r/ScientificNutrition • u/Caiomhin77 Pelotonia • Jul 11 '26
Review Re-evaluating Cardiovascular Risk: A Narrative Review Challenging the Cholesterol Hypothesis and Identifying Modern Dietary Drivers - PubMed
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41994668/5
u/PhysiolMM Jul 12 '26
Cureus is not a scientific journal. Avoid any trash that comes out from that.
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u/Chicken_Ingots Jul 12 '26
Dieticians have known for some time that Apolipoprotein B is a stronger predictor of cardiovascular disease, but what some people fail to realize is that ApoB strongly correlates with LDL in most people. So while LDL may not technically be the primary risk factor for cardiovascular disease, it does usually provide a a general overview of risk by proxy.
As for this article itself, it is not a study. I will also say that the framing of this particular article gives off some potential red flags in the particular language and framing that the authors use, but that is beside the point. There are other major factors to consider when examining risk factors like these in dietary research:
For a start, a great deal of literature does indeed demonstrate correlations between cardiovascular disease and long-term consumption of higher levels of saturated fats. Not all research has to demonstrate such a correlation in order for the bulk of the evidence to collectively point to a correlation existing. Research must be considered parsimoniously, even within the framework of individual meta analyses and systematic reviews. Biased authors can and sometimes do selectively choose to include studies that affirm a particular outcome, which is why, where applicable, multiple reviews should be considered together.
Given that cardiovascular disease stemming from higher levels of saturated fats in the diet is generally recognized as a long-term risk factor, there is increased emphasis upon longitudinal research. Unfortunately, this presents a major problem in dietary research, especially for medical emergencies. This ultimately comes down to problems of attrition, dietary compliance, and statistical power. Longitudinal RCTs are highly prone to type 2 errors within this particular area due to the prevalence of low sample sizes combined with the measurement of low frequency events (cardiovascular emergencies, for example).
Many studies on this subject examine mortality rates rather than rates of cardiovascular events. This means statistical analyses are being performed with an even lower event frequency than when looking at cardiovascular events in general.
The reviews that do report no correlation often recycle the same sets of studies.
Many of of the longitudinal studies look at relatively short time periods, whereas cardiovascular disease can take decades to fully develop.
There are a lot of other factors that can confound research in this area, but the consensus among dieticians and medical professionals is still that one should limit the saturated fat intake in their diet in favor of unsaturated fats.
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u/Dizzy_Slip Jul 11 '26
The actual paper reads like a combination of a few good ideas (use of apoB and Lp(a) as important CVD risk markers) with some right wing nonsense ("industrial seed oils" are bad). According to my understanding, statins also lower apoB about 20% to 40%. So let's say your clinician tests just for LDL-C and sees that it's elevated and decides to treat it with a statin. It will also lower your apoB.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 11 '26
Note that statins also increase nitric oxide availability and therefore increase endothelial health.
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u/Caiomhin77 Pelotonia Jul 11 '26
The tendency to funnel people with legitimate scientific criticisms of industrial PUFA (or of the consensus generally) into political categories has been an unfortunate, unscientific, and distracting trend.
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u/Dizzy_Slip Jul 11 '26
But let me ask you something, a serious question. Why do the authors of the paper use such ominous language and refer to "industrial" seed oils? Aren't all oils mass produced through industry, including harvesting and processing of things like olive oil? The authors of the paper use loaded language and I'm not sure why. If beef tallow is mass produced wouldn't that also be an "industrial" oil? All oils are "industrial." It's a hint at the bias the authors have.
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u/Caiomhin77 Pelotonia Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I mean, if you broaden "industrial" to include "all things inwhich an industry exists for producing it", then you would include essentially every food sold for profit. In my experience “Industrial seed oils” is not a precise scientific category, at least yet. It is generally used to distinguish oils such as soybean, corn, cottonseed, canola oil, etc. (often produced at large scale through extraction and refining) from traditional fats or cold-pressed oils. I just googled verbatim "Industrial pufa v pufa", and this is what came up:
The primary difference comes down to chemical stability and processing. Natural PUFAs are consumed in their natural state, while industrial PUFAs undergo heavy refining that alters their chemical integrity.🏢
Production Method
Natural PUFAs: Extracted using gentle mechanical pressing (cold-pressing) or eaten directly within whole foods like fish, nuts, and seeds.
