Vegetable oils versus butter? The second wins

In these years of bloggers like Dcomedieta, one of the things that most shocked me doing research is the so-called “lipid hypothesis”: that is, polyunsaturated fats from vegetable sources reduce cardiovascular risks and reduce cholesterol, while saturated fats (meat , butter, cheese, lard) hurt and in particular increased cardiovascular risks. Well, you’ve all heard of it: how many times have we heard that vegetable oil or margarine are healthier alternatives than butter? What butter and cheeses are bad for you? Still many readers are convinced that a little fat in the diet can do nothing but good, but they are skeptical about butter: better olive oil.

And this is because all, all of us for years have been convinced that saturated fats are bad for us, mono and polyunsaturated fats lengthen life. This “lipid hypothesis” has been going on for about 50 years, and although it has been disproved in recent years, little is still said about it, so that on average people are led to think that sunflower, rapeseed, soybean and of corn are excellent (and not bad) alternatives for cooking, frying, not to mention the endless number of industrial products in which we find them. While, dear !, woe to putting the butter somewhere. Butter is terrible, it’s saturated!

Well, from today the umpteenth denial on vegetable oils and in particular on the idea that polyunsaturated fatty acids are good for the heart comes from a group of researchers from the UNC School of Medicine and scientists from the National Institutes of Health: who have published an interesting study in the British Medical Journal. Here is what the researchers say in this study, conducted on over nine thousand patients, which collects data from unpublished studies, compares them with data from similar studies, and at the base has a research that lasted fifty years.
– Linoleic fatty acid, a fat from the omega6 group (polyunsaturated fatty acids such as omega3) does reduce cholesterol levels, but not cardiovascular or mortality risk. On the contrar

– Those on a diet based on omega6 polyunsaturated fats have less serum cholesterol, but are more likely to die before cardiovascular events.
– The fact that so far a partial publication of the benefits of omega6 polyunsaturated fatty acids has been given has caused the available data to be overestimated and led to the belief that replacing saturated fats with plant-based fats was beneficial for cardiovascular health. It is exactly the opposite. Among the studies brought to light by the researchers, completing the data, a study conducted on corn oil for example showed that those who took corn oil had a 15% risk of premature death compared to the control group, and double the heart attacks.
Now: do you remember how many saturated fats we should eat according to the Mediterranean diet? Out of a percentage ranging from 25 to 35% of fat compared to other macronutrients, 7% is saturated fat. The rest between polyunsaturated and monounsaturated (olive oil). And where do these percentages come from? From the studies of the Sixties by Ancel Keys and from the food guidelines of the American Heart Association, which in 61 confirmed and spread the idea that polyunsaturated fatty acids from vegetable oils were healthier than saturated ones. Unfortunately, the truth is only coming out now, but in the meantime I advise you to limit, as I have already written in other articles, the use of sunflower oil, corn oil, canola oil, canola oil, soybean oil. Not to buy products that contain them. Also avoid omega6 supplements.
Finally, for those who want to have a laugh, the whole story of the lipid hypothesis is told in Italian on the Albanesi.it website : the article precedes this discovery by the researchers, but already explained how the hypothesis came to be built. of lipids.