Pork Fat Rules

Steven Malloy, debunker of junk science, has the details on the latest major study to demolish the myth that dietary fat and cholesterol are bad for you. The article is here. The study involved nearly 50,000 women. According to Malloy:

The most significant result of the $415 million study is that low-fat diets don’t reduce heart disease risk. As the researchers put it, “Over [an average] of 8.1 years, a dietary intervention that reduced total fat intake and increased intake of vegetables, fruits and grains did not significantly reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women and achieved only modest effects on cardiovascular risk factors. . . .”

Low-fat diets didn’t even improve heart health among the population of women who had heart disease at the beginning of the study. In fact, the low-fat diet regimen was associated with a slightly increased risk of heart disease among these women.

These results are quite a blow to the Diet-Government Complex, that constellation of pharmaceutical companies, food processors, and government bureaucrats that have been pushing low-fat, high-carb diets on us for years. This has been a thoroughly politicized process from the start. (See this New York Times Magazine article,"What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?") As Malloy points out, the other major studies have consistently failed to support the fat-cholesterol-heart-disease hypothesis, but the results were always spun to distract attention from the facts. And the news media has always been too willing to merely reprint the press releases.

For the scoop on such things, visit the website of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics . I'd also recommend Dr. Uffe Ravnskov's book, The Cholesterol Myths.

Somewhere up there, Dr. Atkins is smiling.

As Emeril Lagasse says,"Pork fat rules!"

Cross-posted at Free Association.