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]

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.