Trans Fat Is Real Bad
For Your Heart's Health

The Worst Fat

When comes to fats, doctors consider trans fat (also known as trans fatty acid) the worst of the lot because of its double whammy impact on your cholesterol levels.

Unlike other fats, it raises both your "bad" (LDL) cholesterol and lowers your "good" (HDL) cholesterol. A high LDL cholesterol level together with a low HDL cholesterol level greatly increases your risk of heart disease.

LDL(Low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol transports cholesterol throughout your body. When elevated, builds up in the walls of your arteries, making them hard and narrow.

If your LDL is too high, over time, it can cause atherosclerosis, a dangerous accumulation of fatty deposits on the walls of your arteries.

These deposits — known as plaques — can reduce blood flow through your arteries.

If the arteries supplying your heart with blood (coronary arteries) are affected, you may have chest pain and other symptoms of coronary artery disease.

If the plaques tear or rupture, a blood clot may form — blocking the flow of blood or breaking free and plugging an artery downstream.

If blood flow to your heart stops, you'll have a heart attack. If blood flow to your brain stops, a stroke happens.

Do you know trans fat has other harmful effects? Like:

• It increases triglycerides, which are another type of fat in your blood.

  A high triglyceride level may contribute to hardening of your arteries (atherosclerosis) or thickening of the artery walls and increases the risk of stroke, heart attack and heart disease

• It causes more inflammation as it appears to damage the cells lining blood vessels, leading to inflammation - a process by which your body responds to injury.

  Generally, it looks like inflammation is key in the formation of fatty blockages in heart blood vessels

Trans fat is actually the result of adding hydrogen to vegetable oils through a process known as hydrogenation.

Hydrogenation increases the shelf life and flavor stability of foods containing this fat.

That's why manufacturers use it to manufacture foods, so that their foods stay fresh longer, have longer shelf life and have less greasy feel.

Initially scientists thought that these fats were healthy alternatives to animal fats since they're unsaturated fats sourced mostly from plant oils.

But in the 90s scientists discovered that these fats were apparently the culprits that increase LDL cholesterol and decrease HDL cholesterol.

You guess right.

In most commercially baked goods such as crackers, biscuits, cookies, cakes, pastries, savories, chips, pop corns, breads, doughnuts.....

In many fried food stuff like french fries, chips, crisps, fried burgers......

Get some idea on the percentage of trans fat in these foods:

• Cakes, cookies, crackers, pies, bread, etc. - 40%
• Animal products - 21%
• Margarine - 17%
• Fried potatoes - 8%
• Potato chips, corn chips, popcorn - 5%
• Household shortening - 4%
• Salad dressing - 3%
• Breakfast cereal- 1%
• Candy - 1%

(P/s: Though by nature, some meat and dairy products have small amounts of these fats, it's the trans fat in processed food that seems to be more harmful)

Read food labels!

Look for words like "partially hydrogenated" vegetable oil.

That's another term for this fat. Or the word "shortening" as shortening contains said fat too.

In the US and in many countries, food manufacturers have to list content of this fat on food labels.

This has somewhat prompted manufacturers to switch to use little or none of this fat in their food manufacturing.

However, the US ruling is such that if the said fat content is less than 0.5 grams per serving, manufacturers can list it as having 0 gram on the food label.

(P/S: You know, that's a small amount, less than 0.5 gram - but if you eat multiple servings, you could exceed your intake)

You aren't likely to cut off this fat completely from your diet.

See, food manufacturers have begun substituting other ingredients for trans fat.

And some of these ingredients like coconut, palm kernel and palm oils, contain a lot of saturated fat which raises your LDL cholesterol.

How much of this fat you can consume without any negative impact on your cholesterol level is still debatable.

But one thing's clear, you should limit its intake. No argument there.

Food labels don't list a Percent Daily Value for this fat because it's not known what an appropriate level this is, other than it should be low.

The American Heart Association recommends that no more than 1% of your total daily calories be in this fat. That indicates that you should consume a real low level of it.

Go for monounsaturated fat or polyunsaturated fat instead, which are good for your heart.

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