Mercola's Medical Myth #12

Low-Fat Diets are Healthy

The low-fat myth may have done more harm to the health of millions than any other dietary recommendation. Again, just as the recommendations to avoid sunshine has increased melanoma rates, the low-fat craze led to increased consumption of trans-fats, which we now know increases your risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

To end the confusion, it’s very important to realize that eating fat will not make you fat!

The primary cause of excess weight and all the chronic diseases associated with it, is actually the consumption of too much sugar -- especially fructose, but also all sorts of grains, which rapidly convert to sugar in your body.

If only the low-fat craze had been a low-sugar craze... then we wouldn’t have nearly as much chronic disease as we have today.

For an explanation of why and how a low-fat diet can create the very health problems it’s claimed to prevent, please see this previous article.

There are healthy and unhealthy fats. Healthy fat actually helps your body to lose weight! Let the ingredients and sugar content dictate whether you eat something -- not the amount of fat.

Mercola's Medical Myth #11

Mercola's Medical Myth #5

Saturated Fat Causes Heart Disease

As recently as 2002, the "expert" Food & Nutrition Board issued the following misguided statement, which epitomizes this myth:

"Saturated fats and dietary cholesterol have no known beneficial role in preventing chronic disease and are not required at any level in the diet."

This dangerous recommendation, which arose from an unproven hypothesis from the mid-1950s, has been harming your health and that of your loved ones for about 40 years now.

The truth is, saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources provide the building blocks for cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone-like substances, without which your body cannot function optimally.

They also act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Dietary fats are also needed for the conversion of carotene to vitamin A, for mineral absorption, and for a host of other biological processes.

In fact, saturated is the preferred fuel for your heart!

For more information about saturated fats and the essential role they play in maintaining your health, please read my previous article The Truth About Saturated Fat.

We all know that unsaturated fats are good. Trans-fats are bad. Saturated fat? Depends on the source! It is actually necessary and vital to maintain your health. It even helps you LOSE weight. The whole low-fat or no-fat thing is a bust. There is healthy and unhealthy saturated fat. You need not, should not, cut healthy sources of this fat out of your diet.

Mercola's Medical Myth #4