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What Too Much Fat Can Do To Your Heart
You may realize that too much dietary cholesterol is linked to an increased risk for heart disease, but did you know that too much dietary fat may be just as harmful? The following information is designed to help you learn about the different types of dietary fats, and how each affects your heart health.
Types Of Dietary Fat
Fat is one of the three main sources of calories in our diet. There are three different kinds of dietary fat: saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated. Whether a fat is saturated or unsaturated has to do with its chemical makeup.
Saturated fats are those that stay hard at room temperature. Fatty cuts of meat, whole milk dairy products, butter, palm, and coconut oils are all highly saturated.
Polyunsaturated fats remain liquid at room temperature and include vegetable oils such as sunflower, safflower,and corn oils.
Monounsaturated fats also remain liquid at room temperature and include oils such as olive and peanut oils.
How Fats Affect Your Heart
Saturated fats are known to increase the body's levels of serum (blood) cholesterol. Along with cholesterol, saturated fats can deposit on the inner walls of blood vessels; a condition known as atherosclerosis. When the heart's arteries become clogged with cholesterol and fats, blood flow can be restricted or totally blocked, leading to severe chest pain and heart attack.
Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats actually have a cholesterol-lowering effect. By substituting polyunsaturated fats for the saturated fats in your diet, you can actually help control cholesterol levels.
Other Considerations
Too much dietary fat can also contribute to overweight. (Fats contain nine calories per gram; over twice as much as the same amount of protein or carbohydrates.) Being overweight can aggravate high blood pressure, place excess strain on your heart, and make it more difficult to stay active and physically fit, thus having a negative impact on your overall cardiovascular health.
Farewell Fats?
You needn't eliminate dietary fat altogether to reduce your risk of heart disease, but it does pay to follow the American Heart Association's guidelines: limit total fat intake to no more than 30% of your daily calories and limit saturated fat to no more than one third of your total fat calories.
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