Search results: USDA meat

The latest Salmonella outbreak comes courtesy of Pacific Coast Fruit Company, which produces Taylor Farms Organic Power Greens Kale Medley.

Alas, Salmonella do not care whether or not vegetables are USDA Certified Organic—even kale.

Coral Beach discusses the details of the investigation into this outbreak at Food Safety News this morning.

And food safety lawyer Bill Marler has some pointed questions about this outbreak.

•  Why no announcement of the Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak?
•  Why no recall of the product?
•  Given that the product was distributed nationwide, are we seeing a spike in Salmonella Enteritis cases in states other than Minnesota?
• Why was the announcement removed from Pacific Coast Fruit Website?

He also has plenty to say about what another recent outbreak (this one due to frozen vegetables contaminated with Listeria) tells us about what is and what is not working in our current food safety system.

His essay makes the point that foodborne illness outbreaks due to contaminated meat are becoming increasingly rare.  Most current outbreaks are due to contaminated vegetables.

How come?  For meat, the system is working.

• Regulation: prevention controls on meat and poultry went into effect in the mid-1990s.
• The CDC’s ability to track outbreaks is good and getting better, thanks to genetic fingerprinting.
• Government agencies are doing more testing.
• The US Attorney’s office has shown interest in “finding companies and their CEOs criminally responsible for manufacturing tainted foods.  Lawsuits and jail time have a unique ability to make companies pay attention.”
• Recalls are “both disruptive and expensive.”
• Publicity about recalls discourages the public from buying similar products.

In sum, “recall costs, slumping sales, along with civil and criminal liability, are powerful market incentives.   The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) should help once companies start following its regulations.

He ought to know.  When Congress was foot-dragging on passing FSMA, Marler sent every member of Congress a tee shirt with this image:

He better be careful.  If he’s right about market forces cleaning up food safety problems, he may get his wish.

But we still have a long way to go on vegetable safety, apparently.

Congress in its infinite wisdom is now doing Big Ag a big favor.  It wants to exempt checkoff programs from having to deal with pesky Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

The House Appropriations Committee just approved its version of the 2017 Agriculture Appropriations bill along with committee report language getting checkoffs off the hook.

Checkoff programs, you will recall are commodity research and promotion programs run by boards and overseen by USDA.   The Milk Board, for example, does the milk mustache campaign.

Checkoffs mainly do generic marketing.  They are not supposed to lobby.  The USDA is supposed to manage the boards—but not with federal money.

So are checkoffs government programs or not?

The checkoffs like to say they are government when convenient, but not government when inconvenient.  This is one of those times.

The report language says because checkoffs are “not agencies of the federal government,” they should not be subject to FOIA laws.

I learned about this latest example of congressional protection of industry from a tweet on May 2 from Associated Press reporter Candice Choi.

Food commodity trade groups, she shows, wrote a letter to Congress to exempt checkoff programs from being subject to FOIA requests.

Congress happily incorporated that language right into the Appropriations Act.

In their article about this latest act of hypocrisy, Candice Choi and Mary Clare Jalonick write:

On April 11, a group of 14 trade associations sent a letter to Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., chairman of the House Appropriations agriculture subcommittee, and Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., the subcommittee’s top Democrat, asking them to urge USDA to recognize that the promotional programs are not subject to public records requests.  The rationale was that the programs are funded by producers, according to a copy of a letter obtained by the AP.

Irony alert: A Supreme Court decision in 2005 upheld the checkoffs’ collection of fees from producers as being protected as “government speech.”

Hypocrisy alert: Trade associations wrote the letter, not the checkoff boards.  This is because the boards are not allowed to lobby, but their closely related trade associations can.

Choi and Jalonick also point out that:

The checkoff programs were established by the government at the industry’s urging as a way to collect mandatory fees from producers for promotional efforts. That has resulted in considerable marketing muscle for agricultural products. Last year, the egg board had revenue of more than $22 million; the pork board’s revenue topped $98 million in 2014.

The Fern quotes professor Parke Wilde of Tufts University, a long-standing expert on checkoff programs.  These, he says,

have always been subject to freedom of information laws. It stands to reason: Farmers and the public deserve to know what’s really going on with these well-funded USDA-sponsored programs….

Wilde obtained documents

about the 2006 decision by the Pork Board to pay $60 million to the National Pork Producers Council for the rights to the advertising slogan of pork as “the other white meat.” Wilde wrote in 2013, “It looks to me like the sale price was drastically inflated as a way of funneling money from the semi-public checkoff program to the private-sector trade association.”

