{"id":39769,"date":"2013-11-07T15:20:15","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T20:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=news&p=39769"},"modified":"2013-11-07T15:20:15","modified_gmt":"2013-11-07T20:20:15","slug":"fda-seeks-to-eliminate-trans-fats-from-food-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2013\/11\/07\/fda-seeks-to-eliminate-trans-fats-from-food-in-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"FDA Seeks to Eliminate Trans Fat from Food in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

The FDA\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0today that it would begin to take efforts to remove\u00a0trans<\/em>\u00a0fat from food in the U.S. The agency has made the “preliminary determination that\u00a0partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the primary dietary source of artificial\u00a0trans<\/em>\u00a0fat in processed foods, are not ‘generally recognized as safe’ for use in food.”<\/p>\n

If the FDA’s preliminary determination is made final then manufacturers will be required to reformulate products containing PHOs. The FDA will seek comments on the proposal for 60 days “to gain input on the time potentially needed for food manufacturers to reformulate products that currently contain artificial\u00a0trans<\/em>\u00a0fat.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile consumption of potentially harmful artificial\u00a0trans<\/em>\u00a0fat has declined over the last two decades in the United States, current intake remains a significant public health concern,\u201d said FDA Commissioner\u00a0Margaret Hamburg. \u201cThe FDA\u2019s action today is an important step toward protecting more Americans from the potential dangers of\u00a0trans\u00a0<\/em>fat. Further reduction in the amount of\u00a0trans<\/em>\u00a0fat in the American diet could prevent an additional 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths from heart disease each year \u2013 a critical step in the protection of Americans\u2019 health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Trans<\/em>\u00a0fat has long been known to raise LDL cholesterol. The FDA cited an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report that concluded that “trans\u00a0<\/em>fat provides no known health benefit and that there is no safe level of consumption of artificial\u00a0trans<\/em>\u00a0fat.”<\/p>\n

Trans<\/em> fat consumption in the U.S. has declined dramatically in recent years. In 2006, trans<\/em>\u00a0fat content became a standard part of food labels. \u00a0Trans<\/em>\u00a0fat intake dropped from 4.6 grams per day in 2003 to 1 gram per day currently, according to the FDA. Nevertheless,\u00a0trans\u00a0<\/em>fat is still contained in some processed foods, including, according to the FDA, desserts, microwave popcorn products, frozen pizzas, margarines, and coffee creamers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe artery is still half clogged,\u201d CDC director Thomas R. Frieden told the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cThis is about preventing people from being exposed to a harmful chemical that most of the time they didn\u2019t even know was there.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FDA\u00a0said\u00a0today that it would begin to take efforts to remove\u00a0trans\u00a0fat from food in the U.S. The agency has made the “preliminary determination that\u00a0partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the primary dietary source of artificial\u00a0trans\u00a0fat in processed foods, are not ‘generally recognized as safe’ for use in food.” If the FDA’s preliminary determination is made final then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[196,2050,533,1305,2049],"class_list":["post-39769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-prevention","tag-fda","tag-food","tag-ldl-cholesterol","tag-nutrition","tag-trans-fats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}