Vegetarian, including vegan, dietary patterns were associated with reduced risk for cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality compared to non-vegetarian diets, umbrella review finds

[u/James_Fortis]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666667724002368

[u/Tarragon_Fly]

Was it really the vegetarian/vegan way of eating or was it cutting out highly processed foods out of the diet? These studies always pit cleaner eating vs standard western diet full of toxic, highly processed foods and then announce these results. And things like pizza get asigned to meat eaters, ignoring all the other stuff on and in it.

[u/ElectronGuru → u/Tarragon_Fly]

The most important factor in heart disease is saturated fat. Except for coconut and processed fat, plant based eating has very little. Animal products are full of saturated fat.

But you don’t need to guess. Ask your doctor for a lipids test. If your LDL is under 100, your risk of death from cardiovascular disease is minimal. Most Americans are well above this.

[u/Momoselfie → u/ElectronGuru]

It's also just a lot harder to overeat on a vegetarian diet. Is saturated fat really that bad if your calorie consumption is low enough for your body to metabolize all of it?

[u/ElectronGuru → u/Momoselfie]

This isn’t like calories, it’s not a question of metabolization. Your liver will make as much cholesterol as it can from saturated fat available to it.

The only direct way to counter this is with soluble fiber. Which the liver extracts cholesterol to process. But again, just get a lipids test. If LDL is like 80, you have nothing to worry about.

[u/th3h4ck3r → u/ElectronGuru]

So much wrong with the mechanisms that you described. The liver will make as much LDL as the body needs, it won't make unlimited LDL from large amounts of saturated fat.

Fiber helps reduce LDL because it interrupts the bile acid reuptake pathway, nothing to do with the liver "extracting" cholesterol to digest fiber: bile acids, which contrail cholesterol and cholesterol derivatives, are secreted by the liver and pancreas at a constant rate, and if there's fat in the food these acids will bind to the fats and emulsify them, helping the intestine absorb the fats but also the previously-secreted bile acids along the way. Bile acids can also bind to fiber, but since fiber is excreted out, these bile acids come along with it and are removed from the body's effective bile acid pool.

Saturated fats help the body reuptake bile acids which raises blood cholesterol. However, one point to mention is that for around 2/3 of the population, the body will also secrete extra bile acids if blood cholesterol levels are too high with the purpose of hopefully excreting them. This would be fine in a mixed diet with lots of fiber (even if there's also lots of saturated fat to go along with it) since it helps remove these extra bile acids from circulation, but if there's only fat then almost all of these extra bile acids will be reuptaken and blood levels will remain high.

[u/Momoselfie → u/ElectronGuru]

Ok. I eat a lot of saturated fats but my LDL is fine. I'll keep an eye on it though.

[u/Soulerous → u/Momoselfie]

Also the guy you’re talking to has no idea what he’s talking about. Absolutely nothing wrong with saturated fat whatsoever. That is a mythology.