5 Studies on Saturated Fat — Time to Retire the Myth?

Since the 1950s, people have believed that saturated fat is bad for human health.

This was originally based on observational studies showing that people who consumed a lot of saturated fat had higher rates of death from heart disease.

The diet-heart hypothesis states that saturated fat raises LDL (bad) cholesterol in the blood, which then supposedly lodges in the arteries and causes heart disease.

Even though this hypothesis has never been proven, most official dietary guidelines are based on it.

While the issue is still debated, numerous recent studies have found no link between saturated fat consumption and heart disease.

This article reviews 5 of the large, most comprehensive and most recent studies on this issue.
1. Hooper L, et al. Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database Systematic Review, 2015.

Details: This is a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, performed by the Cochrane collaboration — an independent organization of scientists.

This review includes 15 randomized controlled trials with over 59,000 participants.

Each of these studies had a control group, reduced saturated fat or replaced it with other types of fat, lasted for at least 24 months, and looked at hard endpoints, such as heart attacks or death.

Results: The study found no statistically significant effects of reducing saturated fat, in regard to heart attacks, strokes, or all-cause deaths.

Although reducing saturated fat had no effects, replacing some of it with polyunsaturated fat led to a 27% lower risk of cardiovascular events (but not death, heart attacks, or strokes).

Conclusion: People who reduced their saturated fat intake were just as likely to die, or get heart attacks or strokes, compared to those who ate more saturated fat.

However, partially replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat may reduce the risk of cardiovascular events (but not death, heart attacks, or strokes).

These results are similar to a previous Cochrane review, done in 2011 .

2. De Souza RJ, et al. Intake of saturated and trans unsaturated fatty acids and risk of all- cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: Systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.Trusted Source BMJ, 2015.

Details: This systematic, observational review of studies looked at the association of saturated fat and heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and death from cardiovascular disease.

The data included 73 studies, with 90,500–339,000 participants for each endpoint.

Results: Saturated fat intake wasn’t linked with heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, or dying of any cause.

Conclusion: People who consumed more saturated fat weren’t more likely to experience heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, or death from any cause, compared to those who ate less saturated fat.

However, the results from the individual studies were very diverse, so it’s hard to draw an exact conclusion from them.

The researchers rated the certainty of the association as “low,” emphasizing the need for more high-quality studies on the subject.

3. Siri-Tarino PW, et al. Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease.Trusted Source American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2010.

Details: This review looked at evidence from observational studies on the link between dietary saturated fat and risk of heart disease and stroke.

The studies included a total of 347,747 participants, who were followed for 5–23 years.

Results: During follow up, about 3% of participants (11,006 people) developed heart disease or stroke.

Saturated fat intake wasn’t linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, or strokes, even among those with the highest intake.

Conclusion: This study didn’t find any association between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease.

4. Chowdhury R, et al. Association of dietary, circulating, and supplement fatty acids with coronary risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Trusted Source Annals of Internal Medicine Journal, 2014.

Details: This review looked at cohort studies and randomized controlled trials on the link between dietary fatty acids and the risk of heart disease or sudden cardiac death.

The study included 49 observational studies with more than 550,000 participants, as well as 27 randomized controlled trials with more than 100,000 participants.

Results: The study didn’t find any link between saturated fat consumption and the risk of heart disease or death.

Conclusion: People with higher saturated fat intake weren’t at an increased risk of heart disease or sudden death.

Furthermore, the researchers didn’t find any benefit to consuming polyunsaturated fats instead of saturated fats. Long-chain omega-3 fatty acids were an exception, as they had protective effects.

5. Schwab U, et al. Effect of the amount and type of dietary fat on risk factors for cardiometabolic risk factors, and risk of developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer: A systematic review.Trusted Source Food and Nutrition Research, 2014.

Details: This systematic review assessed the effects of the amount and type of dietary fat on body weight and risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

Participants included both people who were healthy and those with risk factors. This review included 607 studies, including randomized controlled trials, prospective cohort studies, and nested case-control studies.

Results: Consuming saturated fat wasn’t linked with an increased risk of heart disease or an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

The researchers found that partially replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat may lower LDL (bad) cholesterol concentrations.

It also may decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, especially in men.

However, substituting refined carbs for saturated fat may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Conclusion: Eating saturated fat doesn’t increase the risk of heart disease or type 2 diabetes. However, partially replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat may help reduce the risk of heart disease, especially in men.
Bottom line

    Reducing saturated fat has no effect on the risk of heart disease or death.
    Replacing saturated fat with refined carbs seems to increase the risk of heart disease.
    Replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat may reduce the risk of cardiovascular events, but results for heart attacks, strokes, and death are mixed.

