Benefits of Reducing Saturated Fat Intake Criticized
Posted:
2017-04-27
A recent editorial by Malhotra, et al. made headlines claiming that reducing saturated fat intake has no effect on coronary heart disease. The authors do not cite the best or most recent evidence to support this claim. Importantly, they fail to acknowledge the results of a recent Cochrane review, which found moderate quality evidence that reducing saturated fat intake decreased cardiovascular (CV) events (including CV deaths, CV morbidity or unexplained CV interventions) in populations at low, moderate and high risk (1). When talking about reducing saturated fat intake, it is important to consider the replacement calories. Recent evidence identifies that the greater reductions in CV events occurred when saturated fat was replaced with polyunsaturated fat, but not with carbohydrate (1). The editorial does emphasize the benefits of a whole dietary approach, such as the Mediterranean diet, instead of focusing on specific nutrients. There is merit to this approach. The Mediterranean diet pattern is low in saturated fat and includes rich sources of unsaturated fat such as oils, nuts, seeds and oily fish, in addition to plenty of legumes, vegetables, fruit and whole grains. See additional commentary from David Katz published in Linkedin: Sat-Fat Bait & Switch.
Seems we were not alone in our concerns about the opinion piece that garnered media attention last week. Further expert reaction from the U.K. to the editorial on saturated fat and heart disease is available from Science Media Centre.
See Additional Content: Is a reduced saturated fat diet recommended for primary or secondary cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention?
Reference
Hooper L, Martin N, Adbelhamid A, Dave Smith G. Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015 Jun 10;(6):CD011737. doi.10.1002/14651858.CD011737. Abstract available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26068959