Saturated Fat May Lower Stroke Risk, Controversial Study Finds

A new study found that the more saturated fat men eat, the less likely they are to suffer a stroke, raising howls of protest from health experts who have spent years trying to teach Americans to eat less fat.

The 20-year study, published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Assn., found a dramatic trend: The highest intakes of saturated fat, mono-unsaturated fat and total fat were associated with the fewest strokes.

Researchers said the explanation may be that brain arteries responsible for strokes have a much different architecture than heart arteries, and some fats may protect brain arteries even if they clog arteries in the heart.

One thing is still certain: Saturated fat drives up blood cholesterol and promotes heart disease, the nation’s No. 1 killer. And some studies indicate that it may contribute to cancer and be the leading cause of age-related blindness.

JAMA “should never have accepted this paper,” said Dr. Scott M. Grundy, who helped write federal guidelines that advise limiting total fat intake to 30% of calories consumed and saturated fat to 10%.

Grundy criticized the research for linking stroke risk to dietary fat based on what each subject said he had eaten in one 24-hour period at the study’s outset.

“That’s a very weak method,” Grundy said. “These studies--they’re never meant to be reported in the newspaper.”

He said hundreds of studies like this need to be done before scientists can look for definitive trends.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Matthew W. Gillman of Harvard Medical School, agreed that the findings are very preliminary and said Americans should continue to limit dietary fats.

But he said the new findings agree with others and indicate “that we don’t know everything there is to know about fat in the diet.”