- Making dietary changes from a diet high in saturated animal fats to plant-based unsaturated fats could influence long-term disease risk.
- Research suggests diets high in plant-based unsaturated fats are associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
- Swapping butter for plant-based oils like olive or avocado oil is one way to swap from saturated to unsaturated fats.
Swapping from a diet that is high in saturated animal fats to plant-based unsaturated fats can impact the fat composition in the blood.
Recent research published in
“Our study confirms with even more certainty the health benefits of a diet high in unsaturated plant fats such as the Mediterranean diet and could help provide targeted dietary advice to those who would benefit most from changing their eating habits”, says Clemens Wittenbecher, research leader at Chalmers University of Technology and the study’s senior author said in a press statement.
The researchers analyzed fats that are found in the blood called . As part of their study, they examined data from a subset of 113 participants from the DIVAS trial, a dietary intervention randomized control trial.
In the DIVAS trial, 195 participants based in the UK were split into three groups. One group ate a diet that was higher in saturated animal fats for 16 weeks, whilst the other groups ate a diet that was higher in monounsaturated or polyunsaturated plant-based fats. The participants also gave blood samples. The researchers used the blood lipid data from the DIVAS trial to develop a scoring system that summarized the effects of swapping saturated fat with unsaturated fat on 45 lipid metabolite concentrations.
“We summarised the effects on blood lipids with a multi-lipid score (MLS). A high MLS indicates a healthy blood fat profile, and a high intake of unsaturated plant fat and low intake of saturated animal fat can help [achieve] such positive MLS levels,” Fabian Eichelmann, first author of the study and researcher from the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke said in a press statement.
The researchers then applied the MLS score, along with a simplified score called reduced MLS (rMLS), to data from previously carried out prospective cohort studies and another dietary randomized control trial to examine the effects of dietary fat quality on blood lipids and health outcomes related to dietary fat modifications.
Their analysis showed that participants with a higher MLS or rMLS score, which indicated their diet included more beneficial fats, had a significantly reduced risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases compared with their peers.
A higher MLS score was linked to a six-fold stronger reduction in heart disease risk (32% vs. 5%) and five-fold stronger reduction in type 2 diabetes risk (26% vs. 5%).
However, the study did have several limitations, such as not including independent research to validate absolute effect sizes on all metabolites or establishing thresholds. The participants also were primarily of European ancestry, which limits its generalizability.
are an essential part of the diet, but where they come from matters.
“We need fat in the diet because fats (lipids) make up our cellular membranes and are important for brain health,” Dana Hunnes, PhD, a clinical inpatient dietitian at RR-UCLA Medical Center told Medical News Today.
“Fats, plus the food they are found in… can influence heart health significantly. Plant-based sources of fats tend to also be found in foods that are high in , high in micronutrients (vitamins/minerals), antioxidants, and other healthy plant compounds that decrease inflammation in the body. Animal-based saturated fats and the proteins they’re found in increase inflammation which significantly increases the risk for heart disease, ischemic stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancers.”
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Read More: Replacing butter with plant-based oils may reduce risk