How bad are transfats really?

[Dinner]

Several US cities (NYC, San Fran) have already banned the use of trans fats in food but today California became the first state in the US to ban trans fats in all foods. Activists blame trans fats for increasing obesity and point out that it is a man made substance not found in nature but how bad are they really? I haven't done any research on them at all so someone please educate me. Is it just that fat people eat way to many of the wrong foods and won't get off their butts or is the food industry really guilty of making us fat using health harming trans fats?

[Japher]

Yes. Like most things, it is fine in moderation. Fat people obviously don't eat their fried foods in moderation. Too much trans fat can cause complications unrelated to obesity though. Still, you don't see Olean being banned, and fat ppl still sue McDonalds. Yeah, stop eating it if it makes you feel bad or die!

[chequita guevara]

IIRC, trans fatty acids damage blood vessel flexibility. The issue was not so much that fat people eat too much of the stuff, but that it was ubiquitous in our food industry. Pretty much anything fried or with a fat that was solid at room temperature had transfats.

[Elok]

I think we're just uncomfortable with anything "trans-". As we should be.

[rmsharpe]

Typical statist paternalism.

[Dinner]

I don't know. If it is a dangerous artificial compound maybe it shouldn't be put in food.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Japher
Yes. Like most things, it is fine in moderation. Fat people obviously don't eat their fried foods in moderation. Too much trans fat can cause complications unrelated to obesity though. Still, you don't see Olean being banned, and fat ppl still sue McDonalds. Yeah, stop eating it if it makes you feel bad or die!

If a food kills me, that's it! I never eat it again.

It's a point of principle.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
IIRC, trans fatty acids damage blood vessel flexibility. The issue was not so much that fat people eat too much of the stuff, but that it was ubiquitous in our food industry. Pretty much anything fried or with a fat that was solid at room temperature had transfats.

It supposedly affects flavour.

It is also found in frozen and dairy foods.

The stuff is everywhere. I'm glad CA did this. It should become much easier to find processed food without it in the near future as the large processors will have to change their formulas to continue selling product in the mega market.

[chequita guevara]

Health risks

Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils have been an increasingly significant part of the human diet for about 100 years (particularly so in the latter half of the 20th century), and some deleterious effects of trans fat consumption are scientifically accepted, forming the basis of the health guidelines discussed above.

The exact biochemical methods by which trans fats produce specific health problems are a topic of continuing research. The most prevalent theory is that the human lipase enzyme is specific to the cis configuration. A lipase is a water-soluble enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of ester bonds in water–insoluble, lipid substrates[1]. Lipases thus comprise a subclass of the esterases. Lipases perform essential roles in the digestion, transport and processing of dietary lipids (e.g. triglycerides, fats, oils) in most- if not all- living organisms. The human lipase enzyme is ineffective with the trans configuration, so trans fat remains in the blood stream for a much longer period of time and is more prone to arterial deposition and subsequent plaque formation. While the mechanisms through which trans fats contribute to coronary heart disease are fairly well understood, the mechanism for trans fat's effect on diabetes is still under investigation.

[edit] Coronary heart disease

The primary health risk identified for trans fat consumption is an elevated risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).[32] A comprehensive review of studies of trans fats was published in 2006 in the New England Journal of Medicine reports a strong and reliable connection between trans fat consumption and CHD, concluding that "On a per-calorie basis, trans fats appear to increase the risk of CHD more than any other macronutrient, conferring a substantially increased risk at low levels of consumption (1 to 3 percent of total energy intake)".[4] This study estimates that between 30,000 and 100,000 cardiac deaths per year in the United States are attributable to the consumption of trans fats. [33]

The major evidence for the effect of trans fat on CHD comes from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) — a cohort study that has been following 120,000 female nurses since its inception in 1976. In this study, Hu and colleagues analyzed data from 900 coronary events from the NHS population during 14 years of followup. He determined that a nurse's CHD risk roughly doubled (relative risk of 1.94, CI: 1.43 to 2.61) for each 2% increase in trans fat calories consumed (instead of carbohydrate calories). By contrast, it takes more than a 15% increase in saturated fat calories (instead of carbohydrate calories) to produce a similar increase in risk. Eating non-trans unsaturated fats instead of carbohydrates reduces the risk of CHD rather than increasing it.[34][clarify] Hu also reports on the benefits of reducing trans fat consumption. Replacing 2% of food energy from trans fat with non-trans unsaturated fats more than halves the risk of CHD (53%). By comparison, replacing a larger 5% of food energy from saturated fat with non-trans unsaturated fats reduces the risk of CHD by 43%.[34]

Another study considered deaths due to CHD, with consumption of trans fats being linked to an increase in mortality, and consumption of polyunsaturated fats being linked to a decrease in mortality.[32][35]

There are two accepted tests that measure an individual's risk for coronary heart disease, both blood tests. The first considers ratios of two types of cholesterol, the other the amount of a cell-signalling cytokine called C-reactive protein. The ratio test is more accepted, while the cytokine test may be more powerful but is still being studied.[32] The effect of trans fat consumption has been documented on each as follows:

