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New Yorkers fond of eating out in the last decade weren't just saved from doing the dishes. Residents' blood levels of artificial trans fats, which increase the risk of heart disease, dropped following a 2006 citywide policy that banned restaurants from using the fats.
For people who dined out frequently, the decrease was even greater: Levels of the fats declined by about 62 percent for New Yorkers who ate out four or more times per week, the team reports online February 21 in the American Journal of Public Health.
An estimated 1 in 5 city residents eats out that frequently, says study coauthor Sonia Angell, deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in Queens. "We think [the ban] has just been a win overall for New Yorkers ... in particular for those who dine out more frequently."
Researchers analyzed blood samples of adult city residents from before and after the ban, taken as part of a health and nutrition survey that queried participants on their dining habits. The samples, 212 from 2004 and 247 from 2013–2014, revealed a drop from 49.2 to 21.3 micromoles per liter, suggesting that trans fat levels plunged by about 57 percent overall among New Yorkers.
Artificial trans fats, also called trans fatty acids, end up in foods like fried chicken and doughnuts, anything that is fried, baked or cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. The fats increase the amount of low-density lipoprotein, commonly known as "bad" cholesterol, in the body while lowering high-density lipoprotein, the "good" cholesterol.
Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ban-artificial-trans-fats-nyc-restaurants-appears-be-working
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday March 02 2019, @05:52PM
(To be clear, I'm not against this law on trans fats, though it seems once the science became commonly known, a lot of food producers were already shifting away from them anyway. I'm less sold on the efficacy of the required calorie counts on menus -- various studies seem to show relatively small impact on consumer behavior. If anything, the more useful impact seems to be in convincing restaurants to provide some more healthy options to showcase on menus, which become more visible with nutritional info. As for fast food, I'm pretty sure all the big chains had nutritional info pamphlets available for anyone who wanted to know long before these laws...)