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STATES CHRONICLE -A new study suggests that high-fat diets can be beneficial to your health as long as they are done correctly. Researchers mentioned Mediterranean diet as the healthiest high-fat diet out there since it seems to lower risk of chronic disease and cancer.
And the team traced back the diet’s health benefits to its healthy fats.
A meta-analysis of 50-years-worth of scientific evidence found that Mediterranean diet is associated with reduced risk of developing cardiovascular conditions, breast cancer, and diabetes.
Study authors suggest that the obesity epidemic may be caused not by a high-fat diet alone but by sugar and processed grains in popular dishes such as pizza and pasta. The study showed that even when it is dripping in fat a Mediterranean Diet is much healthier than a Western diet.
Mediterranean diets are rich in fat deriving from vegetable oils, nuts, and fish. They also rely on fresh fruit and vegetables, beans and whole grains. Wine is a welcomed addition and so are some diary products and lean meat.
Dr Hanna Bloomfield, lead author of the latest study and researcher at the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ underscored that high-fat diets can be healthy as long as fats are healthy too.
The study results may challenge the decades-old belief that any type of dietary fat is harmful to health. Since the 1980s, state guidelines advised the British to lower fat intake by 30 percent and supplement the loss with carbohydrates.
Experts challenged the guidance which is very similar with federal guidelines in the U.S. blaming the low- fat and calorie counting obsessions for the obesity epidemic that has been plaguing the two nations in recent years.
Other studies had revealed that not all fats are bad for health since some of them can actually shield the cardiovascular system against disease and can even promote weight loss. The fats with a protective role can be found mostly in Mediterranean diets such as the fats from 1st quality olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids from seafood and nuts.
On the other hand, diets in the Western world are rich in unhealthy, saturated fats from meat and processed foods. Dr Bloomfield observed that three decades of fat reduction in U.K. didn’t result in healthier, slimmer people. So, researchers now put the blame on sugar and refined grains for the obesity epidemic worldwide.
The study was recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal.
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