Topic: Saturated Fat Is NOT The Cause of Heart Disease
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Saturated Fat is NOT the Cause of Heart Disease Posted by: Dr. Mercola February 25 2010 | 31,825 views
The saturated fat found mainly in meat and dairy products has been regularly vilified by physicians and the media, but a new analysis of published studies finds no clear link between people's intake of saturated fat and their risk of developing heart disease.
In the new analysis, which combined the results of 21 previous studies, researchers found no clear evidence that higher saturated fat intakes led to higher risks of heart disease or stroke.
A number of studies have linked the so-called Western diet to greater heart disease risks; that diet pattern is defined as one high in red meats and saturated fats -- but it is also high in sweets and other refined carbohydrates like white bread.
Sources:
Reuters February 4, 2010
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition January 13, 2010 [Epub ahead of print]
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
The demonization of saturated fat began in 1953 with Dr. Ancel Keys' publication of a paper comparing fat intake and heart disease mortality, and the misguided ousting of saturated fat has continued ever since.
The idea that saturated fat is bad for your heart became so ingrained in the medical and health community, anyone daring enough to question this dogma was automatically viewed as a quack, regardless of the evidence presented.
Instead, trans fats became all the rage and have since saturated the market.
But times are a-changing, and in many ways for the better.
Along with a new interest in reviewing the sanity of vaccinating against every microscopic foe under the sun, medical scientists have finally begun to take a hard look at the link between saturated fats and heart disease - only to find that there is none.
Additionally, by now many have realized that it's the trans fat found in margarine, vegetable shortening, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that is the true villain, causing far more significant health problems than saturated fat ever could.
Yet Another Study Finds No Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease
Over the years, researchers have repeatedly failed to find the link between saturated fat and heart disease that Dr. Keys initially thought he had discovered, and this latest study is no exception.
When they pooled data from 21 studies that included nearly 348,000 adults, and surveyed their dietary habits and health events for anywhere from five to 23 years, they found no no difference in the risks of heart disease and stroke between people with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat.
Most likely, the studies that have linked the so-called ``Western diet'' to an increased heart disease risk simply confirm that sugar and refined carbohydrates are harmful to your heart health. Because although the Western diet is high in red and processed meats and saturated fats, it's also alarmingly high in sugar and refined carbs like bread and pasta.
What I found most encouraging in this article was Dr. Eckel's statement that ``the thinking on diet and heart health is moving away from a focus on single nutrients and toward `dietary patterns'."
This is precisely the message that needs to get out. You simply cannot optimize your health while staring at individual ingredients or nutrients in your diet.
Whole foods - real food that has been minimally processed and manipulated - contain so many symbiotic micronutrients that work together to produce the end result. The moment you start taking these ingredients apart, you lose the overall nutritional value, and you change how the nutrients operate inside your body.
Take the Mediterranean diet, for example. It consists mainly of whole, fresh foods like fruits and vegetables, along with fish, whole grains and unsaturated fats like virgin olive oil.
This type of diet has repeatedly been found to help lower your risk of heart disease and stroke. And although it's low in saturated fats, perhaps the most significant thing about the Mediterranean style diet is the absence of processed foods, which are loaded with sugars and dangerous trans fats.
So, essentially, a healthy diet is quite simply a natural diet of REAL foods. And that's the type of ``eating pattern'' you'll want to strive for, if you want to be optimally healthy.
Confusing the Facts About Saturated Fats
Part of the scientific confusion about saturated fats relates to the fact that your body is capable of synthesizing the saturated fats it needs from carbohydrates, and these saturated fats are principally the same ones present in dietary fats of animal origin.
However, and this is the key, not all saturated fatty acids are created equal.
There are subtle differences that have profound health implications, and if you avoid eating all saturated fats you will suffer serious health consequences. There are in fact more than a dozen different types of saturated fat, but you predominantly consume only three: stearic acid, palmitic acid and lauric acid.
It's already been well established that stearic acid (found in cocoa and animal fat) has no effect on your cholesterol levels at all, and actually gets converted in your liver into the monounsaturated fat called oleic acid.
The other two, palmitic and lauric acid, do raise total cholesterol. However, since they raise ``good'' cholesterol as much or more than ``bad'' cholesterol, you're still actually lowering your risk of heart disease.
Yes, You DO Need Saturated Fat!
Foods containing saturated fats include:
Meat Dairy products Some oils Tropical plants such as coconut and palm trees These (saturated) fats from animal and vegetable sources provide a concentrated source of energy in your diet, and they provide the building blocks for cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone-like substances.
When you eat fats as part of your meal, they slow down absorption so that you can go longer without feeling hungry. In addition, they act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
Dietary fats are also needed for the conversion of carotene to vitamin A, for mineral absorption, and for a host of other biological processes.
Saturated fats are also:
The preferred fuel for your heart, and also used as a source of fuel during energy expenditure Useful antiviral agents (caprylic acid) Effective as an anticaries, antiplaque and anti fungal agents (lauric acid) Useful to actually lower cholesterol levels (palmitic and stearic acids) Modulators of genetic regulation and prevent cancer (butyric acid) The Link Between TRANS FAT and Heart Disease
Now, it is still clear that there is some association between fat and heart disease. The problem lies in the fact that most studies make no effort to differentiate between saturated fat and trans fat. Additionally, the other primary processed food that typically is associated with trans fat is sugar, specifically fructose.
