Fish, Seafood Better than Olive Oil, Nuts against Heart Disease

Too much cholesterol has long been linked to increasing risks of developing heart disease, but it has been less clear how the various dietary fats - saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated - make people susceptible to the disease.

Lawrence L. Rudel and colleagues developed a method to determine the effects of the three types of dietary fats on acyl-coenzyme A, a key molecule involved in the metabolism of fatty acids. The scientists found that mice fed diets high in saturated and monounsaturated fat showed an increase in acyl-coenzyme A compared to mice fed a diet enriched in polyunsaturated fat. These results suggest that polyunsaturated fat is a more suitable replacement than monounsaturated fat for dietary saturated fat, the scientists concluded. -American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology