The Study
Effects of saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids on plasma lipids, lipoproteins, and apoproteins in humans.
This study saw what happened to people's blood when they ate different kinds of fats for a short time. It found that one kind of fat made cholesterol go down more than others, but it didn't prove that the fat caused the change — it just showed they happened together.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
Scientists gave men three different fat diets — butter, olive oil, or vegetable oil — and measured their blood fats to see which one cleaned up their blood best.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 535 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — lowering LDL and ApoB by 30–40% is a big deal because these are key drivers of heart disease risk, and it happened without eating any cholesterol.
- 2With vegetable oil (omega-6): total cholesterol dropped from 166 to 123, LDL from 103 to 65, and ApoB from 80 to 52.
- 3HDL stayed around 45.
- 4Butter and olive oil had smaller drops.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
The American journal of clinical nutrition
Year
1983
Authors
N. Becker, D. Illingworth, P. Alaupovic, W. Connor, E. Sundberg
Related Content
Claims (6)
If you swap out cooking oils like soybean or corn oil for olive oil, butter, or coconut oil, you might lower the stuff in your body that causes inflammation and make your blood fats more stable and healthy.
In healthy adult men, substituting 20% of monounsaturated fats with omega-6 polyunsaturated fats lowers total cholesterol by 26% and LDL cholesterol by 37% compared to saturated fat intake, while HDL cholesterol does not change significantly.
Replacing monounsaturated fats with omega-6 polyunsaturated fats in the diet lowers apolipoprotein B levels by about 35% in healthy men, while saturated fats cause a smaller decrease, showing that the type of dietary fat affects the amount of atherogenic lipoprotein particles in the blood.
A diet with no cholesterol reduces levels of total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol in the blood compared to a regular diet that includes about 300 mg of cholesterol per day.
In healthy men, consuming saturated fat leads to higher levels of apolipoprotein B and total cholesterol in the blood compared to consuming omega-6 polyunsaturated fat, even when no cholesterol is eaten.
In healthy men eating diets with no cholesterol, consuming omega-6 polyunsaturated fats does not lower HDL cholesterol levels more than consuming saturated or monounsaturated fats.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.