Fat-free potato chips may rid the body of dioxin

• It wouldn't be the first time that the "fake fat" product was used as an emergency agent to flush out dioxin, one of a group of chlorinated hydrocarbons that are toxic, lipophilic (attracted to fat) -- and persistent in the environment and animal tissues.
• In an as-yet-unpublished study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, along with Trevor Redgrave at the University of Western Australia, treated a patient with PCB toxicity over a two-year period with olestra in the form of fat-free Pringles.
• The same University of Cincinnati School of Medicine team is reporting new research that sheds light into how diet affects retention and re-distribution through the weight gain-loss-regain cycle of chlorinated hydrocarbons, which include DDT, PCBs and dioxins.
• They also looked at the effects of the additive olestra, which is made by Procter & Gamble, on this redistribution and perhaps more importantly, on excretion of toxins from the body.
• Indeed, "combined dietary olestra and caloric restriction caused a 30-fold increase in the rate of excretion" of a test toxin, while the toxin's distribution "into the brain resulting from the restricted diet was reduced by 50% by dietary olestra," the study found.
• The research appears in the online edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, published by the American Physiological Society.
• Toxic lipophilic substances like PCBs and dioxins are so widespread globally, and are known to ascend the food chain, that virtually "all people tested have measurable levels of some of these compounds," the Jandacek et al. report notes.
• Because the compounds and many of their metabolites are lipophilic (attracted to fat) they are stored in adipose (fat) tissue where they remain stable, usually without adverse affect in moderate amounts for their long half-lives.
• Jandacek and his colleagues designed a multi-branch, multi-endpoint study that showed with weight loss (with and without olestra) toxins redistribute around the body, but with differing affinity to various organs.