The Oiling of America - part 3
by Mary Enig, PhD and Sally Fallon
(Reprinted by permission from The Weston A. Price Foundation)
Part 1
Part 2
Cholesterol screening for everyone
In November of 1986, the Journal of the American Medical Association
published a series on the Lipid Research Clinics trials, including “Cholesterol
and Coronary Heart Disease: A New Era” by longtime American Heart Association
member Scott Grundy, MD, PhD.35
The article is a disturbing combination of euphoria and agony—euphoria
at the forward movement of the lipid hypothesis juggernaut, and agony
over the elusive nature of real proof. “The recent consensus conference
on cholesterol. . . implied that levels between 200 and 240. . carry at
least a mild increase in risk, which they obviously do. . .” said Grundy,
directly contradicting an earlier statement that “Evidence relating plasma
cholesterol levels to atherosclerosis and CHD has become so strong as
to leave little doubt of the etiologic connection.” Grundy called for
“. . . the simple step of measuring the plasma cholesterol level in all
adults. . . those found to have elevated cholesterol levels can be designated
as at high risk and thereby can enter the medical care system. . . an
enormous number of patients will be included.” Who benefits from “the
simple step of measuring the plasma cholesterol level in all adults?”
Why, hospitals, laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, the vegetable
oil industry, margarine manufacturers, food processors and, of course,
medical doctors. “Many physicians will see the advantages of using drugs
for cholesterol lowering. . .” said Grundy, even though “a positive benefit/risk
ratio for cholesterol-lowering drugs will be difficult to prove.” The
cost in the US of cholesterol screening and cholesterol-lowering drugs
alone now stands at sixty billion dollars per year, even though a positive
risk/benefit ratio for such treatment has never been established. Physicians,
however, have “seen the advantages of using drugs for cholesterol lowering”
as a way of creating patients out of healthy people.
Grundy was equally schizophrenic about the benefits of dietary modification.
“Whether diet has a long term effect on cholesterol remains to be proved,”
he stated, but “Public health advocates furthermore can play an important
role by urging the food industry to provide palatable choices of foods
that are low in cholesterol, saturated fatty acids and total calories.”
Such foods, almost by definition, contain partially hydrogenated vegetable
oils that imitate the advantages of animal fats. Grundy knew that the
trans fats were a problem, that they raised serum cholesterol and
contributed to the etiology of many diseases—he knew because a year earlier,
at his request, Mary Enig had sent him a package of data detailing numerous
studies that gave reason for concern, which he acknowledged in a signed
letter as “an important contribution to the ongoing debate.”
Other mouthpieces of the medical establishment fell in line after the
Consensus Conference. In 1987 the National Academy of Science (NAS) published
an overview in the form of a handout booklet containing a whitewash of
the trans problem and a pejorative description of palm oil—a natural
fat high in beneficial saturates and monounsaturates that, like butter,
has nourished healthy population groups for thousands of years, and, also
like butter, competes with hydrogenated fats because it can be used as
a shortening. The following year the Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition
and Health emphasized the importance of making low-fat foods more widely
available. Project LEAN (Low-Fat Eating for America Now) sponsored by
the J. Kaiser Family Foundation and a host of establishment groups such
as the America Heart Association, the American Dietetic Association, the
American Medical Association, the USDA, the National Cancer Institute,
Centers for Disease Control and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
announced a publicity campaign to “aggressively promote foods low in saturated
fat and cholesterol in order to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer.”
National Food Processors Association Conference
The following year, Enig joined Frank McLaughlin, Director of the Center
for Business and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, in testimony
before the National Food Processors Association. It was a closed conference,
for NFPA members only. Enig and McLaughlin had been invited to give “a
view from academia.” Enig presented a number of slides and warned against
singling out classes of fats and oils for special pejorative labeling.
A representative from Frito-Lay took umbrage at Enig’s slides, which listed
amounts of trans fats in Frito-Lay products. Enig offered to redo the
analyses if Frito-Lay would to fund the research. “If you’d talk different,
you’d get money,” he said.
