Foxnews is full of it.

I have the data to prove they are wrong, in the form of a series of lab tests showing my cholesterol and triglycerides numbers. Data is believable, and factual. It is not hunches or conjecture, or opinion.

My cholesterol numbers have gone from horrible to perfect, and the key was banning trans fats from my diet.

What does foxnews base their conclusions on?

I agree with them on one thing, this could be the start of many lawsuits. I draw a strong parallel between the situation with trans fats in American food today and the situation with smoking in the 60's. The more reading I do, the more certain I am of how terrible it is that Americans are consuming trans fats daily, without a clue of how damaging it is to their health.

Harry

 

Here's the Harvard paper that foxnews is knocking:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/reviews/transfats.html

Read up on it and decide who you would choose to believe.

I got it from here:

http://www.bantransfats.com/

Lots of good reading at that site.

take care and good health to all,

Harry

 

From reading your Harvard study I'll attempt to summarize the results.

They list several epidemiological studies and include risk analysis as follows. ( I inverted some risks for instance one study shows a r=.88 for lower trans fat consumption which is equivalent to a r=1.14 risk for high trans fat consumption. This allows apples to apples between studies.

Keys study
Risk of Mortality from saturated fat = 1.14
Risk of Mortality from Transfat = 1.28

Scottish Heart study
Risk of undiagnosed CHD women = 1.26
Risk of undiagnosed CHD Men = 1.08
These were reported as not statistically significant, which means it could be simple chance.

Boston Study
Risk of heart attack = 2.4

Euromic Study
Risk of Heart attack (MI) = .97
This concluded higher trans fat reduced heart attacks slightly.
But if they throw out the people in spain the numbers change to this.

Risk from 3rd quadrent of trans fat intake = 1.53
Risk from highest quardrent of trans fat intake = 1.44

The highest intake was slightly lower risk than somewhat less intake.

If the data was separated by country it goes like this
Spain Risk = .2
Moscow = .2
Finland = 5.0
Norway = 5.4
As the study said, "interpret is controversial"

3 studies relating 2% increase in trans fat to CHD.
HPFS = 1.36
ATBC = 1.14
NHS = 1.93
Pooled all 3 = 1.31

The problem is the studies are relatively all over the board and a risk factor of 1.31 is considered low. The studies may try to factor out other risks like obesity, smoking, diabetes, blood pressure, but those factors are also not well understood.

If every behavior that carried a risk factor of 1.31 was banned, we'd have to ban a lot. I'd rather not see it go that direction, but it seems that's the case. Eventually the crusaders that want trans fat banned will find something to ban that you'll disagree with.

By contrast the risk factor for smoking is a 12.

Trans fat is not the healthiest choice but it's not like smoking.

The lives that are claimed to be saved are just theoretical. Historically blood pressure is down, cholesterol is down, smoking is down yet CHD incidence have remain the same, when all the proponents of bans claim lives saved. The reason less people died from CHD is because of better treatment, but the same number of people have the problem.

Peace

Steve

 

It's not a matter of right or wrong. The studies are simply statistics, and are open to interpretation and possibly government action.

One article concluded that the same people that authored the Harvard Study, Alberto Ascherio and Walter Willett have done studies that would suggesting that the following foods are as bad or worse than trans fats.

potatoes
peas
peanuts
beans
lentils
orange juice
grapefruit juice
sunflower oil
red meat
dairy products
soft drinks
diet soft drinks


That data that you have showing your reduction in cholesteral and triglycerides is great, but it is inconclusive as to whether you will live longer because of it. People with "perfect" numbers die of heart attacks every day, those with higher numbers die slightly more often.

I'm not trying to be as morbid as that last sentence may sound, but we all die somehow.

To quote Jimi Hendrix - "I'm the one that gotta die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to". OK bad example.

 

It's not about one study.

There is a preponderence of evidence, in the form of many, many studies which all conclude that cholesterol numbers are well understood now, and that the accepted way of determining risk factors, of total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol is valid.

Sure, individuals vary and have other risk factors besides their cholesterol numbers.

Dismiss cholesterol risk factors at your own peril.

What I strenuously object to is our government, who knows better, ignoring cholesterol risk factors, and allowing trans fats in our foods. At the very least they should expend more effort to inform people of the very real dangers.

The cholesterol ratio gives your risk factor for heart attack/stroke from cholesterol. There are other sources of risk. This does not in any way diminish the importance of cholesterol as a risk factor.

