Consuming more unsaturated fats is linked with lower mortality

It is not a myth that the types of food which you eat dramatically effect your overall health and longevity. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has reported there is lower mortality with increased consumption of unsaturated fats. In this study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers followed a large population for more than three decades. They found that increased consumption of saturated and trans fats was associated with higher mortality in comparison with the same number of calories consumed from carbohydrates. Most significantly it was found that there were substantial health benefits when saturated fats were replaced with unsaturated fats. It is suggested by this study that replacing saturated fats such as fat in red meat, butter, and lard with unsaturated fats from plant-based foods such as canola oil, olive oil, and soybean oil may offer significant health benefits. This should be an important message in dietary recommendations. In this study people who replaced saturated fats with unsaturated fats, particularly polyunsaturated fat, had significantly decreased risk of death overall during the period of the study. These people also had lower risk of death from cancer, CVD, neurodegenerative disease, and respiratory disease, in comparison with those who maintained high consumption of saturated fats. When saturated fats were replaced with carbohydrates there was only slightly lower mortality risk. This study has been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. The findings of the study support present dietary recommendations to replace saturated fat and trans-fat with unsaturated fats. The findings in this study are compelling. There should be greater initiatives to encourage people to make the switch from saturated fat to unsaturated fats on a more consistent basis.