HEALTH - FDA 'Ban' on Artery-Clogging Tarns Fats

"FDA calls for ban on artery-clogging trans fats in processed foods" PBS Newshour 11/7/2013

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  Let's look closer now at the government's decision to ban artificial trans fats from the American diet.

The Food and Drug Administration says those partially hydrogenated fats are not considered safe in food.  Their use has declined substantially in recent years as manufacturers have increasingly removed them, but they are still consumed in significant amounts.

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Thomas Frieden, has been a leading public health voice on this since he was health commissioner in New York City.

Dr. Frieden, thank you for being with us.

First of all, remind us, what foods contain these trans fats?

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:  Well, first off, artificial trans fats are just that.  They're artificial.  They don't exist in nature.  And they're created by bubbling hydrogen through vegetable oil.

They make oil solid at room temperature.  Unfortunately, it also makes that oil solid in your coronary arteries and increases your risk for a heart attack.  The food industry has done a great job.  They have gotten about half -- a little more than half of the trans fats out of the system, but there's still a lot in the system.

We're able to measure that in the studies we do in people throughout the U.S.  And it continues in a variety of products, either in low concentrations or some in higher concentrations in things like frosting and some prepared foods.