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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Is
Low-Fat Diet a Valid Dietary Guideline
for Heart Disease Prevention? The rate of obesity has been growing at a horrifying speed and being overweight, people will be subject to a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, and even certain kinds of cancer. In 1990’s dietary guidelines, the federal government in United States has recommended that people should get less than 30 percent of their daily calories from fat. Why did federal government issue such a guideline? In fact, cutting down the amount of fat consumed each day has reasons behind it. Previous studies have shown that eating food containing a high amount of saturated fat will raise one’s bad cholesterol level, and so is the chance of getting heart attack. In addition, population studies in several other countries have also discovered a correlation between high amounts of dietary fat and overweight. However, the waistline of most Americans has not stopped growing since the issue of such dietary guidelines. This is partly because many of them simply replaced the fat intake with sugar that is found in low-fat snack foods, which is heavily marketed by the food companies. Studies have also found that while Americans have reduced some fat from their diets in the past couple decades, but their total calorie intake has, on average, gone up.
Meanwhile, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York questioned the guidelines especially those on fat intake and argued that these might have done more harm than good. Why such criticism was raised? In the absence of evidence to support the national recommendations for slashing fat, the researchers insisted that the government should not issue specific recommendations on what the people should eat, on the assumption that such guidelines are unlikely to be harmful. According to their interpretation, the timing of the guidelines and the hike in obesity indicated that the guidelines might have contributed to the obesity epidemic. They pointed out that government should have gathered sufficient evidence before issuing specific guidelines on eating. They also suggested that health officials should instead provide nutrition information that should also include acknowledging when the research evidence is spotty. Nevertheless, other experts thought it is incorrect to simply blame the dietary guidelines. They explained that people increased their caloric intake because the food companies substituted sugars for saturated fat in many processed foods. This in turn caused the rate of obesity to rise. They urged public health experts to advise people to watch calories, and not just the amount of fat. In the meantime, people should be encouraged to be more active in engaging in some form of exercise. This suggestion is believed to be more useful not only in the weight management but also in the context of heart disease prevention.
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