Why fat type matters more than cholesterol in bird arteries
Effect of prolonged feeding of differently saturated fats to laying hens on performance, blood pressure, plasma lipids and changes in the aorta
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Animal fat increased mortality and plasma cholesterol but reduced aortic lesions compared to the no-fat control group.
Common belief: more saturated fat = more plaque. This study shows the opposite—adding ANY fat (even saturated) reduced lesions versus no added fat, challenging the idea that 'fat is bad' in isolation.
Practical Takeaways
Don’t obsess over cholesterol numbers alone—focus on the type of fat you eat: prioritize whole-food unsaturated fats (olive oil, nuts) over processed fats.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Animal fat increased mortality and plasma cholesterol but reduced aortic lesions compared to the no-fat control group.
Common belief: more saturated fat = more plaque. This study shows the opposite—adding ANY fat (even saturated) reduced lesions versus no added fat, challenging the idea that 'fat is bad' in isolation.
Practical Takeaways
Don’t obsess over cholesterol numbers alone—focus on the type of fat you eat: prioritize whole-food unsaturated fats (olive oil, nuts) over processed fats.
Publication
Journal
British Journal of Nutrition
Year
1960
Authors
H. Fisher, H. Weiss, G. Leveille, A. Feigenbaum, S. Hurwitz, O. Donis, H. Lutz
Related Content
Claims (7)
Human evolutionary adaptation is optimized for the consumption of animal-derived saturated and monounsaturated fats as primary dietary lipids.
As chickens get older, their blood cholesterol goes up — but that doesn’t tell you how bad their artery damage is. You need to watch them for years to really understand how diet affects their arteries.
Adding fat to the chickens’ diet didn’t change their blood pressure — so high blood pressure probably isn’t why their arteries got damaged.
In chickens, the lower part of the main artery has more cholesterol and more damage than the upper part — and how bad the damage is in each bird is linked to how much cholesterol is in that specific spot, not how much cholesterol is in the whole body.
Feeding hens corn oil for three years seemed to reduce artery damage more than feeding them no extra fat, even though their blood cholesterol didn’t change much — maybe the type of fat matters more than how much cholesterol is in the blood.