14 ms·

Benefits of the Danish transfat ban for coronary heart disease mortality

204 points by kasperni 4y ago

drukenemo 4y ago
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.
- suprfnk 4y ago
  > there’s a clear connection between the consumption of a diet high in linoleic acid and CVD mortality. That's interesting. The Wikipedia page for linoleic acid (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleic_acid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleic_acid) says this under Health Effects: > Consumption of linoleic acid has been associated with lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death Linking this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7326588/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7326588/ It's so hard to get any conclusive answers at all in food/health science...
  - dalbasal 4y ago
    Not only is it hard to get any conclusive answers at all in food/health science... I find it's very hard to even identify controversies, scientific mysteries and open questions. The posture adopted tends to always give the impression of consensus and knowledge.
    - feet 4y ago
      The posture of what, scientific media reporting? Nearly all papers that I've read generally state confidence, needed work, and confounding factors
  - adrian_b 4y ago
    Linoleic acid is an essential nutrient, but the recommended daily intakes are between 11 g and 17 g, depending on sex and age. Most vegetable oils, the main exceptions being olive oil and high-oleic sunflower oil (not classic sunflower oil), have a very high content of linoleic oil, so the daily intake can be obtained from less than 2 spoons of oil. Those who use for cooking vegetable oils high in linoleic acid, or who eat mostly industrially-processed food, typically eat significantly more linoleic acid than the recommended intake. When linoleic acid is in excess over what the body needs, it can be stored only in limited quantities in reserve fat, which must contain other fatty acids in higher proportions. Therefore the excess part of the linoleic acid, over what can be consumed or stored, must be transformed into those other fatty acids, in the liver. This extra work for the liver is undesirable, and when the processing capability of the liver is also exceeded, then some of the fat in the body can have an abnormal composition, too high in linoleic acid. The best is to eat mostly vegetable oils that are high in oleic acid, because those also include enough linoleic acid to cover all needs, and if they are eaten in excess, their fatty acids are just used to synthesize human reserve fat, which has a similar composition.
- hosteur 4y ago
  Interesting. Do you know of any places banning seed oils entirely? What about olive oil? It is not seed oil but does contain unsaturated fatty acids. Would it be considered safer than seed oils?
  - temptemptemp111 4y ago
- oifjsidjf 4y ago
  You are conflating highly processed seed oils (canola, corn oil,..) with legit cold pressed ones that have been consumed for a long while (hemp oil, olive oil,...)
  - grapeskin 4y ago
    Olive oil actually isn’t a seed oil. It comes from the flesh of the olive. I was surprised to learn that myself recently.
    - atwood22 4y ago
      Same with avocado oil, which is a good alternative if you need an oil with a higher smoke point.
    - samatman 4y ago
      While this is true, an oil like high-oleic sunflower oil is (obviously) a seed oil, but one which is mostly oleic acid, like olive oil. Furthermore, coconuts are a seed, and coconut oil is often explicitly cited as an alternative to seed oils. "Seed oil" is a reasonably proxy for the sort of high polyunsaturated oils we should probably avoid eating, but it's a heuristic for identifying products with bad lipid profiles, not a law.
      - marvin 4y ago
        I am once again super confused. During my whole primary education, highly poly-unsaturated fats were considered beneficial with regards to cardiovascular health. Saturated fats and trans fats were considered the culprit. What changed, and when?
        Jensson 4y ago
        Poly unsaturated fats easily becomes trans-fats when heated. This is very common in factory produced food since trans fats melt at higher temperatures making their shape easier to keep if you turn the poly unsaturated fats to trans fats. But I don't think there are any dangers to poly unsaturated fats other than them easily turning into trans fats, so as long as factories are banned from making them into trans fats it should be fine. Or really the opposite, poly unsaturated fats are the healthiest fats, omega 3 and omega 6 and so on belongs to this group, just be sure to treat it carefully and don't let it turn to trans fats.
- temptemptemp111 4y ago
- wil421 4y ago
  Do you have any sources for that beside Dr. Shanahan and company’s books?
- daneel_w 4y ago
  Could you cite any of the clear connections? What I've been reading is the opposite, at least in the case of high quality cold-pressed seed oils like linseed oil, hemp oil, rapeseed oil.
  - samatman 4y ago
    No citations this morning but I can help narrow it down: the claim (which has backing but isn't universally accepted) is that Omega-6 fatty acids are just unhealthy, there's no amount of them we should be eating. Omega-3 is crucial to health, and the very middle-mainstream of nutritional science talks about Omega-3/6 ratios, the more extreme claim is that the ideal ratio is infinity: while there's some amount of Omega-6 we can digest without health consequences, there's no advantage to doing so relative to consuming none at all.
