As noted in the previous issue, awareness is growing that the type of dietary fat is more important than the amount of dietary fat.
In fact, in 1995, researchers from the USDA’s Western Human Nutrition Research Center, in S. Francisco, California, have shown that diets with a fat content of either 22% or 39% of the total energy, but identical polyunsaturated/saturated, Omega-3/Omega-6 and monounsaturated/total fat fatty acid ratios produced, after 50 days, the same changes in total or LDL cholesterol.
Moreover, the traditional diet of Crete had 35-40% of energy from fat (especially monounsaturated fatty acids from olive oil, and polyunsaturated fatty acids of the omega-3 family from fish, egg yolk and wild plants, such as Purslane)1, but, unexpectedly, the death rates from heart disease and cancer in this region of Greece were almost three times lower than the same death rates in the United States.
It appears that the best way to address fat is not to go low fat, but to eat a moderate fat diet high in monounsaturated fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids, with a low omega 6/omega 3 ratio and to eliminate industrially produced trans fatty acids. Remarkably these are all characteristics of a Palaeolithic type diet, so once again the Paleo Diet concept serves as an organizational template for answering complex diet/health related questions.