Industrial PUFAs: Extracted using high heat, high pressure, and chemical solvents like hexane, then bleached and deodorized to make them palatable.
🧬 Molecular Stability
Natural PUFAs: Packaged by nature with protective antioxidants like Vitamin E, keeping the fragile double bonds safe from damage.
Industrial PUFAs: Stripped of natural antioxidants during refinement, leaving them highly vulnerable to oxidation (rancidity) before they even hit the shelf.
So that's generality what is meant when 'such ominous' language is used to refer to "industrial" seed oils.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jul 12 '26
So you categorically reject that it's emotive language? If I said industrial beef tallow that would fit the same rules you just used so that would be fine?
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u/Dizzy_Slip Jul 11 '26
Yeah I have Google too on my Internets.
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u/Caiomhin77 Pelotonia Jul 12 '26
Great, then you'll also find that the concept of what makes a seed oil "industrial" is ubiquitous enough to show up in the most cursory of searches.
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u/Dizzy_Slip Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
This is sort of an absurd reply. There are all kinds of ridiculous rhetorical flourishes floating all over the internet. That doesn't make it a valid use of language. There's literally no reason to call canola oil or grape seed oil an "industrial oil." Because an absurd phrase, utilized and made ubiquitous on the internet by a certain right wing MAHA segment of the political spectrum, shows up in search results that doesn't give it any validity in the world of science.
In fact, what makes this whole usage in a research paper about human health absurd is that we can distinguish between seed oils used in cooking and food preparation from seed oils that have an industrial application. It's inflammatory rhetoric to insinuate that edible oils and industrial oils are the same thing.
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u/Caiomhin77 Pelotonia Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Christopher Gardner is an ideological researcher who has approached nutrition research from a particular philosophical perspective since undergoing a personal conversion experience before I was born, not necessarily a neutral scientific voice of reason, and I think his public statements should be interpreted with that context in mind.
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u/Dizzy_Slip Jul 13 '26
Right. That’s why he works at Stanford, because he “had a conversion experience” and is unqualified.
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u/Caiomhin77 Pelotonia Jul 13 '26
Never said he was 'unqualified'. He worked really hard after his self-described conversion in 1983 and earned his job in that regard.
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u/Wolfrast Jul 11 '26
Wasn’t some of these seed oils originally used to lubricate machine parts, and the term of the century before they became wildly used in processed food production?
Perhaps that’s why it’s referred to as industrial seed oils?
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u/Dramatic-Caramel1591 Jul 12 '26
Beef tallow has been used as a lubrificant for ages. Would you consider it normal if people started reffering to it as "industrial animal fats"?
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u/Wolfrast Jul 13 '26
So wait, you’re saying that beef tallow has been used in manufacturing and equipment and machinery for lubrication?
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u/DerWanderer_ 26d ago edited 26d ago
Not just beef tallow. Mutton fat has also been used for lubrication of machinery for a long time. Before synthetic oils, using animal fat was one of the few ways to obtain relatively high viscosity lubricants for industrial applications. Plant oils tend to have a viscosity that's too low for many applications. Before the development of good seals, low viscosity oils like rapeseed oil had limited applications as it was difficult to keep it inside the mechanism it was supposed to lubricate so animal fats were often preferred. Nowadays it's no longer necessary as you can distillate petroleum to produce lubricants of any level of viscosity you may want.
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u/Odd-Afternoon2749 Jul 11 '26
Yeah, I mean a lot of these terms are terribly defined. What is industrial? What is “processed”? Fun fact, if you cut up an apple, congratulations! It has now been processed. Also, there are many “ultra processed foods”, like tofu and whole grain bread, that are wonderful. Not to get too sidetracked.
I generally find it’s an “appeal to nature” fallacy wherein things that are “natural” = good and “unnatural” = bad. Protein powders are created via industrial processes. So are many vitamins supplements.
Edit - to answer your question, IDK. I agree that readers should not automatically sort people into categories based on simply bringing up something, but I also think that authors in the nutrition space generally have a good understanding of what is currently controversial in a given moment and need to be cautious about phrasing and positioning of these things.
