In recent years the association between dietary saturated fat, hypercholesterolemia, and coronary artery disease has been re-explored .... Several new, sometimes controversial, concepts have arisen that challenge underlying assumptions:

1. Although saturated fats as a class raise LDL, they also have a primary responsibility among dietary fatty acids for raising HDL, possibly depending on a balanced intake of polyunsaturated fats.
2. Not all saturated fatty acids are equally responsible for changes in LDL or HDL.
3. The saturated fat effect is both related to the dietary cholesterol and the lipoprotein set point of the host.

(Hayes KC, "Saturated Fats and Blood Lipids: New Slant on an Old Story" Can J Cardiol Oct. 1995.)

Comment: HDL is so-called "good" cholesterol while LDL is "bad" cholesterol. The prevailing belief since the Framingham Study 50 years ago, and from similar and even larger studies to follow, is saturated fats, i.e., animal fats, contribute to heart disease by raising "bad" cholesterol. Now we are learning that some saturated fats can raise good cholesterol depending upon:

1. The type and amount of fat;
2. The other types and amounts of fat in the diet; and
3. The "lipid setpoint" of the individual, the genetically determined amounts and kinds of fats each body makes regardless of fat intake.

There are other factors that must be considered in dietary fat intake. These include, and are not limited to, the following:

1. The feed sources, and the soil management of the feed sources, of the animal (e.g., grass fed animals have different amounts and types of fat than grain fed animals);
2. The percent body fat of the individual;
3. The protein and carbohydrate in the individual diet; and
4. The excesses of either anabolic lipids (fats) and/or catabolic lipids in the cells and tissues of the individual.

See: Jack and Jill, Metabolic Opposites

© Health Equations 2002

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