A guaranteed heart breaker – Part One

As we come to the close of the year, I am quite certain that almost everybody has either heard of or knows about trans fats. These are present in cookies, biscuits, candies, cakes, crackers, margarine, and above all, the ubiquitous and much loved fried foods.
Several years ago, a report came out in the US issued by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) revealing findings that were incontestably grim and scary. Trans fats were found to raise the bad kind of cholesterol known as LDL while at the same time lowering HDL, the good kind. In plain simple English, the NAS discovered that they cause heart disease.

What research discovered
And that may be the least of it. According to Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard Medical School, who at the time (early 2000) oversaw the largest ongoing dietary study in America and is a recognised authority on trans fats, discovered that for every four to five grammes of trans fats that you eat, your risk of heart disease nearly doubles. Moreover, he estimates that, on average, Americans consume some 5 to 6 grammes of trans fats on a daily basis.
Now, I suppose you are saying that we are Ugandans and the same does not apply. True; but I would guess that these figures would pretty much be in line with our burgeoning middle class, which is great cause for alarm.

Alarming numbers
By Willet’s calculation, of the more than half a million Americans who die prematurely each year from heart disease – the leading cause of death in the States – at least 40,000 are killed by trans fats. Other studies have suggested significant links between trans fats and Type 2 diabetes, as well as asthma.
Some research even suggests that fetal development, especially with respect to birth weight and the central nervous system, could be adversely affected by trans fats and that their presence in breast milk is detrimental to other essential fats that keep babies healthy. Another taboo food item is saturated fats. Once considered an angry terrorist to your arteries, saturated fats are now considered by many scientists to be allies in some respects. Tropical oils that used to be the subject of massive advertising in full page newspaper adverts claiming that they practically kill on contact are also being welcomed back into the fat fold. Adding insult to injury and even more galling than the constantly changing information we get from so called authorities, though, is the question of how something as harmful as trans fats managed to find its way into 45 percent of baked goods (in America) viz. cookies, crackers, cakes etc., despite warnings dating back over five years.
Needless to say, today, trans fats are a multibillion dollar a year industry. Several companies that hydrogenate are represented by the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils (ISEO) which for decades has been notorious for quietly working to squelch and undermine bad and negative news about trans fats.
Business of death
As far back as 1968, the ISEO was mentioned in an internal memo written by the medical director of the American Heart Association (AHA) and according to the memo, the ISEO strenuously objected to the AHA’s intention to include a warning about trans fats in its dietary guidelines. Subsequently, the AHA’s then Chief Science Officer admitted that the agency “often talks to the industry” and stressed that she had never seen “a corporate issue be a deciding factor in anything that she was involved in.”
Next week, we will look at the origins of trans fats from all places, Germany the land of pork sausages and Muenster cheese.