Hyderabad: In the wake of the WHO alarm bells on increasing deaths due to trans fats, doctors say that more and more people are facing health problems because of the consumption of trans fats in large quantities.
It increases the risk of heart disease by 21 per cent and death by 28 per cent.
Trans fats are a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in small amounts in nature, but became widely produced industrially from vegetable fats for use in margarine, snack food, packaged baked goods, and frying fast food.
WHO has said that trans fats intake leads to more than 5,00,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease, and wants its use phased out.
Dr Ravi Shankar, senior gastroenterologist, said, “Trans fats are mainly found in fast foods and if they are consumed in higher quantities, they lead to premature death and accumulation of fats in one’s blood vessels which can even lead to cerebral palsy. Our daily intake of calories trans fats should be less than 2 per cent.
“We should drink toned milk or skimmed milk preferably.”
Nutritionist Sujatha Stephen said, “We used to have only saturated and unsaturated fats but nowadays because of the advent of the western foods the use of trans fats is increasing. It is important to create awareness among people to read the nutrition label on food products which gives information about main ingredients and the percentage of trans fats.”
WHO aims to eliminate the use of trans fats world wide by 2023 and released REPLACE, a step-by-step guide for the elimination of industrially-produced trans-fatty acids from the global food supply.
The guidelines include how to replace industrially produced trans fats, review dietary sources of trans fats, promote healthier fats and oils and to create awareness about the negative impact of trans fats among other measures.
The method of cooking leads to trans fats in one's food and experts have suggested keeping a check on the same.
Dr M.S.S. Mukharjee, senior cardiologist, said, “Trans fats are produced when oil is repeatedly heated. It is detrimental to health even if it is present in small quantities like in chips. Even in our home, we use oil twice for boiling puris.”
“Everyone should control their diet from a young age or else the ill effects of trans fats is irreparable,” he said.