What Ancel Keys, and other researchers have failed to do in their multivariate analysis is control for each of these two variables. If researchers were to more carefully evaluate the risks of heart disease by measuring the levels of fructose, trans and saturated fat, they would most likely find the true answer.
You see,fructose and trans fat known to increase your LDL levels, or "bad" cholesterol, while lowering your levels of HDL, known as "good" cholesterol, which, of course is the complete opposite of what you need in order to maintain good heart health. It can also cause major clogging of arteries, type 2 diabetes and other serious health problems.
Your body needs some amount of saturated fat to stay healthy. It is virtually impossible to achieve a nutritionally adequate diet that has no saturated fat. What you don't need, however, are trans fats and fructose in excess of 15 grams per day. Since the average adolescent is now consuming 75 grams of fructose per day, one can begin to understand why we have an obesity and heart disease epidemic.
Contradictory Results SUPPORT Nutritional Typing
Studies also clearly show that despite great compliance to low saturated fat diets, there is a wide difference in biological responses. The question is, what does this mean? Does it mean the studies are flawed? And if so, which ones?
Interestingly enough, perhaps they're all ``right,'' because these contradictory results actually support nutritional typing, which predicts that one-third of people will do very well on low saturated fat diets (which supports the studies showing that they work), but another one-third of people need high saturated fat diets to stay healthy.
Healthy Fat Tips to Live By
Remember, you do need a certain amount of healthy fat, while at the same time you'll want to avoid the unhealthy varieties.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to simply eliminate processed foods, which are high in all things detrimental to your health: sugar, carbs, and dangerous types of fats.
After that, these tips can help ensure you're eating the right fats for your health:
Use organic butter (preferably made from raw milk) instead of margarines and vegetable oil spreads. Butter is a healthy whole food that has received an unwarranted bad rap. Use coconut oil for cooking. It is far superior to any other cooking oil and is loaded with health benefits. (Remember that olive oil should be used COLD, drizzled over salad or fish, for example, not to cook with.) Following my nutrition plan will automatically reduce your modified fat intake, as it will teach you to focus on healthy whole foods instead of processed junk food. To round out your healthy fat intake, be sure to eat raw fats, such as those from avocados, raw dairy products, and olive oil, and also take a high-quality source of animal-based omega-3 fat, such as krill oil.
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massman
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Well, "EVERYBODY" knows that saturated fat is the evil one in our diet. Therefore it MUST be true that it causes heart disease.
And TV constantly babbles about cholesterol etc. We know everything on TV is true, too.
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glm1111
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Good article massman.
I always have been suspicious that infections can be a cause of heart disease, not saturated fats.
Gael
-------------------- PARASITES/WORMS ARE NOW RECOGNIZED AS THE NUMBER 1 CO-INFECTION IN LYME DISEASE BY ILADS* Posts: 6418 | From philadelphia pa | Registered: Jul 2008
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"What you don't need, however, are trans fats and fructose in excess of 15 grams per day"
Our intake a trans fat should be no where near 15 grams per day. It needs to be as close to zero as possible.
I can't say I agree with the conclusions of these studies but either way we have to be careful about the way this is said--I really would not want any of the obese, smoking heart patients I see who have high blood pressure and high cholesterol to take this as their intake of McDonald's burgers, bacon, sausage, bologna, salami, french fries etc does not matter.
I think it would be great if they all ate whole foods with a litte bit of butter or coconut oil and eliminated the sugar--I can't imagine that is going to kill them.
The general guidelines for heart patients are to keep their saturated fat in take less than 7% of total calories---usually 12 to 15 grams or less per day. How much saturated fat is Dr. Mercola advocating for?
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Keebler
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- Infections have been linked to heart disease by the information so often is just ignored because our medical system does not like to acknowledge chronic stealth infections. But, it's not just the infections but ALSO the endocrine response - elevated cortisol.
This book is specific to lyme and other chronic stealth infections such as Cpn (chlamydia pneumonia). You can read customer reviews and look inside the book at this link to its page at Amazon. However, for more specifics suggestions, other sources need to be consulted. Ultimately, addressing infection and supporting adrenals and liver is the ticket.
The Potbelly Syndrome: How Common Germs Cause Obesity, Diabetes, And Heart Disease (Paperback) - 2005
by Russell Farris and Per Marin, MD, PhD -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
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annxyzz
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The 20 year Framingham Heart study showed cholesterol was not necessary related to heart disease , which means we still do not know a lot . Many people fall over dead of heart attacks who have normal cholesterol , or even low. I agree with previous posts , that heart disease is likely related to inflammation and infection. And who is speaking out on this ? No one, we just keep passing out statins as if they ae the answer ( $$$$$$).
-------------------- annxyzz Posts: 1178 | From East Texas | Registered: May 2009
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massman
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Many diseases (not lyme) begin with what we put on our plates.
