Another day and another study into saturated fats in the diet debunks Ancel Keys’s seminal, but fatally flawed, report that linked saturated fats with heart disease. See previous post about John Yudkin who first debunked this study by Ancel Keys in the 1970s.

This one, 40 years later, is from Doctor Russell de Souza, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, at McMaster University in Canada.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11796834/Butter-unlikely-to-harm-health-but-margarine-could-be-deadly.html

“The “vilification” of saturated fats dates back to the 1950s when research suggested a link between high dietary saturated fat intake and deaths from heart disease.

But the study author drew his conclusions on data from six countries, choosing to ignore the data from a further 16, which did not fit with his hypothesis, and which subsequent analysis of all 22 countries’ data.

Nevertheless the research stuck and since the 1970s most public health organisations have advised people to cut down on fat.

However the new research found no clear association between higher intake of saturated fats and death for any reason, coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, ischemic stroke or type 2 diabetes.”

I find it interesting but not surprising that the comment on the report from the British dietician amount to saying that we should not change what we are eating because this report does not prove cause and effect between eating fat and NOT getting heart disease…. Eh? I would like to see the study that could do that. In any case, did the Ancel Keys study prove there WAS a link?

Most emphatically not.

Some recipes for using butter at the end of the article too.