It’s Official Saturated Fats Are Good For You!

Every week day and some weekends I sit down to read the latest research on food and health.  It has become a habit and it vastly increases my knowledge base about food and nutrition.  I then pick out the information that is important for the readers of Changing Habits and put it on facebook, twitter and in my latest news on the front page of my website.

Believe it or not there is a lot that excites me but nothing has excited me as much of late as the news that saturated fats, (found in butter, cream, red meat and other animal based foods as well as coconut) seem to have no relation to heart disease.  I’ve been saying this for years and now there is a study which has concluded this very thing from results of 21 previous studies on 348,000 adults by Dr Ronald M Krauss of the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI).

The study included participants, who were generally healthy from the start, who were surveyed about their diet habits and then followed for anywhere from five to 23 years. Over that time, 11,000 developed heart disease or suffered a stroke.  Overall, Krauss and his colleagues found that there was no difference in the risks of heart disease and stroke between people with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat.

The analysis included what are known as epidemiological studies - where the researchers looked for associations between people's reported diet habits and their risk of heart disease and stroke. Dr Krauss is a very well known and respected researcher.  He is prolific with published papers in prestigious health periodicals and has many credentials to his name- (see end of this article.)

When ever I see this type of research that so opposes other research on the market I first like to see who funds the research and secondly, it makes it very very clear that we cannot focus alone on single nutrients, macro (carbohydrates, protein, fats) or micro (vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients) but rather that we must look at dietary and lifestyle patterns that increase health and prevent disease.

Changing Habits is one such diet and lifestyle that does increase health and ultimately prevents disease.  It's very very easyto eat foods provided by nature and stay away from technology and human interference foods.

Credentials of Dr Ronald M Krauss

Ronald M. Krauss, M.D., is Director of Atherosclerosis Research at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Senior Scientist in the Life Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of California at Berkeley. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University with honors and served his internship and residency on the Harvard Medical Service of Boston City Hospital. He then joined the staff of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, first as Clinical Associate and then as Senior Investigator in the Molecular Disease Branch. Dr. Krauss is board-certified in internal medicine, endocrinology and metabolism, and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Federation for Clinical Research, and the American Society of Clinical Nutrition. He has received a number of awards including the American Heart Association Scientific Councils Distinguished Achievement Award.

Dr. Krauss has been a Senior Advisor to the National Cholesterol Education Program, and is actively involved with the American Heart Association (AHA), having served as Chairman of the Nutrition Committee. He is founder and Chair of the AHA Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism. His research involves studies of genetic, dietary, and hormonal effects on plasma lipoproteins and coronary disease risk.