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posted by janrinok on Wednesday June 17 2015, @01:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-fat-lot-of-good-that-will-do dept.

FDA to ban trans-fats within 3 years

The FDA is finally rectifying one of their biggest failures ever -- trans fats. The FDA on Tuesday ruled that trans fat is not "generally recognized as safe" for use in human food.

"In many ways, trans fat is a real tragic story for the American diet," Nissen said. "In the 1950s and '60s, we mistakenly told Americans that butter and eggs were bad for them and pushed people to margarine, which is basically trans fat. What we've learned now is that saturated fat is relatively neutral -- it is the trans fat that is really harmful and we had made the dietary situation worse."

USA to ban partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil

According to multiple sources, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is set to ban partially-hydrogenated oil, a major source of trans-fats, which have been shown to cause heart disease. The ban will go into effect in 3 years.

New York Times:

The agency has proposed that partially hydrogenated oils, the source of trans fats, no longer be "generally recognized as safe."

That means companies would have to prove that such oils are safe to eat, a high hurdle given that scientific literature overwhelmingly shows the contrary. The Institute of Medicine has concluded that there is no safe level for consumption of them, a conclusion that the F.D.A. cited in its reasoning.

Partially hydrogenated oils are cheaper than saturated animal fats like butter, and for years were thought to be healthier. They are formed when liquid oil is treated with hydrogen gas and made solid. They became popular in fried and baked goods and in margarine. Crisco, originally marketed in the beginning of the 20th century, was the archetype, although it now contains no trans fat.

Official press release from the FDA:

In 2013, the FDA made a tentative determination that PHOs could no longer be considered GRAS [generally recognized as safe] and is finalizing that determination after considering public comments.

Since 2006, manufacturers have been required to include trans fat content information on the Nutrition Facts label of foods. Between 2003 and 2012, the FDA estimates that consumer trans fat consumption decreased about 78 percent and that the labeling rule and industry reformulation of foods were key factors in informing healthier consumer choices and reducing trans fat in foods. While trans fat intake has significantly decreased, the current intake remains a public health concern.

The Guardian:

The oils were popularized in the 1950s, when it was thought that they would be healthier than saturated fats. Americans turned to products such as trans fat-laden margarine in droves after the federal government recommended a cutback in saturated animal fats.

Today, there is a broad scientific consensus that the oils contribute to heart disease and are linked to type two diabetes.

A young nutritionist at the University of Illinois discovered some of the first evidence that the oils could be unhealthy in 1957, when he found large amounts of the fat in the clogged arteries of patients who died of heart attacks. The scientist, Fred Kummerow, followed that discovery with decades of scientific papers, despite that his findings wouldn't be widely accepted until decades later.

In August 2013, with the help of San Diego attorney Gregory S Weston, Kummerow sued the FDA for its inaction, saying it had violated the New Deal-era legislation that granted the FDA authority over food safety. By November, the FDA had responded to the lawsuit by issuing the tentative ruling.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @01:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @01:53AM (#197100)

    Here's a couple:

    Nurses' Health Study:
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-case-for-banning-trans-fats/ [scientificamerican.com]

    background info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurses%27_Health_Study [wikipedia.org]

    Vanderbilt study on correlation between trans fat and death rate:
    http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/04/study-reveals-broad-dangers-of-trans-fats/ [vanderbilt.edu]

    Harvard School of Public Health study:
    http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/press-releases/2007-releases/press03272007.html [harvard.edu]

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @02:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @02:56AM (#197114)

    I followed this link: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/04/study-reveals-broad-dangers-of-trans-fats/ [vanderbilt.edu]
    To this paper:http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2013/04/02/ajcn.112.049064.full.pdf+html

    Table 1. Quintiles of trans fat intake. Look at row 3. There is huge correlation between trans fat and gender. Yet they write "No significant interactions were found between TFA and sex".

    That paper amounts to saying that the only reason women live longer is they eat less trans fats. Does that match the data?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:07AM (#197119)

      In addition, this is a good resource: http://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html [cdc.gov]

      You can play around with that and see mortality rates by age for race/gender/etc for the years corresponding to that study (2003-2007). This trans fat effect either explains nearly all these differences or they are finding spurious correlations.
      http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations [tylervigen.com]

    • (Score: 1, Redundant) by c0lo on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:58AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:58AM (#197137) Journal

      Yet they write "No significant interactions were found between TFA and sex".

      How preposterous for you to suggest there is one!

      I mean, as much semantics you'd want to attach to the middle F, I'll never get how someone would imagine reading TFA has anything to do with sex.

      On the other side (and to be on topic)... I guess anyone can be forgiven if occasionally giving up a sexual encounter for some strips of crispy, saturated-fat saturated, bacon.... Mmmm!??...

      (large grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @04:14AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @04:14AM (#197143)

        They divide TFA consumption into 5 quintiles (5 being highest). Here are the percent of females in each: 72, 63, 57, 48, 35.

        So, according to that study, if you consume a lot of TFA you are half as likely to have female sex.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday June 17 2015, @06:53AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 17 2015, @06:53AM (#197172) Journal

          They divide TFA consumption into 5 quintiles (5 being highest)

          Did they make a study on female SN users on their habits of reading The F*****g Article? And correlate this with the sexual life? Oh, wow, how silly of them... I mean... just think... the size of the sample set... representativeness and statistical significance to a wider population... whatnot.

          So, according to that study, if you consume a lot of TFA you are half as likely to have female sex.

          Oh, thank you for this info (gonna award you a +Informative too)!!
          Really, I promise to read The Fine Article as often as possible: as a straight oldish male, I'm really not attracted to the idea of being penetrated.

          (grin)

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @02:49PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @02:49PM (#197282)

            Mod parent +6 Hilarious!

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @06:17AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @06:17AM (#197165)

        Really though. Pubmed gives 4 citations and google scholar shows 14 for that report. At least 3 reviewers had to have looked at it. I noticed a glaring flaw in under an hour (proof in the timestamps), and most of that hour was not even spent looking at the paper. In honesty it took about 15 minutes. WTF?