Low-fat diet may not reduce cardiac risks after menopause

Am J Clin- Nutr. 2010;4:860-74. [April 2010]

In postmenopausal women, a low-fat diet has little effect on cardiovascular risk factors and no overall effect on coronary heart disease and stroke, according to researchers at MedStar Research Institute in Hyattsville, Maryland. Investigators studied postmenopausal women from a dietary modification trial who were randomly assigned to either a diet lower in fat and higher in vegetables, fruit, and grains; or their usual diet, for a mean of 8.1 years. After six years, they found that which diet the women were on had no overall effect on coronary heart disease or stroke. In most of the women, the intervention did not result in clinically meaningful increases in triglycerides or decreases in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. The observation that the low-fat diet might elevate triglycerides in white women with diabetes or in diabetic women with high triglyceride concentrations requires further investigation, they noted.