Trans fats aren't the worst of all possible evils
Last Updated Aug 2007
There is no more politically correct action than the elimination of trans fats from
our food supply. Of course, without trans fats to make bad food taste better and
last longer, our entire processed food industry would grind to a halt. The
solution: A new type of synthetic fat consisting of interesterifed fat containing
a lot of omega-6 fatty acids. Adding more pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats to the
American diet is bad enough, but now a report comes in that these new
interesterifed fats significantly increase blood glucose levels and lower HDL
cholesterol levels. The mechanism is probably due to increased insulin resistance,
which in turn will increase the levels of silent inflammation through the
stimulation of the production of arachidonic acid. Talk about bad planning. Maybe
trans fats aren't the worst of all possible evils. In fact, there is only one long-
term human study on trans fats and heart disease. This was the Lyon Diet Heart
Study done in France in the early 1990s. In this study, people who already had a
heart attack were divided into two groups. One group got the American Heart
Association diet rich in omega-6 fatty acids. The other group got a diet rich in
trans fatty acids, but virtually devoid omega-6 fatty acids. After 3 1/2 years,
those getting the trans fatty acids had 70 percent less mortality. This is not to
say that trans fatty acids are good, but they appear to be a lot better than excess
omega-6 fatty acids.
If you want processed foods to taste great, then maybe we should bring back lard
since is virtually devoid of omega-6 fats and is the only saturated fat that
doesn't raise total cholesterol levels.