Reuters - Treating high blood pressure in the very elderly may help reduce their risk of developing dementia, researchers said on Monday.

We eat food because we feel hungry and most of the time it tastes good. By eating food we supply the body with energy and all the essential ingredients it needs to keep itself in good health. There are all sorts of foods to eat but for simplicities sake, they are normally broken down into 3 groups. These are carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Briefly, carbohydrates supply energy to the body and proteins help to renew the body's cells or build new cells. This article will cover the role of fats in nutrition.

Let's face dicreatine malate fats get a bad rap, generally because we associate eating fat with getting fat. And at the present moment too many people are getting excessively fat to the extent that their health is in jeopardy. This is bad enough but it impacts the state of the wider community and the economy too. It deprives the workforce of people that could have a lot to offer and puts a strain on the economy to finance health care and medical bills.

However, this is not a problem with eating fat but rather it is a problem about eating too much fat. We actually need some fat for the body to stay healthy. Fats are formed by substances known as fatty acids. These substances are needed for a host of reasons:

• They help to keep the brain and nerve cells healthy,
• They help to make skin oil to keep skin cells healthy,
• They are used by the body as raw materials to produce some of the hormones that regulate many of the body's primary functions, including metabolizing food,
• They provide energy to the body.

Fats can be split into three groups based on their chemical structure. These are :

• Saturated fats,
• Mono-unsaturated fats,
• Polyunsaturated fats.

Rather than worrying about the chemical structure of a substance it is easier to think of the composition of the fat at room temperature as an indication of the group it falls into. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. Saturated fats are found in animal products like meat and dairy goods. Current thinking on saturated fats is that you should limit the amount you take in your diet.

Mono-unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature but anything below this temperature will start to turn the liquid cloudy until it eventually sets hard. The most popular mono-unsaturated fat is olive oil. Most people are encouraged to use olive oil in salads or in cooking.

Polyunsaturated fats are always liquid no matter what the temperature is. Sunflower oil is an example of a polyunsaturated oil. There is another type of fat, known as trans fats that is man made and is used in cooking to make things taste better or as a preservative for processed foods. Trans fats are thought to be bad for the health and there is a general move away from using this oil by food manufacturers.

Many cooking oils that are low in cholesterol, like canola oil are a mix of saturated, mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. When it comes to fats in nutrition, you should concentrate on getting more mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated oils in your diet than saturated fats. You should try to avoid trans fats as much as possible.

Find out how food is used by the body at http://www.metabolismmadeclear.com - The site includes natural ways how to increase metabolism. Adrian Whittle writes about food, nutrition and metabolism, including a definition of what is basal metabolism.