    - vixen99 4y ago
      As you say, the significance of the 3/6 ratio is still not clear; however we should note that all nutritional authorities (US, EU and Australian & others) confirm both types as essential components of our diet with a 'general recommendation' that the ratio be around 1:10 in favour of omega-6. It's an ongoing field for research.
- feet 4y ago
  I'm not sure where you're getting these ideas about polyunsaturated fatty acids from, there are PUFAs that are literally essential for the human diet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyunsaturated_fatty_acid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyunsaturated_fatty_acid
  - imtringued 4y ago
    We also need saturated fats and everything else.
- elric 4y ago
  I keep hearing this, and I keep thinking it's quackery (mostly based on how much of a fad it's become, and on the less-than-reputable sources making the claims). I'd love to hear some more reputable takes on this.
  - beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
    This is probably the most extensive response to the faddish seed-oil claims: https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/a-comprehensive-rebuttal-to-seed-oil-sophistry https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/a-comprehensive-rebuttal-... The conclusions is: "In conclusion, vegetable oils appear to be a health-promoting addition to the diet, and seem to offer a range of health benefits and little to no apparent health risks to the general population. However, one should exercise caution when navigating the current food environment, as vegetable oils are included in many foods that are not particularly health-promoting. If one chooses to consume vegetable oils, it would probably be wise to integrate them into a healthy eating pattern in ways that do not promote the overconsumption of calories. Some possible healthy ways to include vegetable oils in the diet could be in the form of salad dressings or as cooking oils for sauteed vegetables."
- randoaccount12 4y ago
  This is something that is “widely” stated on the internet but not in the medical community. I think these videos are a great breakdown of this: https://youtu.be/qInpEKHdjXk https://youtu.be/qInpEKHdjXk https://youtu.be/9Qk2LEN6opQ https://youtu.be/9Qk2LEN6opQ
sneak 4y ago
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. Either we need a nanny state, or we don’t. Pick one and be consistent. 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). We have no freedom if we’re not free to make choices that others regard as “bad” (that hurt no one but ourselves).
- jiggywiggy 4y ago
  Problem is smoking is very obvious what you are doing. Then you should argue: "Food safety laws should be very limited in it's restriction and it should be up to the consumers to carefully read and study all ingredients to pick what they eat".
- moonchrome 4y ago
  Why ? It's a lot easier to ban trans fats from stores than it is to get smokers to suddenly quit.
  - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    And most folks aren't going to go to a black market to get trans fats - a black market for cigarettes already exists and banning it entirely would only prop it up.
    - wowokay 4y ago
      True, but people might get pissed off if they notice there food tastes different.
      - samatman 4y ago
        Kraft Dinner pulled off a real marketing coup here: they removed artificial flavors and colors, and some other less popular ingredients, from the recipe for Neon Orange Macaroni Powder, and quietly pushed it out to markets for a few months. Followed by an advertising blitz along the lines of "Will your kids like the new Mac & Cheese? They've already had it!".
johncearls 4y ago
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?
- tokai 4y ago
  >Denmark’s mandatory elimination of ITFA accounted for approximately 11% of the substantial reduction in CHD deaths observed between 1991 and 2007. Its very simple. 11% of the reduction in congenital CHD in the time period is due to the ban of trans fat.
  - bjornsing 4y ago
    So… That does not in any way clarify things. Is the parent right or wrong?
    - junofan 4y ago
      Wrong. See tables 1 and 2.
    - tokai 4y ago
      Seriously? The conclusion I quoted is easy unconvoluted language. I cannot imagine what could be changed to make it more understandable. Over a period you have a reduction of the total deaths due to CHD - 11% of that reduction is due to a ban on trans fat.
      - happyopossum 4y ago
        It may be clear to you, but it's missing some context - it's 11% of the 75%, so really an overall 8% reduction. Using the number of 11% instead of 8% could be construed as trying to hype up the results.
  - oliwarner 4y ago
throwaway69123 4y ago
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.
- sva_ 4y ago
  I imagine gasoline cars will stick around for a long time. Even if the EU bans the sale of new combustion engine vehicles, they'll surely make exceptions for people to keep their "classic" cars. Or just "electrofuels"[0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel
  - bluGill 4y ago
    Collectors of classic cars is a footnote. Most of them are not daily drivers either. If our only use of fossil fuel was collectors global warming would be a problem. (without fossil fuel the early is slightly carbon negative, so you could even argue collectors are good as they keep us out of an ice age - though I'm not sure how carbon negative the earth is so I'm not sure that is actually true over 10,000 years or so)
