To ask what the consensus is on saturated fat?

[IntertwiningLeaves]

I tend to agree with science and our health authorities when it comes to dietary info, but over the years have noticed a lot of push back against the stigmatisation of saturated fat - typically animal fats.

There's a lot of divisive noise out there concerning food health, especially on sites like youtube, with all sorts of conflicting theories backed up by 'medical professionals'. Well, they can't all be correct!!

Personally, I prefer the less troublesome concept of a balanced diet, without excluding entire groups, being mindful to take factors such as allergies and gut issues into consideration.
I also realise that a balanced diet just isn't as sexy, nor will it sell so many books or rate highly on algorithms.

I tried to find some solid agreement out there regarding sat fats, but apart from the British Heart Foundation and other official bodies, it's one heck of a confusing mess. I would have imagined by now that there would be an established declaration from NHS etc if the link between sat fat and cholesterol had been debunked.

On one side, many people now think that such health issues are caused by agriculture/grain and genetics, whilst the governing bodies still insist a link to animal fats/obesity. Is there any reliable new science on this?

I did notice that a lot of the documentaries/adherents to the pro sat fat group also had some tentative links to anti vax, full carnivore diet, and getting women back into the kitchen...sorta thing. A sensible and measured bunch of data would be great but I can't seem to locate any. However, I do know that our knowledge of health is shifting all the time, so is there anywhere where these two opposing theories meet?
Hoping there are people much more knowledgeable than myself here who have some idea?

Only nutbags advocate a diet high in saturated fat and animal fats nowadays. HTH.

One particular video called 'fat head' did seem to have a fairly nasty anti-vegetarian slant, which is off putting even though I'm not a veggie. It just smacks of culture wars rather than true data.

The cholesterol stuff confuses me a little, since I'm not an expert in these things. One 'doctor' in the documentary claimed that post menopausal women NEED higher cholesterol and that trying to reduce it would cause osteoporosis.

Some pretty wild and dangerous claims if untrue
I also wonder if the 'experts' in the videos are trying to get their own books noticed...

I think the high sat fat trend is going to resul in a lot of heart and gallbladder issues!

It's not cool or trendy, but the only weight loss scheme that works for me is low fat and especially low sat fat.

I think the way I feel is that I am sure a diet consisting of lentils/vegetables and maybe some chicken breast and fish would be the healthiest option.

But I am not actually going to live like that.

And I would rather eat butter than margarine. Probably would be better using olive oil than butter and if it's suitable I do.

I'd rather have some cheese than end up eating UPFs. I'm sure I should be a better person and eat neither but I am not that person so for me it's about the "least bad" options.

Yeh, I like a balance, so just try to stay aware of doing anything too much or too little.

I think in the video I referenced, the guy was trying to prove that eating a high sat fat 'junk food' diet made him loose body fat and lowered his cholesterol. it was sufficiently smug.

It would seem we can engineer any outcome (or bias) we like with the right, er, conditions and data.

Look up "blue zone" diets. The places in the world where people live the longest have very low amounts of animal fat— like vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists, or remote mountaintop villagers who eat some meat and dairy but more as supplementary or celebratory food. Diet isn't the only factor here, but it does seem like the big meat eaters in the world suffer for it (Mongolians eat loads of meat and no one holds them up as paragons of health).

These meat evangelists are being faddish, but they are right that a lot of processed grains are bad for us.

I think a diet which is high in any one particular food group is problematic, and then overlying that with to much artificially made food is also bad.
So I think that saturated fat is preferable to trans fats, but eating a smaller amount of fat than I do would certainly do me good!

Well I did a bit of research about the 'fat head' video and it seems that the author is also a conspiracy theorist and cholesterol denier. The 'experts' in the film were all similarly invested in selling low carb books.

It’s a minefield and like you OP, the research is so polarised.

I eat a Mediterranean diet and have done for some years - so olive oil, meat maybe once a month at a push, but mainly pulses, beans and fish, very little UPF and yet still I have high cholesterol..

It’s a minefield and like you OP, the research is so polarised.

The research actually isn't polarised. The (traditional) Mediterranean diet - which is low in saturated fat and animal fats, and high in plant fibre and in olive oil which contains monounsaturated fats - is one of the most researched diets in the world and is regarded as the healthiest diet in the world.

