Linoleic Acid (PUFA) The Most Destructive Ingredient in Your Diet

The video at the top of Mercola's report is excellent and a must watch. You will need to go to the source link at the bottom.

Dr. Joseph Mercola

Linoleic acid found in vegetables and seed oils may be the biggest contributor to chronic disease in the Western world. Read the shocking findings here.

Fats — which are water-insoluble biological molecules also known as lipids

These are the primary building block of your cell membranes. This is one of the reasons why eating the right types of fat is so important for your health and longevity.

Well, after three grueling rounds of peer review over the last three months, my paper on the hazards of linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), is now published in the high impact Nutrition journal Nutrients and available for free download, here.

Please download the article and save it on your hard drive as you never know what will happen with a future crisis. You can send it to doctors who don't yet believe how dangerous seed oils are, but truthfully, the video above is likely better for your friends.

I couldn't have done it without my co-author Dr. Chris D'Adamo who skillfully and diplomatically helped to navigate the minefield of peer review. Our next paper will likely be on reductive stress which is one of the most important foundational and unknown concepts in health. It helps explains why LA is so devastating to your health at a molecular biological level.

Lowering your LA is the single most important strategy you can take to not only lower reductive stress in your mitochondria but improve your overall health. It took me over six months to create the video above and I would strongly encourage each of you to watch is several times so you embed in your brain how important avoiding LA is for your long-term health so you can develop unconscious reflex behaviors to avoid this pernicious fat.

Fatty Acid Basics

What distinguishes one fat from another is the specific combination of fatty acids it’s composed of, and the properties of fats and fatty acids depend on their hydrogen saturation and the length of their molecules, also referred to as "chain length."

There are two basic types of fatty acids, based on how many of their carbon bonds are paired with hydrogen:

Saturated fats are fully loaded with hydrogen atoms forming straight chains, and are typically solid at room temperature (examples include butter and coconut oil)
Unsaturated fats have lost at least one of the pairs of hydrogen atoms from their carbon chain and come in two varieties:
- Monounsaturated fats, which are missing one pair of hydrogen atoms
- Polyunsaturated Fats (PUFAs), which are missing more than one pair of hydrogen atoms, hence the name “poly”

The loss of hydrogen results in molecules that kink or bend at each double bond. The more hydrogen pairs that are missing, the more bent the molecules, which causes the molecules to occupy more space. This is what makes the fat a liquid oil at room temperature.

In addition to varying levels of hydrogen saturation, fats also vary in the length of their carbon chains, leading to another classification scheme based on their number of carbon atoms:

Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) — Two to four carbon atoms
Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) — Six to 10 carbon atoms
Long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs) — 12 to 26 carbon atoms
Very-long-chain fatty acids5 (VLCFAs) — 26 to 30 carbon atoms

The chain length and hydrogen saturation level control a fat’s melting point. As chain length increases, melting point increases. Likewise, fats that are solid at room temperature (butter, coconut oil) have longer chain lengths than fats that are liquid at room temperature (fish oil, olive oil). With chain lengths being equal, the polyunsaturated fats found in seeds oils have lower melting points than saturated fats.

Omega-3 and Omega-6 Basics

PUFAs can also be subdivided into omega-3 and omega-6 fats. The end of the fatty acid chain that is opposite the acid end is the "omega end." The location of the first double bond from the omega end dictates whether a fatty acid is an omega-3, omega-6, omega-9 (oleic acid) or another member of the omega family.

The most pernicious toxin in the modern diet, and the fat you need to minimize consumption of, is the omega-6 fat linoleic acid (LA). LA makes up 60% to 80% of omega-6 fats and is the primary contributor to chronic disease.

To be clear, it’s only toxic when consumed in excessive quantities, but the vast majority of people nowadays consuming far more than the ideal amounts. The history of how seed oils ended up replacing far healthier animal fats is detailed in the video above.

Many still believe that if you have a distorted omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, the solution is simply to consume more omega-3, but that’s a serious mistake. While you certainly need a certain amount of omega-3s for good health, adding excessive omega-3s is a prescription for disaster, as omega-3 is also a PUFA.

