The fear of fat: it's time to get over our fear of dietary fat
There are copious amounts of misinformation in the world today, especially in the health and wellness industry. Some of it is unintentional and is simply repeated so often people assume it’s true, the kind of misinformation or myths such as “you only use 10% of your brain” or “being cold gives you a cold”. However, there is other misinformation in the world that is more threatening, that we could pay the price of for years to come.
The “low fat craze”, or “fat-free food boom” of the 80s and 90s started after it was recommended that we consume less total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium with the release of the first ever dietary guidelines published in 1980. These guidelines followed what is known as the diet-heart hypothesis, a conclusion from studies released in 1976 which suggested that saturated fat, cholesterol in the diet or in some cases total fat, leads to an increased level of cholesterol in the blood, and that causes heart disease.
Ancel Keys is known as the founder of the diet-heart hypothesis, he came out with a study including six countries (later expanded to seven) showing the dietary fat intake of these six countries against their prevalence of heart disease. This showed that there was a clean straight line demonstrating this linear relationship where the more fat people in a country consumed, the more heart disease they got. Publicised heavily by the vegetable oil industry and food production industry who would benefit from the information being misinterpreted in this way.
There were a number of problems with this initial demonstration and study design. Firstly, this is an ecological comparison, in ecological studies, the unit of observation is the population or community. It is the least reliable of any observational study because heart disease occurs in individuals and food intake data for a country occurs in a country. Populations don’t get heart disease, individuals do. The second problem with this study is data was collected for twenty-two countries, not just six. When all twenty-two countries are included, the “clean straight line” doesn’t look very clean at all, in fact, you can draw the opposite line if you wanted to cherry pick six different countries the same way Ancel Keys did.
At that time, there were a lot of complexities that scientists didn't yet understand, and not a lot of data to draw these conclusions from.
Since then, scientists have challenged everything that low-fat pioneers taught us. And it turns out a lot of the dietary advice we were given was misinformed, as you can see from the issues with the study this advice was based on.
So where does the research stand now?
There is no evidence that the cholesterol particles derived from fat increase risk of heart disease – unless fat consumption is paired with a moderate to high intake of starchy, sugary carbohydrate sources. It is at that point that cholesterol can become oxidised and lead to an increased risk of heart disease.
Scientists have known for quite a long time that cholesterol plays a role in heart disease, but they also know that it’s not the leading player and there are several other factors that determine whether an elevated level of cholesterol in the blood will cause heart disease. One of the things that determine that is whether the LDL particle or more specifically the polyunsaturated fat in the membrane of the LDL particle oxidises. At first glance, the data from Randomised Controlled Trials seems to be inconsistent, but when considering one unifying characteristic exhibited by the subjects of these studies – inflammation, it becomes obvious that there’s more to this debate.
High systemic inflammation underlies processes fundamental to nearly all diseases of aging and even cancer (which is a disease of aging). This elephant in the room can’t be ignored when answering the question about diet and heart disease.
Heart disease is responsible for a third of all deaths worldwide, so there is a reason for concern, although, as it stands, there are actually no studies that link animal fat consumption, healthy natural vegetable fats, and cholesterol with heart disease or weight gain. The only studies that exist in this nature have used highly processed vegetable oils, trans fats and the wrong kinds of fat. On the other hand, there are many studies that suggest high consumption of sugars and starch are very highly correlated with weight gain and risk of heart disease due to the oxidisation and inflammation they can cause.
let’s look at the important role cholesterol plays in the body
Because cholesterol is a vital compound to the body, the body makes it. The liver manufactures cholesterol from carbohydrates, proteins and fat, the liver makes 800 to 1500 milligrams of cholesterol per day, this will ultimately contribute much more to the body’s total than the diet does.
So, what does it do?
Cholesterol is essential to fertility, to carry on normal pregnancy, and to basic life and growth of a human being.
Serving as the structural component, it is an essential component of cell membranes.
It is essential to brains, our brains contain 25% of the cholesterol found in the body. It is an antioxidant and is used in the serotonin receptor part of the brain. So low-fat diets can lead to neural issues.
Cholesterol is necessary for the production of all the steroid hormones, those regulate blood sugar, mineral metabolism, and all sex hormones.
It is necessary for vitamin D synthesis.
