I know we need some fat in our diet, but do we need saturated fat at all?
We do need saturated fats, health condition, status, level of activity, etc etc, will determine how much and if you need to add any more.
Aside from the dietary intake, our body naturally produces saturated fats. They also contribute to our sex hormones.
There’s nothing you don’t NEED from fats except for Trans fats. We definitely don’t need that.
A year ago I switched from a standard American diet, to a high saturated fat, high protein, low carb diet (basically carnivore plus some veggies) and I’ve never been healthier. I had some inflammatory markers in my blood that would not go away and my doctor wanted to put me on meds. Changing my diet cut those markers in half. Also improved my cholesterol significantly which was a big surprise.
Every major health organization on the planet recommends the average person lower their saturated fat intake. No major health organization encourages the average person to increase consumption.
Most studies that say saturated fat is “neutral” compare saturated fat to refined grains or sugar. That is swapping bad for bad so we don’t see a statistically significant improvement and therefore falsely conclude saturated fat is “neutral” (aka not increasing harm compared to refined grains/sugar). The American Heart Association published a great paper that goes through all of these supposedly “pro-sat fat papers” and explains the issue with the comparison food group: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000510
The above paper goes through food groups, so it’s a great resource if you want to know the risks associated with saturated fat from a specific source (say coconut oil).
Here are some relevant guidelines and papers on saturated fat and heart disease:
Evidence as assessed by US DGAC: https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/dietary-guidelines/previous-dietary-guidelines/2015/advisory-report/appendix-e-2/appendix-e-243
Paper by the World Health Organization: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/246104/9789241565349-eng.pdf
On elevated LDL causing heart disease:
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/38/32/2459/3745109
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/41/24/2313/5735221
Finally, in anticipation of commenters trying to misrepresent the Cochrane study by Hooper et al on sat fat, I’m going to post actual quotes from the paper below. (Full free article available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7388853/)
These are all DIRECT QUOTES from the Hopper et al Cochrane review:
“Authors’ conclusions
The findings of this updated review suggest that reducing saturated fat intake for at least two years causes a potentially important reduction in combined cardiovascular events. Replacing the energy from saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat or carbohydrate appear to be useful strategies, while effects of replacement with monounsaturated fat are unclear. The reduction in combined cardiovascular events resulting from reducing saturated fat did not alter by study duration, sex or baseline level of cardiovascular risk, but greater reduction in saturated fat caused greater reductions in cardiovascular events.”
“Key results
We found 15 studies with over 59,000 participants. The evidence is current to October 2019. The review found that cutting down on saturated fat led to a 21% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease (including heart disease and strokes), but had little effect on the risk of dying. The review found that health benefits arose from replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fat or starchy foods. The greater the decrease in saturated fat, and the more serum total cholesterol is reduced, the greater the protection from cardiovascular events. People who are currently healthy appear to benefit as much as those at increased risk of heart disease or stroke (people with high blood pressure, high serum cholesterol or diabetes, for example), and people who have already had heart disease or stroke. There was no difference in effect between men and women.
This means that, if 56 people without cardiovascular disease, or 32 people who already have cardiovascular disease, reduce their saturated fat for around 4 years, then one person will avoid a cardiovascular event (heart attack or stroke) they would otherwise have experienced.
Quality of the evidence
There is a large body of evidence assessing effects of reducing saturated fat for at least two years. These studies provide moderate‐quality evidence that reducing saturated fat reduces our risk of cardiovascular disease.”
“Authors’ conclusions Implications for practice
Evidence supports the reduction of saturated fat to reduce risk of combined cardiovascular events in people with and without existing cardiovascular disease, in men and women, over at least two years and in industrialised countries. Little or no effect of saturated fat reduction was seen on all‐cause and cardiovascular mortality, at least on this timescale.
Practical ways to achieve reductions in dietary saturated fat include switching to lower fat dairy foods and cutting off meat fats, as well as reducing intake of foods high in saturated fats such as cakes, biscuits, pies and pastries, butter, ghee, lard, palm oil, sausages and cured meats, hard cheese, cream, ice cream, milkshakes and chocolate (for further details see NHS 2020).”
I don’t think you NEED it but good luck avoiding it completely.
If you’ve got a balanced diet there’s nothing wrong with saturated fat. Butter, beef, cheeses, etc are all in a healthy persons diet. Moderation is key.
There are technically only two essential fatty acids - omega 3 ALA and omega 6 LA. Both are polyunsaturated.
If you look at the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, you’ll notice they recommend limiting added sugar, sodium, saturated fat, and alcohol.
No there is no need for dietary saturated fats. The only kind of fat that is essential is polyunsaturated one’s, omega 3 an 6. Which can be preformed as DHA and EPA from animal sources like fish, or ALA and LA found in plant foods(except algae that has preformed too) that the body uses to make DHA and EPA. LA and ALA has other functions too so optimally you would get predominately LA and ALA and a small amount of DHA/EPA. Foods often contain varying degrees of all the different fats so you would still get a mix and a little bit of saturated fat, but foods higher in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are always more healthy in terms of fats than foods high in saturated ones.
I believe you should have some, but the amount is so little and saturated fats are so widely present, that when eating normally, you have a much higher chance of ending up with too much rather than too little. I personally get my fat from cheese and fish, maybe someone with more knowledge can say if that’s actually a good approach.