Saturated Fats are Good for You
By Dr. Mercola of mercola.com
Conventional medical authorities say that consumption of saturated animal fats is bad for you and causes heart disease.
But a hundred years ago, fewer than than one in one hundred Americans were obese, and coronary heart disease was unknown.
The Procter and Gamble started marketing Crisco as a new kind of food — the first commercially marketed trans fat. Crisco was originally used to make candles and soap, but with electrification causing a decline in candle sales,
Procter and Gamble decided to promote the fat as a “healthier” all-vegetable-derived shortening
According to LewRockwell.com:
“Feeding high doses of fat and cholesterol to omnivores, like rats and dogs, does not produce atherosclerotic lesions in them …
In fact, it turns out that people who have highest percentage of saturated fat in their diets have the lowest risk of heart disease …
The last word on this subject should go to Julia Child … Enjoy eating saturated fats, they’re good for you!”
The demonization of saturated fat began in 1953, when Dr. Ancel Keys published a paper comparing saturated fat intake and heart disease mortality. His theory turned out to be flimsy, to say the least, but the misguided ousting of saturated fat has continued unabated ever since. Fortunately, the truth is finally starting to come out, as medical scientists have begun to seriously question Keys’ findings.
Keys based his theory on a study of six countries, in which higher saturated fat intake equated to higher rates of heart disease. However, he conveniently ignored data from 16 other countries that did not fit his theory. Had he chosen a different set of countries, the data would have shown that increasing the percent of calories from fat reduces the number of deaths from coronary heart disease.
And, as illustrated in the featured article, when you include all 22 countries for which data was available at the time of his study, you find that those who consume the highest percentage of saturated fat have thelowestrisk of heart disease.
Furthermore, many have now 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!
Still, despite the scientific evidence, the low-fat dogma remains a favorite among most government health authorities. Case in point: the most recent food chart issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in December of last year, recommends reducing your saturated fat intake to a mere seven percent of caloric intake—down from its previously recommended 10 percent…
Newer Studies Debunk Keys’ Theory
The USDA’s lowered recommendation is illogical when you consider the evidence available today, which supports saturated fat as a necessary part of a heart healthy diet. For example, as discussed in the featured article, a number of indigenous tribes around the world are living proof that a high-saturated fat diet equates to low mortality from heart disease.
These include:
| Tribe | Primary Diet | Percentage Saturated Fat |
| Maasai tribe in Kenya/Tanzania | Meat, milk, cattle blood | 66 percent |
| Inuit Eskimos in the Arctic | Whale meat and blubber | 75 percent |
| Rendille tribe in NE Kenya | Camel milk, meat, blood | 63 percent |
| Tokealu, atoll islands in New Zealand territory | Fish and coconuts | 60 percent |
And then there’s human breast milk, which contains 54 percent saturated fat. Since breast milk is the most perfect diet in existence for developing infants, the presence of high amounts of saturated fat cannot easily be construed as a “mistake.”
Furthermore:
- A meta-analysis published last year, which pooled data from 21 studies and included nearly 348,000 adults, found no difference in the risks of heart disease and stroke between people with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat.
- Ina 1992 editorial published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. William Castelli, a former director of the Framingham Heart study, stated:
“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. The opposite of what… Keys et al would predict…We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least and were the most physically active.”- Another 2010 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a reduction in saturated fat intake must be evaluated in the context of replacement by other macronutrients, such as carbohydrates.
When you replace saturated fat with a higher carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate, you exacerbate insulin resistance and obesity, increase triglycerides and small LDL particles, and reduce beneficial HDL cholesterol. The authors state that dietary efforts to improve your cardiovascular disease risk should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intake, and weight reduction.I believe that last point is very important, and is likely a major key for explaining the rampant increase in obesity, heart disease and diabetes. And once you can pinpoint the problem, turning it all around becomes that much easier.
(cont)
Read the rest of the story: Saturated Fats are Good for You.
Time to Put Ancel Keys’ Theory to Rest