he recent advice to limit intakes of dietary fat has been a disaster for health. Medical recommendations to lower fat and cholesterol intakes, based on the erroneous cholesterol theory of cardiovascular disease, have caused an epidemic of obesity in Western nations. This obesity epidemic is fuelled by the food industry and the sugar laden poisons that they pedal under the guise of low fat foods. The idea that high fat intakes were a causative factor in cardiovascular disease was popularised by Ancel Keys in research dating back six decades. However, more recent appraisal of his work has shown it to be flawed. Although Keys published work showing an association between cardiovascular disease and fat intake, more recent studies have challenged this viewpoint and shown that dietary fat may actually be beneficial to longevity.
For example in one study published in the Journal of Nutrition in 20121, researchers investigated the association between fat intake and mortality in Japanese subjects using a prospective study design. During a 16 year follow up the researchers calculated the number and cause of deaths in the subjects and correlated these findings to the dietary intakes of the individuals that had been collected using a frequent food questionnaire. A high intake of total fat in men was associated with a reduction in all cause mortality, and cancer mortality, but not cardiovascular disease mortality. The same associations were present for polyunsaturated fat. For women there was no significant association between any fat subtype and any cause specific mortality. Therefore increased fat intakes appear to have only beneficial effects, and saturated fat intake is not associated with cardiovascular disease.
So in Japanese men, while higher total fat and polyunsaturated fat intake is associated with decreased mortality, a higher saturated fat content is not associated with mortality from cardiovascular disease. This supports a growing body of research that suggests that saturated fat is not a cause of cardiovascular disease. In fact the evidence linking saturated fat to cardiovascular disease is weak, and based on a number of studies with serious methodological flaws. It is not surprising that polyunsaturated fat intake is associated with a decreased mortality, because the long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids α-linolenic acid (ALA, C18:3 (n-3)) and linoleic acid (LA, C18:2 (n-6) are essential fatty acids and are therefore required to prevent disease development. While most fat subtypes are beneficial or neutral in terms of health effects, only trans fatty acids appear to be detrimental to health. However, they were not measured in this study.
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