Saturated fats – friend or foe?

When I was young, the messaging was that butter hardens your arteries, leading to cardiovascular disease, and it also makes you fat. I found an interesting research article that explains where that information came from and why it’s faulty.

If you’ve been around a while, like me, you will remember the song from the ‘Life be in it’ TV ads, “Eat more breads and cereals…” At time where we were told to fill up on the carbs, and to limit our fat intake. Interestingly since then, we have seen an increase in cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity.

The 2014 research article titled ” The Questionable Benefits of Exchanging Saturated Fat With Polyunsaturated Fat” explains where much of this began. Research from 1970 looked at 16 groups of people from 7 countries and examined a relationship between their saturated fat content and heart disease. In this study, foods that contained saturated fats like butter counted as fat intake, which makes sense in theory, were counted as fats. But what actually happened was that biscuits, cakes, pastries, and savoury snacks counted as fats, when their main ingredients were carbohydrates (and white refined carbohydrates at that). It also found that countries which had significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease, sometimes had the same fat intake as those with a low risk. The article goes on to cite other studies that have shown either no correlation between saturated fats and cardiovascular disease or even an improvement!

Since the 1970’s many people have exchanged their intake of saturated fats for polyunsaturated omega 6 fats, which have been shown to have worse health outcomes. Part of this may be due to the essential fatty acids found in food like butter, such as vitamin E and vitamin A. The other problem is that people are substituting butter for heat extracted or hydrogenated vegetable oils which have a higher risk of cardiovascular and other diseases.

It can be really hard to go against what we’ve been told is best for us, however it can be a lot easier if you know why the recommendation was made and what it was based on.

I encourage you to do your own reading, there is a link below to the article here, but there are many others. If you’re not used to reading research articles, go to ‘google scholar’ and search for things like benefits of butter or benefits of coconut oil and see what you find.

https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(13)01004-5/fulltext