- Wohlf 4y ago
  Asthma especially, electrifying semis would probably have the biggest effect though.
- elevaet 4y ago
  It does seem crazy that we breathe vehicle exhaust all the time without questioning it. The same people who make a fuss about a whiff of tobacco smoke will go around breathing car exhaust all day without batting an eye.
  - 988747 4y ago
    Tobbaco smoking does not have any practical uses for us, it's just a bad habit. On the other hand, being able to drive a car is a huge benefit for our quality of life, so we accept that it comes with some cost.
jsnell 4y ago
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%.
ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
I remember trans fats, among other things, being a contentious topic around the time Obama was trying to get the TPP going. 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.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  I think the worry was that US companies would sue nations that tried to protect their people's health with trans fat bans like the one that the Danes did. There was similar issues with Tobacco companies threatening to sue. Amusingly, if you Google Obama and Trans Fat you find a whole bunch of libertarian articles blaming Obama for banning their tasty donut sprinkles, like some kind of authoritarian tyrant and arguing that people shouldnt be deprived of the right to eat trans fat (and smoke cigarettes). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/conservatives-obama-ban-trans-fats-american-freedom https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/conservative... > Stier said the ban on trans fats could set in motion a series of restrictions on foods that might be seen as unhealthy. > “It’s precedent-setting,” he said. “I’ve got a whole list of ingredients that could be next. Sugar can be attributed to lots of deaths. Is sugar generally recognised as safe? Maybe we should only allow minute amounts of sugar.”
mensetmanusman 4y ago
An 1000% tax on sugars would have a huge effect on the U.S.
- Synaesthesia 4y ago
  Here in South Africa we now have a sugar tax, and its made a difference. Soft drinks have generally reduced their sugar content.
- justforaskin 4y ago
  Exactly. Another option is to not allow EBT to buy sugary drinks. This would reduce type 2 diabetes and heart issues in a population that has one of the highest rates.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Just limit serving sizes instead of outright bans.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      People will just drink two servings. Some soft drink containers are actually two servings or more already, even though everyone who gets such a container will drink the whole thing as if it were on serving.
      - dboreham 4y ago
        People are in bulk sufficiently lazy that it still works to cap the serving size.
        bluGill 4y ago
        I think you are confusing container size with serving size. They are not related.
        4y ago
isolli 4y ago
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...
- dfxm12 4y ago
  I don't think the move was due to nutritional advice. For example, margarine is cheaper than butter, and really gained in popularity during the depression and the war when dairy supply was shortening (ahem). It also has different culinary properties from butter, including being possibly vegan and behaving differently in baked goods. Overall though, at least since 2000, butter is far outselling margarine, so it seems like these days, it is a niche product and not really a "healthy" butter alternative.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    But fastfood restaurants and precooked meals continue to use margarine instead of butter. For example McDonalds switched away from animal fats in early 90s and never switched back. They wont mention margarine in the ingredients, instead they just say "vegetable oils".
    - dfxm12 4y ago
      That has nothing to do with nutritional advice, which is what OP is saying. That has to do with lower cost and/or maybe some other property (like longer shelf life).
      - kaesar14 4y ago
        Correct me if I’m wrong but McDonalds originally made that switch due to the “animal fats are bad for you” push during that time which is what OP is probably referencing?
      - allturtles 4y ago
        It was for health reasons, this is well-documented in secondary sources [0] and primary sources [1]. [0]: https://www.eatthis.com/mcdonalds-french-fries-taste-different/ https://www.eatthis.com/mcdonalds-french-fries-taste-differe... [1]: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-07-24-9003020215-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-07-24-900302...
refurb 4y ago
"Approximately 1,191 (95% CI 989–1,409) fewer CHD deaths were attributable to the ITFA reduction...between 1991 and 2007." That's about 74 deaths each year in a country that sees ~50,000 deaths each year, so about 0.15%.
ralusek 4y ago
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. This seems to be the scientific consensus at the moment: Trans fat < saturated fat < polyunsaturated fat < monounsaturated fat. 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. Cut way back on all meats, increase fish, increase vegetables, should be fine.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

