by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News
A 2017 meta-analysis of 29 studies has concluded that consuming dietary dairy fat has no negative effects on all cause [1] mortality [2] or mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and coronary heart disease (CHD). This includes dairy fats of all types.
One of the researchers, Ian Givens of England’s Reading University, commented on the record:
“There’s been a lot of publicity over the last 5 to 10 years about how saturated fats increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and a belief has grown up that they must increase the risk, but they don’t.”
Actually, dairy and other animal sourced saturated fats have been wrongly condemned as a contributor to obesity and higher cardiovascular risk since Ancel Keys [3]‘ notorious seven countries study over 50 years ago, which spawned the “lipid theory” of heart disease and obesity.
Some claim Keys’ study was funded by the sugar industry to divert concerns from sugar consumption’s influence on obesity and disease. This suspicion is based on discoveries that Keys’ epidemiological study appeared to have been arranged purposely to lead to a predetermined lipid theory. It made healthy fats, especially the saturated ones, the culprit for obesity and heart disease.
The national mania for avoiding natural dietary saturated fats was perpetuated in the Western world by the medical, nutritional, and media professions. No or low fat dairy foods containing harmful additives to imitate whole fat textures, margarine, and toxic processed cooking and salad oils sales skyrocketed and stayed in orbit until now.
Yet heart disease has consistently flourished during this trend, and obesity has soared off the tops of charts plotting it. The cause for obesity and heart disease in addition to diabetes has currently refocused properly on added sugars, including HFCS (high fructose corn syrup).
But the already programmed media, medical system, government and foundation nutritionists are mostly still clinging to this bogus lipid theory as a source of obesity and heart disease, which was originally espoused by the “McGovern Report” in the 1970s and developed as nutritional dogma by the USDA.
To deny the lipid theory of heart disease and admit they were wrong, would expose perhaps the greatest medical scam of our time: cholesterol lowering drugs – the most profitable class of drugs in the history of the pharmaceutical industry.
This Very Thorough Independent Study Debunks the “Saturated Fats are Bad” Nutritional Advice
The study title is “Milk and dairy consumption and risk of cardiovascular diseases and all-cause mortality: dose–response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.” It was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology during April of 2017.
A cohort is usually a large group of individuals sharing something in common, it could be a region, age group, gender, or particular lifestyle and other possibilities. A prospective study follows the individuals in that cohort over time with predetermined factors they are subjected to as part of their everyday lives with the focus of determining what factors are involved with the specific diseases of concern. (Source [4])
The meta-analysis was covered jointly by researchers at Reading University in England, Copenhagen University in Denmark, and Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Out of 59 prospective studies available for this meta-analysis, only 29 made the cut.
The researchers removed all abstracts that were duplicate studies, studies that included subjects with past histories of CVD or CHD were also removed. They also removed studies that contained animal subjects or humans under 18 years of age.
The prospective cohort studies they analyzed were performed over the past 35 years to 2016. The subjects of all 29 studies involved a total of 938,465 people within varying cohorts covering a wide spectrum of economic levels, lifestyles, genders, and ages from around the world.
The meta-analysis researchers used the most sophisticated statistical analysis methods and systems available to eliminate influencing variables, including funding sources for the 29 studies. You can read more about this in the text of their study under the heading “Statistical analysis” here [5].
Despite numbers of 93,158 overall mortality, of which 28,419 were CHD and 25,416 were CVD cases within the almost one million subjects over time, the meta-analysis determined:
“No associations were found for total (high-fat/low-fat) dairy, and milk with the health outcomes of mortality, CHD or CVD. Inverse associations were found between total fermented dairy (included sour milk products, cheese or yogurt; …” [Note: Inverse associations implies fermented dairy consumers lived somewhat longer and healthier.] (Source [5])
What is Most Significant about This Study
The fact that two mainstream media papers, The Guardian of England and America’s USA Today carried the story is significant. Perhaps the influence of dairy associations had something to do with that. Or perhaps the “lipid theory” forwarded by Ancel Keys with his now exposed poor epidemiological method is finally unraveling more in public consciousness. Maybe both are factors.
Of course, most Health Impact News readers are aware of Keys’ lipid theory fallacies, but this knowledge is not widespread. And to be sure, certain authoritative nutritional groups are circling their wagons to try and keep it that way.
Mike Knapton, an associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, described the meta-analysis team’s research conclusion as “unhelpful and misleading,” while proclaiming, “Decades of research have proved that a diet rich in saturated fat increases ‘bad’ (LDL) cholesterol in your blood, which puts you at greater risk of a heart attack or stroke.”
Decades of research, or decades of mass disinformation dogma from very little and bad scientific research?
Public Health England was a bit more generous with their reaction to the meta-analysis:
“Dairy products form an important part of a healthy balanced diet; however, many are high in saturated fat and salt. We’re all consuming too much of both, increasing our risk of heart disease.”
So the official position with Public Health England remains as before regarding saturated fats. (Source [6])
In addition to maintaining the status quo despite evidence to the contrary, especially if there are vested interests, it’s easy to see how a Mark Twain quote is relevant. “It’s easier to fool people than tell them they’ve been fooled.”
On a more positive note: Keep in mind that the dairy products involved with the 29 studies were mostly from pasteurized and/or homogenized milks. Yet even with those nutritional handicaps of broken proteins and destroyed enzymes from processing, the conclusion came up benign, stating there’s no harm from consuming whole fat dairy products, including cheeses, yogurt, and butter.
Today’s health conscious individuals who are taking responsibility for their health and recognizing the ignorance displayed by health officials and mainstream medical practitioners, have taken to purchasing raw milk and raw milk dairy products wherever possible. Both raw and even pasteurized dairy is healthier if it comes from grass fed cows that are not injected with antibiotics and growth hormones. (Source [7])
If raw milk, butter, or cheese is out of reach, informed health conscious folks are discriminating enough to include milk and dairy products from grass fed organic animal sources with their grocery shopping. There’s even more evidence for their value toward promoting health with these dietary choices than what’s publicly announced.
But there are some posers out there who are getting away with deceptive or even fraudulent labeling, thanks to lax USDA concerns or rising corruption that allows factory dairy farms to market their milk and dairy as organic.
A group called Cornucopia specializes in sorting out the organic impostors and even grading actual organic dairy and egg sources according to their degrees of fulfilling organic requirements. Cornucopia is currently on a campaign inviting consumers to report codes on organic dairy products so that they can source and investigate various producers and suppliers. More about that here [8].
One of the best documentaries exposing the lipid theory and statin scam by interviewing doctors in the industry who have exposed it, was published in 2013 on ABC in Australia. The medical authorities were not successful in preventing it from being aired on TV, but they forced ABC to remove them from their website.
We currently are using copies available on YouTube. Take some time to watch these important documentaries produced by medical doctors on the bogus lipid theory of heart disease and statin drug scam, and be informed!
HEART OF THE MATTER Part 1: The Cholesterol Myth: Dietary Villains
HEART OF THE MATTER Part 2: The Cholesterol Drug War
Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You!
What REALLY Causes Heart Disease
by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
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