For the past six decades, saturated fats and cholesterol have been wrongly vilified as the central culprit of heart disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease. However, research has demonstrated that it’s actually trans fats and processed vegetable oils found in many processed foods that are the real enemy.
In the decades saturated fats were demonized, the food industry responded by replacing saturated fats with more shelf-stable trans fats and a new market of low-fat (high-sugar) foods was born.
Americans’ health has plummeted ever since, and millions have been prematurely killed by this mistake. Making matters worse, genetically engineered soy oil, which is a major source of trans fat, can oxidize inside your body, thereby causing damage to both your heart and your brain.
One of the first articles published exonerating saturated fats was in 1957 by the late Dr. Fred Kummerow,1 who spent eight decades absorbed in the science of lipids and heart disease. In 2013, Kummerow sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for not withdrawing trans fats from the market.2 It was Kummerow’s lifetime work that revealed the dangers of trans fat and oxidized cholesterol and the relationship to heart disease.
Not surprisingly, trans fat is also linked to dementia as the arterial changes that occur in the heart muscle also occur in the brain, triggering neurological damage. Research has demonstrated the dangers to health and a great financial burden that eating a diet with trans fat has placed on the American public.
Hellbound and Down 