Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig Read Free Book Online Page A

patterns and coronary heart disease. The study looked at the diets of patients admitted to the hospital for diagnosis of heart disease. Patients were divided into three groups: two groups ate diets that were “healthy” according to establishment standards—they avoided animal fats and frequently ate whole grains, fruit, and vegetables. The third group consumed a so-called Western diet with a lot of meat, butter, and white bread. Again, the study indicated no association between dietary patterns and coronary heart disease, even though the otherwise healthy “Western” diet contained white bread.
    A Swedish study published in the British Journal of Nutrition , 2004, found that consumption of milk fat (that is, butterfat) was negatively associated with the risk factors for heart disease and also for actual heart attack. In other words, butterfat protects against heart disease.

    Myth #2: High Cholesterol Causes Heart Disease
    The idea that high levels of cholesterol in the blood cause heart disease is an axiom today. Yet if you look at the evidence—even evidence presented as proving the lipid hypothesis—you’ll see that there is much data refuting it.

    The Framingham Study
    The first major government-sponsored study on heart disease was the 40-year Framingham Study, which began in 1948. Researchers looked at 500 residents of this Massachusetts town in an ongoing investigation of all the factors that might contribute to heart disease. An important early result of the study apparently indicated that high cholesterol was a risk factor for heart disease.
    However, a follow-up study published 16 years later revealed that there was very little difference between the cholesterol levels of people who had heart attacks and those who did not. In fact, almost half of those who had a heart attack had low cholesterol.
    Still another analysis, carried out 30 years after the original one, found that men older than 47 died just as often whether their cholesterol was high or low. Since most heart attacks occur in people over 47, this raises the question of whether cholesterol really makes any difference.
    An even more startling result from this 30-year follow-up study was that people whose cholesterol had decreased over that period had a higher risk of dying than those whose cholesterol had increased. The researchers wrote that “For each 1 mg/dl drop in cholesterol, there was an 11 percent increase in coronary and total mortality.” That is, deaths from heart disease and all other causes increased by 11 percent for each 1 percent drop in cholesterol in the blood.
    Yet a 1990 joint statement by the American Heart Association and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, published in the journal Circulation , claims that “The results of the Framingham study indicate that a 1 percent reduction…of cholesterol [corresponds to] a 2 percent reduction in CHD risk.”
    You may find this hard to believe, but it’s true. And this is only one example of the way data that actually disprove the lipid hypothesis are frequently cited as supporting it.

    The International Atherosclerosis Project
    The lipid hypothesis could have been laid to rest as far back as 1968, with the publication of the results of the International Atherosclerosis Project in the journal Laboratory Investigations . Researchers performed detailed autopsies on 22,000 corpses in 14 nations. This study showed the same degree of atheroma (fatty plaques that block arteries) in all parts of the world—in populations that consumed large amounts of fatty animal products and those that were largely vegetarian; and in populations that suffered from a great deal of heart disease and in populations that had very little or none at all. Furthermore, the researchers found just as much artery blockage in people who had low levels of cholesterol compared to those whose cholesterol was high.

    For Women: High Cholesterol Is Better
    A truly surprising result of all studies involving women