A recent study completed at the University of Eastern
Finland shows that dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids may reduce the risk of
coronary heart disease. The sources of polyunsaturated fatty acids include
fish, vegetable oils, and nuts. The findings were published in Arteriosclerosis,
Thrombosis & Vascular Biology, an esteemed journal of the American
Heart Association.
Recent studies have not found an association between the
consumption of saturated fats and the risk of cardiovascular diseases. It seems
that the mere reduction of saturated fats from the diet does not reduce the
risk of cardiovascular diseases. In fact, what is added to the plate in place
of saturated fat seems to be more important. Earlier research has found that
the risk of cardiovascular diseases reduces when saturated fats are replaced
with polyunsaturated fats. However, this has not been observed when replacing
saturated fats with carbohydrates. For example, the new Nordic Nutrition
Recommendations that were published in early 2014 now recommend that saturated
fats should be replaced with polyunsaturated fats.
The dietary habits of 1,981 men aged between 42 and 60 were
assessed at the baseline of the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor
Study (KIHD) at the University of Eastern Finland in 1984-1989. During a follow-up
of 21.4 years, 565 men were diagnosed with a coronary heart disease. Out of
these, 183 were cardiac events resulting in the death of the patient.
The study used computational replacement models to study how
the replacement of fatty acids with other types of fatty acids or carbohydrates
affects the risk of coronary heart disease. These models showed that the
consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids was especially linked to reduced
risk of dying of heart disease, no matter whether they replaced saturated fats,
trans fats, or carbohydrates in the diet. However, replacing saturated fats
with carbohydrates did not affect the risk of heart disease. Furthermore, the
quality of carbohydrates, measured by the glycemic index, was irrelevant in
these replacement models. A surprising observation was that the consumption of
monounsaturated fatty acids was linked to a higher risk.
Similar links as those of cardiovascular disease mortality
were observed also when studying the relationship of different fatty acids with
carotid atherosclerosis.
The study gives new insight into how different fatty acids
affect the risk of coronary heart disease, as the amount of saturated fat in
the diets of the participants in the present study, i.e. men living in eastern
Finland, was higher than in most other study populations. Furthermore, only a
few of the similar studies have taken the quality of carbohydrates into
consideration. The present study shows, in line with earlier research, that the
risk of cardiovascular diseases can be reduced by replacing saturated fats with
polyunsaturated fats
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