http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228537,00.html

“Consider the most recent review of trans fats research published in the New England Journal of Medicine (April 13, 2006). The review was co-authored by Harvard’s Walter Willett, one of the researchers leading the anti-trans fat campaign.

Willett’s primary claim about trans fats is that they “appear to increase the risk of coronary heart disease more than any other macronutrient.” Willett cites three large studies as “the strongest epidemiologic [real-world] evidence” for this assertion.

Let’s look closely at these studies.

In the so-called “Health Professional Follow-up Study,” more than 43,000 male health professionals were studied for six years to examine the association between dietary fats and heart disease. Although the “raw” results indicated positive correlations between trans fat consumption and heart disease, when other confounding risk factors for heart disease were considered, the correlation with heart disease became statistically insignificant and the correlation with fatal heart attacks became inverted – that is, trans fat consumption slightly reduced the risk of fatal heart attack!

In the “Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study,” the intake of trans fats was studied in almost 22,000 male smokers. The study did not report a statistically significant association between trans fat intake and non-fatal heart attack, and only reported a questionable weak statistical association between very high trans fat intake and fatal heart attacks.

But given that the typical lifestyle characteristics of smokers compared to non-smokers – lower income, more stressful lives, worse diet, higher alcohol consumption, and less exercise – tend to significantly impact heart disease risk, the men in this study are probably not good subjects for an evaluation of trans fats in the first place.

In the third study, known as the “Nurses Health Study,” 80,082 female nurses were followed for 14 years to study the relationship between dietary intake of different types of fats and heart disease. No overall association was reported between trans fat intake and heart disease, although a weak statistical association was reported for women in the top quintile of trans fat intake. But the size of that statistical association (53 percent), however, renders it quite dubious.

As the National Cancer Institute has publicly stated, “In epidemiologic research, [increases in risk of less than 100 percent] are considered small and usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias or effects of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident.”

So there you have it. Those flimsy-to-exculpatory study results are what Harvard’s Willett considers (as of April 2006) to be the “strongest epidemiological evidence” supposedly linking trans fat consumption with heart disease.”

What say you, DarkKnight?? Is this on-point enough for you?

They are very quick to regulate people’s freedom and choices, though.

Gay sex is good (even if it spreads HIV), but transfat is bad (even if the diner does regular excercises).

Since I can’t smoke in restaurants, I no longer go to them, so trans fat or no trans fat garbage means nothing to me.

But to see freedoms taken away one at a time is getting harder and harder to watch. IF you are tired of the nanny state, better stand up and fight it with all you’ve got. I know getting rid of smokers has made a lot of people happy, but you better watch out what you let them keep banning. The next ox they gore may be yours.

Do not thread-jack. I asked a question why Ms. Malkin considered the harmful effects on trans fat “junk science,” despite article after article that describe that harmful effects of trans fat. This thread is about trans-fat and the legislation concerning trans-fat. If you would like to discuss legislation ideas about other subjects, we can discuss that another time because it would be a interesting discussion. But I asked what I consider a legitimate question about the quote “junk science”… to which I have not received any answers.

Would you be interested in providing an answer?

@Little Ma

Be careful how to whom you attribute quotes… because I did not say that quote. Neither did I say whether or not I agreed with that statement. I do not consider myself an expert on trans-fat. It was the Harvard researcher who made that claim about infertility (as I thought I made clear using the “quote” function). I was asking if other people considered his quote “junk science” and if so, why. If you do, fine. But I’m just throwing that quote out there about this researcher who clearly found some major problems with trans fat.

Gee, I don’t know about that. Back in the distant past, before I was informed of the dangers posed by eating trans fats, I had six children in nine years. But that’s just me.

Morons.

(/snark)

I think I can make my own smart food choices, thanks.

I’m thinking Serendipity # 2

Thank you-
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/resources/factsheets/msm.htm

The more trans fats a woman eats, the more likely she is to be infertile, Dr. Jorge E. Chavarro of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and colleagues found.

No, no englishqueen; they want us to be fertile all right; so that the abortions can continue!

The more trans fats a woman eats, the more likely she is to be infertile, Dr. Jorge E. Chavarro of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and colleagues found.

Well, the eco-nuts and human extinction folk want us to be infertile anyway, so why not let us enjoy our doughnuts in the process?

The second hand thingy is as bad as the ethanol hoax, or ‘no WMD were found in Iraq’!!

In the United States, HIV infection and AIDS have had a tremendous effect on men who have sex with men (MSM). MSM accounted for 71% of all HIV infections among male adults and adolescents in 2005 (based on data from 33 states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting), even though only about 5% to 7% of male adults and adolescents in the United States identify themselves as MSM [1, 2].

Notice they don’t dare say it’s ‘gay men’. . . that wouldn’t be PC. . . so they are identified as Men Sex with Men – nothing to do with being gay. And the 5-7% number in America is the highest number I’ve ever seen. . . so this is definitely a ‘pro-gay’ piece.