Science - February 3, 2010
Saturated fats are bad
There is no evidence that saturated fats are a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, American researchers have contended in the January issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This conclusion is based on information from 21 publications analyzed anew. 'It's the same old song and dance', responds Daan Kromhout, professor of Public Health Research.
'Another problem is how to accurately measure saturated fats in someone's food intake. To do so, you would need to ask the person about his food intake in the past 24 hours for 23 randomly chosen days over a period of a year That's never been done in practice. Measuring cholesterol concentrations in the blood also poses problems, because even with constant food intakes, big variations can occur from day to day. In short, many complexities arise when interpreting these types of studies whereby one mistake can be easily piled upon another.
'In future, we need especially to monitor such studies properly. Big clinical trials are necessary but they are very expensive. I'm running such a big research project currently into the effect of omega-3 fats on cardiovascular diseases.'