“Low Fat Diet: Is it the Answer to Heart Disease?”
The debate between low fat diet versus low carbohydrate diets has again flared up. National dietary guidelines were introduced in 1977 and 1983, by the US and UK governments, respectively, with the ambition of reducing coronary heart disease (CHD) by reducing fat intake. However, through 2015, no analysis of the evidence base for these recommendations has been undertaken. A 2015 study, a meta-analysis of available randomized controlled trials (RCTs), in Open Heart Journal found there were no differences in all-cause mortality and non-significant differences in CHD mortality, resulting from the dietary interventions. Even though the reductions in mean serum cholesterol levels were significantly higher in the intervention groups, this did not result in significant differences in CHD or all-cause mortality. The study authors, led by Zoë Harcombe, concluded that dietary recommendations were introduced for 220 million US and 56 million UK citizens by 1983, in the absence of supporting evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