So, when consumed in excessive quantities, omega-3 will cause metabolic damage similar to that of LA, as it breaks down into dangerous metabolites known as ALEs (advanced lipoxidation end products).

Commonly Confused Fats

It is also important to highlight a primarily plant-based omega-3 fat called alpha linolenic acid (ALA). ALA should not be confused with LA, as they are quite different from a biological standpoint. LA is an omega-6 fat and ALA is an omega-3 fat.

Also, do not confuse LA with CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). Although CLA is an omega-6 fat and most think CLA and LA are interchangeable, they're not. CLA has many potent health benefits and will not cause the problems that LA does.

The Problem With PUFAs

As a general rule, vegetable and seed oils are high in PUFAs and low in saturated fats while animal fats are the converse. Saturated and monounsaturated fats are more easily used by your body than PUFAs, hence animal fats are generally healthier than seed oils.

“One significant problem with PUFAs is that they are chemically unstable, which makes them highly susceptible to being damaged by oxygen species generated from the energy production in your cells.”

Because your tissues are made up mostly of saturated and monounsaturated fats, your body also requires more of them than PUFAs. The main dietary PUFAs are omega-3 and omega-6 fats, and while your body does need these, it needs them in relatively small quantities.

One significant problem with PUFAs is that they are chemically unstable, which makes them highly susceptible to being damaged by oxygen species generated from the energy production in your cells. This damage causes them to form ALEs, which in turn generate dangerous free radicals that damage your cell membranes, mitochondria, proteins and DNA.

What’s worse, PUFAs are integrated into your cell membranes and can remain so for five to seven years. The missing hydrogen atoms also make PUFAs highly susceptible to oxidation, which causes the fat to break down into harmful metabolites such as OXLAMs (oxidized LA metabolites), which have a profoundly negative impact on your health.

LA Is Not an ‘Essential’ Fat

"Essential fatty acids" (EFAs) is a term referring to the PUFAs that scientists believe are crucial for health and that your body cannot produce. Hence, you have to get them from your diet. Currently only two types of fats are considered "essential":

Omega-3 (EPA, DHA, and ALA)
Omega-6 fat (LA)

The inclusion of LA is unfortunate, as excessive amounts of LA actually wreck your cellular and mitochondrial function. The reality is you need very small amounts of LA, and because it’s found in most foods, it’s virtually impossible to become deficient. Moreover, modern research has shown that up to 10 generations of animals can be raised without any LA in their diet whatsoever and remain perfectly healthy.

Research has also shown that when you have a large amount of LA in your diet, an enzyme called delta-desaturase — which converts the plant-based omega-3 fat, ALA, to the long-chain fats DHA and EPA — is inhibited. So, consuming high amounts of LA increases your dependence on sea food as a source of preformed EPA and DHA.

This is important, as DHA and EPA are indeed essential and provide a wide range of health benefits. One of the most important benefits of DHA is lowering inflammation, which is a factor in most chronic and degenerative diseases. EPA, meanwhile, is important for heart and cardiovascular health.

FDA Forced to Walk Back Smug Anti-Ivermectin Post, Makes Huge Admission About the Drug

Four ivermectin pills are displayed on top of usage instructions for the drug. Recently, the FDA walked back its position on doctors prescribing the drug.

Commentary

Four ivermectin pills are displayed on top of usage instructions for the drug. Recently, the FDA walked back its position on doctors prescribing the drug. (Callista Images / Getty Images)

After years of denigrating ivermectin as dangerous and as “horse medicine,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been forced to retreat on its all-out attack on the medicine after three doctors sued the agency in federal court for impeding their right as medical providers to prescribe the medicine to their patients.

The FDA made a key admission in court during an Tuesday proceeding in which lawyers for the doctors asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals whether doctors have a right to prescribe ivermectin since the FDA approved the drug for use in humans way back in 1986.

So, what was the FDA’s shocking admission?