Just last year, a FOIA request from The Guardian, revealed that the egg checkoff, working with Unilever, agreed to use its influence to have Hampton Creek’s Just Mayo removed from Whole Foods.

Lobbying or not?  You decide.

The National Farmers Union says it

strongly opposes the blurred lines between the commodity trade associations and the checkoff boards. Our policy states that mandatory producer assessments should not go to organizations that engage in lobbying, and no contracts should be awarded to organizations that carry out political or lobbying activities.

FOIA is a central pillar of transparency in our democracy. It provides for an open government where citizens can request records from federal agencies – with some exemptions for national security, law enforcement and personal privacy…Take a look at the letter NFU sent today, and let your members of Congress know that this language is not in the best interest of family farmers, ranchers or consumers.

Thanks to The Hagstrom Report for this list of references

▪ Capital Press — Commodity groups seek Freedom of Information exemption for checkoff boards

▪ National Public Radio — Under Attack, Commodity Promotion Programs Try To Hide Their Emails

▪ U.S. Food Policy —Checkoff program supporters seek to shield checkoff boards from freedom-of-information scrutiny

▪ The Guardian — Largest U.S. food producers ask Congress to shield lobbying activities

▪ Fortune — Where’s the Beef? You Won’t be Able to Find Out if Agricultural Groups Get Their Way

I’ve just heard about the new Netherlands food guide.  It emphasizes sustainability.  According to an article in National Geographic’s The Plate,

The Netherlands Nutrition Centre says  it is recommending people eat just two servings of meat a week, setting an explicit limit on meat consumption for the first time [but see added comment below].

Here’s what the Netherlands food guide looks like.

Google translator calls this a pyramid, and explains: “Moreover, the Pyramid helps you eat more environmentally friendly broadly.”

Ours, of course, looks like this.  I’m guessing the USDA is working on a new food guide in response to the 2015 Dietary Guidelines.  These do not mention sustainability at all—the S word.

If you want to check out food guides m other countries, see FAO’s pages on food-based dietary guidelines.  You can search the site by regions and countries.  Fun!

Added comment: A reader from Amsterdam, who obviously speaks Dutch better than Google translator, and who also is well versed in the Dutch nutrition scene, writes:

Sustainability is indeed an important concern in the new Dutch food guide. However, the recommendation for meat is not ‘two servings per week’, but two servings of red meat and two servings of white meat (chicken), for a total of four per week. One serving is 100 gram or 3.5 oz. of meat. Diehards may add a third serving of red meat; 300 g of red meat (11 oz) plus 200 g of chicken (7 oz) per week is considered the absolute limit.

The fish advice has been reduced from twice to once a week because environmental concerns were thought to outweigh the small health benefit of a second weekly serving of fish.

Thanks to a reader for sending these items from a journal that I don’t usually come across.  These bring the casually collected total since last March to 145 studies favorable to the sponsor versus 12 that are not.

Consuming the daily recommended amounts of dairy products would reduce the prevalence of inadequate micronutrient intakes in the United States: diet modeling study based on NHANES 2007–2010.  Erin E Quann, Victor L Fulgoni III and Nancy Auestad. Nutrition Journal 2015; 14:90 DOI: 10.1186/s12937-015-0057-5

• Conclusion: Increasing dairy food consumption to recommended amounts is one practical dietary change that could significantly improve the population’s adequacy for certain vitamins and minerals that are currently under-consumed, as well as have a positive impact on health.
• Funding: The study and the writing of the manuscript were supported by Dairy Management Inc.

Association of lunch meat consumption with nutrient intake, diet quality and health risk factors in U.S. children and adults: NHANES 2007–201Sanjiv Agarwal, Victor L. Fulgoni III and Eric P. Berg. Nutrition Journal. 2015;14:128.  DOI: 10.1186/s12937-015-011f8-9

• Conclusions: The results of this study may provide insight into how to better utilize lunch meats in the diets of U.S. children and adults.
• Funding: The present study was funded by North American Meat Institute.

A review and meta-analysis of prospective studies of red and processed meat, meat cooking methods, heme iron, heterocyclic amines and prostate cancer.  Lauren C. Bylsma and Dominik D. Alexander.  Nutrition Journal. 2015;14:125. DOI: 10.1186/s12937-015-0111-3

• Conclusion: Dose-response analyses did not reveal significant patterns of associations between red or processed meat and prostate cancer….although we observed a weak positive summary estimate for processed meats.
• Funding: This work was supported in part by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), a contractor to the Beef Checkoff. NCBA did not contribute to the writing, analysis, interpretation of the research findings, or the decision to publish…LCB and DDA are employees of EpidStat Institute. EpidStat received partial funding from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), a contractor to the Beef Checkoff, for work related to this manuscript. The conceptualization, writing, analysis, and interpretation of research findings was performed independently.

