
The 100-year-old scientist who pushed the FDA to ban artificial trans fat - Hooke
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/06/16/the-100-year-old-scientist-who-pushed-the-fda-to-ban-artificial-trans-fat/
======
crazy1van
To me this whole issue boils down to the degree of risk relative to the
regulation. It is one thing to say the current evidence shows trans fats are
worse for you than other fats, and that is why we require foods that use them
to be labeled. It is another thing to ban them.

This just speaks to my overall philosophy on government -- one that I realize
many do not share -- but I generally believe in giving adults the freedom to
make bad personal decisions. And let's not kid ourselves about the severity of
transfats. This isn't a chemical that you accidently inhale once and are dead
an hour later. This is a substance that if you consume it throughout your
life, increases your risk of other health issues. That does not seem ban
worthy.

~~~
bdamm
If all the food producers decide to use the same cheapest ingredient, what
help does labeling provide? This story is an example of the government doing
what it ought to, helping the people be defended from the bad behavior of
corporations and society in general.

There is a larger question of how much harm should a product cause society
before the government decides to put a stop to it. I would like the government
to have a standard by which any issue is put to the test. The nanny state
doesn't bother me as much as its arbitrary selectivity and application.

~~~
splat
> If all the food producers decide to use the same cheapest ingredient, what
> help does labeling provide?

But in what world is that true? In any grocery store you can get food that is
organic or non-organic, GMO or non-GMO, with sugar or sugar-free, with fat or
fat-free, kosher or not kosher, vegan or non-vegan. We consumers have more
food choices today than we've ever had in the past. To claim that "all food
producers" will just "use the same cheapest ingredient" is a straw man.

~~~
asnyder
Unfortunately, this isn't true. In many non-privileged areas you may have
supermarkets like c-town, associated, fine-fare, or other non-boutique
supermarkets that mostly stock mainstream products from mainstream food
producers, as such they usually have very limited selections of organic and
non-GMO foods, if any. So unless rules like these are passed, those groups are
reliant on companies changing their behaviors based on market trends (such as
rice krispy treats removing high fructose corn syrup from their boxed
product). Worse, even in those cases most large food producers tend to roll
out the "healthier" products specifically to the privileged areas, leaving the
non-privileged with "worse" product.

~~~
refurb
I think issue of limited (and bad) food options has less to do with government
regulations and more to do with the economics of those areas.

------
bad_user
After decades of artificial trans fats being advertised as being healthier
than fats of animal origin, with restaurant chains being forced to switch to
trans fats, I find this to be quite funny. And then people wonder about the
French paradox ... well, it's because you've been fed with lies.

~~~
kayoone
are you sure you mean "artificial trans fats" and not "unsaturated fats" which
in fact are healthier than saturated fats (which are primarily from animal
origin).

~~~
bad_user
Yes, I'm sure.

> _which in fact_

I love it when people talk about _facts_. There is no correlation between the
use of saturated fats and cardiovascular disease, as those same dieticians
which led us to believe otherwise have now changed their own story ...

[http://www.newswise.com/articles/academy-of-nutrition-and-
di...](http://www.newswise.com/articles/academy-of-nutrition-and-dietetics-
commends-strong-evidence-based-dietary-guidelines-report)

~~~
tveita
I don't think the _correlation_ is in serious dispute.

I'm no dietitian, but going by
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat_and_cardiovascul...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat_and_cardiovascular_disease_controversy)
I don't see evidence for the "distinct and growing lack of scientific
consensus" claimed in your link. The majority opinion still seems to be to
prefer polyunsaturated fats over saturated fats.

~~~
basch
[http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009...](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract)

[http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20140320/dietary-
fat...](http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20140320/dietary-fats-q-a)

------
reinhardt1053
His book worth a read: "Cholesterol is Not the Culprit: A Guide to Preventing
Heart Disease"

[http://www.amazon.com/Cholesterol-Not-Culprit-Preventing-
Dis...](http://www.amazon.com/Cholesterol-Not-Culprit-Preventing-
Disease/dp/0983383561)

------
jrapdx3
Inspiring to read about anyone taking on the FDA to improve our food supply
and the nation's health. Especially impressive considering that we're talking
about a person 100 years old.

Goes to show age is _not necessarily_ a barrier to productivity and
creativity. Maybe it's fair to describe Dr. Kummerow as a kind of "geek" in
his field. It follows that by all means we should honor old geeks, it doesn't
serve our interests very well to discard them at 50 which I'm told is a
current trend.

