Does a Low-Fat Diet Increase Heart Risk?
May 7, 2004 — A low-fat diet decreases good cholesterol along with the bad. But that’s OK, a new study shows. Bad cholesterol is called LDL. It causes heart disease. Good cholesterol is called HDL. It removes bad cholesterol from your bloodstream, thus reducing heart disease risk. Both kinds of cholesterol go down if you eat a low-fat diet. That’s led some dieticians to recommend a diet with plenty of good kinds of unsaturated fats. The idea is to keep LDL low, while having little or no effect on HDL. Now Sophie Desroches, PhD, and colleagues at Laval University, in Quebec City, Canada, report evidence that a low-fat, high-carb diet may not be bad for your heart. The researchers signed up 65 male volunteers for the seven-week study. Half ate a low-fat, high-carb diet (58% carbs, 26% fat, 16% protein). The other half ate a high-monounsaturated-fat diet (45% carbs, 40% fat with more than half from monounsaturated fats, and 15% protein). Foods that are high in monounsaturated fats includ
