Dietary fat and cholesterol have long been demonized as
being the cause of heart disease.
However the US recently changed its recommendations regarding the
dietary intake of cholesterol. The
latest publication of "Dietary Guidelines for Americans," a federal publication
that has far-reaching implications on what we eat – contained one very
significant change. Specifically
it said “Cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for
overconsumption." The fact is
that dietary intake of cholesterol has very little to do with circulating
levels of cholesterol, and there is well done research showing that people who
consume higher levels of cholesterol in food have lower levels of cholesterol
and live longer than people who consume less!
The fact is that you cannot live without cholesterol, and it is so
important that your body will manufacture it if you do not get any from your
diet. So this change in guidelines from
the US Government is long overdue reflecting the fact that it takes a long,
long time for unpopular scientific facts to be recognized.
Unfortunately the guidelines on Saturated Fat were not
changed. Like cholesterol saturated
fat has long been demonized despite mounds of scientific evidence showing that
saturated fat is not the bad guy. One
of the most important facts to understand about Saturated Fat being “bad” for
you is that the human body turns excess calories into fat. Not just any fat though – SATURATED FAT –
that’s right – the ONLY type of fat that the body makes and stores is saturated
fat. So think about this for a second:
humans have been on the earth and evolving for well over 600,000 years and the
only type of fat that a human body makes is saturated fat and yet saturated fat
is bad for you? Just not true, and
the saturated fat your body makes from any type of excess calories including
carbohydrates is chemically identical to saturated fat from butter, eggs, and
meat. So these foods are not in and of
themselves “bad” for you!
So where did all the fuss start about cholesterol and
saturated fat? The idea that
cholesterol and saturated fat are bad for you was started by a researcher named
Ancel Keys. He hypothesized that
saturated fat and cholesterol were bad for you and set out to prove it. He did a famous “7 countries study” in 1958
and believed that saturated fat intake drove blood levels of cholesterol and
heart disease. The study proved his
theory – but there was just one problem:
he omitted a lot of data from several countries because if he included
it he would have disproved his theory.
So basically in laymen’s terms he lied!
And for years dietary policy in the US and many other countries has been
completely misguided based on this study and other falsified data in other
studies.
In what was probably the most significant and well done long
term study on diet and heart disease – The Framingham Study – which followed
the group of people for a very long term period of time just the opposite
conclusion was proven! Here is quote
from the Director of the Framingham Heart Study Dr. William P. Castelli: “Most of what we know about the effects of
diet factors, particularly the saturation of fat and cholesterol , on serum
lipid parameters derives from metabolic ward-type studies. Alas, such findings,
within a cohort studied over time have been disappointing; indeed the findings
have been contradictory. For example, in Framingham, Mass, the more saturated
fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower
the person’s serum cholesterol”.
So does this mean
that you should eat more cholesterol and fat?
No. The fact is that
saturated fats like all fats are highly caloric – meaning you get a lot of calories
in a little bit of fat. So overeating
fat of any kind is not a great idea because taking in too many calories from
any source can make it impossible to maintain your weight or lose weight, and
being significantly overweight IS a real risk factor for heart disease.
That being said fats have a place in your diet and saturated
fats are not unhealthy.
No comments:
Post a Comment