204 points by kasperni 4y ago

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.

suprfnk 4y ago
> there’s a clear connection between the consumption of a diet high in linoleic acid and CVD mortality. That's interesting. The Wikipedia page for linoleic acid (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleic_acid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleic_acid) says this under Health Effects: > Consumption of linoleic acid has been associated with lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death Linking this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7326588/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7326588/ It's so hard to get any conclusive answers at all in food/health science...
- dalbasal 4y ago
  Not only is it hard to get any conclusive answers at all in food/health science... I find it's very hard to even identify controversies, scientific mysteries and open questions. The posture adopted tends to always give the impression of consensus and knowledge.
  - feet 4y ago
    The posture of what, scientific media reporting? Nearly all papers that I've read generally state confidence, needed work, and confounding factors
- adrian_b 4y ago
  Linoleic acid is an essential nutrient, but the recommended daily intakes are between 11 g and 17 g, depending on sex and age. Most vegetable oils, the main exceptions being olive oil and high-oleic sunflower oil (not classic sunflower oil), have a very high content of linoleic oil, so the daily intake can be obtained from less than 2 spoons of oil. Those who use for cooking vegetable oils high in linoleic acid, or who eat mostly industrially-processed food, typically eat significantly more linoleic acid than the recommended intake. When linoleic acid is in excess over what the body needs, it can be stored only in limited quantities in reserve fat, which must contain other fatty acids in higher proportions. Therefore the excess part of the linoleic acid, over what can be consumed or stored, must be transformed into those other fatty acids, in the liver. This extra work for the liver is undesirable, and when the processing capability of the liver is also exceeded, then some of the fat in the body can have an abnormal composition, too high in linoleic acid. The best is to eat mostly vegetable oils that are high in oleic acid, because those also include enough linoleic acid to cover all needs, and if they are eaten in excess, their fatty acids are just used to synthesize human reserve fat, which has a similar composition.
hosteur 4y ago
Interesting. Do you know of any places banning seed oils entirely? What about olive oil? It is not seed oil but does contain unsaturated fatty acids. Would it be considered safer than seed oils?
- temptemptemp111 4y ago
oifjsidjf 4y ago
You are conflating highly processed seed oils (canola, corn oil,..) with legit cold pressed ones that have been consumed for a long while (hemp oil, olive oil,...)
- grapeskin 4y ago
  Olive oil actually isn’t a seed oil. It comes from the flesh of the olive. I was surprised to learn that myself recently.
  - atwood22 4y ago
    Same with avocado oil, which is a good alternative if you need an oil with a higher smoke point.
  - samatman 4y ago
    While this is true, an oil like high-oleic sunflower oil is (obviously) a seed oil, but one which is mostly oleic acid, like olive oil. Furthermore, coconuts are a seed, and coconut oil is often explicitly cited as an alternative to seed oils. "Seed oil" is a reasonably proxy for the sort of high polyunsaturated oils we should probably avoid eating, but it's a heuristic for identifying products with bad lipid profiles, not a law.
    - marvin 4y ago
      I am once again super confused. During my whole primary education, highly poly-unsaturated fats were considered beneficial with regards to cardiovascular health. Saturated fats and trans fats were considered the culprit. What changed, and when?
      - Jensson 4y ago
        Poly unsaturated fats easily becomes trans-fats when heated. This is very common in factory produced food since trans fats melt at higher temperatures making their shape easier to keep if you turn the poly unsaturated fats to trans fats. But I don't think there are any dangers to poly unsaturated fats other than them easily turning into trans fats, so as long as factories are banned from making them into trans fats it should be fine. Or really the opposite, poly unsaturated fats are the healthiest fats, omega 3 and omega 6 and so on belongs to this group, just be sure to treat it carefully and don't let it turn to trans fats.
temptemptemp111 4y ago
wil421 4y ago
Do you have any sources for that beside Dr. Shanahan and company’s books?
daneel_w 4y ago
Could you cite any of the clear connections? What I've been reading is the opposite, at least in the case of high quality cold-pressed seed oils like linseed oil, hemp oil, rapeseed oil.
- samatman 4y ago
  No citations this morning but I can help narrow it down: the claim (which has backing but isn't universally accepted) is that Omega-6 fatty acids are just unhealthy, there's no amount of them we should be eating. Omega-3 is crucial to health, and the very middle-mainstream of nutritional science talks about Omega-3/6 ratios, the more extreme claim is that the ideal ratio is infinity: while there's some amount of Omega-6 we can digest without health consequences, there's no advantage to doing so relative to consuming none at all.
  - vixen99 4y ago
    As you say, the significance of the 3/6 ratio is still not clear; however we should note that all nutritional authorities (US, EU and Australian & others) confirm both types as essential components of our diet with a 'general recommendation' that the ratio be around 1:10 in favour of omega-6. It's an ongoing field for research.
feet 4y ago
I'm not sure where you're getting these ideas about polyunsaturated fatty acids from, there are PUFAs that are literally essential for the human diet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyunsaturated_fatty_acid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyunsaturated_fatty_acid
- imtringued 4y ago
  We also need saturated fats and everything else.
elric 4y ago
I keep hearing this, and I keep thinking it's quackery (mostly based on how much of a fad it's become, and on the less-than-reputable sources making the claims). I'd love to hear some more reputable takes on this.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
  This is probably the most extensive response to the faddish seed-oil claims: https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/a-comprehensive-rebuttal-to-seed-oil-sophistry https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/a-comprehensive-rebuttal-... The conclusions is: "In conclusion, vegetable oils appear to be a health-promoting addition to the diet, and seem to offer a range of health benefits and little to no apparent health risks to the general population. However, one should exercise caution when navigating the current food environment, as vegetable oils are included in many foods that are not particularly health-promoting. If one chooses to consume vegetable oils, it would probably be wise to integrate them into a healthy eating pattern in ways that do not promote the overconsumption of calories. Some possible healthy ways to include vegetable oils in the diet could be in the form of salad dressings or as cooking oils for sauteed vegetables."
randoaccount12 4y ago
This is something that is “widely” stated on the internet but not in the medical community. I think these videos are a great breakdown of this: https://youtu.be/qInpEKHdjXk https://youtu.be/qInpEKHdjXk https://youtu.be/9Qk2LEN6opQ https://youtu.be/9Qk2LEN6opQ

