Polyunsaturated Fats now the most Dangerous fat.

[Guest guest]

sorry, but I just can't help myself going down this road again, that

felton study really stuck in my mind (http://www.pubmed.com) search

number 7934543. And listed below is a bang-uptodate brand-new study

which backs up what Felton and others discovered in 1994.

New article is " Dietary fats, carbohydrate, and progression of

coronary atherosclerosis in postmenopausal women " pubmed:15531663

The conclusion is " Carbohydrate intake was positively associated

with atherosclerotic progression (P = 0.001), particularly when the

glycemic index was high. Polyunsaturated fat intake was positively

associated with progression when replacing other fats (P = 0.04) but

not when replacing carbohydrate or protein. Monounsaturated and

total fat intakes were not associated with progression. CONCLUSIONS:

In postmenopausal women with relatively low total fat intake, a

greater saturated fat intake is associated with less progression of

coronary atherosclerosis, whereas carbohydrate intake is associated

with a greater progression. " (read this carefully, it really turns

things on their head)

> this is based on a 20-30% fat diet (but I suspect the same would

be true even for a higher percentage of fat) but essentially,

merging felton and this study the sat/mono/poly debate would seem to

be suggestive of mono fats being the safest, sat fats being second

safest (would put them joint first but as they raise LDL it may be

that they contribute to heart disease in other ways), though I feel

they probably do not have a big impact and the number one villain is

Polyunsaturated fats.

Now we do need some poly fats but when you look at the break down of

meat fat which we have been eating for millions of years then we see

that monofat is on average the most predominate fat, then saturated

fat and then a small amount of polyunsaturated fat and looking at

the recipe links by Tony on Sardinia Centarians my cursory look

suggest again their fat intake would have been mono first, sats

second and poly third (same for Mediterranean diet). Nature (as in

meat)does not like poly fats, our hearts get clogged with poly fats,

poly fats are the bad guys, we probably need only small amounts and

those should be a good percentage of omega3.

BUT, these studies add fuel to the arguments of two very different

camps, they prove Pritkin/Ornish correct as a very low fat diet will

obviously be low in poly fats and they prove the paleo (eat a lot of

fat and protein) diets correct as they too will have low

polyunsaturated fat levels and low carbs. But who gets the worse

end of the stick, which societies are so stupid as to live off high

polyunsaturated fats combined with high glycemic foods and which

societies have high CHD rates - yes, its us, the UK and USA and

other countries following the Standard American Diet - the culprit

for clogged arteries seems to be (margarines, fried foods, partially

hydrogenated fats and overcooked/rancid vegi oils) tied in with high

glycemic carbs. Maybe that is all we have to worry about for CHD,

just avoid the bad poly fats and high glycemic carbs, which is

probably what everyone on this group does anyway.

rant now over, ....