From The Metro:
Shyam Kolvekar, of the University College London Hospital, is leading a campaign to reduce saturated fat in diets after treating patients as young as 33 for heart bypass operations. As the Food Standards Agency launches the second stage of a campaign to boost awareness of the dangers of saturated fat, Mr Kolvekar said reducing intake in line with Government recommendations could prevent at least 3,500 deaths per year.
He said: "By the time I see people it's usually too late, but the frustrating thing is that often the need for heart surgery could have been prevented by following a healthier, lower sat-fat diet. Simple food swaps can make a big difference. In reality people don't stick to complicated diets. By banning butter and replacing it with a healthy spread the average daily sat fat intake would be reduced. This would save thousands of lives each year and help to protect them from cardiovascular disease - the UK's biggest killer.
GP Sarah Jarvis supported his comments, adding: "My patients are often simply not aware of how much saturated fat they're eating and the damage this causes until it's too late. Simple food swaps every day can help dramatically. A great example is North Karelia in Finland, where there has been an 82% reduction in heart disease amongst men over the last 40 years. This has been directly linked to a decrease in butter consumption."
Monday, 18 January 2010
Health scare story du jour
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7 comments:
I likje butter and I see no reason whu some health fascist should tell me I can't eat it. Plus the generic term for 'spreads' in the lola household is 'diesel'.
Read about the FIT study here.
http://markwadsworth.blogspot.com/2010/01/health-scare-story-du-jour_18.html.
And read the section Health risk factors here http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/07/vision-for-our-healthcare.html.
And don't get me started on salt!
I'm not sure the new product 'I can believe it's not butter because saturated fat is bealzebubs cohort and will cause a plague on your house and steal your firstborn son' will catch on you know..
"A great example is North Karelia in Finland, where there has been an 82% reduction in heart disease amongst men over the last 40 years. This has been directly linked to a decrease in butter consumption."
NBow that is NOT the whole truth. I know because I was involved in an indirect way. The problem that was identified was two-fold.
Firstly the Finnish diet lacked anti oxidants and
Secondly the Finnish soil is almost totally deficient in selenium.
Selenium is absolutely essential for humans but it is also highly toxic in a simple chemical form. It has be taken in a chelated or biologically complex manner.
One solution, I was distantly concerned with was incorporating it into brewers yeast where it is "detoxified" and bilogically avaiable, There was a big Finnish project up to fullscale plant size nut the alternative of adding seleniu selectively to the soil was the chosen route.
As for the biological anti-oxidant route, they grew tonnes of berries in the Suer and froze them to be used as snacks during the rest of the year. Also they encouraged dark fruit and vegetable consumption,, like old purple carrots! Anything rich in anthocyanins / polyphenols.
To say it was due to butter consumption reduction is crap. Maybe the use of pine oils in the margarine could well have affected cholesterol as well.
Someone is looking for research grant money and is trying to do a East Anglia Climate Research Unit wheeze methinks
Sorry about the missing MMMMMMMMs in my above post. I hope you can guess where they should have been.
sticky m key
In the Mail article the following is disclosed:
"Mr Kolvekar's comments were issued by KTB, a public relations company that works for Unilever, the maker of Flora margarine."
However, this disclosure is qualified by a KTB spokesman who said "there were no financial ties between the consultant and Unilever and he was not receiving any payment. 'These are his views."
I wonder if KTB would have issued the statement had Mr Kolvekar called for the banning of margarine.
While reducing butter consumption can have a benefit on health, there are a number of factors that go into overall health and attributing too much to any one over simplifies the problem.
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