Heart disease and diabetes risks tied to carbs, not fat, study finds

Is the pendulum swinging back? In what seems contrary to mainstream dietary advice, a small new study shows that doubling the saturated fat in a person's diet does not drive up the levels of saturated fat in the blood.

Rather, the study found that it was the carbohydrates in people's diets that were linked with increased levels of a type of fatty acid linked to heart disease and type-2 diabetes. The results of the study, which followed 16 middle-aged, obese adults for 21 weeks, were published Nov. 21 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Saturated fats, largely from meat and dairy products, have been vilified for decades as a primary culprit in promoting heart disease. And most health authorities maintain this stance.

However, in recent years, scientists have seen the ill effects of completely replacing saturated fat with carbohydrates, particularly the simple carbs that are found so commonly in processed foods. A large analysis published in 2009 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that swapping saturated fats with carbs had no benefit in reducing people's risk of heart disease. But replacing those so-called bad fats with polyunsaturated fats found in fish, olives and nuts did.

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