Battle For Your Heart
What if I told you that one change in your diet could affect how you feel and how long you live?
Not only could this one change affect your health by lowering cholesterol levels and subsequent
risks for heart attacks and stoke, but it has also been shown to improve health at the cellular level.
And the beauty is this: it won’t cost you a cent! The key this is a process called “hydrogenation,”
leading to “trans fatty acids.”
Historical Background - Pickup a packaged food and look at the ingredients list. Chances are you’ll see
the words “hydrogenated soybean oil” or “partially hydrogenated soybean oil.” This is the killer.
This one, seemingly harmless ingredient has led to an increase in heart attack and stroke throughout
the 20th century. Let me give you a bit of historical background. Early in the 20th century, food
scientists needed to develop a method of keeping foods fresher longer. Because animal fats and
tropical oils are not solid at room temperature and tend to quickly become rancid, researchers began
to examine alternative ways to get around this. In the late 19th century, French chemist Paul Sabatier
discovered the means to add hydrogen atoms to carbon compounds via a nickel catalyst. Procter &
Gamble, in 1909, acquired the US rights to a British patent, based on Sabatier’s work, on making
liquid vegetable oils solid at room temperature. This was the birth of processed foods in this country.
Basic Chemistry - Fat is an acid and composed of a combination of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms.
There are three types of fats: saturated, mono- unsaturated, and poly-unsaturated. Saturation is related
to the number of hydrogen atoms connected to the carbon and oxygen atoms that compose the fat.
Animal fats are characteristically saturated – the carbon and oxygen atoms have hydrogen atoms connected
to them at all possible points. In effect, the fat is “saturated” with hydrogen and so it remains solid at
room temperature, but they require refrigeration or will oxidize and become rancid. Fats from plants
such as olives, palms, coconuts and certain nuts like almonds, cashews, and peanuts are much less stable
at room temperature and are considered mono-unsaturated, that is, they lack one pair hydrogen atoms
that occur naturally in the saturated fats. Poly-unsaturated fats are missing more than one pair of hydrogen
atoms and commonly found oils made from corn, soybeans, safflower seeds and sunflower seeds. The
process of hydrogenation chemically alters the unsaturated fat by artificially adding the missing hydrogen
atoms. The difference is where these atoms are added. In the saturated fat, the naturally occurring
hydrogen atoms are positioned on the same side of the carbon atom. In the hydrogenated fat, the
hydrogen atoms are placed on opposite sides of the carbon atom, allowing them to be chemically stacked
and remain solid at room temperature. This technology allowed food producers to artificially produce a
fat that remained solid at room temperature and didn’t become rancid quickly, and they rapidly began
producing processed foods with hydrogenated fats. Everything from margarine, cakes, cookies, cereals,
breads, crackers and peanut butter contained these trans fats.
Health Effects - How does this affect your health? According to Mary G. Enig, PhD, “when one hydrogen
atom is moved to the other side of the fatty acid molecule during hydrogenation, the ability of living cells to
make reactions at the site is compromised or altogether lost. Trans fatty acids are sufficiently similar to
natural fats that the body readily incorporates them into the cell membrane; once there, their altered
chemical structure creates havoc with thousands of necessary chemical reactions - everything from
energy provision to prostaglandin production” (Enig 1998). This wouldn’t be such a problem if we
didn’t consume many trans fats, but a report in the Journal of American Oil Chemists in 1972 showed
that from 1909 to 1972, vegetable fat intake had increased from 21 grams to almost 60 grams (Rizek 1974).
Total per-capita fat consumption had increased over the period, but this increase was mostly due to
an increase in unsaturated fats from vegetable oils - with 50 per cent of the increase coming from
liquid vegetable oils and about 41 per cent from margarines made from vegetable oils. What is also
alarming was the trend of death by heart attack, especially from myocardial infarction, had increased
as well, from 3,000 in 1930 to 500,000 in 1960.
Conclusion - So, what does all this mean? The real danger is not from eating saturated fats such as butter
and whole milk, but from processed foods containing hydrogenated fats which enter your body and cause
havoc. You can protect yourself by going through your pantry and refrigerator and throwing away
anything that lists “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” in the ingredients.
I was surprised to find just how many products contain these trans fats: All the breads I had, even the whole
wheat from Arnold; all crackers and cookies, except Archway cookies; Total and Multi-bran Cheerios
cereal; Betty Crocker Corn Muffin mixes; Betty Crocker cake mixes and frostings; animal crackers; and
microwave popcorn. Most peanut butters have them, except “natural” peanut butters which allow the oil
to separate.
Do yourself a favor and stop eating these and you’ll do your body right. Not only will you see a drop in
low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or “bad” cholesterol, which trans fatty acids have been shown to raise,
but you’ll see a raise in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or “good” cholesterol.
If you want more information, check out these sources:
FDA information on new food labeling and hydrogenated fats
The Oiling of America - Part 1
The Oiling of America - Part 2
Enig, M. 1998. The Oiling of America – Part 1. Nexus New Times Magazine. 6:1.
Rizek, R. L. et al., "Fat in Today's Food Supply - Level of Use and Sources", J. Am.
Oil Chem. Soc. 51:244, 1974