What About Saturated Fats if You Already Have Heart Disease?

We’re all aware of the aggressive campaign driven by public health authorities and medical professionals to decrease blood cholesterol. It all started more than fifty years ago when the Framingham Heart Study reported that high blood cholesterol was a major risk factor for coronary heart disease (1).     Central to the dogma was the belief that lowering blood cholesterol would … Read more

“We no longer suggest avoiding saturated fats per se …”

The story of saturated fats and their proposed association with coronary heart disease is bewildering. Although it illustrates the great power of public health authorities and the food industry, it tragically exposes the frailty of governmental handling of health issues.   When dietary and lifestyle recommendations don’t rely on solid scientific evidence, the outcome may be disastrous. Further damage may result … Read more

HDL Cholesterol – The “Good” Cholesterol Explained

High-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) is commonly measured to assess the risk of heart disease. If you’ve had a blood sample drawn for assessment of lipid panel you probably already know if your cholesterol level is acceptable or not. You might also recall something about good and bad cholesterol and the ratio between these two. Of course, … Read more

Dietary Fat, Carbohydrates and Metabolic Syndrome

Time makes us fat. It’s not a myth, it’s a biologic fact. When we get old we get fat. In December 1863, William Banting, an English undertaker who went to great lengths to treat his own obesity, wrote in his now famous Letter on Corpulence: … For I have been generally informed that corpulence is one of the natural results of … Read more

Dietary Fat and Heart Disease – The Changing Landscape

Most of us know that the risk of heart disease can be modified by lifestyle. For more than fifty years, that’s what we’ve been taught by the people we trust, scientists, medical professionals and public health officials. But the doubters have always been out there, and they ask questions. How do these people know what’s … Read more