#504: Vegetable Oil vs. Saturated Fat – Analysis of the LA Veterans Study
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2023
⏱️ 43 minutes
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Summary
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About This Episode:
In 1959 a landmark clinical trial, often referred to as the LA Veterans Study, began with the aim to investigate the effects of replacing dietary saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats, on the progression of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular outcomes.
This was an eight-year clinical trial in 846 domiciled male veterans in the US. The diets between the control and experimental groups differed by saturated fat and polyunsaturated fat (particularly linoleic acid) content, but were similar in calories and total dietary fat.
The findings of the study suggested that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat was beneficial for reducing heart disease risk. However, the study also reported an unexpected increase in non-cardiac mortality in the intervention group, which raised concerns.
In this episode, we discuss why the LA Veterans Study was such a seminal trial and what we can learn from it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to another episode of Sigma Nutrition Radio. This is episode 504 of the podcast you are very welcome as ever my name is |
| 0:22.8 | danny lennon and i'm joined by dr allen flanagan alan how is all today all is good all is good |
| 0:30.7 | 504 i think episode 500 seems to have gone over quite nicely which was good to see yeah we're |
| 0:36.7 | still here. |
| 0:41.1 | It wasn't a Y2K style fear around us not returning. |
| 0:44.1 | Falling off the face of the podcast planet. |
| 0:46.7 | It might not be a bad thing now that I think about it. |
| 0:49.1 | Might bring some inner peace, I think. |
| 0:49.9 | Yeah. To no longer be engaging with the nutrition world. |
| 0:55.1 | Well, speaking of that, today we're going to be talking all about vegetable oils and some |
| 1:00.0 | various different debates there are about their said health effects or indeed are they |
| 1:05.2 | poisonous. Of course, we're going to continue on with our series of looking at diet, |
| 1:10.0 | heart-related studies. Of course, today we're going to have on with our series of looking at diet heart related studies. |
| 1:11.0 | Of course, today we're going to have a look at another particular trial that sheds some light |
| 1:16.4 | on this area, but also we'll be looking at another outcome that comes along with some of the |
| 1:21.9 | analysis of this particular study. |
| 1:23.6 | So we're going to be looking at the LA Veterans Study or more specifically a paper that |
| 1:30.4 | came from Pearson Dayton from back in the 60s when this was done. We have a couple of publications |
| 1:37.2 | that we'll mention and link to in the study notes, preliminary analysis, then one of their |
| 1:41.8 | final papers looking at this in 1969, and also another |
| 1:45.8 | follow-up of some of the subsets of data that was published in 71. So they will be linked in the |
| 1:52.7 | description box, wherever you're currently listening now. And this is a trial looking at the |
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