Breaking down trans fats: Understanding the risks in your diet

Modern, processed food has been corrupted by industrial chemistry in the pursuit of shelf life and cheap calories.

Those mad scientists who made fat go trans and turned it into margarine enabled processed food giants after WWII to introduce toxic fat into mainstream diets and it’s hard to avoid, even today.

What is trans fat?

Trans fats are unsaturated fatty acids that contain at least one double bond in the trans configuration. It’s a subtle but powerful difference.

Industrial forms of trans fat result from partial hydrogenation of unsaturated fatty acids (vegetable oils) to improve stability, make them solid at room temp, and increase shelf life so that they perform similarly to saturated fat but at a fraction of the cost.

Hydrogenated trans fats are not naturally occurring except for trace amounts in ruminant animals.

Trans fats are typically found as an ingredient in processed foods — such as baked goods, snack foods or margarine.

Why it's toxic

The trans configuration is seemingly a simple difference but our increased consumption results in serious adverse effects, including:

Blood lipids

Reduced levels of HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol), and increased levels and reduced particle size of LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) may lead to a build-up in coronary arteries [1].

Blood vessels

Impaired endothelial cells (vessel lining) can result in decreased vasodilation of arteries, anti-haemostatic properties and increased adhesiveness to blood leukocytes [2].

Inflammation

Increased systemic inflammatory markers such as TNF-α, IL-6, and CRP through several possible mechanisms [3].

Cell damage

Increased free radicals, stress signalling, mitochondria dysfunction and cell death [4].

Make no doubt about it, trans fat is deadly.

Just a tiny 2% increase in calories from trans fat is associated with a 23% higher coronary heart disease risk [5], and higher trans fat (specifically trans-18:2) has been linked with a 3 times higher risk of sudden cardiac death [6].

How do we avoid it?

We can dodge these industrially produced trans fats by steering clear of products with “partially hydrogenated fat” or “hydrogenated vegetable oil” in the ingredient list.

The good news is in recent years food industry groups in Australia have reduced their use of trans fat in processed foods and imported vegetable oils. However, manufacturers in Australia ARE NOT required to directly declare the presence of trans fat on the label of products unless certain nutritional or health claims of the food are made.

Trans fat foods

As a result, trans fat can still be found in high concentrations in certain brands within Australia including potato crisps, popcorn, biscuits, margarine, shelf-stable cakes, chicken nuggets, doughnuts frozen pizza, and processed fish [7].

Simply avoid the big culprits and steer clear of anything with ‘hydrogenated’ in the ingredient list.

Trans fats are also naturally found in meat and milk from cows, sheep and goats [8][9].

What about saturated fats?

Saturated fats (commonly found in red meats, dairy products, butter, coconut oil, etc.) have been demonised since the ‘diet-heart hypothesis’ in the '60s, however, they’ve recently had a renaissance to earn their place, in moderation.