Low fat? So what!

Recently an extensive study by the Women's Health Initiative, financed by the National Institutes of Health, which compared randomly assigned, low-fat diets to regular eating habits among 49,000 women in the United States, was completed. Analysis of the results of the eight year study showed that women who ate a reduced fat diet suffered the same rates of colon and breast cancers, as well as similar rates of diabetes. This was a surprise, as conventional wisdom has long been telling people that reducing the amount of fat in their diets will result in better health.

This wisdom is simply not supported by data from this study. While some critics of the study point to the fact that no distinction was made between saturated fats and unsaturated, the study was undertaken based on previous findings suggesting a link with total fats and certain cancers. Also under scrutiny is the level of fats the tested women consumed, some arguing that the 20% total fat intake was still too high, and that more significant figures may be revealed if the total fat intake went down to 10%, however, this conveniently ignores human nature. As only 31% of those studied managed to reduce their fat intake to this level. This suggests a major problem with the idea of reducing fat intake, as the majority of women could not cut that much fat out of their diet, the idea of suggesting people halve that amount again is just unfeasible.

What this study does show, is that much of people's behaviour is based on belief, and that if we hear something enough, we assume it to be good advice. Ask a chemist about the old saying "where there's smoke there's fire" and he will no doubt explain the reality of the situation to you. People's health is as much based on superstition and personal belief as on good testable scientific practice. Much like everything else in life.