Enig urged the association to endorse accurate labeling of trans
fats in all food items but conference participants—including representatives
from most of the major food processing giants—preferred a policy of “voluntary
labeling” that did not unnecessarily alert the public to the presence
of trans fats in their foods. To date they have prevailed in preventing
the inclusion of trans fats on nutrition labels.
Enig’s cat and mouse game with Hunter and Applewhite of the Institute
of Shortening and Edible Oils continued throughout the later years of
the 1980’s. Their modus operandi was to pepper the literature with
articles that downplayed the dangers of trans fats, to use their
influence to prevent opposing points of view from appearing in print and
to follow-up the few alarmist articles that did squeak through with “definitive
rebuttals.” In 1987 Enig submitted a paper on trans fatty acids
in the US diet to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, as
a reply to the erroneous 1985 FASEB report as well as to Hunter and Applewhite’s
influential 1986 article, which by even the most conservative analysis
underestimated the average American consumption of partially hydrogenated
fats. Editor-in-chief Albert Mendeloff, MD rejected Enig’s rebuttal as
“inappropriate for the journal’s readership.” His rejection letter invited
her to resubmit her paper if she could come up with “new evidence.” In
1991, the article finally came out in a less prestigious publication,
the Journal of the American College of Nutrition,36
although Applewhite did his best to coerce editor Mildred Seelig into
removing it at the last minute. Hunter and Applewhite submitted letters
and then an article of rebuttal to the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition,37 which were published
shortly thereafter. In the article, entitled “Reassessment of trans fatty
acid availability in the US diet,” Hunter and Applewhite argued that the
amount of trans in the American diet had actually declined since
1984, due to the introduction of soft margarines and tub spreads. The
media fell in line with their pronouncements, with numerous articles by
food writers recommending low-trans tub spreads, made from polyunsaturated
vegetable oils, as the sensible alternative to saturated fat from animal
sources—not surprising as most newspapers rely on the International Food
Information Council, an arm of the food processing industry, for their
nutrition information.
Other research on trans fats
Enig and the University of Maryland group were not alone in their efforts
to bring their concerns about the effect of partially hydrogenated fats
before the public. Fred Kummerow at the University of Illinois, blessed
with independent funding and an abundance of patience, carried out a number
of studies that indicated that the trans fats increased risk factors
associated with heart disease, and that vegetable-oil-based fabricated
foods such as Egg Beaters cannot support life.38
George Mann, formerly with the Framingham project, possessed neither funding
nor patience—he was, in fact, very angry with what he called the Diet/Heart
scam. His independent studies of the Masai in Africa,39
whose diet is extremely rich in cholesterol and saturated fat, and who
are virtually free of heart disease, had convinced him that the lipid
hypothesis was “the public health diversion of this century. . . the greatest
scam in the history of medicine.”40
He resolved to bring the issue before the public by organizing a conference
in Washington DC in November of 1991.
“Hundreds of millions of tax dollars are wasted by the bureaucracy and
the self-interested Heart Association,” he wrote in his invitation to
participants. “Segments of the food industry play the game for profits.
Research on the true causes and prevention is stifled by denying funding
to the ‘unbelievers.’ This meeting will review the data and expose the
rascals.”
The rascals did their best to prevent the meeting from taking place.
Funding promised by the Greenwall Foundation of New York City was later
withdrawn, so Mann paid most of the bills. A press release sent as a dirty
trick to speakers and participants wrongly announced that the conference
had been cancelled. Several speakers did in fact renege at the last minute
on their commitment to attend, including the prestigious Dr. Roslyn Alfin-Slater
and Dr. Peter Nixon of London. Dr. Eliot Corday of Los Angeles cancelled
after being told that his attendance would jeopardize future funding.
