In 1967, there was a study published in the British Heart Journal.
You won’t believe it’s findings on deaths from heart disease between 2 groups:
A 675% increase in heart attacks between one group of men and a second group!
This wasn’t a small study. It tracked 1.15 million men over a five-year timeframe.
The individuals all had the same level of access to healthcare, h and ranged in age from 18 - 55. They were all workers for the government railroad system of India. Spread out across 8 different geographical zones throughout the country.
The workers were treated nearly exclusively at 88 of the Ministry of Railroad hospitals, spread out across the country.
Not only could their health records and diagnoses be obtained via the hospitals, they could also cross check that with the death certificates. The official cause of death used the W.H.O. classification standards.
Here’s the interesting part:
The time frame that all this data was tracked and analyzed, was from January 1, 1958 through December 31, 1962.
These dates are KEY.
Especially when we compare them against history and what was changing in food recommendations & guidelines. I’ll come back to this in just a bit…
The study looked at a variety of environmental factors to figure out the correlation between the highest rates of death from heart attacks, and the lowest rate of deaths from heart attacks.
They looked at:
Softness or hardness of water
Stress
Dietary habits
Smoking
Income brackets of positions
Physical activity
And more
In the northern region of India (Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan) the railway workers had the lowest death rates from heart attacks of any region. 20 in every 100,000 men.
In the southern region of India (Kerala, Madras) the Railway workers had the highest death rates from heart attacks of any region. 135 and every 100,00 men.
As mentioned, 20 to 135 is a 675% increase between the 2 groups!
Here’s 5 findings I found quite surprising from this study.
The sugar consumption of the men in the North was 9X greater than the men in the South. 90 g per day on average versus 10 g per day on average. I would’ve expected the opposite.
The men in the North smoked at a 8X greater rate than those in the South. Again, I would’ve expected the opposite.
****With these findings, I am certainly not suggesting you begin consuming lots of refined sugar & begin smoking! 😊
The average age at death for the men of the South was 44. In the North the average age at death was 52.
Those who were more sedentary had a lower rate of death due to heart attacks and cardiovascular disease, then coworkers who had physically more active jobs.
Executives had a 7X increase in death from heart attacks compared to workers in lower socioeconomic classes.
Through all of their analysis, the factor that made the biggest difference and rate some death from heart attack came from dietary habits.
In different regions of the country, there are significantly different cultural dietary habits.
In the north, the men consumed 7 to 19 times as much fats as men in the south.
In the north they consumed a large amount of milk, butter, ghee and fermented milk products. All saturated fats.
In the south, the men “largely consume seed oils” in primarily the forms of groundnut oil (peanut oil) and sesame oil.
In the south, they ate more boiled rice and pulses. In the north, the grains they ate were more coarse wheat and millet, which require much more thorough chewing.
**As a side note, the executives who had higher rates of death due to heart attacks, ate more thin wheat chappatis that were more refined (less roughage & fiber) and required less chewing.
Men of the North: Consumed much more animal-based saturated fats & lower glycemic foods which contained more roughage & fiber.
Men of the South: Consumed seed oils as their primary fat intake & consumed higher-glycemic foods in the forms of boiled rice (and pulses).
The Men of the South subsequently had nearly 7X the rates of death due to heart attacks… and they smoked less and consumed less sugar.
With such a large variance between the 2 groups, you would think this would have been front page news… but it wasn’t.
And there is a reason it has been forgotten… or should I say, “it was buried”.
You can read the details I’ve covered here, but I will give you a quick recap:
1920’s doctor’s started seeing a condition where middle aged men were dying suddenly (myocardial infarction, a.k.a. heart attack)
1940’s especially after WWII it really picked up
1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack on the golf course & was hospitalized for 10 days
This made national & worldwide news
Dr. Ancel Keys presented “data” with a hypothesis that saturated fat was the cause
The “data” was later found to be altered to fit the hypothesis
A massive campaign began to communicate that saturated fat “clogged arteries”
This continued from the early 1960’s through several decades
Dr. Keys joined board of the American Heart Association. Then convinced them to change their stance & recommendations for Americans.
In the place of saturated fats, “heart healthy” polyunsaturated oils were recommended (a.k.a. seed oils)
If you look back when the data from the Indian railway workers was gathered, it was from 1958-1962.
As mentioned, peanut oil was the predominant cooking oil in southern India at the time.
Peanut oil began being used in southern India, starting in the early 1900’s and ramping up in the 1940’s. By the 1950’s and 1960’s it was regularly used in cooking.
When the research paper came out in 1967, their findings were completely opposite of the predominant advice (which was based on questionable science… even scientific papers that Dr. Ancel Keys hid!).
It was not going to gain any media attention & was not going to get attention because it showed the exact opposite of what the scientific dogma was purporting.
Therefore, it was largely forgotten… Or buried on purpose.
I tend to believe the latter since it was one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of its time.
In short, don’t be afraid to consume animal-based saturated fats.
And I would greatly limit your consumption of industrial seed oils. Just the manufacturing process alone should be an obvious sign that these are not what you want to put in your body.
Simple: If you want to improve your heart health, either eliminate or drastically reduce your consumption of industrial seed oils.
If you need more help, see below.
REMINDER: You only get one body to live this life in. Treat it well!
Have a great week!
To your health,
~Dr. M. Brandon Pettke
1) Free Heart Health Resources
Stop guessing at “high cholesterol” and your heart health. You can download the clinician-style guide & resources that connect LDL patterns, blood pressure, and plaque risk with inflammation, gut dysfunction, and insulin resistance. This way you can take safer, smarter next steps with your care team.
2) My Book: $19.99 USD
I originally wrote this for my patients. I was taught a lot of things wrong as a doctor. My patients also believed a lot of what I was incorrectly taught. However, I didn’t have the time to teach them what took me years to unlearn. So, I wrote a book for them. It’s now available for you. Metabolism 2.0- How To Lose Weight & Optimize Your Health, Using Real Food.
I love helping people improve their health. And you never know what kind of impact you could make on someone’s life, with just a simple share…
DISCLAIMER: This article is educational & informational only. This article is not intended as medical or healthcare advice. Nor is it intended to treat or cure any disease/condition. You should contact your healthcare provider directly, set an appointment with them & discuss your individual disease/condition. By applying anything mentioned in this article, it does not constitute a doctor-patient relationship between yourself and Dr. M. Brandon Pettke.
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