US regulators move to ban trans fats from foods

Google – AFP, Kerry Sheridan (AFP), 7 November 2013

US regulators took steps to ban trans fat from food, saying the artery-clogging

oils are not safe for humans to eat (AFP/File, Johannes Eisele)

Washington (AFP) - US regulators on Thursday took steps to eliminate artery-clogging trans fats from processed foods like margarine, microwave popcorn and frozen pizza, saying that partially hydrogenated oils are not safe to eat.

The proposal by the Food and Drug Administration aims to reduce heart disease and deaths by requiring packaged food-makers to choose safer mono and polyunsaturated fats.

The ban would not take effect right away. First, there is a 60-day comment period before the rule can become final. The FDA is also seeking feedback from industry on how long it would take them to change their recipes.

If the decision is made final, partially hydrogenated oils, which are made by incorporating hydrogen into liquid oil to make solid fat, would be considered food additives and could not be used in food unless given special regulatory approval.

People pick up doughnuts on October 27,

 2012 in New Philadelphia, Ohio (Getty

Images/AFP/File, John Moore)

Trans fats carry no health benefits, and the Institute of Medicine has determined that no level is safe for consumption.

The FDA said that “since trans fat content information began appearing in the Nutrition Facts label of foods in 2006, trans fat intake among American consumers has declined from 4.6 grams per day in 2003 to about 1 gram per day in 2012.”

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said despite declines in consumption of trans fats over the past decade, Americans’ “current intake remains a significant public health concern.”

Cutting out trans fats in the American diet “could prevent an additional 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths from heart disease each year,” she said.

The FDA said its decision would not affect trans fats that occur naturally in some meat and dairy products, but would apply to man-made partially hydrogenated oils that are added to processed foods.

These fats, also known as PHOs, are commonly added to improve flavor and lengthen the shelf life of products like cookies, pies, cake frosting, chips, crackers, doughnuts, pizzas, margarine, coffee creamer and some cereals.

Eating trans fats causes an increase in bad cholesterol, or low-density lipo-protein (LDL), a leading risk factor in the development of coronary heart disease, which is the top cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Many food manufacturers have voluntarily cut back their use of trans fats after a public health campaign to warn of the dangers built steam.

“But a substantial number of products still contain partially hydrogenated oils, which are the major source of trans fat in processed food,” said Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine.

"It may take some time" for food-makers to find ways to comply, he added.

Industry would have a high standard to meet in order to be able to use trans fats as a food additive.

It must be "demonstrated scientifically that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm from use of the ingredient," he told reporters.

"Companies are free to petition but they would have to meet that rigorous safety standard."

The FDA move was hailed by consumer groups as a major step forward.

Doughnuts, french fries and fried chicken

 are displayed September 27, 2006 in

Miami, Florida (AFP/File, Robert Sullivan)

"Artificial trans fat is a uniquely powerful promoter of heart disease, and today's announcement will hasten its eventual disappearance from the food supply," said Center for Science in the Public Interest executive director Michael Jacobson.

"Not only is artificial trans fat not safe, it's not remotely necessary. Many companies, large and small, have switched to healthier oils over the past decade."

Food industry representatives said they would cooperate with the FDA.

"Consumers can be confident that their food is safe and we look forward to working with FDA to better understand their concerns and how our industry can better serve consumers," the Grocery Manufacturers Association said in a statement.

Nutrition experts and doctors applauded the FDA move, but warned that consumers should still be careful about saturated fat and cholesterol.

"If and when food manufacturers reformulate their products to remove trans fats, they often replace the hydrogenated oils with things like coconut and palm oil that are high in saturated fat,” said Dana Angelo White, assistant clinical professor at Quinnipiac University. 

$TATIN NATION. The Great Cholesterol Cover-Up

statinnation.net

Film Synopsis:

We are told that cholesterol is a major cause of heart disease. At least 40 million people are currently taking cholesterol-lowering medications, known as statins, and millions more people are avoiding foods that contain saturated fat and cholesterol.

The basic idea is that dietary saturated fat raises cholesterol levels, and these two substances somehow clog-up our arteries, causing a heart attack. This idea is often referred to as the diet-heart hypothesis.

However, a numbers of doctors and researchers have been challenging this hypothesis for decades, and the latest heart disease statistics reveal some alarming facts. Such as:

● People with high cholesterol tend to live longer

● People with heart disease tend to have low levels of cholesterol

● Cholesterol-lowering of a population does not reduce the rate of heart disease

In addition, despite their widespread use, and description as “wonder drugs” statin medications do not extend life for the majority of people who take them.

Cholesterol-lowering has become a huge global industry, generating at least $29 billion each year. Have the facts about heart disease, cholesterol and cholesterol medications been distorted by pharmaceutical companies  and food manufacturers keen to increase their profits?

If the focus on cholesterol has been a mistake, then the greatest cost is associated with the lost opportunity to tackle heart disease.

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Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease

WORLD RENOWNED HEART SURGEON SPEAKS OUT ON WHAT REALLY CAUSES HEART DISEASE

Sott.net, Dr. Dwight Lundell, PreventDisease,  01 Mar 2012

We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.

I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled "opinion makers." Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.

The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.

