Introduction:

In the first half of the last century, the consumption of processed foods in USA grew in parallel with the incidence of heart attacks. But despite the increase in components that had never existed in the human diet and the fact that saturated fats have always been there, a very influential scientist named Ancel Keys was determined to show that the latter were to blame.

In the same decade, lipid scientist Dr. Fred August Kummerow claimed that saturated fat was not the problem and was among the first to warn of the link between processed foods and heart disease (1,2).

After analyzing the arteries of dozens of people who had died of heart attacks, Dr. Kummerow discovered that the vessels were filled with trans-fat.

Following this discovery, he fed pigs these lipids and when realized that these fats generated plaques that clog the arteries, he published his findings on the role of trans fats in heart disease in the journal Science in 1957. But the industry was so influential on scientific publications, that his report was directly dismissed…

 “The other scientists were more interested in what the industry was thinking, than in what I was thinking”

Dr. Fred Kummerow

On the other hand, the theories of Ancel Keys were very suitable for the sugar industry, the vegetable oil industry (especially for Margarine manufacturers) and the American Heart Association, as it received (and currently receives) generous donations from the vegetable oil industry.

So all of this conflict of interest led to an even greater consumption of these harmful industrialized (refined) and chemically saturated (hydrogenated) lipids, processed foods and sugars, as an alternative to foods that contain saturated fats created by nature and as history has shown us, it has brought countless metabolic diseases that have not stopped growing to this day.

Ancel Keys:

Ancel Keys was not a cardiologist, but a scientist who achieved his grade doing experiments with electric eels. But thanks to his influences, he was hired during World War II, in order to make food that can be packaged and carried by soldiers and at the end of the war, for some reason, the Minnesota Department of Public Health hired him to study the growing problem in heart attacks.

Ancel Keys was convinced (or motivated for some other reason) that saturated fat was responsible for this epidemic. So when the World Health Association had its first meeting of experts in the pathology of atherosclerosis in 1954, Ancel Keys wanted to present his theory on animal fat and coronary heart disease to the distinguished audience, but his argument proved so weak that other scientists didn’t take him seriously.

This made him leave very offended and swearing revenge and then, he designed the famous 7 countries study.

The seven countries study:

The study of the seven countries is the foundation of the still present heart / diet hypothesis, in which it is shown that the countries that consume more saturated fat also have a higher incidence of heart attacks. But is this really what was shown?

The study of the seven countries was actually done in 22.

The controversy revolves around the fact that the original results with all the countries included show a much lower correlation than the chart that the world came to know with only seven.

(Note: The seventh country was France, a country with high consumption of saturated fat and low heart disease that was called “the French paradox,” but as we will see, it was not the only paradox.)

(The the one on the top, is the information originally collected and the bottom one, is the famous graph that shows a perfect linear

 relationship)

The study was published with all the data, but the information so convincing that the public came to know, is questionable for four very important reasons.

1. This study also collected information on sugar consumption, which showed a more direct relation with heart disease, but Ancel Keys focused on saturated fat and this was not mentioned.

(Note: According to investigative journalist Gary Taubes, Keys’ lab had received funding from the sugar industry since the 1940s, so this could have been a conflict of interest.)

2. He’s removed countries that did not support his theory, such as Sweden, Denmark, Holland or Norway. Countries with high consumption of saturated fat and low heart disease.
3. Wasn’t taken into account (or omitted) other variables, such as that in the countries that did have a low consumption of saturated fat and low heart disease, there was also an extremely healthy lifestyle, where only natural and unprocessed foods were consumed, such as for example Japan.
4. Wasn’t taken into account that the countries that topped the list in heart disease, were also those that consumed the most processed foods, sugar, refined vegetable oils and trans fats such as Canada, Australia or the first in coronary disease … USA.

“A generation of citizens has grown up since the diet/heart hypothesis was launched as official dogma. They have been misled by the greatest scientific deception in our times: The notion that consumption of animal fat causes heart disease“.

Dr George Mann (1985)

                  

Like we’ve mentioned in the sugar blogs, the obvious relationship between heart disease and sugar consumption reflected in this study did not go unnoticed by British doctor John Yudkin of the University of London. But like Dr. Fred Kummerow, it was not taken seriously and in fact, Dr. Yudkin was ridiculed by Ancel Keys himself.

(Note: In the studies conducted by Ancel Keys to demonstrate the health impact of saturated fat, they did not use natural saturated fats but used hydrogenated oils)

Still, Ancel Keys was so influential that Time magazine named him “Man of the Year” in 1961 and he was also named a committee member of the American Heart Association, which led to his ideas influencing government policy on cardiac disease (first in America and then worldwide), perpetuating even to this day a hypothesis that has never been proven.

“If you look honestly at the evidence, it just keeps getting weaker. Certainly, there are no evidence studies that really support the diet / heart hypothesis. “

Dr. Jeff Volek

But these findings were so convenient for the vegetable oil industry, the American Heart Association, the sugar industry, and as time went by, also for the pharmaceutical industry (I’ll write more in the cholesterol blogs), the low-fat industry and many others, that it still remains a dogma even today.

If we consider that the lipid scientist Dr. Fred Kummerow warned about trans fats and Dr. Yudkin about sugar and, that both were completely ignored, it is not difficult to suspect that back then there was a bigger agenda behind it. Especially if we keep in mind that as we’ve mentioned in the introduction, the American Heart Association received (and still does) generous donations from the vegetable oil industry.

But knowing what we know today, why do certain recommendations still stand worldwide?

Well, maybe (just maybe) there’s still an agenda, like for example, the “heart – check”.

The “heart – check” is a type of food certification that the American Heart Association puts in certain products for consumption, as to guide the public in which “healthy” foods to choose.

This seems to be a very noble aim of an association supposedly directed to the care of the population, but what the general public is not openly informed about, is that the American Heart Association receives about $ 700,000 a year for each product that bears this seal.

The heart – check is giving this “non-profit” association about 800,000,000 dollars a year (3) (yes, you read that correctly).

(Note: The president of the American Heart Association Dr. John Warner, the highest authority of the organization that gives us the advice to know what lifestyle to follow to avoid a heart attack, had a heart attack at only 50 years old in 2017 … in the celebration of a congress about heart disease prevention.)

In the next blog, we are going to analyze the studies on saturated fats and shed some light on whether or not we should stop consuming them.

References:

1 – Hydrogenation. Trans fats. Dietary cholesterol Fred Kummerow’s double victory.

2 – Fred A. Kummerow, an Early Opponent of Trans Fats, Dies at 102.

3 – Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart Attacks and Statins Are Not The Solution.