Effects and Issues of Diet Fat on Cardiovascular Metabolism

Abstract

Diet is a foundation of treatment for lifestyle-related diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and dyslipidemia. For these diseases, diet therapy has been disregarded in management of hyperlipidemia. Fat has more diversity of biological effects compared to those of protein and carbohydrate. New emerging evidences have resulted in a clear shift of recognition of fatty acids in diet therapy. The PREDIMED study has shown recently the amazing result that a calorie-unlimited, high-fat Mediterranean diet caused about 30% reduction in cardiovascular disease in obese subjects compared with a low-fat diet. Many authorities have removed restriction of intake of fat from their guidelines. The important, new message from recent medical and nutritional science is that people need to consume more “good fat” rather than limiting intake of fat to prevent cardiometabolic diseases. In this chapter, I would like to focus on the role of fatty acids with special relation on their effects on blood lipids and cardiovascular events.