The Vindication Of Saturated Fat

In all probability, you have heard for many years that saturated fat is bad for you. This has been preached from just about every doctor and nearly every public health authority for decades.

The warnings are that saturated fats will raise your LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) and clog your arteries. Saturated fat was also linked to an increased chance of getting heart disease and heart attacks.

The 2015 USDA dietary guidelines still advised limiting saturated fats to less than a mere 10% of your daily calories.

It is unfortunate that these recommendations are in based on an unproven hypothesis. A large number of studies that have reexamined this theory and have shown that saturated fats do not increase your risk of heart disease and that they are actually good for you.

A old study, which had been buried for four decades, was recently unearthed. This study was extensive and was performed to prove the link between saturated fat and heart disease, but proved the exact opposite. That is exactly why it was buried for four decades.

The father of this hypothesis, which had been coined The Lipid Hypothesis, was Ancel Keys, PhD. He is also believed to have been the one who was largely responsible for suppressing and not disclosing this damning study, simply because it contradicted his original hypothesis and he didn't want to prove himself wrong. It is amazing that this junk science hypothesis lasted this long.

Only parts of the trial’s results were ever published, leaving out the controversial finding that replacing saturated fats with vegetable oil had NO benefit on mortality. The study was unearthed by Christopher Ramsden, who discovered the missing research data among the possessions of a deceased scientist.

The study was conducted from 1968 to 1973 and included 9,423 participants between the ages of 20 and 97. The subjects were a perfect group to study, since all of the participants were residents of state mental hospitals and nursing homes, so all of their meals were prepared for them.

Many nutritional studies have the drawback of relying on self-reported consumption, which can be based on food questionnaires. Many times people are not truthful, or they simply cannot remember what or how much they ate of what on any given day.

Each patient was followed for about 15 months. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups, receiving either:

1. A then-standard diet containing 18.5% saturated fat from animal fats such as milk, cheese, beef and shortening, and 5% unsaturated fat, based on total calories

2. A diet in which 50% of the saturated fats were replaced with vegetable oil and corn oil margarine. A total of 9% of the calories were from saturated fat and 13% from unsaturated fat.

After analyzing the data, Ramsden and his team found that vegetable oils lowered total cholesterol levels by an average of 14% after one year. However, this lower cholesterol did NOT result in improved health and longevity, which has been the conventional belief.

Instead, the research showed that the lower the cholesterol, the higher the risk of dying:

For every 30 point drop in total cholesterol there was a 22% increased chance of death. In the 65 and older category, those who received vegetable oil experienced roughly 15% more deaths compared to seniors in the saturated fat group.

The vegetable oil also did not result in fewer cases of atherosclerosis or heart attacks.

On the contrary, autopsies revealed both groups had similar levels of arterial plaque, but 41% of the vegetable oil group showed signs of at least one heart attack compared to just 22% of those in the saturated fat group.

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