In this week’s podcast, we discuss TMAO and why this metabolite is used to blame heart disease on red meat.
The primary person responsible for bringing TMAO and its role in heart disease to light was Stanley Hanzen and his team at the Cleveland Clinic. They argue that foods rich in the nutrients choline and carnitine, such as red meat, lead to an increase in TMAO production which increases our odds of developing heart disease. They use a mouse model to show that TMAO can increase when fed foods rich in choline/carnitine. However, studies in humans have shown that eating foods rich in choline/carnitine don’t cause a rise in TMAO. Their own data shows that vegetables, like soybean and tomatoes, cause just as much of a rise in TMAO as beef does. In fact, fish which contains very little carnitine causes over 100 times more TMAO to be produced than beef does. So why did these people single out red meat? I propose it’s because Stanley Hanzen is backed by the American Heart Association (AHA) and they have an agenda to damn red meat at every turn.
Foods that do cause a rise in TMAO are refined grains and fiber. These are the true culprit for rising TMAO values in the blood.
To learn more about TMAO and its role in heart disease, listen to this week’s podcast.
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