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Dear Readers,
Our question this week comes from Rene. She writes,
My doctor has told me to eat low fat because I have high cholesterol. I’m confused because I’ve read there are good fats like coconut oil, but that’s saturated right? So what is the connection between saturated fat and heart disease? I want to know which fats I should eat and which ones I should cut out.
This is a really great question! Knowing the link between fat and heart health is essential for anyone concerned with reducing their risk factors. In this post I’ll address the supposed connection between saturated fat and heart disease, and where that deep-seated myth has its roots. Then we’ll look at current research on the issue. In next weeks’ post I’ll address the issue of cholesterol from a holistic perspective and go into healthy fats.
I’ll be sure to link to sources and videos from industry specialists for those readers who want to investigate for themselves. It’s important to understand and check the information we are given for credibility!
Does saturated fat cause heart disease?
#mythinformation #diethearthypothesis
So the first myth I have to bust here regarding fat is that cholesterol and saturated fat cause heart disease. They do not. This mythinformation has become medical dogma, but it’s based entirely on bad science. The diet-heart hypothesis, as it’s called, states that saturated fat raises LDL (bad) cholesterol in the blood, which then becomes trapped in the arteries and causes heart disease. This fuelled the ‘low saturated fat for heart health’ idea and an explosion of low fat products, as a result. But heart disease has not gone down since these guidelines were implemented and obesity has skyrocketed. What did we get wrong?
Why was saturated fat demonized?
In the 1970’s American physiologist and researcher, Ancel Keys, hypothesized that dietary saturated fat causes cardiovascular heart disease, which was a growing public concern at the time. Keys’ research was officially endorsed by health organizations in the West even though the data was limited, cherry-picked, and unverified with supporting 3rd party studies. We now have clear information that he was financially ‘incentivized’ by corporate food interest groups to create data to endorse and promote their products. Specifically, documents were found that show he was paid by the “sugar industry” to point the finger at fats to continue to endorse sugar related products as healthy to an unsuspecting public.
#thesecretsofsugar #AncelKeys
For a better understanding of this issue, I suggest watching this amazing documentary, which goes into the documents that were found to support the claim that research data was paid to be manufactured. I haven’t met a person yet who wasn’t shocked and motivated after watching it!
Dietary standards were influenced
#foodpolicy #foodpyramid #myplate #dietarystandards #vegetableoils #saturatedfat #transfat #animalproducts #lowfat #BigAgro #specialinterestgroups
As a result of Keys’ endorsement, the national dietary standards and resulting food policy and public recommendations demonized saturated fat and promoted vegetable oils, trans fats, and grains as healthier alternatives to saturated fat and animal products. They promoted the low saturated fat for heart health idea.
Sugar, which had been identified as dangerous by other researchers, was completely ignored. In case you didn’t know, most low-fat foods have extra sugar added to make them more palatable to consumers. The resulting food policy has been detrimental in many ways:
Animal and saturated fat were maligned. Fatty cuts of meat, like organ meat that is most nutrient-dense, were regarded as unhealthy.
Margarine, shortening, and vegetable/ seed oils replaced lard, tallow, and butter for cooking and prepared foods began using hydrogenated oils as ‘healthier’ alternatives.
Low-fat dairy was promoted over more natural and nutritious high-fat dairy.
There was greater emphasis on cereal grains as a healthy alternative to meat. It became a foundational food group, with high recommended daily servings.
Factory-made and processed food was endorsed as more healthy than traditional foods – for example, artificial eggs rather than whole eggs, which contain fat, or meatless burgers with 20 ingredients rather than natural meat burgers with 2.
What does contemporary research say?
Consider these statements from researchers:
“Advice to reduce saturated fat in the diet without regard to nuances about LDL, SFAs, or dietary sources could actually increase people’s risk of CHD. When saturated fats are replaced with refined carbohydrates, and specifically with added sugars (like sucrose or high fructose corn syrup), the end result is not favourable for heart health.” PMID: 26586275
“Every single country with the lowest fat consumption had the highest mortality rates from heart disease and those with the most fat consumption had the lowest. The French consumed three times as much saturated fat compared to Azerbaijan but had one-eighth the rate of heart disease. The heart disease death rate in Finland was three times greater than in Switzerland, even though the Swiss ate twice as much fat.” Paul J. Rosch, M.D., M.A., F.A.C.P.
In studies from ~350,000 participants following data for periods of 5-23 years, the following conclusion was made, “Saturated fat intake wasn’t linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, or strokes, even among those with the highest intake.”
“…substituting refined carbs for saturated fat may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.”
For more detailed information on 5 of the largest, most comprehensive studies on the diet-heart hypothesis, go here.
What about sugar and heart disease?
