saturated fat

No summary available for this substance.

Saturated Fat

Saturated fats are one of the types of fats that our bodies need for normal function. They are typically solid at room temperature and are found mainly in animal products and tropical oils. While necessary in moderate amounts, excessive intake of saturated fats can lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Category
Macronutrient
Molecular Formula
Varies based on the specific fat
Mechanism of Action
Saturated fats are a source of energy for the body and are involved in various body functions including hormone production, immune function, and cell membrane structure.
Evidence Grade
A

Other Names

  • Saturated fatty acids
  • SFA

Primary Benefits

  • Energy production
  • Cell membrane structure
  • Hormone production

Recommended Dosage

Adults Less than 10% of total daily calories

Side Effects

  • Weight gain
  • Increased LDL cholesterol
  • Increased risk of heart disease

Precautions

  • People with heart disease
  • People with high cholesterol
  • People with obesity

Interactions

  • Interacts with cholesterol levels
  • Can affect blood sugar levels

Key References

  • World Health Organization guidelines
  • American Heart Association guidelines
#162 – Sarah Hallberg, D.O., M.S.: Treating metabolic disease, & a personal journey through cancer
saturated fat 28:16 0
“we've done a number of shows that have dealt with fatty acids people probably understand that there are saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats. The saturated fats have no double bonds so that means every carbon is fully saturated with hydrogen, the monounsaturated have one and only one unsaturation so one double bond and then the polys have at least two of these double bonds.”

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#162 – Sarah Hallberg, D.O., M.S.: Treating metabolic disease, & a personal journey through cancer
saturated fat 41:32 0
“high carbohydrate low carbohydrate low fat here on the left to a very high intake of fat on the right and again below it the two different levels of saturated fat that we're comparing 12 grams to three times as high in the low carb diet at 36.”

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167 – Gary Taubes: Bad science and challenging the conventional wisdom of obesity
saturated fat 2:06:05 0
“the dietary heart story was we get heart disease because of the dietary fat, saturated fat content of the diet elevating ldl cholesterol”

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Dr. Bill Harris on the Omega-3 Index: Increasing Omega-3 to Promote Longevity & Transform Health
Understanding Omega-3 Impact: Health Benefits Through Diet and Research 3:19 0
“we had three groups you know saturated fat, control, polyunsaturated fat and fish oil and that's when we were doing our very high dose you know drink a half a cup of salmon oil every day for our volunteers.”

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Dr. Peter Attia on Mastering Longevity – Insights on Cancer Prevention, Heart Disease, and Aging
Proactive Health Strategies: Preventing Chronic Conditions Through Lifestyle Choices 40:14 0
“saturated fat directly impacts cholesterol synthesis”

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Dr. Peter Attia on Mastering Longevity – Insights on Cancer Prevention, Heart Disease, and Aging
Proactive Health Strategies: Preventing Chronic Conditions Through Lifestyle Choices 43:09 0
“if you swap that out with mono unsaturated fat or even polyunsaturated fat, their apob levels in our experience about half of the people who have this hyper response to saturated fat, if you isocalorically shift them to high monounsaturated fat, you fix the problem.”

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276 ‒ Special episode: Peter on longevity, supplements, protein, fasting, apoB, statins, & more
Longevity, Health Tools, Proactive Management: Nutrition, Exercise, Supplements, Genetic Insights 41:22 0
“The other way to do it is dramatically cut saturated fat which will reduce cholesterol synthesis and it will reduce the liver's need to keep fat out of the liver by well so it's easier to describe it the other way in a high saturated fat diet what typically happens in addition to an increase in cholesterol synthesis is the liver through something called the sterile regulatory binding protein says I don't need any more fat brought in I don't need any more cholesterol brought in so it down regulates LDL receptors so it pulls fewer LDL out of circulation and LDL will Skyrocket.”

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Dr. Ronald Krauss on LDL Cholesterol, Particle Size, Heart Disease & Atherogenic Dyslipidemia
Understanding Cholesterol, Heart Disease, Diet, Statins, and Genetic Factors 33:47 0
“In fact, there's almost no evidence to support that relationship between saturated fat and heart disease risk.”

