Saturated fat: the making and unmaking of a scientific consensus

>By the late 1960s, a bias in favor of the diet-heart hypothesis was strong enough that researchers with contrary results found themselves unable or unwilling to publish their results. For instance, the largest test of the diet-heart hypothesis, the Minnesota Coronary Survey, involving 9057 men and women over 4.5 years, tested a diet of 18% saturated fat against controls eating 9%, yet did not find any reduction in cardiovascular events, cardiovascular deaths, or total mortality [17]. Although the study had been funded by the NIH, the results were not published for 16 years, after the principal investigator, Ivan Frantz, had retired. Frantz is reported to have said that there was nothing wrong with the study; ‘We were just disappointed in the way it came out’ [1]. Frantz's decision not to publish his results in a timely manner resulted in these contradictory data not being considered for another 40 years [18].

This is a fundamental issue that increases in effect with the softness of a field's science. When Keys pushed his narrative DNA had only recently been discovered. Over time, biology has become more rigorous, and some of it can today be described as a field within chemistry. Metabolism is increadibly complex but our understanding of it is now more grounded in real physical processes. Eventually even psychology may see the same upgrade in rigor.

(This article did not go into any chemical discussion of saturated fat, MUFA and PUFAs but that work has been and is still being done and will play a part in undoing the policies made by NIH et al.)

A field—or industry—that as an outsider I find opaque is public health. I had always assumed that there must be many, many case stories about how sketchy their playbooks are.

Most of the men on my dad's side of family died of heart issues. Can anyone recommend a book on what my diet should contain / not contain for heart health?

I've read grain brain which agrees with what this article is saying.

If they can get something so fundamental to human health so completely wrong for so long, what else are we being lied to about right now?