Download Chewing the fat: Complex beef lipids for metabolic health

Chewing the fat:
Complex beef lipids for
metabolic health
Dr Emma Bermingham
AgResearch
Host Institution
The future of NZ food exports
• Commodity vs. added-value
• Meat industry
“Grow the NZ red meat sector to reach a nominal annual export
value of NZ$14 billion by 2025”
Meat exports were NZ$6 billion last year
Sheep + cattle numbers are decreasing
Oct-Feb
Mar-Sept
Sources: Red Meat sector strategy report (2011); http://portal.beeflambnz.com/tools/export-tool/; Beef+Lamb New Zealand Economic Service
Who will consumers of red meat be?
• Who are our consumers?
– Who can – and will – pay more?
– What will they pay a premium for?
• Attributes of ‘niche’ consumers
– “Provenance”/Environmental
– Health
Source: KPMG Agribusiness Agenda (2013) Volume 3 “Evolving a truly consumer-centric industry”
What is red meat?
It is more than a
cancer scare…
It is more than just an iron
source…
A serving of meat gives you…
The “Ironmaidens”
Source: Knowles et al 2004 NZ Vet J 52, 342, Beef+Lamb NZ, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
…Chewing the fat…about fat…
The fat-fad
Ancel Keys – Father
of Lipid Hypothesis
1961
Good vs bad fats?
Saturated
Omega-3
Unsaturated
Omega-6
The war on Fat &
Cholesterol goes
global 1984
Acknowledging
they got it WRONG
2014
Grass vs Grain
Complex lipids
The grass-fed story
• Grass-fed meat has higher
– Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) (C18:2) isomers
– Trans vaccenic acid (TVA) (C18:1 t11) [a precursor to CLA]
– Long-chain omega-3 (n-3; DHA, EPA)
– Stearic fatty acid (C18:0) [cholesterol neutral fatty acid]
• Grass-fed meat has lower
– Myristic (C14:0) [cholesterol elevating fatty acid]
– Palmitic (C16:0) [cholesterol elevating fatty acid]
• Complex lipids?
Source: Daley et al 2010 Nutr J 9, 10
What are complex lipids?
Bioactive lipids/Polar lipids/Phospholipids
• Two main groups:
– Glycerophospholipids
• Phosphatidylcholine (PC)
• Phosphatidylethanolamine (PE)
• Phosphatidylinositol (PI)
• Phosphatidylserine (PS)
– Sphingolipids
• Sphingomyelin (SM)
• Membrane-bound
– Plants/animal products
Health benefits of complex lipids
• Fatty acids vs. complex lipids?
– n-3 PUFA as phospholipids are more effective at
“preserving a healthy metabolic profile”
• Reduce cholesterol absorption
– Rodents
– Humans (3+ g complex lipids/day)
• Dietary source of complex lipids may be important
– Milk
– Eggs
– Meat?
Sources: Rossmeisl et al 2012 PlosONe 7, e38834; Noh & Koo 2003 J Nutr 133, 3571; Kellet er al 2013 Eur J Nutr 2013 52, 1169
Red meat contains complex lipids
Meat sample
The health impacts of
these lipids are unknown
Lipid class
Subbaraj, Fraser & Bermingham, unpublished
COMPLEX LIPIDS FOR
ENHANCED METABOLIC HEALTH
The Opportunity
• Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death consumers are aware of the importance of the diet in
reducing CVD risk
• Cholesterol absorption is a known risk factor in CVD
• Milk and egg complex lipids reduce cholesterol absorption
– An opportunity for red meat?
To show a reduction of cholesterol absorption in consumers
who eat meat-derived complex lipids
The Research
Hypothesis: “that complex lipids extracted from grassfed beef reduce cholesterol absorption.”
• Assess the distribution of complex lipids in Wagyu beef
• Design a ‘healthy hamburger’ prototype containing
extracted complex lipids
• Conduct a clinical study with our ‘healthy hamburger’
– Blood cholesterol levels
– Cholesterol absorption
• Draft dossier for high-level health claims
The Outcomes
• Demonstrate health benefits of consuming food product
with complex lipids extracted from NZ grass-fed Wagyu
• Support Firstlight Foods to submit a dossier for a highlevel health claim and meet NZ and in-market
regulations
• Contribute towards Firstlight Foods mission:
“to be the home of the best grass-fed
meat in the world”
Research progress to date
Lipid profiling of NZ meat
Aim: to understand the location and concentration of
complex lipids throughout the Wagyu carcass
PC
CL PE
PI
SPL
Progress:
Working with FirstLight to understand where we
can add value
• Selected animals & tissues for analysis
• Chemical composition planned (May-July 2016)
The team
Drs Bermingham, Craigie, Fraser &
Subbaraj
Gerald Hickey, Jason Ross, Matt
Crowther
Prof David Cameron Smith