Monday, February 8, 2010

Flip Flop on Fat

I came across this article the other day at MSNBC.com discussing the role of saturated fat in heart disease.

We’ve been told for years that fatty foods are the culprit in most of our woes – less fat means lower cholesterol which means a healthier heart. It sounds like it makes sense.
So how can this quote be true?

“researchers found no clear evidence that higher saturated fat intakes led to higher risks of heart disease or stroke.”

If a high fat diet isn’t really an indicator for heart disease, then what is? I’m not trying to suggest we should all be increasing our intake of saturated fat, or that we should run to our doctors who have been touting low-fat diets for years and say “Nyah nyah! I’m eating all the pork rinds I want now, doc!” But maybe all those years of guilt over preferring a steak dinner to a salad were for naught.

Sure the salad is better for you, but maybe the steak isn’t really clogging your arteries like we’ve been led to believe.

Here’s another telling quote from the article with regards to the study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:

“there was no difference in the risks of heart disease and stroke between people with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat.”

Interesting stuff. If it’s not food that’s elevating the risk of cardiovascular disease in our population as a whole, what is it? Stress maybe? That’s one I could believe. Maybe we’re all too worried about what we can and can’t eat.

3 comments:

  1. Maybe it's inactivity. We're no longer hunters and gatherers, now we're couch potatoes and computer sloths.

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  2. Well, we do still hunt for bargains and occasionally gather dust...not quite the same, though, huh?

    ReplyDelete