I think some people might consider cholesterol to be less about food and perhaps affected by something else?
Of course, I don't have the answers.

There is also a lot of current buzz about 'inflammation'. Often a pretty vague term, but we all know, generally speaking, what it alludes to....and some say that this inflammation causes the bad cholesterol to rise, rather than food choices.

I have no idea personally. I should just hope that if the science was changing, then our health organisations would keep us posted. You'd expect the BHF to be at the cutting edge of research here. Unfortunately a lot of conspiracies suggest that our health authorities are paid by rogue margarine pushers..

Then again, my diabetic colleague was advised to swap butter for margarine only last yr. She has certainly lost weight but is smoking like a trooper.

In answer to your question then maybe a big bible type book of Nutrition and what the human body and brain needs to function. It will likely explain in a more scientific way how we process fats, protein, various vitamins and minerals etc and then you can see for yourself what to eat and why. I expect it will be a good balance of everything which is I think the conclusion you have already come to.

I’m not disputing the benefits of the well researched Mediterranean diet, however, if you look on the BHF and NHS guidelines, this diet is classed as too high daily fat allowance, even though it’s healthy fats.

According to the health guru on the diabetes prevention programme I did last year, saturated fats are not as bad as was originally thought.

I think I would really struggle to believe that margarine is in any way healthier than butter.

And before someone comes back with something ridiculous, I'm talking about in moderation, not liquifying cups of butter and drinking it.

Pragmatically I suspect one of the problems with saturated fats is they're tasty and calorific so, within the amount of energy each of us needs each day they may leave less room for other more beneficial nutrients.

Balance, variety, and moderation in everything (except colourful veg, I defy anyone to say you can have too much of those) is my prediction for future nutrition recommendations.

That's the thing, I have heard on and off over the past few years that sat fat isn't affecting cholesterol at all. How reliable the sources were are another matter, as I can't recall them off the top of my head. The Dr Mosley stuff toyed with this too IIRC?

I would hope that if it was a growing theory then surely the NHS and BHF would have figured it out too, by now.

I agree with the moderation approach too, but it doesn't sell books or reveal big conspiracies!

I'd be going with unprocessed foods, vegetarian and fish 80% of the time.

Meat should be organic and unprocessed.

Tons of veg, eggs, fruit, lentils etc.

The NHS and UK health guidance is woefully out of date I’m afraid.

By about 30 years. It’s been shown that Robert Lustig was right and Ancel Keys was a fraud. Of course all the advice we are told to follow is a result of Ancel Keys.

You can’t even get modern up to date cholesterol tests on the NHS, such as LDL-p, LP(a) or cholesterol sub-fraction tests. In the UK you have to go private for these. Basically large LDL is healthy, having lots of small particles is potentially unhealthy - but only if the arterial wall is damaged.

More progressive countries often have these tests as standard (Denmark, Australia etc).

Things won’t change quickly, there is too much money involved such as big-pharma selling statins and a food industry that pumps sugar into so much processed food (when they were told to take fat out of food, the food ended up tasting like cardboard so they replaced fat with sugar to make it edible).

25% of people who have heart attacks have low cholesterol for example.

As a heart attack survivor myself I have made it my business to research deeply, including reading the studies that people often quote and understand how to read statistical risks due to my professional background.

Basically it is now well understood for example that athersclerosis is not caused by dietary fat, but primarily by things like smoking and highly elevated blood sugar levels (think about the shear rate of liquids - blood with high blood sugar levels is more abrasive and over time damages the arteries).

Saturated fat is not the major issue according to my consultant cardiologist, he says even keto diets are fine (I’m more a low-carb higher-protein mediterranean myself).

Just had all my lipids done and I now have high HDL, low trigs, lower LDL (due to the statins) almost the lowest possible score with the inflammation markers I had to get done privately. Still awaiting the results of my sub-fraction tests to see if I have genetically high LP(a) or small particles.

25% of people have genetically high LP(a) - this is a small LDL variant that can’t be recycled so builds up. Lifestyle changes will not significantly affect LP(a) levels and neither do statins. So if you are on statins due to having high LDL - but in reality youtr high LDL is actually genetically high LP(a) then you are wasting your time as far as cholesterol levels is concerned.