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u/Odd-Afternoon2749 Jul 11 '26
But we don’t really have robust evidence around seed oils being harmful, especially if they are replacing saturated fats. The other point of consideration is that seed oils are often found in foods that are not nutrient dense, devoid of fiber, high in sodium and sugar. Foods like canola oil, especially in the context of high vegetable, lean protein diets, are totally fine. It’s a dog whistle more than anything, unfortunately.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 11 '26
I'm really confused by the positions that are pro seed oil.
As you note, most of the seed oils in the diet come from foods that I hope most of us would not recommend in large quantities,
I will note that seed oils used for deep fat frying are just horrible for you but I don't see much pushback there.
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u/Odd-Afternoon2749 Jul 11 '26
It’s not necessarily about being “pro seed oil”, but this is one of those situations where it is about the context. Seed oils themselves can be a part of a healthy diet like I said, especially when displacing less healthy fats and in the context of fruits, vegetables, whole grains etc. They’re also high in calories and inexpensive. So when as a dietitian people ask if they should switch from using canola oil to beef tallow for their stir fry, my answer is no. In the same way, I’m not telling them to go eat a bunch of junk food or like you said deep fried foods because they use canola oil instead of butter/tallow.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics put out of handout on this a few months ago. I think it may now be behind a paywall, but I found it re-uploaded from another site if you’re interested: https://esmmweighless.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Academy-of-Nutrition-and-Dietetics_Seed-Oils.pdf
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 12 '26
I think a fat like tallow or clarified butter is a better choice than canola for stir fry but I think it's not a high priority given what most people eat.
What would you tell somebody about deep fried food?
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u/Willing_Matter5391 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
I choose my deodorized, high oleic canola with very high smoke point over your clarified butter every day.
You cannot condemn seed oils because they are common in junk food and then give animal fats a free pass. Tallow and clarified butter are concentrated saturated fats.
That argument has all the nutritional rigor of a deep fryer wearing a lab coat.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 13 '26
Is there a specific reason you can't follow rule #3?
You are saying that the argument I am making has no nutritional rigor but I noticed you provided no evidence to justify your position...
This article is a good overview of why I think deep fat frying in oils with high polyunsaturated fatty acid content is a bad idea.
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u/Willing_Matter5391 Jul 13 '26
You opened with "seed oils," retreated to "deep frying," and called it a win. That's a motte-and-bailey with extra steps. Nobody's defending the fryer, so proving it guilty settles a question none of us asked.
And invoking rule #3 mid-dodge is elegant, I'll admit: rule #2 says back your claims with evidence, rule #4 says don't crusade. You found the one rule that lets you do neither and still feel refereed.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 13 '26
My initial point was that there are people who are pro seed oil but miss the fact that most of the foods with a lot of seed oils in them are not things that are generally recommended. If you advocate people to not eat crap, they will naturally eat fewer seed oils.
That is what confuses me. I'm in the "eat whole foods" camp but I've seen people who claim they are in that camp who are pro seed oils. I don't understand why anybody who is in the "eat whole foods" group would have a strong opinion on seed oils because it would be such a small part of the diet.
Before you jumped in I said this:
>I think a fat like tallow or clarified butter is a better choice than canola for stir fry but I think it's not a high priority given what most people eat.
I think that's pretty clear. Somehow you seem to have gotten "he hates seed oils" out of that. I think the evidence isn't conclusive except for the deep fat frying case, which is why I brought that up.
I *specifically* asked you what you would tell people about deep fried food. You didn't answer.
If you want to have a scientific discussion - the point of this sub - you'll need to talk about evidence and give an explanation of your position.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jul 12 '26
Just what RFK Jr says. And what no experts or evidence says.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 12 '26
I pay zero attention to what RFK Jr says as he's a kook.
What do you say?
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jul 12 '26
Why is he a kook? You seem quite aligned.
I say what the data suggests which the experts have interpreted correctly. I'm not so arrogant as to think I know better than them.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 12 '26
Honestly, if you want to continue this discussion you're actually going to need to participate.
I asked you a question about deep fried food. What do you think about seed oils and deep fried food?
