Junk food certainly is the problem, and research supports the role trans fat (chemically damaged fats) and too much salt plays in the development of disease. However, a recent meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which examined 21 studies involving nearly 350,000 patients, stated: “epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease.”
So what is the problem? What these researchers at NICE have blatantly missed is the role refined sugar plays in these diseases. Research from the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrated that low carb and Mediterranean type diets were much better for weight loss compared to low fat / low calorie diet in a group of 322 moderately obese people, research from the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrated that high sugar diets reduced the heart friendly HDL cholesterol and raised the heart damaging triglycerides, and research from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology demonstrated that higher sugar diets caused problems with artery function that may pre-dispose to cardiovascular disease. These junk foods full of sugar are often marketed as “healthy” including fruit juice, breakfast cereals, and grains as well as the obvious sugary junk foods such as soda pop, bakery products, sweets and confectionary products. If you want to improve your health reduce your junk food consumption – but also decrease your sugar and carb intake.
