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Where have all the trans fats gone ?

Posted by Dr Sandy on in Food | 124 Views | Leave a response

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Trans fat replacements NOT that healthy

trans fat shooting the heart

The WHO is committed to make the world trans fat free, by REPLACING trans fats, with alternative products by 2023. But the alternatives are not risk free

You pick up that packet of ……………

And pour over the label.  It’s got 4 g of total fat. Oops !  1.5 g of it is saturated, but Yah ! it’s got 0 g of trans fat.

Trans fats are bad

You KNOW trans fats have been implicated in cardiovascular disease, so this is something on your radar.

It’s on lots of people’s radar.

So much so, that many countries around the world, have legislation that ensures, that trans fats, aren’t put in products.  And the WHO is committed to make the world trans fat free, by  REPLACING trans fats, with alternative products by 2023.

Click here to see the situation in your country.

Replacement not elimination

Products like tans fats ARE NEEDED, because, it’s hard to get the consistency of munchies, “right”, when you’re not using “solid” fats.

And thanks to the chemistry………. polyunsaturated fats, are liquid at room temperature.

Unless, you “do something”, to solidify them.

The making of a trans fat

food scientist hydrogenating soyabean oil

Partially hydrogenating them, solves the problem………but leaves you with, oddly arranged, trans fatty acids.

These man made fatty acids, can and do get used.

They can be stored in adipose tissue or incorporated into membrane lipids, impacting membrane fluidity and cell function.

red blood cells at a limbo party

It’s NOT natural

A particularly worrisome, effect of consuming trans fats, is they change lipid metabolism –  these changes, are seen with altered  lipid profiles.lipid profile

Typically there are

  • Too many triglycerides
  • Too many low density lipoproteins
  • Too few high density lipoproteins

Mmmmm…………  this is the chemistry, linked to cardiovascular disease.  Ouch !

So bring on the  ALTERNATIVES.

Interesterified fats

Well, the alternative, that is being increasingly used, are  interesterified fats. Basically, using a little chemical whizzardry, the fatty acids are re-arranged, in such a way, as to solidify the fat.

Now, what is great about this technique, is the fatty acids, that are created, are “NORMAL”.

Sort of.  The actual fatty acids are the normal garden variety.

They’re just, not in their usual position.

Not a problem

On paper, this should not be a problem – and the science backs this up.

Interesterified fats don’t upset lipid profiles.

But they are different………….

Rats on diet

A  team of researchers based in Brazil, confirmed this, in a rat feeding trail.  The rats, in this study,  were fed the American Institute of Nutrition’s recipe, for a normocaloric diet, which serves up 10 % of calories from fat….

But they switched up the fat.

So half the rats got ordinary soybean oil and half got interesterified soybean oil.

To create the interesterified oil, they treated a batch of soybean oil, with the special catalytic agent, sodium methoxide, which facilitates the interestification process.

The fatty acid profile

Using gas chromatorgraphy, our team confirmed, exactly what was in, the rat dinners.

Here is the mix

fatty acid profile of soyabean oil and interesterified soyabean oil

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc

As you can see, there is NO difference, in the fatty acid profile, of the two dinners.  But, when they looked at the regiospecific distribution of the fatty acids, using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, there was a difference.

More saturated fatty acids, were in the middle and less, were on the end.

position of fatty acids in interesterified soyabean oil

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc

So what ?

Surely this doesn’t matter.

The piggy in the middle

Well, it doesn’t in the short term.

Animals fed on the different fat,  for 8 weeks, weighed about the same,  but,  by 16 weeks of the diet………….there were hints, that the diets, were not, THE SAME.

Weights of rats eating interesterified soyabean oil

The effects of interesterified soybean oil on weight gain. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc

The animals eating the interesterified soybean oil, were marginally heavier.  And their ability to “handle” sugar, was not as good.

glucose tolerance in rats eating interesterified soyabean oil

The effects of interesterified soybean oil on glucose homeostasis. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc

When the team looked at gene expression patterns, in the animal’s liver……….. there were also differences

liver gene expression patterns in rats eating interesterifed soyabean oil

The effect of interesterfied  fat on liver gene expression. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc

Good or bad ?  It is hard to say.

The study is in rats and rats are NOT the same as humans.  There have been a number of studies looking at the impact of these fats on humans, but they’re typically short term, at lowish levels.

We’re consuming these LONG TERM – from the cradle to the grave.

Better but not best

The take home message, interesterified fats, are not JUST LIKE, natural fats.

They have a better safety profile, than trans fats.

But, they’re probably still problematic, so just like, you should be CAUTIOUS of trans fats, you should be CAUTIOUS of interesterified fats.

At this stage,  we don’t really know, what eating large amounts of them, on a regular basis, does.

And, we have no idea how much we’re eating.

Err on the side of caution – they’re in highly processed foods…. dietary sources of interesterified fats

As far as possible, opt to JERF i.e. just eat REAL food.

Just eat real food

By doing this, you will limit your consumption of both trans fats and interesterified fats.

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Interesterified soybean oil promotes weight gain, impaired  glucose tolerance and increased liver cellular stress markers.  The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry (2018) 59 :153-159. Josiane Érica Miyamoto, Ana Carolina G. Ferraz, Mariana Portovedo, Andressa Reginato, Marcella Aparecida Stahl, Leticia Martins Ignacio-Souza, Kenny L Chan, Adriana Souza Torsoni, Marcio Alberto Torsoni, Ana Paula Badan Ribeiro, Marciane  Milanski 

Further reading

vegetable oils causing sedentary

If you’re not MOVING as much as you should, it might not be YOUR fault

Being sedentary i.e. not moving enough, is a big health issue. TV remotes, cars, obesity are all blamed, but the real culprit, might be what you ate for dinner .

back to the future

If you count bodies, not cholesterol levels, vegetable oils are deadly

Substituting vegetable oils for saturated fat, definitely lowers your cholesterol levels. But does this protect your from heart disease ? In a word – NO.

linoleic acid being made into arachidonic acid

That “healthy” chicken and mayo sandwich is making you FAT

Odds are, your dietician and doctor, would give your lunch, an A rating, but there is one, small problem with your sandwich…… it’s heavy in omega-6 PUFAs….

Want to discover more ways to create BETTER BODY CHEMISTRY ?

Posted in Food | Tagged cholesterol, fatty acids, food labels, interesterified fats, JERF, polyunsaturated fat, saturated fat, soybean oil, trans fats

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Located in Johannesburg, South Africa

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