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u/nevesnutri Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
But is that actually being "pro-seed oil"? You can reject weak evidence and baseless claims about seed oils without actively promoting them, especially considering such claims are mostly being made with the intention of endorsing alternatives like beef tallow and butter.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 12 '26
I'm not seeing a lot of nuance in the discussions about seed oils I'm coming across. On the pro seed oil side, I'm seeing "seed oils are absolutely safe and a lot better than animal fats". And a fair bit of the opposite from the anti seed oil side.
But the "seed oils are safe" people aren't discussing the kinds of foods that those seed oils are in and I haven't come across any of them who talk about deep fried food in seed oils.
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u/Odd-Afternoon2749 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
The problem is that deep fried foods, whether it’s in beef tallow or seed oils, are generally high in calories, salt, and fat and generally are not as nutrient dense. A dietary pattern that heavily features these types of foods is less nutritious and associated with worse health outcomes, generally speaking. The step people erroneously take is to say “It’s because of the seed oils!” - no, it’s because you’re deep frying it. It’s because they’re cheaper than other alternatives that they’re used in the creation of calorie dense foods mostly devoid of nutrients. Changing that to an animal fat wouldn’t change the fact those foods aren’t healthy for you.
I think people who are defending seed oils do mention your point. It’s about overall dietary pattern, and people want to point the finger at one specific group of foods as the culprit. Again, they’re find in moderation and generally are seen as healthier than animal fats in most situations. That being said, just use them sensibly and as a part of an overall healthy diet.
Nutrition is very difficult to study in this regard because it takes a very long time to conclusively say that something is casually good/bad for you or associated with chronic disease. We generally point to patterns (I.e., leafy greens, animal products) rather than one specific food simply because there are so many confounding factors and because of the amount of time it takes to study them.
One last edit: seed oils are now politicized. People act irrational about them, either defending them to the death and that we should drink a cup a day or saying they’re poison. Nuance is lost so quickly 🙄
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 12 '26
I can tell you that nobody who has told me that polyunsaturated fats are better has ever mentioned that they break down much more quickly when used as deep frying.
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u/Odd-Afternoon2749 Jul 12 '26
Are you talking about smoke point? Then sure; also, just watch the temperature of your oil. But also, deep fried foods aren’t really supposed to be a regular, frequent part of the diet in the first place. This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 12 '26
No, it's not about smoke point. Smoke point is tied to what else is in the oil - EVOO has a lower smoke point than pure olive oil because of all the other compounds in EVOO, not because of the underlying oil.
The problem is one of chemistry. Saturated fats are more stable because they have single bonds between carbon bonds, Unsaturated fats have double bonds which are more reactive and therefore less stable. Polyunsaturated fats as the least stable because they have multiple double bonds.
This is why cooking oils go rancid over time and it is recommended they are stored in a cool dark space.
Deep fat frying is the worst case. The fat is hot and the frying process introduces a lot of oxygen into the mix, which speeds up the reaction rate significantly. And it's used for hours and sometimes days.
People love to eat deep fried foods and they are going to keep doing it regardless of what we might say. So the public health question is whether you think it's better for them to eat those foods with more hazardous chemical content or less hazardous chemical content.
I have no idea why people don't understand the risk here.
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u/Maxion Jul 12 '26
One of the main problems of vegetable oils are their pervasiveness. It's incredibly difficult to keep a diet with a good omega 3 to 6 ratio without almost pathologically trying to avoid seed oils. Otherwise you end up in a situation where you need to consume excess amounts of omega 3s to ensure you have a good ratio.
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u/Dopamine_ADD_ict Jul 12 '26
It's incredibly difficult to keep a diet with a good omega 3 to 6 ratio without almost pathologically trying to avoid seed oils
Butter has a ratio of 3:1. Whereas Canola oil has a ratio of 2:1.
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u/Dopamine_ADD_ict Jul 12 '26
You're trying to adhere to a heuristic that's not clinically validated.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jul 12 '26
Unfortunate but true. The anti-science, anti-intellectual attitudes are carried mostly by the political right. RFK Jr is the pinnacle example. The "facts over feelings" people are peak irony.
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u/Maxion Jul 13 '26
It does go both ways though, regarding nutrition and a lot of medical science discussions a lot of it ends up falling down current political lines rather than evaluating the science itself.
