Biochemistry Fats, Diet, and Heart Disease

Biochemistry Fats, Diet, and Heart Disease Fat can sometime be a word that gives people the chills when they hear about it. It is one of the three main sources of calories to our diet and a major part of ones dietary requirement. There be three kinds of fat saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. The degree of saturation is dependent on the amount of double and triple bonds in the chemical gainup. Saturated fats are know to increase the bodys levels of serum (blood) cholesterol. Along with cholesterol, saturated fats can deposit on the inner walls of blood vessels a condition known as atherosclerosis.When the shopping centers arteries become jam with cholesterol and fats, blood flow can be restricted or totally blocked, leading to severe chest pain and heart attack. Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats in truth have a cholesterol-lowering effect. By substituting polyunsaturated fats for the saturated fats in your diet, you can actually help control cholesterol levels. Too much dietary fat can also contri ande to overweight. Being overweight can aggravate high blood pressure, place excess strain on your heart, and make it more difficult to stay active and physically fit, thus having a negative impact on your overall cardiovascular health.For about three decades, health institutions like the American Heart acquaintance, National Institutes of Health, World Health Organization, and opposites advised people to reduce dietary fat by limiting fat inhalant to fewer than 30 percent of daily calories. Their claim was that a low fat diet ultimately resulted in the reduction or elimination of take a chance for heart disease although there wasnt much evidence to support the notion of low-fat diets in the beginning.In an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on February 8, 2006, in a 8th year Womens Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, about 49,000 women with almost identical rates of heart attack, stroke, and a nother(prenominal) forms of cardiovascular disease were followed to see the effect of a low-fat diet and those not on the diet. Their results showed that women on the low-fat diet didnt lose or gain any more weight than women who followed their usual diets. The important thing to note from these kinds of studies was the type of fat in the diet.For example the Mediterrean style diet is high in fat but these fats are from plant sources such as olive oil, nuts and seeds which are low in saturated fat intake. The Western diet on the other hand has fats from animal sources which are usually saturated and produces a higher risk for heart disease. In conclusion, as research grows on diet and heart disease, its becoming clearer that looking at a single nutrient in isolation cannot tell us the whole story about a persons heart disease risk. People eat foods, not nutrients, and they eat them in an overall dietary pattern.The traditional Mediterranean Diet pattern, in contrast, appears to lowe r the risk of heart disease, stroke, and metabolic syndrome, a constellation of factors that increases the chances of developing heart disease and diabetes. So if you are concerned about heart health, pay up attention to your overall diet, not just to the type of fat. Citation Barbara, H. (2006) et al. Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of cardiovascular disease. Journal of the American Medical Association. Retrieved from http//jama. ama-assn. org/content/29 5/6/655. full