Are restrictive guidelines for added sugars science based?  Jennifer Erickson and Joanne Slavin.  Nutrition Journal. 2015;14:124.  DOI: 10.1186/s12937-015-0114-0

• Conclusion: However, there is currently no evidence stating that added sugar is more harmful than excess calories from any other food source. The addition of restrictive added sugar recommendations may not be the most effective intervention in the treatment and prevention of obesity and other health concerns.
• Disclosure: Jennifer Erickson, is a PhD student in Nutrition at the University of Minnesota working with Dr. Joanne Slavin. Joanne Slavin is a professor in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota.  In the past 5 years, she has given 150 scientific presentations in 13 countries. Many of these meetings received sponsorship from companies and associations with an interest in carbohydrates and nutritive sweeteners…Her research funding for the past 5 years has included grants from General Mills, Inc., Tate and Lyle, Nestle Health Sciences, Kellogg Company, USA Rice, USA Pears, Minnesota Beef Council, Minnesota Cultivated Wild Rice Council, Barilla Company, USDA, American Egg Board, American Pulse Association, MNDrive Global Food Ventures, International Life Science Institute (ILSI), and the Mushroom Council. She serves on the scientific advisory board for Tate and Lyle, Kerry Ingredients, Atkins Nutritionals, Midwest Dairy Association and the Alliance for Potato Research and Education (APRE). She holds a 1/3 interest in the Slavin Sisters Farm LLC, a 119 acre farm in Walworth, WI.

Cow’s milk-based beverage consumption in 1- to 4-year-olds and allergic manifestations: an RCT.  M. V. Pontes, T. C. M. Ribeiro, H. Ribeiro, A. P. de Mattos, I. R. Almeida, V. M. Leal, G. N. Cabral, S. Stolz, W. Zhuang and D. M. F. Scalabrin.  Nutrition Journal. 2016;15:19.  DOI: 10.1186/s12937-016-0138-0

• Conclusion: A cow’s milk-based beverage containing DHA, PDX/GOS, and yeast β-glucan, and supplemented with micronutrients, including zinc, vitamin A and iron, when consumed 3 times/day for 28 weeks by healthy 1- to 4-year-old children was associated with fewer episodes of allergic manifestations in the skin and the respiratory tract.
• Funding: This study was funded by Mead Johnson Nutrition…The study products were provided by Mead Johnson Nutrition. Dr. Scalabrin, S. Stolz, and W. Zhuang work in Clinical Research, Department of Medical Affairs at Mead Johnson Nutrition. All of the remaining authors have no financial relationships to disclose.

Whole grain consumption trends and associations with body weight measures in the United States: results from the cross sectional National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001–2012.  Ann M. Albertson, Marla Reicks, Nandan Joshi and Carolyn K. Gugger.  Nutrition Journal 2016;15:8.  DOI: 10.1186/s12937-016-0126-4

• Conclusions: The data from the current study suggest that greater whole grain consumption is associated with better intakes of nutrients and healthier body weight in children and adults. Continued efforts to promote increased intake of whole grain foods are warranted.
• Competing interests:  Marla Reicks received an unrestricted gift from the General Mills Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition during the manuscript preparation to support research at the University of Minnesota.  Carolyn Gugger and Nandan Joshi are current employees and stockholders of General Mills, Inc.  Ann Albertson was an employee of General Mills, Inc during the conception, analysis and initial preparation of the manuscript. She is currently retired from General Mills.
• Non-financial competing interests: General Mills, Inc is a global consumer foods company that manufactures and sells products across a broad variety of food categories, including grain-based foods. General Mills product portfolio includes ready-to-eat cereals, cereal bars, baked goods, flour, and salty snacks that may contain whole grain.

Readers have filed corrections to previous postings on industry-funded studies (see here and here).  I am most grateful for their sharp eyes.  No excuses, but I’m having a hard time keeping them straight because there are so many, some are published first online and then again in print, and sometimes I just get them wrong.  Apologies.

The corrections reduce the count to 132/12.  But here are three more to bring it back up to 135/12.

Management of obesity.  George A Bray, Gema Frühbeck, Donna H Ryan, John P H Wilding.  The Lancet.  Published online February 8, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00271-3.

