Women's Health: Cholesterol, Saturated and Unsaturated Fats

Fats, Yes - Cholesterol, No
How to Get "Good" Fats in Your Diet

Remember when margarine was touted as vastly superior to butter? When losing weight meant the same thing as losing fat? When convenience foods were naively assumed to have nutritional value?

Now that totaling fat grams beats counting calories, fat calipers are preferred over the bathroom scale, and most everything on the inside aisles of the supermarket is viewed with suspicion, it helps to be a (thin or thinning) fat sleuth.

Food labels list grams of total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, and tell how many calories in an average serving are from fat. But that's only part of the story. To figure out the rest you have to locate the list of ingredients--and read between the lines.

Too much fat--both in your diet and on your anatomy--is a major health hazard. Here are some basic guidelines:

1. Your body requires some fat, so eat a little but make sure it's the right kind. Most current guidelines say it's okay to obtain as much as 30% of daily calories from fat as long as only a third of that fat is saturated. However, quite a few scientists and health practitioners would prefer to see total fat limited to around 10%.

2. Minimize saturated fats. Foods high in saturated fats include meats, cheese, butter, eggs, milk, palm oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil, and baked goods like cookies, crackers, and pastries. Saturated fats can be used only for energy; they are incapable of performing other essential functions for which fats are needed by your body. More importantly, saturated fats (particularly animal fats) raise your total blood cholesterol and have been linked to heart disease and various cancers.

3. Avoid processed foods that contain fats that have been "partially hydrogenated." The process of hydrogenation changes unsaturated fat to saturated fat. It also changes the shape and configuration of the fatty acids, producing what is known as trans fat, which is difficult for your body to utilize. Trans fats have been shown to increase "bad" LDL cholesterol and decrease "good" HDL cholesterol. In the U.S., margarine is the number one source of trans fats. To find out if a product contains partially hydrogenated (trans) fat, check the ingredients.

Why is some cholesterol good and some bad? The answer has little to do with the cholesterol itself (cholesterol is essential to life and if you don't eat it, your liver synthesizes it), but with the lippoproteins that transport cholesterol to your cells.

Low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) transport cholesterol from the liver to your tissues and body cells, where it is separated from the lipoprotein and is used by the cell. High-density lipoproteins (HDLs) transport excess or unused cholesterol from the tissues back to the liver, where it is broken down and disposed of. Hence the labels, "good" and "bad." Excess cholesterol attached to LDLs (bad) builds up atherosclerotic deposits in the blood vessels; HDLs (good) actually retard or reduce buildup.

4. Eat unsaturated fats. Flax seed and canola oils are good choices because they contain omega 3 fats, the same protective fats found in oily fish. Other readily available sources of unsaturated fats are virgin olive, safflower, sunflower and corn oils, macadamia and pistachio nuts, almonds, walnuts, cashews and avocados. These good fats can be readily used by your body to aid in the absorption of vitamins A, D, E and K, as well as for other essential functions.

5. Eat fish, particularly fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines, and tuna. These particular marine fish are high in omega 3 fatty acids, which have been shown to increase levels of good HDL cholesterol in the blood, thus protecting against heart disease. Soybeans and foods containing soy protein have also been shown to increase good HDL cholesterol.

6. Exercise. Regular aerobic workouts and high-repetition resistance training (using weights or machines) build muscle, burn calories and fat, and raise good HDL cholesterol levels.

This article is for information purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice. Your health and lifestyle may make the outcomes different for you. You should consult with a physician or other health-care professional familiar with nutrition, prevention, and related health issues.