$415 Million Study Says Fat Won’t Cause Cancer or Heart Disease

Geezer is familiar with the concept of news being so much in the news that its no longer news, but  the ubiquitous report that a low-fat diet has no effect on cancer or heart disease is simply too important to ignore. As the New York Times reports, a $415 million federal study of nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to
79 who were followed for eight years found that those assigned to a
low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased. The study, which can be found in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is said to be so large and so expensive that it is likely to be the final word. All of which is, in Geezer’s mind, very bad news, unless you happen to be in the business of selling fat. In that case, the report would be a kind of official notice that You deserve a break today. One could, for example, use the occasion of the report to disclose a fairly gross miscalculation of the amount of fat in one of your most popular food products. Because, hey, fat won’t kill you anymore.