Reducing, Modifying Saturated Fat Intake Cuts Cardiovascular, Death Risk

THURSDAY, Dec. 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Among persons at high cardiovascular risk, there is low- to moderate-certainty evidence that reducing or modifying saturated fat intake can reduce mortality and major cardiovascular events over five years, according to a review published online Dec. 16 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Jeremy P. Steen, from University of Toronto in Canada, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to identify randomized trial data and to understand the effect of reducing or modifying saturated fat intake on cholesterol, mortality, and major cardiovascular events.

Based on 17 eligible trials (66,337 participants), the researchers found risk stratified evidence of low to moderate certainty that reducing saturated fat intake may result in a reduction in all-cause mortality (risk ratio [RR], 0.96; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.88 to 1.06), cardiovascular mortality (RR, 0.93; 95 percent CI, 0.77 to 1.11), nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI; RR, 0.86; 95 percent CI, 0.70 to 1.06), and fatal and nonfatal stroke (RR, 0.83; 95 percent CI, 0.58 to 1.19). Absolute reductions were below the thresholds of importance (5 and 10 per 1,000 persons followed for five years for fatal and nonfatal outcomes, respectively) for persons at low baseline cardiovascular risk. However, for those at high risk, the benefits were above the thresholds, suggesting there may be important absolute reductions. When replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat, the effects were more pronounced for nonfatal MI (RR, 0.75; 95 percent CI, 0.58 to 0.99; P for interaction = 0.05).

“It should also be noted that our findings are most directly applicable to individual-level decision making, such as in clinical practice guidelines or shared decision-making scenarios for patients at high cardiovascular risk,” the authors write.

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