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Dr. Ronald Krauss on LDL Cholesterol, Particle Size, Heart Disease & Atherogenic Dyslipidemia
Understanding Cholesterol, Heart Disease, Diet, Statins, and Genetic Factors 48:14 0
“And others have shown that when saturated fat is packaged in a dairy product, particularly a fermented dairy product, there may actually be some metabolic benefits.”

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Dr. Ronald Krauss on LDL Cholesterol, Particle Size, Heart Disease & Atherogenic Dyslipidemia
Understanding Cholesterol, Heart Disease, Diet, Statins, and Genetic Factors 49:52 0
“It's becoming more and more popular now that saturated fats aren't the culprit to heart disease.”

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The Simple Blueprint to Reverse Disease
Optimizing Health Through Natural Lifestyle and Nutritional Adjustments 23:06 0
“Cholesterol maybe isn't what you think it is and saturated fat isn't out to get you and kale is all the way to now even being kind of uh stoking the fires within the ancestral Community now like Honey's okay for you and fruit's okay for you.”

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The Simple Blueprint to Reverse Disease
Optimizing Health Through Natural Lifestyle and Nutritional Adjustments 23:55 0
“Seed oils are junk and the consensus narrative is that seed oils are perfectly healthy actually more beneficial to saturated fat then people's brains just melt.”

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The Simple Blueprint to Reverse Disease
Optimizing Health Through Natural Lifestyle and Nutritional Adjustments 39:26 0
“the experimental Group which was the group fed seed oils versus the saturated fat group and the control group showed a very significant spike in cancer rates”

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Leading Cardiologist: Your Doctor Is WRONG About Cholesterol | Dr. William Davis
Challenging Health Myths: Nutrition, Heart Health, and Gut Microbiome Insights 0:44 0
“What if we put you on baby aspirin, a high dose of a cholesterol drug like Lipitor, 40 milligrams, cut the fat and saturated fat in your diet, and had you exercise?”

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Leading Cardiologist: Your Doctor Is WRONG About Cholesterol | Dr. William Davis
Challenging Health Myths: Nutrition, Heart Health, and Gut Microbiome Insights 2:03 0
“Can you reduce heart disease by reducing your intake of saturated fats or total fat, or taking a statin cholesterol drug, or taking a baby aspirin or, no. It has no material impact on heart disease.”

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Gary Brecka: The TRUTH About Biohacking, Light Therapy, and Nutrients
Optimizing Health: Lifestyle, Nutrition, Sleep, Exercise, and Social Connections 1:02:46 0
“saturated fat is amazing it jacks up cholesterol right and it jacks up your testosterone”

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Why Paul Saladino, MD Quit A 100% Carnivore Diet, Impacts of Cholesterol, And the Value of Insulin
Rethinking Nutrition: Meat, Deception, Health Shifts, and Dietary Innovations 35:25 0
“the American Heart Association the American colle of card College of Cardiology will recommend canola oil to you because it lowers your apob and they will tell you to limit saturated fat because it raises your apob when we also know that there are so many populations of Free Living humans with huge amounts of saturated fat in their diet and high cholesterol that don't have any incidence of atherosclerosis in their diets”

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Why Paul Saladino, MD Quit A 100% Carnivore Diet, Impacts of Cholesterol, And the Value of Insulin
Rethinking Nutrition: Meat, Deception, Health Shifts, and Dietary Innovations 51:04 0
“I think they're overprescribed and underappreciated in terms of their side effects but we believe that statins are good we believe that saturated fat is causing heart disease we believe that red meat is bad for you.”

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This Is How Fat Loss Actually Works – Dr Mike Israetel
Understanding Weight Management: Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, and Future Innovations 44:39 0
“seed oils generally tend to be better than so they've done multiple studies where they take uh people who eat a lot of saturated fats which are totally fine by the way but they replace some fraction of those with seed oils and in almost every study the people are months later healthier”

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This Is How Fat Loss Actually Works – Dr Mike Israetel
Understanding Weight Management: Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, and Future Innovations 45:41 0
“you generally want something like 2third of your fats to come from plant fats poly and monounsaturated maybe onethird of your fats to come from saturated fat sources like eggs and beef and things like that”

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Fasting & Nutrition Protocols for Longevity & Disease Prevention w/ Valter Longo | Rich Roll Podcast
Revolutionizing Healthcare with Nutrition: Longevity and Disease Prevention Strategies 20:53 0
“It's better to not have saturated fats, animal fats and again, the epidemiology agrees with that but when we are talking about these monosaturated fats, olive oil, nuts, probably certain fish like salmon, that seems to be consistently associated with living longer.”

