Eating Fatty Food
Is Eating Fatty Food Actually Bad for Me?
by JOE
DONATELLI
Overview
You’ve probably heard that fat is bad for you.
Food
manufacturers market and sell fat-free and low-fat products. Restaurants trim
fat off meat.
And when folks
like Dr. Robert Atkins said we should eat more fat and less cereal, they were
shouted down by a legion of nutritional experts.
Back in 1973,
Atkins was called in front of Congress to defend his diet.
One senator told Atkins he had “impugned
the reputations” of the doctors who preached that the best way to lose
weight was to avoid fatty foods.
The American Medical Association attacked Atkins's low-carb diet as a ''bizarre regimen.”
The medical
establishment went all-out against fat a decade later.
In 1985 the
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute launched a successful national
program aimed at reducing cholesterol, which included an effort to get people
to lower their saturated fat intake.
The notion that
people should eat less fat to stay healthy was so seemingly intuitive that it
caught on.
Today fat is
still looked down upon.
The governments
of both the United States and Great Britain encourage their citizens to eat
less saturated fat.
“Consumer
Reports” labels saturated fats as “bad.” They’re hardly alone.
Mainstream
health experts seldom go on TV and tell people to eat more fat.
Food
manufacturers never slap “Now with Extra Fat!” on food packaging.
There is no
McDonald’s McFat Burger.
In the
refrigerator of justice, fat is one of the bad guys.
Or is it?
A funny thing
happened on the way to lowering America’s cholesterol. America’s high blood
cholesterol and consumption of saturated and total fats decreased while its
obesity continued to rise.
America is
eating less fat, and it’s getting fatter.
How can that be?
The Four Fats
All fats are not created equal. Some are unhealthy,
and others convey big health benefits.
TRANS FATS: The consensus is these fats are unhealthy. They are found in meats,
but are most common in processed foods such as cookies, breads and crackers.
Trans fats increase the bad LDL cholesterol and reduce beneficial HDL
cholesterol.
SATURATED FATS: These occur naturally and can be found in fatty beef, pork, poultry
with skin, cream, butter, cheese and other dairy products made from whole or
reduced-fat, such as 2 percent milk, among other foods. They contain dietary
cholesterol.
POLYUNSATURATED FATS: Widely considered a “good fat” and a recommended
part of a balanced diet, polyunsaturated fats are also known as omega-3 and
omega-6 fatty acids. They’re beneficial for cholesterol and for lowering
triglycerides. Polyunsaturated fats can be found in fish, walnuts and cooking
oils.
MONOUNSATURATED FATS: They’re found in olive oil, avocados and most
nuts. They contain nutrients and antioxidants. Eating monounsaturated fats
improves blood cholesterol levels.
When health
experts rallied against fat in the 1980s, they were working with the data they
had.
The case against
saturated fat in particular was that it had far more calories than other food
groups and it raised LDL, the bad cholesterol.
New research is
available, and it says that if one removes saturated fat from one’s diet, it
needs to be replaced with something healthier.
For a long time,
we didn’t make a healthy swap. Many of us still haven’t.
Today, there is
a consensus that polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats are healthy.
(See sidebar for details.)
Saturated fats?
The conventional wisdom says they’re harmful, but that tells only part of the
story.
In 2010 Patty
Siri-Tarino, an associate staff scientist with Children's Hospital Oakland
Research Institute, published a meta-analysis of the association between
dietary saturated fat and risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and
cardiovascular disease.
The analysis
looked at 21 separate epidemiological studies that met certain guidelines.
The conclusion: There is insufficient evidence to conclude that saturated fat raises
the risk for stroke, coronary heart and cardiovascular disease.
The researchers
say more study is necessary to determine whether there are associations between
the aforementioned health risks and saturated fat in specific age and sex subgroups.
“Very likely, the reason for the lack of
association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease was that people were
replacing their saturated fat with carbohydrates,” Siri-Tarino said.
“When you increase carbohydrate in the diet, it can
lead to a different problem. It can induce an atherogenic dyslipidemia. You
think you’re doing something healthy by decreasing saturated fat, but replacing
it with carbohydrates, especially refined and processed carbs, is not going to
help you.”
