Observations placeholder
Healing by AVOIDING Long-term intake of trans fatty acids in ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease
Identifier
026327
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Trans fat, or trans-unsaturated fatty acids, trans fatty acids, are a type of unsaturated fat that became widely produced industrially from vegetable fats for use in margarine, snack food, packaged baked goods, and frying fast food starting in the 1950s.
Trans fat has already been shown to consistently be associated, in an intake-dependent way, with increased risk of coronary artery disease, a leading cause of death in Western nations. Here it is associated with Crohn's disease.
Fats contain long hydrocarbon chains, which can either be unsaturated, i.e., have double bonds, or saturated, i.e., have no double bonds. In nature, unsaturated fatty acids generally have cis as opposed to trans configurations. To put this another way, these products have no presence in nature.
In food production, liquid cis-unsaturated fats such as vegetable oils are hydrogenated to produce saturated fats, which have more desirable physical properties, e.g. they melt at a desirable temperature (30–40 °C). Partial hydrogenation of the unsaturated fat converts some of the cis double bonds into trans double bonds by an isomerization reaction with the catalyst used for the hydrogenation, which yields a trans fat.
A description of the experience
Gut. 2014 May;63(5):776-84. doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2013-305304. Epub 2013 Jul 4.
Long-term intake of dietary fat and risk of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
Ananthakrishnan AN1, Khalili H, Konijeti GG, Higuchi LM, de Silva P, Fuchs CS, Willett WC, Richter JM, Chan AT. 1 Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, , Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION:
Dietary fats influence intestinal inflammation and regulate mucosal immunity. Data on the association between dietary fat and risk of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are limited and conflicting.
METHODS:
We conducted a prospective study of women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study cohorts. Diet was prospectively ascertained every 4 years using a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. Self-reported CD and UC were confirmed through medical record review. We examined the effect of energy-adjusted cumulative average total fat intake and specific types of fat and fatty acids on the risk of CD and UC using Cox proportional hazards models adjusting for potential confounders.
RESULTS:
Among 170,805 women, we confirmed 269 incident cases of CD (incidence 8/100,000 person-years) and 338 incident cases of UC (incidence 10/100,000 person-years) over 26 years and 3,317,338 person-years of follow-up. Cumulative energy-adjusted intake of total fat, saturated fats, unsaturated fats, n-6 and n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) were not associated with risk of CD or UC. However, greater intake of long-chain n-3 PUFAs was associated with a trend towards lower risk of UC (HR 0.72, 95% CI 0.51 to 1.01). In contrast, high long-term intake of trans-unsaturated fatty acids was associated with a trend towards an increased incidence of UC (HR 1.34, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.92).
CONCLUSIONS:
A high intake of dietary long-chain n-3 PUFAs may be associated with a reduced risk of UC. In contrast, high intake of trans-unsaturated fats may be associated with an increased risk of UC.
KEYWORDS:
Crohn's Disease; Diet; Dietary Factors; Ulcerative Colitis
PMID:
23828881