Hoosiers51
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purplemom,
I think that quote meant 15 grams of sucrose and no trans fat just in general (not 15 grams). It is just worded kind of strangely.
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massman
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Thanks Hoosiers for mentioning that. I was going to post but got distracted by the Olympics. (Do you believe that excuse ?)
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gwb
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P.S. massman, did you forget about my pm, or too busy? If you'd rather not answer my questions, no problem, just say so and I'll search elsewhere for answers. Thanks! : )
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massman
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Gary - sorry for the delay. Did some research, wrote my findings down + they are on my cluttered desk. Will grab them + reply today
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gwb
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No problem. I appreciate you doing that. You're input here is greatly appreciated and valued.
emla999/Lyme
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Massman, thanks for posting that article. It illustrates what I have observed with my grand parents and great grand parents. Their diet consisted mostly of pork, fresh eggs, raw dairy products,some wild game and vegetables that were in season. With the exception of corn the ate almost no grains, they ate very little fruit and essentially no sugar.
My great grandparents lived into their 90's. And they enjoyed good health throughout their lifetime. Heart disease and cancer was a rarity in my family until recently. My great great great (I think it was the 3rd great) grandfather lived to be 104 years old!!!! Again, butter and lard were eaten almost everyday.
My grand parents lived into their mid-late 80's and were rarely sick until latter in life when on the advice of their docs some of them stopped eating the foods that they were raised on and adopted the high carb low fat diet......bad decision in my opinion. My grandmother refused to eat that way instead she stuck to eating butter, cheese, lard, eggs etc.
My grandmother is in her mid 80's now and I wish that I could get around as well as she can!!!!
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lpkayak
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so lard is ok?
-------------------- Lyme? Its complicated. Educate yourself. Posts: 13712 | From new england | Registered: Feb 2004
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sparkle7
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Thanks for posting. You really have to be skeptical of all of the info we get on a regular basis as to what to eat or not eat.
When I was young, I always thought tofu was a perfect food... Little did I know it was a fad & not all that healthy. I also thought for many years it was good to be a vegetarian.
In some ways, it can be good to be a vegetarian but there are nutrients that are missing if you don't eat meat or fish.
What humans need for a diet is very adaptable - as long as it's actual food as opposed to highly processed chemicals. Look at the Eskimo or the Maasai...
People generally eat what is in their environment. There are many different factors that lead to health. Stress, exposure to toxins, vaccines, pesticides, lack of hygiene, etc. are probably worse than any food.
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quote:Originally posted by lpkayak: so lard is ok?
There are some problems with lard.
First of all it may have too much Omega-6 fats, and a bad 6/3 ratio. Then, a lot of lard is hydrogenated, which probably isn't very good for you.
I guess it all depends on the particular source of lard.
Ghee is pretty good, I think.
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Keebler
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- Gee, Ghee IS wonderful, in tiny amounts that go far. So true. (I just could not resist.) -
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emla999/Lyme
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In regards to lard. It would probably also depend upon what the pig ate. If the pig was "finished" on a diet that consisted mostly of acorns, chestnuts, insects and grass then the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio would be much better.
Pigs that were raised exclusively on a diet of corn and soybean's would have a terrible Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio. Actually, pork from pigs raised that way would contain very little Omega 3. Most of the lard that you would find in a grocery store comes from pigs raised on that type of diet....not a good thing!!!!
And I would agree with Ninjaphire, commercially available lard is usually hydrogenated....not good!!! Some brands of lard are non-hydrogenated though.
The healthiest type of lard would come from pigs that were "finished" on a diet that consisted mostly of acorns, chestnuts, insects and grass. It would also be best if it was home made or non-hydrogenated.
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Over the years I questioned the logic behind all these "fad" diets.
As I read about these diets over the years, I wondered how in the world my grandparents, great-grandparents, great aunts and uncles survived on their diets of whole milk, butter, eggs, and freshly-butchered meat, along with basic vegetables like carrots, turnips, beans, celery and potatoes.
Many of them smoked well into old age as well, but they all were physically active into their 70s and beyond. They rarely, if ever, ate a processed food.
Now that I think about it, I don't remember eating any fruit at all at my grandmother's house.
We did put sugar in our coffee (brewed on the stovetop), and indulged in the cookies and doughnuts offered by the many bakeries around us (back then the bakeries never used trans-fats--this was the pre-margarine era) To this day margarine makes me cringe. Butter is better for so many reasons.
In moderation, butter, eggs and milk---organic especially (unless there is an allergy) are part of a good diet, along with veggies.
I think that fruit and whole grains are good as well, and try to keep them in the house for everyone else, but I personally don't care for them myself.
I'd much rather have tomatoe slices with mozzarella cheese with basil and olive oil or green beans with garlic and olive oil instead of chunks of cantaloupe or an apple.
No Italian influence here whatsoever Posts: 214 | From where ticks flourish | Registered: Dec 2007
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Truthfinder
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It's so nice to see the truth coming out about many of the nutritional myths we've been taught for years.
Thanks, massman.
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