Saturated fat (again)

 I’m not afraid of eating saturated fat. In fact, I eat plenty of it.

“Saturated” refers to fats, such as butter and animal fats, that are firm when refrigerated. Unfortunately, the term, “saturated,” makes it sound like the fat is somehow loaded with goop. In fact, it simply describes the composition of the fat molecule: each carbon atom in the molecule is linked to two hydrogen atoms such that the carbon is “saturated” with hydrogen atoms.

Saturated fats do not clog arteries. They are either burned for fuel or stored in your fat cells. Your cells need saturated fat to help your body perform important chemical processes and make use of vitamins and minerals. For example, saturated fat makes it possible for calcium to be incorporated into your bones.

Scientists have conducted trial after trial comparing the health effects of saturated fats to unsaturated fats, such as vegetable oils. The National Institutes of Health spent several hundred million dollars trying to demonstrate a connection between eating saturated fat and getting heart disease but never did find the connection.

In reviewing the data from the numerous trials, scientists had plenty to say. For example, “…after 50 years of research, there was no evidence that a diet low in saturated fat prolongs life.…if saturated fatty acids were of no value or were harmful to humans, evolution would probably not have established within the mammary gland the means to produce saturated fatty acids…that provide a source of nourishment to ensure the growth, development, and survival or mammalian offspring.”

By the way, most fats are a mixture of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Lard is only 40 percent saturated fat. Olive oil is 13.7 percent saturated fat, which is why it turns cloudy when refrigerated.

So go ahead and slather your toast with butter. That's what I do.

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Those food pyramids!

The 1994 food pyramid had you eating mostly starchy food: 6 to 11 servings of “bread, cereal, rice and pasta.” 

In adhering to the high-carbohydrate, low-fat recommendations, we increased our yearly consumption of grain by almost sixty pounds per person and our consumption of sweeteners, such as high-fructose corn syrup, by thirty pounds per person. The number of young people under the age of 20 with Type 2 diabetes grew by 95% from 2001 to 2017. A third of all people over 65 are diabetic. (Carbohydrates spike blood sugar.)

The 2011 food guide, below, reduced the grains to 30 percent of our diets, but also included the phrase "switch to 1% or skim milk."

Rigorous research has concluded that saturated fats, such as the butter fat in milk, have no effect on “major cardiovascular outcomes,” including heart attacks, strokes or mortality. As the American College of Cardiology states, "The recommendation to limit dietary saturated fatty acid intake has persisted despite mounting evidence to the contrary." (I don't believe in limiting saturated fats.)

I’m no fan of JFK, Jr., but the new pyramid (below) makes more sense to me, although it still limits saturated fat to about 20-22 grams for a 2,000-calorie diet. This limit is nearly impossible to achieve, especially if you’re eating red meat. 

Looking at these vacillating recommendations over the years, you might be thinking, what the heck?! Like me, you can just ignore them, especially considering that members of the guidelines panels have ties to food industries. The problem is that schools, military personnel, and others who receive food through federal programs are required by law to follow the guidelines. Poor them.

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Exercise benefits

For the new year, here are some quotes from scientists about the benefits of exercise:

Euan Ashley, a professor of cardiovascular medicine, genetics, and data science at Stanford, says, “Exercise is just the single most important intervention you can think of for your health.” In analyzing data of more than half a million people over the course of ten years, he found that exercise reduces our chances of having atrial fibrillation, diabetes, hip fractures, and colon cancer by at least 50 percent. Unlike other interventions that might target one aspect of health, exercise affects nearly every system in your body.

According to neuroscientist Justin Rhodes, exercise can reverse the effects of a genetic bad hand by lowering the risk of a variety of ailments, including heart disease. Exercise also slows aging in several ways: by promoting the growth of stem cells in muscle, expressing genes linked to longevity, and lengthening telomeres. Rhodes contends that we can introduce exercise at any point in our lives and that, for every hour we exercise, we tack two hours onto our life span. 

I read in a recent JAMA article (2025) that “individuals with the highest levels of physical activity at midlife and late life had 41% and 45% lower risk of all-cause dementia, respectively, compared with those with the lowest levels of physical activity.” The study used data collected since 1971 from 5,124 participants.

For my exercise regimen, at age 89, I load Jazzercise on Demand onto my iPad and perform one of their 30-minute dance cardio routines followed by 10 minutes of upper body strength training using two five-pound weights. After that, I do a series of yoga stretches. I follow this routine on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. (I’d rather just sit.) Lots of people walk for their exercise, but the road we live on is too steep. I do my walking on our weekly golf outings.

Plenty of old people live long lives without exercising, but I’ve decided not to chance it. Besides, I’m trying to stave off further deterioration.

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Your brain on AI

The other day, my iPad quit downloading emails. My husband took a picture of the error message and uploaded it to ChatGPT. ChatGPT provided clear step-by-step instructions for fixing it. The instructions worked!

An Article in The Atlantic magazine tells of a man who uses AI (Anthropic’s Claude) for up to eight hours a day, sometimes running as many as six sessions simultaneously. At the market, he takes pictures of fruit to ask if it’s ripe; he consults Claude for marriage and parenting advice; he asks Claude if a particular tree needs to be removed from his yard, and so forth.

Apparently, like the man described above, some people rely on AI to navigate basic aspects of daily life. For these compulsive users, AI has become a primary interface through which they interact with the world. The article calls this “outsourcing your thinking.” One man found himself turning to AI when a woman sitting next to him dropped her AirPod between the seats on the train. His first instinct was to ask ChatGPT for a solution rather than figure it out for himself.

Researchers are now getting a picture of how AI use might affect your mind. One researcher believes that AI tools “exploit cracks in the architecture of human cognition. The human brain likes to conserve energy and will take available shortcuts to do so. It takes a lot of energy to do certain kinds of thought processes. Meanwhile, a bot is sitting there offering to take over cognitive work for you.” In this researcher’s view, using AI to write your emails, for example, isn’t laziness so much as it is a naturally adaptive behavior.

Wow! Naturally adaptive behavior! That strikes me as kind of scary. What will become of our brains?

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.