the other hand, if you aren’t consuming enough omega-3s, you’re going to be more sensitive to the negative effects of fructose."

Next time I slip up and eat a piece of fruit
I'll down a big slug of vegetable oil and fish oil
to try to limit the damage.

Is this one of those experiments where they give the rats ridiculous amounts of fructose with nothing else? You know, that would never happen in a real-world situation. I can't really tell from the linked article or abstract. Maybe they should have given the rats just DHA and water and see what happens. I bet it's not positive.

I would not take this study too seriously. I love this bit too (from the website author):

"That’s the sound of me high-fiving myself. After years of telling coworkers and friends that fructose decreases their mental performance, there is finally a study to prove it".

I.e. I'm full of ***t and go telling people how to eat and live without anything to back it up, and look, I found one ridiculous study I can which finally (allegedly) legitimises my BS.

I did notice in the abstract that the rats already had metabolic syndrome before the study. What's the point in that? Why not see what happens to healthy rats? Are rats always the best subject for a study like this? I would choose pigs or monkeys but that would be too expensive. My own personal study on myself didn't go too well with a bullet proof type approach with krill oil supplements by the way and I'm human. Some other variables would have been nice as well. I'm not a scientist but that wasn't near enough to convince me personally.

narouz said:

"The Bulletproof Diet supplies ample high quality omega-3s from grass-fed meat, wild-caught/low-mercury seafood, and select fish and krill oil supplements. If you overdo your fructose intake for a day, these fats will help limit the damage. On the other hand, if you aren’t consuming enough omega-3s, you’re going to be more sensitive to the negative effects of fructose."

Next time I slip up and eat a piece of fruit
I'll down a big slug of vegetable oil and fish oil
to try to limit the damage.

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Hey c'mon Narouz - this is no laughing matter. Don't you know that "Not only does excess fructose give you fatty liver disease, high triglycerides, fungal infections, diabetes, gout, and make you obese, it also hurts your brain function".

Fructose is more dangerous than you think. I had a friend once who slipped on a banana peel and broke her coccyx. I've not slipped on a banana peel since and I'm sooooo much better for it.

Aside from being too much of a salesman in his fear mongering pitch to get you to purchase his band over others, Dave's diet is actually one of the more sound protocols in the nutrition world. He definitely doesn't recommend any veggie oils, and pre-cooked nuts are also a no-no, doesn't do much starch, mostly saturated fats, etc.. Remember there's several ways one can achieve great health, and in all protocols some do better than others. For now I'm siding with Peats conclusions, but I'd support Dave's notions over the many who recommend the standard American diet any day of the week.

As for the original question for the newbie, fat prior prior to 60 years ago use to be saturated or at least not a pufa. Companies wanted to switch over to PUFAs b/c they are way cheaper, and the seed companies also loved this idea. So you use tainted studies to push a fear mongering campaign against saturated fat. Fast forward 60 years and almost everybody in the medical & nutritional field has been taught to use this data to support this gigantic corporate driven machine. The fish market is massive, and with profits comes massive amounts of waste. So using the tactics to previous turn fluoride waste into a sellable commodity, in the form of water treatment, the fish market (and seed market to a lesser degree) starting touting only the positives of 'essential PUFA' which are a waste byproduct in fishing. Universities which prepare students for a corporate life, push only the corporate agenda as factual. Once you spend 10 years building up your career, it's a tough decision to try and fight the machine as they usually beat you down and blacklist you if you try to prove them wrong. There's no doubt that PUFA and sugars do not mix well. All this sugar fear mongering is most a result of processed sugar (with corn syrup which is obviously a Peat no-no) and extremely high PUFA intake. Remove the PUFA, and the fructose or many other sugars will not be a problem. If you are new to Peat's interpretation of the data, I'd definitely recommend reading all of his articles that interest you, even if it takes a couple of months, it'll be worth it.

One last thought on the audacity of the corporate mindset, since the whole essential oil campaign has been a booming success, becoming a multi-biollion dollar market, they decided to get scientists & advertisers to convince the public that what is essentially insects of the sea "krill" (which by the way is even a more profitable market since catching these critters is quite easy) are the new way to go with regards to supplementing omega pufas... There's a market for everything it seems.

The blog post is pontificating based on one study.

The study itself tweaks "standard rat chow" only by swapping 15% fructose solution for drinking water and substituting "omega" fats for some of the PUFA in the rat chow.

