Based on 2010
data, researchers at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, estimates that
more than 711,000 people died during the year because they did not eat enough of the good kinds of fat.
Meanwhile, bad
fats, saturated fats found in meat, cheese, palm oil and coconut oil, causing
heart disease-related deaths at approximately 250,000 people. Another
bad fats, known as trans-fats, which are found in processed foods, associated
with more than half a million deaths worldwide.
Dariush Mozaffarian, senior author of the study, and his colleagues analyzed data, including diet and information about the availability of food, from 186 countries.
"So, really, the major priorities for preventing heart disease should be to increase helpful fats and to reduce industrial trans fats," said Mozaffarian, who also works as dean of Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
Look at fat consumption trends over time, the researchers on the study found that recent bans of trans fats in processed food in some countries has led to a reduction in deaths.
"In high-income countries such as the U.S and Western Europe, the burdens due to trans fat are going down, which is consistent with a lot of active policy measures to reduce trans fat in high-income countries," said Mozaffarian.
“But in middle-income and low-income countries, there is still a lot of deaths from trans fat. Trans fat is from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. It is a cheap fat in many of these countries," he added.
In tropical countries including the Solomon Islands, Malaysia and the Philippines, had the highest death rate from heart disease associated with the consumption of trans fats in processed foods.
Countries in the former Soviet Union, in particular Ukraine, were notable for having the greatest numbers of deaths due to insufficient intake of good fats.
The findings were part of the Global Burden of Diseases Study funded by the Gates Foundation, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
From those informations above, the message is clear to us, it's time to consume healthy fat regularly, because it could save our lives.