Posting here since it was the bbm50off promo from the podcast that led me to Factor…
I have ASCVD and a really high Lp(a). So the most important knob I have to turn in my diet is the saturated fat to keep the LDL as low as possible.
But, saturated fat tends to be the one macro that’s never offered in the filtering or diet preferences options. Can’t say I blame them. It tastes great, so it’s really high in just about any creamy, savory dish…vegetarian or otherwise.
But I care. So I try to target the ACA recommended 6% on average for folks with heart conditions. To do so though, you got to click through all the options, read the nutrition label, check out the sat fat grams, back of napkin estimate given the total meal calories, etc…100x.
Nope.
I wrote a chrome extension. Or claude and I did.
Adds a badge to every meal with the sat fat in grams and as a percent of meal calories.
let’s you toggle 10% (ACA recommendations for non ASCVD adults) or 6% (heart condition adults). If the percent from calories exceeds that it turns the green badge red.
Let’s you set a grams threshold. Anything over that threshold is ‘grayed out’
Eh, I think added sugar and sodium would probably take that honor, mainly for identifying a specific dietary pattern.
FWIW, I do not think the AHA’s guideline to keep SFA at 6% of daily Cals or less is a better target than the old <10%. Most Americans are around ~ 11-12%, so I think the actual guideline is flawed from two perspectives: 1) no one reads the guidelines and 2) it didn’t acknowledge specific intake.
I think most people would be better off focusing on reducing red meat intake (once a week is reasonable) and increasing their intake of fiber and plant-based proteins. Still, I agree that individual diets should be tailored appropriately and Factor should have a way to sort different meals by important variables, which includes SFA.
AHA still recommends 10% as the baseline. They recommend 6% for people with established ASCVD. Do you mean for ASCVD 6% is probably not substantively different risk than 10%?
Yeah, I said ‘poor health outcomes’, but you throw diabetes and high blood pressure in there. I was thinking of ASCVD it being at the top.
I find it pretty relatively easy to avoid too high a sugar by just staying away from processed food and I often test as too low in sodium. Which is to say I’m probably letting my own personal biases slip in.
I do not think the current guidelines from the AHA recommend 6% or less for those with ASCVD, but rather those who would benefit from lowering LDL cholesterol. I do not think going from 10% to 6% is likely to help most people, though a small cohort of hyper-responders would. Population level may be different depending on what group we’re looking at.
I think the bigger signal of benefit stems from replacing saturated fats (particularly those from red meat, butter, and processed foods) with PUFA/MUFA and/or high fiber carbohydrates. I do not think this change alters diabetes or blood pressure trajectories, save for changes in the dietary pattern it may result in, i.e. reduced Calorie intake, higher fiber intake, etc.
I turned these knobs personally and attempted to be systematic about it. Over a couple of years, I would do something like:
shift to plant based diet, 6-12 weeks, blood test
ultra low fat diet, 6-12 weeks, blood test
Then say I got to a level I wanted. I’d reintroduce one thing. Like “Add a fatty fish, like salmon, 1-3x a week for 6-12 weeks”, then blood test.
I know imperfect as I’m a sample of 1 and no matter how targeted I’d try to be there’s various body comp changes, fitness changes, etc. that go into it.
But plant based, low fat, high fiber dropped LDL to the lowest level for me by a significant margin. Mid 20’s. . . but it was a very hard diet to maintain. A constant baseline “craving” no matter how many calories. Reminding me of low carb/keto when I tried that for a while. I also had deficiencies like omega-3 unless I supplemented. . .. and I figure if you’re supplementing…live a little, just eat fish.
Now, I’m pretty much in the “mostly plants, some meat, real food” zone. With most meats being lean like chicken breast, pork loin, non-fat dairy. Some fatty fish. And in practice that keeps sat fat <10% most of the time. Red meat is a rare treat, like ice cream or alcohol now, with modest portions.
My LDL hovers around 30, quality of life diet wise is much better, no deficiencies. Which is a long winded way of saying my anecdotal experiments agree with the 6 vs 10.
For me it’s like protein. I aim for 6, don’t worry about going a little higher or even the occasional spike. If I aimed for 10, it’d probably float to 15-20 though. Planning to fail, but fail in a good spot kind of strategy.
