I know there is a LOT of confusion about fats.
This is always a really eye opening topic in my Reset course, since we know the term ‘healthy fats’ but people’s ideas of what a healthy fat actually IS vary widely.
At least we can agree that saturated fats and cholesterol in particular are the ‘unhealthy fats’, right? WRONG!
For the last ~70 years we’ve heard that dietary fat, particularly saturated fat, was the sole cause of heart disease, and that a low-fat diet, except for some vegetable oil, was the only way to prevent heart attacks and arterial disease.
As heart disease was, and STILL is, the No. 1 cause of death (particularly for white men) this was a compelling reason to make such dramatic dietary changes. However, this wasn’t the whole truth, and removing saturated fat and cholesterol from the American diet didn’t solve the problem. We now have a better understanding of the mechanisms that drive heart disease, and it is not saturated fats.
If this sounds new to you and slightly unbelievable, stay with me.
Saturated fat was put on the no-no list because of its high cholesterol content. High cholesterol -- more precisely, high LDL, which transports the cholesterol -- is one of the primary risk factors for heart attack and stroke. High LDL in your bloodstream can be bad, yes. However, changes in dietary cholesterol have little, if any, effect on the amount of LDL in circulation (1,2). High blood cholesterol, particularly LDL (which is the ‘bad’ cholesterol), is a marker of inflammation, but does not CAUSE inflammation itself.
This is how it works: cholesterol is a molecule used in the body for repair. Most cholesterol in our blood stream is manufactured by our bodies, it’s not controlled by the amount of cholesterol in your diet. When the body has damaged tissues and high levels of inflammation, cholesterol is called upon to repair and protect compromised tissue.
To remove cholesterol from your diet because you have high cholesterol, might be akin to removing the band-aids from your blister. The band-aids are a sign that you have blisters, so getting rid of the band-aids is the solution, right?
You get the idea.
So high cholesterol should be considered and addressed, but not by starving the body of dietary fat and cholesterol, which you need, is an additional stress on the body.
Cholesterol is the primary building block for all of our sex hormones (yes! estrogen, progesterone, testosterone & DHEA), bile, cortisol, and mineralocorticoids (which promote fluid and mineral balance). It’s no wonder that low fat & low cholesterol diets leave you with less zest & energy, and perhaps declining digestion. For the general public, low levels of cholesterol are associated with higher incidence of cancer, stroke, and even depression & anxiety. Furthermore, the negative health impact of a low fat diet is even more pronounced in women, due to the outsized drop in HDL (the “good” cholesterol, which is a better predictor of heart health) women have from low fat diets.
In fact, in 2015 the advisory panel for the US Dietary Guidelines suggested that they should no longer tell the public to be concerned about their dietary cholesterol intake. For those that do not have heart disease, there is truly no reason to avoid saturated fat & cholesterol in our diet, and we do so to our own detriment.
So if dietary cholesterol isn’t the culprit for heart disease, what is? Well, we know that heart disease is a disease of inflammation. A good place to start is the major dietary drivers of inflammation, which are refined sugar, industrial seed oils, and processed soy, wheat and corn. Here’s how it works:
Sugar and refined carbohydrates drive blood sugar imbalances; both chronically high and low blood sugar propel inflammation (3)
Seed oils (vegetable oils, like canola, corn, safflower, soybean, etc.) are rancidified during production due to the high heat and chemical processing of the delicate polyunsaturated oils. This is why the last step in manufacture is bleaching, to remove the smell before bottling. However, rancid oils are pro-inflammatory, and require damage control from your system (4)
Soy, seed oils, and grains are high in omega-6 fatty acids, which control cell signaling and in excessive amounts, and in the presence of high insulin, can ‘turn on’ inflammation (4). Modern corn, soy, and wheat also have some of the highest glyphosate exposure, which can be very hard on our microbiome and our bodies as a result. (5)
While I don’t work with clients on high cholesterol in particular, it is an important stress signal from the body to understand and address.
Removing these dietary triggers can bring down the inflammatory burden on your body and encourage healthy cholesterol and hormone balance. Diet certainly isn’t the only factor, as is true for any health goal, so including lifestyle factors that regulate inflammation like getting enough sleep (aim for 8+ hours a night!), the right amount of exercise, and healthy relationships & community will also be important.
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Sources
Fernandez M. L. (2012). Rethinking dietary cholesterol. Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care, 15(2), 117–121. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCO.0b013e32834d2259
McNamara D. J. (1995). Dietary cholesterol and the optimal diet for reducing risk of atherosclerosis. The Canadian journal of cardiology, 11 Suppl G, 123G–126G. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7585286/
Ballantyne, Sarah. (2017). Paleo Principles. p. 80
DiNicolantonio JJ, O’Keefe JH (2018). Omega-6 vegetable oils as a driver of coronary heart disease: the oxidized linoleic acid hypothesis. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/openhrt-2018-000898
Rueda-Ruzafa L, Cruz F, Roman P, Cardona D. (2019) Gut microbiota and neurological effects of glyphosate. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31442459/