Tryglycerides, Hypertriglyceridemia, Fats and the Abacha ncha story

What are triglycerides?
Triglycerides are the chemical form in which most fat exist in food as well as in the body. They're also present in blood plasma and, in association with cholesterol, form the plasma lipids.Triglycerides in plasma are derived from:
1. fats eaten in foods or,
2. made in the body from other energy sources like carbohydrates.
Calories ingested in a meal and not used immediately by tissues are converted to triglycerides and transported to fat cells to be stored. Hormones regulate the release of triglycerides from fat tissue so they meet the body's needs for energy between meals.

How is an excess of triglycerides harmful?

Excess triglycerides in plasma is called hypertriglyceridemia. It's linked to the occurrence of coronary artery disease in some people. Elevated triglycerides may be a consequence of other disease, such as untreated diabetes mellitus.


American Heart Association Recommendations —

Dietary treatment goals:

Changes in lifestyle habits are the main therapy for hypertriglyceridemia.
These are the changes you need to make:
If you're overweight, cut down on calories to reach your ideal body weight. This includes all sources of calories, from fats, proteins, carbohydrates and alcohol.
Reduce the saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol content of your diet.
Reduce your intake of alcohol considerably. Even small amounts of alcohol can lead to large changes in plasma triglyceride levels.
Eat fruits, vegetables and nonfat or low-fat dairy products most often.
Get at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity on five or more days each week.

People with high triglycerides may need to substitute monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats —such as those found in canola oil, olive oil or liquid margarine — for saturated fats ( palm oil,coconut oil animal fat).
Substituting carbohydrates for fats may raise triglyceride levels and may decrease HDL ("good") cholesterol in some people.
Substitute fish high in omega-3 fatty acids for meats high in saturated fat like hamburger.
Because other risk factors for coronary artery disease multiply the hazard from hypertriglyceridemia, control high blood pressure and avoid cigarette smoking.
Even if drugs like statins are used to treat high triglyceride levels (hypertriglyceridemia) dietary management is still important.

It is important to note that fats are essential for life. The body stores away fat for a source of energy reserve. This stored energy is tapped into when the body exerts itself by performing physical activities. Energy is utilized when we do vigourous work such as wood chopping or tedious farm work. The body taps into the fat deposits when such vigorous work is done. Between meals, energy from fat stores is carefully regulated and released by the built in system in the body.

The problems with fat in recent years result from lack of exercise and vigorous activity. Sedentary lifestyle is the norm today and the results in excess fat stores. Vigorous exercise as in bicycling and trecking long distances and activities already mentioned, such as our past generations used to do. Such exercise burns fat and helps eliminate excess fat.

How does Very High Triglycerides affect your health ?

Triglycerides can build up on the walls of certain blood vessels, called arteries.This build-up can make them narrow.Narrowed arteries slow or block blood flow to the heart.Blood brings needed oxygen to the heart. High triglycerides can lead to hardening of your arteries.They can also lead to thickening of your artery walls. This can raise your risk of stroke, heart attack, and heart disease.It can also lead to pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas, a very painful and dangerous condition.Some people might be at greater risk for very high triglycerides because they have other serious health problems like:

High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Obesity.

------To be continued with---

Saturated Fats, Unsaturated (mono and poly unsaturated) Fats, Trans Fats, COOKING OILS and the rest of the Abacha ncha story.

COOKING OILS, FAT, CHOLESTEROL, AND THE REST OF THE (ABACHA NCHA) STORY.

Recently, there were exchanges on this forum on cooking oil, the various kinds, the benefits and drawbacks. Abancha ncha,( an Igbo delicacy made with dry,shredded cassava, lightly rehydrated to leave it crunchy mixed with dried fish, ugba, other delicious ingredients all of which are then tossed in a dressing made with palm oil,water and akanwu), was discussed at length. In addition to palm oil, coconut oil was mentioned.In this article, I intend to shed some light on the FATS which are the problems with some of these oils. Olive oil, canola oil, Soy oil, Sunflower oil, peanut or groundnut oil are some of the other cooking oils. Some fruits we like are high in fats, for example the melon seed we love in Egusi soup. Avocados are high in fat, but not bad for us. There is always a good and a bad side to most things in life. Fats are no exception. Fats are necessary for life. All these will be discussed here.

The general belief is that fats are bad for you. As common as this belief is, it is simply not true. Cholesterol is the most feared of all and because of that, I will start with cholesterol and work to the triglycerides, saturated and unsaturated fats, trans fats and then zero in on cooking oils and where and how they rank.
This article will therefore be in sections which will be put out as time permits.

