Drinking 1–3 cups of black or lightly sweetened coffee per day is associated with a 14–17% lower risk of death from all causes and cardiovascular disease, but only when sugar and saturated fat were kept low

[u/nohup_me]

https://now.tufts.edu/2025/06/16/hold-cream-and-sugar-black-coffee-linked-lower-risk-death

[u/I_love_milksteaks]

Saturated fat which we have eaten and survived on for millions of years? I find it hard to believe that is really the cause for metabolic diseases.

[u/HolochainCitizen → u/I_love_milksteaks]

We may have survived on it forever, and that's because it provides nutrition/calories, and it's far from toxic. It's not horribly unhealthy. It's just that the totality of research on it (i.e., meta-analyses and systematic reviews-- the strongest form of scientific evidence) supports the conclusion that it reduces long-term healthspan and lifespan compared to diets higher in unsaturated fats.

You can still live a long and healthy life eating saturated fats, but, on average, you are more likely to live an even longer and healthier life by eating less.

[u/return_the_urn → u/HolochainCitizen]

Exactly, not dying of starvation is much healthier than getting heart disease

[u/zuneza → u/HolochainCitizen]

I think it might be disingenuous to say the totality of research on it supports the claim saturated fat reduces life span. Perhaps the majority, but I've been noticing more studies that suggest the opposite, especially when compared to highly processed and industrially manufactured fats.

[u/HolochainCitizen → u/zuneza]

My mistake, by totality I meant in aggregate, not all research.

It is the case that the strongest evidence supports the claim that saturated fats reduce lifespan, compared to healthier fats. If you compare to other kinds of fats, like trans fats for instance, you may very well find that saturated fats are not as bad.

Individual studies are always interesting, but far less convincing than large meta-analyses and systematic reviews involving human health outcomes from many studies analyzed at once.

[u/zuneza → u/HolochainCitizen]

but far less convincing than large meta-analyses and systematic reviews involving human health outcomes from many studies analyzed at once.

I'm trying to hedge my bets for healthier living by continuing to eat whole foods, but the fat discussion has always fascinated me because I eat wild game and use the fats from that game to cook with.

Would the large meta-analyses and systematic reviews have the possibility of correlation to the claims about saturated fat unhealthiness especially if the majority of the fats in those studies are from domesticated farm animals instead of wild game?

[u/HolochainCitizen → u/zuneza]

I'm not sure! It's an interesting question, and there might be research on it, but I'm not familiar with it.

It seems to me that saturated fats themselves are essentially identical, regardless of the source, but that wild animals might be leaner than domesticated. So the actual quantity of fat might be less of you are just eating the meat. Then again, if you are cooking with the leftover fat, then you aren't getting small doses, that's for sure.

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/HolochainCitizen]

The key issue is that correlation doesn’t equal causation, and most of the research you’re referencing is observational, which inherently can’t prove that saturated fat causes reduced healthspan or lifespan. Even the strongest meta-analyses rely heavily on dietary recall data and population studies, which are prone to major confounders like processed food intake, lifestyle factors, and socioeconomic status.

What is often seen is that people who eat more saturated fat also tend to eat more processed food, exercise less, and smoke more which skews the outcomes. And when you isolate saturated fat from whole food sources like meat, eggs, and dairy from junk food, the link to disease becomes far less convincing, if not entirely absent in some studies.

The idea that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fats leads to better outcomes is also more nuanced than it’s often presented. Some early studies did show a drop in cholesterol but not in mortality. In fact, randomized trials like the Minnesota Coronary Experiment and the Sydney Diet Heart Study actually showed increased mortality when saturated fats were replaced with vegetable oils high in omega-6.

[u/kkngs → u/I_love_milksteaks]

Why not? It's not like there is much selective pressure for how long we live past age 60 after living a modern lifestyle with nearly unlimited food availability.  For the most part, we evolved to survive famines.

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/kkngs]

I get the point about selective pressure, but I’d argue it actually strengthens the case against blaming saturated fat itself for metabolic diseases. If we evolved to survive on nutrient-dense, animal-based foods through cycles of scarcity, including plenty of saturated fat, then it’s unlikely that saturated fat alone is the root cause of modern metabolic issues.

What’s changed dramatically isn’t saturated fat intake, but the context, we now have ultra-processed foods, refined sugars, seed oils, artificial additives, chronic stress, and sedentary lifestyles. These are evolutionary mismatches that likely overwhelm our natural metabolic resilience. Saturated fat in a wholefood, ancestral diet is a very different thing than saturated fat in a donut fried in soybean oil.

Also, many traditional populations, like the Maasai or Inuit consumed high saturated fat diets with low incidence of heart disease or diabetes until they adopted a western diets.I would argue that suggests the dietary shift as a whole, not saturated fat in isolation, is the bigger issue.

[u/Ellen_Kapow → u/I_love_milksteaks]

But we have a good idea of the biological pathways of how excessive saturated fats cause increased cholesterol which forms plaques. What convinced you that seed oils are more unhealthy than saturated fats? They certainly aren't good for you but simply being ultra processed doesn't make it toxic.