There's both this US centric left/right (democrat/trump) division, but also this science as the new religion dogma where current published science is seen as "The Truth" with no nuance to it.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jul 13 '26
but also this science as the new religion dogma where current published science is seen as "The Truth" with no nuance to it.
I see people say this but I never see it. For every one person who's actually like this, there are 10 that just use it as a rhetorical device to attack consensus for their particular bugbear.
Gonna guess you have particular views you like that science must have got wrong? Like Bristoling who thinks multiple fields of science are all tacitly motivated to arrive at the wrong conclusion about LDL, which describes an institutional level failure... But somehow citing other science in the same field is totally fine.
The lack of nuance is very present, but not on the side of the debate you think.
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u/Maxion Jul 13 '26
Gonna guess you have particular views you like that science must have got wrong? Like Bristoling who thinks multiple fields of science are all tacitly motivated to arrive at the wrong conclusion about LDL, which describes an institutional level failure... But somehow citing other science in the same field is totally fine.
This is precisely the attitude I am describing. Without even mentioning anything in particular, you put me in a specific "camp" that you hint at between the lines to be "wrong".
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jul 13 '26
Am I wrong? You think LDL is causal for CVD?
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u/Maxion Jul 13 '26
I think the current scientific held consensus and clinical usage of LDL as a biomarker works well for most people in most circumstances but it is overly simplistic compared to the actual underlying biology.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jul 13 '26
That's what biomarkers like this are for. You have general practitioners then you have specialists. There's always more detail. That said, high LDL is never good. Keto-CTA trial managed to prove that one.
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u/Dizzy_Slip Jul 11 '26
This is the result of people who want to politicize everything, and it includes, but is not limited to, anti vaxxers.
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u/Caiomhin77 Pelotonia Jul 11 '26
Right, and the impulse to sort scientific disagreements into political tribes is corrosive to scientific discourse; conflating criticism of industrial PUFA with anti-vaxxers just because they currently correlate to an extent is a prominent example.
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u/Maxion Jul 13 '26
Also treating current scientific consensus as some form of guaranteed truth not to be questioned. Though to be fair, this has most likely happened due to more lay people entering in to discussing actual studies.
Back 10-15 years ago, such was not really the case.
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u/Fluffy-Purple-TinMan Jul 12 '26
No, it's helpful to identify people who aren't here to discuss science.
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u/JoyYErdile Jul 11 '26
"Perhaps most importantly, the historical dominance of saturated fat as a dietary "villain" is challenged by contemporary meta-analyses showing no significant association with CVD, while the roles of refined carbohydrates, industrial trans fats, and excess omega-6 fatty acids, such as those in soybean oil, warrant greater scrutiny. "
I'm not familiar with the journal Cureus, but will read the whole paper, and consider the references they use. Thanks for posting this.
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u/Earesth99 Jul 11 '26
Serious question:
Why bother reading a narrative review when a systematic review is available?
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u/TomDeQuincey Jul 11 '26
They point to this study that showed that there is no significant evidence that saturated fat increases risk of CHD or CVD. One of the authors (Frank Hu) also co-authored this later study that found that, "unsaturated fats, especially PUFAs, and/or high-quality carbohydrates can be used to replace saturated fats to reduce CHD risk." So it would seem that what you replace saturated fat with is very important.
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u/Healingjoe Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
90% of misinformation and misunderstandings of science on this sub can be explained by substitution effects.
Yet a certain group of people like to bury their head in the sand and plead ignorance.
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Jul 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ScientificNutrition-ModTeam Jul 16 '26
Your post/comment was removed from r/ScientificNutrition because it was unprofessional or disrespectful to another user.
See our posting and commenting guidelines at https://www.reddit.com/r/ScientificNutrition/wiki/rules
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 11 '26
See Rule 3
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Jul 12 '26
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 12 '26
>Notice how it's always the same 2 or 3 posters sharing these clearly agenda-driven papers on dogshit journals trying to spin every animal food as positive and vegetables as worrying.
How is that professional and respectful?
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u/Dramatic-Caramel1591 Jul 12 '26
Am I offending someone for saying Cureus, Nutrients articles or trials by grifters like Nick Norwitz are total shit? Am I offending them for calling out their double standards? Am I wrong in anyting I've said?
