Ingredient shuffle: a trans fat substitute might have risks too.A controversial nutritional test of a chemically modified fat suggests that the substance is more harmful, in at least some respects, than are the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils <onlyinclude> This list of vegetable oils includes all vegetable oils that are extracted from plants by placing the relevant part of the plant under pressure to extract the oil. that it's intended to replace. Many food producers are phasing out partially hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fats, substances that have been linked to heart disease. For certain products, such as baker's shortening and margarine, some companies are turning to interesterified fats. Interesterification shuffles the fatty acids that make up each fat molecule (www. sciencenews.org/articles/20070210/food. asp). Like partial hydrogenation hydrogenation (hīdrôj`ənā'shən, hī'drəjənā`shən), chemical reaction of a substance with molecular hydrogen, usually in the presence of a catalyst. , interesterification produces molecules that seldom or never appear in nature. The new study reports worrisome changes in blood-glucose and cholesterol concentrations in 30 volunteers in Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (kwä`lə l  m`pr), city (1990 est. pop. , Malaysia,
who had consumed a diet containing large amounts of interesterified fat.
But scientists who weren't involved in the study criticize it for comparing forms of fat that they say can't be used as direct substitutes for one another. In the study, nutritional pathologist K.C. Hayes of Brandeis University Brandeis University, at Waltham, Mass.; coeducational; chartered and opened 1948. Although Brandeis was founded by members of the American Jewish community, the university operates as an independent, nonsectarian institution. in Waltham, Mass., and two Malaysian researchers fed volunteers three diets during different 4-week periods. Each diet used a different source of fat, either a trans fat-rich, partially hydrogenated soybean oil Soy´bean oil n. 1. an oil obtained from the soybean (Glycine max), rich in protein, fats, sterols, and phospholipids, used as a food and in paints and varnishes and in various industrial applications; - ; an interesterified soybean oil; or a natural substance, palm oil. A palm oil-industry group funded the study. The trans fat and interesterified-fat diets had a more negative effect on volunteers' beneficial, or HDL (Hardware Description Language) A language used to describe the functions of an electronic circuit for documentation, simulation or logic synthesis (or all three). Although many proprietary HDLs have been developed, Verilog and VHDL are the major standards. , cholesterol than the palm oil diet did. Moreover, the interesterified fat raised blood-glucose concentrations and slowed the metabolism of glucose relative to the effects of either of the other fats. Both those changes are associated with increased diabetes risk. The study appeared online Jan. 15 in Nutrition & Metabolism. Nutrition scientist Brent Flickinger says that the study didn't make an "apples-to-apples" comparison. His employer, Archer Daniels Midland The Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE: ADM), is a conglomeration based in Decatur, Illinois. ADMoperates more than 270 plants worldwide, where cereal grains and oilseeds are processed into numerous products used in food, beverage, nutraceutical, industrial and animal feed Co. of Decatur, Ill., sells interesterified fats and other oils. The interesterified fat used in the experiment is 59 percent saturated and "as hard as candle wax," Flickinger says. His company's interesterified products are more malleable. In past studies, Flickinger says, interesterified fats have had fewer worrisome effects on cholesterol than partially hydrogenated oils have. "The fatty acid composition of the three diets was very different, so [Hayes and his colleagues] could not really distinguish the effects of interesterification from the effects of the fatty acids," says Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard School of Public Health is (colloquially, HSPH) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, next to Harvard Medical School and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Boston. Furthermore, those diets--especially the interesterified diet--included unusually high amounts of saturated fat saturated fat, any solid fat that is an ester of glycerol and a saturated fatty acid. The molecules of a saturated fat have only single bonds between carbon atoms; if double bonds are present in the fatty acid portion of the molecule, the fat is said to be . The experiment, he says, should be "replicated with realistic [interesterified] products at realistic intakes." |
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