Article is a nice juxtaposition too, since just a few hours ago there was
mention here of an article about diet and obesity. No doubt consuming
substantial quantities of artificial trans-fats contributes to the health
consequences of obesity if not obesity itself.

~~~
marincounty
50 appears to be the number? When I was 30, I thought 50 was ancient. My
doctor tells me 50 is when health problems start to climb the graph. I can
tell you this 50 came too quick for myself. I'm not sure if being reminded 50
is old on a daily basis is good for the soul, or mental health? I'm thinking
about disconnecting from all media, and advertising. They really bash the 50
and over crowd?

I was very scared of death in my 20-40's. I'm now 50 and I don't fear death
like did when I was younger. I just don't want to die in agony like my father
did. My father died of liver cancer, and it was beyond hell. I would not wish
that pain he went through on my worst enemy. And yes--a Hospice nurse said it
was 'just the natural process of death--'. The doctor came to the house once--
I think?

I don't have a point other than the fear of death lessens as you get older. If
you are reasonably healthy man in your 20-40's don't ruin your life ruminating
about death. I did!

Oh yea, my generation is not my father's. There's no need to call me "Sir". I
was born in the 60's. We are not my father's generation: We don't take
ourself's seriously. We don't need to be doated on. We still look at the world
as if we were children; meaning we don't trust the grown up's(the one's
usually in charge), and dislike authority figures--abuse of authority. My
generation was raised by beatings of orange Hot Wheel tracks, by
Hippie/conservatives (father--conservative know it all. Mother--a hippie who
was in need of therapy). We grew up and learned from our parents mistakes.
Please don't lump my generation with all the others. We are just as lost and
confused as most of you--just chronologically older. Sorry, about my neurotic
rambling. I'm 50 alone, scared, and close to being homeless.

~~~
teekert
I don't understand why your country allows dogs to die in peace but does not
grant humans the right to choose their own end. Here it is normal that someone
says: "Ok, lets end it." And the morphine is increased slowly while you don't
eat and drink. The fact that there is no evolutionary pressure to make death
less painful does not mean your should experience the full effects of it. I
mean your country does offer painless births (something my country is very
hesitant in, I have no idea why, oh cultures...)

~~~
nsxwolf
You answered your own question - because they are dogs. We also do not allow
people to crush other people they consider pests, like an ant or a fly. Human
life is considered of higher value than insects or dogs.

~~~
teekert
Perhaps I should clarify that "someone" means the person him or herself. Would
you really say no looking someone you love in the eye while they ask you to
end it?

~~~
nsxwolf
Personally? Yes. I could not kill someone.

~~~
teekert
If you equate "relieving from unbearable suffering" with killing you must also
equate not doing this with torture imo.

You value your own morals over the request of another, equal human being. To
me that is your fundamental human right and I will not judge you for it. But I
could not live with myself knowing that I denied someone I love their
strongest wish while there is no cost to me personally. I'd feel incredibly
selfish.

Just curious, would you actively stop someone in unbearable pain form killing
her/himself or would you stop them? Would you help set up a machine to help
someone kill her/himself?

Again, not judging, just loving this discussion and I'm willing to change my
mind.

------
spiritplumber
Well if he's 100 year old and still active enough to do lobbying, he probably
is doing something right diet-wise...

(Did you know that the guy who invented LSD died at 102?)

~~~
nothrabannosir
You're probably kidding, but just in case people take this seriously: this is
a prime example of survivor's bias. A literal one, even.

~~~
romaniv
Survivor bias is ignoring the invisible failures in your correlation analysis.
What we have in regards to health research is the opposite. Every single study
I heard about is about (preventing) causes of death.

