 "US health secy RFK Jr plans to encourage Americans to eat more saturated fats, sparking expert concerns")
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US Health and Human Services Secretary, plans to issue guidance encouraging Americans to eat more saturated fats, a move that contradicts decades of dietary recommendations and has raised concerns among experts.
Cheryl Anderson, an American Heart Association board member and professor at UC San Diego, expressed caution. “My response and sort of counsel to myself was to stay calm, and let’s see what happens, because there was no indication given as to how, why, when this potential shift would occur,” she said. “The recommendation around saturated fat has been one of the most consistent recommendations since the first edition of the dietary guidelines.”
While Ronald Krauss, a UCSF professor of pediatrics and medicine who has studied saturated fats extensively, acknowledged that they may be less harmful than previously believed, he cautioned against Kennedy’s message. “If [Kennedy] is actually going to go out and say, we should be eating more saturated fat, I think that’s really the wrong message,” Krauss said.
Kennedy has indicated the new guidelines will “stress the need to eat saturated fats of dairy, of good meat, of fresh meat and vegetables … when we release those, it will give everybody the rationale for driving it into our schools,” according to The Hill.
Krauss’s research suggests that “saturated fat is relatively neutral” compared with earlier assumptions. His studies found that reducing saturated fat only helps when it is replaced with healthier options, like unsaturated fats from olive oil or plant sources, which can improve metabolic health and lower heart disease risk. Replacing saturated fat with sugars or refined carbs, however, may increase heart disease risk.
Krauss also noted that guidelines setting a strict limit for saturated fats, such as the current 10% cutoff, are somewhat arbitrary.
Anderson, however, disagrees that saturated fat is “neutral.” “When you look at the current American diet, there’s too much saturated fat in it, and so, currently, it’s not having a neutral impact on our population,” she said. She added that while the replacement matters, higher consumption of saturated fats is linked to elevated cholesterol and greater cardiovascular disease risk.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsBoth experts agree that nutritional guidance should focus less on specific nutrients and more on overall foods. “People don’t eat nutrients. They eat foods,” Anderson explained. “When you ask someone what they had to eat, they don’t tell you: ‘I had fat, or I had carbohydrates, or I had protein.’”
Krauss added that focusing on foods is more scientifically sound. “For example, there is plenty of evidence that meat intake, especially processed red meats, is associated with elevated heart disease risk. Now the question is, is that due to saturated fat, or is it due to other properties of these meats? And we really don’t have the answer to that,” he said.
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