Cholesterols regulate the production of sex hormones, which explains why some teenage girls who are too lean experience delayed pubertal development and amenorrhea.
It is necessary for the production of bile acids, which is necessary for digestion.
It acts as a transportation mechanism for fat-soluble vitamins into the body. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble, which means they need to be bound to fat in order for our bodies to use them. If you aren’t consuming enough fat you could become deficient in these vitamins.
The best way to understand what cholesterol does in the body is to look at cholesterol deficiency. Cholesterol deficiency can be seen in what’s referred to as Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome (SLOS), a genetic deficiency in cholesterol production. If we look at the type of symptoms of this genetic deficiency in cholesterol, we can start to understand the types of things that cholesterol does. In the rare cases where someone is born with this disorder, they have all kinds of facial and skeletal abnormalities. They can have mental retardation, autism, hyperactivity disorders, attention deficit disorders, visual dysfunction, endocrine dysfunction, serious digestive problems, and self-injurious and aggressive behaviour. Now we can start to see that cholesterol is basically affecting everything in the body.
Despite the general consensus, cholesterol is not an evil villain lurking in unhealthy foods, it is a compound the body makes, uses and needs. We must ask ourselves, “why would our bodies naturally produce a compound that is going to kill us”? Our bodies are smarter than that, they have adapted to be perfectly tuned machines that are capable of miraculous things. They want us to survive and thrive, not die.
The body was designed to burn fats, we are naturally very good at burning fatty acids, ketones and storing them to later converting triglycerides into carbohydrate based glucose for energy. When you consume a low-fat diet, you typically increase consumption of carbohydrates which isn’t the bodies preferred fuel supply.
Fat-phobic people need to learn to love fat again as it is responsible for so many functions in the body.
The best fats to consume include
BUTTER (real butter) Grass-fed butter preferably, as it contains CLA (conjugated linoleic acid which is an essential amino acid.
Avocados.
Coconut oil, olive oil.
Nuts and Seeds (walnuts, flaxseeds, almonds).
Fatty fish such as salmon, tuna or salmon roe.
When you eat fat as part of a meal, it slows down the absorption of food that you eat, therefore, you can go longer without getting hungry and your blood sugar levels will not spike as high. This is why it is recommended that if you’re going to eat a high carbohydrate meal, add some fats (nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil) to reduce the spike in your blood sugar levels.
What next?
Low-fat products dominate the shelves of your local supermarket. We choose margarine over butter. We drink low-fat milk instead of full-fat. We buy lean cuts of meat from our butcher. We think bacon and olive oil are evil.
Saturated fats have been given a bad name and like any longstanding belief, it’s going to take time and effort to change that. There is a life cycle of acceptance when it comes to new scientific information. The history of science is overwhelmed with theories that only became accepted by the scientific community after a prolonged uphill battle. Just think about the hostility and ridicule that Charles Darwin faced when he proposed his grand theory of evolution in 1859. In explaining how life on Earth evolved, and implying that humans were not formed in the image of the creator, but rather evolved from apes.
As humans, we will always have a reluctance to explore new ideas and support those who do so, it’s in our nature and instills the idea that we aren’t fond of change. However, there is some comfort that can be found in the history of science: history has nearly always proven that, in the end, truth conquers, as the stories of great scientists such as Darwin show.
Here are some easy ways to include more healthy fats into your diet and fewer vegetable oils:
Add avocado to your breakfast. Sourdough bread, eggs, avocado, and bacon make for a delicious and nutritious breakfast. It’s also an easy order at a café. Avocado has high amounts of monounsaturated fatty acids, which has been shown to lower LDL and increase HDL.
Cook your vegetables in REAL butter. Go for grass-fed as this contains CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) – a polyunsaturated fat that is used as a fat-loss supplement and has a powerful effect on health as shown in studies. Grass-fed butter also contains high amounts of Vitamin E - a potent antioxidant that defends lipids and other components of the cells against oxidative damage.
Include foods high in Omega-3 Fatty Acids. Make sure your diet is abundant in salmon, walnuts, flaxseeds and chia seeds. This essential fatty acid has been shown to reduce inflammation, increase mood and protect heart health.
Avoid processed foods that are high in vegetable oils, such as chips, cakes, chocolate, margarine, and cooking sprays.