Fat intake
High consumption of saturated fats and trans-fatty acids is linked to heart disease; replacement with polyunsaturated vegetable oils lowers coronary heart disease risk. Higher unsaturated fatty acids from vegetable sources and polyunsaturated fatty acids have also been shown to reduce risk of type 2 diabetes.
In the absence of comparable data on individual dietary intakes around the world, the availability of food for human consumption derived from national Food balance sheets are shown in the figure below. However, these may not accurately reflect actual consumption and should be treated as indicative only.
There were large variations across WHO regions in the amount of total fats available for human consumption. The lowest quantities available were recorded in the South East Asia Region, and the highest availability in the European Region. For saturated fatty acids (SFA), the lowest rates were in the African Region, and the highest was in the European Region and the Region of the Americas, with very high values observed in some of the Pacific Islands. Energy from SFA usually accounts for a third of the energy from total fat, with the notable exception of the South East Asia Region, where SFAs account for over 40% of total fat intake.