The link between saturated fat, cholesterol, and heart disease might have been pushed by shady studies paid for by the sugar industry that didn’t tell the whole truth.

Scientists found a link between eating saturated fat and heart disease by leaving out data from different countries that didn't fit their idea.

Back in the 1960s, people started saying that eating foods high in saturated fat (like butter and meat) causes heart disease, but they didn’t have strong proof from real experiments—just some weak observations and loud opinions.

Studies that found a link between saturated fat and heart disease are more likely to get published than those that found no link — which might make it look like there’s a connection when there isn’t.

The idea that saturated fat causes heart disease might have started because scientists only shared part of the data — they published results from 7 countries that supported the link, but left out data from 15 others that didn’t show a connection.

The Seven Countries Study selectively reported data from only seven of 22 analyzed countries to falsely imply a causal relationship between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease, omitting data from 15 countries showing no association.