I say all the time that the greatest asset I have to offer is not the care that I give in my office, rather the education I can provide. If I fail to educate my patients as to not only what is causing them to feel the way they do, but also how to never be in the same situation again, I have failed as a Doctor. In its simplist definition the word doctor means teacher. So my primary purpose is to teach people how to change their habits. So today I want to talk about heart disease. How many of you have heard that saturated fats cause heart disease? A show of hands would probably reveal all of you have heard this. Well.......they do not. In fact two recent studies state that saturated fats do NOT cause heart disease. take a moment to catch you breath. I know that you are probably shocked th hear that. For decades we have been told of the dangers of saturated fats. We have seen it all over food labels, etc......The WHO/FAO report says that “Intake of SFA [saturated fatty acids] was not significantly associated with CHD mortality…" They go on to say "SFA intake was not significantly associated CHD events [e.g. heart attacks]…" You may want to know what the effect of low fat diets were on risk.........according to the WHO “…fatal CHD was not reduced by…the low-fat diets…”
Another recent study by Siri-Tarino PW, et al. concluded the following :
1. No association between saturated fat and risk of heart disease
2. No association between saturated fat and risk of stroke
In an nutshell what is being said is that saturated fats have no relationship to the risk for cardiovascular disease.
