I've read very often, along the past years, as well in magazines, books or even newspapers (often written by well-known health professionals), articles saying that saturated fats were not good for health.

But on the contrary, through other fully informed expert publications, it has been not only demonstrated, but also proved, that the precedent statement was not exact, and that, in reality, saturated fats could even be good, in some cases, for body health.

Fortunately, one day, I was agreeably astonished to read a widely known publisher having the courage to reveal why as much people in the whole wide world, was in a mist about their convictions on saturated fat.

I have found, last week, in a recent copy of one health magazine, many pages about mistaken researches years ago, about saturated fats. In these pages, it was also revealed a new rising discovery saying that in fact, these fats could be better for health than you would believe.

As this article was perfectly documented: showing exactly where the past researches were false, and also why, in the most recent studies, everybody was all wrong about saturated fats during approximately half a century, I gave them credit.

Since it was a long paper, I'm going to try to resume it somewhat, giving you the basic and most important points of this article.

What is amazing, is that physicians, nutrition experts, body health professionals and the media were proclaiming all together something which was NEVER PROVEN: the fact that saturated fats were unhealthy! Actually, it is not a fact anymore, but an hypothesis! In fact, all this comes from an old study from the fifties, published in an article which drew parallel between fat intake and heart disease problems.

First, this study wasn't accurate enough:the sample from where the data were collected came from a little portion of the only country where statistics about fat intake vs heart death problems were available. Later, when researches went into details and could access to data collected from all countries, they realized that, in reality, no link could be built between saturated fat and death caused by heart diseases. This is the reason why the conclusions of this precedent and single study were mistaken.

Then, in this first study, only one factor (fat intake) was considered to induce heart disease. They didn't collect other so important factors such as stress, sedentary life, insufficient exercises, cigarettes, sugar consumption rates... etc.

In fact, we can say that this study narrowed its research to a very an too small area, missing out all other possible causes like those mentioned above, causes which could be the bigger ones for heart disease deaths.

The problem of this false affirmation saying that all sort of fat are unhealthy, has been claimed for 5 decades, and because of that, it has been accepted by all people as a fact. After what you just read before, you can now understand why it is not true.

Meantime, the following other studies that have been conducted to reach the same goal (trying to build a link between saturated fat intake and heart disease), have failed because they all couldn't associate these two factors.

Now, can we actually consider that saturated fat may be beneficial to enjoy good health instead?

Well, let's see some examples:

There are are several tribes in Africa, for example: the Samburu, the Masai, or the Fulani, where all what they eat on a daily basis mostly comprehends large quantities of red meat, raw whole milk and even... cow blood! This is outstanding how their intakes of saturated fats are important! Paradoxically, these people are not specially affected by heart disease and their body fat levels are very low.

Obviously, critics will assert that the reason of these low fat levels are related to their different genetics. This theory can't be validated: what is surprising, is that when men of these tribes move out of their native countries and start eating the same modern foods as we do, their blood tests reveal a deep change of blood chemistry, heading toward new heart disease risks.

As well for certain pacific island inhabitants: it has been shown by several studies that in some of these islands, intakes of saturated fat provided by coconuts, palm, cocoa and other tropical foods are very important too, and that, paradoxically, the natives of these islands are lean and without any significant heart disease.

As with the men of African tribes, those who moved out from their islands and who began to adopt continental foods, quickly reached high rates of heart disease factors.

Let's talk now about cholesterol. As you may certainly know, your LDL (the bad one) cholesterol level increases when you eat rich fat saturated foods, but at the same time the HDL cholesterol (the good one) level increases as well, improving that way your cholesterol overall ratio. You must know that it's the cholesterol RATIO, which is the most important one, most than the total cholesterol level.

Now another remark in support of saturated fat:

The most common sorts of saturated fat are those three ones: lauric acid, stearic acid and palmitic acid.

Lauric acid is beneficial. It has been demonstrated that it augments our good cholesterol (HDL) levels significantly. It has been shown that it have potential powerful immune-boosting action; unfortunately, lauric acid lacks in American diet. AIDS/HIV searchers studied lauric acid because they think it may restore or improve missing immune action of people affected by HIV virus. Lauric acid is mainly found in tropical oils such as palm and coconut oils.

Regarding stearic acid, it is contained in higher levels in animal fat and cocoa. Research assures that stearic acid has no negative effects on risks about heart disease. The liver transforms stearic acid into oleic acid, a mono unsaturated fat which has been shown to be beneficial or either neutral. Oleic acid is the same mono unsaturated fat found in olive oil. Everyone certainly knows how olive oil is good to keep a healthy heart.

Another component of saturated fat is palmitic acid. Concerning palmitic acid, it has also been shown that it increases good cholesterol (HDL) to the same, if not greater extent than LDL bad cholesterol, thereby making it either neutral or beneficial, but certainly not bad for you.

Thus, if all of these studies trying so hard to incriminate saturated fat for years and to show a parallel with a heart disease risk have failed, what are the real causes of this affection?

Well, here is the truth: the real and most frequently causes are:

* Trans fats (artificially hydrogenated oils)

* vegetable oils such as soy, corn oil, cottonseed, etc. They are heavily refined (making inflammatory symptoms inside the body, and characteristically modifying the omega-6/omega-3 ratio out of norm)

* refined sugar in too high quantity in the diet (high fructose corn syrup included)

* refined carbohydrates such as low fiber cereals or white bread...

* stressful lifestyle

* sedentary lifestyle (not enough exercises)

So the remaining question is: why so many attempts over the years, to try to accuse saturated fat? Is it really possible that it might have anything to do with the billions dollar -highly profitable- vegetable oil business? This industry has changed over animal fats and tropical oils that were used in past decades for industrial unhealthy cooking oils.

Obviously, these industries were cheating to make profit. Lying to people, in order to make them believe that unsaturated fats were dangerous for health.

Now, you know the objective truth about saturated fats and why you've been bluffed for years.