Quote (dark-soul @ Aug 30 2015 11:33pm)
Your rd was not up on the science then, just recapitulating dogma from previous years
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/91/3/535https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26268692http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1846638http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1108492http://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/229002Overall, it's not as bad as previously thought because it commensurately raises both HDL & LDL, thereby not increasing the risk too much. What I can concede, though, is that excessive intakes of SFAs will favor LDL accretion. There may be some benefit of replacing excessive intakes w/ PUFAs or MUFAs though it also probably depends on genetic and lifestyle factors.
There's also a wealth of scrutinization denoting that SFA intake also doesn't correlate well with insulin resistance, as is often pontificated. It's interesting too, as the deleterious effects of inflammation are well known in the pathology of both insulin resistance and CVD, and SFAs have a couple of different mechanisms delineated to cause an inflammatory response, namely augmenting LPS infiltration through the brush border and directly activating TLR4 signaling, both of which should lead to ill effects and more robust correlations in these ailments. However, this leads me back to the genetic & lifestyle thing - probably explains why some will find a benefit and others (many others in fact) will find little to none to SFA restriction/replacement. The quality may also matter tbh. So perhaps would the cooking method and temperature used.
The point being - the debate on SFA intake is still open - current evidence and thought points to it actually not being harmful, though notwithstanding, there is still a good deal of evidence pointing the other way as well. My personal thought is that it's largely benign.