[00:00] The FDA commissioner, Dr. Marty Makary, he heads&nbsp; the Food and Drug Administration in the United&nbsp;&nbsp; States. He was appointed by RFK Jr. last year. He&nbsp; just gave an interview on TV where he talks about&nbsp;&nbsp; saturated fats and heart disease. We're going to&nbsp; take a look. It's a very short video. I think it's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:15] a great example of how not to communicate science&nbsp; to the public. And guys, we're going to try to&nbsp;&nbsp; stick to the facts. I ask that you help out. We're&nbsp; not going to politicize this. It's incredibly&nbsp;&nbsp; dangerous to politicize science. Facts are facts&nbsp; regardless of which political party we like. Well,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:32] sure we want to promote healthy fats, but you&nbsp; know, we were encouraging as a medical field&nbsp;&nbsp; people for decades to eat egg white, you know,&nbsp; egg white only eggs. And if you think about that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:45] recommendation, it was really based on the flawed&nbsp; medical dogma of Dr. Ancel Keys in the 1960s and&nbsp;&nbsp; it became medical group think. Three large&nbsp; studies, gigantic studies, including two of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:58] the largest databased uh uh studies in the history&nbsp; of medicine tried to prove the association between&nbsp;&nbsp; saturated fat intake and heart disease. And all&nbsp; three failed to show that. Okay, we have dozens&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:12] of studies on saturated fat and heart disease,&nbsp; not three. And even if we just look at randomized&nbsp;&nbsp; controlled trials on this question, there's at&nbsp; least 14 of those, not three. And when we put the&nbsp;&nbsp; evidence together, what we call a meta-analysis,&nbsp; and we do that rigorously, we see a lower risk of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:30] heart disease events like heart attacks or strokes&nbsp; when saturated fat is moderated. So that's the big&nbsp;&nbsp; picture in this field. He doesn't mention any of&nbsp; that. He wants to focus on specific studies. Okay,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:42] let's see. Including the famous Minnesota heart&nbsp; study that showed those who had the low-fat diet&nbsp;&nbsp; in the randomized trial had higher rates of&nbsp; heart attacks. Okay, there was no low-fat&nbsp;&nbsp; group in Minnesota. One group was 39% fat. The&nbsp; other was 38% fat. Identical. There's no low-fat&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:59] group. This isn't some footnote. This is on&nbsp; top of the first page of the study. It's the&nbsp;&nbsp; summary of the paper. So, he's on TV bringing&nbsp; up a study that he's not familiar with. Maybe&nbsp;&nbsp; he's never read it because the whole point of&nbsp; the study is to test diets. He doesn't know&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:13] what diets they tested. Okay. He also said they&nbsp; had higher rates of heart attacks. Same place,&nbsp;&nbsp; top of the first page. They found no differences&nbsp; in cardiovascular events, cardiovascular deaths,&nbsp;&nbsp; or total mortality. Now, it's important to&nbsp; understand this trial, the Minnesota trial,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:28] was interrupted abruptly, long before it was&nbsp; scheduled to end. So, they planned to run it&nbsp;&nbsp; for 3 to four years because it takes a while for&nbsp; things like heart attacks or deaths to develop and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:41] accrue. It doesn't happen overnight. But they lost&nbsp; almost all of their participants, more than 80% of&nbsp;&nbsp; participants were lost. 75% lost in the first&nbsp; year alone. So the trial was aborted and even&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:53] during that short follow-up, the participants were&nbsp; in and out of the trial. During that period, they&nbsp;&nbsp; were on and off the diets. So it's not surprising&nbsp; that they didn't find a significant difference&nbsp;&nbsp; between the groups. It's totally expected. And&nbsp; there's more issues with this trial. For example,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:07] there's a question with trans fats. This trial&nbsp; took place in the 60s and 70s. A number of foods&nbsp;&nbsp; had industrial trans fats, margarine, and other&nbsp; processed foods. At the time, this wasn't well&nbsp;&nbsp; understood. So, it's very possible that one of&nbsp; the groups was eating more trans fats than the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:21] other. Nobody knows for sure because there's no&nbsp; quantification. Now, much later in the 2010s,&nbsp;&nbsp; they published some additional data from notebooks&nbsp; and from a thesis, including some autopsy reports&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:34] for a small subset of participants, about 1 to&nbsp; 2% of the total folks in the trial. Trial started&nbsp;&nbsp; out with more than 9,000 people. Most of those&nbsp; didn't die during the trial. Of those who died,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:46] about 500 deaths. We don't have autopsy reports&nbsp; for most. So, they got autopsy reports, they&nbsp;&nbsp; recovered them for about 1.6% of the participants&nbsp; in the trial. And what they found was in the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:59] intervention group, 31 participants had at least&nbsp; one heart attack detected in the autopsy. So,&nbsp;&nbsp; this could have been a silent heart attack. And in&nbsp; the control group it was 16 individuals. And these&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:12] folks for whom they recovered the autopsy data,&nbsp; they had been in the trial for less than a year by&nbsp;&nbsp; the time they died. So, interesting observation.