Association, the American Dietetic Association, and the National Academy of Sciences had all endorsed the lipid hypothesis and cautioned Americans to avoid animal fats.
Soon Congress jumped on the vegetable oil bandwagon. In 1977, George McGovern’s Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs published “Dietary Goals for the United States.” Citing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data on fat consumption, the report stated categorically that “the overconsumption of fat, generally, and saturated fat in particular…have been related to six of the ten leading causes of death” in the United States. The report urged Americans to reduce overall fat intake and to substitute polyunsaturates for saturated fat from animal sources—margarine and corn oil for butter, lard, and tallow.
Opposing testimony included a moving letter—buried in the voluminous report—by Dr. Fred Kummerow of the University of Illinois, urging a return to traditional whole foods and warning against the use of soft drinks. In the early 1970s, Kummerow had shown that trans fatty acids caused increased rates of heart disease in pigs. A private endowment allowed him to continue his research, for government funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health refused to give him further grants.
Enter Mary Enig
That same year, Mary Enig, a graduate student at the University of Maryland, began research on the levels of trans fatty acids in foods and the effects of dietary trans fatty acids on important enzyme systems in mice (mice react to drugs and other chemical carcinogens in a way similar to humans). When she read the McGovern Committee report, she was puzzled because she was familiar with Kummerow’s research and knew that animal fat consumption was declining, not increasing. So how could the McGovern Committee find a connection between animal fat and heart disease?
Enig’s own analysis of the same USDA data that the McGovern Committee cited pointed to very different conclusions: that people eating animal fat actually had less heart disease (as well as less cancer, another concern of the committee) than those who ate vegetable oil. She wrote a paper describing her findings, which was published in the Proceedings of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in July 1978. Her paper used the McGovern Committee’s own data to refute its conclusions that animal fats cause heart disease and cancer. She noted further that the data pointed a finger at trans fatty acids as possible causes of these diseases. In conclusion, she called for further investigation.
Mary and the other University of Maryland researchers recognized the need for more research in two areas:
The first question involved the effects of trans fats on cells once these fats became part of the cell membrane.
While some studies indicated that trans fatty acids posed no danger in a normal diet, Mary and her colleagues were not so sure. Some research indicated that the trans fats contributed to heart disease. Mary’s own research, published in her 1984 doctoral dissertation, indictated that trans fats interfered with enzyme systems in the body that made carcinogens harmless and increased enzymes that made carcinogens more toxic.
----
Mary Enig Remembers
My paper rang alarm bells throughout the food industry. In early 1979, a representative from the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers came to see me. Visibly annoyed, he explained that both his association and the Institute for Shortening and Edible Oils (ISEO) kept careful watch to prevent articles like mine from appearing. My paper should never have been published, he said, since ISEO was supposed to be “watching out.” As he put it, “We left the barn door open, and the horse got out.”
He also challenged the data from the USDA that the committee and I had both used. He knew this data was incorrect, he told me, “because we give it to them.” He didn’t say the data
Soon Congress jumped on the vegetable oil bandwagon. In 1977, George McGovern’s Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs published “Dietary Goals for the United States.” Citing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data on fat consumption, the report stated categorically that “the overconsumption of fat, generally, and saturated fat in particular…have been related to six of the ten leading causes of death” in the United States. The report urged Americans to reduce overall fat intake and to substitute polyunsaturates for saturated fat from animal sources—margarine and corn oil for butter, lard, and tallow.
Opposing testimony included a moving letter—buried in the voluminous report—by Dr. Fred Kummerow of the University of Illinois, urging a return to traditional whole foods and warning against the use of soft drinks. In the early 1970s, Kummerow had shown that trans fatty acids caused increased rates of heart disease in pigs. A private endowment allowed him to continue his research, for government funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health refused to give him further grants.
Enter Mary Enig
That same year, Mary Enig, a graduate student at the University of Maryland, began research on the levels of trans fatty acids in foods and the effects of dietary trans fatty acids on important enzyme systems in mice (mice react to drugs and other chemical carcinogens in a way similar to humans). When she read the McGovern Committee report, she was puzzled because she was familiar with Kummerow’s research and knew that animal fat consumption was declining, not increasing. So how could the McGovern Committee find a connection between animal fat and heart disease?
Enig’s own analysis of the same USDA data that the McGovern Committee cited pointed to very different conclusions: that people eating animal fat actually had less heart disease (as well as less cancer, another concern of the committee) than those who ate vegetable oil. She wrote a paper describing her findings, which was published in the Proceedings of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in July 1978. Her paper used the McGovern Committee’s own data to refute its conclusions that animal fats cause heart disease and cancer. She noted further that the data pointed a finger at trans fatty acids as possible causes of these diseases. In conclusion, she called for further investigation.
Mary and the other University of Maryland researchers recognized the need for more research in two areas:
The first question involved the effects of trans fats on cells once these fats became part of the cell membrane.
While some studies indicated that trans fatty acids posed no danger in a normal diet, Mary and her colleagues were not so sure. Some research indicated that the trans fats contributed to heart disease. Mary’s own research, published in her 1984 doctoral dissertation, indictated that trans fats interfered with enzyme systems in the body that made carcinogens harmless and increased enzymes that made carcinogens more toxic.
----
Mary Enig Remembers
My paper rang alarm bells throughout the food industry. In early 1979, a representative from the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers came to see me. Visibly annoyed, he explained that both his association and the Institute for Shortening and Edible Oils (ISEO) kept careful watch to prevent articles like mine from appearing. My paper should never have been published, he said, since ISEO was supposed to be “watching out.” As he put it, “We left the barn door open, and the horse got out.”
He also challenged the data from the USDA that the committee and I had both used. He knew this data was incorrect, he told me, “because we give it to them.” He didn’t say the data
Similar Books
