Page 53 - Winter2008

All Thumbs Book Reviews

Fat: It’s Not What You Think unreasonable fear and loathing of fat—both in
by Connie Leas our diet and in our bodies.
Prometheus Books, 2008 Dr. George Mann, retired professor of medi-
cine at Vanderbilt University and former Director
This useful and educational book by Connie of the monumental Framingham Heart Study,
Leas provides a great service to both the gen- provided the foreword to Fat. In it, Dr. Mann
eral reader and the confused patient who seek denounces the half-century of misinformation
straightforward answers to their questions about dispensed by the American Heart Association
diet and health. Connie Leas is not a biochemist and the National Heart Institute, which blames
or an expert in lipids, but enjoyed a successful saturated fat and cholesterol for the nation’s
career as an accomplished technical writer. Now epidemic of heart disease. “It is the greatest
retired, Leas continues to write as a hobby and biomedical error of the twentieth century,” writes
chooses subjects she herself feels need particular Mann. “The advice lingers, for selfish personal
exposure. She writes without deadlines and only reasons and commercial avarice. . . Readers will
pitches her books to publishers when they are be appalled at the ways they have been misled in
complete. In her most recent effort, she brings her these matters.”
well-honed skills of transforming complicated Before parsing even a single fatty acid mol-
information into easily accessible language to ecule, Leas introduces her readers to a couple of Leas not only
the controversial topic of fat. sociological phenomena that ought to inform and
Not being a recognized “authority” has its arm us in any encounter with received knowl- clearly
advantages. First, with no reputation to defend, edge. An “informational cascade” is a condition explains the
Leas did not write with a hidden agenda guid- in which “. . . people—even scientists—tend biology
ing her hand. Leas approached the topic of fat to follow along with and propagate the ideas
and diet with the eyes of the uninitiated, and of someone who acts like an authority.” This related to fat

reasonably assumed that if she found the mate- phenomenon is classically demonstrated in the and its
rial complex and daunting, the average reader perpetuation of the diet-heart hypothesis, which metabolism,
would, too. She resolved to buckle down and Leas notes was started in 1968 by Surgeon Gen-
learn what she had to in order to explain it clearly eral C. Everett Koop, who “took his cue from but exposes
to her readers. In matters where complex and Ancel Keys, whose erroneous but popular anti-fat the shaky
contradictory research threatened to obscure message started the whole anti-fat campaign.” “science” that
the path to clarity, Leas leaned “toward the Although scientists were never able to
most persuasive and commonsensical points of confirm this faulty hypothesis, it stubbornly has led to
view.” As she encountered more controversy, persisted, in part because of a “reputational Americans’
especially regarding the subjects of saturated cascade,” in which “scientists fear that ques- unreasonable
fat, cholesterol and heart disease, “…the more I tioning the popular wisdom may pose a risk to
researched,” says Leas, “the more convinced I their careers.” One can easily see how doctors fear and

became that we’ve been misled.” routinely overdiagnose and overprescribe when loathing of
The admirable result of her dedicated effort controlled by the dangerous forces of these two fat—both in
is a book that not only clearly explains the biol- phenomena. Too often today medical research in
ogy related to fat and its metabolism, but exposes general often devolves to what Leas calls “sci- our diet and

the shaky “science” that has led to Americans’ ence by consensus.” in our bodies.

WINTER 2008 Wise Traditions 53