&nbsp; But is this even representative of the total&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:25] sample? Because they didn't see a difference in&nbsp; cardiovascular events like heart attacks overall&nbsp;&nbsp; when they looked at all the participants not just&nbsp; this tiny sample. Was this caused by the oils they&nbsp;&nbsp; were given in the trial? Was it caused by trans&nbsp; fats in the trial? Was it even caused by foods&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:42] from the trial? Because they've been in the trial&nbsp; for less than a year. Maybe it's a fluke. Maybe&nbsp;&nbsp; these heart attacks happened before the trial&nbsp; started. Nobody knows for sure. My point is,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:54] you handpick one trial with massive issues. You&nbsp; ignore the majority of the evidence in this field,&nbsp;&nbsp; that goes in the opposite direction. Even within&nbsp; this trial, you handpick one observation in a tiny&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:07] percentage of participants. You ignore most of&nbsp; what the trial reported. You ignore that overall&nbsp;&nbsp; there was no difference in cardiovascular events.&nbsp; And based on this, you go on this rant that all&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:20] scientists are wrong. It's all dogma and group&nbsp; think. My opinion, this is a perfect example of&nbsp;&nbsp; how not to communicate science. This confuses the&nbsp; public and this harms people. And that's because&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:32] when you eradicate fat, you replace it with&nbsp; refined carbohydrates, which increase general&nbsp;&nbsp; body inflammation. You don't have to. You can&nbsp; eat unprocessed carbohydrates, but also nobody's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:46] saying that you have to eradicate fats. Nobody&nbsp; in professional nutrition nowadays is saying that&nbsp;&nbsp; you have to eat a low-fat diet. We moved past that&nbsp; many years ago, decades ago. These guys are stuck&nbsp;&nbsp; in the past. This whole endeavor is a straw man&nbsp; argument, right? It's like the fixation with the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:02] pyramid. The pyramid was discontinued 15 years&nbsp; ago. They're still going on and on about the&nbsp;&nbsp; pyramid, the pyramid. Healthy fats are recommended&nbsp; almost universally by professionals in nutrition&nbsp;&nbsp; and they've been recommended for many years.&nbsp; Extra virgin olive oil, fatty fish, seafood,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:19] nuts and seeds, avocados. And the main irony&nbsp; with this is this whole narrative of saturated&nbsp;&nbsp; fat is misunderstood, was unfairly demonized,&nbsp; they don't even believe that. They just put&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:31] out national dietary guidelines that they wrote&nbsp; where they uphold the same limit we've always had,&nbsp;&nbsp; under 10% of calories from saturated fat. Here&nbsp; he is in the press conference just last week&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:43] announcing the guidelines. How much saturated fats&nbsp; Americans should be consuming. I'm going to let&nbsp;&nbsp; Marty take that since he wrote a book. Look, the&nbsp; old the old dogma the 1960s when Eisenhower had&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:56] his heart attack and Anel Keys said it was the&nbsp; saturated fat that's never been substantiated&nbsp;&nbsp; and so that flawed research has become dogma&nbsp; over the years and eventually the conversation&nbsp;&nbsp; was sidelined. In this new guide guidance&nbsp; we are telling young people, kids, schools,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:15] you don't need to tiptoe around fat and dairy.&nbsp; You don't need to push low-fat um uh milk to&nbsp;&nbsp; kids. And we are maintaining the 10% of calories&nbsp; as saturated fat in the guidance. Does that make&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:28] any sense to you? It's all flawed research.&nbsp; It's all dogma. It's never been substantiated,&nbsp;&nbsp; but we're upholding the same limit on saturated&nbsp; fat we've always had. What? If you believe that&nbsp;&nbsp; that gap is not based on good science, then why&nbsp; are you recommending it to 300 million people?&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:46] Just because the guys before did? Just because&nbsp; every country on the planet does? Isn't that&nbsp;&nbsp; the definition of dogma and groupthink and being a&nbsp; sheep? Exactly the thing they like to accuse other&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:59] people of doing? And if the science does support&nbsp; that cap, as you said in your official document,&nbsp;&nbsp; why are you telling people otherwise in&nbsp; a press conference? Completely reckless,&nbsp;&nbsp; right? Completely irresponsible, sending people&nbsp; to an early grave. The truth is this narrative is&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:16] very popular. People want to hear that butter&nbsp; is fine or even good for you. All scientists&nbsp;&nbsp; are wrong. It's unfairly demonized. It's a very&nbsp; popular rhetoric. But in an official document,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:28] there's a lot more accountability. So there they&nbsp; don't play these games. They go with the balance&nbsp;&nbsp; of evidence and what most scientists are telling&nbsp; them is a good idea, right? So in the future if&nbsp;&nbsp; there's a lawsuit they can say "well we, we said&nbsp; under 10% in the document", right? While at the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:43] same time dog-whistling to the public that it's&nbsp; all dogma, don't worry about it, just eat all&nbsp;&nbsp; the butter you want. Do you see how dishonest&nbsp; that is, to say one thing and do another in an&nbsp;&nbsp; official document? This is how politicians behave.&nbsp; It's got nothing to do with science or facts. If&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:00] you find this topic of saturated fat confusing,&nbsp; we have a video covering all of the evidence and&nbsp;&nbsp; practical takeaways. So, I'll link that right&nbsp; here. Check it out. I'll see you in there.