Can You Change the Shape of Your Brain Mass? Neuroplasticity 101

by Jennifer Rae Vliet

It has been all the buzz the last 4 years about how we can actually reshape our misshapen brain mass. They have seen people's brains who are alcoholics and marijuana users and a reshaping of them when they quit these habits. A deep dive into this did not stop there, study after study has been done on the brains of people who suffer with head injuries, depression, panic/anxiety disorders, as well as hypothyroidism. These are supposedly noggins that when they are reshaped, these conditions improve and claims that they even disappear. There are all sorts of different therapies in fact. One is using a hallucinogenic once or twice; for example, a controlled usage of magic mushrooms which are gaining in popularity...hypnosis, verbal and meditative therapies, exercises and of course so much more.

What Is Neuroplasticity?

Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt due to experience. It is an umbrella term referring to the brain's ability to change, reorganize, or grow neural networks. This can involve functional changes due to brain damage or structural changes due to learning.

Plasticity refers to the brain's malleability or ability to change; it does not imply that the brain is plastic. Neuro refers to neurons, the nerve cells that are the building blocks of the brain and nervous system. Thus, neuroplasticity allows nerve cells to change or adjust.

Types of Neuroplasticity

The human brain is composed of approximately 100 billion neurons.1 Early researchers believed that neurogenesis, or the creation of new neurons, stopped shortly after birth.

Today, it's understood that the brain's neuroplasticity allows it to reorganize pathways, create new connections, and, in some cases, even create new neurons.

There are two main types of neuroplasticity:

Functional plasticity is the brain's ability to move functions from a damaged area of the brain to other undamaged areas.
Structural plasticity is the brain's ability to actually change its physical structure as a result of learning.

And of course, Dr. Berg also will share some great information about regrowing our brain cells!

Dr. Josh Axe has a great piece on the Limbic System, how to support ours and in what ways

What Is the Limbic System? (Plus, How to Keep It Healthy & the Role of Essential Oils)

Although it’s only a small part of the brain in terms of volume, the limbic system has some of the most basic, life-sustaining and meaningful roles of all brain structure. The word limbic comes from the latin word limbus, meaning “border.” That’s because the limbic system forms a curved border around the subcortical parts of the brain called the cerebral cortex and the diencephalon.

Ever wonder what part of the brain controls emotions? While the entire central nervous system helps control our emotions, as you’ll learn, activities in the limbic system and autonomic nervous system are especially influential over our emotional health. The entire limbic system — including subparts like the hippocampus, hypothalamus and amygdala — helps control numerous emotional, voluntary, endocrine and visceral responses to our environments that we all experience daily. (1)

What Is the Limbic System?

Of all the areas of the brain, from an evolutionary perspective the limbic system is said to be one of the oldest and most primitive, having formed many hundreds of thousands of years ago. In fact, similar systems are also found in most other animals, even reptiles. In the past, the limbic system was sometimes even referred to as the “paleomammalian brain.” (2)

Although the limbic system works with other areas of the brain in complex ways, and therefore has far more than just one role, the word that best describes what the limbic system controls would be “emotions.” Secondly, a part of the limbic system called the hippocampus helps us form and retain memories, which is very important for learning and development.

At all stages of our life, the limbic system and hippocampus also help govern emotional behaviors. While it’s an oversimplification to say that someone’s emotions are only determined by limbic functions, it’s clear that this system plays a huge part in helping us do things like remember past events that were both pleasant and traumatic, perceive threats from our surroundings, make choices based on our experiences, control movements based on past learning, form sensory preferences/likes/dislikes, and much more.

Limbic System and Hippocampus Function and Structure

The limbic system sits atop the brain stem, which is believed to be one of the first parts of the brain to develop, react to stimuli and the most basic in terms of sustaining life. It’s located on both sides of the thalamus and underneath the cerebrum.