It is a well known fact that cholesterol is capable of clogging arteries resulting in arteriosclerosis which leads to heart disease, strokes, heart attacks and a variety of other diseases. Cholesterol, despite the above, is very essential to health and living. Up to two thirds of your body's cholesterol is produced in the liver and the intestine. It is a normal constituent of bile. Cholesterol is also found in the brain, adrenal, and nerve fiber sheaths. Cholesterol is very good when it is good cholesterol. Cholesterol functions in these areas:

1. In the skin, cholesterol is converted to essential vitamin D when touched by the ultraviolet rays of the sun.

2. Cholesterol aids in the metabolism of Carbohydrates. When we eat carbohydrates (sugar,glucose) it gets in the cells to produce energy), the excess glucose is converted to glycogen which is then converted to fat and stored.( More details later.) Cholesterol transports fat to cells.The more carbohydrates you eat, the more cholesterol is produced
.
3. Cholesterol is a major supplier of life essential adrenal- steroid hormones such as cortisone.

4. Cholesterol is necessary for the production of male and female sex hormones. It is a component of every membrane.

To be transported around, cholesterol is bound to protein. The differences in the actions of cholesterol depend on the protein to which it is bound. Lipoproteins are the factors in the blood which transport cholesterol.

There are two kinds of Lipoproteins-- --- High Density Lipoproteins (HDL, also known as good cholesterol) and Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL, also known as bad cholesterol). There is also Very Low Density lipoprotein (VLDL) which are the substances the liver needs to produce Low Density lipoproteins.

The various Lipoproteins:

1. The Low Density Lipoproteins (LDL) carry about sixty percent of blood cholesterol and are bad because they deposit cholesterol in arteries , where it joins with other substances to become PLAQUE , the artery blocker (causes stroke, heart attack).

1b.
The Very Low Density Lipoproteins (VLDL) control the amount of LDL produced by the liver. The more of them in the body, the more LDL the liver sends out, the more your chances of having heart disease.
2.
High Density Lipoproteins (HDL) carry about twenty percent of blood cholesterol and is composed of mainly lecithin which are good agents whose detergent actions breaks up plaque and can transfer cholesterol through blood without clogging arteries. They are therefore the good guys and are referred to as good cholesterol. The higher the levels, the better for health.

Recent studies have shown that people with big hips and trim waists
( pear shaped) have higher levels of HDL than people with pot bellies,( beer bellies,rich man's belly) apple shaped. Refer back to METABOLIC SYNDROME. This shows why females generally live about eight years longer than men. The higher your HDL, the lower your chances of developing heart disease.

To be continued-----

Triglycerides, Saturated vs Unsaturated fats, Mono vs poly unsaturated fats, Trans-Fats, Cholesterol levels, cooking oil---coming next.

TILL DEATH DO US PART- - - - ---and somebody to lean on.

My parents, pictured after the church service where they renewed their vows at the celebration of their sixtieth wedding anniversary on Christmas eve, 2005.
I just thought about them as their anniversary
draws near again.
( I look a lot like my Pa, actually like his mother, I was told) When I was little, people would tease him saying---- I gbolu nwa gi nke a n'onu) Also got his carefree nature and keen sense of humour.

Watching my parents, Joseph and Mercy Odunukwe at the celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary, I couldn't help but grasp the full meaning of the phrase----- till death do us part. There we have these two, who have been around each other for so long that they can read each other's body language and most probably mind. At ninety three years old at the anniversary celebration my father looked sharp in his suit.

He had married sixty years earlier after putting in years at Dennis Grammar School Onitsha. He is most likely the oldest surviving old boy. Then it was to Awka College and then to Umudike College of Agriculture. He was finally ready to settle down. He married his best friend's cousin, Mercy Onyemelukwe, a shy but strong willed school teacher who was still nursing the grudge of not being able to attend Elelenwa girls school which had accepted her but there were no funds. She was not really thrilled about getting married but that was what she was supposed to do. Her sisters still tell stories of their anxiety over the possibility of her not showing up at the wedding and their big sigh of relief when they heard her say----"I do." A particular aunt always loves to tell of her surprise at seeing my mother some months after the wedding looking as if she was in the family way, and then she went on to a total of eleven children and being together with Jos, as they call my father, for sixty years.