#JohnYudkin #sugarandheartdisease #diabetes #silenced #sugarandheartdisease #purewhiteanddeadly
Back to the history of this medical blunder, Keys wasn’t the only researcher of his day looking into the links between heart disease and nutrition. In 1972, in Pure, White and Deadly, British physiologist and nutritionist, John Yudkin, opposed Keys’ findings. He cited evidence that the over-consumption of sugar was the significant factor in the growing incidence of heart disease, dental deterioration, obesity, diabetes, liver disease, gout, dyspepsia, and some cancers – not saturated fat.
But Keys was much more influential and heavily connected, and he publicly thrashed and ridiculed Yudkin. Keys was known to be a bully even by his friends. The attack on Yudkin was so public and thorough that, even decades later, researchers were afraid to touch the issue of sugar’s correlation to disease. And Yudkin’s research was effectively silenced.
The fat’s going down, but we’re all getting sick!
#RobertLustig #SugarTheBitterTruth #fructose #sucrose #soda #emptycalories #poison
Recently, American paediatric endocrinologist, Robert Lustig, made a video called Sugar: The Bitter Truth, that was unprecedented in internet popularity as a nutrition video. In it he debunked Keys’ conclusions and revisited Yudkin’s research with research of his own to add credibility. In his words:
“The fat’s going down, the sugar’s going up and we’re all getting sick. This is not a hyperbole, this is the real deal. Everyone thinks that the bad effects of sugar are because sugar has empty calories. What I’m saying is no, actually, there are lots of things that do have empty calories that are not necessarily poisonous.”
Don’t statins solve the problem?
#statins #blockbusterdrugs #indoctrination
Despite this, modern dietary recommendations still carry Keys’ hypothesis forward as fact. Medical professionals and dieticians alike are indoctrinated with it. They believe saturated fat is responsible for heart disease because they were taught that it is so. This is exacerbated by the influence pharmaceutical companies now have on what constitutes medical education. Blockbuster cholesterol-lowering drugs with multi billion dollar per anum revenue are key players. Statins are dispensed like candy, not only for existing heart disease – but also as a preventative now – despite mounting data that this is detrimental to overall health:
“High cholesterol does not increase risk for heart attacks or other coronary events in people older than 65, women of any age, as well as patients with diabetes or renal failure. Senior citizens with high cholesterols have significantly fewer infections and live longer than low cholesterol controls. In familial hypercholesterolemia, there is no association between the very high cholesterol and LDL levels and a corresponding increased incidence or prevalence of coronary disease.” Read more: Paul J. Rosch, M.D., M.A., F.A.C.P.
What about cholesterol and women’s health?
The Melbourne Women’s Midlife Health Project measured cholesterol levels annually in a group of 326 women aged 52-63 years. During the eighth annual visit, subjects took a test that assessed memory. They found that higher serum concentrations of LDL-cholesterol and relatively recent increases in total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol were associated with better memory in healthy middle-aged women. Read more: Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig.
You read that right. Higher serum concentrations of cholesterol were correlated with better memory function in middle aged women.
Low fat diets correlated with health problems
#cancer #obesity #heartdisease #liverdisease #fattyliver #mentaldisorders #dentaldecay #jointpain #childillness
During the last 50 years, when saturated fat was largely removed from our diets and replaced with recommended vegetable oils, trans fats, and low fat, non-animal foods, we began to get sick en masse:
The incidence of cancers went up.
The incidence of diabetes went up.
The incidence of obesity went up.
The incidence of heart disease went up.
The incidence of liver disease went up.
The incidence of mental disorders went up.
The incidence of chronic joint problems went up.
The incidence of dental decay and malformation went up.
The incidence of chronic childhood inflammatory disorders (asthma, allergies, etc) went up.
Food policy reform efforts…
Many nutritionists, nutrition-based physicians, and researchers have called for drastic reform of national food guidelines to reflect this current data, but there remains a backlash. We can only speculate the role private interest groups like corporate agriculture / food groups and pharmaceutical companies have in shaping this. But it would be naive to think they don’t exert pressure on government food regulatory bodies now when we know the history of corruption concerning Keys’ work and recommendations.
#NinaTecholz #BigFatSurprise #BigFatNutritionPolicy #InvestigativeJournalism
The entire scenario is best addressed by investigative journalist, Nina Techolz, in her book The Big Fat Surprise. This YouTube video, Big Fat Nutrition Policy talks about what she discovered about nutrition policy as a result of that 10+ year investigative journey. She found asking about who decided the policy and why it wasn’t changed was like living in a mafia movie! The resistance she faced drove her to dive deep into the issue and ultimately, to write her book and create a group of scientists and food activists to lobby for data-based nutrition policy going forward.
Part 2 next week: healthy fat recommendations
Tune in next week for a holistic explanation of arterial cholesterol deposits and data-based healthy fat recommendations.
Thank you, Renee, for that question! As always, if readers have their own health questions, I welcome them. Just send me an email. And if you’re looking for more specific health information check out my website and while you’re there, sign up for my free newsletter at askthenutritionist.ca
Namaste!
Nonie Nutritionista