There’s not total consensus among neuroscientists about which structures of the brain are technically part of the limbic system, considering it’s very hard to to neatly classify cortical areas given how much neural overlap there is. That being said, most consider the limbic system to be made up of cortical regions (structures), including:

Hippocampus: generally associated with memory and focus, but also helps with motor control (often learned through trial and error)
Amygdala: tied to fear and anxious emotions
Hypothalamus: primarily responsible for regulating hormones and maintaining “homeostasis” (more on this below)
Septal Nuclei: tied to pleasure and learning through reward and/or reinforcement
Cingulate Cortex: involved in many aspects of memory and emotion
Parahippocampal Gyrus: also helps with memory
Mammillary Bodies: connected to the amygdala and hippocampus
Fornix: connects other parts of the brain, including hippocampus and mammillary bodies

The limbic system is one hard-working region of the brain, as you can tell. Some specific limbic system functions include:

Controlling emotions like anger and fear
Regulating eating, hunger and thirst
Responding to pain and pleasure
Controlling functioning of the autonomic nervous system, including things like pulse, blood pressure, breathing and arousal
Sensing sexual satisfaction
Controlling aggressive or violent behavior
Responding to sensory information, especially sense of smell

The hippocampus is part of the entire limbic system, but it helps to understand how it contributes to memory to learning. Functions of the hippocampus include: (3)

Forming short-term and long-term memories through consolidating information
Learning new skills from reward, punishment, reinforcement and failure
Recognition of what’s familiar versus new
Navigation or sense of direction
Spacial memory
Involved in olfaction (smelling) and tying together smells with specific memories

Limbic System Disorders

Because subparts of the limbic system ultimately regulate important aspects of our conscious and unconscious patterns — including our emotions, perceptions, relationships, behaviors and motor control — it’s easy to see why damage to this region can cause serious problems. Disorders or behaviors that are related to limbic system dysfunction, or sometimes limbic system damage due to things like traumatic injuries or aging, include: (4)

Disinhibited behavior: This means someone doesn’t consider the risk of behaviors and ignores social conventions/rules.
Increased anger and violence: This is commonly tied to amygdala damage.
Hyperarousal: Amygdala damage, or damage to parts of the brain connected to the amygdala, can cause increased fear and anxiety. Anxiety disorders are sometimes treated with drugs that target areas of the amygdala to decrease fear-based emotions.
Hypoarousal: This can cause low energy or lack of drive and motivation.
Hyperorality/Kluver-Bucy Syndrome: This is characterized by amygdala damage that can lead to increased drive for pleasure, hypersexuality, disinhibited behavior and insertion of inappropriate objects in the mouth.
Appetite dysregulation: Destructive behaviors tied to hyperorality or thalamus dysfunction can include overeating, binge eating or emotional eating.
Trouble forming memories: Hippocampal damage can include short-term or long-term memory loss. Learning is often greatly impacted by hippocampal damage, since it depends on memory. Someone with the condition anterograde amnesia loses the ability to form and retain new memories. Interestingly, sometimes someone can hold on to older/long-term memories but lose the ability to form new short-term memories.
Cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease: Research shows that people with Alzheimer’s and memory loss usually have experienced damage to the hippocampus. This causes not only memory loss, but also disorientation and changes in moods. Some of the ways that the hippocampus can become damaged include free radical damage/oxidative stress, oxygen starvation (hypoxia), strokes or seizures/epilepsy.
READ MORE OF DR. JOSH AXE >>>>
Bibliography
Astounding Facts about the Brain God Made | Preach It, Teach ItArticle Detail | Preach It, Teach It (preachitteachit.org)
You Have the Power to Physically Reshape Your Brain (futurism.com)

THE PLAIN TRUTH IS THAT GOD HAS CREATED FOR US AN AMAZING BODY THAT IS RIGHTED BY THE BRAIN! I had mentioned this before on the Retro-Walking post, that it is the brains job to fix the misfiring's and issues in the body so all the more reason to understand and learn about how to support our noggins.

Alpha-Gal Syndrome

Bill Gates Funded Research Into Genetically Engineered Cattle Ticks—Now 450,000 Americans Have Red Meat Allergies From ‘Alpha-Gal Syndrome’ Caused by Tick Bites

ByJon Fleetwood of AmericanFaith.com

As alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a tick-borne disease that triggers an allergic reaction to red meat, sees a steep rise in cases, eyebrows are being raised over a coincidental alignment with research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

AGS, first reported in Virginia in 2008, has seen an alarming increase over the past few years. According to a recent press release from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 450,000 people in the U.S. have tested positive for alpha-gal since 2010.

