An anonymous reader writes:
A research team led by scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health has unearthed more evidence that casts doubt on the traditional "heart healthy" practice of replacing butter and other saturated fats with corn oil and other vegetable oils high in linoleic acid. The findings, reported today in the British Medical Journal, suggest that using vegetable oils high in linoleic acid might be worse than using butter when it comes to preventing heart disease, though more research needs to be done on that front. This latest evidence comes from an analysis of previously unpublished data of a large controlled trial conducted in Minnesota nearly 50 years ago, as well as a broader analysis of published data from all similar trials of this dietary intervention. The analyses show that interventions using linoleic acid-rich oils failed to reduce heart disease and overall mortality even though the intervention reduced cholesterol levels. In the Minnesota study, participants who had greater reduction in serum cholesterol had higher rather than lower risk of death. Two things to note about the study: 75% of the participants left in less than a year (perhaps not uncommon, the study doesn't explain why these people left); the vegetable oils mentioned in the article are not necessarily the most commonly used (which are oils made of olive, sunflower, coconut, and palm).
Re:and it never did
By Aighearach
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2016-Apr-13 17:46
• Score: 4, Insightful
• Thread
Oh yeah, the science was settled.
The science was never settled.
Science will never be "settled."
My question, why are the people who are most strongly against the principles of science the ones who wave the Science flag most vigorously? If they don't believe in the principles, why do they want to be seen as being on some sort of Science Team? Is it as simple as ignorance of what science is, or is it something deeper and more complicated?
shortcuts
By Lehk228
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2016-Apr-13 18:07
• Score: 5, Insightful
• Thread
tl;dr: there are no shortcuts in nutrition, you can't eat tons of fatty food and be healthy just by eating the right fatty foods, you have to exercise actual self control, and you should exercise too.
Re:and it never did
By drinkypoo
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2016-Apr-13 18:16
• Score: 4, Interesting
• Thread
The other group is what I term the "food religion", which is pretty hostile towards anybody who dares tell them that they aren't going to bother (read: waste time and money) with organic food, and are even more hostile against anybody who says heretical things such as "everything you eat is a chemical" or "GMO is safe".
But those are stupid things to say. Yes, everything you eat is made of chemicals (I hope that's what you meant) but we are capable of introducing them in quantities and concentrations which are harmful. You don't chug arsenic because it naturally appears in apples. And even selective breeding can produce unsafe results; GMO can produce results that selective breeding can't, and therefore it is at least as unsafe. People should be upset when you say those things, because you're wasting their time.
This same group does another very annoying thing to those of us with chronic conditions: Insist that the food you eat causes whatever you might have, insist that they never get sick (and otherwise talk as if they'll live forever,) and all chronic diseases will just go away if you simply switch to organic (and one even suggested homeopathic medicine would fix it in my case.)
I get sick about as much as other people. The food you eat probably does at minimum exacerbate your condition, especially if you're this defensive about it; you probably know better. And actually eating genuinely organic food, not just USDA organic but actually as part of a cyclical system which maintains soil biodiversity, might in fact help. You'd also be expected to eat your food minimally processed, since a lot of common processing destroys enzymes that help break down food and even regulate blood sugar. But you'd also have to watch your diet in other ways; the single best thing the average person can do is cut their sugar intake. Sugar interferes negatively with immune response, and most of what most people eat contains a lot of needless added sugar, so their immune system is really only working properly for a few hours before they wake up.
Re:and it never did
By Rei
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2016-Apr-13 19:09
• Score: 5, Informative
• Thread
This sort of thing is what one should expect when you start breaking down categories.
Initially fats were all one category. "Apparently fats are bad - stop eating so much fat." Okay.
Then different categories of fats were studied. "Apparently saturated fats are bad, other fats not as bad." Okay.
Then different types of those were studied. "Apparently monounsaturated fats are pretty good, but when polyunsaturated are concerned, most people get too much omega-6 and not enough omega-3 - and that can be as bad as too much saturated" Okay, this is getting complicated....
Then it keeps going: "Well, when you compare gamma lineolic acid to arachidonic acid...." Stop!
It's not that the earlier data was wrong. It was just categorically too broad. Even knowing statistics about individual chemicals isn't (ideally) enough, because the effects can vary depending on who eats it and how they eat. For example, potatoes: it's a little known fact that letting many types of starches cool (rice, potatoes, pasta) converts readily digestible starches into resistant starches, significantly reducing their caloric content and glycemic load. Or that eating iron-rich foods in many small servings over the course of a day yields significantly more iron absorption than eating the same amount all at once in a single serving. Etc. It's relatively straightforward to gather health data for foods, but often very hard to turn that into "universal recommendations".
Re:um duh (the moderation thing is a myth too)
By AthanasiusKircher
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2016-Apr-13 21:15
• Score: 5, Informative
• Thread
50% of people who have heart attacks have "normal" cholesterol levels. Just let that one sink in. And I know there are stats about everything, but that is a big one.
I don't actually know enough about the context here to evaluate that claim, but more importantly -- your statistic is insufficient to conclude anything.
A statement like "50% of people who have heart attacks have 'normal' cholesterol levels" is absolutely useless for evaluating the potential link between heart attacks and cholesterol without a sense of incidence of "high cholesterol" and "heart attacks" within the population.
Just for a quick statistical primer, imagine the following scenario:
1000 people
100 people have high cholesterol
100 people have heart attacks
Let's take your claim: 50% of people who had heart attacks had normal cholesterol. Knowing the above stats, that implies:
(1) 50% of heart attacks were people with high cholesterol.
(2) Thus, chances of having a heart attack with high cholesterol = 50/100 = 50%.
(3) Chances of having a heart attack without high cholesterol = 50/900 = 5.55%.
Overall, those with high cholesterol have about 9 times greater chance of having a heart attack. High cholesterol appears to be a VERY STRONG PREDICTOR of heart attacks.
(We could go even more extreme and imagine there were 200 people with heart attacks, in which case 100% of people with high cholesterol had heart attacks... even though your "50%" stat is still true. In that case, I think I'd be really concerned if someone had high cholesterol.)
Alternatively, consider a different scenario:
1000 people
400 people have high cholesterol
10 people have heart attacks
Again, using your assumption that 50% of heart attacks are in people with normal cholesterol, that means:
(1) Chances of having a heart attack with high cholesterol = 5/300 = 1.25%.
(2) Chances of having a heart attack with normal cholesterol = 5/600 = 0.83%.
In this case, things are much more equal -- high cholesterol has higher risk, but less than 50% higher.
In this case, heart attacks are much more rare, and high cholesterol might be a factor, but it seems there are a lot of other things to look at.
Bottom line -- your statistic is meaningless without context. Citing a rate of incidence for a subgroup tells you nothing about whether that subgroup is significant or not... you'd need more stats to evaluate your claim. Depending on the larger population stats, your "50%" statistic might even be incredibly strong evidence that high cholesterol is the best factor we have to predict heart attacks... which I think is the opposite point that you wanted us to have "sink in." (I don't think this latter hypothesis is true, merely that your stat is quite ambiguous.)