It Is Not Working!

These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.

The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.

Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.

Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.

Inflammation is not complicated -- it is quite simply your body's natural defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process,a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.

What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.

The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.

Let me repeat that: The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine.

What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.

Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. you kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.

Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.

While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.

How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?

Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.

When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.

What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.

While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator -- inflammation in their arteries.

Let's get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6's are essential -they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell -- they must be in the correct balance with omega-3's.

If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.

Today's mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That's a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today's food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.

To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer's disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.

There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.

There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them.

One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef.

Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labelled polyunsaturated. Forget the "science" that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.

The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.

What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.

Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness.

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Study: Even ancient mummies had clogged arteries - New

Is Margarine More Lethal Than Butter?

Is Margarine More Lethal Than Butter?

Lifehacker, Chris Jager, 11 February 2013

Butter picture from Shutterstock

A new study by the US National Institute of Health based on prior Australian research has cast fresh doubts on whether margarine is healthier than butter. For decades, butter’s more spreadable cousin has been considered a better option for weight-watchers trying to reduce fatty acids from their diet. However, according to the new report, margarine eaters are actually more likely to die from a heart attack than people who stick to butter.

The research team based its findings on a recently unearthed Australian heart study from the 1960s and 70s, which monitored the dietary effects of two types of fats on 458 males between the ages of 30 and 59.

The test subjects, all of whom had suffered from a previous coronary event, were divided into two groups. One group was instructed to limit their intake of saturated animal fats in favour of omega 6 linoleic acid (a polyunsaturated vegetable fat commonly found in margarines). The other group was given no dietary advice at all. Over the course of the study, deaths caused by heart-related issues were significantly higher in the first group.

“In this cohort, substituting dietary linoleic acid in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease,” the report stated.

The study concludes that worldwide dietary guidelines need to rethink the “saturated fat bad, omega 6 good” dogma when it comes to processed foods and cooking ingredients.

However, before you toss out that tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better, it’s worth noting that the above findings are far from unanimously supported.

Bill Shrapnel, deputy chairman of the Sydney University Nutrition Research Foundation, has fired out at the US report which he claims is based on data from outmoded food manufacturing practices.

“The authors [of the US report] state that the [Australian] study assessed the effects of replacing saturated fat in the diet with omega 6 polyunsaturated fats, but it doesn’t,” Shrapnel explained in a public statement.

“The [original] study used Miracle margarine as a source of polyunsaturated fat. In the 1960s, when this study began, Miracle margarine contained approximately 15 per cent trans fatty acids, which have the worst effect on heart disease risk of any fat. The adverse effect of the intervention in this study was almost certainly due to the increase in trans fatty acids in the diet.”

As Shrapnel goes on to explain, trans fatty acids were largely removed from Australian margarines in the mid-1990s when their dietary dangers were discovered.

In other words, while margarines of the past may well have been worse than butter, the brands on today’s supermarket shelves are not quite as artery-clogging. The relatively small size of the study (just 63 total deaths) is also worth taking into consideration.

So is margarine better than butter? It seems we still won’t have a definitive answer until a thorough study into the dietary effects of polyunsaturated fats is conducted.

Related Article:

At last, the truth: Butter is GOOD for you - and margarine is chemical gunk

Brain regulates cholesterol in blood, study suggests

BBC News, By Emma WilkinsonHealth reporter, Sunday, 6 June 2010 17:12 UK

Too much cholesterol causes hardened fatty arteries, raising the risk of a heart attack.

The amount of cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream is partly regulated by the brain, a study in mice suggests.

It counters assumptions that levels are solely controlled by what we eat and by cholesterol production in the liver.

The US study in Nature Neuroscience found that a hunger hormone in the brain acts as the "remote control" for cholesterol travelling round the body.

Too much cholesterol causes hardened fatty arteries, raising the risk of a heart attack.

The research carried out by a US team at the University of Cincinnati found that increased levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin in mice caused the animals to develop higher levels of blood-circulating cholesterol.

Levels in the blood rise because signals from the brain prompt the liver to store less cholesterol, the researchers said.

It is known that ghrelin inhibits a receptor in the brain in its role in regulating food intake and energy use.

In a separate experiment, they found that blocking this receptor in mice also increased levels of cholesterol in the blood.

Potential treatment

The researchers said the finding needs to be replicated in humans but potentially opens up a new way of treating high cholesterol.

Study leader Professor Matthias Tschoep said: "We have long thought that cholesterol is exclusively regulated through dietary absorption or synthesis and secretion by the liver.

"Our study shows for the first time that cholesterol is also under direct 'remote control' by specific neurocircuitry in the central nervous system."

Fotini Rozakeas, cardiac nurse at British Heart Foundation, said: "This interesting study on mice shows for the first time that blood cholesterol levels can be directly controlled by signals transmitted from the brain to the liver where cholesterol is formed.

"This could potentially open up new forms of treatment to control cholesterol levels, which would be great news for people with heart and circulation problems."

She stressed that much more research would be needed before the mechanisms at play were fully understood.

"In the meantime, people should reduce the amount of saturated fat in their diet, take part in regular physical activity and, in some cases, take prescribed medicines such as statins, to keep their cholesterol levels under control."