By Benjamin Bikman, MD, and Diana Keuilian
Did you know that the fats we eat are not the fats that circulates in our blood?
This phenomenon is emphasized well in a study published in 2008. Over a twelve-week period, study subjects were fed either a low-fat or a high-fat diet, with the high-fat containing over three times more saturated fat than the low-fat diet (all matched for total calories).
Despite this threefold greater consumption of saturated fat in the diet, the actual amount in the blood of those subjects was lower than for those in the low-fat group!
Saturated Fats and The DASH Diet
This is a great time to mention another human study that sought to understand the role of saturated fats in health and disease. One of the most famous diets ever is a plan created to help reduce heart disease by lowering blood pressure—the DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) diet.
The DASH diet is based on a few pivotal pillars: eat fruits and vegetables, reduce salt, avoid excess sugar, and eat low-fat foods. The positive results from this diet in lowering blood pressure have reinforced the call to avoid salt and fat; however, in 2016, a research group in California asked: What would happen if we replaced all the low-fat food with high-fat foods?
This meant no more low-fat dairy or lean meat—it was a fatty-food bonanza. Over the course of the study, the high-fat DASH group ended up eating almost twice the amount of total fat and twice the amount of saturated fat compared with the classic DASH diet group.
Despite this seemingly catastrophic high-fat version of the DASH diet, it actually outperformed the low-fat version, resulting in a significant reduction in both the triglycerides (the primary circulating forms of fat) and the triglyceride to HDL ratio—a commonly used metric of insulin resistance.
Importantly, in addition to improving blood lipids better than its low-fat competitor, the high-fat DASH diet also lowered blood pressure just as much.
To put a finer and final point on defending dietary fat, it’s been shown to explicitly help various neurological conditions, fertility, and more. Make sure it’s stable, natural fats, namely those that come from animals or fatty fruits, such as coconuts, avocados, or olives (unlike the unstable, unnatural fats, such as soybean, cottonseed, and canola oil).
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Well Being Journal adapted the above excerpt from How Not To Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman, MD, and Diana Keuilian. Copyright © 2024 and reprinted with permission from BenBella Books.
