We’ve heard the same story for years: If you want to reduce your risk of heart disease, eat a diet low in saturated fat.
But is this advice actually true?
In a new editorial published in the health journal Open Heart, Dr. James DiNicolantonio, a cardiovascular research scientist for the Saint Luke’s Health System, says that the research this recommendation is based on–a study dating back to the 1950s–is most definitely “flawed.”
“The vilification of saturated fat by Keys began two decades before the seven countries study, where Keys showed a curvilinear association between fat calories as a percentage of total calories and death from degenerative heart disease from six countries,” says DiNicolantonio. “However, he excluded data from 16 countries that did not fit his hypothesis.”
Excluding this data, according to DiNicolantonio, may have also been done because it didn’t support the belief that saturated fat increases the rate of heart disease from a epidemiological standpoint. Keys was sure saturated fat was associated with a higher heart disease risk–yet he excluded data from 16 countries in his report that didn’t match this hypothesis.
But this wasn’t just a bad scientist eschewing ethics just to prove his own opinion, says DiNicolantonio. This data led to the U.S. creating national guidelines 20 years later, which continued to push the belief that saturated fat was a primary cause of heart disease.
“These data seemingly lead us down the wrong “dietary-road” for decades to follow, as pointed out by others,” says DiNicolantonio. “The initial Dietary Goals for Americans, published in 1977, proposed increasing carbohydrates and decreasing saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet. This stemmed from the belief that since saturated fats increase total cholesterol (a flawed theory to begin with) they must increase the risk of heart disease.”
Interestingly enough, DiNicolantonio proposes that the change the U.S. government offered up in 1977 as a means of reducing heart disease–increasing carbohydrates while reducing saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet–may have actually made matters worse. For instance, he notes that when these guidelines fell into place, a new disturbing trend emerged: A rise in diabetes and obesity.
“A change in these recommendations is drastically needed as public health could be at risk,” says DiNicolantonio. “The increase in the prevalence of diabetes and obesity in the USA occurred with an increase in the consumption of carbohydrate not saturated fat.”
What You Should Do
Although DiNicolantonio is confident that eating a high-carbohydrate diet, and not a high-fat one, may be responsible for making people fat, these data aren’t based on any data he had conducted himself. Studies conducted in the past decade have shown that eating a high-fat diet doesn’t necessarily increase a person’s heart disease risk, however; it depends on other factors as well, such as the person’s level of activity.
But, if you want to follow his recommendation, try this: Cut out the carbohydrates instead of the saturated fats from your diet. By doing so, you may improve as heart–as well as save yourself from a life of diabetes and obesity.
Readers: Do you think carbohydrates may be responsible for causing obesity?
Source:
Carbohydrates, and Not Saturated Fat, May Be to Blame for Heart Disease – BMJ.com
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