My parents had embarked on a mission working for the Anglican church all over Igboland, starting from Ihiala, on to the deep riverine areas of Delta State, through Igbodo, back across the river Niger to other parts of Igboland with a service which spanned many decades. My mother stopped teaching to focus on their young children and other children who were for the most part brought to them to be straightened out. She was and is still fast with the whip, more like a drill Sergeant who would rip you up quickly with words and follow with a whipping. My siblings and I always tease her that she was lucky she did all that spanking in those days and not in today's setting especially in America and the civilized world, she would probably be sitting in jail somewhere. We remain very grateful though, for the strict discipline and the way she drilled fractions and grammar into us whether we liked it or not. My mother would with- hold lunches until the owners finished every chore or bookwork she assigned to them and if anybody tried to play tough, she would give the food away to the bunch of " Oliver Twists" who would gladly grab it and devour it. When one of my brothers had too much trouble with long division and fractions, she kept him home from school until he learned his fractions and long division and today he is in a profession where he works with numbers on a daily basis.

While she worked the home front, my father worked as the Headmaster and Agricultural officer for the church districts they served. In addition to their work, they assisted the church Pastor and his wife in their duties. This meant that the life of the family rotated around church, school and farm and life was always busy and it was always all hands on deck. Everything was every body's business. Everybody looked out for each other despite the fights and sibling rivalry. Everybody was in every body's business. For my parents, the name of the game was team work and they worked very hard together, complementing each other so well that people sometimes termed it weakness on my father's part because he and my mother echo each other and discuss everything and know where each other is and what they are doing at any given time. The trust and openness is simply complete. The openness was extended to the children. Everybody got the respect they deserved, male or female. Being around such calmness and loyalty for so long resulted in people taking it that life goes like that around everybody else, resulting in some rude and hard life lessons. From my observation, my parent's success is from a combination of total openess and trust which built their unspoken love over the years.

Being humans, they each have their faults but they manage to learn how to get around those faults. My father is very laid back. He does not allow things to bother him and my mother takes it as being non chalant about things. When I was younger, I would worry when my father would ask us to get a whip for our mother so she would spank him. I later learned that it was his way of telling her to be quiet after she had talked and whined for too long about something he did or did not do. Even to this day when she goes on and on, he would simply say------" bia j'enu kwatalu nne unu itali, k'opia m." That kind of wraps it up for her. Asking for a spanking was his way of saying he was wrong and he was sorry. Then she would change the subject.

On her part, her carelessness gets to my father sometimes. She leaves things around, losing them and then would turn everything upside down searching. He would stay out of the searching and just mind his business because he may end up being blamed when something else is missing from the pile made from the previous search. Each time I go home, I help my mother straighten her room, but before I leave it would be like a beehive again and she functions very well in there, actually I think she functions better that way.She is not dirty or anything like that. She just likes having her clothes, shoes, headties, handbags, books and everything else on the bed, table and chairs in her room. She would actually plead to a helper to leave things where they are because she knows where everything is. It is always a search for the record books of the various women's meetings she serves as secretary and for some other documents she keeps for them. In a hurry to find these things, she would dump the suitcases and drawers in her room on her bed for a quicker search. My father would look in there, scratch his head and let her be until she was done searching and straightening things up. His room, adjacent to hers is the exact opposite with everything set up just like his days as a teacher, his office was always orderly.

In old age, they seem to be depending on each other's strength more than ever. She is stronger physically now and he relies a lot more on her and she takes care of him very well. He helps as much as he can both in and outside the house. In the mornings, he would get his exercise by going out and around the compound to gather yellow cassava leaves and other leaves to feed the goats and then give them water. The activity helps keep him physically fit for his age. While he is doing this morning chore, she makes him breakfast. He is still stronger emotionally, still not letting anything bother him or interfer with his sleep. I have never heard this two tell each other----" I love you." but each time I am around them, I hear it in every move they make. They don't even think about it but it's all there and I just watch in awe. I always remember the promise-----till death do us part--- and I pray that the good Lord will watch over and hold whichever of them is left behind until the end of the journey. That God will be that Somebody to lean on.

METABOLIC SYNDROME------INSULIN RESISTANCE-----SYNDROME X-------PRE-DIABETES= BAD NEWS.

A re- posting from April 2006:


Body shape can mean a lot in the overall health of an individual. Fat distribution around the body varies in people and in the same token spells the difference in health and quality of life. Medical researchers have found that body shape plays a significant role in a person's health. They describe two body shapes: Apple and Pear. Being plump around the middle (apple) and being plump around the hips (pear).There is a world of difference between the two. Whatever it is called, spare tire, love handles, pot belly, beer belly, it is shaping up to be a big risk factor for one of the deadliest health issues today. Having an apple shaped figure puts you at risk of developing Metabolic syndrome.