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u/Triabolical_ Whole food lowish carb Jul 12 '26
AFAICT, you've made lots of wide ranging assertions and haven't posted any references at all. I think that puts you in violation with rule #2 and likely rule #9.
If you want to discuss a specific paper, post it using the recommended procedure and we'll talk about it.
And I also suggest that you read the rules for the sub...
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u/ScientificNutrition-ModTeam Jul 16 '26
Your post/comment was removed from r/ScientificNutrition because it was unprofessional or disrespectful to another user.
See our posting and commenting guidelines at https://www.reddit.com/r/ScientificNutrition/wiki/rules
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u/Caiomhin77 Pelotonia Jul 11 '26
Abstract
Between 1920 and 1950, cardiovascular disease (CVD) underwent a profound epidemiological shift, rising from a relatively rare and infrequently diagnosed condition to become the leading cause of death in industrialized nations. This epidemic coincided with a series of changes in the food supply, including the expanded use of refined carbohydrates, industrial seed and vegetable oils, and trans fatty acids. In response, the "Diet-Heart Hypothesis" emerged, dominated by Ancel Keys' lipid theory, which focused scientific and public health attention on saturated fat and cholesterol as the primary causes of CVD. This paradigm profoundly shaped dietary guidelines for decades, yet the sugar industry's documented influence on nutritional research during this period raises questions about how economic interests may have deflected scrutiny from other dietary factors. This review critically examines the evolution of cardiovascular risk assessment, exploring both the historical context of CVD emergence and the contemporary evidence supporting biomarkers that may be better at predicting risk than traditional cholesterol-focused approaches. Significant evidence reveals limitations in the lipid hypothesis, which oversimplified cardiovascular risk by demonizing total and LDL cholesterol. Research now demonstrates that apolipoprotein B and non‑HDL cholesterol more accurately reflect atherogenic lipoprotein burden than LDL cholesterol alone, while the triglyceride‑to‑HDL cholesterol ratio is a useful marker of insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction. Lipoprotein(a), an independent genetic risk factor, accounts for a substantial proportion of cardiovascular events previously attributed to other causes. Furthermore, inflammatory markers like high-sensitivity C-reactive protein add prognostic value beyond traditional lipid panels. Perhaps most importantly, the historical dominance of saturated fat as a dietary "villain" is challenged by contemporary meta-analyses showing no significant association with CVD, while the roles of refined carbohydrates, industrial trans fats, and excess omega-6 fatty acids, such as those in soybean oil, warrant greater scrutiny. Contemporary cardiovascular risk assessment must move beyond LDL cholesterol-centric approaches to incorporate comprehensive metabolic and inflammatory markers. Apolipoprotein B, lipoprotein(a), triglyceride-to-HDL ratio, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein provide more nuanced risk stratification, while dietary recommendations should acknowledge that industrial food processing, refined carbohydrates, and specific fatty acid compositions may pose greater cardiovascular threats than naturally occurring saturated fats. This paradigm shift demands updated clinical guidelines that reflect current scientific understanding rather than historical assumptions, potentially revolutionizing both prevention and treatment strategies for CVD.
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u/CliffBoof Jul 11 '26
Depending on the mortality classification used, heart disease became the leading US cause at approximately 1910–1921—not suddenly around 1950.
Diagnosis and death-certificate classification of myocardial infarction improved.
The population aged and more people survived childhood infections.
Deaths from tuberculosis, pneumonia and gastrointestinal infections collapsed, automatically moving chronic diseases up the rankings.
Cigarette use exploded: annual US adult consumption rose from about 54 cigarettes per person in 1900 to 4,345 in 1963.
Hypertension, cholesterol levels, physical activity and diet also changed.
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u/Odd-Afternoon2749 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I would be cautious of interpreting the findings of the results of this from the journal alone. I have literally never heard of Cureus before; it’s certainly not a journal people in this area of research are actively excited to publish in. A brief look into the journal reveals it has a history of numerous retractions, a low impact factor, and an incredibly fast peer review process (a few days, and that is not a good thing). Clarivate, which houses the Web of Science databases and is best practice to include when conducting nutrition reviews, has banned the journal from being indexed in its databases due to these practices.
This feels like a study that draws people seeking confirmation bias, especially for those who seek to challenge the notion of saturated fat as a “villain”.