First, it is possible that the fish oil is less toxic than PUFA's. So substituting a less toxic food for a more toxic food will give a relative benefit. To use an extreme analogy, if aluminum in food was swapped for arsenic, the results would look favorable too.

The conclusions about "healthy fats" have been cherry picked since the early 20th century. Farmers and ranchers of the early & mid-20th century knew that coconut oil made their animals lean and muscular (I heard first hand reports, in addition to reading written accounts.)

And 15% fructose drink? Please. Is it a big surprise when huge amounts of calories come from a depleted beverage that performance suffers? Is it news that displacement of nutrients with calorie artifacts is not good for health?

The blog post is by a 44 year old who is trying to sell stuff. The described gist is to be a "bulletproof" "executive". Dr. Peat has written the "The key idea was that energy and structure are interdependent, at every level." For me, the second outlook is more generative.

I have not read Asprey's stuff at length. Maybe I'll read further. There are many health marketer viewpoints I have not read extensively.

But the blog post citation is same old, same old.

Maybe a better rat chow should be devised to make a more optimal yardstick for research claims.

The study itself:
http://jp.physoc.org/content/early/2012 ... l.pdf+html

and you've got to drink coffee that's $20 for a $3-sized bag

This study is weird.

1. Are there two, three or four different diets?

2. Does "hydrogenated coconut and safflower oils" mean the safflower is also hydrogenated or not?

3. Again, it keeps saying something happened to n-3 diet, however the oppsite happened to the diet with n-3?

4. They explicitly say n-3 deficiency raised n-6 PUFA in the brain (Peat said this over and over)

5. I'd like to know how their stress profile changed

6. Pure fructose, no glucose

7. n-3 could be allowing greater fluidity in the clogged mitochondria (hard to discuss with mainstream cell model)

After you've read this weird study that CONFIRMS fructose makes you stooooopid, don't forget to buy Dave Asprey's coffee which costs $15 for a $3-sized bag. Oh, and of course his Upgraded collagen powder which is exactly the same as Great Lakes but costs $40 instead of $17.

Remember.. They're called Upgraded so they MUST be better.

I just had some fruit, and was thinking that Dave Asprey is swindling idiots out of money. Probably the Fructose taking effect and making me dumb.

aquaman said:

After you've read this weird study that CONFIRMS fructose makes you stooooopid, don't forget to buy Dave Asprey's coffee which costs $15 for a $3-sized bag. Oh, and of course his Upgraded collagen powder which is exactly the same as Great Lakes but costs $40 instead of $17.

Remember.. They're called Upgraded so they MUST be better.

I just had some fruit, and was thinking that Dave Asprey is swindling idiots out of money. Probably the Fructose taking effect and making me dumb.

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Hey, he's the world class earpiece-wearing exec ny-times best-selling oprah-visiting silicon-valley rebooting ice-bath-taking yup-and-coming brain hacker of the year. How can it go wrong? The coffee is good though. Also all the bottles are BPA free. I think I would avoid the molds too if I had the money!

i wouldnt pay too much attention to this.

first of all, they dont say how much fructose was consumed, only that it was a 15% solution as drinking water which they drank ad libitum. this isnt the same as eating fruit is it?

my thinking is the n-3 inhibited the conversion of n-6, thus leading to a relatively lowered interaction of pufa and fructose.

Plus as someone pointed out, these were sick rodents to begin with

and where was the no pufa control group?

Right hand pic is a phone camera pic taken a few years ago. The left one is pretty recent.

All you need to know about Dave Asprey is he has a product to sell you for every conclusion he draws.
C'mon son, pay attention.

jitsmonkey said:

All you need to know about Dave Asprey is he has a product to sell you for every conclusion he draws.
C'mon son, pay attention.

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So does he make a product and then try and figure out how to sell it, or does he use research to figure out which products to create and sell?

There is this mentality in the nutrition world where people automatically don't trust someone if that person is selling things, like trying to make a living makes you a liar or something. "You're trying to make money? Shame on you!!" I've even seen someone say that Ray is just trying to sell his products... like what, his $5 books? His newsletter that he doesn't advertise? The man couldn't try less to make money.

Haidut sells product, and he tends to post information that supports those products, which is completely fine.

Note: I'm not sticking up for David Asprey, or even arguing against you really, just making a point that just because he has a product for every conclusion doesn't mean that conclusion is automatically wrong because of the product.