DISCUSS the link: CHD and a high fat diet

To begin, lets first learn about the importance of diet for human health. Our diet is very crucial in terms of development and prevention of coronary heart diseases. It is one of the most important factor that could make you either healthy or make you gain high risk of all sorts of heart related diseases (cardiovascular disease).

For this post, we are looking at the correlation between high fat diet and risk of getting coronary heart disease.

Before getting into the main theme, we first need to know about fats in general. All fats contain high levels of energy. Whether it is saturated or unsaturated, excess consumption of it should be restricted from your diet. The consequence of consuming excess fat is obesity and this causes various health issues such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension, cancer and respiratory problems.

As I mentioned, there are two types of fats in our diet: saturated and unsaturated fats. These two fats have contrary effects on human health so let’s look at it one at a time.

First of all, saturated fats are found in animal products such as cheese, sausages, hams, etc. Diets rich in saturated fats increases the risk of coronary heart disease and this is because they form linear structures that can form plaque on coronary vessels and increase the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. (Lipoproteins are the transporters of cholesterols in the blood) The increase in LDL levels cause plaque to build up as other substances bind with the cholesterol-forming plaque and clogs our arteries by trapping substances such as calcium, which eventually leads to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). The clogged arteries lead to cardiovascular health problems such as high blood pressure.

On the other hand, unsaturated fats such as those found in fish, nuts, seeds and vegetables, are beneficial for coronary health. Unlike saturated fats, they are not associated with plaque build-up but instead increases the level of high density lipoprotein, which is simply good cholesterols. HDLs carries cholesterols away from the arteries to the liver. From there, it can be broken down and get removed from the blood stream which prevents body from atherosclerosis.

However, there are two types of unsaturated fats which have different health risks and they are “cis” and “trans” forms. Diets rich in cis-monounsaturated fats are recommended since they are barely linked to coronary heart disease. But diets rich in trans-monounsaturated fats are linked to high risk of CHDs. The plaques created by trans-fat blocks blood flow leading to hypertension and the left over travelling plaques block blood flow in vessels. It then leads to a stroke or a heart attack.

This research certainly shows that fat is essential for our diet but excess consumption of fats, especially unsaturated fats, are impairs our health. But it is very important to note that fat intake of more than 37%, even if it is unsaturated, it will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Also saturated fat intake should not go over 10% of your total energy and more crucially, people with diabetes should only be having 7% or less fat of their total energy.