• Conclusion: For patients who struggle with weight loss and who would receive health benefit from weight loss, management of medications that are contributing to weight gain and use of approved medications for chronic weight management along with lifestyle changes are appropriate. Medications approved in the USA or European Union are orlistat, naltrexone/bupropion, and liraglutide; in the USA, lorcaserin and phentermine/topiramate are also available. Surgical management (gastric banding, sleeve gastrectomy, and Roux-en Y gastric bypass) can produce remarkable health improvement and reduce mortality for patients with severe obesity.
• Declaration of interests GAB is a consultant to Herbalife International and Medifast; a member of the Speakers Bureau for Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceuticals; and receives royalties from Up-to-Date and Handbook of Obesity. GF is a consultant to Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals. DHR is a consultant to Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Eisai Pharmaceuticals, Vivus Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Amgen Pharmaceuticals, Real Appeal, Gila Therapeutics, Tulip Medical, and Scientific Intake; is on the speakers’ bureau for Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Eisai Pharmaceuticals, and Vivus Pharmaceuticals; and has equity ownership in Scientifi c Intake. JPHW received grant funding from Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca, and is a consultant to Novo Nordisk, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, and Pfi zer Pharmaceuticals.

The effects of potatoes and other carbohydrate side dishes consumed with meat on food intake, glycemia and satiety response in children.  R Akilen, N Deljoomanesh, S Hunschede, CE Smith, MU Arshad, R Kubant and GH Anderson.  Nutrition & Diabetes (2016) 6, e195; doi:10.1038/nutd.2016.1

• Conclusions: The physiological functions of CHO foods consumed ad libitum at meal time on food intake, appetite, BG, insulin and gut hormone responses in children is not predicted by the GI [glycemic index].
• Acknowledgements: This study was supported by the Alliance for Potato Research and Education (APRE).
• Comment: David Ludwig, M.D., PhD says: “Potatoes are at the top of the list for weight gain according to the best epidemiological research studies. A small new study claimed that potatoes actually had beneficial effects on appetite. There’s just one thing: The study was fully funded by the Alliance for Potato Research and Education, whose mission is to ‘recognize the role of all forms of the potato in promoting health for all age groups.’”  Here’s the press release from the Alliance for Potato Research & Education.

Nutrient Intakes and Vegetable and White Potato Consumption by Children Aged 1 to 3 Years.  Maureen L Storey and Patricia A Anderson.  doi: 10.3945/​an.115.008656.  Adv Nutr January 2016 Adv Nutr vol. 7: 241S-246S, 2016.

• Conclusion: The consumption of all vegetables, particularly those that are excellent sources of potassium and DF, such as potatoes, should be encouraged.
• Funding: Presented at the Roundtable on Science and Policy: Adopting a Fruitful Vegetable Encounter for Our Children. The roundtable was sponsored by the USDA/Agricultural Research Service Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, and was held in Chicago, IL, 10–11 November 2014. The roundtable and supplement publication were supported by an unrestricted grant from the Alliance for Potato Research and Education. The roundtable speakers received travel funding and an honorarium for participation in the meeting and manuscript preparation. Author disclosures: ML Storey is a paid employee of the Alliance for Potato Research and Education; PA Anderson is a paid consultant for the Alliance for Potato Research and Education.
• Comment: Potato trade associations must be really worried about views like those of Dr. Ludwig.  Personally, I love potatoes and think they are delicious but should be eaten in moderation of course, and not in the form of French fries.  Speculation: I wonder if frequent consumption of French fries could be a marker of unhealthful diets in general?

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines are out.

They are now online in a version that takes up dozens of screens with annoying drop-down boxes.  It’s hard to navigate, and if it’s searchable, I can’t figure out how (OK, it’s searchable but doesn’t work all that well).

First the good news.  These Dietary Guidelines—for the first time—attempt to focus on foods and dietary patterns:

Previous editions of the Dietary Guidelines focused primarily on individual dietary components such as food groups and nutrients. However, people do not eat food groups and nutrients in isolation but rather in combination, and the totality of the diet forms an overall eating pattern.

They almost succeed in this mission.  The Guidelines say:

• Follow a healthy eating pattern across the lifespan [Pattern].
• Focus on variety, nutrient density, and amount [Pattern].
• Limit calories from added sugars and saturated fats and reduce sodium intake [Oops: Nutrients].
• Shift to healthier food and beverage choices [Pattern].
• Support healthy eating patterns for all [Pattern].

A healthy eating pattern, they say:

• Includes foods from various groups [Pattern].
• Limits saturated fats, trans fats, added sugars, and sodium [Oops: Nutrients].

As for (Oops) Nutrients:

• Less than 10% of calories from added sugars [this is new, but consistent with many other reports such as the one from WHO]
• Less than 10% of calories from saturated fats [in the Guidelines since 1990]
• Less than 2,300 mg sodium [no change from 2010]

Why Oops?  Because these Dietary Guidelines, like all previous versions, recommend foods when they suggest “eat more.”   But they switch to nutrients whenever they suggest “eat less.”

