Healthy Fat May Help the Heart: Which Foods Contain It?

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Not all fats should be avoided. Healthy fats are good for the heart. 

LiveScience reported that one should eat healthy fats to keep their heart healthy. Doing so can prevent over a million casualties from cardiovascular disease.

Medical Daily stated that heart disease leads to three of every 10 deaths. The researchers are encouraging the people to incorporate more good fats in their diet instead of cutting back on the bad fats.

The researchers also noted that the number of deaths from heart disease due to insufficient consumption of healthy fats is three times greater than the number of casualties due to excessive intake of saturated fats.

Saturated fats are those found in meat, cheeses, dairy products, palm and coconut oils.

"Policies for decades have focused on saturated fats as the priority for preventing heart disease, but we found that in most countries, a too-little intake of healthy fats was the big problem, bigger than saturated fat," said study author Dariush Mozaffarian of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, examined the data on the people's diet and rate of death from heart disease for over 186 countries in 2010. They estimated about 711,800 deaths from heart disease that year, which is about 10.3 percent worldwide.

The deaths were attributed to the lack of "omega-6 polyunsaturated fats" that are commonly found in vegetable oils.

On the other hand, only 250,900 deaths or 3.6 percent worldwide died from heart disease due to overconsumption of saturated fat.

The researchers believe that increasing the intake of healthy fat offers more health benefits.

"Instead of having two pieces of bread, have half a piece of bread and lots of olive oil or lots of healthy cooking oil or nuts," Mozaffarian suggested.

The researchers looked at the patterns of death from cardiovascular disease over time. They found out that the proportion of deaths caused by insufficient intake of omega-6 polyunsaturated fat declined by 9 percent while deaths due to high intake of saturated fats declined by 21 percent.

The study also found out 537,200 deaths in 2010. Those deaths were due to excessive intake of trans fat, which were found in processed, baked and fried foods.

The result of the study is encouraging everyone to level up their healthy fat intake and minimize consumption of refined starch and carbohydrates. One should eat more fish, nuts and vegetable oil to increase the healthy fat intake.

One should get a regular exercise, maintain a healthy weight and refrain from smoking, aside from maintaining a healthy diet, to prevent the deadly cardiovascular disease.