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The Truth About Microplastics – Dr Rhonda Patrick
Understanding Microplastics and Toxin Exposure in Everyday Health and Environment 1:54:51 0
“the worst thing you can do is have a diet high in a lot of fats, particularly saturated fat combined with refined sugar.”

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The Longest Low Carb Study Ever Conducted is Finally Finished (the results are surprising)
Long-term ketogenic diet impact on health and cardiovascular outcomes 25:32 0
“So if I mean saturated fat does elevate LDL that's not a um I think people out there still try to like uh debunk that and that's that's just that's that's true like we know it does that right I mean it's it's a what saturated fat I think it docks to an LDL receptor making it so that LDL essentially can't dock in the liver or something right and then it's like so that even acutely can elevate it.”

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The Longest Low Carb Study Ever Conducted is Finally Finished (the results are surprising)
Long-term ketogenic diet impact on health and cardiovascular outcomes 26:10 0
“But the it seems as though if you were to be combining saturated fat and high glucose, that could be problematic. And that's almost as though where we're missing missing the point a little bit where it's like the finger maybe is getting pointed a little bit inaccurately when in reality like it still matters.”

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The Longest Low Carb Study Ever Conducted is Finally Finished (the results are surprising)
Long-term ketogenic diet impact on health and cardiovascular outcomes 26:29 0
“And if your sugar is high and you're also at the same time driving up LDL with saturated fat, then that would make sense that it could be problematic. But if your glucose is under control, it's probably not as much of a concern.”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 8:18 0
“processing gone bad is when you've change the nutrient profile of a food such that it is unhealthy so in simple terms it's too much saturated fat, too much salt, too little fiber, too little bioactives like polyphenols.”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 1:08:48 0
“there's a study called the Sydney har study and in this study this was done in the 70s and this is a study that's used often to advocate for the toxic effects of seed oils and in this study uh males that had had a heart event or a heart attack of sorts uh were uh randomly allocated to either increase um their omega-6 so this particular type of fatty acid that we is in seed oils um in their diet by having lots of seed oil MH or they were asked to just follow their normal diet which is quite high in saturated fat and what they found is those that increased their seed oil intake went on to have worse Health outcomes”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 1:18:50 0
“I think the prevailing Nutrabolics is that Dairy is bad for you... so there's not lots of Nutrabolics around Dairy and it's related to the Nutrabolics also around saturated fat. So as a whole we know saturated fat is bad for us. Dairy contributes to most of the saturated fat intake in the UK so therefore we could say all Dairy is bad for us but no, Dairy is a diverse food group.”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 1:20:24 0
“if you have cheese within reason, it does not increase your cholesterol despite being high in saturated fat.”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 1:27:12 0
“Saturated fat increases the production of cholesterol by our liver and reduces the removal of cholesterol by our liver. Highly refined carbohydrates can also increase the production of cholesterol by our liver.”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 1:29:48 0
“Saturated fat as a whole we know is linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, increased risk of all-cause mortality.”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 1:32:03 0
“lots of different types of saturated fats we know that the type of saturated fat matters but we know the food Matrix that it is in that matters and the dairy is a great example so you have cheese and butter exactly the same or almost identical fat composition to entirely different effects on our cholesterol so it is a little bit more Nuance than saying all saturated fats bad it depends on the type and the food it's in”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 1:32:35 0
“I would say the type of saturated fats that we want to avoid are the saturated fats that are found in most animal products except fermented dairy except cheese except yogurt so beef Tallow I would say the evidence consistently shows is not favorable for our health lard mhm butter in large amounts”

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The Nutritional Scientist: Do Not Eat After 9pm! Link Between Chewing & Belly Fat!
Proper Eating Habits for Weight Loss and Healthy Digestion Tips 1:33:18 0
“if you have the option of kind of cutting off trimming the fat then I would and then there are some tropical oils that are very high in saturated fat palm oil for example coconut oil although the JW is out on the health effects of coconut oil but palmo for example is very high in saturated fat we know it increases our cholesterol”

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What’s Really in Your “Healthy” Food? A Conversation with Thrive Market CEO Nick Green
Uncovering Truth About Ingredients in Healthy Foods: Thrive Market Insights 14:48 0
“we literally have a heart healthy filter that you know and there's debate obviously on what is heart healthy but like if you want to be on a low saturated fat diet here's items that could be could be good for you.”

