Does everyone benefit from cutting saturated fat in their diet?
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- Reviewed by Robert H. Shmerling, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
Keeping saturated fat intake low (under 10% of calories) is a cornerstone of dietary advice - but a recent research review suggests it may have less impact for people already at low risk for heart disease.
The review, published online Dec. 16, 2025, by Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzed 17 randomized controlled trials (involving 66,337 people) that explored how saturated fat reduction affected heart health over a five-year period.
Over all, people who cut down on saturated fat were less likely to die (in general or from heart disease specifically) or have a heart attack or stroke within the study period. However, these findings were not statistically significant and so should not be considered conclusive - and the saturated fat reductions varied between studies, so it's unclear how they affected outcomes.
Greater benefits came when people replaced saturated fats primarily with polyunsaturated ones (for example, swapping vegetable oil for butter, or salmon for steak), which was linked to a statistically significant drop of 25% in nonfatal heart attacks. Still, when researchers separated out the findings for people with low or moderate heart disease risk, the benefits of saturated fat reduction were too small to be meaningful.
Should healthy people skip limiting saturated fat? While benefits might not be evident in the study's time frame, heart disease risks tend to rise with age - so keeping intake low probably remains a smart strategy.
Image: © Stefania Pelfini la Waziya/Getty Images
About the Author
Joyce Hendley, Staff Writer
About the Reviewer
Robert H. Shmerling, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
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