The final pared-down roster included Dr. George Mann, Dr. Mary Enig,
Dr. Victor Herbert, Dr. Petr Skrabenek, William B. Parsons, Jr., Dr. James
McCormick, a physician from Dublin, Dr. William Stehbens from New Zealand,
who described the normal protective process of arterial thickening at
points of greatest stress and pressure, and Dr. Meyer Texon an expert
in the dynamics of blood flow. Mann, in his presentation, blasted the
system that had foisted the lipid hypothesis on a gullible public. “You
will see,” he said, “that many of our contributors are senior scientists.
They are so for a reason that has become painfully conspicuous as we organized
this meeting. Scientists who must go before review panels for their research
funding know well that to speak out, to disagree with this false dogma
of Diet/Heart, is a fatal error. They must comply or go unfunded. I could
show a list of scientists who said to me, in effect, when I invited them
to participate: ‘I believe you are right, that the Diet/Heart hypothesis
is wrong, but I cannot join you because that would jeopardize my perks
and funding.’ For me, that kind of hypocritical response separates the
scientists from the operators—the men from the boys.”
90s see the nation well oiled
By the nineties the operators had succeeded, by slick manipulation of
the press and of scientific research, in transforming America into a nation
that was well and truly oiled. Consumption of butter had bottomed out
at about 5 grams per person per day, down from almost 18 at the turn of
the century. Use of lard and tallow had been reduced by two-thirds. Margarine
consumption had jumped from less than 2 grams per person per day in 1909
to about 11 in 1960. Since then consumption figures had changed little,
remaining at about 11 grams per person per day—perhaps because knowledge
of margarine’s dangers had been slowly seeping out to the public. However,
most of the trans fats in the current American diet come not from
margarine but from shortening used in fried and fabricated foods. American
shortening consumption of 10 grams per person per day held steady until
the 1960’s, although the content of that shortening had changed from mostly
lard, tallow and coconut oil—all natural fats—to partially hydrogenated
soybean oil. Then shortening consumption shot up and by 1993 had tripled
to over 30 grams per person per day.
But the most dramatic overall change in the American diet was the huge
increase in the consumption of liquid vegetable oils, from slightly less
than 2 grams per person per day in 1909 to over 30 in 1993—a fifteen fold
increase.
Dangers of polyunsaturates
The irony is that these trends have persisted concurrently with revelations
about the dangers of polyunsaturates. Because polyunsaturates are highly
subject to rancidity, they increase the body’s need for vitamin E and
other antioxidants. Excess consumption of vegetable oils is especially
damaging to the reproductive organs and the lungs—both of which are sites
for huge increases in cancer in the US. In test animals, diets high in
polyunsaturates from vegetable oils inhibit the ability to learn, especially
under conditions of stress; they are toxic to the liver; they compromise
the integrity of the immune system; they depress the mental and physical
growth of infants; they increase levels of uric acid in the blood; they
cause abnormal fatty acid profiles in the adipose tissues; they have been
linked to mental decline and chromosomal damage; they accelerate aging.
