Saturated fat, cholesterol, and statin controversy

It is surprising that dissidents in many branches of science. It is part of the good thing about science, skepticism continued. Sometimes it is due to the immaturity of the knowledge in question, the lack of a solid foundation. But many times opponents scientific issues that seem Acknowledged signatures appear. Often it is gravely wrong experts, as with AIDS denialists or vaccinia. But some of these other cases are quite surprising, because remain for years, some even supported by reliable studies, and are slowly gaining more and more followers.

One is the cholesterol and saturated fats. Although conventional medicine takes years of both preventing us and transmitting messages left and right and draw them away from our diet, there are a significant number of doctors and leading scientists who do not believe are harmful to health. The book The Great Cholesterol with (the great scam of cholesterol, the doctor Malcolm Kendrick), or Why we get fat and what to do about it (Why get fat and what to do to stop it, the science journalist Gary Taubes), both successes sales are a good example. Or as Jeff S. Volek experts, who are creating literature.

Volek is tireless and prolific researcher at the University of Connecticut with hundreds of studies published in the most prestigious scientific journals in kinesiology and nutrition doctoral degree in exercise science, dietitian and author of a good number of books on low-carb diets. It takes time throwing messages counter (you can read all his recent books, "The New Atkins for a New You", "TNT Diet", "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate living") and that, given the number of publications with similar ideas that are coming to light, seems to be finding some followers. Try entering low carb or paleo diet on Amazon and see the throngs of available nearby to these ideas.

If even the experts do not agree, not for me to blindly launches one side, but when dissidents are significant, I like to hear what they say, for the skeptical and a little rebellious spirit which is always recommended. So I've reviewed Chapter 13 Saturated fat and the american paradox (saturated fat and the American paradox) of her book-Diet Diet TNT, and I made a little translation-summary (free) of its arguments and approaches. Here they are:

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In 1953, Ancel Keys, an American researcher, published a study of data from six countries in which dietary fat was associated with deaths from heart disease. Five years later, he published another study linking the fat and cholesterol. Although causality is not demonstrated, almost everyone thought it was obvious that the fat was not only related to cholesterol, but was directly responsible.

But two other scientists, and Yerushalmy Hilleboe realized that Keys had used data from only six countries were available when 22. They tried to update the study with all data and, oh, surprise ... that relationship between fat and heart disease deaths are minimized. And in this new study sugar consumption appeared as the main suspect.

Another study by Keys 1970, data from seven countries, also found a clear correlation between fat and heart disease, so again gave Keys demonstrated his theory. But what is not said is that a much larger amount of heart disease in the Finnish west compared to the east was also seen when the food were minimal differences between the two.

The truth is that there are countries or companies in which this relationship does not appear. For example Francia.Y the Masai, Fulani or Inuit have always fed mainly meat and saturated fat and yet have not suffered heart disease until their power has been westernized. Even more recent data suggest otherwise: since 1970, the consumption of saturated fat has dropped 14% in USA and carbohydrate increased by 23%. If we as Keys, the relationship between nutrients guilty, obesity and heart disease would be clear, right?

But just do not do things in science. Isolate the effect of a single factor in this type of epidemiological studies is virtually impossible. The only scientific and reliable way to find causal factors in this type is controlled by changes in diet analysis. That is, you take a large group of people and seen what effects it has on your health isolated reducing saturated fats. Well, there have been very expensive studies of this type, and none of them has concluded that this reduction was positive for health. The Women initiave Heath is one of the largest, with 50,000 women involved and studied for 6 years. Those that reduced saturated fat intake by 29% had the same heart disease and cancer than not reduced. Interestingly, the principal investigators deduced that there had been no beneficial effects because it had not sufficiently reduced.

It seems that the effect of saturated fat is also linked to the amount of carb intake. But in themselves are not harmful, quite the opposite. In particular, recent serious and rigorous studies have reached these conclusions:

- If carbohydrates are substituted for saturated fat, triglyceride levels are reduced and increases the level of good cholesterol (HDL).

- Eating more saturated fat increases the size of the particles of the wrong colestrol (LDL), making this less hazardous cholesterol.

- Not all saturated fats raise cholesterol. For example, stearic acid (saturated fat in beef) have no effect on these levels.

But many professionals do not consider these studies because they contradict a lot of accepted paradigms for decades. In fact, studies conducted by Volek own, increased saturated fat in the diet has resulted in the decline of 57% of fatty acids in the blood, a far better result than the decline of 24% obtained with a diet low in fat. It seems a contradiction, but it is.

The rule of "fat as grease goes into the blood and fat that makes me arteriosclerosis" is neither proven nor is straightforward. The production of saturated fat from the body is a very complicated process. It is regulated by the hormone insulin as their levels rise (eg, by eating lots of carbohydrates) is left to burn fat and proceeds to storage. Furthermore, in the presence of too much insulin the liver begins to produce saturated fat, so by eating more carbohydrates increase the levels of fatty acids in the blood (especially triglycerides).

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After reading things like this, is it bad or not eating cholesterol and saturated fat? Who do we follow? According to these authors, in a diet low in carbohydrates none of these nutrients is nothing harmful, quite the contrary. I hope that future studies will clarify the issue and achieve greater consensus among specialists, we will all won.