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Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#141

Post by coldtea »

tomrod wrote: post #136
coldtea wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the lifestyle difference is irrelevant since any study that measures the impact of a food in health should control for it.

It can't be controlled for if there is no variation in the population. At that point it becomes a fixed effect--a population-specific intercept, as it were--and the only way to net that out would be through a difference-in-difference type study.

>It can't be controlled for if there is no variation in the population.

You think there are no Tibetans who don't exercise much and don't eat much vegetables either?

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#142

Post by mark_l_watson »

I think that generalizations on fats in diets don't work for analyzing different diets because of other factors like how much processed foods, sugar, and meat are in a person's diet.

My wife does well eating lots of butter and more meat. I do well by eating lots of vegetables. The only thing our diets really have in common is the avoidance of packaged/processed foods. It is some work, but people need to pay attention to how eating different foods make them feel, and over a long period of time.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#143

Post by croon »

Xdafjgneoiwe wrote: post #135
croon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4264021/

Losing weight, especially fat does wonders for insulin sensitivity, though. The low carb group lost 6.2 kg of fat. That is a lot. I do wonder what happens if you look at insulin sensitivity when weight and fat mass remains mostly neutral. I do not know if there are studies done on that (in humans). I will have a look around.

> Losing weight, especially fat does wonders for insulin sensitivity, though.

Agreed.

> The low carb group lost 6.2 kg of fat. That is a lot. I do wonder what happens if you look at insulin sensitivity when weight and fat mass remains mostly neutral. I do not know if there are studies done on that (in humans). I will have a look around.

Sure, but if it's purely weight dependant, then high fat isn't a factor. And if it's not, why did it increase sensitivity?

I'm not trying to say that fat is the one solution to everything, but I'm definitely saying it's not the one cause for everything. I can cite multiple studies showing the various detriments of carbs, and likewise the pitfalls of fat, but when the circumstances are key, then isn't that simply the answer?

Don't be afraid of butter and eggs, don't be afraid of rice and carrots. Eat everything in moderation. Maybe stay away from sugar and deep fried treats?

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#144

Post by martincmartin »

lngnmn wrote: post #81

It obviously does not because there are whole populations, such as Tibetans, who consume butter on daily basis and are still alive and well, without any cardiovascular epidemic. What is a risk, by the way? How it is defined, apart from a personal lifestyle, diet, habits, current set of disorders and chronic illnesses of a particular person? It is a likelihood? An average of some imagined population of which some non-…

The classic example, since modern nutrition research started in the '50s, is Inuit/Eskimo. They eat a lot of whale blubber, yet have very low rates of heart disease.

A good book that presents the case against nutrition research is "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet."

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#145

Post by trillf0rd »

travisp wrote: post #125
trillf0rd wrote: post #123

Like almost all nutritional studies, the evidence here is circumstantial and should be read with significant skepticism. Stephen Pauker, a professor of medicine at Tufts University and a pioneer in the field of clinical decision making, says, “Epidemiologic studies, like diagnostic tests, are probabilistic statements.” They don’t tell us what the truth is, he says, but they allow both physicians and patients to “esti…

I would normally agree with you, but did you actually read this study or the article? This is not the usual "epidemiologic" nutritional study. This was a "rare randomized controlled trial." It was in fact a double blind randomized controlled study: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1246

You make a fair point on the quality of the research technique. I did skim through the study and conclusions and don't deny double blind randomized control trials are historically the golden standard of scientific evidence (http://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2016/06/23/ebmed-2016-11040...). Other randomized control trials have found polyunsaturated fat in place of saturated fat reduces Coronary Heart Disease events (see this meta-analysis of 8 randomized control trials, n=13,000+ http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...).

It's no doubt an interesting study and makes me question recommendations to consume oils. Still, based on current scientific evidence, there is good reason to be cautious about consuming more butter / saturated fats as is being advocated in numerous comments on this thread. As a reminder to those reading, there is strong evidence to supports nuts are a much better source of fat for health than both oils and saturated fat. Here's a meta-analysis of two cohort studies of 110,000+ that found nut consumption is inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1307352).

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#146

Post by grzm »

mrskeltal wrote: post #110
dang wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, we changed the URL from http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/460.html to the Atlantic article you mentioned, since it gives better context. (We won't change the title because of the Betteridge trigger.)

What's the Betteridge trigger?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#147

Post by DanBC »

arethuza wrote: post #69

One of the most remarkable snacks I've ever had was served on a trawler in the North Sea - a large number of butteries (pastries from the North East of Scotland which, as the name suggests, are made with a large amount of butter) layered in a deep baking tray and covered with a couple of pounds of salted butter and then baked until nice and hot. Possibly the most delicious thing I have ever consumed NB (it was shared…

Delicious, but Scotland for many many years had terrible coronary health stats and part of that is terrible diet.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#148

Post by bmelton »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #139
bmelton wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Being cold" does not have any particular caloric advantage until and unless you are cold enough to shiver. Shivering, as it happens, is a fantastic way to burn calories, and 15 minutes of shivering is equivalent to approximately an hour's worth of exercise. http://www.livestrong.com/article/317620-how-many-calories-a...

That link contradicts that? "even mild cold that doesn't cause you to shiver starts to burn through those brown fat stores, jumpstarting your caloric burn rate." Famously, Inuit team drivers for Arctic expeditions would eat all the butter out of the food supplies first.

Indeed. Thanks for the correction. The science, as I understand it, is that just being cold, but not to the point of shivering, will help boost your metabolism if you're performing exercise, while just being cold while idle will burn a basically insignificant amount of calories.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#149

Post by LordKano »

nmerouze wrote: post #33

Cholesterol isn't bad, it's in fact very important for the production of testosterone among other things. The problem comes from the inability to use it because the body isn't healthy. Polyunsaturated fats will produce bad byproducts when it breaks down and over time makes the body sick. We crucially lack magnesium and potassium in our diet. There are tons of studies showing the benefits of magnesium against heart di…

Obviously, this is anecdotal and I'm not advocating that anyone else do what I did until they consult with their own doctor but this is my experience.

I had some long term digestive issues.

I began supplementing my diet with magnesium and within a week, the problem began to abate. Within a month, all of my abdominal cramping was gone. All of my constipation issues were gone.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#150

Post by christophilus »

martincmartin wrote: post #144
lngnmn wrote: post #81

It obviously does not because there are whole populations, such as Tibetans, who consume butter on daily basis and are still alive and well, without any cardiovascular epidemic. What is a risk, by the way? How it is defined, apart from a personal lifestyle, diet, habits, current set of disorders and chronic illnesses of a particular person? It is a likelihood? An average of some imagined population of which some non-…

The classic example, since modern nutrition research started in the '50s, is Inuit/Eskimo. They eat a lot of whale blubber, yet have very low rates of heart disease. A good book that presents the case against nutrition research is "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet."

I wonder if the Tibetans and Inuits benefit from the fact that their dietary fats come from animals who lived healthy, whole lives. Much of the US consumes dairy and meat that comes from animals who were shoved into dark, overcrowded, stressful, unnatural habitat and fed strange feed that they'd normally not eat such as corn and grain.
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