Low Fat Diets Are Bad for Your Health

Regardless of whether you accept the science, these stories have an undeniable entertainment value. Today’s story comes to us from Canada. Researchers there have discovered that low fat diets will hasten your demise.

Yes, indeed. High carb, low fat diets are not good for your health. If you eat less fat you will not live longer; you will live shorter.No news yet on whether the low fat diet makes you more eligible for entry to Heaven.

Considering its proponents’ religious fervor, it will certainly amuse you to find out that less fat means less life. One has been told, over and over again, by serious nutritionists, that a healthy diet contains less fat. Perhaps it produces a spiritual experience, but it does not improve your health.

Anyway, the Daily Mail (who else?) reports the news, presented at a conference of heart specialists:

Low-fat diets could increase the risk of an early death, a major study has found.

A global study of 135,000 people reveals that people who eat the least fat have the highest mortality rates.

The findings, presented at the world's largest heart conference, challenge decades of dietary advice which have focused on persuading people to cut fat.

The Canadian research team, who published their study in the respected Lancet medical journal, said fat may actually have a protective effect on human health.

They found people with the lowest fat intake were 23 per cent more likely to die young.

The scientists said people should instead cut back on carbohydrates – the potatoes, bread, pasta and rice which UK health authorities say should be at the centre of a healthy diet.

It turns out that the human body needs to consume a certain amount of fatty foods. Who would have imagined such a thing? When you are lusting after some short ribs your body is telling you that it is fat deprived.

The Daily Mail continues:

But researcher Dr Mahshid Dehghan of McMaster University, speaking at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Barcelona, said: 'For decades, dietary guidelines have focused on reducing total fat and saturated fatty acid.'

But she added: 'The body needs fat. It carries vitamins, it provides essential acids, it has a role in the body.

'When you reduce fat to very low levels, you're affecting these important minerals.'

This does not mean that you should limit your diet to bacon and Big Macs. It does mean that the best diet is a balanced diet. Again, who would have guessed:

She stressed that people should not eat unlimited fat – and if people actually hit the British guidance of getting 35 per cent of energy from fat, they will give themselves the best health.

But she said the focus on 'low-fat' dieting – a drive supported by UK authorities - means people often go below this level.

And when people try to cut fat they replace it in the diet with carbohydrates and sugar, increasing their heart risk.

Obviously, it is good to consume a certain quantity of carbohydrates and sugars, but using them as fat replacements will cause you to die young. It’s today’s good news.