"Unsaturated Fats Linked To Longer Healthier Life" - Harvard Gazette

[tankasnowgod]

@tankasnowgod @haidut

Tankasnowgod:

Your answer is "cute" but with the likes of Harvard and a culture that bows down to such brands "cute" with all due respect doesnt cut it....

So in other words, don't pay any attention to the facts or how they gathered their data, simply bow down to an authority because they said something. Got it.

 

[haidut]

@tankasnowgod @haidut

Tankasnowgod:

Your answer is "cute" but with the likes of Harvard and a culture that bows down to such brands "cute" with all due respect doesnt cut it....

Heres the Harvard press release on the study.... it in my estimation devastates what Ray @haidut have been saying about PUFA....



"Intake of high amounts of unsaturated fats—both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated—was associated with between 11% and 19% lower overall mortality compared with the same number of calories from carbohydrates. Among the polyunsaturated fats, both omega-6, found in most plant oils, and omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and soy and canola oils, were associated with lower risk of premature death.

The health effects of specific types of fats depended on what people were replacing them with, the researchers found. For example, people who replaced saturated fats with unsaturated fats—especially polyunsaturated fats—had significantly lower risk of death overall during the study period, as well as lower risk of death from CVD, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and respiratory disease, compared with those who maintained high intakes of saturated fats. The findings for cardiovascular disease are consistent with many earlier studies showing reduced total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol when unsaturated fats replace trans or saturated fats.

People who replaced saturated fats with carbohydrates had only slightly lower mortality risk. In addition, replacing total fat with carbohydrates was associated with modestly higher mortality. This was not surprising, the authors said, because carbohydrates in the American diet tend to be primarily refined starch and sugar, which have a similar influence on mortality risk as saturated fats.

“Our study shows the importance of eliminating trans fat and replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fats, including both omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. In practice, this can be achieved by replacing animal fats with a variety of liquid vegetable oils,” said senior author Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard Chan School and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

No, it doesn't devastate anything. Have you seen this thread?
Replacing Butter With PUFA Increases Overall Death Rates And CVD

Keep in mind the thread I posted above was a large, controlled trial - i.e. not some BS epidemiological study that asked people questions every 2 years. Unfortunately, Harvard is a pale shadow of its former self as the premier edicational institution in the world. They were in the news just last week about getting bribes from the food industry to produce fake studies supporting the use of starchy HFCS.

 

[Travis]

This study is nearly worthless; too many confounding variables. If you want to know the health effects of saturated vs unsaturated fats, then these should be the only variables in the study.

These studies have been done on animals and are far more applicable than a survey with self-reporting questionnaires.

 

[tara]

correlation does not equal causation

+1
Epidemiological studies in general, especially ones with very large numbers of uncontrolled variables, including large ones and ones looked at by Harvard, can at best give rise to interesting hypotheses for further investigation. The cannot demonstrate causality.

The idea that you could formulate ANY relationship between any micro or macronutrient and mortality with that infrequent of a dietary questionnaire is beyond ridiculous.

+1

Your answer is "cute" but with the likes of Harvard and a culture that bows down to such brands "cute" with all due respect doesnt cut it....

Doesn't cut what? These are significant rational comments on a couple of severe limitations on the reliability of any causal conclusions from this study.
Do you mean that many people's prejudices favouring Harvard-based studies will overwhelm reasoned argument? That may be, but then maybe what you are asking for is a counter-marketing campaign, not a reasoned discussion of the science.

Heres the Harvard press release on the study.... it in my estimation devastates what Ray @haidut have been saying about PUFA....

This is a press release, not a study. Press releases are renowned for misrepresenting the science.

" [In diets the particular diets of participants estimated from self-reports at 2-4 year intervals,] intake of high amounts of unsaturated fats—both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated —was associated with between 11% and 19% lower overall mortality compared with the same number of calories from carbohydrates. Among the polyunsaturated fats, both omega-6, found in most plant oils, and omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and soy and canola oils, were associated with lower risk of premature death."

The health effects of specific types of fats depended on what people were replacing them with, the researchers found.

This is a misreporting (or at best ambiguous reporting] of what the study demonstrated. The study did not demonstrate effects, it demonstrated association.

Our study shows the importance of eliminating trans fat and replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fats, including both omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. In practice, this can be achieved by replacing animal fats with a variety of liquid vegetable oils,” said senior author Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard Chan School and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

This conclusion is not justified by the data - it's a leap of faith.

 

[Giraffe]

After some digging I found the abstract of the study that was discussed.

Association of Specific Dietary Fats With Total and Cause-Specific Mortality. - PubMed - NCBI

After adjustment for known and suspected risk factors, dietary total fat compared with total carbohydrates was inversely associated with total mortality (hazard ratio

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comparing extreme quintiles, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.81-0.88; P < .001 for trend).

---

Massaged data!

 

[Spokey]

If it were true that PUFA were some how advantageous to health, you have to wonder why ruminants have evolved means to turn it into SFA, or why it is we don't turn excess carbohydrates into PUFA (with the exception of omega 9).

 

[haidut]

Just read the Wikipedia page on omega-6. When even Wikipedia has wisened up to the dangers of PUFA, I am not even sure why is the topic considered controversial. Wikipedia is the "consensus" as Peat says.
Omega-6 fatty acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Polyunsaturated fat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And of course it is always nice to see Ray hitting the mainstream. He is being mention on the EFA deficiency Wikipedia page
Essential fatty acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[GAF]

Who funded the study? Can you guys find out? Can we send a pufa cake to the authors at christmas?

 

[natedawggh]

echoing all the flaws with this study

-it's a survey study. People answer questions about their dietary behaviors 2 to 4 years apart. "How much butter did you have for the last four years?" "IDK, a lot."

-adjusted for risk factors. They weeded out everyone with diseases like hypertension or kidney disease, which would have developed those diseases from PUFA consumption, so when those diseased people died they weren't counted in the dietary analysis data

-Harvard is hardly a respected authority on nutritional health

-No one has ever cited that study, according to JAMA, so it certainly didn't influence anyone even in their own field.