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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease - WSJ.com
"Saturated fat does not cause heart disease"or so concluded a big study published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. How could this be? The very cornerstone of dietary advice for generations has been that the saturated fats in butter, cheese and red meat should be avoided because they clog our arteries. For many diet-conscious Americans, it is simply second nature to opt for chicken over sirloin, canola oil over butter.
The new study's conclusion shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with modern nutritional science, however. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics and bias.
Our distrust of saturated fat can be traced back to the 1950s, to a man named Ancel Benjamin Keys, a scientist at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Keys was formidably persuasive and, through sheer force of will, rose to the top of the nutrition worldeven gracing the cover of Time magazinefor relentlessly championing the idea that saturated fats raise cholesterol and, as a result, cause heart attacks.
This idea fell on receptive ears because, at the time, Americans faced a fast-growing epidemic. Heart disease, a rarity only three decades earlier, had quickly become the nation's No. 1 killer. Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1955. Researchers were desperate for answers.
As the director of the largest nutrition study to date, Dr. Keys was in an excellent position to promote his idea. The "Seven Countries" study that he conducted on nearly 13,000 men in the U.S., Japan and Europe ostensibly demonstrated that heart disease wasn't the inevitable result of aging but could be linked to poor nutrition.
Critics have pointed out that Dr. Keys violated several basic scientific norms in his study. For one, he didn't choose countries randomly but instead selected only those likely to prove his beliefs, including Yugoslavia, Finland and Italy. Excluded were France, land of the famously healthy omelet eater, as well as other countries where people consumed a lot of fat yet didn't suffer from high rates of heart disease, such as Switzerland, Sweden and West Germany. The study's star subjectsupon whom much of our current understanding of the Mediterranean diet is basedwere peasants from Crete, islanders who tilled their fields well into old age and who appeared to eat very little meat or cheese.
Read More: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486?mod=trending_now_1
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)If you're afraid of butter, use cream.
― Julia Child
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3465.Julia_Child
Response to hedgehog (Reply #1)
Jesus Malverde This message was self-deleted by its author.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)Most information we get about food comes from food processes.
I trust my older yoga books and use their ideas about foods with life force ect.
We have to decide for ourselves and live with our choices.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)they coat the inside of intestines.. can not be digested or used by the body.
Natural saturated fats are totally different than this crap which is used everywhere.
MADem
(135,425 posts)You balance your butter with oil. You scrub out your fatty deposits with whole grains and fruits and vegetables. You eat anything that goes to solid fat at room temperature very sparingly if at all.
Eat like an Italian or a Spaniard and you will live well and for a long time.
Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)everything from scratch. real butter, veggies, meat and potato. homemade bread.
They all lived to late 80's to over 100.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)I think thats where a lot of this comes from.
Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)of lung cancer. The others didn't but lived with other smokers and were exposed to smoke from potbelly stoves and fireplaces until their 40's or 50's.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Live long and prosper