Saturated fat: Does a body good

photo by Vicious Bits

First BPA, and now it gets even better. We'll just call this the winter of our vindication.

As evidenced by our shift to a diet heavy in cream, lard, butter, cheese, half-and-half, and whole milk, we came to disbelieve the association between saturated fat and heart disease awhile ago. Up until now, despite the fact that the science said otherwise, this mentality was considered pretty out-there and fringe-y (mainly because nobody was looking at the science, just parroting what they were paid to say by special-interest groups). Well, this morning at the gym I saw on the news that the mainstream media has finally picked up on the fact that studies have shown that there is NOT a link between saturated fat intake and heart disease. While "scientists" still rush to tell people to "increase their intake of vegetable oils," nonetheless, at least the beginnings of the truth have been sounded.

Food Renegade is one of my favorite health writers, and she explains here and here and here why the "low-fat (especially low saturated fat) = healthy" mantra is a myth. While the media hasn't yet gotten this far, the next step in all this is to understand why high cholesterol doesn't "cause" heart disease--AKA the "lipid hypothesis." You can go here to read one researcher's explanation--that cholesterol IS present in the arteries of people with heart disease, but only in the same way that firefighters tend to be present at fires. As she puts it, it would be ridiculous to blame the firefighters for starting fires simply because they always show up there! Instead, the role of cholesterol in repairing inflammation (caused largely by sugar and free radicals) explains why high levels of lipids are found in those with damaged arteries. It also explains why drugs like statins lower cholesterol, but not mortality. And, it explains why so many people's ancestors, like mine, lived to a ripe old age "despite (as doctors would have us believe) eating eggs every day, spreading lard on their toast, etc etc. In fact, it turns out that those humble, traditional foods are probably the exact reason WHY they lived to a sharp, active old age.

For me, seeing this on TV this morning was especially timely because our hospital's health fair is today and I was planning to pop by after the gym to get my cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar checked. (Being part of a sea of people, with easy access to a number of exit points, is about as close as I like to get to the medical establishment.) I was practically jumping up and down with anticipation to see what the numbers would be, given my switch in the past few years from a lower-fat, vegetarian diet to a traditionally-based one that includes a lot of saturated fat.

Total cholesterol: 162
(Ideal: less than 200)

HDL ("good" cholesterol): 56
(Ideal: greater than 50)

LDL ("bad" cholesterol): 2.9
(Ideal: less than 3.5)

My random blood sugar was 86 (ideal: 70-14), reassuring given that I could be considered at high risk of diabetes based on my chunker of a baby. And finally, I was pleased to see that my blood pressure was normal because it has been elevated in the past (during nursing school, for example) and high blood pressure runs in my family. However, I was not surprised to see that it had normalized, as we have recently become believers in some of John Sarno's theories about psychosomatic links to pain, chronic illness, and hypertension, and feel that exposure to his work has helped us become healthier than ever. As was long the case for the contention that saturated fat does not lead to heart disease, Sarno's work has yet to be accepted by mainstream medicine--but to us, that's just one more reason to give it a closer look.