Canibais e Reis

American Heart Association - Sat and Trans, the bad fats brothers:

American Heart Association - The Better Fats Sisters:

Inúmeros artigos estão actualmente a aparecer, reforçando a ideia de que não passa de um mito a hipótese das gorduras saturadas serem prejudiciais ao coração ou mesmo desaconselháveis à saúde. Até muito pelo contrário, sempre assumiram um papel importante nas dietas primitivas. A este respeito, vale a pena ler estas passagens do artigo mais recente do Whole Health Source:

Saturated Fat and Health: a Brief Literature Review

Even years ago, when I watched my saturated fat intake, I always had a certain level of cognitive dissonance about it. I knew that healthy non-industrial cultures often consumed large amounts of saturated fat. For example, the Masai of East Africa, who traditionally subsist on extremely fatty milk, blood and meat, do not appear to experience heart attacks. Their electrocardiogram readings are excellent and they have the lowest level of arterial plaque during the time of their lives when they are restricted (for cultural reasons) to their three traditional foods. They get an estimated 33% of their calories from saturated animal fat.

(…)

The inhabitants of the island of Tokelau, who I learned about recently, eat more saturated fat than any other culture I’m aware of. They get a whopping 55% of their calories from saturated fat! Are they keeling over from heart attacks or any of the other diseases that kill people in modern societies? Apparently not. So from the very beginning, the theory faces the problem that the cultures consuming the most saturated fat on Earth have an undetectable frequency of heart attacks and other modern non-communicable diseases.

Humans have eaten saturated animal fat since our species first evolved, and historical hunter-gatherers subsisted mostly on animal foods. Our closest recent relatives, neanderthals, were practically carnivores. Thus, the burden of proof is on proponents of the theory that saturated fat is unhealthy.

(…)

I will note that Dr. Ancel Keys’ major epidemiological study linking saturated fat consumption to heart disease, the "Seven Countries" study, has been thoroughly discredited due to the omission of contradictory data (read: the other 15 countries where data were available). This was the study that sparked the anti-saturated fat movement.

(…)

I’m aware of twelve major controlled trials designed to evaluate the relationship between saturated fat and risk of death, without changing other variables at the same time (e.g., increased vegetable intake, omega-3 fats, exercise, etc.). Here is a summary of the results:

* Two trials found that replacing saturated animal fat with polyunsaturated vegetable fat decreased total mortality.
* Two trials found that replacing saturated animal fat with polyunsaturated vegetable fat increased total mortality.
* Eight trials found that reducing saturated fat had no effect on total mortality.

(…)

"So not only do the best data not support the idea that saturated fat increases the overall risk of death, they don’t even support the idea that it causes heart disease! In fact, the body seems to prefer saturated fat to unsaturated fats in the bloodstream. Guess what your liver does with carbohydrate when you eat a low-fat diet? It turns it into saturated fat (palmitic acid) and then pumps it into your bloodstream. Kitavan lipoproteins contain a lot of palmitic acid, which is not found in their diet. Are their livers trying to kill them? Apparently they aren’t succeeding.

Eat the fat on your steaks folks. Just like your great-grandparents did, and everyone who came before."

Fonte: Whole Health Source.
 

Leia este artigo completo aqui e aqui. Interessa notar que o autor deste blogue pratica o que diz e que, em resultado disso tem, por exemplo, um colesterol HDL de 111 (o seu médico afirma nunca ter visto tal coisa em 22 anos de prática clínica).

Uma última nota. A Fundação Weston Price, no seu capítulo Conheça as Gorduras, refere o seguinte:

The following nutrient-rich traditional fats have nourished healthy population groups for thousands of years:

• Butter

• Beef and lamb tallow

• Lard

• Chicken, goose and duck fat

• Coconut, palm and sesame oils

• Cold pressed olive oil

• Cold pressed flax oil

• Marine oils

The following new-fangled fats can cause cancer, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, sterility, learning disabilities, growth problems and osteoporosis:

• All hydrogenated oils

• Soy, corn and safflower oils

• Cottonseed oil

• Canola oil

• All fats heated to very high temperatures in processing and frying

Fonte: Fundação Weston A. Price.