We can’t be sure if saturated fat is good or bad for you because the studies are all over the place—some say one thing, others say the opposite, and the measurements aren’t very accurate.

Scientists aren’t very confident in what they know about how saturated and trans fats affect health — more research could easily change what we think today.

Eating more saturated fat from butter, meat, or cheese doesn’t clearly make people more likely to die early or get heart disease or diabetes, but the studies aren’t perfect, so we can’t be totally sure.

Eating more saturated fat from meat, butter, or cheese doesn’t clearly make people more likely to die early or get heart disease or diabetes, but the science isn’t strong enough to be sure.

The studies that looked at whether cutting back on saturated fat is healthy are all kind of sloppy—they didn’t plan ahead properly, and none were done well enough to trust their results.

There’s a hint that eating more saturated fat might raise the risk of dying from heart disease, but the data is too messy and uncertain to say for sure.