From Dr Briffa's blog:


No evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease (it’s official)

Posted By Dr John Briffa On April 17, 2009

Many individuals will be familiar with the almost-constant recommendations that come at us with regard to what we should be eating to reduce our risk of heart disease. A central theme in this advice, though not everyone would agree with it, is that the diet should be low in fat and high in carbohydrate. Sometimes, we have further refinement of this message where we are encouraged to eat less ‘saturated’ fat and more ‘polyunsaturated’ fat. Some food manufacturers, for example those who produce margarine and sell it as a ‘healthy’ alternative to butter, have been particularly keen to get it into our heads that a diet rich in polyunsaturated fat and low in saturated fat is the way to keep heart disease at bay. Many doctors and dieticians would agree. But how true is this assertion?

Read the full article here: http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/2009/0...e-its-official/

Tee hee! Well, there we go. This is one that people might want to print out and show their obdurate health professionals

“Of these factors, only two turned out to have supporting evidence in the form of randomized controlled trials. These were:”

1. Adherence to a ‘Mediterranean’ type of diet.

2. Increased intake of marine (fish and seafood derived) omega-3 fat.

Shocking!! Who knew?

Bo

Bradford Hill Guidelines .... to distinguish between a mere association and a causal relationship. These are the additional criteria applied in the Canadian study to distinguish which alleged studies are consistent with causality as opposed to mere statistical association... such as the high rates of heart disease seen in cultures with lots of advanced electronics in the home (or more developed countries including the USA).

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ar...i?artid=1291382 (a recent long article)

Wiki summary


Some assertions of causality such as Saturated Fat and CHD only were found to satisfy 2 of the 9 criteria above, and the strongest evidence for causality was the famous Mediterranean diet which satisfied 4 or more of the above Bradford Hill criteria.

Hummm. Isn't the Mayo Clinic's version of the "Mediterranean" diet the same diet that killed the Egyptians?



I guess that beautiful Greek leg of lamb in my oven is a no-no.

It was either the nutrient content or the boredom.

People in the US eat 71g per day on average of animal fat. The Italians eat 71g a day of animal fat, so I don't know where they got the 'low saturated fat' aspect of the Med diet.

I was in Rome last week and found low carb incredibly easy to stick to. Pasta or risotto is a small first plate the second plate was a big hunk of fatty meat with salad or potatoes roasted in olive oil. The veal was excellent

If you go to greece, they eat lots of lamb and if you go to spain, ham is everywhere and is to die for.

But those facts seem to get washed out in the ADA redux..

There's no one "Mediterranean" diet. At least 16 countries border the Mediterranean Sea. Diets vary between these countries and also between regions within a country. Many differences in culture, ethnic background, religion, economy and agricultural production result in different diets. But the common Mediterranean dietary pattern has these characteristics:

1. High consumption of fruits, vegetables, bread, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds.

2. Olive oil is an important monounsaturated fat source.

3. Dairy products, fish and poultry are consumed in low to moderate amounts, and little red meat is eaten.

4. Eggs are consumed zero to four times a week.

5. Wine is consumed in low to moderate amounts.

Research supports the health boosting qualities of the Mediterranean diet. In a 12-year study of close to 2,500 people, researchers found those who followed the Mediterranean diet had a significant decrease in body weight, blood pressure, blood fats, and blood sugar and insulin levels -- health benefits that contribute to a longer life expectancy than that of people who follow a Western diet.

Bo

Exactly the "Mediterranean" diet doesn't exist-- people surely like to recommend it though

Have no fear ....

.... some study sponsored by some foundation with a food megacorp as a silent partner will come out with a rebuttal based on 15-20 people over a period of 4 weeks that will be published on the front page of every newspaper and accepted as gospel

Hi BoBo Guy,

Grains suck.

I agree and generally avoid grains like the plague.

While the Mediterranean diet may be the healthy dietary choice for many, it would not be my first choice. While I have no intention of modifying my current lifestyle, the Okinawan lifestyle would be my first choice if changing.

If interested in the Okinawan lifestyle, please click Here .

Bo

Yes but what is left out of that list is the significant amount of red meat eaten by every single one of those countries, name me a country in the med that doesn't eat much red meat and I'll show you a population that can't afford it.


That 12-year study is observational (I presume) and can therefore never prove causation, only intervention studies can even attempt that. If they where adhering to a diet that is promoted as healthy then what other tiny unmeasurable measures were they taking to take care of their health?

Who in the Mediterranean eats brown bread? I've been to Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Croatia and Morocco and it was white bread all the way.

I'm not saying it's not possible that it's a healthy diet, just that there's no convincing science that proves it's the best way to go. Better than the SAD no doubt, but that's not saying much is it?

Previous studies are based on a “point system” and those that follow the traditional (not modern) Mediterranean diet more closely have the lowest rates of disease than those that adhere less to it, or those that don't at all. It's irrelevant whether more people are now eating red meat and saturated fat because the point system puts people into groups to assess their disease risk and these are factored as either negative points or no points. You gain a point from cutting back on these types of food, which leads to longer life according to the studies. If interested in the study, please read the below paragraph.

Adherence to a Mediterranean diet was defined through scores that estimated the conformity of the dietary pattern of the studied population with the traditional Mediterranean dietary pattern. Values of zero or one were assigned to each dietary component by using as cut offs the overall sex specific medians among the study participants. Specifically, people whose consumption of components considered to be part of a Mediterranean diet (vegetables, fruits, legumes, cereals, fish, and a moderate intake of red wine during meals) was above the median consumption of the population were assigned a value of one, whereas a value of zero was given to those with consumptions below the median. By contrast, people whose consumption of components presumed not to form part of a Mediterranean diet (red and processed meats, dairy products) was above the median consumption of the population had a value of zero assigned, and the others had a value of one. However, some differences among the studies existed, especially in relation to the food category of vegetables (grouped with potatoes in one study), meat and meat products (grouped with poultry in some studies), and nuts and seeds (grouped with fruits in some studies, with legumes in one study, and considered a group by themselves in some others), as well as milk and dairy products (not present in some studies) and fish (present only in more recent studies). Thus, the total adherence scores (estimated as the sum of the above indicated scores of zero and one) varied from a minimum of 0 points indicating low adherence to a maximum of 7-9 points reflecting high adherence to a Mediterranean diet.

Conclusions: Greater adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with a significant improvement in health status, as seen by a significant reduction in overall mortality (9%), mortality from cardiovascular diseases (9%), incidence of or mortality from cancer (6%), and incidence of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease (13%). These results seem to be clinically relevant for public health, in particular for encouraging a Mediterranean-like dietary pattern for primary prevention of major chronic diseases.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/sep11_2/a1344

Bo

I wish Fantasy Island were real. My fantasy would be to read that study to Tara Parker-Pope, while she was bound to a chair, and then read a chapter of GCBC a day to her, and watch her slowly lose her mind.