Every five years, the US Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) convene a 15-member panel to update the nation’s dietary guidelines.

The panel’s mission is to identify foods and beverages that help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight, promote health, and prevent disease. In addition to guiding the public at large, the guidelines significantly influence nutrition policies such as school lunch programs and feeding programs for the elderly.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) scientific report is an integral part of this process, as it serves as the foundation for the development of the dietary guidelines.

The DGAC submitted its 2015 Scientific Report^1,2,3,4 to the HHS and USDA in February 2015, which, to many people’s surprise, included the elimination of warnings about dietary cholesterol.

Another remarkable turnaround is the Advisory Committee’s revised stance on fats. As noted in a recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) paper,⁵ the latest advisory report reverses nearly four decades of nutrition policy.

“[The new DGAC report] concluded, ‘Reducing total fat (replacing total fat with overall carbohydrates) does not lower CVD [cardiovascular disease] risk…

Dietary advice should put the emphasis on optimizing types of dietary fat and not reducing total fat.’

Limiting total fat was also not recommended for obesity prevention; instead, the focus was placed on healthful food-based diet patterns that include more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seafood, legumes, and dairy products and include less meats, sugar-sweetened foods and drinks, and refined grains…

In finalizing the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services should follow the evidence-based, scientifically sound DGAC report and remove the existing limit on total fat consumption.”

Research has consistently demonstrated that low-fat diets do not prevent heart disease. On the contrary, the low-fat craze has undoubtedly done more harm than good, as your body needs healthy fat for optimal function.

Unfortunately, the DGAC doesn’t go so far as to set the record straight with regards to saturated fats, as it makes no firm distinction between healthy saturated fats and decidedly unhealthy trans fats.

Still, if the DGAC’s conclusions on total dietary fat consumption make it into the HHS and USDA’s final 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which will be published later this year, it will certainly be a step in the right direction.

Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Ditches Cholesterol and Total Fat Limits

Healthy fat and cholesterol have, for decades, been wrongfully blamed for causing heart disease, and it’s like a breath of fresh air to finally see the advisory committee is taking note of the accumulated science.

With regards to cholesterol, the panel concluded it “is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption,” noting the absence of a link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease.

Until now, the American dietary guidelines have recommended limiting dietary cholesterol to 300 milligrams (mg) per day, which amounts to about two eggs. As noted by Steven Nissen, chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic:

“Many of us for a long time have believed the dietary guidelines were pointing in the wrong direction. It is long overdue.”

Similarly, the report recognizes that reducing total fat intake has no bearing on heart disease risk either. Nor does it reduce your risk of obesity. Instead, mounting research shows that sugar and refined grains are in fact the primary culprits.

Saturated fats are actually important for optimal health, and those with insulin/leptin resistance may need upwards of 50-80 percent of their daily calories from healthy fat—far more than the upper limit suggested by current federal guidelines.