Is a high fat or high saturated fat diet healthy? Will it make you live longer? Are vegetable oils heart healthy? Will they prevent heart disease? Can we trust nutritional research? Can we trust nutritional guidelines!? These are some incredibly important questions I’ll aim to answer, so stick around till the end!
This post is about the misconceptions around saturated fat, vegetable oil and their affect on health, longevity and risk of cardiovascular disease. We’ve all heard the conventional dietary advice; eat a low fat diet and certainly avoid saturated fats (animal fats) because you’ll increase your bad cholesterol and clog your arteries. It comes from the same people that claim vegetable oils (AKA seed oils) are “heart healthy” and good for you… These are two HUGE MISTAKES that have harmed many many people. The conventional recommendations are the exact opposite of what you should eat… I’ll explain why.
Contents
Diet Heart Hypothesis
These recommendations are guided by what is known as the diet-heart hypothesis, which is the idea that dietary fat can increase blood cholesterol, which then leads to coronary heart disease. The hypothesis was first proposed in the 1950s by Dr. Ancel Keys. In what is known as the 7 country study (now easily debunked), Keys observed that people who ate a lot of saturated fat had higher rates of heart disease and death. This data was mostly cherry picked and manipulated to favor the hypothesis… but I’ll save that discussion for another post. This post will focus on the research done since the hypothesis and how scientists have done their best to support it by hiding and manipulating study results.
Why Aren't We Healthy?
Conventional dietary advice has been molded by this hypothesis for the last several decades. If it were truly accurate, wouldn’t you expect people who follow it to be healthy? The truth is, heart disease is at an all time high. It’s actually the leading cause of death, killing about 700,000 people per year. Even more frightening, only 12.2% of the US population is considered metabolically healthy… This means that they have ideal levels of blood sugar, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference. So 88% of our population is considered metabolically unhealthy!? Not so ideal levels of these (i.e. metabolic sickness) are huge risk factors for heart disease, so the fact that heart disease is the number one killer makes sense. It’s safe to say we are the sickest and fattest we’ve ever been. And I KNOW a large part of it has to do with our food… This simply cannot be ignored.
If the conventional recommendations, to replace saturated fats with vegetable oils were right, wouldn’t we see a decrease in heart disease? Granted, only about 10% of the population follows the nutritional guidelines. But still, we are eating less fat, less animal fats, and more processed vegetable oils than ever before. Apparently this is the healthy thing to do, yet we are sicker than ever… something is up!
How is it that a food our species has been eating for MILLIONS of years, is all of the sudden harmful, clogging our arteries and causing heart disease? I don’t buy it, not for a second, and neither should you. The truth is, the advice on dietary fat is not the only thing we’ve got screwed up… We’ve got it all messed up. My goal with this post is to not only put the “saturated fat will kill you” myth to rest, but to open your mind to challenge other health advice we’ve been told. If our nutritional and medical recommendations were accurate and actually right, I don’t think we would be so sick and fat. Cleary we’ve gotten some things wrong, and dietary fat is one of them.
So here we go. Join me while I analyze the s*** show that is nutritional research.
Study #1: Sydney Diet Heart Study, 1966-1973, 2013
This was a large randomized controlled trial that evaluated the effectiveness of replacing saturated fats with omega-6 linoleic acid (vegetable oil) for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and death. The researchers tracked 458 participants with recent coronary events from 1966 to 1973.
The intervention group were instructed to increase their polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) intake and to reduce their saturated fat (SFA) or animal fat intake. Intervention participants were provided with liquid safflower oil and safflower oil polyunsaturated margarine (“Miracle” brand, Marrickville Margarine). Liquid safflower oil was substituted for animal fats, common margarines and shortenings in cooking oils, salad dressings, baked goods, and other products, and was also taken as a supplement. Safflower oil polyunsaturated margarine was used in place of butter and common margarines. The control group was given no dietary instructions. Essentially, they had one group replace animal fats with seed oils.
