Dr. Mercola August 06 2007 29,100 views
Most people know that eating the wrong kind of fat can cause a heart attack.
But researchers from the University of Alberta have discovered even worse news attributable to trans fats and saturated fats -- they can also wreak havoc with the electricity in your heart, worsening the severity of heart attacks and increasing the risk of death.
They discovered that in addition to affecting the heart vessels, “bad” fats also affect the cells of the heart, causing an excessive build-up of calcium within the cells, and disrupting the rhythm of electricity flow in your heart.
The Vancouver Sun July 31, 2007
Yet another reason to avoid trans fats like the plague!
Why You Should Avoid All Trans Fats
Trans fat (trans fatty acid) is an artery-clogging type of fat that forms when vegetable oils are hardened into margarine or shortening. But you’ll find it in lots of products, not just margarines and spreads. Some of the worst offenders include:
Additionally, don’t forget that lots of trans fat can hide in unexpected places, such as salad dressings and mayonnaise. If the label doesn’t specifically tell you the amount of trans fat included, look for shortening, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil in the list of ingredients. In fact, even if a label says zero grams of trans fat, and the product contains one of these ingredients, it still contains trans fats.
This is because food companies can “round down” if their product contains 0.5 grams of trans fat or less, and just call it “0.” Of course, that is a per-serving measure, so if you eat more than one serving of a food that contains hydrogenated oils, you can be sure that you’re ingesting measurable amounts of trans fats. The higher up on the list these ingredients appear, the more trans fat it has.
Trans fat delivers a double-whammy of bad effects on your cardiovascular system, as it increases “bad” cholesterol (LDL), while lowering the “good” cholesterol (HDL). The exact opposite of what you really want …
In addition to the increased risk of heart disease, trans fat can also cause major clogging of your arteries and contribute to type 2 diabetes. And now we can add disruption of the electrical flow in your heart to the list as well.
What You Need to Know About Saturated Fat
Unfortunately, this study did not make any distinction between trans fat and saturated fat. Saturated fat is actually GOOD for you while trans fat is definitely not.
Part of the scientific confusion about saturated fats relates to the fact that your body is capable of synthesizing the saturated fatty acids that it needs from carbohydrates -- these saturated fatty acids are principally the same ones that are present in dietary fats of animal origin. There is tremendous confusion about saturated fats as it has been unfairly demonized in the media and in the scientific literature. If you are still confused on this issue, please review this landmark article that explains how important saturated fats are for you.
For instance, one study found that diets high in trans fat (fried foods, processed foods, cookies, crackers, and pastries) reduced blood vessel function by 30 percent and lowered “good” cholesterol levels by about one-fifth, compared to a diet high in saturated fat (meat, butter, and some dairy products). Researchers have also discovered that eating a diet high in saturated fats actually prevents coronary artery disease in postmenopausal women.
There ARE Healthier Options!
You can easily eat a tasty, diverse, and healthy diet without including trans fats in the mix. Here's how:
I agree that the article is misleading - but this is more down to the reporters rather than the scientists. I know from experience that whenever a news report has dealt tih an incident that I may have been involved in (Many over 30 years in law enforcement) Not a single report dealt with the incident acuurately, mostly leaving great chunks out.
Good point, but it's not just the media that ends up misleading us whether intentional or not. It's amazing that the world manages to function as well as it does, or does it really? These thoughts lead me to one other thought that I cannot get my head around, and that is how can a company looking to hire rely on a machine to read resumes bypassing the in person interviews to determine whether that individual is suitable or not? I guess when the blind lead the blind.... I'm educated but I don't believe I let my education replace my common sense.
I recently went on an Atkins type diet. I lost some weight at first but then it started piling back on again. When the Dr saw the results of my blood test taken during this time, he said I had the highest total cholesterol he'd ever seen, with HDL making up less than half of it. I'm therefore not convinced by high fat low carb diets. Incidentally almost all of the fat I used was saturated (butter, dripping (tallow) etc) Fred
Acrylamide is in all baked goods, period, not just Starbucks. Do a Google search, or check Wikipedia. It happens when a naturally occuring amino acid Asparagine reacts with simple sugars when they reach sufficient temperatures. That means even Asparagus (being the highest source of that amino acid), a natural and assumedly a healthy food, has acrylamide in it when you cook it at sufficient temperatures. There's no conspiracy, people.
In the UK, Marks and Spencer who also run a food supermarket in all of their clothing stores, announces that NONE of its food products contain trans fats at all - 0.00% in fact - if a food chain in UK can do it, so can Star****s..Peter
I don't patronize Starbucks, so Starbucks is out of my hair. One thing though, lard is a much better ingredient for your homemade pie crusts than Crisco Vegetable Shortening. And this article gives us one more reason to use lard. Chemically, vegetable shortening has added hydrogen. But because the hydrogen isn't bonded correctly, the fat produced is a problem. Naturally occuring saturated fats have their hydrogen atoms in all the right places. Vegetable shortening does not.