It’s sugar that drives heart disease, not ‘bad fats’
Have you hear the one about how high saturated fat consumption increases your risk of heart disease, strokes and cardiovascular disease?
Well, like much of the ‘rigorously researched health information’ we are fed by the powers that be, it almost certainly is not true. Two meta-studies have disproven the link in the past 5 years – have you been told yet??
The two meta-studies (click here) have both shown that people with high saturated fat consumption seem to have no more risk that those of low consumption.
It’s an inconvenient truth – after all, this myth of bad fats and heart disease underpins a whole Big Pharma profit centre – that of statins.
The explanation for the findings is provided in The Rainbow Diet – my book that was first published in 2006. (You can see the new website HERE)
US heart specialist Dr. Chauncey Crandall provides further insight in his excellent Heart Health newsletter.
1. The issue is not about Saturated fat consumption per se. You should always keep ‘good fat consumption’ in excess of this so-called ‘bad fat consumption’. So if you want to consume steak and foie gras, just make sure your consumption of extra virgin olive oil, nuts and seeds (like walnut, sunflower), avocados and fish oils exceeds this. This balance controls the fatty acid formation balance in the body.
2. If you don’t consume sugar and large carbohydrate-rich meals, you control your insulin. This in turn reduces inflammation in your body. If you have inflammation in your arteries, the bad fat sticks and your problems start. If you consume little sugar and refined carbs, you should not have any inflammation in the first place.
So, this research underpins and explains the French Paradox – namely, that the French drink more alcohol and consume more fat than any other nation, yet have less heart attacks and cancer. And the epicenter of this phenomenon inside France, according to research? Gascony. Home of foie gras and Armagnac.
There is another factor at work – namely that having a strong and healthy microbiome in your gut and keeping to a high fibre diet results in some bacteria producing strong anti-inflammatory compounds called short-chain esters. And these also prevent the formation of bad fats in the blood stream. But that’s another story – and found in my 2012 groundbreaking book ‘The Secret Source of your Good Health’.
So, if you want a sensible New Year’s resolution … follow the Rainbow Diet – it is the most researched, most sensible diet in the world. Bar none.
