Why is it pointless to limit fat in order to lose weight?

It is widely believed that the less fat a food contains, the healthier it is.

Intuition suggests that in order to get rid of extra pounds and their associated problems – cardiovascular disease, increased risk of diabetes and malignant diseases of the digestive system – we need to take in through food , as little fat as possible.

But the largest modern study of a reduced-fat diet showed that reducing the consumption of fatty foods did not affect either weight gain or the risk of cardiovascular disease, but even less the development of malignant diseases.

This study was conducted within the framework of the large-scale American program “Women’s Health Initiative”, which involved 49,000 women and lasted 8 years.

The study is believed to be the most comprehensive of all studies conducted on the effects of a low-fat diet and its results show that reducing the amount of dietary fat does not provide any significant benefits to human health.

Most people find these results to be contrary to common sense, but if you look a little more closely into the details, you will find that there is nothing strange about them.

The first question that may arise is whether the reduction in the amount of fatty foods was enough to observe a tangible effect.

But fats are vitally necessary for the human body for building cell membranes, for transporting some substances, including vitamins, for the synthesis of some hormones.

Fats also have many other functions in the human body, so reducing the consumption of foods that are good sources of fat should be within certain limits.

In the most large-scale modern scientific study the amount of fatty foods was reduced just enough to not pose a danger to the health of the participants.

Secondly, the Women’s Health Initiative study was very long.

In the many conducted studies on the diet the following feature was observed – the greatest weight reduction was achieved within the first month of switching to a low-fat diet, subsequently the effect of this type of diet decreased.

This is partly due to the fact that most participants got tired of following their diet and began to misrepresent their diet to the scientists / participants providing false information are easily identified by comparing data from their diet, weight change and the efficiency of their metabolism/.

It is obvious that our body adapts to the type of food we consume, therefore even the most effective diet needs to be modified to maintain the effect achieved.

In addition, it should be noted that within the Women’s Health Initiative, all fats were restricted in the diet of the participants.

However, it is well known that fats are divided into different types and the harm from excessive consumption of each group of fats is of a different nature.

For example, saturated fat is the main cause of elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and is therefore considered harmful, and only if one does not exercise enough.

Unsaturated fats do not cause such problems, in addition, they also include a group of essential fatty acids, which the body cannot synthesize, it synthesizes itself, and therefore it is mandatory to take a sufficient amount of them through food.

So saturated fats are seen as extremely beneficial and vitally necessary for the human body. The best sources of unsaturated fats are foods of plant origin – olive oil, nuts, avocados and olives.