Saturated fats in foods like butter, cheese and red meat don’t cause heart disease and may be good for you, a British cardiologist says.
Decades of medical advice urging people to fight heart disease by cutting out fatty foods is wrong, says British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who has set out to “bust the myth of the role of saturated fat in heart disease.”
Unprocessed fatty foods like butter and eggs have been “demonized” since the 1970s, but there is no scientific link showing they cause heart disease, he writes in the British Medical Journal.
Instead, they are actually good for you, and eating a high fat, low carbohydrate died has been show as the best way to lose weight, he says.
There has been too much emphasis on fatty foods and not enough attention paid to cutting out sugar, which is the real culprit when it comes to heart disease and weight gain, writes Dr. Malhotra, who is a specialist at Croydon University Hospital.
“From the analysis of the independent evidence that I have done, saturated fat from non-processed food is not harmful and probably beneficial,” Dr. Malhotra told the Independent.
“Butter, cheese, yogurt and eggs are generally healthy and not detrimental.
“The food industry has profited from the low-fat mantra for decades because foods that are marketed as low-fat are often loaded with sugar. We are now learning that added sugar in food is driving the obesity epidemic and the rise in diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”
Dr. Malhotra also disputes the idea that high cholesterol is linked to heart attacks, citing a recent study that showed 75 per cent of heart attack patients have normal cholesterol levels. Millions of people around the world take statins to cut cholesterol levels.
He also points out rising levels of obesity despite decades of medical advice advising people to stick to a low-fat diet.
However, he doesn’t recommend going on an all-bacon diet anytime soon. Following the Mediterranean diet, which is high in nuts, olive oils, fish, fruits and unprocessed foods, is best for heart health, he told the BBC.
“I think we have to have a balance here. The ultimate message is eat real food. Avoid processed food because processed food is potentially harmful. We know that there are products that are loaded with sugar that are promoted as low fat.”
Dr. Malhotra says Sweden is the first Western country to change their dietary guidelines to discard the low-fat advice.
“Just to back up the evidence base, Sweden only four days ago became the first western country to change their nutritional guidelines on the review of 16,000 studies saying that a low carbohydrate diet, one that is higher in fat, is actually healthier for weight loss and improving cholesterol profile. So this isn’t just anecdote, this isn’t opinion,” Dr. Malhotra told the BBC.
This story originally appeared on News.com.au.