Time for a New Approach to Reducing Cardiovascular Disease: Is Limitation on Saturated Fat and Meat Consumption Still Justified?

It was 50 years ago that Ancel Keys published the Seven Countries Study (Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Finland, the Netherlands, Japan, and the US), which showed that increasing dietary saturated fat intake influenced total cholesterol, and the increase in total cholesterol was associated with an increased 10-year coronary heart disease mortality.1 However, data were available for 22, rather than seven, countries and, in the analysis of all the data, a poor relationship between total fat intake and heart disease can be seen.