Health Claims

People who eat cheese with saturated fat might actually have a slightly lower risk of heart disease, which is surprising because saturated fat is usually thought to be bad for the heart.

Correlational

Eating more red meat — which has certain types of fat — might raise your chance of getting heart disease by 7% for every extra 1% of your daily calories that come from those fats.

Correlational

People who get their saturated fat from yogurt instead of other foods might have a slightly lower risk of heart disease, even if they eat the same amount of fat overall.

Correlational

We don’t have strong enough proof to say whether eating less saturated fat makes heart attacks, strokes, or heart disease deaths more or less likely — the studies we have aren’t very reliable.

Causal

If you swap out butter and fatty meats for foods like nuts, seeds, or bread and rice, you might lower your risk of heart problems—but we’re not sure if swapping for olive oil or chicken makes a difference.

Causal

When people eat less saturated fat, their cholesterol levels go down—and when cholesterol drops, they have fewer heart problems. This suggests that lowering cholesterol is the main reason eating less saturated fat helps the heart.

Mechanistic

If you eat less saturated fat for two years or more, it probably won’t make you live longer or stop you from dying of heart disease — at least not in countries with lots of food and healthcare.

Causal

If adults in developed countries eat less saturated fat for at least two years, they’re probably less likely to have heart attacks, strokes, or need heart surgery—about 1 in 56 people would avoid one of these events over four years.

Causal

Not all plant foods are the same for your heart—eating things like whole grains and nuts may help lower your risk of heart disease, but eating sugary drinks and white bread might raise it.

Correlational

People in Greece who eat mostly healthy plant foods like vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole grains tend to have lower heart disease risk—even when you account for things like how old they are, whether they smoke, or how much they weigh.

Correlational

Eating a plant-based diet doesn’t seem to make Greek adults more or less likely to get heart disease, no matter if the plants are healthy or not—because the data is too fuzzy to tell for sure.

Correlational

If Greek adults eat more unhealthy plant-based foods like white bread, soda, sweets, and fried potatoes, they’re 34% more likely to develop heart disease for every small increase in how unhealthy their diet is.

Correlational

People in Greece who eat lots of healthy plant foods like whole grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables over 10 years are much less likely to get heart disease than those who eat very little of these foods.

Correlational

Among all the foods studied, only eating fish and tofu/soy products showed a clear link to fewer heart problems in people with heart disease — even after accounting for everything else they ate.

Correlational

People who eat like Mediterraneans—lots of veggies, olive oil, fish, and nuts—tend to have fewer heart problems, no matter where they live or how much money they make, so this way of eating might help heart patients everywhere.

Correlational

People with heart disease who eat more fruits, veggies, fish, and a little alcohol each week tend to have fewer serious heart problems — and even small improvements in these habits might help.

Correlational

Eating lots of typical Western junk food — like fries, soda, and sweets — doesn’t seem to make heart problems worse for people who already have stable heart disease, even when you account for things like age, smoking, and exercise.

Correlational

If people with heart disease eat more like a Mediterranean diet—lots of fruits, veggies, fish, whole grains, and a little alcohol—they’re slightly less likely to have serious heart problems like heart attacks or strokes.

Correlational

Eating less saturated fat can slightly lower your bad cholesterol, but that doesn’t mean you’ll live longer or have fewer heart problems unless you’re changing other parts of your diet too.

Causal

People who eat more saturated fat, like butter and red meat, seem to have a lower chance of dying from a stroke or having any stroke at all, but this might just be a coincidence — other studies with better methods don’t agree.

Correlational

People who eat more saturated fat, like butter and fatty meats, seem to die more often from heart disease and breast cancer, but this might just be because other things—like lifestyle or diet—are actually causing the difference, and the science isn’t very strong.

Correlational

Cutting back on foods like butter and fatty meats doesn’t seem to make people live longer or die less from heart disease or cancer, according to studies that aren’t super strong.

Causal

If adults eat less saturated fat, they’re probably 21% less likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or other heart-related problems — but it doesn’t seem to change how long they live.

Causal

Women who are heavier and eat a lot of foods that spike blood sugar quickly may be more likely to develop heart disease than heavier women who eat lower-sugar foods.

Correlational