Time to end the war on saturated fat?

El_Dangeroso · 23-10-2013 8:21pm #1

Great article in the LA times:

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-saturated-fat-20131022,0,2193813.story

cnocbui · 26-10-2013 12:55pm

Astonishing isn't it?

It is now 2013, yet it has been known since at least 2010 that the advice against cholesterol was wrong and it is only now that a few individuals in the very conservative medical community appears to be tentatively gathering the courage to own up.

Study fails to link saturated fat, heart disease

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK | Thu Feb 4, 2010 4:19pm GMT

(Reuters Health) - The saturated fat found mainly in meat and dairy products has a bad reputation, 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.

Research has shown that saturated fat can raise blood levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, and elevated LDL is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Because of this, experts generally advise people to limit their intake of fatty meat, butter and full-fat dairy.

The American Heart Association (AHA) suggests that adults get no more than 7 percent of their daily calories from the fat; for someone who eats 2,000 calories a day, that translates into fewer than 16 grams of saturated fat per day.

But 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.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2010/02/04/health-us-fat-heart-idUKTRE61341020100204

It might well turn out that the very advice the medical community has been dishing out might actually have caused a lot of heart disease and untold deaths in those who followed their low fat, high carbs advice.

I have seen an alternative hypothesis about heart disease which is that the presence of excessive cholesterol in the walls of blood vessels isn't a cause, but a symptom. The body produces cholesterol in a response to tissue damage/inflammation. So the idea is that the cholesterol is there due to damage caused by something else. What can damage the cell walls of blood vessels? Excessive glucose can. Where might you get excessive glucose from?

Carbs.

I am not saying this is what happens, viruses are another possibility, as are autoimmune responses. Gluten can cause autoimmune responses and such responses can damage blood vessels - so again it could be linked to carbs.