It's atherogenic.

-Jay

You'll find that Dr. William Castelli's quote has been misinterpreted by
Atkins and others.

Here's what Dr. Castelli has to say about that frequently misinterpreted
quote:

"That quote is correct but its interpretation by Atkins and Sugar Busters
and others is wrong. The data are diet history data. Very weak science!!!
For example, the people who eat the most weigh the least. You mean that we
all need to eat more so we can lose weight. Only an idiot would believe
that. When you find such a finding in an epidemiological study you must look
for the confounder. At least one of the confounders is exercise. The people
who ate the most, exercised the most and burned off the excess calories and
ended up weighing the least. Better science, where I lock you up in a
metabolic ward has taught us that lowering the saturated fat, the
cholesterol in the diet lowers cholesterol. Even better, over a dozen diet
trials in the history of medicine which took people off the high fat diet
lowered their cholesterols and 4-5 years out they lowered their heart
attack."

You can read more from Dr. Castelli about that quote here:
http://www.vegsource.com/talk/science/messages/833.html

Dr Castelli believes we should cut down on saturated fat, but he doesn't
believe all fats are bad though. He has written a book called Good Fat, Bad
Fat where he promotes the use of healthy oils like olive oil (a staple of
the Mediterranean diet).

Trudy Thelander
http://www.mediterrasian.com

   Actualy your "obvious answer" is totaly wrong.  People did not
have any shorter life span than we do now.  The so called "average
life span" calculations are extremely missleading and you are dooped
if you believe the distortion that a so called "longer life span" of
todays people is the reason for heart disease and other degenerative
diseases or as they are sometimes WRONGLY called "diseases of aging"
The fact is people DID live to old ages and there was very little
heart disease, diabetes or many of the other degenerative conditions
that are rampant today.  Not only that but they are striking younger
and younger people than ever including teenagers and young children.
100+ years ago before the human diet was changed so drasticly
americans ate a much healthyer diet full of saturated fat and
cholesterol from animal sources and lacking modern fake foods like
trans fat, polyunsaturated vegetable oils, refined flower, and sugar.
These are the major causes of modern degenerative conditions like
heart disease and diabetes.  Most people simply do not understand the
magnitude of the change in the human diet that started around 100
years ago.

Good example:

In 1956, an American Heart Association (AHA) fund-raiser aired on all
three major networks. The MC interviewed, among others, Irving Page
and Jeremiah Stamler of the AHA, and researcher Ancel Keys. Panelists
presented the lipid hypothesis as the cause of the heart disease
epidemic and launched the Prudent Diet, one in which corn oil,
margarine, chicken and cold cereal replaced butter, lard, beef and
eggs. But the television campaign was not an unqualified success
because one of the panelists, Dr. Dudley White, disputed his
colleagues at the AHA. Dr. White noted that heart disease in the form
of myocardial infarction was nonexistent in 1900 when egg consumption
was three times what it was in 1956 and when corn oil was unavailable.
When pressed to support the Prudent Diet, Dr. White replied: "See
here, I began my practice as a cardiologist in 1921 and I never saw an
MI patent until 1928. Back in the MI free days before 1920, the fats
were butter and lard and I think that we would all benefit from the
kind of diet that we had at a time when no one had ever heard the word
corn oil."

Notice that the Prudent Diet seems perfectly designed to maximise
profits of the food industry, removing such low profit traditional,
healthy foods from animal sources and replacing them with high profit
easily produced fake processed foods.  All this began around 100 years
ago and within one generation of these MAJOR changes in the american
diet severe health effects began to apear in the public.  this trend
can be seen in every modernized country as it replaced its traditional
diet with modern "prudent diet" style eating habits.  Within about 20
years (one generation) degenerative conditions such as heart disease
wich were once rare began to become widespread.  This is really not
some kind of secret.  This isnt rocket science.  Its all right there
for anyone to see and understand.  THIS is the "obvious answer"  not
some fabricated excuse to shift the blame like "diseases of aging" do
to "longer life spans"  That is a joke and anyone who cares to open
their eyes can see the truth.

    Just for fun why dont you look up some famous or well known
people who lived 100 200 or even 300 years ago and see how long they
lived.  For example take the first 15 presidents who lived in the
1700-1800s.  I do not think even one of them lived less than 60 years
old who died of natural causes and several lived into the 80s and even
90s back in the late 1700!!  Look up the ages of famous classical
music or opera composers.  Many of them lived several hundred years
ago and lived to similar ages.  Really the only exeptions are
accidental deaths or from infections or infectious diseases.  Gengis
Khan who lived around 800 years ago! was fighting wars in his 60s
untill he died from falling off his horse around the age of 65.  This
not only shows longevity but superb health well into old age.  How
many 65 year olds do you know today that could be leading armies into
battle on horseback?  They would have leave their rest homes and wheel
chairs first.  These are just a few examples.  People die from heart
disease now in their 30s and 40s so do not tell me its from old age.
Get some real information and discern answers for YOURSELF.  Do not
just spout out apologist mainstream drivel that is simply designed to
make excuses for their own failure.