Butter and cream will do no harm (if you walk for 22 minutes a day)

FOR decades we’ve been told to steer clear of butter and cream if we want to stay healthy.

Now, however, a group of doctors has claimed that avoiding the saturated fats in these products does nothing to reduce heart disease.

Their call for a major shift away from the idea fat is bad for you provoked a heated scientific row yesterday.

The doctors, led by cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, said the widely held belief that saturated fats clog the arteries is misguided. Instead, they said, people can best avoid heart disease by eating ‘real’ home-cooked food, taking a brisk 22-minute walk every day and avoiding stress.

In an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Dr Malhotra of Lister Hospital in Stevenage, Pascal Meier of University College London and US cardiologist Professor Rita Redberg said: ‘Despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong.’

They said moderate consumption of foods rich in saturated fat – such as butter, cream and cheese – is not actually bad for you.

And some fats, particularly those in extra virgin olive oil and nuts, are proven to reduce heart risk. The experts wrote: ‘It is time to shift the public health message in the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease away from measuring [blood fats] and reducing dietary saturated fat.

‘Coronary artery disease is a chronic inflammatory disease and it can be reduced effectively by walking 22 minutes a day and eating real food. There is no market to help spread this simple yet powerful intervention.’

Following the medical guidance on exercise – 150 minutes a week or 22 minutes a day – could extend life expectancy by 3½ to 4½ years irrespective of body weight, they said.

Dr Malhotra said doctors have become obsessed with fat reduction, whereas the real culprits are processed food and ready meals. ‘Eating real food – unprocessed food, low in refined carbohydrates and high in fats, ideally cooked at home – is the way forward,’ he said.

But the doctors’ intervention was condemned by others.

Professor Naveed Sattar, an expert in metabolic medicine at Glasgow University, said: ‘They could not be more wrong. Plentiful randomised trial data shows that lowered saturated fats lower cholesterol and the risk of heart attacks. So the evidence to lower saturated fat is robust.’

Dr Mike Knapton of the British Heart Foundation said: ‘Decades of research have proved that a diet rich in saturated fat increases “bad” LDL cholesterol in your blood, which puts you at greater risk of a heart attack or stroke.’