sneak 4y ago

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. Either we need a nanny state, or we don’t. Pick one and be consistent. 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). We have no freedom if we’re not free to make choices that others regard as “bad” (that hurt no one but ourselves).

jiggywiggy 4y ago
Problem is smoking is very obvious what you are doing. Then you should argue: "Food safety laws should be very limited in it's restriction and it should be up to the consumers to carefully read and study all ingredients to pick what they eat".
moonchrome 4y ago
Why ? It's a lot easier to ban trans fats from stores than it is to get smokers to suddenly quit.
- Broken_Hippo 4y ago
  And most folks aren't going to go to a black market to get trans fats - a black market for cigarettes already exists and banning it entirely would only prop it up.
  - wowokay 4y ago
    True, but people might get pissed off if they notice there food tastes different.
    - samatman 4y ago
      Kraft Dinner pulled off a real marketing coup here: they removed artificial flavors and colors, and some other less popular ingredients, from the recipe for Neon Orange Macaroni Powder, and quietly pushed it out to markets for a few months. Followed by an advertising blitz along the lines of "Will your kids like the new Mac & Cheese? They've already had it!".

johncearls 4y ago

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?

tokai 4y ago
>Denmark’s mandatory elimination of ITFA accounted for approximately 11% of the substantial reduction in CHD deaths observed between 1991 and 2007. Its very simple. 11% of the reduction in congenital CHD in the time period is due to the ban of trans fat.
- bjornsing 4y ago
  So… That does not in any way clarify things. Is the parent right or wrong?
  - junofan 4y ago
    Wrong. See tables 1 and 2.
  - tokai 4y ago
    Seriously? The conclusion I quoted is easy unconvoluted language. I cannot imagine what could be changed to make it more understandable. Over a period you have a reduction of the total deaths due to CHD - 11% of that reduction is due to a ban on trans fat.
    - happyopossum 4y ago
      It may be clear to you, but it's missing some context - it's 11% of the 75%, so really an overall 8% reduction. Using the number of 11% instead of 8% could be construed as trying to hype up the results.
- oliwarner 4y ago

throwaway69123 4y ago

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.