Excess consumption of polyunsaturates is associated with increasing rates
of cancer, heart disease and weight gain; excess use of commercial vegetable
oils interferes with the production of prostaglandins leading to an array
of complaints ranging from autoimmune disease to PMS. Disruption of prostaglandin
production leads to an increased tendency to form blood clots, and hence
myocardial infarction, which has reached epidemic levels in America.41
Vegetable oils are more toxic when heated. One study reported that polyunsaturates
turn to varnish in the intestines. A study by a plastic surgeon found
that women who consumed mostly vegetable oils had far more wrinkles than
those who used traditional animal fats. A 1994 study appearing in the
Lancet showed that almost three quarters of the fat in artery clogs
is unsaturated. The “artery clogging” fats are not animal fats but vegetable
oils.42
Those who have most actively promoted the use of polyunsaturated vegetable
oils as part of a Prudent Diet are well aware of their dangers. In 1971,
William B. Kannel, former director of the Framingham study, warned against
including too many polyunsaturates in the diet. A year earlier, Dr. William
Connor of the American Heart Association issued a similar warning, and
Frederick Stare reviewed an article which reported that the use of polyunsaturated
oils caused an increase in breast tumors. And Kritchevsky, way back in
1969, discovered that the use of corn oil caused an increase in atherosclerosis.43
As for the trans fats, produced in vegetable oils when they are
partially hydrogenated, the results that are now in the literature more
than justify concerns of early investigators about the relation between
trans fats and both heart disease and cancer. The research group
at the University of Maryland found that trans fatty acids not
only alter enzymes that neutralize carcinogens, and increase enzymes that
potentiate carcinogens, but also depress milk fat production in nursing
mothers and decrease insulin binding.44
In other words, trans fatty acids in the diet interfere with the
ability of new mothers to nurse successfully and increase the likelihood
of developing diabetes. Unpublished work indicates that trans fats contribute
to osteoporosis. Hanis, a Czechoslovakian researcher, found that trans
consumption decreased testosterone, caused the production of abnormal
sperm and altered gestation.45
Koletzko, a German pediatric researcher found that excess trans
consumption in pregnant mothers predisposed them to low birth weight babies.46
Trans consumption interferes with the body’s use of omega-3 fatty
acids found in fish oils, grains and green vegetables, leading to impaired
prostaglandin production.47 George
Mann confirmed that trans consumption increases the incidence of
heart disease.48 In 1995, European
researchers found a positive correlation between breast cancer rates and
trans consumption.49
Until the 1995 study, only the disturbing revelations of Dutch researchers
Mensink and Katan, in 1990, received front page coverage. Mensink and
Katan found that margarine consumption increased coronary heart disease
risk factors.50 The industry—and
the press—responded by promoting tub spreads, which contain reduced amounts
of trans compared to stick margarine. For the general population,
these trans reductions have been more than offset by changes in
the types of fat used by the fast food industry. In the early 1980’s,
Center for Science in the Public Interest campaigned against the use of
beef tallow for frying potatoes. Before that they campaigned against the
use of tallow for frying chicken and fish. Most fast food concerns switched
to partially hydrogenated soybean oil for all fried foods. Some deep fried
foods have been tested at almost 50% trans.51
Epidemiologist Walter Willett at Harvard worked for many years with
flawed data bases which did not identify trans fats as a dietary component.
He found a correlation with dietary fat consumption and both heart disease
and cancer. After his researchers contacted Enig about the trans data,
they developed a more valid data base that was used in the analysis of
the massive Nurses Study. When Willett’s group separated out the trans
component in their analyses, they were able to confirm greater rates of
cancer in those consuming margarine and vegetable shortenings—not butter,
eggs, cheese and meat.52 The
correlation of trans fat consumption and cancer was never published, but
was reported at the Baltimore Data Bank Conference in 1992.
In 1993 Willett’s research group at Harvard found that trans contributed
to heart disease,53 and this
study was not ignored, but received much fanfare in the press. Willett’s
first reference in his report was Enig’s work on the trans content of
common foods.
The industry continues to argue that American trans consumption is a
low six to eight grams per person per day, not enough to contribute to
today’s epidemic of chronic disease. Total per capita consumption of margarine
and shortening hovers around 40 grams per person per day. If these products
contain 30% trans (many shortenings contain more) then average consumption
is about 12 grams per person per day. In reality, consumption figures
can be dramatically higher for some individuals. A 1989 Washington Post
article documented the diet of a teenage girl who ate 12 donuts and 24
cookies over a three day period. Total trans worked out to at least 30
grams per day, and possibly much more. The fat in the chips that teenagers
consume in abundance may contain up to 48% trans which translates into
45.6 grams of trans fat in a small ten-ounce bag of snack chips—which
a hungry teenager can gobble up in a few minutes. High school sex education
classes do not teach American teenagers that the altered fats in their
snack foods may severely compromise their ability to have normal sex,
conceive, give birth to healthy babies and successfully nurse their infants.
Part 4
References
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