2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29
Fats are macronutrients. That is, the nutrients we consume in large quantities and give us energy. Each fat molecule is made up of one molecule of glycerol and three fatty acids, which can be either saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated.
What this "saturation" does is the number of Fdouble bonds in the molecule. Saturated fatty acids do not have double bonds, monounsaturated fatty acids have one double bond, and polyunsaturated fatty acids have two or more double bonds.
Foods high in Saturated fat are fatty meats, lard, whole milk products such as butter and cream, coconuts, coconut oil, palm oil and dark chocolate.
In fact, fats contain a combination of different fatty acids. They are not pure saturated fats or pure mono- or polyunsaturated. Even foods such as beef also contain significant amounts of mono- and polyunsaturated fats. Fats that are mostly saturated (such as oil) tend to be solid at room temperature, while fats that are mostly unsaturated (such as olive oil) are liquid at room temperature.
Like other fats, saturated fats contain 9 calories per gram.
Why do people think saturated fats are harmful?
As early as the 20th century, there was a major epidemic of heart disease in America. It used to be a rare disease, but it quickly became the number one cause of death, as it still is.
Researchers have learned that eating saturated fat seems to raise blood cholesterol levels. This was an important finding at the time, as it was known that the presence of high cholesterol was associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
This led to the following assumption:
If saturated fat raises cholesterol and cholesterol causes heart disease, it must mean that saturated fat causes heart disease.
However, the claim is based on no experimental evidence in humans. This hypothesis (called the heart-diet hypothesis) is based on assumptions, observational data, and animal studies.
Although we now have a lot of experimental data on humans showing that these initial assumptions are wrong, people are still told to avoid saturated fats to reduce the risk of heart disease.
Saturated fats can increase LDL (bad) cholesterol, but also HDL (good) cholesterol.
It is important to understand that the word cholesterol is often used incorrectly.
HDL and LDL, good and bad cholesterol, are not actually cholesterol - they are proteins that carry cholesterol known as lipoproteins.
LDL means low density lipoprotein and HDL means high density lipoprotein.
First, scientists only measure total cholesterol, which includes cholesterol in both LDL and HDL. They later learned that while LDL is associated with increased risk, HDL is associated with reduced risk. Total cholesterol is actually a very wrong marker because it includes HDL. So having high HDL (protective) actually contributes to high total cholesterol.
Since saturated fats increase LDL levels, it seems logical to assume that this will increase the risk of heart disease. But scientists have ignored the fact that saturated fats also increase HDL.
With this in mind, new research shows that LDL is not necessarily bad because it has different subtypes.
• Small, dense LDL: These are small lipoproteinswhich can easily penetrate the arterial wall, leading to heart disease.
• Large LDL: These lipoproteins are large and fluffy and do not penetrate the arteries easily.
Small, dense particles are also much more susceptible to oxidation, which is a crucial step in the process of heart disease. People with predominantly small LDL particles have a three times higher risk of heart disease than those with predominantly large LDL particles.
So if we want to reduce the risk of heart disease, we want to have mostly large LDL particles and as few small ones as possible.
Attention
Here is an interesting piece of information that is often ignored by nutritionists - eating saturated fat changes LDL particles from small to large. This means that although saturated fats may slightly increase LDL, they change LDL to a benign subtype that is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease.
Even the effects of saturated fat on LDL are not as dramatic as you might think. Although they increase LDL in the short term, many long-term studies have found no link between saturated fat consumption and LDL levels.
Scientists have now realized that it's not just about LDL concentration or particle size, it's about the number of LDL particles (called LDL-p) floating in the bloodstream. Low carb diets that are high in saturated fat can lower LDL-p, while low fat diets can have an adverse effect and increase LDL-p.
Do saturated fats cause heart disease?
The presumed harmful effects of saturated fats are the cornerstone of modern dietary guidelines. However, despite decades of research and billions of dollars spent, scientists have not yet been able to demonstrate a clear link.
Several recent studies, which combine data from many other studies, have found that there is indeed no link between consumption of saturated fats and heart disease.
This includes a review of 21 studies with a total of 347,747 participants published in 2010. Their conclusion: there is absolutely no link between saturated fat and heart disease.
Another review, published in 2014, looked at data from 76 studies (both observational studies and controlled studies) with a total of 643,226 participants. They found no link between saturated fat and heart disease.
We also have a systematic review of the Cochrane collaboration that combines data from a number of controlled studies.
According to a review published in 2011, reducing saturated fat has no effect on death or death from heart disease.
However, they found that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats reduced the risk of heart problems (but not death) by 14%.
This does not mean that saturated fats are "bad", only that some types of unsaturated fats (especially Omega-3) are protective, while saturated fats are neutral.
So, the biggest and best studies on saturated fat and heart disease show that there is no direct link.
Health authorities have spent vast amounts of resources researching the link between saturated fat and heart disease. Despite thousands of scientists, decades of work and billions of dollars spent, this hypothesis is still not supported by any good evidence.
The myth of saturated fat it has not been proven in the past, it has not been proven today and it will never be proven because it is simply wrong.
People have eaten saturated fat for hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of years, but the heart disease epidemic began a hundred years ago.
And remember: Diet is not the only reason people get or don't get heart disease. Your genes and lifestyle habits (such as smoking, exercise and stress) also play a role.
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