Saturated Fats Can Prevent Inflammation and Heart Disease

Yes, you read that right, saturated fats (and cholesterol!) can help prevent heart disease.  How you might ask? Well that turns out to be the interesting part.  Through changes in our gut bacteria.

As this study on PubMed from 2013 indicates, meat eaters have more Prevotella bacteria than vegans. This bacteria breaks down carnitine from red meat in to TMA in the gut. TMA causes inflammation and cardiovascular disease .  This study used an 8oz cut of lean steak to measure TMA in both a group of vegans and a group of regular meat eaters. The vegans produced less TMA than the meat eaters because they had less of the Prevotella bacteria. But you say I said saturated fat (like that in red meat) can prevent heart disease and inflammation?  Read on! 

This NIH research paper from late 2014 did a similar study. However this time they used mice. They fed one group of mice a diet high in polyunsaturated fats (PUFA, e.g. “vegetable” oils, soybean oil) and another group a diet high in saturated fats and cholesterol (a diet. The regular mice chow group (mostly grains and vegetable oils) developed high levels of Prevotella bacteria and thus inflammation. Those fed a diet high in saturated fat had very low levels of Prevotella bacteria and no inflammation. The researchers concluded “mice fed a diet rich in saturated fats and cholesterol were largely protected.”

Had the first study used grassfed meats (low in PUFA) and fatty cuts of meat their results would surely have been much different. The first study also used people who were in poor health, most were smokers, and most likely consumed a lot of PUFA in their diet. The combination of a high PUFA diet and lean cuts of meat (high in carnitine) is a recipe for increased Prevotella bacteria, resulting in inflammation and increased heart disease.

It has been known for some time that polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) can lead to exaggerated inflammatory responses throughout the body. Removing these oils and replacing them with saturated fats and monounsaturated fats (e.g. olive oil) calms the inflammation caused by high PUFA intake. Often the fact that PUFAs are so volatile and go rancid easily is what is blamed for the inflammation and heart disease. However, the research above calls out the change these fats induce over our microbiome as the culprit.   Consume high PUFA foods and you end up with increased levels of Prevotella bacteria. This bacteria causes increased inflammation and increased cardiovascular disease.  Consume saturated fats, high in cholesterol, and you are protected from this damage.

Omega 3 fatty acids are also polyunsaturated, however, these should be consumed on a regular basis. The ratio of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids is very important, the further it leans towards Omega 6 the more inflammation that is seen.  The goal is close to a 1:1 ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3. So the optimal diet would be one higher in Omega 3, plenty of saturated fats, and far lower in Omega 6 than the average western diet. So throw away any bottles of vegetable oil in the house and switch to coconut oil, butter,  and olive oil for your cooking. Lard is fine too, just make sure it doesn’t say “hydrogenated” or “partially-hydrogenated” on the label.

Besides avoiding a diet high in vegetable oils (PUFA) bacteria in the gut compete with each other. Eating a diet high in probiotic bacteria will help keep Prevotella bacteria in check.