Saturated fats are found predominantly in animal foods (Photo: Adobe. Do not use without permission)
Excess saturated fat – which predominantly comes from animal foods – will increase your risk of dying of heart disease, according to a leading cardiologist.
Dr. Joel Kahn, MD, speaks to Plant Based News‘ Klaus Mitchell about how a new publication conclusively sheds light on the debate about dietary saturated fat and cardiovascular health.
The paper, titled Reduction in Saturated Fat Intake for Cardiovascular Disease, was published by the Cochrane Database, which is considered by many to be the most respected research group in the world.
Saturated fats
Discussing the paper, Dr. Kahn told Mitchell: “This new super review by the Cochrane Database…looked at 16 of the best studies, 59,000 people, very detailed information about their diet. Some had high saturated fat diets by design of the study. Some had low saturated fat diets – more meat, more butter, more cheese, less meat, less butter, less cheese.
“At the end of the day, they found that within two years, we can enjoy a 21 percent reduction in our risk of heart attack, stroke, of congestive heart failure, dying of heart disease. And if we do more than the average, if we change our diet more than just average, so there’s essentially no meat, butter, cheese, turkey, and pork, we’ll see even bigger results.
“So they threw out the weak studies, they threw out the tainted studies, they threw out the studies that were conflicted by funding from industry – because the dairy industry has done a very big job of funding a lot of these studies that led to confusion – they only incorporated the highest quality study, and that’s what we need, trusted comments, trusted science, and the conclusion is clear, we’re done.”
You can watch the full video here
