Public health advice to avoid fat 'misguided' say researchers

New research suggests dietary advice which has been issued to tens of millions of people in the UK and US over most of the last 40 years – avoid eating saturated fat – was misguided and not properly supported by the evidence.

A UK-American group has concluded there was insufficient trial evidence to support the advice, and says the recommendation shifted the focus away from other risks, especially the carbohydrates that lie behind the obesity epidemic, says The Independent.

In the online journal Open Heart, the researchers wrote: "It seems incomprehensible that dietary advice was introduced for 220 million Americans and 56 million UK citizens, given the contrary results from a small number of unhealthy men.

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"The results of the present meta-analysis support the hypothesis that the available (randomised controlled trials) did not support the introduction of dietary fat recommendations in order to reduce (coronary heart disease) risk or related mortality."

There has already been a backlash to the report, however, with scientists "lining up" to question its methodology, The Guardian says. There have been complaints that the study is "dangerous" because it may encourage people to eat fat.

Christine Williams, a nutrition professor at the University of Reading, said: "The claim that guidelines on dietary fat introduced in the 1970s and 80s were not based on good scientific evidence is misguided and potentially dangerous."

She admitted that there are "justifiable" concerns that saturated fats have been replaced in people's diets with sugars, which obviously carry their own health problems, but said there had been "clear improvements" in cholesterol levels in the population over the past 30 years.

The British Heart Foundation said that to question the lack of trial data showing saturated fat led to heart disease and other problems when the advice was first given was to misunderstand the situation.

The charity said that dietary advice to the public was based not just on trial data but on a wider body of evidence: "It would be all but impossible to carry out a research trial where you controlled the diets of thousands of people over many years.

"That's why guidance in the UK is based on a consensus of the evidence available not just on randomised controlled trials."