FDA Commissioner Marty Makary Says The FDA Is 'Now Revising' Saturated Fat Guidelines

During a press conference on Monday, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary spoke about the agency's guidelines for saturated fats.

Transcript

00:00I've got one more question.

00:02Hi, Christina Peterson with Bloomberg.

00:04Both Secretary Kennedy and the FDA Commissioner mentioned saturated fats and evolving science on that.

00:09Could you expand a little bit on how your thinking has shifted or how you believe the science has shifted?

00:16Look, since Ansel Keys in the 1960s decided to demonize saturated fat with a hypothesis that was supported

00:24with data that was incomplete and methodologically flawed in his seven-country study.

00:31The medical establishment started with a robust debate in the New England Journal of Medicine among academics and the National Academy.

00:39But that debate ended in the 1970s because there was groupthink.

00:44The medical establishment locked arms and walked off a cliff together,

00:48were insisting that the reason for heart disease in the United States was that people were not eating skim milk

00:56and no-fat and low-fat foods, ignoring the roles of refined carbohydrates

01:01and so many other things that drive general body inflammation,

01:05which is the precursor of fat deposition in the arteries.

01:08Well, that dogma still lives large, and you see remnants of it in the food guidelines that we are now revising.

01:15So we're going to ensure that the new guidelines are based on science and not medical dogma.

01:21Thank you for that question.