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Saturated fats are benign with regard to inflammatory effects, as are the MUFAs. The meager effect that saturated fats have on serum cholesterol levels when modest but adequate amounts of polyunsaturated oils are included in the diet, and the lack of any clear evidence that saturated fats are promoting any of the conditions that can be attributed to PUFA makes one wonder how saturated fats got such a bad reputation in the health literature. The influence of dietary fats on serum cholesterol has been overstated, and a physiological mechanism for saturated fats causing heart disease is still missing.
Various aldehydes produced in the oxidation of PUFAs, as well as sugars, are known to initiate or augment several diseases, such as cancer, inflammation, asthma, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, and endothelial dysfunction. Saturated fats per se may not be responsible for many of the adverse health effects with which they have been associated; instead, oxidation of PUFAs in those foods may be the cause of any associations that have been found. Consequently, the dietary recommendations to restrict saturated fats in the diet should be revised to reflect differences in handling before consumption, e.g., dairy fats are generally not heated to high temperatures. It is time to reevaluate the dietary recommendations that focus on lowering serum cholesterol and to use a more holistic approach to dietary policy.
Excellent article! No surprises there, of course, but it's very gratifying to see all that information in the journal of the American Society for Nutrition.
Great find. Thanks for the link.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Hi Zizzle, Great post. When food shopping I always read the nutrition facts and ingredients. I have noticed that the reduced fat processed foods have more sugar added than the non-fat reduced foods. Jon
