The French paradox is the observation that French people suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats. The term French paradox was coined by Serge Renaud, a scientist from Bordeaux University in France.
When a description of this paradox was aired in the United States on 60 Minutes in 1991 with the assumption that red wine decreases the incidence of cardiac diseases, the consumption of red wine increased 44% and some wine sellers began promoting their products as "health food."
The authors of a review of dietary studies concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish a causal link between consumption of saturated fats and coronary heart disease risk.
Read more about French Paradox: Overview, Wine, French Diet Comparisons, Time-lag Hypothesis, Whole Diet, Validity Questioned
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or paradox:
“The French are a logical people, which is one reason the English dislike them so intensely. The other is that they own France, a country which we have always judged to be much too good for them.”
—Robert Morley (b. 1908)
“The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
—C.G. (Carl Gustav)