7 diet studies reveal not all fats created equal

Here are some of themain studies that started the high-fat hypothesis and then called it into question.

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• AncelKeys launched hislandmark Seven Countries Studyin1958. It showed correlations between dietary fat and heart disease.

• Large, cohort studies at Harvard in womenin 1997and men in 1996 looked at diets and suggested total fat was not associated with heart disease but all fats were not created equal. It was suggested that saturated fatwas probably harmful and polyunsaturated fat from vegetable oil or fish oil were likely protective.

• In 1997, the DASH trial ofa higher carbohydrate,low-saturatedfatdietary pattern suggested benefits on blood pressure.
• The OMNI Heart trialpublished in 2005showed that a low carb, higher monounsaturated fat version of the DASHdiet from eating olive oil and nuts for example might be even better.
• The 2013 PREDIMED study in Spain showed that a Mediterranean diet rich in monounsaturated fat reduced cardiovascular disease risk by 30 per cent after about five years of followup compared with a control diet that advised reduced dietary fat.
• Jakobsen's cohort study on replacing saturated fat with "high" glycemic index carbohydrates raised the risk of heart disease by 33 per cent.