However, as, decades later, heart disease is still the leading cause of death in both men and women, something doesn’t feel quite right. This is why the National Institutes of Health funded a new analysis of data collected from 1966 to 1973, on 458 men who had cardiovascular disease. The results indicate that replacing butter and other saturated fats with vegetable oils may have increased the risk of heart disease instead of reducing it, because those who did replace saturated fats in their diets with polyunsaturated vegetable oils had a 16% rate of dying from heart disease compared to a 10% death rate for those men who weren’t told to change their diets.
In an editorial accompanying the analysis, which was published in the British Medical Journal, University of Southampton professor Philip Calder said, ‘These findings argue against the “saturated fat bad, omega 6 polyunsaturated fat good” dogma,’ and the long-standing heart health recommendations, including those from the American Heart Association, ‘may be misguided.’
However, American holistic doctor David Brownstein, MD, says it’s old news. The author of Dr. David Brownstein’s Natural Way to Health, said he has been warning Americans about the dangers of margarine for years, and ‘this study was not surprising.’ According to Brownstein, switching to polyunsaturated and hydrogenated omega-6 oils means that now, ‘we have more cancer and chronic illness, and we still have high levels of heart disease.’
He explained, ‘Hydrogenated omega-6’s are terrible substances that should be avoided, and that’s what margarine is made of. Most of the oils found in grocery stores contain copious amounts of trans-fatty acids. These oils are full of toxic fats. Polyunsaturated vegetable spreads are not healthy substances and do not hold up well in high heat. They all turn to trans fats.’ He added, ‘Saturated fats are healthy fats required by all the cells of the body to maintain their structure. Butter is a much better choice than vegetable oils.’