Moderate Fat May be Better at Reducing Heart Disease Risks
No, I’m not giving up…..That headline comes from the American Heart Association. They now suggest that a moderate-fat diet may work better than a low-fat regimen for people suffering from metabolic syndrome, a collection of conditions putting them at higher risk for cardiovascular disease. They claim that that this has been their recommendation all along. That’s funny! I always thought the recommendation was for a low-fat diet?
“This is a good study that essentially confirms that the current recommendations are appropriate,” said Alice Lichtenstein, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association (AHA). “Since 2000, the AHA has been recommending not a low-fat diet, but one that is low in saturated fats and trans fatty acids.”
People with metabolic syndrome are glucose-intolerant, meaning they can’t process blood sugar well. Low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets exacerbate this condition, Lichtenstein explained.
That sounds awfully similar to what this blog has been saying from the beginning. Why don’t they take the next step and admit that eating fat does not cause metabolic syndrome as well? I guess that would be too much to ask. I would also be asking too much for them to update their website because if you look closely, you can see that their recommendation for the proper diet sure appears low-fat to me:
Choose lean meats and poultry without skin and prepare them without added saturated and trans fat.
* Cuts of red meat and pork labeled ‘loin’ and ‘round’ usually have the least amount of fat.
* Remove all visible fat from meat and poultry before cooking.
* Remove skin from poultry before eating.
* Choose white meat most often when eating poultry.
* Grill, bake or broil meats and poultry.
* Cut back on processed meats that are high in saturated fat and sodium.
Select fat-free, 1 percent fat, and low-fat dairy products.
* Minimize your intake of whole-fat dairy products such as butter and whole milk or full-fat dairy products (yogurt, cheeses).
* If you drink whole or 2 percent milk, or use full-fat dairy products, gradually switch to fat-free, low-fat or reduced-fat dairy products.
I follow none of these recommendations and as a matter of fact, I do the complete opposite. I eat the highest fat meats I can find. What they would like to say, if they only knew better, would be to avoid fatty carbohydrate foods such as milk and french fries. These things have high fat and high carbs and they are indeed a problem. How simple it would be to say avoid eating large amounts of saturated fats if you eat carbohydrates. The secret for life is simply that if you avoid carbohydrates, you can enjoy all the saturated fat you can stand. In fact, our bodies function optimally with plenty of dietary saturated fat.
“To be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, you must have three or more of the following risk factors for heart disease: belly fat, high triglycerides, low good cholesterol, high blood sugar and high blood pressure.”
The study was among several to be presented Monday at the AHA’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. Researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle randomized 71 men and women with metabolic syndrome into one of two diet arms, the first made up of 40 percent fat, 45 percent carbohydrate and 15 percent protein (the moderate-fat diet) and the other, the low-fat diet, containing 20 percent fat, 65 percent carbs and 15 percent protein. Saturated fat content was about 8 percent in each, and each had about the same amount of fiber.
Levels of LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol fell 3.4 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) on the low-fat diet compared with 11.6 mg/dL on the moderate-fat plan. HDL (or “good”) cholesterol also fell, by 4.9 mg/dL on the low-fat plan and by 1.9 mg/dL on the other.
C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation linked to heart disease, fell more in the low-fat group than in the moderate-fat group (0.82 mg/L versus 0.63 mg/L), but the authors considered it a good drop in both cases.
While triglycerides, another measure of heart health, increased 11.1 mg/dL on the low-fat diet, they dropped 28.6 mg/dL on the other plan.
Experts familiar with the study aren’t surprised by the findings. “This sort of falls within the boundaries of what we used to call the Atkins diet, which was a high-lipid and low-carb diet. Normally this kind of diet suppresses appetite, improves diabetes,” said Dr. Alfred Bove, president of the American College of Cardiology. “This diet looks like it does a good job of altering the negative metabolic effects of early diabetes or high carbohydrate stimulation,” he said.
“Much of this we’ve known before, but the idea is that a moderate-fat diet is something most people can tolerate,” Bove said. “It probably affects the way insulin is released because if you have a lot of carbohydrates in the diet, you tend to generate a lot of insulin, and insulin is the hormone that lowers blood sugar,” Bove explained. “In addition to lowering blood sugar, it also increases appetite so a lot of people on high-carb diets are restimulated to eat more.”
Ah, so the Atkins diet is not so bad after all. There is hope for the world. The rest of the article degenerates into the DASH diet and its conflicting results; and of course, more associations that are rather meaningless. But the bottom line is that the AHA, to its credit, seems to be taking a step in the right direction although it’s highly unlikely that this will generate enough buzz to help people to get their health together.
Such a shame.
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on November 22, 2009 at 11:44 pm
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[...] FatJ Jim wrote an interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerpt“This sort of falls within the boundaries of what we used to call the Atkins bdiet/b, which was a high-lipid and low-carb bdiet/b. Normally this kind of bdiet/b suppresses appetite, improves bdiabetes/b,” said Dr. Alfred Bove, president of the … [...]
on November 23, 2009 at 12:04 am
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[...] Original post by unknown [...]
on November 23, 2009 at 3:26 am
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tammi Jacobs, kells. kells said: Zeroing In On Health – The Blog! » Moderate Fat May be Better at …: They now suggest that a moderate-fat diet.. http://bit.ly/08Hd5lh [...]