This wasn't about sat fat v cholesterol lowering foods. It is about adding a specific group of foods to a low sat fat diet. The results were only half as good as with statins. Another example of the poor reporting of clinical trials... not the study itself which is clearly written up.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/306/8/ ... l.pdf+html
This was about adding 'the portfolio ' to a low sat fat diet. ( hose of us who have been here for a long time will remember that Ally wrote about the portfolio diet on here a couple of years ago)
At the end of the 24 week intervention
all groups were eating a daily average of 14g sat fat.
Both groups were advised to follow' low weight maintaining vegetarian diets.
Those in the experimental arm were instructed on how to include a specific portfolio of cholesterol reducing foods . They were also instructed to eat legumes (
which I think adds a variable that shouldn't be there)
Portfolio:
0.94 g of plant sterols per 1000 kcal of diet in a plant sterol ester–enriched margarine;
9.8 g of viscous fibers per 1000 kcal of diet from oats, barley, and psyllium;
22.5 g of soy protein per 1000 kcal as soy milk, tofu, and soy meat analogues;
22.5 g of nuts (including tree nuts and peanuts) per 1000 kcal of diet.
The people in this group also were encouraged to eat beans, peas and lentils.
The other group were instructed to eat a low weight maintainig vegetarian diet, high in whole grain fruit, veg but avoiding the portfolio components.
(half of the portfolio group had more support than the others but it had little effect on results)
All groups were eating over 200g of carbs a day. None of the subjects had diabetes.
At the end of the trial those in the 'portfolio group' had 13% lower LDL than at the start of the study, those in the control group 3% lower. ( I'll quote from the study 'The reductions in
LDL-C in the dietary portfolio intervention were
approximately half those observed
with early statin trials )
There is a British dietitian with a site containing practical information on how to incorporate the cholesterol 'portfolio' into a diet.
http://www.amandaursell.com/html/portfolio_diet.html
