What I Think About the French Paradox — As a Nutritional Sciences PhD
Is it really all about the wine?
The French Paradox is a phenomenon describing why heart disease deaths were lower than would be estimated in the French population during the early 1990s despite a high intake of animal products like butter and cheese. This idea is interesting because these types of foods are classically understood to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease yet this was not what the researchers who coined the term “French Paradox” observed.
Why could this be? Are we wrong about which foods increase heart disease risk? Is there something unique about butter and cheese that prevents heart disease? Is something else in the French diet…like wine, protective? Let’s explore some of these possibilities and take our own jab at figuring out the French paradox.
The original French Paradox
The French Paradox was described in 1993 in a paper indicating that despite having high saturated fat and cholesterol intake, low cardiovascular-related death rates were found in the French population (1). What makes this data paradoxical is that other industrialized countries with similar saturated fat and cholesterol intakes showed higher rates of heart disease deaths.
