Thursday, May 17, 2012
I have a new post over at Mother Nature Obeyed:
This is my response to the new study published in AJCN showing that replacing butter with sunflower oil decreases liver fat, PCSK9, and improves a handful of metabolic markers. I begin with a critical review of the 2010 meta-analysis by Mozaffarian and colleagues claiming that the randomized, controlled trials substituting vegetable oils for saturated fats show that this swap reduces heart disease risk, which was cited by the AJCN authors in justification of their research approach. I then move on to reviewing the animal evidence suggesting that saturated fats increase fatty liver in certain contexts while polyunsaturated fats do so in others. I conclude by reviewing the AJCN study and lamenting its irrelevance. I suppose this is quite long for an analysis of a study I finally conclude is irrelevant, but I hoped we might all learn a few things (especially including myself!) and perhaps score a chuckle or two in the process.