During initial publication in 1978 the researchers had NEGLECTED specific data. They left out results on all caused mortality (basically death rates from any cause), arguably the most important and unbiased result! So at the time, the study indicated there was really no difference in effect between the two diets.
HOWEVER, 40 years later in 2013, missing data (all caused mortality) were discovered and republished.
The updated conclusion was this: replacing saturated fats (animal fats) with polyunsaturated fats (seed oils) increased risk of all caused mortality by 62%, cardiovascular mortality by 70% and mortality from CHD by 74%!! Those are significant increases! But the original authors didn’t like these results, so they just decided to just leave them out… You got to be kidding!
Study #2: Minnesota Coronary Survey (1968-73), 2016
Another randomized controlled trial, the gold standard of research. This study was designed to test whether replacement of saturated fat with vegetable oil rich in linoleic acid reduces coronary heart disease and death by lowering serum cholesterol. The researchers tracked 9423 women and men aged 20-97, from 1968 to 1973.
The intervention diet, or “cholesterol lowering” diet, had corn oil substituted for nearly all saturated fats. The control diet had no change in saturated fats.
AGAIN, in 1973 complete data was never published. The researchers decided to leave out all caused mortality results…big surprise! But in 2016, missing data were discovered (in a garage), thoroughly analyzed, and republished.
The intervention group, fed more vegetable oil, did have lowered cholesterol. However, this did not result in better death outcomes.
The updated conclusion: reducing saturated fat and increasing polyunsaturated seed oils INCREASED risk of death.
When the lead author was asked about the delay in publishing all data. He replied that “the findings were disappointing”…. I mean WHAT THE F***!?
Now these are old studies, done decades ago. So you’d think scientists today would be better at being more complete and honest right? Wrong. DEAD WRONG.
Women’s Health Initiative, 2016
This is the largest and most expensive study to date. It compared the effects of a low fat vs high fat diet on heart disease.
If you just read the results table or conclusion, they indicate no difference in outcome between the low fat diet and high fat diet groups. So people will often conclude that a high fat diet is no different than a low fat diet.
However, the only statistically significant result (meaning the outcome was unlikely to be due to chance) in the whole study, HIDDEN DEEP within the article in one sentence was this: Those on a low fat diet with a history of CVD had a 26% INCREASED RISK of a complication, e.g. heart attack.
This clearly demonstrates the harms of a low fat diet, yet it is nearly impossible to take away from the paper. No wonder people still advocate a low fat diet….
Conclusion
These are some of the largest studies ever published that evaluate dietary fat, saturated fat, vegetable oils and their affect on heart disease and mortality. They very cleary favor a high fat and high saturated fat diet for health and longevity… And this makes sense! We’ve evolved eating this way, for millions of years. Vegetable oils are so far removed from nature and highly processed. We’ve only recently been eating them. Meanwhile we have been thriving off animal fat our entire existence.
The dietary recommendations around fat are horribly wrong. We have been mislead into believing natural animals fats will kill us while highly processed seed oils are heart healthy. THE EXACT OPPOSITE IS TRUE.
Unfortunately, these aren’t the only examples of fraudulent/misleading research that’s harmed our health, nor is it the only example of nutritional guidelines that are horrifically wrong. You need to question EVERYTHING.
I want you to take away two things from this post. One is that saturated fats (animal fats) and dietary fat in general, the food we have been eating for millions of years, are HEALTHY. Don’t avoid meat, indulge in it. Avoid vegetable oils. They are toxic poisons. Cook with bacon grease and put tallow on everything! Eat meat so often people get concerned, then send them this article!
The second take away is this, you need to question everything you hear about nutrition and health. As far as I can tell, most health and nutrition recommendations are the exact opposite of what’s truly best for our health and biology, and it is literally killing us.
So, is a high fat or high saturated fat diet healthy? Will it make you live longer? THE ANSWER IS A RESOUNDING YES. Are vegetable oils heart healthy? Will they prevent heart disease? THE ANSWER IS NO, THEY CAUSE IT.
Don’t be a sheep, be a lion and eat a steak. Or a few… 😉
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