* Cholesterol ratio: This ratio compares the levels of LDL (so-called "bad" cholesterol) to HDL (so-called "good" cholesterol). Trans fat behaves like saturated fat by raising the level of LDL, but unlike saturated fat it has the additional effect of decreasing levels of HDL. The net increase in LDL/HDL ratio with trans fat is approximately double that due to saturated fat.[36] (Higher ratios are worse.) One randomized crossover study published in 2003 comparing the postprandial effect on blood lipids of (relatively) cis and trans fat rich meals showed that cholesteryl ester transfer (CET) was 28% higher after the trans meal than after the cis meal and that lipoprotein concentrations were enriched in apolipoprotein(a) after the trans meals.[37]

* C-reactive protein (CRP): A study of over 700 nurses showed that those in the highest quartile of trans fat consumption had blood levels of CRP that were 73% higher than those in the lowest quartile.[38]

[edit] Other effects

There are suggestions that the negative consequences of trans fat consumption go beyond the cardiovascular risk. In general, there is much less scientific consensus that eating trans fat specifically increases the risk of other chronic health problems:

* Cancer: There is no scientific consensus that consumption of trans fats significantly increases cancer risks across the board.[32] The American Cancer Society states that a relationship between trans fats and cancer "has not been determined."[39] However, one recent study has found connections between trans fat and prostate cancer.[40] An increased intake of trans-fatty acids may raise the risk of breast cancer by 75 per cent, suggest the results from the French part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.[41][42]

* Diabetes: There is a growing concern that the risk of type 2 diabetes increases with trans fat consumption.[32] However, consensus has not been reached.[4] For example, one study found that risk is higher for those in the highest quartile of trans fat consumption.[43] Another study has found no diabetes risk once other factors such as total fat intake and BMI were accounted for.[44]

* Obesity: Research indicates that trans fat may increase weight gain and abdominal fat, despite a similar caloric intake.[45] A 6-year experiment revealed that monkeys fed a trans-fat diet gained 7.2% of their body weight, as compared to 1.8% for monkeys on a mono-unsaturated fat diet.[46] Although obesity is frequently linked to trans fat in the popular media,[47] this is generally in the context of eating too many calories; there is no scientific consensus connecting trans fat and obesity.

* Liver Dysfunction: Trans fats are metabolized differently by the liver than other fats and interfere with delta 6 desaturase. Delta 6 desaturase is an enzyme involved in converting essential fatty acids to arachidonic acid and prostaglandins, both of which are important to the functioning of cells.[48]

* Infertility: One 2007 study found, "Each 2% increase in the intake of energy from trans unsaturated fats, as opposed to that from carbohydrates, was associated with a 73% greater risk of ovulatory infertility…".[49]

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by rmsharpe
Typical statist paternalism.

Damn the state for protecting us from unscrupulous types.

[rmsharpe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Damn the state for protecting us from unscrupulous types.

Because those donuts and pork rinds were so innocent and healthy!

[Dinner]

I do know that the rise of trans fats occurred just after the US Congress required packaged foods to be labeled with calorie content, % fat, % sugar, and what not. Trans fats where popular because they were an artificial compound which tasted like fat and acted like fat but which legally didn't have to appear on labels as fats.

So processed food makers packed their foods with trans fats while loudly claiming their food was "fat free" and thus some how was supposed to be more healthy.

[Dinner]

Che, that peer reviewed stuff really says it all. For every 2% of total caloric intact made up of trans fats the risk of heart disease doubles? That means even minor amounts of trans fats do huge harm to human health. We really shouldn't be putting this artificial crap in food.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I do know that the rise of trans fats occurred just after the US Congress required packaged foods to be labeled with calorie content, % fat, % sugar, and what not. Trans fats where popular because they were an artificial compound which tasted like fat and acted like fat but which legally didn't have to appear on labels as fats.

So processed food makers packed their foods with trans fats while loudly claiming their food was "fat free" and thus some how was supposed to be more healthy.

What sort of labelling laws do you have?

[snoopy369]

At the time, they had to be included as "Fat" (total) but not broken out as a specific type of fat (only Sat., Mono, and Polyunsaturated were at the time broken out). Now they are listed (as of ~2005) as a separate element of Total Fat, but listed as whole numbers of grams, which is basically useless (as 1g of TFA is a huge amount, and 0.499g is considered "TFA free").

This is the important sentence from Che's post above, by the way:

Trans fat behaves like saturated fat by raising the level of LDL, but unlike saturated fat it has the additional effect of decreasing levels of HDL.

That's about the worst thing that could happen to you, cholesterol-wise. The C-Reactive Protein issue is a big one also (which signals inflammation, ie of the blood vessels).


TFAs, by the way, are caused by the hydrogenation process, where H's are added to an unsaturated fat (to make it more saturated). Those H's are unfortunately not put on properly; while the resulting monounsaturated fat (one double bond, or pair of missing H's) normally will be missing those H's on the same side of the molecule, a trans-fatty acid will be missing H's on opposite sides of the molecule (yielding a shape similar to that of a saturated fat).

Also, from what I read above about the California ban, it is worth noting that the CA ban does not apply to packaged goods that are packaged at the factory (ie, mass market goods), but only to restaurants and local bakeries. Way to go, Arnie, screw over small businesses while not doing a thing about some of the worst offenders ... (Note that most of the major fast-food chains, the original offenders, have headed in the direction of no-TFAs already.)