Nutritional Recommendations—We Must Get Them Right at Last

Abstract

Almost four decades ago, the American medical establishment was bamboozled into believing that consumption of dietary fat and cholesterol were critical factors in cardiovascular disease. Many trace the confusion to Ancel Keys, who strongly believed that dietary fat and cholesterol were closely related to the development of heart disease. In 1970, Keys published the Seven Countries Study (which included Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Finland, the Netherlands, Japan, and the US), which showed that dietary saturated fat intake increased total cholesterol, and this was associated with an increase coronary mortality. However, data were actually available for 22, rather than seven, countries and, in the analysis of all the data, a poor relationship between total fat intake and heart disease can be seen. So why did Keys omit countries where the consumption of total and saturated fat were higher, yet the risk of heart disease was low? Many critics conclude that the study was biased in favor of his hypothesis.