Dietary fat advice should never have been introduced

Risk factors

10 Feb 2015

Dietary fat guidelines introduced in the late 1970s early 1980s for millions of US and UK citizens should never have been introduced, experts say.

Because there was no solid trial evidence to back the recommendations up, they said.

The meta-analysis of six RCTs available at the time of issuing the dietary guidelines indicated that all-cause mortality was identical   in the intervention and control groups, the researchers said.

While there were significantly higher reductions in mean serum cholesterol levels in the intervention groups this did not result in significant differences in CHD or all-cause mortality.

“This undermines the role of serum cholesterol levels as an intermediary to the development of CHD and contravenes the theory that reducing dietary fat generally and saturated fat particularly potentiates a reduction in CHD,” the researchers wrote in Open Heart.

Based on this evidence clinicians may be more questioning of dietary guidelines, less accepting of low-fat advice and more engaged in nutritional discussions about the role of food in health, the researchers said.

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