Time to retire the myth?

People with certain medical conditions or cholesterol problems may need to watch their saturated fat intake.

However, study results selected for this article are pretty clear that, for the average individual, saturated fat has no significant association with heart disease.

That being said, there may be a small benefit to replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat.

This doesn’t mean that saturated fat is “bad” — just that it’s neutral, while some unsaturated fats are particularly healthy.

By replacing something that’s neutral with something that’s very healthy, you’ll get a net health benefit.

Healthy sources of unsaturated fats include nuts, seeds, fatty fish, extra virgin olive oil, and avocados.

At the end of the day, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for the general population to worry about saturated fat.

There are other issues that are much more worthy of your attention, like avoiding sugary soda and junk food, eating healthy food, and exercising.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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Heart failure and diabetes: Research suggests a link

Individuals with diabetes have an elevated risk of heart failure, new research indicates.
 
An association between heart disease and diabetes is understood. New findings published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings suggests diabetes to be an indicator of heart failure in its own right. 

The research analysed the long-term impact of diabetes on developing heart failure, surveying 116 individuals with diabetes and 232 without diabetes. Researchers compared the age and sex of the participants and the prevalence of conditions including coronary heart disease, heart relaxation dysfunction, and hypertension. Over the ten-year follow-up period, one-fifth of those with diabetes experienced heart failure irregardless of other factors, compared to twelve percent of non-diabetics. There was no statistical difference between both groups of cardiac death, heart attacks, or stroke.  

The research suggests, according to Mayo Clinic cardiologist and senior study author Dr Horng Chen, “that diabetes mellitus alone is an independent risk factor for the development of heart failure.” The news is concerning for a country such as India, where heart disease is the leading cause of death. 
Diabetes is on the rise. By some estimates, diabetes is the country’s fastest-growing disease with a combination of lifestyle factors conducive to developing the disease and a genetic predisposition to the same driving the increase. 

Already, India’s diabetic population outnumbers the entire populace of some countries. In 2017, Diabetes affected 8.8 percent of India’s adult population with 72,946,400 cases. Some projections anticipate that India will see 98.0 million cases of type-2 diabetes alone by 2030. Some estimates anticipate an overall total of 134 million diabetes cases by just 2025. As such, the prospect of a link between heart failure and diabetes heightens the need for scrutiny of the country’s diabetes crisis and a need to investigate the connection further. 

“Our hope is that this study provides a strong foundation for further investigations into diabetes and heart failure,” comments Chen. “There is still much to learn and study in terms of this association and how to best diagnose and treat this condition.”

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Magnesium can cause sudden cardiac death

A new prospective study based on data from the Women's Health Initiative found a potential inverse association between dietary magnesium and fatal coronary heart disease in postmenopausal women.

The study, which also showed a trend between magnesium and sudden cardiac death in this population, is published in the Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Charles Eaton, MD, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and a large team of researchers from various institutions coauthored the article entitled "Association of Dietary Magnesium Intake with Fatal Coronary Heart Disease and Sudden Cardiac Death: Findings from the Women's Health Initiative."

The researchers examined magnesium intake at baseline for more than 153,000 postmenopausal women and identified the development of fatal coronary heart disease and sudden cardiac death over the subsequent 10.5 years of follow-up. The data revealed that higher magnesium intake was associated with a statistically significant risk reduction in fatal coronary heart disease and a reduction in the risk of sudden cardiac death.

Susan G. Kornstein" Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women's Health and Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health, Richmond, VA, stated: "If the findings of this study are confirmed, future research should test whether high-risk women would benefit from magnesium supplementation to reduce their risk of fatal coronary heart disease."

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AI can better predict risk of heart attack, cardiac death

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be better at predicting heart attacks and cardiac deaths than the standard clinical tests used by cardiologists, according to a study.

The study,  analysed participants from a randomised research trial, who were middle-aged subjects with cardiovascular risk factors, but no known coronary artery disease.

Researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the US used machine learning to assess the risk of myocardial infarction or heart attack and cardiac death in the subjects.

They then compared the predictions with the actual experiences of the subjects over fifteen years.
Machine learning is an application of AI which gives the computers the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience.

Subjects answered a questionnaire to identify cardiovascular risk factors and to describe their diets, exercise and marital status.