If you have athersclerosis, then you likely have a massive inflammatory problem, but by eradicating sugar and flour from your diet the inflammation will reduce allowing the body to heal. The biggest actual benefit of statin drugs is that they reduce inflammation in your arteries, the cholesterol reduction is really neither here nor there as far as absolute risk is concerned - the only people to get an all-cause mortality benefit from statins is ladies over the age of 80.

The biggest marker used mostly by those at the top of the game on the lipid / athersclerosis is the ApoA1 : ApoB1 ratio not LDL-c value.

Having said all that it makes sense to eat healthy fats where possible, eat fish weekly for example.

Basically people that have eaten lots of saturated fat and gone on to have problems are the people that ignored ALL lifestyle advice, they usually did no exercise, ate lots so were overweight, smoked and drank loads (alcohol causes big blood sugar level swings) - and had bread buns around their fast-food burgers. The saturated fat in the meat wasn’t the problem - it was correlated as it was eaten but not causative. The meat is no better or worse than the lettuce and tomato in the burger. It was the smoking, drinking, sugar/flour and no exercise that was the problem.

but DYOR and trust no-one, and rememeber your GP has had zero training in nutrition.

I once tested out the low carb diet, starting from a healthy weight. I wondered if it would offer me any gut health benefits, so did around 6 months. Nothing extreme like keto, but did exclude all popular staples such as bread, rice, pasta and crackers.

I ate sensibly, didn't overindulge in any specific thing, and enjoyed healthy veg and all the good fats.
I actually gained 8 lbs.

When i returned to my usual habits which included moderate use of quality bread, lean meat and brown rice and veggies, the weight dropped off again. Choosing feta cheese instead of a homemade tortilla wrap simply did add a ton more calories for me.

This made me wonder if low carb success stories are concerned with shifting a higher weight initially, so making the person much more mindful of satiety and food choices.
If not needing to lose weight, the low carb shift could possibly result in an increase. Just personal data here so no conclusive thoughts.

Watch Zoe Harcombe and Nina Teicholz, both look at the data behind the healthy eating guidelines. They are both very informative.

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@TheHornedOne Whilst a lot of what you post makes sense, and offers a lot of food for thought, I have come to distrust anything online that urges me to not listen to my doctor.
I'm sure she's a fallible human like the rest of us, and has to abide by prescribed and possibly outdated advice methods, but trusting non medical sources, or book pushers online doesn't reassure me either.

I do agree with you about the trans fats and hydrogenated oils, though. I just assume that the science is forever evolving and the rate of change can be slow. I too have heart disease in my family, but in my case I witnessed several of them improved massively by adopting moderation, reducing junk food and quitting booze. We are all so different though.

Sadly, the trust no one mindset sounds like a shitty and paranoid way to live, tbh. There is surely a balance. I do believe that we live in a 'profit before people' society, but how far do we go here?

I recall Nina Teicholz had some pretty interesting ideas about a 'weight set point' that does seem to hold water in my own experience.

You’re right that we are not all the same, and because of this there are no easy answers - you have to see what works best for you.

For example I can easily manipulate my cholesterol levels, if I eat high levels of carbs like biscuits my LDL drops. No-one would say that was healthy, but if I did that and my GP saw my results he’d say it was wonderful.

The shortest truth I can give is that people should eat like people ate a long time ago, eating real un-processed food. Bread we buy in the shops is not the same as bread that our ancestors made for example, even the flour is radically different.

Trans fats are far worse than saturated fat, possibly the most unhealthy food in the world is french fries.

No, that's not true:

There are also 2 types of fat – saturated and unsaturated. Avoid foods containing high levels of saturated fat, as they increase levels of LDL cholesterol in your blood.

You should aim to follow a Mediterranean-style diet. This means eating more wholegrain bread, rice and pasta, and fruit, vegetables and fish, and less meat.

Replace butter and cheese with products based on vegetable and plant oil, such as olive oil.

preventing a heart attack - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Watch: What is the Mediterranean diet? - Heart Matters - BHF