Limiting Saturated Fat Has No Benefit on Health, But Limiting Trans Fats Is Another Story
By Natasha Longo
The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent and more health experts and scientists have finally exposed the myth. According to an analysis of over 100 studies of dietary fat and cardiovascular health, saturated fats are not the problem, but trans fats are.
More physicians and medical specialists are speaking out on what really causes disease. World renown heart surgeon Dr. Dwight Lundell, made headlines when he stated the facts on the actual causes of heart disease. “As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact,” he was quoted in a statement.
Most dietary advice recommends limiting the consumption of saturated fats, which are found in butter, meat and eggs, due to the risk of developing heart disease. But Russell de Souza of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and his team were unable to find a clear association between these fats and the chances of heart or cardiovascular disease.
This wasn’t the case with industrial trans fats, which are made by hydrogenating plant oils and are found in margarine and some processed foods like cake. The analysis suggests that eating more trans fat is associated with a 21 percent rise in the likelihood of developing heart disease, and a 28 percent rise in the risk of dying of this condition, confirming a number of other reviews that have linked trans fats to heart disease.
Governments here and abroad have been cautioning the public for decades on the dangers of high-fat diets. The low-fat mantra has been questioned for years by clinicians and nutritional scientists – not least because it has failed to halt the obesity epidemic. The fact is, low-fat diets make you fat, and contrary to official advice by our diet dictocrats, high-fat diets lower blood sugar, improve blood lipids, and reduce obesity.
Saturated fats are simply not associated with all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, ischemic stroke, or type 2 diabetes. Trans fats are associated with all-cause mortality, total cardiovascular mortality, probably because of higher levels of intake of industrial trans fats than ruminant trans fats. Dietary guidelines must carefully consider the health effects of recommendations for alternative macronutrients to replace trans fats and saturated fats.
One of the earliest obesity experiments, published in the Lancet in 1956, comparing groups on diets of 90 percent fat versus 90 percent protein versus 90 percent carbohydrate revealed the greatest weight loss was among those eating the most fat.
Professor David Haslam, of the National Obesity Forum, said: “The assumption has been made that increased fat in the bloodstream is caused by increased saturated fat in the diet…modern scientific evidence is proving that refined carbohydrates and sugar in particular are actually the culprits.”
Sources:
bmj.com
Natasha Longo has a master’s degree in nutrition and is a certified fitness and nutritional counselor. She has consulted on public health policy and procurement in Canada, Australia, Spain, Ireland, England and Germany. This article appeared first at Prevent Disease.
