Dietary fat and heart disease

Summary So far as the industry is concerned, the evidence indicating a relationship of dietary fat to heart disease presents some interesting challenges. Undoubedly it portends a change in the fat cousumption pattern toward a lower per capita use coupled with a shift from solid fats toward a higher proportion of edible oils. Most important of all, however, is the growing recognition that fats and oils are nutritionally valuable foods, intimately related to health and well‐being, and should by no means be regarded merely as a source of calories. Although there are innumerable factors involved in the etiology of heart disease, dietary fat is an important one and fortunately is one that can be modified in whatever way proves desirable. Because the more saturated types of fats lead to higher serum cholesterol levels than do the polyunsaturated oils, and because cholesterol is somehow involved in the course of atherosclerotic heart disease, clinical tests are now in progress to determine whether prolonged use of a diet rich in these oils will lead to fewer heart attacks than does the usual American diet rich in saturated fats. So far, data are encouraging enough to merit recommendation of the modification in dietary fat to the coronary‐prone individual and to justify development of new high‐linoleate fat products by the industry.