METABOLIC SYNDROME:
If you are plump around the middle, have high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, a tendency toward high blood sugar and slothy habits, you might have Metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome, Insulin resistance syndrome, Pre-diabetes, syndrome X, or the deadly quartet, Metabolic syndrome is not really a disease in itself, rather it is a cluster of related symptoms that greatly increases diabetes risk by up to five fold, and hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease) by up to three times . There is more than one cause of metabolic syndrome, and the seriousness varies from individual to individual. The more components of the syndrome that one has, the greater the risks to their health. Women make up to a quarter of those with metabolic syndrome.
There is on going debate whether metabolic syndrome is an actual medical condition or if more understanding is needed before it can be diagnosed and treated.Metabolic syndrome is more common among Black people and Hispanics.

Lifestyle and Risk Factors.
Life style factors play a huge role in whether a person develops metabolic syndrome, so do genetics. Consuming foods high in saturated fats and cholesterol and inactivity put one at greater risk. Increase in age also increases one's risk for metabolic syndrome.More than half of people 60 and over fit the picture for having the syndrome.


Maintaining a healthy body weight is something Americans ( which now includes us) struggle with on a daily basis. Some people struggle with various diets and some get discouraged and give up. With unhealthy food beckoning from every angle coupled with inactivity and lack of exercise many people drag around pounds they have no business carrying.
Research has shown that the body's 24 -hour internal clock, which regulates sleep and hunger, plays a very important role in healthy weight maintenance.
A recent study published in the Journal, Science showed that a faulty or misaligned body clock can wreak havoc on the body and its metabolism, increasing the risk for obesity and diabetes and putting a person at risk for metabolic syndrome. Night shift and odd shift workers should take note of this. Getting enough sleep and exercise should not be taken lightly.

Avoid by all means having any of the components of metabolic syndrome. If you already have any, work hard to eliminate them and prevent developing new ones. The best prevention is a healthy lifestyle, which includes adequate physical activity and a HEALTHY diet.

Some hints:
1. Thirty minutes of moderately intense exercise like brisk walking, bicycle riding (even stationary) most days of the week helps.Walking up and down the steps several times a day will help.Consult your doctor if you already have any issues before embarking on any exercise program. Small weight losses of 10% over a year will improve one's health.

2.Eat foods low in saturated fats, trans fats,cholesterol,sodium and sugar. Some of our Nigerian diet are very high in cholesterol.
If you smoke, STOP as soon as possible. Smoking has been shown to increase Insulin resistance and worsen the impact of metabolic syndrome.

In addition to lifestyle changes, your doctor may recommend medication for instance high cholesterol will call for statins to bring your cholesterol levels down.For high blood pressure, anti hypertensives such as diuretics, (ACE) angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, calcium channel blockers and beta blockers can be used.
One may be asked to take low dose aspirin daily to reduce the chances of clot formation which may lead to stroke and heart attack. People with pre diabetes and diabetes may get metformin and other drugs (Thalizolidinediones) which are used to decrease insulin resistance.

Many of us do not visit the doctor unless we become too sick to function. This is very unhealthy and dangerous. Annual physicals and visits to a doctor is a must. Heaven helps those who help themselves.

Cut back on FOOD and ALCOHOL. Avoid fast food for yourselves and your children. EXERCISE! EXERCISE!! EXERCISE!!!. Take brisk walks together as a family especially if the children have weight problems. Monitor your blood pressure regularly. Most drug stores and supermarkets have free self screening machines available. Take your daily vitamins.
First and foremost: Pay a doctor a visit and discuss all of the above.
For more nformation go to these sites http://www.diabetes.org/http://www.americanheart.org/vytorin.com
National Institutes of Health: http://hin.nhlbi.nih.gov/


Practical suggestions for everyday situations extracted from the write up above are as follows.

1. Having a pot or beer belly is a very bad thing. It shows you may be in the early stages of diabetes,may be very overweight, may have high cholesterol which may make your blood vessels block and make you have a stroke or heart attack.
The condition may make you resistant to insulin which your body creates naturally to breakdown sugar and the result will be you having high blood sugar.
Your blood pressure may also be on the high side because you are carrying around too much weight which makes your heart overwork itself with disastrous effects.
Your sex life may be affected too by these conditions.
Over eating and eating food high in fat (trans fat) bad fat and too much drinking of alcohol lead to this condition.

Having a BIG BELLY is not a sign of wealth, rather it is a sign of ill health and impending early death or disability. Cut back on fatty food, red meat, alcohol and fried food and eat more proteins, vegetables, chicken, fish ( the things village folks ate in days gone by). Eat to moderation.
AVOID USING OLD OIL for frying.

If you already have an apple shape ( BEER BELLY), are overweight (fat) and have high blood pressure, high blood sugar or one or more of those, you can improve things by changing things today---- loose weight, exercise, reduce alcohol intake and stay in touch with your doctor
There are different medications to help which the doctor will prescribe, but the most important thing is to understand the seriousness of Metabolic Syndrome and do something about it.