Why people shouldn't eat trans fats...
Historically, people have never eaten manufactured hydrogenated oils or fats.
Every system in the body is developed through adaptation. People haven't developed an ability to effectively utilize trans fats.
It takes less than a teaspoon (3 grams) of trans fats a day to double your risk of heart disease. It would take over four tablespoons of lard or butter (more than 27 grams of saturated fat) per day to give you the same risk.
Hydrogenated fats and oils are called trans fats because hydrogenation takes perfectly good cis-polyunsaturated fats and transforms them it into unhealthy trans-polyunsaturated fat.
Eating trans fats has caused a world wide epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure and health damaging lipid disorders.
There are inummerable, peer reviewed, studies to be found concerning the harm that trans fats cause.
Trans-fat fatty acids accumulate in your cell walls, where they "pack" more tightly than the normal cis-polyunsaturated, fatty acids.
Saturated fats pack more than cis-polyunsaturated fats but less than trans fats. That's one reason why it takes far more saturated fats, than trans fats, to harm people.
When you have too many of the wrong fatty acids in your tissues cell walls the cell walls become "stiff" and the rapid movement of lipids in the cell is slowed. When your red blood cells stiffen, they are less able to transport and deliver oxygen to your cells. Your kidneys are especially vulnerable. The first indication of kidney disease is hypertension and sodium retention. Failure to excrete sodium causes you to retain water which causes your heart to work harder. Hypertension is one of the elements of metabolic syndrome.
When you have too many of the wrong fatty acids in your system, the insulin receptors in your cell walls stop cycling properly. Insulin receptors are necessary to transport glucose into your cell. If this happens, your cells starve for the glucose molecules they need to function properly. Some kind of feedback system releases more insulin while your blood sugar remains high. Usually, having more insulin causes low blood sugar, as your cells take both.
Your body will continue trying to produce insulin, at least until your pancreas "burns out". Having a high level of insulin disrupts other metabolic processes. Meanwhile, your cells are starving so you will feel tired and hungry. Insulin resistant diabetes (Type 2 diabetes) is an element of metabolic syndrome.
Along with the failure of the insulin receptors comes a failure for other hormone receptors to regenerate themselves. Thyroid receptors and sex hormone receptor numbers to diminish. Cortisol increases so you become hungrier and your stomach muscles slacken. This causes the "fat tummy" so common in metabolic syndrome.
One recent study found that if lab monkeys were fed just enough food to maintain their weight, but the fats in the diet were switched from cis-fats to trans-fats, then the animals would gain weight. Logically, those locked-up calories represent energy that the animals couldn't use in their ordinary life. They had to cut back on their activity and metabolism.
I haven't addressed the many ways in which trans fats impair human health. There are so many articles, at so many levels of detail, that the task would be impossible. One of the ones that I find most troublesome is how trans fats pass through human milk to infants. At the time the child most needs good quality fats and essential fatty acids, to build their brain, they are getting trans fats.
In Iran, two years ago, the average person consumed 12.3 grams of trans fats per day. This trans fat consumption is estimated to cause 39% of the heart disease in the country. Deaths from chronic heart disease were about 70,000 per year. And 27,000 of those deaths were attributed to consumption of trans fats.
Avoiding Trans Fats...
As a rule, it takes a little effort to avoid trans fats in today's marketplace. Just don't buy or eat any food product which includes hydrogenated oil or partially hydrogenated oil.
Don't rely on the "trans fat" count on the package. That indicator has been "fixed" so that the food producer can hide up to 1/2 gram of trans fat per portion without letting you know it is there. And they can describe a portion to be any size they want. But they didn't get a special dispensation to lie on the ingredients list, so if you read it and see the word "partially hydrogenated" then you will know that there are trans fats in the food.
Restaurants are now the weakest link of the trans fat battle. Trans fats don't break down as rapidly as cis fats in deep frying. And margarine is cheaper than butter. So, many restaurants want to continue to cook with and serve trans fats. Today, in the United States and in most cities of the world, the largest portions of trans fats to be found in food served in restaurants. It's likely that it wasn't the super sizing of portions that has caused the troubling obesity in our population. More likely, it has been the metabolic changes induced by the trans fats.
Supermarket food producers have markedly reduced the amount of food they sell which contain trans fats. But there are still plenty of products that will kill you. You can find stick margarines which shamelessly proclaim their high levels of trans fats. These aren't foods bought by older people, the educated, and those of the middle class. These are foods sold to young people, illiterates (which can include immigrant populations and poor people.
As soon as most people understand what a trans fat is and how it works, they choose not to buy those foods in the supermarket.
I thought, when I first wrote these essays that there would be massive lawsuits against the manufacturers of hydrogenated fats and oils. Just like the asbestos producers, the ciguarette manufacturers, and the ethyl lead producers... the makers of trans fats have chosen to continue producing trans fats despite the large body of medical evidence which proves that trans fats kill people.
There is an impressive body of work by a researcher named Mary G Enig. She's written a history of the introduction of trans fats into the American diet in the following document: The Oiling of America
No comments:
Post a Comment