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Stamler showed up again in 1966 as an author of Your Heart Judging from both food data and turn-of-the-century cook- Has Nine Lives, a little self-help book advocating the substitution books, the American diet in 1900 was a rich one, with at least 35 of vegetable oils for butter and other so-called 'artery-clogging' to 40 per cent of calories coming from fats, mostly dairy fats in saturated fats. The book was sponsored by the makers of Mazola the form of butter, cream, whole milk, and also eggs. Salad dress- corn oil and margarine. Stamler did not believe that lack of evi- ing recipes usually called for egg yolks or cream; only occasional - dence should deter Americans from changing their eating habits. ly for olive oil. Lard or tallow served for frying. Rich dishes like The evidence, he stated, was "compelling enough to call for alter- head cheese and scrapple contributed additional saturated fats dur- ing some habits even before the final proof is nailed down...the ing an era when cancer and heart disease were rare. Butter substi- definitive proof that middle-aged men who reduce their blood tutes made up only a small portion of the American diet, and these cholesterol will actually have far fewer heart attacks waits upon margarines were blended from coconut oil, animal tallow and diet studies now in progress". His version of the Prudent Diet lard—all rich in natural saturates. called for substituting low-fat milk products such as skim milk The technology by which liquid vegetable oils could be hard- and low-fat cheeses for cream, butter and whole cheeses, reducing ened to make margarine was first discovered by a French chemist egg consumption and cutting the fat off red meats. Heart disease, named Sabatier. He found that a nickel catalyst would cause the he lectured, was a disease of rich countries, striking rich people hydrogenation (the addition of hydrogen to unsaturated bonds to who ate rich food, including ‘hard’ fats like butter. make them saturated) of ethylene gas to ethane. Subsequently, It was in the same year, 1966, that the results of Dr Jolliffe's the British chemist Norman developed the first application of Anti-Coronary Club experiment were published in JAMA.'? _ hydrogenation to food oils and took out a patent. Those on the Prudent Diet of corn oil, margarine, fish, chicken In 1909, Procter & Gamble acquired the US rights to a British and cold cereal had an average serum cholesterol of 220, com- patent on making liquid vegetable oils solid at room temperature. pared to 250 in the meat-and-potatoes control group. However, The process was used on both cotton-seed oil and lard to give the study authors were obliged to "better physical properties", to create note that there were eight deaths shortenings that did not melt as easily from heart disease among Dr on hot days. Jolliffe's Prudent Diet group, and The hydrogenation process trans- none among those who ate meat In fact, in a 1956 paper, Keys forms unsaturated oils into straight three times a day. Dr Jolliffe was ‘packable' molecules by rearranging dead by this time. He succumbed in had suggested that the increasing the hydrogen atoms at the double 1961 to a vascular thrombosis, use of hydrogenated vegetable bonds. In nature, most double bonds although the obituaries listed the occur in the cis configuration, i.e., cause of death as "complications oils might be the underlying with both hydrogen atoms on the from diabetes". The compelling cause of the CHD epidemic. same side of the carbon chain at the "proof" that Stamler and others were point of the double bond. It is the cis sure would vindicate wholesale tam- isomers of fatty acids that have a pering with American eating habits bend or kink at the double bond, pre- had not yet been "nailed down". venting them from packing together The problem, said the insiders pro- easily. Hydrogenation creates trans moting the lipid hypothesis, was that the numbers involved in the double bonds by moving one hydrogen atom across to the other Anti-Coronary Club experiment were too small. Dr Irving Page side of the carbon chain at the point of the double bond. In effect, urged a National Diet-Heart Study involving one million men, in the two hydrogen atoms then balance each other and the fatty acid which the results of the Prudent Diet could be compared on a straightens, creating a packable ‘plastic’ fat with a much higher large scale with those on a diet high in meat and fat. With great melting temperature. media attention, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Although trans fatty acids are technically unsaturated, they are organised the stocking of food warehouses in six major cities, configured in such a way that the benefits of unsaturation are lost. where men on the Prudent Diet could get tasty polyunsaturated The presence of several unpaired electrons presented by contigu- doughnuts and other fabricated food items free of charge. ous hydrogen atoms in their cis form allows many vital chemical But a pilot study, involving 2,000 men, resulted in exactly the reactions to occur at the site of the double bond. When one same number of deaths in both the Prudent Diet group and control hydrogen atom is moved to the other side of the fatty acid mole- group. A brief report in Circulation (March 1968) stated that the cule during hydrogenation, the ability of living cells to make reac- study was a milestone "in mass environmental experimentation" tions at the site is compromised or altogether lost. Trans fatty that would have "an important effect on the food industry and the acids are sufficiently similar to natural fats that the body readily attitude of the public toward its eating habits". But the million- incorporates them into the cell membrane; once there, their altered man Diet—Heart Study was abandoned in utter silence "for reasons chemical structure creates havoc with thousands of necessary of cost". Its chairman, Dr Irving Page, died of a heart attack. chemical reactions—everything from energy provision to prostaglandin production. ost animal fats—like butter, lard and tallow—have a After the Second World War, 'improvements' made it possible Me« roportion of saturated fatty acids. Saturated fats to plasticise highly unsaturated oils from corn and soybeans. New are straight chains of carbon and hydrogen that pack catalysts allowed processors to ‘selectively hydrogenate' the kinds together easily so that they are relatively solid at room tempera- of fatty acids found in soy and canola oils—those with three dou- ture. Oils from seeds are composed mostly of polyunsaturated ble bonds. Called ‘partial hydrogenation’, this new method fatty acids. These molecules have kinks in them at the point of allowed processors to replace cotton-seed oil with more unsaturat- the unsaturated double bond. They do not pack together easily ed corn and soybean oils in margarines and shortenings. This and therefore tend to be liquid at room temperature. spurred a meteoric rise in soybean production from virtually ost animal fats—like butter, lard and tallow—have a Me« proportion of saturated fatty acids. Saturated fats are straight chains of carbon and hydrogen that pack together easily so that they are relatively solid at room tempera- ture. Oils from seeds are composed mostly of polyunsaturated fatty acids. These molecules have kinks in them at the point of the unsaturated double bond. They do not pack together easily and therefore tend to be liquid at room temperature. NEXUS - 21 DECEMBER 1998 - JANUARY 1999