Dr Miriam Stoppard: Experts in a U-turn over link between saturated fats and heart disease.

The Mirror's health columnist Dr Miriam Stoppard says researchers believe sugar and metabolic syndrome may now be more of a danger.

Before I tell you about this, I almost feel I have to apologise but... scientists have changed their minds about the dangers of saturated fat. Saturated fat and its link to heart disease, that is.

Why do scientists keep changing their minds, I hear you ask? It’s always been my opinion that new information should make you change your mind. It’s ­unintelligent to do otherwise.

The rejection of saturated fat as the arch villain causing heart, ­arterial disease and stroke has been building for some time.

This is not to say that all saturated fat is OK. All researchers agree that trans fats – those used in many fast foods, bakery products and ­margarines – increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The question we should be asking ourselves is why, even after removing a lot of saturated fat from our diets, is CVD continuing to rise?

As a recent article in the British Medical Journal pointed out, studies haven’t supported any strong link between ­saturated fat and ­cardiovascular risk. Instead, ­saturated fat has been found to be a protector.

Mind you, the source of the ­saturated fat may be important. Dairy foods are rich in vitamins A and D and vitamin D is needed for heart health, as are calcium and phosphorus, which are also found in dairy foods.

The evidence is mounting that sugar is the culprit, especially for “metabolic syndrome”, which is the combination of high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.

In fact, I remember 25 years ago I was doing research with a professor of ­metabolism who claimed that it was sugar rather than fat that would prove to be harmful.

In the past, heart disease existed largely in isolation. Now two-thirds of people admitted to hospital with a heart attack actually have ­metabolic syndrome.

However, three-quarters of these patients have completely normal cholesterol levels.

Could this be that cholesterol isn’t really the problem?

Despite the common belief that high cholesterol is a significant risk factor for coronary artery disease, several independent studies carried out in healthy adults have shown that high total ­cholesterol is not a risk factor in a healthy population.

Adopting a Mediterranean diet after a heart attack is almost three times as powerful in reducing mortality as taking a statin.

A recently published Predimed trial was stopped early after it showed that, in high-risk people, the Mediterranean diet achieved a 30% improvement over a “low-fat” diet in terms of heart attacks.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/

Graham