SNR #200: Saturated Fat Panel Discussion - Nadolsky, Guyenet, Masterjohn & Dieter

Brad Dieter (0:08)

You know, we're all on the same page when it comes to what the research says, you know, what the interpretations are and what role it really plays in overall health, specifically towards disease statuses like cardiovascular disease. As a community of scientists and researchers, you know, we don't have all of the answers, but we do have a pretty good understanding of how nutrients like saturated fat really do impact our overall health. And so I think nutrition isn't quite the black box. A lot of people think it is, and there is a substantial amount of research that can tell us what we do know and what we don't know. And I think, you know, as a community, we've done a pretty good job of trying to pin those things down.

Danny Lennon (1:01)

Thank Hello, and welcome to Sigma Nutrition Radio. As always, I'm your host, Danny Lennon, and today is somewhat of a milestone episode, a very special one for the podcast, and for me personally, that we've reached episode 200 So whilst quite an arbitrary number is a nice milestone to tick off to say that we've made it this far, which is in large part due to your support, if you've listened to the show at all over the past number of years, especially if you are a regular listener and listen in to every episode. If so, I wanna say a massive thank you first and foremost before we get into the episode, because without you the show wouldn't be where it is, and we can continue to do this and continue to talk to the level of guests that we can on the podcast and get their insights. So thank you so much for that. And if any of you do continue to share the show on social media, I see a lot of you posting it on Facebook or putting it into different Facebook groups or putting it on Instagram and tagging your friends. All that stuff makes such a tremendous difference. So thank you for that. And anyone who has left an iTunes review up to this point does make a tremendous difference. And I'll also say a massive shout out to all our Patreon followers who have kindly contributed and continue to contribute each week for these episodes. A massive thank you to you.

Honestly, it means so much that you would go and follow us on Patreon. So thank you for that.

Today, like I said, is somewhat of a milestone episode. In fact, comes just pretty soon after we reached another arbitrary, but yet nice milestone to hit in that a month or so ago, we surpassed 2 million downloads for the podcast, which again is a nice number and again shows off how great a job you guys have done of keeping this podcast going and following it and spreading the word of it. So thank you for that. And so to mark the 200th episode, I wanted to do something a bit special and different.

And so I decided that we're going to do a panel discussion on a very specific topic and dig deep into it and get the views of people that I really respect and think can give great information on it. And so the topic I wanted to pick first and foremost was saturated fat, because within nutrition now, there's so much confusion and differing opinions on the topic of saturated fat in general and its overall healthfulness.

Because, and this goes beyond just general population and mainstream ideas around saturated fat. This is even goes into nutritionists and dieticians and all sorts of practitioners, researchers, people who are looking at this, very divergent different opinions. And again, like I said, a lot of confusion because I mean, the kind of classical old school view a lot of people would have held is that saturated fat was something that we need to avoid at all costs. That even going back, dietary fat being bad, we've seen that kind of softened slightly over the years and kind of dietary fat isn't the demon it once was. And so we're starting to see a softening in some areas on the role of saturated fat as well. And then to the other extreme, we're starting to see some groups and some gurus to some extent start to talk about how high amounts of fat and high amounts of saturated fat even in the diet are perfectly fine and can even be healthful. And so again, people are hearing a lot of different opinions. And so I wanted to get people who have a really clear understanding of the literature to not only relay what they have found from that research, but also to be able to talk about these implications for us when we're just thinking about the idea of how healthful or not is a nutrient saturated fat. And so when I was picking the panelists, I wanted to try and get a mix of people who have really interesting views on this idea that come at this from a very sensible evidence-based perspective and people who are very clear about putting it across the context behind certain different ideas and not trying to be sensationist in things they say. And so we have three of our panelists have PhDs in their areas related to nutritional sciences. And our fourth panelist is more from the clinical side of working with patients on all sorts of lifestyle interventions, but also being able to measure say their blood lipids and seeing different changes in that. So our panelists on the clinical side is Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, a board certified obesity physician who is also just on the verge of becoming a clinical lipidologist and has worked with so many patients over the years, who many of which have had problems with blood lipids, high cholesterol, and have had all sorts of different interventions that they've used. And so Dr. Nadolsky comes at it from the perspective of one, being very well read in the area of lipidology, blood lipids, lipoproteins, saturated fat and heart disease, but then also on a clinical level of working with people and seeing changes in blood lipids over time.