Uffe Ravnskov: The cholesterol campaign and its misleading dietary advices

Jan 28, 2013

Uffe Ravnskov is Dr.med and Docent from Denmark. In this lecture held at Kostholdskonferansen 2013, Oslo January 24th, he states that:

A major, worldwide health problem today is obesity and type 2 diabetes. Since long the general view has been that the cause is lack of exercise and intake of too much saturated fat (SF). However, the epidemics of obesity and diabetes began in the early eighties, shortly after the introduction of the "Dietary guidelines for Americans" according to which a reduction of SF and an increase of carbohydrates in the diet was seen as the road to eternal health. Since then SF intake has declined and carbohydrate intake has increased in most countries.

Recently several health authorities have realised that the vilification of SF was a mistake and many trials have shown that doing the opposite may solve the problem. Instead we are now advised to exchange SF with polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) without specification. If followed, this advice will result in a further increased intake of Ω-6 rich plant oils and margarines, because these are the dominating PUFA-containing foodstuffs on the market.

It is obviously of benefit for the plant oil and the margarine manufacturers, but not for human health because a high ratio Ω-6/Ω-3 PUFA in the diet is associated with many serious health problems.