DGAC drops decades-old warning about cholesterol-rich foods

Since the 1960’s Americans have been warned against too much cholesterol consumption. Now, in one of the most drastic changes to nation’s dietary guidelines, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) says cholesterol consumption is no longer something we need to be concerned about.

According to the DGAC and nutrition research, over the last five years cholesterol in the diet does not significantly impact the body’s cholesterol levels. This doesn’t mean individuals shouldn’t be concerned about the cholesterol present in their bodies; it simply means there is no urgent need to worry about cholesterol intake from foods, at least when it comes to cholesterol levels in the body.

SEE ALSO: How to lower your cholesterol?and why you should!

The reasons for the new guidelines stem from the fact dietary cholesterol studies linked to heart disease are speculative at best. In 2013, a task force arranged by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association looked at dietary cholesterol studies and found there was “insufficient evidence” to link dietary cholesterol to cholesterol levels in the body.

“Looking back at the literature, we just couldn’t see the kind of science that would support dietary restrictions,” said Robert Eckel, the co-chair of the task force and a medical professor at the University of Colorado, reported by The Washington Post.

Part of the issue with dietary cholesterol studies is saturated fats, those associated with high cholesterol in food, are not a single compound. These fats are made up of different fatty acids and micronutrients, and some are better than others. Dairy fats, for example, long heralded as one of the worst high cholesterol foods, have recently been shown in research to lower cardiovascular disease risk.

Cholesterol in foods is not a black or white issue

Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusettes, told Medscape saturated fats in high cholesterol foods are biologically complicated, affecting too many aspects of the human body to focus just on cholesterol levels. “They don’t just affect LDL-C, they affect particle size, they affect HDL-C and triglycerides. It’s not clear which [ones] are better or worse if you look at all of those effects,” he said.

Mozaffarian also indicated focusing on a single compound in food, like cholesterol, can lead to inappropriate food recommendations. “Dairy is a perfect example of how focusing on single nutrients leads to silly recommendations. It’s an incredibly complicated category of foods…but our guidelines for dairy are based on theory about calcium content and vitamin D,” he noted. “The School Lunch Program allows chocolate skim milk and banned whole milk. That’s absurd. There’s no evidence that whole milk is bad for kids.”

The complexity of cholesterol-containing foods is why the DGAC has dropped current guidelines against them.