FAT METABOLISM

Like protein, animal food and vegetable foods supply fats to the body. Fat contains maximum of calories (9 calories in a grain). Fat supplies more energy to body, as compared to carbohydrate and protein, and this is why its percentage is the lowest in dietary charts, excepting a very few and rare cases where fat intake is more. Fat, taken into the body by food, is converted into fatty acid ad glycerol which deposits in various body orgains. If there is sufficient amount of carbohydrate stored in the body, then extra carbohydrates are also converted into fat. In a healthy person’s body, fat expenditure (or burning or consumption of fat)produces water, energy and carbon dioxide. But, during diabetes and starvation situations and due to lack of presence of carbohydrates in the body, the fast, instead of converting into the said three bi-products convert into ketone bodies, thus giving rise to symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis/ketosis.

In addition to production of ketone bodies (1) Acetone (2) Acetoacetic acid and (3) Beta (b) hydroxybutyric acid are produced by lack of carbohydrates. Abnormal amounts of acetoacetic acid also arise in the body due to inadequate amount of carbohydrates and increased amount of fats are used for energy build up. Excessive presence of the said three constituents (factors) results in their expulsion through urine. Such a situation gives rise to a serious disorder, called ‘Acidosis” in which condition, the acetones are expelled by the urine. If such an abnormal condition is allowed to continue, the patient slips into ‘diabetic coma’. Such an extreme situation should never be allowed to develop and if developed, should be treated without any delay.

Fats can be divided into saturated and unsaturated varieties. For a diabetic, heart patient, and patient of blood pressure, arterio-sclerosis, coronary heart disease, with high cholesterol, saturated fat is a poison. In fact, all the aforesaid disorders, in one way or the other, are caused by high consumption of saturated fats which are found, in plenty, in vegetable oils and animals meats. Such patients should always adhere to a low-fat or a totally fat-free diet, and all the necessary fats should be obtained from milk (skimmed), soyabean milk and above all, vegetable oils like from sunflower oil and til oil, groundnut oil which do not saturate in the system. Of all these sun-flower oil (refined) is said to be the best.

I had read somewhere that, in Germany, Germans use sun-flower oil to ward off and cure heart disorders. Take 10 ml (one tablespoonful) sunflower oil, without washing your mouth, in the morning, on rising (nothing should be take before that). Revolve the contents for 10 minutes in the water and rinse your mouth with lukewarm water thereafter. Later on, you may use toothpaste or any other means to cleanse your mouth with lukewarm water. But, it has be continued for a fairly long time. It is said to activate and regenerate blood vessels of the heart. Further, it may also be of use to asthmatic patients.