Obesity & Heredity, Part 1: Don Gorske

For better or for worse, we inherit much of the body composition tendencies of our parents.  This can be argued as merely adopting their food habits, which directly affects our health, and I believe that's a big part of why our bodies are the way they are.  However, there are most certainly genetic predispositions to certain body shapes and sizes, as well.  Often times, I focus on diet as the #1 instigator of health and disease, but when it comes to issues of overweight and obesity I often find myself wondering just how much genetics can play a role in whether a person is thin or fat, muscular or lanky, apple or pear-shaped.  Many of us know folks who can eat whatever the heck they want without any apparent health effects or significant body composition changes.  

Case in point, Don Gorske, the infamous McDonald's enthusiast who has eaten 24,000 Big Macs since 1972.  Despite this indulgence -- and the sodas that come with it -- Gorske appears to be in good health.  (I say “appears” because he is not overweight and has good cholesterol numbers; not so sure about his teeth, triglycerides, HDL:LDL ratio, VLDL levels or other markers of health.)  He has a full head of dark hair, walks every day, and also has a positive outlook on life.  Arguably, these are signs of good health.  How can this be?  Isn't fast food one of the prime suspects in modern disease?  Could this mean that fast food is off the hook?  Well, before you go out gorging on McDonald's because of one man's seeming success on such fare, read on.

Mr. 180, Matt Stone, recently blogged about Gorske, pinpointing dietary, philosophical, and hereditary  reasons as to why this man's physical health seems to be unaffected by the foods he eats.  Of all the reasons listed by Matt, I believe heredity to be the most important factor.  For one thing, as Matt says in his post, Gorske grew up “...in cow country and didn't start eating fast food until age 18 ...”  Developmentally speaking, this Big Mac-lover had a head start in good health -- especially if we consider that he only started eating fast food after his body and metabolic tendencies were well-established.  And while it's interesting to observe Gorske's apparent well-being and question the assumption that fast food is detrimental to our health, the picture would not be complete without full consideration of his unique heredity.  Perhaps he is the fortunate heir of health not-far-removed from that of our ancestors.  What of his genetics, his childhood health, his parents' and their parents' health?

Unfortunately, I don't have access to this information, but I would hazard a guess that his parents were closer to a traditional diet than not for most of their lives, and that they were maybe the first or second generation of degeneration.  In contrast, many of us have parents or grandparents who were well on their way to degeneration during their life time and this directly affected our health -- epigenetics influenced strongly by diet. (See section below, “Degeneration in the Cafeteria.”)  Maybe some of us, like Gorske, are able to avoid some of the dramatic metabolic changes seen today -- namely obesity -- simply because our parents and grandparents hadn't quite reached that particular stage of degeneration.  Obesity, if we think about the very low historic levels and the high levels of today, appears to be a stage of degeneration that comes after maybe three generations of poor food habits.  It also appears to be in direct connection with the consumption of the modern franken-foods -- artificial fructose, trans fats, white flour, vegetable oils.    

Whatever the case may be, it's evident that obesity is an abnormal human state brought about by heredity, which is influenced by dietary changes.  What's interesting, however, is that some people -- like Don Gorske-- due to perhaps a closer-to pure heredity, are able to escape the effects of poor food habits during their lifetime.  How their children might fare is another question.    

You know what would be an awesome experiment?  Taking a bunch of thin people who appear to do just fine on junk-food, like Gorske, and feeding them lots and lots of food and seeing how quickly they gain weight, how their metabolism reacts, and whether or not they return to their normal weight when the experiment is over.  Maybe this would provide answers as to why thin people are thin.  That post is up next.