What you're saying is, essentially, that this guy's age should be ignored
because his longevity is due to luck. But I haven't seen anything that rules
out other possibilities.

~~~
nothrabannosir
You're right, but:

 _> What you're saying is, essentially, that this guy's age should be ignored
because his longevity is due to luck._

That is absolutely not what I was trying to say. Sorry for the confusion. I
was responding to the "look, he's old! let's see what he did to get there,"
comment: it's a form of survivor bias.

It's not about this man, or his life choices. Rather, it's about us, looking
to survivors for lessons on survival.

Wikipedia has a good page on it:

 _Survivorship bias, or survival bias, is the logical error of concentrating
on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently
overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility. This can
lead to false conclusions in several different ways. The survivors may be
actual people, as in a medical study, or could be companies or research
subjects or applicants for a job, or anything that must make it past some
selection process to be considered further._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)

------
api
This sort of thing is why so many have decided to preemptively reject GMO
foods. After so many failures, anything artificial in food is guilty until
proven innocent.

Engineered food really has a terrible record. With the exception of a few
early successes with nutrition enrichment (e.g. iodized salt) and
sterilization/pasteurization, most of what we've done with food has been
neutral to negative in outcome.

Part of the problem might be the incentives. Food is a brutal margin-crushing
business. Food engineering is not being pursued with the goal of making food
more nutritious or safer. The primary goal is to find ways to offer cheaper,
inferior food at the same price -- to _remove value from the product_ in such
a way that the customer does not notice. Making food more addictive (junk
food) is also an objective. "Heroin is the ideal product" as the saying goes.

With those objectives it's not surprising that "artificial" food has such a
horrible reputation. It's effectively a synonym for food engineered to be
superficially addictive but devoid of quality.

It's worthwhile to note that iodized salt and pasteurization were in fact
undertaken with the goal of making food safer or curing a nutritional
deficiency.

------
huherto
What about the trans fat already in our arteries ? Is it going to stay in our
arteries for ever?

~~~
ars
The body will eventually burn it for energy.

~~~
gohrt
from plaque on the wall of _arteries_?

~~~
ars
Yes? Did you have some special reason to italicize the word arteries?

First of all I am talking about the trans fats themself, and plaque is not
made from the trans fats themself. Those fats will be burned for energy over
time and vanish.

If you want to talk about the results of the trans fats, those too will
reverse over time if the health of the person improves.

~~~
refurb
Do you have a source? There have been _many_ clinical trials looking at
cholesterol reducing drugs and their effect on plaque size.

Even with pharmacological intervention, reducing plaque size is really tough.
The plaques are not just made of fat, but fibrosis tissue, immune cells, etc.

~~~
ars
The trials are looking for a drug that does that _without_ lifestyle changes.

There are tons of studies that show that better lifestyle helps, it's just
most people can't do it. Not eating trans fats is one small change that will
help, that is also easily done.

~~~
refurb
_There are tons of studies that show that better lifestyle helps_

Help reduce plaque size? I'd be interested to see those studies!

~~~
ars
Help reduce heart attacks, which is what really matters.

Some studies for plaque reduction:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3872716/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3872716/)
[http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/19/8/1956.short](http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/19/8/1956.short)
[http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/15/7/827.short](http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/15/7/827.short)

There were also studies that show better diet stabilizes the plaque,
preventing it from causing problems.

If you want to find more studies:
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=plaque+regression](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=plaque+regression)

~~~
refurb
_New insights into the possibility of plaque regression have been elicited by
the ASTEROID, REVERSAL, and SATURN studies that utilized intensive statin
therapy and demonstrated plaque regression in majority of study patients.
However, these trials showed less than 10% regression in overall plaque volume
only, which may not explain CV event reduction._

You've changed your claim. First you said a healthy diet will reduce plaque
volume, now you say it just helps reduce heart attack rates.

Even the studies you cited only show minimal plaque volume reduction (so small
it's questionable if it helps at all) and only with intensive pharmacological
therapy.

------
tim333
>first published his research warning about the dangers of artery-clogging
trans fats in 1957

It amazes me these things take so long when the evidence is pretty clear. I
see the UK government still hasn't banned the things although most
supermarkets and fast food chains have dropped them. I wonder if in the age of
the internet that problems that kill probably tens of thousands of people will
get dealt with in less than 55 years?

~~~
e40
What's more amazing to me is how fast junk science gets adopted. Perhaps
people hear/believe what they want to hear/believe.

~~~
scholia
The FDA's dietary guidelines (aka Food Pyramid) were based mostly on junk
science, and their adoption correlates with the rapid growth in obesity in
America.

Vested interests (politicians, the food industry, even health organisations)
make it very hard to overturn them once they're adopted. It would cost the
food industry money and everybody else loses face if they have to admit they
screwed up.

It's a lot simpler just to let tens of millions of Americans become obese and
many thousands die of heart disease.

In passing, Denmark banned trans fats in 2003 and has seen a "70% fall in
cardiovascular disease deaths". [http://www.euractiv.com/sections/health-
consumers/denmark-se...](http://www.euractiv.com/sections/health-
consumers/denmark-sees-70-fall-cardiovascular-disease-deaths-301951)

~~~
__z
Minor nitpick: The food pyramid wasn't a product of the FDA, it was a product
of the USDA. Also the classic food pyramid was "overturned" a couple times,
now it is a plate. You are right though, money and outside influence are
involved, sometimes exclusively. Honestly, I don't think the USDA should be
telling us what to eat in that way because we know that humans can survive and
even thrive on a very large variety of diets.

