The move from saturated fats (e.g. butter, beef tallow) to trans fats (e.g. margarine) was not necessarily a good one. Sometimes I wonder if most nutritional advice just follows constantly changing fads...
Okay, I'm confused. If I'm reading the paper right, it wasn't an 11 percent reduction caused by eliminating transfats. The total reduction was 11 percent, of which 11 percent was attributable to trans fat with the rest attributable to lower smoking, statins, etc. The headline seems way off. Am I reading the paper wrong?
The title seems incorrect. There was a 75% decrease in CHD mortality between '91-'07. They attributed 11% of that 75% reduction to reduced use of trans fats, i.e. the policy reduced mortality by about 8%.
Now imagined what would have happened if they had banned seed oils in their entirety…the amount of poli-insaturated fat those things contain and the fact they oxidize so easily… there’s a clear connection between the consumption of a diet high in linoleic acid and CVD mortality.
I recently tested as having borderline high cholesterol. Entering the world of nutritional literature right now is a complete nightmare, you can find a study validating basically whatever diet you want.<p>This seems to be the scientific consensus at the moment:<p>Trans fat < saturated fat < polyunsaturated fat < monounsaturated fat.<p>The most heated debate seems to be between saturated fat and, the villain du jour, polyunsaturated (seed oils). So while they have at it I'm trying to mostly transition to monounsaturated fats.<p>Cut way back on all meats, increase fish, increase vegetables, should be fine.
I remember trans fats, among other things, being a contentious topic around the time Obama was trying to get the TPP going.<p>People were worried that it would put local producers at a disadvantage and promote cheaper, lower quality food from the U.S which would result in higher obesity rates and worse health outcomes for the population.
I think we will see this when gasoline cars become a thing of the past and a heap of cancers reduce in occurrence and we put it down to reduced air pollution.
"Approximately 1,191 (95% CI 989–1,409) fewer CHD deaths were attributable to the ITFA reduction...between 1991 and 2007."<p>That's about 74 deaths each year in a country that sees ~50,000 deaths each year, so about 0.15%.
However smoking is still legal, in Denmark and the US. In the US, tobacco use kills 7x as many as the oft-cited opiate “epidemic”, yet you don’t even need a prescription for cigarettes.<p>Either we need a nanny state, or we don’t. Pick one and be consistent.<p>Personally I’d prefer the world where we mandate labels and remove all restrictions on sale/distribution/use of chemicals for ingestion, along with HARSH penalties for causing others to ingest your byproducts without consent (ie secondhand smoke). Let adults make their own decisions (both for what they ingest, as well as how they plan to finance the subsequent healthcare required for bad choices).<p>We have no freedom if we’re not free to make choices that others regard as “bad” (that hurt no one but ourselves).