News from nutrition research

28. September 2021
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28. September 2021 Rüdiger Beck

Are saturated fatty acids dangerous at all?

The “coronary heart disease fat hypothesis”, according to which “saturated fatty acids (SFA) increase cholesterol concentration (LDL-C) and consequently increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, shaped dietary recommendations over the last 60 years, first in the USA and later also in Europe.

Over the years, evidence from epidemiology and controlled clinical trials has accumulated that consumption of SFAs per se is not associated with increased cardiovascular risk or that limiting consumption of SFAs has no preventive effect.

In this regard, a review article on the importance of saturated fatty acids for cardiovascular risk (with open access) has been published in the cardiology journal “Herz”, written by our reference partner Dr. Nicolai Worm together with other authors.

The focus on the SFA content negates the biologically heterogeneous and partly biologically beneficial effects of different SFA. Moreover, this ignores the fact that SFAs in intact foods are incorporated into different complex matrices consisting of dozens of nutrients with different structures and accompanying substances, each triggering different biological responses and metabolic effects. Accordingly, such nutrient-based recommendations are, in principle, poorly targeted and, moreover, difficult to implement. In addition, LDL-C is not a suitable marker to assess the effect of lifestyle interventions such as diet or physical activity on global cardiovascular risk.

To the original paper …