protect against heart disease.
That's the view of one of the UK's leading cardiologists, who
is calling for a radical shift in the current advice to cut down
on saturated fat levels in our diets.
Dr Aseem Malhotra said cutting the amount of such fats has
"paradoxically increased" the risk of heart disease.
He also argued in the British Medical Journal that saturated fat
had been "demonised" for decades as a major cause of
cardiovascular disease.
He says, however, there is little scientific evidence to suggest
such a link, he said, and suggested that an increase in sugar
and carbohydrate intake had been overlooked as a cause.
Dr Malhotra, a cardiology specialist registrar at Croydon
University Hospital in London, criticised current medical guidance
and its "obsession with levels of total cholesterol", which he
said "has led to the over-medication of millions of people with
statins", which reduce cholesterol levels.
Instead, adopting a Mediterranean diet rich in oily fish, olive oil,
nuts and fruit and vegetables after a heart attack is almost
three times as powerful in reducing death rates as taking a
statin, he said.
Dr Malhotra said: "The mantra that saturated fat must be
removed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease has
dominated dietary advice and guidelines for almost four
decades.
"Yet scientific evidence shows that this advice has,
paradoxically, increased our cardiovascular risks."
He highlighted studies in the United States which revealed that
while the proportion of energy consumed from fat had fallen
from 40 per cent to 30 per cent (although absolute fat
consumption remained the same), obesity rocketed.
He noted: "One reason: when you take the fat out, the food
tastes worse.
"The food industry compensated by replacing saturated fat
with added sugar."
Dr Malhotra added: "It is time to bust the myth of the role of
saturated fat in heart disease and wind back the harms of
dietary advice that has contributed to obesity".
Other experts have backed Dr Malhotra's views.
Professor David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity
Forum, said: "It's extremely naive of the public and the medical
profession to imagine that a calorie of bread, a calorie of meat
and a calorie of alcohol are all dealt in the same way by the
amazingly complex systems of the body.
"The assumption has been made that increased fat in the
bloodstream is caused by increased saturated fat in the diet,
whereas modern scientific evidence is proving that refined
carbohydrates and sugar in particular are actually the
culprits."
Timothy Noakes, professor of exercise and sports science at
the University of Cape Town, added: "Focusing on an elevated
blood cholesterol concentration as the exclusive cause of
coronary heart disease is unquestionably the worst medical
error of our time."
