Man-made trans fats can both lower your good levels of cholesterol and increase your bad levels, making them a fat to avoid as much as possible. All trans fats are not created in a lab, however. A small amount of natural trans fats are found in the milk and meat of cows and related animals.
Description
Trans fats are a type of unsaturated fatty acid. Most of the trans fats you eat regularly are man-made. Trans fats are created through a lab procedure in which hydrogen is added to oils to create a fat that has a longer shelf-life, will stand up to multiple reheatings and will maintain a solid consistency at room temperature. All of these qualities make trans fats useful for snack food manufacturers who want their products to stay fresh for a long time and for fast food restaurants that need to repeatedly reuse oils for frying.
Significance
The American Heart Association suggests that no more than 1 percent of your daily calories come from trans fats and the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends limiting your consumption of trans fats to as low as possible. While the body may be able to process small amounts, such as the naturally occurring amount in meat and milk, the addition of trans fats to baked goods, restaurant foods and snack crackers means you consume far more than is healthy for your body.
Effects
Eating trans fats increases your levels of LDL cholesterol, which is especially damaging to arteries. You also decrease HDL cholesterol, which helps cleanse your system of bad cholesterol. Trans fat consumption also correlates with increased body inflammation, which makes you more vulnerable to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Consuming trans fats may endanger the integrity of your blood vessels. Trans fats may also cause you to store more belly fat, as suggested by an animal study published in the journal "Obesity" in 2007. Monkeys fed a diet containing trans fats gained belly fat even though they did not exceed their daily calorie needs when compared to monkeys who were fed a diet without trans fats.
Suggestions
In order to avoid trans fats, read food labels. Look for products with 0 trans fats and no "partially hydrogenated" oils in the ingredient list. A food free of trans fat is not necessarily healthy, though. Manufacturers may replace trans fats with saturated fats such as palm oil or fully hydrogenated oils. Keeping your intake of processed foods to a minimum and emphasizing fresh, whole foods as often as possible is a good way to limit your ingestion of trans fats.
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