Advice from doctors and public health officials to avoid fat and lower cholesterol has done grave harm to public health, according to a new report from the British nonprofits the National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration.

Poor dietary advice has caused people to stop eating forms of fat that are essential for preventing disease and maintaining good health, without actually stemming rising rates of obesity and chronic disease, the report says. It calls on doctors and consumers to "bring back the fat," so long as it is contained in "real food" such as eggs, full-fat dairy, non-processed meat and fatty vegetables like avocados.

In spite of the report's endorsement by an international coalition of doctors, nutritionists, dieticians, scientists and public health advocates, it has unsurprisingly drawn attacks from representatives of the British health establishment.
 

'Deeply flawed' recommendations serve industry, not health

The report synthesizes the growing number of studies that have, in recent years, begun to overturn the conventional health wisdom of prior decades, including that cholesterol causes heart disease, that fat is bad for you, and that saturated fat is worst of all.

"Guidelines from on high suggesting high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets were the universal panacea are deeply flawed," said David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum. "My patients don't lose weight or improve their health by cutting fats or calories."

"A new approach is needed – a return to 18th century values, drawn up before modern interference with basic principles occurred," he said.

The report's authors say that state-sponsored public health messages are still based on decades-old science, and blame this health advice for fueling epidemic rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.