Thursday, 15 September 2011

What advice should the American Heart Association be giving regarding saturated fat?

The following paper was published in Current Atherosclerosis Reports 2011 Sep 8.

Study title and authors:
Effects of Diet on High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol.
Siri-Tarino PW.
Atherosclerosis Research, Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, 5700 Martin Luther King Junior Way, Oakland, CA, 94609, USA, psiri@chori.org.

This paper can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21901431

The American Heart Association give the advice that high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) is the "good cholesterol" and may help to prevent heart disease.

In this paper Siri-Tarino reviewed the effects of various diets on HDL-C levels.

Siri-Tarino found:
(a) Added sugars were associated with decreased HDL-C levels.
(b) HDL-C levels were increased by 4-5% with weight loss, omega-3 fatty acids, and a Mediterranean diet pattern.
(c) Replacement of dietary carbohydrate with polyunsaturated fats is associated with a 7% increase in HDL-C.
(d) Replacement of dietary carbohydrate with saturated fats is associated with a 12% increase in HDL-C. (Monosaturated fats effects were inbetween the polyunsaturated and saturated values)

On their own website the American Heart Association say that HDL-C is the "good" cholesterol which may help to prevent heart disease, and the scientific evidence says that consuming a high saturated fat diet will lift your HDL-C levels more than any other type of diet - so shouldn't the American Heart Association be telling us all to eat a high saturated fat diet?

0 comments:

Post a Comment

 

Copyright © Healthy Diets New Design by O Pregador | Blogger Theme by Blogger Template de luxo | Powered by Blogger