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Is This the Missing Longevity Nutrient?
The Vital Longevity Nutrient Revealed for Optimal Health Benefits 0:02 0
“We showed that C15 is not only a beneficial and active saturated fat, but that it was meeting these rare criteria of being an essential fatty acid.”

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Is This the Missing Longevity Nutrient?
The Vital Longevity Nutrient Revealed for Optimal Health Benefits 7:30 0
“So those two and three that age well, we thought it'd be omega-3s because all they eat are fish. And instead, right, they completely surprised us by showing that in fact it was C15, this odd chain saturated fat that predicted the healthiest aging dolphins and has emerged today, which we'll talk about.”

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Is This the Missing Longevity Nutrient?
The Vital Longevity Nutrient Revealed for Optimal Health Benefits 8:57 0
“We've learned that not all saturated fats are created equal. Those that have an odd number of carbons like C15, C17, and C-15 being the Goldilocks fat have anti-inflammatory effects.”

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Is This the Missing Longevity Nutrient?
The Vital Longevity Nutrient Revealed for Optimal Health Benefits 14:48 0
“C-15 is not only a beneficial and active saturated fat but that it was meeting these rare criteria of being an essential fatty acid.”

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Protein Amount, Quality and Timing – with Dr. Donald Layman | The Proof Podcast EP 236
Optimal Protein Intake for Health and Muscle Function Explained 1:23:25 0
“I think the way that often it's done online is different to kind of what he describes which is a very low saturated fat kind of lean animal protein style diet with high fiber.”

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Ask Me Anything: Lowering Cholesterol and Optimizing VO2max
Optimize Cholesterol Levels and Enhance Cardiovascular Health Naturally Without Limits 14:14 0
“the standard American diet the two nutrients that can really have the biggest role in cholesterol would be saturated fat intake for those that have high cholesterol and soluble fiber traditional American diet really high in saturated fat very low in fiber including the soluble fiber”

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Ask Me Anything: Lowering Cholesterol and Optimizing VO2max
Optimize Cholesterol Levels and Enhance Cardiovascular Health Naturally Without Limits 19:32 0
“watching your saturated fat intake in the US the primary way that we overeat saturated fat is just through animal proteins or other animal products.”

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How Different Diets Impact Your Health | Dr. Christopher Gardner
Influence of Diets on Health: Insights, Challenges, and Recommendations 1:17:02 0
“If you had less meat, better quality meat, you might be spending the same amount, but then you could also have more fiber for your microbiome, more other vitamins and minerals, less saturated fat, less hormone, less antibiotics.”

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How Different Diets Impact Your Health | Dr. Christopher Gardner
Influence of Diets on Health: Insights, Challenges, and Recommendations 2:25:21 0
“So, one of the things that the dietary guidelines for Americans actually did 10 years ago was they said, 'God, you know, we've been praising fiber and we've been slamming saturated fat forever.'”

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How Different Diets Impact Your Health | Dr. Christopher Gardner
Influence of Diets on Health: Insights, Challenges, and Recommendations 2:26:21 0
“So Peter called me out and he said that vegan study is so stupid. He didn't say so stupid. He said it's violated the principles of science. They not only manipulated the saturated fat, they manipulated the fiber.”

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How to Exercise & Eat for Optimal Health & Longevity | Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Optimizing Health and Longevity Through Nutrition, Exercise, and Supplements 2:26:13 0
“there's some data to support High saturated fat Dairy believe it or not actually can be good for Health and Longevity.”

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Dr. Peter Attia: Exercise, Nutrition, Hormones for Vitality & Longevity
Optimizing Health and Longevity Through Nutrition, Hormones, and Exercise 2:10:40 0
“The observation that eating saturated fat raises cholesterol is generally correct.”

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