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Just say "No!" to Trans Fats

For years, those of us in the alternative healthcare world have been encouraging people to stay away from trans fats. As more traditional science has started recognizing how dangerous this stuff is, finally something is being done about it.

Trans fats are chemically modified fats that the food industry developed without any real consideration for the potential health problems these fats may cause (much like the fake fat Olestra).

"New research offers some of the strongest evidence yet linking artery-clogging trans fats to heart disease. In a study of female nurses, women with the highest levels of trans fats in red blood cells from stored samples had triple the risk of developing heart disease compared with women with the lowest levels. This research shows that trans fats are a very strong risk factor for coronary heart disease, and it serves to justify current efforts to get trans fats out of the American diet.

Those efforts include bans or considered bans on the use of trans fats in restaurant food in major cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, and pledges from a growing number of fast-food restaurant chains to make their products trans-fat free. Trans fats are formed when liquid vegetable oils are converted into solids through a process called hydrogenation. Hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils are used to increase the shelf life of foods and to improve their texture.

They are most often found in fried foods, vegetable shortenings, hard margarine, and cookies, crackers, baked goods, and chips. The newly published investigation included 32,826 women participating in the larger Nurses' Health Study, an ongoing trial examining lifestyle and disease risk in women followed since 1976. All of the women in the trans fat study contributed blood samples between 1989 and 1990.

During six years of follow-up, 166 of the women developed coronary heart disease. The researchers compared trans fat levels in the stored blood samples of these women with samples from 327 women who did not develop heart disease.

After adjusting for age, smoking status, and other known heart disease risk factors, higher total trans fat levels in red blood cells were found to be associated with an increased heart disease risk.

Women with the highest blood levels of trans fats were three times as likely to develop coronary heart disease as women with the lowest levels. Although the investigation included only women, Hu says there is no reason to believe that the risk would be any different for men.

The study was published in the April 10 issue of the American Heart Association journal Circulation."

For the record, nothing that Whole Foods sells contains trans fats. You can shop there without worry. If you're in King Soopers or Safeway, read the labels, as trans fat content must now be listed. Annoyingly, a food can be labeled as Trans-Fat Free if it has less than 1/2 a gram per serving. As you might expect, many manufacturers are taking advantage of this little loop hole. So read ingredients and look for the word "hydrogenated"; if you see it, that's a trans fat.

Feel free to email me with any questions.

Quoted material written by Salynn Boyles.

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