Table 1.

Effects of saturated fatty acids on blood pressure, endothelial function, and arterial stiffness in human feeding trials

Study	Outcome	N	Duration	Design	Comparison	SFA replaced by
						PUFA	MUFA	TFA	CHO
Margetts et al. [26]	Blood pressure	54	6 weeks	Cross-over	18%E SFA versus 15%E PUFA	↔
Puska et al. [27]	Blood pressure	84	12 weeks	Parallel	11%E SFA versus 8%E PUFA	↔
Sacks et al. [28]	Blood pressure	21	6 weeks	Cross-over	16%E SFA versus 14%E PUFA or 52%E CHO	↔			↔
Storm et al. [29]	Blood pressure	15	3 weeks	Cross-over	13%E 18:0 SFA versus 16%E 16:0 SFA or 51%E CHO				↔
Piers et al. [30]	Blood pressure	8	4 weeks	Cross-over	24%E SFA versus 23%E MUFA		↔
Sanders et al. [31]	Blood pressure	110	6 months	Parallel	17%E SFA versus 17%E MUFA or CHOa		↔		↔
Uusitupa et al. [33]	Blood pressure	159	6 months	Parallel	14%E SFA vs. 8%E PUFA, 11%E MUFA, or 53%E CHO	↔	↔		↔
Lahoz et al. [32]	Blood pressure	42	5 weeks	Consecutive diets-non randomized	17%E SFA versus 21%E MUFA or 13%E PUFA	↓	↓
Rasmussen et al. [34]	Blood pressure	162	3 months	Parallel	18%E SFA versus 21%E MUFA		↓
de Roos et al. [35]	Endothelial function – FMD	29	4 weeks	Cross-over	23%E SFA versus 9%E TFA			↓
Fuentes et al. [36]	Endothelial function – FMD	22	4 weeks	Cross-over	20%E SFA versus 22%E MUFA or 57%E CHO		↑		↔
Keogh et al. [37]	Endothelial function – FMD	40	3 weeks	Cross-over	19%E SFA versus 19%E MUFA, 10%E PUFA, or 65%E CHO	↑	↑		↑
Sanders et al. [31]	Endothelial function – FMD	110	6 months	Parallel	17%E SFA versus 17%E MUFA or CHOa		↔		↔
Keogh et al. [37]	Arterial stiffness – PWV	40	3 weeks	Cross-over	19%E SFA versus 19%E MUFA, 10%E PUFA, or 65%E CHO	↔	↔		↔
Sanders et al. [31]	Arterial stiffness – PWV	110	6 months	Parallel	17%E SFA versus 17%E MUFA or CHOa		↔		↔

Direction of effect on reported outcome (↑ increased; ↓ decreased; ↔ no effect)

CHO carbohydrate, MUFA monounsaturated fatty acids, FMD brachial artery flow-mediated dilatation, PUFA polyunsaturated fatty acids, PWV pulse wave velocity, SFA saturated fatty acids, TFA trans fatty acids, %E percentage of total energy intake

^a%E not reported