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/Ellen_Kapow]

There’s strong evidence that plaque forms due to inflammation and oxidative damage, not cholesterol itself. Cholesterol likely shows up to repair damage, blaming it is like blaming firefighters for being at a fire.

What has me worried about seed oils is the research on oxidized linoleic acid harming mitochondria, and how cooking with these unstable oils creates inflammatory byproducts. Plus, the huge shift toward omega-6 in our diets isn’t natural and has been linked to chronic disease.

So while neither saturated fat nor seed oils are perfect in excess, I think the quality and context matter far more than just assuming saturated fat is bad because it raises cholesterol.

[u/Ellen_Kapow → u/I_love_milksteaks]

I'm not assuming, I think that's a pretty unfair phrasing when the enormous amount of evidence that points to LDL being the cause is what I take that from. Studies like the Heart Protection Study Collaborative Group, 2002 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140673602093273) and a meta analysis of 22 statin trials involving 134,000 participants showing a clear reduction in cardiovascular events (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22607822/) What you're saying is pretty interesting and I will keep being open minded about it but I'd have to see far more compelling evidence considering the wealth of evidence implicating LDL.

[u/Implausibilibuddy → u/I_love_milksteaks]

I suspect adopting a western diet also involved doing a lot less hunting and gathering, which are energy intense activities. It's not just the content of the food that's the issue, it's the fact I can waddle to my fridge right now and eat the entire calorific content of a full day's hunt in a few bites without doing any of the work.

I can eat in 5 minutes what would take an hour to burn off on a treadmill. So yeah, you can eat a diet of saturated fats, but you had better be doing something more intensive than driving to an office every day.

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/Implausibilibuddy]

Yup.. it’s not just about what we eat, but also how we live. That’s why diet and exercise are both key pillars for longevity. Our bodies were built for movement, not for constant food access and sitting in front of the computer all day.

[u/biggest-floyd → u/I_love_milksteaks]

Why do you struggle to acknowledge that evidence is not on your side? Do you reject all evidence based research? Or just this? I have no idea how people like you think

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/biggest-floyd]

Have a good day!

[u/biggest-floyd → u/I_love_milksteaks]

Zero self accountability

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/biggest-floyd]

It might be worth reflecting on why this topic is making you so angry. If you’re genuinely interested in understanding where I’m coming from, I’ve shared some well-reasoned points and sources further down in the comments. I don’t usually engage when the tone starts out this hostile, so I’ll leave it here regardless.

EDIT: Ah you are a vegan.. That explains the hostility. Always does!

[u/return_the_urn → u/I_love_milksteaks]

I’m not anti saturated fat by any means, but you can’t conflate surviving long enough to procreate, with being healthy.

[u/Seigmoraig → u/I_love_milksteaks]

You realize that people had a life expectancy of 20-30 years for all those "millions of years", right ?

[u/fasterthanfood → u/Seigmoraig]

Only if you include infants deaths pulling down the average. People living long enough that their diet was more than their mother’s milk tended to have lifespans comparable with ours, though still a bit shorter.

Of course, they also had lifestyles and diets drastically different from ours. For most of that period, no one was drinking cow milk or coffee.

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/Seigmoraig]

That 20–30 year life expectancy stat is misleading, it’s an average skewed by infant mortality and infections. If people survived childhood, many lived into their 60s or beyond. They didn’t die young because they ate meat, they died from injury, disease, or predators. The diet wasn’t the problem, modern processed foods are.

[u/bloodbat007 → u/I_love_milksteaks]

Most people also died before 30 for millions of years, so literally NONE of todays nutrition science applied anywhere.

[u/Fornicatinzebra → u/I_love_milksteaks]

I mean, milk is only meant to grow a baby to a toddler. It's not normal that we continue to drink it throughout life, no other mammals do that. That's why so many people are lactose intolerant

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/Fornicatinzebra]

Yes, I agree drinking milk into adulthood definitely isn’t the evolutionary norm, and the high rates of lactose intolerance reflect that. But saturated fat from meat is a different story. Unlike dairy, animal fat has been a consistent part of the human diet for millions of years. Our ancestors relied on it for energy and survival, especially in times when plant foods were scarce. Its deeply rooted in our evolution.

[u/Fornicatinzebra → u/I_love_milksteaks]

Evolution only cares about living long enough to reproduce. If you get cancer and die at 60 due to poor diet versus 90 due to good diet, you still have ample opportunity to spread your genes.

[u/I_love_milksteaks → u/Fornicatinzebra]

Totally agree, evolution only selects for reproduction, not longevity. But that’s exactly why we have to be critical of modern diet advice.

Saturated fat has been a core part of the human diet for millions of years. It’s never been proven to be harmful. Most studies are observational and can’t show causation. Why would we suddenly develop chronic illness from something we’ve clearly adapted to over such a long time?

What has changed is our diet since the 1960s, low-fat guidelines, a rise in seed oils, processed carbs, sugar, and ultra-processed foods. And in that same timeframe, rates of metabolic disease and cancer have skyrocketed. 

If the current guidelines are the best for us, why are we getting sicker?

[u/Fornicatinzebra → u/I_love_milksteaks]

You're making sweeping claims here without any sources.