HEALTH ADVICE WARNING people to cut down on eating fats “should not have been introduced” according to new research.
The dietary advice goes back nearly 40 years in the US (1977), while it was issued to millions of people in the UK in 1983.
However, research published in the online journal Open Heart shows that the advice lacked any solid trial evidence to back up claims that lowering fat intake could cut coronary heart disease incidence.
Both sets of dietary guidelines recommended reducing overall dietary fat consumption to 30% of total energy intake, and specifically, saturated fat to 10% of total energy intake. However, both acknowledged that the evidence was not conclusive.
‘Should not have been introduced’
The new study has found that no randomised controlled trial (RCT) had tested the government dietry fat recommendations before they were introduced.
It also criticised how recommendations were made for 276 million people following secondary studies of 2,467 men – who reported identical all-cause mortality.
It seems incomprehensible that dietary advice was introduced for 220 million Americans and 56 million UK citizens, given the contrary results from a small number of unhealthy men.
Researchers also found that no women were included in the trials, no trial tested the dietary recommendations and no trial concluded that dietary guidelines should be drawn up.
Dietary advice not merely needs review; it should not have been introduced.
The data revealed that 740 men died in total from all causes and 423 from coronary heart disease.
“There was no difference in deaths from all causes between the ‘treatment’ and comparison groups, with 370 deaths in both. And there was no significant difference in deaths from coronary heart disease, with 207 in the ‘treatment’ groups and 216 in the comparison groups.”
Hold up Jennifer! Before we all go ordering fast food, Rahul Bahl of the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has sounded a note of caution.
He said that while the evidence on which current dietary guidance is based was “very limited” – this doesn’t mean that the risk factor identified is not a true risk factor.
He said there is a link between dietary fat and heart disease:
There is certainly a strong argument that an over-reliance in public health on saturated fat as the main dietary villain for cardiovascular disease has distracted from the risks posed by other nutrients, such as carbohydrates.
“Yet replacing one caricature with another does not feel like a solution.”
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