The Bad News About Trans Fats Keeps Coming

Fred Kummerow is one of the first researchers who discovered the dangers of trans fatty acids in the 1950s. At age 94, he's still at it. His latest study reveals a new way trans fats might increase the chance of cardiac arrest.

"This is the first time that trans fatty acids have been shown to interfere with yet another part of the blood-flow process," said Kummerow, emeritus veterinary biosciences professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He retired in 1971 but still goes into the lab every weekday morning.

In Kummerow's six decades of research on the chemistry of fats and oils, he's published more than 70 articles on trans fats. Last year, he wrote a book, "Cholesterol Won't Kill You, But Trans Fat Could." His latest discovery adds to a long list of evidence pointing to trans fats as significant contributors to heart disease. The report will appear in next month's international journal Atherosclerosis.

Trans fats are associated with inflammation of the arteries, high levels of bad cholesterol and calcified arteries -- all signs of one of the main causes of heart disease, atherosclerosis, where plaque slowly builds up to the point where it interferes with blood flow.

Kummerow's work links trans fats to the other main cause of heart disease -- sudden blood clots in the coronary arteries. His new report shows the fats reduce the amount of a blood-flow enhancer known as prostacyclin. Lower levels of prostacyclin increase the chances for blood clots to develop, which can cause cardiac arrest.

Each year, more than 330,000 people die in the U.S. from coronary heart disease before reaching a hospital or while in an emergency room, according to the American Heart Association. Most of those deaths are the result of sudden cardiac arrest.

Kummerow has been lobbying the federal Food and Drug Administration to ban partially hydrogenated oils from foods, especially because food labels can be misleading. Products can report zero amounts of trans fats when there is less than half a gram per serving.

"I tell you the reason for me to keep living is to ban this stuff out of our diet," he said, "because it will save millions of Americans."