In 2021, the number of positive test results for AGS surged by 41.3% compared to 2017, and testing for alpha-gal peaked at 66,106 persons that year.

The same year, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a significant grant of $1,469,352 toward research into the Rhipicephalus microplus (“Asian blue”) tick. This tick is known to cause AGS, as verified by a publication in the ImmunoTargets and Therapy journal found in the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).

The grant was channeled to Oxitec Ltd., a biotechnology company that genetically modified male ticks to carry a “self-limiting gene,” intending to control the tick population by releasing these engineered ticks to mate with wild females in high-infestation areas. Oxitec’s project purportedly aimed to address the global pest problem affecting cattle, a significant source of red meat.

In June 2023, after Oxitec reported high efficacy in its tick experimentation, the Gates Foundation provided an additional $4.8 million in funding.

However, the intertwining of Gates’s interests and this rise in AGS cases is drawing scrutiny. Gates holds stakes in pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer Inc. that produce antibiotics such as doxycycline, commonly used to treat tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease. Moreover, in 2017, his foundation granted over $1 million to Ceres Nanosciences, a diagnostics company specializing in Lyme disease detection.

In the food industry, Gates has significant investments in plant-based and lab-grown meat companies. He has backed companies such as Upside Foods, Good Meat, Beyond Meat, and Impossible Foods, some of which which have been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the production and sale of meat substitute products.

While there is no definitive evidence linking Gates’s funding of tick research to the rise in AGS cases, the timing and the complexity of his interests have led to a growing call for more transparency and accountability.

But this isn’t the first time that Gates’s involvement in disease research and prevention has caused controversy. A similar series of events unfolded when Gates focused on malaria, a disease eradicated in the United States for decades, until recent developments.

Malaria was last detected in the U.S. back in 2003 when seven people in Palm Beach County were infected, as per the CDC. Fast forward to 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation turned its sights on malaria research, subsequently pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the cause, and increasing their malaria budget by 30% in 2014.

In a significant development, in July 2018, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) launched Krintafel (tafenoquine), a new treatment for Plasmodium vivax malaria. This marked the first new treatment for the disease in over six decades. Gates Foundation funding was pivotal in the drug’s development, a fact corroborated by Forbes. The Foundation continued to invest in tafenoquine research, backing various studies, including a Lancet-published article praising the drug’s performance.

Meanwhile, in 2019, the Foundation backed the “Injectable Artesunate Assessment Report,” establishing the efficacy of injectable artesunate, a malaria vaccine.

Notably, in September 2020, the Gates Foundation granted over $1.3 million to Oxitec Ltd., the same company involved in the aforementioned genetically engineered tick research, for “mosquito field trials.” These trials involved the release of genetically engineered Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, known vectors of diseases including malaria, into Florida and Texas following EPA approval in March 2022.

This move sparked outrage from locals who voiced concerns about being turned into “guinea pigs” for this “criminal” experiment, according to Florida resident Meagan Hull. Councilman Mark Gregg likened the GMO mosquitoes to “Frankenstein bugs.”

Fast forward to March 2023, and FFF Enterprises, a specialty vaccine distributor, announced it would start stocking the Gates-backed artesunate vaccine. Three months later, in June 2023, the CDC issued an alert about locally acquired malaria cases in Florida and Texas. Interestingly, the CDC, funded by the Gates Foundation, recommended rapid access to the artesunate vaccine.

As these series of events involving alpha-gal syndrome and malaria unfold, parallels can be drawn in the timing of the Gates Foundation’s funding and subsequent disease outbreaks. Though direct causality hasn’t been established, the correlation has led to calls for more in-depth investigations and heightened accountability. Transparency about these ties is paramount to alleviate public concerns and ensure ethical practices in disease prevention and treatment.

SOURCE>>>>

Walking Backwards ~ The Benefits of Retro Walking

Jennifer Rae Vliet

If you have trouble walking forwards with any kind of klutz curse like yours truly, this is something to be very careful about and best to use a treadmill with bars to hold on to with each hand to safely get acclimated, but wow, the benefits are amazing. Also, if you are concerned about the whole knees over toes thing, there is even a whole theory now out there about how that really isn't bad for the knees, and I suggest that this does go hand in hand in the research for walking backwards. There is even a YouTube channel called Knee Over Toe Guy. The goal is to not hurt oneself and get the maximum bennies out of walking backwards. Here we go...retro style!