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SIDEBAR: Degeneration in the Cafeteria

Imagine a line at a cafeteria with a limited amount of food.  There's (1) the traditional foods of our ancestors: raw dairy, grass-fed meats, fish, fresh grains, fruits and vegetables; there's (2) a mixed-diet of these traditional foods with some processed foods (mainly sugar and white flour); then there's (3) the factory-raised meats, white flour, artificial fructose, and rancid vegetable oil-laden diet of today.  First in line, our great grandparents, enjoyed a diet primarily of traditional foods and experienced good health.  Second in line, their children (our grandparents) approached the front of the line and much of the traditional foods had already been eaten by their parents, so they began eating some white flour and sugar with some ill health effects, notably lowered immunity and dental disease.  Third in line, these childrens' children (our parents) arrived at  the food and they were left with more white flour and sugar than traditional foods; they developed physical deformities from nutritional deficiencies and might have developed some issues with weight and diabetes as well as other degenerative diseases, depending on their parents' food choices.  That brings us to the last ones in line (the 20 and 30-somethings of today) who are left with the most processed of all processed foods: high-fructose corn syrup, rancid vegetable oil, trans fats, and the like.  These poor folks not only have a poor diet, but may inherit the traits of their parents 100-fold, possibly becoming obese and diabetic at an early age, in addition to a slew of health problems that come along with being at the end of a long line of degeneration.  Below is a (purely theoretical) visual representation of this. 

The Darwin of Nutrition

Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote called, "Weston A. Price: A Search For True Health," recently published in The Bulletin of Primitive Technology, Spring 2009.

Following the realization that food was the major contributing factor in human health and disease, Weston Price kept a keen eye out for what specific foods seemed to keep the primitives in good health. It was already obvious that industrialized foodstuffs weren't supportive of optimal health, so now it was Price's mission to determine what particular “nutritional programs” contributed to the well-being of the primitive groups. What food traditions had thousands of years of trial and error resulted in? Dr. Price noted every culture's dietary habits, including special foods utilized during times of child-rearing for the man and woman. It impressed him that the primitives seemed to be aware of preventative measures beginning with the health of the parents:

A very important phase of my investigations has been the obtaining of information from these various primitive racial groups indicating that they were conscious that [physical degeneration] would occur if the parents were not in excellent condition and nourishment. Indeed, in many groups I found that the girls were not allowed to be married until after they had had a period of special feeding. In some tribes a six month period of special nutrition was required before marriage. (Nutrition & Physical Degeneration, p. 3)

Dr. Price was convinced by the ubiquitous nature of this practice that many ailments of modern civilization were caused by prenatal undernourishment and that many of these problems could be prevented by the proper nutritional reinforcement of the parents to be.

Curious about the nutritional content of the primitive diets – particularly those that were emphasized for child-rearing – he took several samples of foods from each locale in order to test them at his laboratory in the United States. Armed with such information, Dr. Price believed that he could then determine what all the varied diets of each culture had in common and further understand the nutritional wisdom of the primitives. When he analyzed the traditional foods, he was excited to find that, on the whole, foods in the native diets were four times richer in water-soluble vitamins and minerals and ten times richer in fat-soluble vitamins than the industrialized American diet of his day. Of the native foods studied, Price realized that the foods which the primitives most emphasized and often times considered sacred (especially for child-rearing) were rich in “fat-soluble activators:” vitamins A, D, and what he referred to as “activator X” – now understood to be vitamin K2. This included foods such as fish eggs, liver, certain insects, and other cholesterol-rich, fat-rich foods (see table below; foods high in fat-soluble vitamins are in bold).

The qualities of the foods, Price came to realize through testing native foods as well as conducting experiments in his laboratory, depended greatly on the quality of the soil and the feed given to the animals. For example, grain and hay-fed dairy products in the United States had far less vitamin and mineral content when compared with dairy products from the Swiss in Loetschental Valley, which was produced from cows grazing on “rapidly growing green grass” in the spring and summer and chlorophyll-rich hay in the fall and winter. Price determined that the color of the butterfat from such dairy products could accurately predict the nutrient-density: a deep yellow or orange color reliably indicated high vitamin content. The laboratory tests of traditional foods further bolstered his confidence in the “wisdom of the primitives.”

What About Cholesterol?

Here is Part 4 in a series of blog posts adapted from my paper, "Modern Health, Primitive Wisdom: American Health History and the Findings of Weston A. Price."

