Is Saturated Fat Bad For You?

is eating saturated fat going to kill you and do you need to limit saturated fat in your diet well no most likely not but you've likely heard from well-meaning doctors or dietitians that you should avoid or minimize your saturated fat intake and therefore you worry about eating meat and cheese and butter or certain oils like coconut oil but but it turns out that advice is misleading and has little application to your health as an individual and the fact that medicine and nutrition authorities so strongly believe it to be true just highlights what's wrong with nutrition science and and how we make Health recommendations so so let's explore why this is wrong what it might mean for you as an individual and and whether saturated fat containing foods could be part of an overall healthy diet I'm Dr Brett Sher director of metabolic mind a nonprofit initiative of bazooki group where we focus on the intersection of metabolic health and mental health and metabolic therapies like ketogenic therapy as a treatment for mental health disorders now first before we get into the details please remember our channel is for informational purposes only we're not providing individual or group medical or Healthcare advice or establishing a provider patient relationship many of the interventions we discussed can have dramatic or potentially dangerous effects if done without proper supervision so consult your healthcare provider before changing your lifestyle or medications okay but now let's be clear of one thing first ketogenic therapy which is what we talk about a lot here at metabolic wine it doesn't have to include any saturated fat numerous people are using a vegan or a free vegetarian keto diet is the main stay of their ketogenic therapy to treat mental health disorders now we often assume keto automatically equals right bacon wrapped steaks cooked in butter and it may but it doesn't have to ketogenic therapy is compatible with pretty much any dietary approach vegan vegetarian Mediterranean carnivore and plenty in between as long as you achieve the metabolic state of ketosis individuals have different reasons for eating vegan or vegetarian but should fear of saturated fat be one of those reasons I would say no it probably shouldn't and what brings this topic up now well there was just a paper published in the journal systematic reviews titled saturated fat estimated absolute risk and certainty of risk for mortality and major cancer and cardi metabolic outcomes an overview of systematic reviews now now there's a lot in that title but first let's look at the term absolute risk right absolute not relative risk we often hear that there's a 10% reduction in events by reducing saturated fat but what does that really mean well that can mean a reduction from 50% events to 45% which is a 5% absolute risk reduction or from 0.5% to 0.45% which is a 0.05% risk reduction right both are 10% relative risk reduction but a dramatic difference in in what that really means so when it comes to you as an individual trying to decide how much of an impact something has on you absolute risk is much more helpful than relative risk but you know relative risk sounds more dramatic it's a bigger number so it's often used to grab our attention but it means almost nothing for us as individuals but the next part of the journal article title says certainty of risk the authors didn't just stop with quote unquote the evidence shows right we often hear the evidence shows saturated fat is bad for us but what kind of evidence what quality of evidence and this is crucial because the authors found that much of the evidence supporting a so-called risk of saturated fat was low or critically low quality evidence and I I can't emphasize this enough whenever someone says the evidence shows our immediate reaction should be well what quality of evidence what kind of evidence because not all evidence is the same now I won't go through all the findings in this study because there were there were many of them but here are a few highlights right so one when looking at cancer mortality associated with reducing or replacing saturated fat they found a range from eight fewer events to three more deaths per thousand people and the certainty of evidence was very low to l so it could help or it could hurt you based on that evidence reducing saturated fat right doesn't make sense um but that's not the message we hear or for ciac mortality they saw a reduction of two deaths per thousand people again with very low or up to moderate certainty of evidence two per 1,000 people so that's not nothing but my guess is it's much less than most people would assume based on the strength of the message we give about saturated fat and cardiac risk now to be fair this paper did not conclude there was no effect of saturated fat on health like one of the studies they looked at cited 20 fewer all cause deaths per thousand people who reduced their saturated fat intake and that was moderate quality evidence now that might be noteworthy for many people but but here's the key what does it mean for you now remember most of these studies were done on people eating the standard American or standard industrialized diet and you know when we hear saturated fat the recommendation is to limit meat cheese and butter but you know what form or types of food are the most common ways we get saturated fat so according to onsight the number one is sandwiches which sure might have meat but also lots and lots of bread and next are desserts and sweet snacks cookies pies ice cream followed by rice or grain based dishes so pasta dishes with meat and a creamy sauce or a meat and rice dish with a creamy and sugary sauce and next is pizza I mean I don't think I need to say more about that with a sugary sauce and lots and lots of flour and then milk and yogurt are next and most of the yogurt is flavored or sweetened and then finally after all those is when we get meat or poultry alone right they're lower on the list then followed by chips and crackers and savory snacks so why do I bring this up well you can you can see the picture that the data isn't based on someone eating a whole food low carb diet with meat cheese eggs avocado veggies and nuts so for me personally I know the data has nothing to do with me for my patients I know the data has really nothing to do with them so what about you does this data have anything to do with the way you eat now let's face it nutrition science is full of lowquality evidence that applies to a general population eating a lowquality diet and that's not the type of evidence we should use to make individual recommendations about specific Foods what is a study with low quality of evidence showing a minimal increase risk from saturated fat and a general population mean for you if you're using a ketogenic therapy to treat a neurologic or mental health disorder I would argue it means next to nothing and and what's more important though is you deserve a healthcare team that really izes this that treats you as an individual and assesses your diet as a whole not just based on General items like saturated fat it's time we recognize the limitations of nutrition research and stop trying to make it something that is not right stop trying to use it as a definitive declaration for how everyone should eat a quote unquote healthy diet so that's my takeaway from this recent paper about the quote unquote health risks of saturated fat um we really need to be more individualized if if you're interested in learning more about the safety and efficacy of ketogenic therapy for treating mental health disorders please follow us at metabolic mind a nonprofit initiative of bazooki group where we get into some of the details and nuances that you need to know thank you for watching I'm Dr Brett Sher and we'll see you here next time and metabolic mind

Channel: Metabolic Mind

Views: 12,721

Keywords: metabolic psychiatry, keto, ketogenic diet, keto for mental health, nutritional psychiatry, mental health, mental illness, bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, alternative psychiatry, metabolic health

Id: DneT8YNXcAc

Length: 7min 17sec (437 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2023