❤️ It’s Heart Month! Educate Your Patients About Healthy Fats and Heart Health

Did you know that many fats are good for you?  That’s right. The human body needs fat from food. First of all, fat is a major source of energy. Fat is also a source of essential fatty acids, which the body can’t make itself. Fat helps the body absorb vitamins A, D and E. These vitamins are fat-soluble, meaning they can only be absorbed with the help of fats. Fat helps build cell membranes, and the sheaths surrounding your nerves. It is essential for blood clotting and the movement of muscle, among other benefits.

OK, so fat is good.  But not all fat is good. Good fats include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Bad ones include artificial trans fats. Saturated fats are somewhere in the middle. But we don’t need to make this complicated. Let’s keep it simple.

Putting aside the names of fats, most of the healthy fats that you should eat are pretty obvious if you just get them from whole, natural foods. These include avocados, extra virgin olive oil, coconuts/coconut oil, whole eggs, fatty fish such as salmon and tuna, nuts/seeds, nut/seed butters, tofu, lean grass-fed beef and pork, ground flaxseed, and beans. You’ll notice a common thread here. These are not processed foods found in packaging. Most of these foods are in the produce, dairy, meats and fish sections of the store and are fresh or frozen fresh.

On the other hand, nearly all TRANS fats should be avoided at all costs. ARTIFICIAL trans fats are actually banned in the United States.  Artificial trans fat is a byproduct of hydrogenation, a chemical process that is used to turn healthy oils into solids so they can be stored for a longer period of time. Trans fats have no known health benefits and that there is no safe level of consumption. Trans fats have been everything from commercially manufactured cookies and pastries to fast-food French fries. 

Eating foods rich in trans fats increases harmful cholesterol in the bloodstream and reduces beneficial cholesterol.  And, trans fats create inflammation, which is linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and contributes to other chronic conditions, including overweight and obesity. Trans fats can also cause insulin resistance and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

In the middle, we have saturated fats like red meat, whole milk and other whole-milk dairy foods, cheese, coconut oil, and many commercially prepared foods. You’ll notice that the list includes things that sound healthy and some that do not sound healthy.

The reason for the mixed message is that many foods with saturated fats are good for you in some ways (like the protein in a nice steak) but may or may not be worth the negative effects. Many nutrition experts recommend limiting saturated fat to under 10% of calories because of potentially negative effects on cholesterol.  Studies are mixed on whether it can be proven that saturated fat increases heart disease but it seems clear that replacing saturated fats (like red meat and whole fat dairy) with unsaturated fats can reduce the risk of heart disease.

The best fats are unsaturated fats and they come in two types. They’re both good for you so it’s not necessary for you to become an expert in them.  They are either monounsaturated or polyunsaturated but they are are both “good” fats.

Unsaturated fats come from vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fish. When you dip bread in olive oil at a restaurant, you’re getting mostly monounsaturated fat. These are liquid at room temperature. Good sources include olive oil, peanut oil, canola oil, avocados, and most nuts, as well as high-oleic safflower and sunflower oils. 

Most unsaturated fats were discovered to be healthy after studying Mediterranean countries. People in Greece, Italy and other parts of the Mediterranean enjoy lower heart disease rates even thought they eat a lot of high-fat foods.  The difference was that they were not eating saturated animal fats or processed foods. They eat olive oil and fish and other mainly monounsaturated fats. This finding produced a surge of interest in olive oil and the “Mediterranean diet,” a style of eating you should follow for life, not as a diet.  

Other unsaturated fats include fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, and sardines, flaxseeds, walnuts, canola oil, and unhydrogenated soybean oil, among others.  

So while the trans fat era gave “fat” a bad name in the United States, you should eat fat. To keep your diet on track, skip the trans fats, limit your intake of most saturated fat and eat a plentiful amount of good, unsaturated fats.

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