Meat, Dairy and Heart Attacks
In the US, someone dies of cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds. Ref: CDC
This is tragic, given there is so much science showing how we can reduce this risk through lifestyle changes.
Are we sure saturated fat is linked to heart disease?
The American Heart Association strongly concludes that lowering intake of saturated fat and replacing it with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats, will lower the incidence of cardiovascular disease. (Review. Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease. A Presidential Advisory from the American Heart Association. Sacks, Lichtenstein. Circulation 2017)
Top sources of saturated fat in the American diet are:
Cheese, beef, oils, milk and processed foods (frankfurters, sausages, luncheon meats).
Heart Disease is still leading cause of death (even though it has decreased by half due to less smoking , better pharmacological treatment of high LDL cholesterol). We should be moving to dramatically reducing burden of chronic disease.
But the food industry is divorced from public health, and the private sector is the primary influence on public health. It has a disproportionately negative impact since the incentives of private industry are to maximize profit for shareholders, which sadly don’t align with maximizing our health.
Low carb / keto movement
The Good: Highlights that the food industry has a bad effect on public health, encourages the avoidance of processed foods, and provides good storytelling (science can be drier).
The Bad: They maintain that fat does not cause heart disease. But the majority of good scientific studies clearly link saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease.
The sum of evidence showing that LDL cholesterol causes atherosclerosis from a scientific perspective is overwhelming. As Neil DeGrass Tyson says: “ e=mc2 is true whether you want to believe it or not.”
Ref: Plant Proof Podcast - Episode 159 with Dr. Alan Flanagan (Best reference at 1 hr. 18 min.)
Evidence that saturated fat is associated with increased LDL cholesterol which is associated with heart disease:
Observational studies show saturated fat causes increased LDL cholesterol. Metabolic studies prove that saturated fat causes increased LDL cholesterol.
People now diverge as to whether LDL cholesterol independently causes heart disease.
But overwhelming data / coalescence of evidence indicates LDL cholesterol causes cardiovascular disease.
The earlier your LDL is lower, the less likely you are to have heart disease.
60 prospective cohort studies around world show linear increase correlating increasing LDL cholesterol levels with cardiovascular disease outcomes.
Human intervention trials with 20 million person years in which 150,000 cardiovascular events have occurred. They compare intervention to no intervention to evaluate if statins lead to lower cholesterol. The studies show stratification of risk reduction relative to achieved levels of LDL.There is a linear risk reduction of cardiovascular risk with lower LDL.
Genetic studies. Some genes can increase the effect of receptor on cells to remove LDL. If you have a genetic predisposition to lower cholesterol – you will have dramatically lower your cardiovascular risk.
Ref: Plant Proof Podcast - Episode with Dr. Alan Flanagan (Best reference at 1 hr. 18 min.)
