Lies You Are Told About Fat By Mainstream Nutrition

Choosing the right fats is crucial to your health. Choose the wrong ones and you’ll likely end up with chronic inflammation, clogged arteries, heart disease, and metabolic disfunction. But choose the right ones and you will:

• nourish your body 
• optimize hormone production
• optimize vitamin D synthesis
• optimize bile production
• increase energy
• increase your overall health

(1)

In mainstream nutrition, cholesterol and saturated fat are portrayed as harmful fats that clog your arteries and causes heart attacks. While vegetable, seed, and other oils are labeled “heart healthy” by the AHA. But is this mainstream nutrition narrative really true?

I for one don’t trust big organizations or government branches like the USDA to give accurate unbiased nutrition recommendations, therefore I do my own research and encourage you to do the same. When looking into the main studies (Ancel Key’s “6 Countries Study” and “7 Countries Study” ) that these anti-cholesterol and anti-saturated fat recommendations where based on, I discovered many flaws:

1. They are observational studies based on correlation, not causation. In other words the scientists were unable to control for other possible causes due to the observational nature of the study. 
2. The correlation falls apart when you add in 12 more countries (for a total of 22 countries) like scientists Hilleboe and Yerushalmy did. (See picture below)
3. These studies looked at all fat consumption, not cholesterol and saturated fat specifically. (2, 3, 4, 5) 

Graph from Key’s 6 Country Study (2):

* When looking at these 6 countries you can see a correlation between fat consumption and deaths from heart disease. The USDA used this study to make it’s recommendation to limit cholesterol and to have less than 10% of your Calories come from saturated fat. However as I stated before their are many flaws in this study.

 Graph from Hilleboe and Yerushalmy (2):

* When you add in 12 more countries, the correlation between fat intake and deaths from heart disease starts to disapear.

 Another thing that troubled me about this theory was that our hunter gather ancestors have been eating high cholesterol diets for thousands of years, but as far as we know their incidents of heart disease where extremely low.  For example: 

• Roughly 70-75% of the Innuit’s (Eskimos) Calories came from saturated fat and they had very low incidences of chronic degenerative diseases, atherosclerosis (clogged arteries), and heart disease. (6, 7, 8)
• East African herdsmen (the Masai, Samburu and Rendille peoples) traditionally ate meat, milk, and blood. Their diet had roughly 65% saturated fat and they had extremely low incidences of chronic degenerative diseases, atherosclerosis, and heart disease. (6, 7, 8)
• Mongolian steppe nomads traditionally ate milk, meat, and occasionally horse blood. Their diet was therefore very high in saturated fat, likely 60% or higher. The Mongolians enjoyed excellent health. (9)   

Current research indicates that vegetable/seed oils, sugar, and metabolic disfunction are far more likely to cause heart disease. To read about why vegetable oils are harmful check out my article The Real Bad Fats. To learn which fats are the healthiest check out my article Which Fats Are Healthy.

Works Cited

1.  Dr. Lauren Housley, Ph.D., R.D. “Fat.” Human Nutrition Class. January- May 2020, Chico State University, Chico, CA. Power Point.

2. Harcombe, Zoe. “Keys six countries graph.” zoeharcombe.com. 20 February 2017. https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2017/02/keys-six-countries-graph/?unapproved=86866&moderation-hash=ecb124bde76fae4f56f922dc0d002457#comment-86866

3. Shanahan, Catherine. Deep Nutrition. New York: Flat Iron Books. 2016. Print.

 4. “How Ancel Keys Brainwashed the Masses Into Fearing Meat (He’s Wrong).” Carnivore Aurelius. 16 June 2019. https://carnivoreaurelius.com/ancel-keys/

5. Seven Countries Study. Accessed 17 August 2020. https://www.sevencountriesstudy.com/

 6. Ancestral Health Guy. “People With The Lowest Levels of Heart Disease.” Instagram, 23 June 2019. https://www.instagram.com/p/BzDcZF3gZ3v/

7. “Hunter-gatherers and traditional people.” Darwinian Medicine. Accessed 29 August 2020. http://darwinian-medicine.com/ hunter-gatherers-and-traditional-people/

8. Ede, Georgia. “The History of All-Meat Diets.” Diagnosis Diet. Accessed 29 August 2020. https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/full-article/all-meat-diets

9. Czapp, Katherine. “Diet of Mongolia.” Weston A Price.15 February 2008. https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/in-his-footsteps/diet-of-mongolia/