The final study consisted of 1,912 subjects, fifteen years after they were first studied.
As many as 76 subjects presented an event of myocardial infarction or cardiac death during this follow-up time.

The subjects' predicted machine learning scores aligned accurately with the actual distribution of observed events.

The atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk score, the standard clinical risk assessment used by cardiologists, overestimated the risk of events in the higher risk categories, the researchers said.
In unadjusted analysis, high predicted machine learning risk was significantly associated with a higher risk of a cardiac event.

"Our study showed that machine learning integration of clinical risk factors and imaging measures can accurately personalise the patient's risk of suffering an adverse event such as heart attack or cardiac death," the researchers said.

"While machine learning models are sometimes regarded as black boxes, we have also tried to demystify machine learning. When applied after the scan, such individualised predictions can help guide recommendations for the patient, to decrease their risk of suffering an adverse cardiac event," they said.

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Nuts can keep diabetics' heart healthy

Eating a handful of nuts daily, particularly tree nuts, may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease among people with Type-2 diabetes, associated with an increased risk for high cholesterol, heart disease and stroke, say researchers, including one of Indian origin.
Tree nuts such as walnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, pistachios, pecans, macadamias, hazelnuts and pine nuts were strongly associated with reduced risk of coronary events, cardiac death and total mortality compared with peanuts.
The results showed that eating even a small amount of nuts had an effect. 
While the exact biological mechanisms of nuts on heart health are unclear, researchers noted that nuts appear to improve blood sugar control, blood pressure, metabolism of fats, inflammation and blood vessel wall function. 
"Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and a major cause of heart attacks, strokes and disability for people living with Type-2 diabetes," said a Prof.

"Efforts to understand the link between the two conditions are important to prevent cardiovascular complications of Type-2 diabetes and help people make informed choices about their health," the Prof. added.
In this study, the team used data from 16,217 men and women before and after they were diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes. 
People who increased their intake of nuts after being diagnosed with diabetes had an 11 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease, a 15 per cent lower risk of coronary heart disease, a 25 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease death, and a 27 per cent lower risk of all-cause premature death.
Each additional serving per week of total nuts was associated with a three per cent lower risk of heart disease and six per cent lower risk of heart disease death.
Adding more nuts to one's diets proved beneficial probably at any age or stage. 
"It seems never too late to improve diet and lifestyle after diagnosis among individuals with Type-2 diabetes," the researchers said.

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Inhaling chemicals to get high can be fatal

A 19-year-old recovering drug addict died after inhaling deodorant in an attempt to get high, doctors who treated him in the Netherlands have revealed in a case report to highlight the fatal consequences of inhaling chemicals.
Doctors told the story of the unnamed teenager in a stark warning to people of the dangers of sniffing solvents. The teen, believed to have been in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, died after his heart stopped and he could not be revived by paramedics.

The patient, who had a history of psychotic symptoms, was in rehab for his cannabis and ketamine use when he relapsed and looked for a different way to intoxicate himself.
He placed a towel over his head and inhaled deodorant spray, which can quickly make users feel light-headed, dizzy and happy, according to the report published in the  medical journal. 
He soon became hyperactive and started jumping up and down before blood flow stopped suddenly, causing him to go into cardiac arrest and collapse, the report said. The teenager was admitted to the hospital and placed in a medically induced coma when staff failed to revive him.
The "patient did not have enough brain function to sustain life", said the Dr. Nine days after he was admitted, doctors withdrew care and the man died.
Such cases are "very rare", the Dr. said, adding that because deaths from deodorant inhalation were not common among the general population the consequences weren't really known, causing people to continue this dangerous behaviour.
There were three theories about what caused the cardiac arrest, the Dr. said: The inhalant could have over-sensitized the patient's heart, which can make any subsequent stress, like getting caught by a parent, cause cardiac arrest. 
Also, inhalants decrease the strength of contraction of the heart muscle. Another possibility was that inhalants can cause spasm of the coronary arteries.
The group most affected by solvent abuse was 15 to 19 year olds, studies show. People in rehabilitation centres or prisons were more likely to abuse household products, the report added, meaning there could be a greater risk of cardiac deaths in these environments.
The medics warned that young people with a history of drug abuse were at particularly high risk of harming themselves this way because many common household items can be used.
'The main toxic substance in deodorant spray inhalation is butane,' the medics explained. It is often used in sprayable household products and has a similar effect to alcohol. 
Other health effects of inhalants included liver and kidney damage, hearing loss, delayed behavioural development and brain damage.

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                                                                                                                                                                                             PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/   

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