THE WAR ON FAT: new science confirms that fat isn’t what’s hurting our health

For several decades now, we Americans have been urged eat less high fat read meat, eggs, and dairy, and to replace them with more calories from fruit, vegetables and especially carbohydrates. At the beginning of this period coronary heart disease, or CHD, was the leading source of mortality in the United States at the time, and the saturated fat and cholesterol in our diet became the main focus of prevention.

We were introduced to the Prudent Diet, one in which vegetable oils oil, margarine, vegetable shortening, chicken, egg substitutes and cold cereal replaced butter and other so called “artery clogging” saturated fats. This all with the goal of reducing our risk of heart attack. This diet was further advocated in a “self-help” book called Your Heart Has Nine Lives, sponsored by the makers of Mazola Corn Oil and Margarine. The belief here was that heart disease was a disease of rich countries, striking rich people who ate rich food, including “hard” fats like butter.

Through this period, and still today, we see advertising campaigns touting the health benefits of products low in fat or made with vegetable oils... “Wheaties may help you live longer”, Check Out Great Tasting Cereal from Special K to Help You Lose Weight”, Wesson recommended its cooking oil “for your heart’s sake” ...and so on.

According to the president of the National Academy of Sciences ( in 1980), we were embarking on a “vast nutritional experiment.” Well, the results of that experiment are in...and for all intents and purposes it has been a complete failure. Over the past four decades Americans did significantly cut fat consumption, but by almost every measure we are sicker than ever. Type II diabetes increased 166%, to nearly 1 in 10 adults! (with millions in the pre-diabetic range) Cardiovascular disease remains the nations #1 killer. Over a third of the country is now obese...a third!, making the U.S. one of the fattest countries in the world.

“Americans were told to cut back on fat to lose weight and to prevent heart disease. There is an overwhelmingly strong case to be made for the opposite.”

-Dr. David Ludwig, Director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity

Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital

The thought that saturated fat is bad seems easy to hold on to. We think of the fat in a good juicy steak or a glass of whole fat milk in the same way we imagine the fat we carry around our waistline. And, chemically speaking, their not much different. So it doesn’t take much of a leap to assume eating fat make us fat, and leads to heart disease by clogging our arteries...yes?

Well Bubby, not so fast. After crunching the numbers scientists found the connection between saturated fat and heart disease was questionable to say the least. A major meta-analysis done in 2010 concluded that there was no significant evidence that saturated fat is associated with and increased risk of cardiovascular disease. This study was followed up by a second large study involving over a half a million subjects. This study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded that current evidence does not support the low consumption of saturated fats or high consumption of polyunsaturated fats that are often considered heart healthy. The sad part about this discussion is that this is not “new science”, the science supporting the health benefits of saturated fats has been around for decades, and there is plenty of it.

Another key in our thinking with regards to saturated fat relates to a misconception on how we view fat and cholesterol, specifically HDL (good) and LDL (bad). There are many in the scientific community who feel blood cholesterol levels have no bearing on heart disease at all, and have the studies to back them up. However, we’ll leave that discussion for a later time. The common doctrine remains that LDL levels are associated with higher rates of heart disease, and since saturated fat will raise LDL cholesterol levels there lies the danger. However, it’s not that simple. Saturated fat also raise the levels of HDL even more, which has the ability to clear the LDL from our blood. So it’s really kind of a “wash.”

Also, we know now that there are (2) kinds of LDL cholesterol particles - small, dense ones and large, fluffy ones. The large ones are thought to be mostly harmless, and it’s the level of these particles which are raised with increased fat intake. It’s the small, sticky ones that are associated with increased heart disease. Now here’s the kicker…it’s been shown that when people replace the carbohydrates in their diet with fat — saturated or unsaturated — the number of small, dense harmful LDL particles decreases, and the level of the large, flurry harmless particles increase.

Contrary to what we have been led to believe, replacing your breakfast

cereal with eggs and bacon could actually reduce your risk of heart disease.

Now what about weight loss and fat intake, no issues there, right? With regards to weight loss there has been much debate: low-fat, low calorie diet vs. a low-carb, higher fat diet (Mediterranean). In my opinion, there is really no debate here, low-fat diets just don’t work in the long run. Study after study has found that it is very difficult to lose weight on a very low-fat diet. Fat and meat can produce a sense of satiety or satisfaction that is difficult to achieve with carbohydrates. When you restrict fats your body will automatically give you sugar and carb (grains) cravings to make up for it. The body is able to MAKE saturated fat out of sugars, hence the sugar (carb) cravings that are impossible to control when you eat a low fat diet. Here’s how it works:

↑ carbohydrate intake = blood sugar; ↑ blood sugar = ↑ insulin hormone

Insulin's job is to return your blood sugar to normal, but it also causes your body to store fat! Your liver starts converting excess blood sugar to triglycerides, or fat, leading to weight gain. This process keeps repeating which makes our cells more resistant to insulin, which causes more weight gain, which only increases the insulin resistance...it’s a vicious cycle. Obesity, Type II diabetes, high triglycerides and low HDL can all follow...all without fat intake being a factor.

When people on low-carb diets have been compared head-to-head with those on low-fat diets, the low-carb dieters typically scored significantly better on markers of heart disease, including small, dense LDL cholesterol, HDL/LDL ratio, and triglycerides, which are a measure of the amount of fat circulating in your blood.

↓ carb intake = ↓ insulin levels = ↓ internal production of fat

= more of the fat you eat is burned for energy

As an example, cream - the fat component of milk, steadies blood sugar levels for extended periods of time. There are no ups and downs in insulin when your diet has lots of wonderful saturated fat in it. It’s only when you eat low fat that blood sugar issues such as diabetes and hypoglycemia tend to rise.

Here’s another example of how we have been hoodwinked into buying in on a “healthy concept on fat.” A study published in 2013 in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, which studied 10,700 preschoolers found this: kids drinking lowfat milk tend to be heavier than those drinking whole milk. Yep, and the children who drank skim (1%) milk were the fattest. The children who drank low-fat 2% milk had the next highest BMI (body mass index). The children who drank whole milk? They were the leanest of all.

OK, now what? This doesn’t mean we have cart blanche to march willy-nilly into fat eating heaven. No McDonalds’ or bacon “throw downs” for me. But, this should mark a serious change in our diet attitudes. We should eat a diet of consisting of “real” unprocessed, high quality, fresh food. Traditional foods that nourished our ancestors, including meat, eggs, butter and cheese, and avoid the newfangled vegetable-oil-based foods that flood the grocers’ isles.

The bottom line is that there's no scientific reason that natural foods containing saturated fat can't, or shouldn't, be part of a healthy diet.