Atherogenic dyslipidemia,
according to the National Institutes of Health, comprises a triad of increased
blood concentrations of small dense low-density lipoprotein particles,
decreased high-density lipoprotein particles and increased triglycerides.
It is a feature
of obesity and a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
Studies like
this one shed light on the fact that public health experts’ efforts to lower
saturated fats and bad cholesterol to reduce heart disease may have led to an
increase in atherogenic dyslipidemia, which is a risk factor for heart disease.
It’s possible
that when we reduced saturated fats in our diets we replaced them with
processed carbohydrates and didn’t do ourselves any favors.
Replacing
saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat is beneficial, according to research
studies, although not all of them.
What’s evident
is: there is still much to be learned about fat.
A 2010 study by
the Harvard School of Public Health using randomized clinical trials found that
people who replaced saturated fat in their diets with polyunsaturated fat
reduced their risk of coronary heart disease by 19 percent compared with
control groups.
In 2013 the
Sydney Diet Heart Study concluded that the benefits of the most abundant
polyunsaturated fatty acid -- omega-6 linoleic acid -- have not been
established.
The authors did
a meta-analysis of studies that considered polyunsaturated fats and showed that
those where the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio was higher demonstrated beneficial
results, while studies where the omega-6 content was higher did not show
benefit.
One can see how
this is a tough sell for the people who campaign for public health.
It’s hard to put
“Replace Certain Fats with Certain Other Kinds of Fats That Have Even Longer
and More Confusing Names If You Want to Live Longer – Maybe!” on a bumper
sticker.
“The field of nutritional science can be murky,” said Siri-Tarino.
So, How Should We Think of Fats?
Dariush Mozaffarian from the Harvard School of Public Health is one of
the nation’s leading experts on diet as it relates to disease.
He said, “Total fat intake has
little or no impact on health.”
According to
Mozaffarian, a person can have either a very high-fat or a very low-fat diet
that is very healthy or a very high-fat or a very low-fat diet that is very
unhealthy.
How is that? A
food can be either high-fat or low-fat and be healthy, or it can be high-fat or
low-fat and be unhealthy.
His point is:
don’t generalize when it comes to fats.
Mozaffarian
advises avoiding unhealthy foods such as refined grains, sugars, starches,
sugary drinks, processed meats and foods containing trans fats or high amounts
of salt.
He recommends
replacing them with healthy vegetable fats, oils, fruits, vegetables, nuts,
whole grains, fish, yogurt, vegetable oils -- especially extra-virgin olive oil
-- and modest amounts of cheese.
“Total fat in any food, or in the diet, should be
ignored,” Mozaffarian
said. “One should focus on eating more healthy
foods.”
Here's the Problem With ‘Low-Fat’
Foods
Cornell researchers found that putting “low-fat” labels on snack foods
led to people eating up to 50 percent more than foods with labels that lacked a
low-fat claim.
People assume
low-fat means fewer calories.
Researchers who
went to a grocery store and looked at fat and calorie content of “low-fat”
processed foods found that the foods contained 59 percent less fat but only 15
percent fewer calories.
As the Cornell
researchers point out, that’s not enough to justify increased consumption.
Overweight
individuals are especially susceptible to such labeling.
Assured by the
words “low-fat,” those who took part in the study consumed 60 more calories
than their thinner peers.
And here’s a tip
nutritionists know but has yet to make its way into the mainstream. Fat
satisfies appetite longer, which leads to eating less.
What’s Next for Fat?
In the years to come we’re likely to learn that not only are certain
fats harmful or good, but certain fatty acids in the context of different food
sources are harmful or good.
Now,
polyunsaturated fats are recommended, but in the future, only certain
polyunsaturated fats might be recommended.
The days of
making broad, sweeping generalizations about food groups are coming to an end.
“The 1980s was all about ‘low-fat,’ so people
increased their carbs,”
Siri-Tarino said. “Now health officials
are saying to replace saturated fat with polyunsaturated or with
monounsaturated.”
Siri-Tarino
laughs.
She knows this
is a hard sell.
“What does that mean to the person on the street?” she says. “Eat
fish, nuts and avocado more often, and use fish to replace beef.”
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