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Eating polyunsaturated fats may lower risk for heart disease, stroke
Insufficient polyunsaturated fat intake, as well as excess trans fats and saturated fats, are contributing to global CHD mortality, according to study results in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
“Worldwide, policymakers are focused on reducing saturated fats. Yet, we found there would be a much bigger impact on heart disease deaths if the priority was to increase the consumption of polyunsaturated fats as a replacement for saturated fats and refined carbohydrates, as well as to reduce trans fats,” Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said in a press release.
Dariush Mozaffarian
The researchers estimated national intakes of saturated fat, polyunsaturated fat and trans fat using a Bayesian hierarchical model based on country-specific dietary surveys and food availability, and for trans fat, industry reports on fats/oils and packaged foods. The etiologic effects of dietary fats on CHD mortality were measured from meta-analyses of data from the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study. The final model included 186 countries.
According to results from 2010 data, 711,800 heart disease deaths worldwide (10.3%) were estimated to be caused by eating too little healthy omega-6 polyunsaturated fats as a replacement for both saturated fats and refined carbohydrates. In comparison, 250,900 heart disease deaths (3.6%) resulted from excess consumption of saturated fats. The researchers wrote that this difference may be explained by the additional benefits of increasing omega-6 polyunsaturated fats as a replacement for carbohydrates.
Excess consumption of trans fats, according to the same data, was responsible for 537,200 deaths (7.7%) of global heart disease deaths. Between 1990 and 2010, deaths due to high consumption of trans fats increased by 4%. The researchers observed that Egypt, Pakistan and Canada had the highest global CHD mortality caused by trans fat.
“People think of trans fats as being only a rich country problem due to packaged and fast-food products. But, in middle- and low-income nations such as India and in the Middle East, there is wide use of inexpensive, partially hydrogenated cooking fats in the home and by street vendors. Because of strong policies, trans fat-related deaths are going down in Western nations (although still remaining important in the United States and Canada), but in many low- and middle-income countries, trans fat-related deaths appear to be going up, making this a global problem,” Mozaffarian said.
According to study findings, former Soviet Union nations such as Ukraine (647 CHD deaths per year per 1 million adults) had the highest rates of heart disease deaths due to low consumption of omega-6 polyunsaturated fat. The highest rates of heart disease deaths due to excess consumption of saturated fat (about 1 in 5 CHD deaths) occurred in tropical nations such as the Philippines and Malaysia.
Mozaffarian said, however, to use caution when interpreting the saturated fat data from tropical countries. “Our model assumes that the saturated fats in palm oil have the same heart disease risk as animal fats. Many of the blood cholesterol effects are similar, but long-term studies have not specifically looked at the heart disease risk of tropical oils.
“These findings should be of great interest to both the public and policymakers around the world, helping countries to set their nutrition priorities to combat the global epidemic of heart disease,” Mozaffarian said. – by Tracey Romero
Disclosure: Mozaffarian reports ad-hoc honoraria/consulting from AstraZeneca, Boston Heart Diagnostics, Bunge, Haas Avocado Board, Life Sciences Research Organization, and Nutrition Impact. He is also reports being a member of the scientific advisory board for Unilever North America.