What are the benefits of walking backwards?

Researchers say that with regular walking, the forward thrust or power is from your ankle. With backward walking, the power is from your hips and knees. This switch-up offers many benefits.

1. Builds muscle strength

When you walk, your gait or walking pattern is heel-to-toe. So with each step, your heel hits the ground first, followed by your toes. With backward walking, it's the opposite. Your toes hit the ground before your heel. This changes how the muscles work in your hips and legs.

The movement pattern in reverse or retro walking has been shown to make your legs work harder than walking forward. For example, as you walk backward, you engage the quadriceps at the front of your thigh to straighten your legs and propel you back. This can help you build lower-body muscle strength. Studies have shown that walking backward enhances quadriceps strength better than forward walking.

2. Improves balance and gait

Walking backward can improve gait, walking speed, and balance, especially after an injury or illness. One review found that when combined with other physical therapy treatments, retro walking improved gait and muscle strength in people with knee osteoarthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and ACL injuries.

Another study examined a backward walking training program in people who had a stroke. It improved balance and walking speed better than standing balance training. A more recent study had similar findings. People recovering from a stroke walked backward on a treadmill for 30 minutes three times a week. They had better balance, walking speed, and cardiorespiratory fitness in four weeks.

3. Burns more calories than forward walking

Because your muscles work harder, reverse walking can help you burn more calories than regular walking. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) found that walking briskly –– at 3.5 miles per hour –– burns 4.3 METs or metabolic equivalents. Walking backward, on the other hand, burns 6.0 METs.

A MET measures how much energy your body uses during physical activity. One MET, for example, is the amount of oxygen you use at rest. So according to the ACSM, reverse walking burns about 40% more calories per minute than walking briskly. This is a great way to raise the intensity of your exercises.

4. Boosts cardiorespiratory fitness

Walking is an excellent form of cardio that can boost your heart and lung health. Changing directions is effective, too. Reverse walking can improve your cardiorespiratory fitness, allowing your heart and lungs to provide oxygen more efficiently during exercise. In a small study, young women completed a backward walking and running training program. After 6 weeks, they had less body fat and better cardiorespiratory fitness.

5. Increases flexibility and range of motion

Retro walking changes your usual gait, which may improve your flexibility and range of motion and help with aches and pains. When you step backward, your knee straightens before your foot lands. This repeated movement can improve your range of motion if you have trouble extending your knee fully due to injury or illness. It can also boost flexibility in the ankles and hamstrings at the back of the thigh.

6. May help limit knee pain

Experts say that walking in reverse puts less pressure on the knee joint and kneecaps. It also strengthens the quads, which help support the knee. This may ease knee pain from illnesses or injuries like knee osteoarthritis and runner's knee. That explains why walking backward on a treadmill is one of many techniques that physical therapists use in rehabilitation programs.

The change in walking direction also engages low back muscles that stabilize your spine. Researchers believe this may help people with chronic low back pain.

7. Challenges your brain

Walking backwards is good for your brain, too. For many people, walking is an automatic process that doesn't need too much thought. But reverse walking challenges you to pay more attention and consciously think about how you move. This can help proprioception and body awareness as you move.

Learning new things, like mastering the retro walking technique, is one of many ways to keep your brain sharp. A study in Cognition found that people who walked backward — or even thought about it — had better short-term memory of past events.(SOURCE)

This is a great very short video from Dr. Patrick the motivationaldoc on YT ~

Why I WALK Backwards...This Can Change Your Life! Dr. Mandell

And of course, my favorite, Dr. Berg has a 2 minute video on how it can help your knee problems greatly!

Here are some controlled studies on retro walking to check out if that is your thing.

In summary, God gave us an amazing body and has designed our brain to right the body at all costs! Not only does Retro-Walking help the body in many ways as you can see but it challenges our noggin and as we age, that is always a good thing.