A new study, led by Dr. Ronald M. Krauss of the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Center in California, has found that intake of saturated fat is not associated with any increase in chances of developing heart disease.

The study’s ‘epidemiological’ analysis – which studies links between people’s reported diet habits and their risk of diseases – clearly contests the earlier claims that saturated fat, found mainly in meat and dairy products, can raise the blood’s “bad” LDL cholesterol levels; thereby increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.

The findings of the study, published in the January 13 online edition of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, were based on a wide-ranging assessment of statistics pooled from 21 studies that included almost 348,000 adults - who were healthy at first; but, over time, either developed heart disease or suffered a stroke.

After a thorough analysis of the data, Krauss and his colleagues found that there was no notable difference between the heart disease and stroke risks among people with high saturated fat intake vis-à-vis their counterparts who consumed less of saturated fat.

However, with an ex-president of the American Heart Association (AHA) warning against the “over interpretation” of the study’s results, Dr. Robert H. Eckel, a professor of medicine at the Denver’s University of Colorado School of Medicine, said: “No one is saying that some saturated fat is going to harm you... people should enjoy their food.”