You’ve been told for decades that saturated fat will kill you. Even medical and health professionals have believed this to be a “fact.” However, did you know that this “fact” has never been proven? In this article, you’ll learn why saturated fat can actually have some amazing benefits.
I have written many times in the last two years about the misconceptions in society about saturated fat and the misperception in the media and with MOST health and medical professionals that saturated fat is bad for you.
If you’ve seen it in some of my articles, I’ve even shown you why saturated fat can even be GOOD for you in some cases, despite the fact that every health and fitness professional in the world accepts the false belief that that are not healthy for you. .
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to FINALLY see a reputable editor have the guts to publish an article about why everyone in the world can be wrong about their beliefs about saturated fat and its health effects.
I got my new issue of Men’s Health magazine recently, and they had a really detailed 6 page article on the faulty research in the past on saturated fat, and some new emerging research showing why it may actually be better for you than what I would never have conceived.
I have to give them credit… the article was very well researched and presented in an easy to understand format to summarize where studies in the past have gone wrong and why recent studies show that everyone may have been wrong for the last 5 decades about saturated fats.
I suggest you read the entire article if you can. If not, I’ll try to give you a brief synopsis of the findings here, since it was a long article…
First of all, did you realize that even though you’ve been told by doctors, nutritionists, dieticians, fitness professionals, and the media that it’s a FACT that saturated fat is bad for you, this “FACT” never really has been tested?
It’s not really a “fact” at all. It was a hypothesis! This goes back to a flawed research study from the 1950s, where a scientist named Ancel Keys published a paper blaming dietary fat intake for the growing phenomenon of heart disease worldwide.
However, there were major flaws in their study. For one, in his conclusions he only used data from a small fraction of the countries where data on fat intake versus heart disease death rate was available. When the researchers went back and looked at data from all countries where data was available, there was actually no relationship between fat intake and deaths from heart disease. So his conclusions were actually false.
Second, blaming fat intake for heart disease was only one factor considered. Other factors, such as smoking rates, stress factors, sugar and refined carbohydrate intake, exercise frequency, and other lifestyle factors, were not considered.
Basically, his conclusions, which blamed fat intake for heart disease deaths, were really just a shot in the dark as to what the possible cause might have been, despite all those other factors I just mentioned, plus of many others, they may be the most prominent cause. .
Unfortunately, the Keys study has been cited for over 5 decades as “fact” that saturated fat is bad for you. As you can see, there’s certainly nothing real about it.
Since then, there have been many other studies attempting to link saturated fat intake to heart disease. Most of these studies have failed to correlate ANY risk from saturated fat. A couple of them made feeble attempts to link saturated fat to heart disease, however the data was later shown to be flawed in those studies as well.
Do we really have evidence that saturated fat can be good for you?
Well, let’s consider some examples…
Did you know that there are several well-known tribes in Africa… the Masai, Samburu and Fulani tribes… where their diet consists mainly of raw whole milk, large amounts of red meat and cow’s blood? Despite their very high intake of saturated fat, they show extremely low levels of body fat, and heart disease among the natives of the tribe is virtually non-existent.
Now, most critics of this example will say that it has to be related to superior genetics… however, this is not true, like when they studied the tribesmen who had moved from their native lands and started to eat more modern diets, their blood chemistry. soared with risk factors for heart disease.
This is also true for the inhabitants of certain Pacific island countries. Several studies have shown that certain Pacific island nations had VERY high intakes of total fat as well as saturated fat from tropical fats such as palm, coconut, and cocoa. Despite the very high intake of saturated fat and total fat, these island natives were typically very lean and heart disease was virtually non-existent.
However, when the researchers followed up on islanders who had moved away from their home island and adopted a typical Western diet, factors for heart disease were through the roof.
In fact, did you know that while eating saturated fat raises bad LDL cholesterol, it actually raises good HDL cholesterol even more, therefore improving your overall cholesterol ratio, which has been shown to be more important than just total cholesterol level (actually total cholesterol is an almost useless number…inflammation is the REAL problem, but that’s a whole different topic).
Another fact to highlight in favor of saturated fats…
Saturated fat is made up of several different types… the 3 most common types are stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid.
Stearic acid is found in animal fat and cocoa at higher levels. Research continues to show that stearic acid has no negative impacts on heart disease risks. In any case, it is neutral or beneficial. In fact, your liver breaks down stearic acid into a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, which is the same type of fat that makes up most heart-healthy olive oil. I bet you didn’t know!
Lauric acid is also beneficial. Not only has it been shown to significantly increase levels of good HDL cholesterol, but it is also missing from the diet of most Americans and has even been shown to have some powerful immune-boosting effects. It is even currently being studied in HIV/AIDS research to help improve immune function in patients.
Tropical oils like coconut and palm are the best sources of beneficial lauric acid.
Palmitic acid is the other main component of saturated fat and has also been shown to increase good HDL cholesterol to the same extent, if not more, than bad LDL cholesterol, making it neutral or beneficial, but certainly it’s not bad for you.
So if all these researchers have tried so hard over the years to point the finger at saturated fat, but still can’t show a correlation between saturated fat and heart disease risk, what are the REAL guilty of heart disease?
Well, here are the real causes of heart disease risk:
- Trans fats (artificially hydrogenated oils)
- Highly refined vegetable oils such as soybean, cottonseed, corn oil, etc. (inflammatory within the body, and typically throws off the omega-6/omega-3 balance)
- Too much refined sugar in the diet (including high fructose corn syrup)
- Too many refined starches like white bread, low-fiber cereals, etc.
- tuxedo
- stressful lifestyle
- Lack of exercise
- Other lifestyle factors
So why does it seem like so many attempts over the years have tried to place the blame on saturated fat? so it used to be mainly animal fats and tropical oils in decades past…
Hmm… Do multi-billion dollar industries really have an influence on the way data is presented to the public? I think you know the answer to that! And don’t even get me started on the cholesterol drug industry! Again, I digress.
I hope this article has opened your eyes to the truth about saturated fat and how you have been misled over the years.
The real FACT is that saturated fat is a neutral substance in your body, and even beneficial at times, not a deadly risk factor for disease. The REAL risk factors are the ones I mentioned above.
Keep in mind that this does NOT mean that eating 5 pounds of bacon for breakfast every morning is good for you, and that you should only eat foods high in saturated fat. Rather, you still need a balance for optimal health…this means fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, healthy meats, eggs, and small amounts of whole or sprouted grains.
Again, unhealthily raised animals are not good for you…this is the case with most commercially raised, grain-fed meats. On the other hand, wild game meats, grass-fed meats, chickens, and free-range eggs (preferably organic) are healthy animals, and therefore meat is generally healthy for us with better omega-3 ratios. to omega-6 than standard commercial meats.
