With all the news coming out from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology with regard to the health benefits and inclusion of saturated fats in our diets, yesterday’s blog, and my previous blogs outlining the deliberate omission of RCTs on saturated fat’s health and healing benefits, here is yet another completely ignored study published in 2017. I’ll bet you haven’t heard about this one either.
Associations of fats and carbohydrate intake with cardiovascular disease and mortality in 18 countries from five continents (PURE): a prospective cohort study
The Lancet, Volume 390, ISSUE 10107, P2050-2062, November 04, 2017
In summary, the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study was a large, epidemiological cohort ten-year (2003-2013) study that found that higher carbohydrate intake was associated with an increased risk of total mortality; intake of total fat and each type of fat was associated with lower risk of total mortality; higher saturated fat intake was associated with lower risk of stroke; and finally that total fat and saturated and unsaturated fats were not significantly associated with risk of myocardial infarction or cardiovascular disease mortality.
At this point, I’m not quite sure what else it will take to encourage our country’s food policy decision makers to rethink not eating saturated fats, but rather recommending the consumption of low fat foods, and polyunsaturated oils in our nation’s Dietary Guidelines - - advice that has never had any substantial scientific backing, according to a large and fast-growing body of scientific literature. Fortunately, saturated fats are recommended in the newly published JACC paper, finding that government limits on saturated fats are not justified by the science. Yeah!!