Fattening The Brain

 

Watching all that is going on in the press regarding the addiction of Rush Limbaugh to pain medications, and meditating on the conditions that might have led to that addiction, I have come to a point where I begin to speculate on the deeper causes.

As one who has, without the assistance of the medical industry, pulled my health and life back from the brink by doing nothing but correcting my diet, I naturally began to explore what I knew of Rush's diet before his addiction.

When Rush first began talking on radio, he weighed over 350 pounds, perhaps even as much as 400 pounds. I don't know his stature, but I would guess he is around six feet tall. Now, 400 pounds on a six-foot frame is going to look FAT, no matter who the subject is. A six-foot man with large bones and a muscular body is going to weigh around 225 pounds under normal conditions, give or take a few pounds. So let's say that Rush was carrying around 200 pounds of fat that didn't have anything to do.

Fat is formed by the liver from carbohydrates that the subject eats. The more carbohydrates in the diet, the more triglycerides in the blood as the bloodstream carries the newly-formed triglycerides (and their accompanying insulin molecules) into the fat cells for storage, and to await removal by the hormone glucagon when the body needs to make its own glycogen (which it prefers to do, incidentally).

Dietary fat and body fat have no relationship to each other besides the fact that they are of similar molecular structure. The establishment nutritionists have always touted a zero-sum game: Fat consumed equals fat stored. But nothing could be further from the truth. Dietary fat couldn't cause obesity under any circumstances for one simple reason: Fat does not stimulate the release of insulin, which is the hormone required for fat storage. Dietary fat does NOT equal body fat, no matter what anybody tells you to the contrary, including the establishment nutritionists.

So, when Rush decided to lose weight, he went on a diet...the last of many, as I can tell you without even knowing him personally. He has dieted repeatedly throughout his life. I know this because of what I know of the psyche of a fat person: The only diet that works is the one they haven't tried yet. Rush's chosen diet this time was on the right track, even though it was deficient in one very important area. That's why it took him 5 years to lose the weight he wanted to lose. (One thing about taking 5 years to lose weight is that even though it comes off in a frustratingly slow process, the mind is being trained to THINK like a thin person.) Rush's diet was very simple. He cut out most fat (not smart, but I can see why he did it), and all sugar, desserts, and breads.

A diet that removes sugars and starches will simply WORK, if it is followed. It has to. As long as the subject is not replacing triglycerides, the stored fat will be used up, even if it is a slow process. Remember that Rush had about 200 pounds of fat to lose. That took a long time to go on. All the time he was eating this way, he was training his mind not to crave the sugars and starches.

The big BUT comes in here:

Depriving the body of the saturated fatty acids it requires for brain and nerve health is never a good idea. While Rush was dieting, he was cheating himself of the kinds of nutrients that are essential to brain health and nerve formation. A deficiency of saturated fatty acids in the brain causes poor mentation. I'm not saying that Rush couldn't think while he was on the diet, but he certainly could have had a real advantage had he included the good fats that his brain was craving.

So, my speculation follows this way: Supposing the deficiency of the saturated fatty acids created a dependency-friendly condition in his brain that caused him to become more easily addicted when he was placed into a situation that required the use of opiates over a period of time? Could it be possible that Rush's assiduous avoidance of most saturated fat in his diet helped allow him to become addicted?

There is, of course, no way to know any of this for certain. It is all speculation on my part; wondering how someone of Rush's character could be brought to the point where he required treatment for a brain dependency. But the establishment nutritionists mentioned above know little or nothing about lipid chemistry, or they would know that not only are saturated fatty acids essential for good health and mental stability, they cannot be replaced by vegetable or seed oils, no matter how pure and organic. The two are not compatible fats. Saturated fatty acids cannot be replaced by margarine and seed oils under any circumstances.

Hydrogenation of seed oils does two things: It stabilizes the oil to prevent rancidity during storage, and gives the oil-based product structural stiffness. And it turns a seed oil into a lethal weapon. Hydrogenation or partial hydrogenation (they are the same process) denatures seed oils. And polyunsaturated oils are even more dangerous. Polyunsaturated oils are almost invariably used to replace saturated fats, and this usually means that they will be consumed in large quantities. What the manufacturers of these oils always neglect to report to the consumer is that polyunsaturated fatty acids suppress the immune system like virtually nothing else in the diet (besides sugars), and as such, can even be used as anti-rejection medication in transplant surgeries.

So, poor old Rush could possibly have shot himself in the foot with his diet. Perhaps, even though the rest of it went well, the removal of the saturated fats from his diet did more than cause some brain fog. It could conceivably have led directly to the craving need for the medications. We will never know for sure, simply because Rush's body hasn't been donated to science yet.