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Popular Belief That Saturated Fat Clogs Up Arteries Is a Myth, Experts Say (independent.ie)

Posted by BeauHD on from the solid-and-room-temperature dept.

schwit1 quotes a report from Irish Independent: The authors, led by Dr Aseem Malhotra, from Lister Hospital, Stevenage, wrote: "Despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong." Dr Malhotra and colleagues Professor Rita Redberg, from the University of California at San Francisco, and Pascal Meier from University Hospital Geneva in Switzerland and University College London, cited a "landmark" review of evidence that appeared to exonerate saturated fat. They said relative levels of "good" cholesterol, or high density lipoprotein (HDL), were a better predictor of heart disease risk than levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL), also known as "bad" cholesterol. High consumption of foods rich in saturated fat such as butter, cakes and fatty meat has been shown to increase blood levels of LDL. The experts wrote: "It is time to shift the public health message in the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease away from measuring serum lipids (blood fats) and reducing dietary saturated fat. "Coronary artery disease is a chronic inflammatory disease and it can be reduced effectively by walking 22 minutes a day and eating real food." They pointed out that in clinical trials widening narrow arteries with stents -- stainless steel mesh devices -- failed to reduce the risk of heart attacks.

11 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/experts-headline-grabbing-editorial-on-saturated-fats-bizarre-misleading/

    "The report was written secretly and released by the National Obesity Forum, for which Malhotra was also a senior advisor. The Forum is funded by the meat industry and drug companies."

    1. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      http://www.nationalobesityforum.org.uk/index.php/about-the-nof/our-partners.html

      All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity
      National Institute of Clinical Excellence
      Royal College of Paediatricians
      Association for the Study of Obesity
      National Audit Office
      Korean Academy of Family Physicians
      National Association of Primary Care
      LighterLife UK Limited
      Roche Products Ltd
      Abbott Laboratories
      Slim Fast Foods Ltd
      Safeway Foods plc
      Tanita UK Ltd
      Sanofi-Aventis Ltd
      Mantis Surgical Equipment Ltd
      GlaxoSmithKline UK Ltd
      Canderel
      British Meat Nutrition Education Services
      Carlton TV Ltd
      The Obesity Awareness and Solutions Trust
      The British Liver Trust.

    2. Re:No. by Bongo · · Score: 5, Informative

      https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/experts-headline-grabbing-editorial-on-saturated-fats-bizarre-misleading/

      "The report was written secretly and released by the National Obesity Forum, for which Malhotra was also a senior advisor. The Forum is funded by the meat industry and drug companies."

      That's funny, because these people (Malhotra, Eades, Noakes, etc.) who get together at conferences, so let's call it a "movement", they say that the lipid hypothesis was pushed by the sugar industry back in the 50s and 60s as a way to push the blame away from sugar -- that the idea that fat might cause heart disease is what the sugar industry wanted to hear. Meanwhile the British scientist Yudkin thought that sugar was the more likely cause of heart disease. But he was disinvited too often and eventually ignored. If you can't eat fat, you will have to eat carbohydrates, and cereals, and so on. So it is the cereals industry which benefits from the "fat is bad" hypothesis.

      Your or my conviction that, gee, fat really is bad, is merely because that's what we have been taught. We did not go out there and like, spend ten years doing a systematic review of all the literature going back 100 years.

      That's what Gary Taubes did, spent 5 years writing a book about this, tracing the history of the hypothesis. And Nina Teicholz, whose recent book was reviewed in the BMJ with words to the effect, "you'd believe that science was a rational objective process, but after reading this book you'll realise that was naive and the science has been perverted..." (words to that effect, in the BMJ). And hea dof world hear foundation (something like that) recently said that the science behind the heart/lipid hypothesis was bogus.

      How the Sugar Industry Shifted the Blame to Fat

      So the plain and rather obvious fact is, EVERYONE has a vested interest, so at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is, on the word of no-one, is the science actually objectively correct?

      We can play the who-funded-it game all day.

  2. "popular belief"??? by ooloorie · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's pretty rich, given that government guidelines have been saying for years that saturated fat is bad:

    Saturated fat can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

    The worst part isn't even that they falsely identified saturated fats as bad, but that for years governments told people to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet, which is pretty much a prescription for weight gain and diabetes.

    1. Re:"popular belief"??? by Carewolf · · Score: 1, Informative

      That's pretty rich, given that government guidelines have been saying for years that saturated fat is bad:

      Saturated fat can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

      The worst part isn't even that they falsely identified saturated fats as bad, but that for years governments told people to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet, which is pretty much a prescription for weight gain and diabetes.

      Considering this new research (not by experts, but singular, one controversial expert shill) is complete bunk, it might have been good thing to advise people to do what is good for them.

  3. Re:We scientists must improve our reliability. by moronikos · · Score: 5, Informative

    More and more information is coming out that "peer review" is sort of a joke. The basic statistics of many studies isn't even verified. Check this on Ars: https://arstechnica.com/scienc...

  4. Clickbait premise by MrKrillls · · Score: 3, Informative

    Cherry picked data can prove the moon is made of green cheese: arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/experts-headline-grabbing-editorial-on-saturated-fats-bizarre-misleading

    --
    Don't step on the baby.
  5. Not this shit again... by XSportSeeker · · Score: 5, Informative

    What's with Slashdot and the recent unbalanced biased snippets that are being posted all the time?
    If you are going to publish a story about something, why not post both sides?

    From the article:
    Leading the the (sic) critics was Professor Alun Hughes, associate director of the Medical Research Council Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at University College London.

    He said: "This editorial is muddled and adds to confusion on a contentious topic. The authors present no really new evidence, misrepresent some existing evidence, and fail to adequately acknowledge the limitations in the evidence that they use to support their point of view."
    Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said the claims about saturated fat were "unhelpful and misleading".

    He added: "Decades of research have proved that a diet rich in saturated fat increases 'bad' LDL cholesterol in your blood, which puts you at greater risk of a heart attack or stroke."
    Dr Amitava Banerjee, honorary consultant cardiologist at University College London, said: "Unfortunately, the authors have reported evidence simplistically and selectively".

    His view was echoed by cardiologist Dr Gavin Sandercock, director of research at the University of Essex, who said: "This editorial is not founded on good evidence. There is no such thing as 'real food' - the authors don't define what it is so it's meaningless."

    Here's another take:
    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04...

  6. Re: Lick my balls, MILLENIAL BeauHD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Until some years ago nearly everyone believed that plaque forms due to high cholesterol levels in the blood. Therefore the simplified saying that the cholesterol blocks the arteries

  7. Re:We scientists must improve our reliability. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you are referring to this:
    http://science.time.com/2013/06/06/sorry-a-time-magazine-cover-did-not-predict-a-coming-ice-age/

    Time points out that the cover that says this is a fake

  8. Re:I often think dietary "science" is a myth by gweihir · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quite possibly that as well. MDs are not scientists. That requires an actual PhD.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.