And besides heart attack/stroke, the risk ratio for that is strongly correlated to risk of Alzheimers and dementia.

Wake up, people!

Harry

 

But the Harvard study is essentially all of the best studies available, and it concluded that the risk factor is .97 or 1.08, or 1.28, or 1.31, or 1.93, or 2.4, with the strongest number at 1.31. In epidemiology a risk factor of less than 2 is considered weak. Here's a quote from the National Cancer Institute.

"In epidemiologic research, relative risks of less than 2 are considered small and usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias or effects of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident".

Here is a complete summary of the Nurses Health Study involving 90,000 nurses mentioned in the Harvard study, and authored by the same Walter Willet.

It was broke into 5 quintiles from low to high consumption of various fats.

Each quintile lists a relative risk and 95% confidence interval (CI) for example a 1.07 (CI 0.77-1.48) would be considered statistically insignificant because the lower CI value (0.77)is less than 1.0. A 1.38(1.13-1.68) would be statically significant as the lower CI value (1.13) is greater than 1.0

Conclusion
As Willet reported it there is a statistically significant risk of 1.53 (1.16-2.02) for patients that had trans fat consumption of 2.9% of energy consumption.

He didn't report that at 2% or lower there was no statistical association between trans fat and CHD.

He also didn't report that there was no statistically significant association between CHD and TOTAL FAT at 46% of dietary energy.

He didn't report that there was no statistically significant association between CHD and ANIMAL FAT at 36.4% of dietary energy.

He didn't report that there was no statistically significant association between CHD and Cholesterol at 273.

I thought we knew for sure that lots of fat in our diet, and high cholesterol were bad for us, this large study, the same one that says trans fat is bad, seems to say otherwise.

http://www.junkscience.com/images/transtab.gif

The reported number does seem to change as it is updated periodically, here is a 2005 report that puts trans fat at 1.33(1.07-1.66)? from the same Nurses Health Study.

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co...ract/161/7/672

When Willet then claims that 30,000 lives per year could be saved nationally or 500 people a year won't die because of the ban in New York, he is relying totally on the risk factor and the difference between 1.08 or 1.33 or 1.53 has a huge impact on the theoretical lives saved.

 

What I've been told by my doctor is the first step to control cholesterol is what you eat. If your overweight or are a junk food junky (or both) you have a good chance of having bad cholesterol numbers. If changing your diet doesn't help than medication is the next step. For me I went on the meds right from the start because my triglycerides were bad. Now the numbers are where they should be.

Food intake is an important part HDL/LDL control. Trans fats should be eleminated, fats, sugars and carbs should be limited.

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/98/104656.htm

 

That's what I was saying...

I'm not sure about the rest of your response, or your motivation in posting it?

What is your point, anyway?

Here's another data point from my own experience, to illustrate that cholesterol does far more than add to your coronary risk.

I took a Civil Service promotional exam two years ago, and did miserably on it. At the time I was having serious short-term memory problems, and just wasn't doing well in general.

A year after that exam I got on Lipitor and put a complete and fanatical ban on trans fats in my diet, raised my HDL every way I could (I doubled it), and in general worked at getting my cholesterol numbers in shape. I achieved excellent cholesterol numbers immediately.

I took that same Civil Service exam again, after having excellent cholesterol numbers for a solid year. My score almost doubled, from embarrassingly low to very good (an 85).

I had noticed markedly better short-term memory about 6 months into my "ban all trans-fats program."

You can cite all the studies you want, I have all the information I need from cholesterol and other testing, and I'm here to share the wisdom with all who might be inclined to take advantage of it.

Ban all trans fats from your diet, get your cholesterol tested, and manage it aggressively! It's not just about your heart, it's about your quality of life.

Harry

 

Here's another very important article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14348517/

Notice the direct link between partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats) and cognitive decline.

And notice that most multi-vitamins give you an overdose of copper.

I have eliminated trans fats and copper, and am enjoying a remarkable improvement in my mental functioning.

Harry

 

Another study linking high cholesterol, copper, and cognitive decline:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4045

"We believe that this is a two-step process," Sparks told New Scientist. "Cholesterol causes overproduction of Alzheimer's proteins and then copper inhibits the clearance of beta-amyloid [a plaque-inducing protein] from the brain to the blood."



This is serious, don't ignore it.

I have banned trans fats, gotten my cholesterol numbers perfect, and banned copper.

Harry