It is commonly believed that saturated fat and cholesterol are primary culprits in the current heart disease epidemic in the United States. We have already taken a look at saturated fat, but what about cholesterol? Is there any substantiation behind the claim that a high-cholesterol diet leads to clogged arteries or dangerously high blood cholesterol levels? What about early Americans and other traditional people who ate cholesterol rich foods and did not suffer from heart disease?

Returning to Weston Price's studies of traditional cultures, one finds that the most prized foods were very rich in fat and cholesterol. Some of these foods include liver, butterfat, fish eggs, and a variety of rendered animal fats, such as lard, tallow, and chicken fat. These cholesterol-rich foods are also rich in fat-soluble vitamins, the catalysts responsible for proper protein and mineral assimilation, and may be the key to rearing healthy children with round faces. Price found no evidence of heart disease, cancer, and other degenerative diseases in the people who enjoyed such nutrient-dense foods. On the contrary, he found primitive people to be the most vibrant and healthy people he'd ever seen.

Like other traditional cultures, early Americans saw no reason to avoid cholesterol-rich foods. They savored hearty, nutrient-dense foods that were high in cholesterol. Butter, cream, egg yolks, lard, tallow, and untrimmed animal meats (including organs) were not disdained -- these foods were thoroughly enjoyed and used extensively in recipes of all kinds. Before the advent of nutritional sciences and USDA food pyramids, turn-of-the-century Americans were enjoying such foods while having no knowledge of cholesterol and its function in the human body. They were unknowingly supplying their bodies with a nutrient that is very supportive to good health.

Cholesterol is not a fat -- it is a waxy alcohol that is not utilized for energy by the body; it does not supply calories. Rather, it is absorbed directly by the intestinal wall without needing to be broken down like fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. The amount that is absorbed by the body generally amounts to less than 50%. Cholesterol plays a key role in brain growth and development (especially in infants), cell membrane integrity, and the healing processes of the body -- thus, it is usually present in scar tissues where there is a repair process happening, as in arteriosclerosis (scarring of the arteries). In addition to all of these functions in the body, cholesterol is the raw material for our hormones. This includes sex hormones and adrenal hormones (also known as "stress hormones"). The adrenal hormones are especially needed in the modern world where stress is a constant part of our lives (Enig, 2000, pp. 48-50, 56-58).

The story of how such a vital nutrient went from being revered in the early century, to being maligned and feared in modern times, is well-documented in The Cholesterol Myths, by Uffe Ravnskov. In this book, Ravnskov makes it clear that there is very little reason for Americans to fear the theory that dietary cholesterol contributes to heart disease and high blood cholesterol levels (the diet-heart theory). (Interestingly, according to the author, blood cholesterol levels may not have any pertinence in evaluating the risk of heart disease.) Several population groups are cited by Ravnskov that consume substantial amounts of cholesterol-laden foods and do not have heart disease or high blood cholesterol levels. This includes both modern and primitive populations. It is also noted by Ravnskov that the studies upon which the diet-heart theory are based are either flawed or skewed to prove the truth in the theory.

One of the pillars of the diet-heart theory is The Framingham Heart Study, which is often referred to as proof that high cholesterol levels lead to a greater risk of heart disease. Ravnskov found this study to be flawed in a number of different ways. The director of The Framingham Heart Study had this to say about the final results of the project:

In Framingham, Massachusetts, the more saturated fat one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the peoples' serum cholesterol ... we found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories weighed the least and were the most physically active (as cited in Enig & Fallon, 2001, 5).

Such inconsistencies in the diet-heart theory have spawned an entire network of scientists, researchers, and health professionals who call themselves The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics, or THINCS. This organization has among its members many reputable individuals who have taken it upon themselves to disseminate unbiased information and engage in discussions concerning the science and health effects of dietary cholesterol. Armed with this information, the interested individual can arrive at his or her own conclusions about whether or not one should worry about cholesterol in the diet, as well as determine whether or not high-cholesterol foods were detrimental to early Americans.

Sources:

Enig, Mary G. (2000). Know Your Fats : The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol. Silverspring, MD: Bethesda Press

Ravnskov, Uffe (2000). The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease. Washington, D.C.: New Trends Publishing.

Next up, the thrilling conclusion: "So What's For Dinner?"