I have been a bit quiet of late, mainly because I got a cough that ended up as a nasty chest infection, that also caused my brain to turn to mush for about three weeks. Maybe it was the antibiotics. Anyway proof, as far as I am concerned, that the mind and body are closely connected.
Yes, another little detour from my series, trying to explain what causes cardiovascular disease. But I thought I need to look, once again, at the hypothesis that saturated fat consumption is a cause – perhaps the cause of cardiovascular disease?
To be honest, I have studied saturated fat consumption many, many… many, many, times. The one thing that has always stood out, most starkly, is the complete lack of any real evidence to support the idea that it causes cardiovascular disease.
On the other hand, evidence contradicting it arrives on an almost daily basis. The following study was sent to me a few days ago, although it is now almost ten months since it was first published. The researchers looked at nearly thirty-six thousand people over twelve years. It was done in the Netherlands. The main conclusions were that that:
‘Total saturated fat intake was associated with a lower IHD (Ischaemic Heart Disease) risk (HR per 5% of energy 0.83). Substituting SFAs with animal protein, cis-monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats or carbohydrates was significantly associated with higher IHD risks (HR 1.27 – 1.37).’1
One thing scientific researchers have learned over the years is that you can never say anything in a straightforward way. I think the game is that, if anyone can easily understand your findings, you lose. A game played to its illogical conclusion by French Philosophers. Something I remarked to my son, who was trying to quote Derrida at me. Here would be one snappy Derrida quote:
“Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written (in the usual sense of this opposition), as a small or large unity, can be cited, put between quotation marks; thereby it can break with every given context, and engender infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable fashion. This does not suppose that the mark is valid outside its context, but on the contrary that there are only contexts without any center of absolute anchoring. This citationality, duplication, or duplicity, this iterability of the mark is not an accident or anomaly, but is that (normal/abnormal) without which a mark could no longer even have a so-called “normal” functioning. What would a mark be that one could not cite? And whose origin could not be lost on the way?”
Yes, indeed. Couldn’t agree more.
As with Derrida, so with scientific papers. What these researchers should have said is the following. ‘The more saturated fat you eat, the lower your risk of dying of cardiovascular disease, and vice-versa.’ A thirteen per cent reduction in death for every five per cent increase in energy obtained from saturated fat consumption. Why do they run away from making such easy to understand statements? I think Derrida could probably tell us. If we could ever understand anything he ever wrote, or said.
However, I am not going to bombard you with endless facts contradicting the saturated fat hypothesis, I am going to get a little more philosophical here. To ask, what is it about some scientific ideas/hypotheses that they become so quickly entrenched – without the need for the tedious requirement of any actual facts.
My thoughts were drawn to this issue by something seemingly unconnected. Which is a legal hearing the UK concerning shaken baby syndrome. Most experts in paediatrics are absolutely convinced that there is such a thing. It is quoted in textbooks as an undisputed fact. Many parents, and other adults, have been convicted, and sent to jail, for shaking their babies so hard that it caused the ‘triad’ of shaken baby syndrome: subdural hematoma, retinal bleeding, and brain swelling
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