A Bulwark Against Endotoxins

In the colon, feces are harmless, but they should not be injected into the bloodstream and, incidentally, should not be eaten either—certainly not together with fat, because that would promote the absorption of endotoxins high up in the small intestine. The palmitic acid in animal fat can both disrupt the barrier function of the intestinal lining, making it more permeable, and also transport endotoxins directly into the lymph vessels, which then ultimately deposit them into the blood vessels. This is true even if the feces are thoroughly cooked.

You can boil endotoxins for two hours straight without damaging their ability to trigger inflammation. Yes, you can kill all the bacteria if you boil your poop soup long enough, but the endotoxins can’t be harmed by that. In other words, even if you cook your meat until shit splatters, you still can’t get the shit out.

At the slaughterhouse, it can happen that the digestive tract tears while the animals are being butchered. When workers then remove the visible contamination with excrement, that can lead to an increase in certain fecal bacteria, which is suspected to be caused by cross-contamination from one carcass to another. Then, even under properly refrigerated storage, endotoxins begin to accumulate along with bacterial growth.

Only the Whole Is the Real Thing

The highest endotoxin levels were found in meat and dairy products, the lowest in fresh fruits and vegetables—but whole fruits and vegetables were tested. Most harmful organisms don’t get past the barrier of the peel and can’t spoil the inside. That’s why fruits and vegetables can sit all day in the orchard or in the field in the hot sun. But as soon as you cut them open and bacteria gain access to the inside, the fruit spoils within days. What does that mean for the pre-cleaned vegetables that are so conveniently offered in the store?

For details, go to see.nf/precut, but in principle, endotoxins can accumulate in refrigerated, pre-cleaned vegetables to such an extent that they negate their anti-inflammatory benefit. The cleaned vegetables did not cause inflammation like in the studies on meat, eggs, and dairy products, but they seemed to have lost some of their anti-inflammatory effects. Still, it’s always better to eat pre-cleaned vegetables than none at all, but if you cut them up yourself, that is probably the healthier option.

A Bulwark Against Endotoxins

Not all high-fat foods cause inflammation. More than a dozen studies have shown that, for example, nuts do not increase inflammatory markers, even if you eat several handfuls of them daily. If you eat half an avocado with a beef burger, it might even dampen some of the inflammation caused by the meat.

There are assessments that game, the leanest meat imaginable, decreases inflammatory markers, but that is true only compared to other commercially available meat. If you eat really fatty meat, all the usual inflammatory markers—CRP, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α)—shoot up within hours after consumption. What if instead you eat a kangaroo steak, which, similar to elk meat, is extremely low in fat? The result is the same—an increase in all three inflammatory markers—but to a lesser degree. This would suggest that, for example, game meat causes less inflammation than chicken, which nowadays has two or three times more calories in fat than in protein and ten times more fat calories than 100 years ago. (Note that this depends on how the game was shot. Typical rifle bullets can distribute millions of microscopic lead particles in the meat, and exposure to lead can also be pro-inflammatory.)

“The most obvious solution for this metabolic endotoxemia seems to be to reduce the intake of saturated fats,” endotoxin researchers concluded. In the United States, that would primarily mean reducing the three most common sources: cheese, sweets, and chicken. However, “the Western diet is not conducive to this,” the scientists wrote, “and patients find it difficult to meet this demand.” If that’s the case, then there is a way to dampen part of the endotoxin surge: Eat high-fiber side dishes with meals.

Researchers randomized participants to eat the same sausage-and-egg McMuffin bombs from McDonald’s for breakfast, either with or without high-fiber breakfast cereal. The fiber appeared to bind to the endotoxins and prevented the steep rise in endotoxemia three hours after the meal. It also reduced oxidative stress, the free radicals that such a meal generates.

Of course, the best way to keep the effects under control would be to avoid the restaurant with the Golden Arches altogether, but if you eat fiber-rich sides with it, your sad meal at least becomes a “Happier Meal.”

Don’t Get Hyper

Animal fat can cause inflammation, but animal protein can as well. For that, see my chapter on kidney disease in How Not to Die. There I describe in detail how a high intake of animal protein significantly affects normal human kidney function by causing hyperfiltration, a dramatic increase in workload in the kidneys. Hours after meat consumption, the kidneys shift up into this hyperfiltration mode. Beef, chicken, and fish all have the same effect. The equivalent amount of plant protein, however, does not subject the kidneys to any detectable stress, and the function of a damaged kidney is preserved. Why does animal protein cause this overload reaction and plant protein does not? Because of inflammation. Scientists found that the hyperfiltration response disappeared when study participants were given a strongly anti-inflammatory drug along with the animal protein.

Neu5Gc

There is even a pro-inflammatory sugar of animal origin. See my video see.hf/neu5gc to learn how an acidic sugar called Neu5Gc can be a “Trojan horse” in meat and dairy products that contributes to cancer, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases. To suppress inflammation from this nonhuman sugar, researchers propose “reducing the dietary intake and accumulation of Neu5Gc through simple diet-based interventions.”