Story time. Growing up I used to see the food pyramid posted on the walls
everywhere - school, after school programs, etc. I became concerned that I
wasn't eating enough bread due to looking at it all the time. One day I went
home and tried to eat something like 12 slices of (white) bread. This is of
course a really silly thing to do.

~~~
scholia
Many thanks for the nitpick: yes, it was USDA ;-)

Denise Minger's book on the topic, Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science,
Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our Health, is better
than I expected...

[http://www.amazon.com/Death-Food-Pyramid-Politics-
Interests/...](http://www.amazon.com/Death-Food-Pyramid-Politics-
Interests/dp/0984755128)

------
nograde
For those interested, there's a documentary underway where Kummerov is one of
the interviewees: "On the back of a tiger"
[http://www.perceivethinkact.com/](http://www.perceivethinkact.com/).

------
rm_-rf_slash
I suppose if I want good health it's worth listening to the guy who made it to
100.

------
nekopa
What do you guys think about the fact that the current head of the FDA (edit:
I am referring to M. Taylor, deputy commissioner of food and vet.) has spent a
lot of his career working with Monsanto?

On one hand, we want someone running the FDA who has experience with the food
industry. (Just as we would probably prefer having a manager who has spent
time in the trenches coding).

On the other (tin foil hat) hand, has the food industry placed a 'friend' in
charge of the people that should be regulating them?

~~~
adventured
Insiders dominate pretty much every major government agency of consequence
that deals intimately with the private sector.

Treasury, SEC, FDA, FCC, etc. They're all stocked full of cross-overs, that go
from private to public and back or vice versa.

I don't think there's anything tin foil about it at all. It's de facto how the
system works. I don't think it guarantees how a person will regulate, but it
does probably trend toward heavy bias.

~~~
count
The alternative is what we have in infosec: the folks in charge of 'cyber' in
the govt don't have a clue, because they have no background or connections to
the 'industry' or technology at all. And it's a total disaster.

------
Nadya
So we're banning trans-fats because they are unhealthy and cause heart issues
for the people whom directly consume them?

But smoking is A-OK even though it harmfully impacts people _around_ the
smoker and not just the smoker?

I do not find "because it is unhealthy for you" a compelling enough reason to
ban something that tastes good and provides a convenience (storage) if we
aren't going to be consistent with the logic of "its banned because its bad
for you".

~~~
dudifordMann
my take: [Optimistically] It's because heart disease is the #1 premature cause
of death while lung disease is just #3 (though the percentage gap is much
wider than their positions suggest) and therefore a good target for helping
society at large through regulation[1]

[Pessimistically] the #1 cause of poor health conditions is heart disease, and
therefore the medicare/medicade cost is too high for the govt to foot the
bill, so they're finally regulating. :P

[1][http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/13/4-common-killers-
in...](http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/13/4-common-killers-in-the-world-
heart-disease-cancer-lung-disease-diabetes/)

~~~
Nadya
Smoking causes more cancers than just lung cancer. Cancer is the #1 cause of
premature deaths - although that's including all 200 odd sum of cancers, not
all smoking related.

For a more fair comparison you would have to sum together the cancers it is
linked to, then factor the number of deaths of those cancers that were
smoking-related. Which makes the math a bit trickier:

[http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/ciga...](http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/cigarettesmoking/cigarette-
smoking-illness-and-death)

Not to mention there are non-death but still health-related issues that add up
medical expenses. Which is a bit harder to quantify.

Also, as mentioned prior, _other people_ suffer because of smokers from
second-hand smoke. I feel strongly about this because I grew up with asthma
and almost died at age 6 from an asthma attack that developed because of my
father's smoking.

Smoking can kill the people around you. Eating transfats won't (unless they're
sharing your food).

------
Daishiman
Dude looks like he's 30 years younger.

~~~
zinkem
I hope there's a laugh out there for some of you ... =|

