Why are trans fats bad for you, what do they do to your body?
In: Chemistry
Basically there are two types of cholesterol, a kind that’s molecules are more *cohesive* and a kind that is more *adhesive*. Your body needs cholesterol but the bad kind sticks to the walls of your veins and arteries instead of being carried back through your system to be processed by your liver. The accumulation of these bad cholesterols narrows your arteries as well as making them more vulnerable to tearing. Transfats not only raise the amount of the bad kind of cholesterol, they lower the amount of the good kind (that sticks to other cholesterol molecules and carry them through to be processed correctly.
Well think of fats like a line. The line can be straight because it has hydrogen in it (saturated) or kinked because it is missing a hydrogen (unsaturated, sometimes ‘mono’ (one kink) or more than one (poly)).
The fats you find in nature are all kinked in the same ways, and your body has evolved to handle them. It processes them and uses them for energy or construction.
Trans fats are not kinked the right way. They are kinked backwards and your body can’t handle them well at all. It tries to use them where a normal fat would be and it doesn’t work right. This causes your body to react poorly, causing inflammation, micro trauma to tissues and can cause a lot of issues, like cardiovascular disease, organ damage and so on. Even a couple grams a day can really hurt you. They are not an acceptable food.
There are ‘natural’ trans fats which your body can handle (called conjugated linoleic acids) which don’t do this.
How do they make trans fats? Well they first get liquid, kinked fats missing hydrogens. Then they bubble hot hydrogen gas through it to saturate them with hydrogen and unkink them, making them straight, more densely packed and now solid. Issue is this process makes them half kinked one way (cis) and half kinked the other way (trans). Eating the trans stuff kills you.
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The particularly bad kind are artificial/industrial trans fats, which are vegetable oils (unsaturated fats) chemically altered to stay solid at room temperature (for longer shelf life).
Having them (rather than other fats) increases risk of heart disease. They interfere with the body’s ability to process essential fatty acids (ex. Onega-3). The US has banned them since 2020.
Because health scientists are clearly transphobic! /j
It’s because while all fats contribute to cholesterol, there are 2 broad types of cholesterol:
1) Cohesive Cholesterol (HDL): Which sticks to other chunks of cholesterol.
2) Adhesive Cholesterol (LDL): That sticks to stuff other than cholesterol.
LDL cholesterol is the problematic type. It sticks to the walls of your arteries, which can block blood flow and cause things like heart attacks and strokes.
Transfats tend to create more LDL cholesterol than HDL.
Fat molecules have long chains of atoms. Trans fats kink the chain into Z shapes. Nontrans (cis) fats kink the chain into C shapes. The enzymes in your body better fit the C shape and have compatability issues with trans fats.
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