sva_ 4y ago
I imagine gasoline cars will stick around for a long time. Even if the EU bans the sale of new combustion engine vehicles, they'll surely make exceptions for people to keep their "classic" cars. Or just "electrofuels"[0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel
- bluGill 4y ago
  Collectors of classic cars is a footnote. Most of them are not daily drivers either. If our only use of fossil fuel was collectors global warming would be a problem. (without fossil fuel the early is slightly carbon negative, so you could even argue collectors are good as they keep us out of an ice age - though I'm not sure how carbon negative the earth is so I'm not sure that is actually true over 10,000 years or so)
Wohlf 4y ago
Asthma especially, electrifying semis would probably have the biggest effect though.
elevaet 4y ago
It does seem crazy that we breathe vehicle exhaust all the time without questioning it. The same people who make a fuss about a whiff of tobacco smoke will go around breathing car exhaust all day without batting an eye.
- 988747 4y ago
  Tobbaco smoking does not have any practical uses for us, it's just a bad habit. On the other hand, being able to drive a car is a huge benefit for our quality of life, so we accept that it comes with some cost.

jsnell 4y ago

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%.

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago

I remember trans fats, among other things, being a contentious topic around the time Obama was trying to get the TPP going. 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.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I think the worry was that US companies would sue nations that tried to protect their people's health with trans fat bans like the one that the Danes did. There was similar issues with Tobacco companies threatening to sue. Amusingly, if you Google Obama and Trans Fat you find a whole bunch of libertarian articles blaming Obama for banning their tasty donut sprinkles, like some kind of authoritarian tyrant and arguing that people shouldnt be deprived of the right to eat trans fat (and smoke cigarettes). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/conservatives-obama-ban-trans-fats-american-freedom https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/conservative... > Stier said the ban on trans fats could set in motion a series of restrictions on foods that might be seen as unhealthy. > “It’s precedent-setting,” he said. “I’ve got a whole list of ingredients that could be next. Sugar can be attributed to lots of deaths. Is sugar generally recognised as safe? Maybe we should only allow minute amounts of sugar.”

mensetmanusman 4y ago

An 1000% tax on sugars would have a huge effect on the U.S.

Synaesthesia 4y ago
Here in South Africa we now have a sugar tax, and its made a difference. Soft drinks have generally reduced their sugar content.
justforaskin 4y ago
Exactly. Another option is to not allow EBT to buy sugary drinks. This would reduce type 2 diabetes and heart issues in a population that has one of the highest rates.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Just limit serving sizes instead of outright bans.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    People will just drink two servings. Some soft drink containers are actually two servings or more already, even though everyone who gets such a container will drink the whole thing as if it were on serving.
    - dboreham 4y ago
      People are in bulk sufficiently lazy that it still works to cap the serving size.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        I think you are confusing container size with serving size. They are not related.
        4y ago

isolli 4y ago

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...

dfxm12 4y ago
I don't think the move was due to nutritional advice. For example, margarine is cheaper than butter, and really gained in popularity during the depression and the war when dairy supply was shortening (ahem). It also has different culinary properties from butter, including being possibly vegan and behaving differently in baked goods. Overall though, at least since 2000, butter is far outselling margarine, so it seems like these days, it is a niche product and not really a "healthy" butter alternative.
- Jensson 4y ago
  But fastfood restaurants and precooked meals continue to use margarine instead of butter. For example McDonalds switched away from animal fats in early 90s and never switched back. They wont mention margarine in the ingredients, instead they just say "vegetable oils".
  - dfxm12 4y ago
    That has nothing to do with nutritional advice, which is what OP is saying. That has to do with lower cost and/or maybe some other property (like longer shelf life).
    - kaesar14 4y ago
      Correct me if I’m wrong but McDonalds originally made that switch due to the “animal fats are bad for you” push during that time which is what OP is probably referencing?
    - allturtles 4y ago
      It was for health reasons, this is well-documented in secondary sources [0] and primary sources [1]. [0]: https://www.eatthis.com/mcdonalds-french-fries-taste-different/ https://www.eatthis.com/mcdonalds-french-fries-taste-differe... [1]: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-07-24-9003020215-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-07-24-900302...

refurb 4y ago

"Approximately 1,191 (95% CI 989–1,409) fewer CHD deaths were attributable to the ITFA reduction...between 1991 and 2007." That's about 74 deaths each year in a country that sees ~50,000 deaths each year, so about 0.15%.

ralusek 4y ago

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. This seems to be the scientific consensus at the moment: Trans fat < saturated fat < polyunsaturated fat < monounsaturated fat. 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. Cut way back on all meats, increase fish, increase vegetables, should be fine.

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