#515: Does Dietary Fat Quality Causally Affect Atherosclerosis Risk? – Jacob Christensen, PhD
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2024
⏱️ 75 minutes
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Summary
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About This Episode:
The question of whether dietary fat quality causally affects atherosclerosis risk has been a subject of extensive research and debate within the field of nutrition and cardiovascular health.
Atherosclerosis, the build-up of plaque in arteries, is a key factor in the development of cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and strokes. Traditionally, dietary fat has been implicated in contributing to atherosclerosis, with a focus on reducing overall fat intake. However, recent studies have shifted the focus towards the quality of dietary fats rather than their quantity.
Not all fats are created equal, and researchers are now paying closer attention to the types of fats consumed in the diet. Saturated fats, commonly found in animal products and some tropical oils, have long been associated with increased cholesterol levels and atherosclerosis. On the other hand, unsaturated fats, including monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in olive oil, nuts, and fish, have been linked to potential cardiovascular benefits. Research suggests that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats may have a positive impact on blood lipid profiles and reduce the risk of atherosclerosis.
Additionally, genetic factors and individual responses to different fats may play a role in how dietary fats impact atherosclerosis risk.
In this episode, Dr. Jacob Christensen discusses the research in this area and some conclusions about whether we can say dietary fat quality causally increases atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk. This includes looking at the relationship between low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particles and ASCVD, the link between dietary fat quality and LDL particles, and then finally the relationship between dietary fat quality, LDL particles, and ASCVD.
About the Guest:
Jacob J. Christensen is a clinical dietitian and researcher at University of Oslo. His research interests include cardiovascular diseases, lipid metabolism, nutrition, genomics and data science.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Sigmund |
| 0:13.9 | to Sigma Nutrition Radio. |
| 0:17.0 | This is episode 515 of the podcast. |
| 0:20.6 | I'm your host, Danny Lennon. You are very welcome to the show. I hope you enjoy this episode and indeed if you continue to listen that you enjoy those episodes too. If you're new to the podcast and I do hope you enjoy this and maybe stick around in the future as well as going back through our archive of over 500 |
| 0:38.0 | episodes now at this point and covering a range of topics on nutrition science, where we try and go |
| 0:43.6 | into a bit of depth, objectively cover what we can pull from research, and try and give a bit |
| 0:49.1 | of the nuance that is often lacking elsewhere. And today we're going to be covering a topic that has been frequent on |
| 0:57.0 | this podcast owing to the fact that it's one of the most important in the area of health generally |
| 1:02.3 | and particularly one of the big topics of diet disease relationships. It's also one that I'm |
| 1:07.5 | very keen on myself and that is indeed looking at the impact of diet on |
| 1:12.0 | atheroscleric cardiovascular disease. And today I have the pleasure of talking to Dr. |
| 1:17.4 | Jakob Christensen, who is a researcher based at the University of Oslo, Norway, and his research |
| 1:24.6 | has been focused on the areas of cardiovascular diseases generally, but then |
| 1:29.8 | specifically looking at aspects of lipin metabolism, nutrition, genetics, particularly familial |
| 1:35.5 | hyperclostrolemia, and related topics of which we're probably going to get into in much |
| 1:40.4 | of this discussion. |
| 1:41.6 | And recently, he was one of the authors on a really, really nice |
| 1:44.5 | review paper on the topic of dietary fat quality, atherogenic lipoproteins, and atherosclerotic |
| 1:50.4 | cardiovascular disease. And so I wanted to have him on to talk through some of these issues and |
| 1:57.3 | really to ultimately get us to a point of saying, how can we summarize this relationship |
| 2:03.2 | between dietary fat quality and its impact on ASCVD risk? And can we say that the fat |
| 2:10.4 | composition of the diet is a causal factor in affecting this risk? So we're going to dive |
... |
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