In the 2015 Dietary Guidelines,

• Saturated fat is a euphemism for meat.
• Added sugars is a euphemism for sodas and other sugar-sweetened beverages.
• Sodium is a euphemism for processed foods and junk foods.

If the Guidelines really focused on dietary patterns, they wouldn’t pussyfoot.  They would come right out and say:

• Eat less meat [OK, they do but only under the euphemism of “protein” and only for males. “Some individuals, especially teen boys and adult men, also need to reduce overall intake of protein foods (see Figure 2-3) by decreasing intakes of meats, poultry, and eggs and increasing amounts of vegetables or other underconsumed food groups.”  But what about processed meats?  Not a word that I can find.
• Cut down on sugary drinks [OK, it says “drink water instead of sugary drinks,” but good luck finding that statement without knowing where it is].
• Eat less processed and junk food.

Why don’t they?  Politics, of course.

Recall that Congress weighed in with an Appropriations Bill that called for an investigation of the scientific basis of the Guidelines and granted $1 million to the National Academy of Medicine to take them over.

Recall also that the secretaries of USDA and HHS said that the Guidelines would not say anything about sustainability as a rationale for advising eating less meat.

So let’s count the 2015 Guidelines as a win for the meat, sugary drink, processed, and junk food industries.

Other concerns, nutritional and otherwise:

• Calories: The Guidelines deemphasize calories.  They dropped the information about food sources of calories from the 2010 edition, even though calorie balance remains a—if not the—major public health nutrition problem (an Appendix gives calorie needs).
• Portion sizes: the best way to control calorie intake is by eating smaller or moderate portions. If the Guidelines talk about portion size, it must be well hidden.
• Cholesterol: the recommendation to limit cholesterol has been dropped, but the document says, confusingly, that “this change does not suggest that dietary cholesterol is no longer important to consider when building healthy eating patterns. As recommended by the IOM, individuals should eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern.”  Could the dropping of the limit have anything to do with egg-industry funding of research on eggs, the largest source of dietary cholesterol, and blood cholesterol?  The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has just filed a lawsuit on that very point.
• Protein: My pet peeve.  The Guidelines use this as yet another euphemism for meat.  “Protein” lumps meat together with seafood, poultry, eggs, nuts, seeds, and soy.  But grains and dairy also have protein, so using this term makes no nutritional sense and obfuscates the message to eat less meat.
• Seafood: the document recommends 8 ounces a week of seafood high in omega-3s but low in methylmercury. That pretty much means salmon and sardines (anchovies are too salty).

I might have more to say when I can look at a document that is easier to read.

Full disclosure: I was a peer reviewer on an earlier version of this document.

Documents and commentary

• The HHS press release and the government’s digital press kit
• The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report
• USDA’s MyWins food guide
• Dietary Guidelines version of MyWins
• My Rogue Dietary Guidelines (with Tamar Haspel)
• CSPI’s press release and materials
• CSPI’s summary of the Guidelines’ major points
• The New York Times take (I’m quoted)
• Politico’s take (I’m quoted)
• Friends of the Earth (with a good summary of public input)
• Julia Belluz in Vox (comparison to Swedish guidelines)
• The official HHS version in JAMA Cardiology
• The Sugar Association’s predictable complaints
• The American Cancer Society’s complaints (no clear guidance on red and processed meats)
• The Distilled Spirits Council’s statement
• Time Magazine’s collection of reactions (including mine)
• The Washington Post on the confusion (I’m quoted)
• Food-Navigator’s take: a marketing opportunity
• The American Beverage Association’s reaction

Thanks to Helena Bottemiller Evich of Politico Pro for doing the homework on food issues covered by the omnibus spending deal just agreed to by the House.  Here’s my quick summary of her summary.

• GMO labels: the effort to preempt local and state GMO labeling initiatives failed as a result of the efforts of 30 representatives who opposed the measure.
• Country of origin labels repealed: the meat industry scores a win in the House vote to repeal the measure.
• Dietary guidelines: I discussed this one in yesterday’s post.  The House wants to block their release on the grounds that they are not sufficiently scientific (translation: the meat industry doesn’t like advice to eat less meat).
• The Clean Water Act: it survives.
• GMO salmon: it will have to be labeled.
• Food safety funding: up more than $132 million to $2.72 billion in discretionary funding. This is a big win for the FDA. It also proposes $1 billion for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, also above the president’s request.
• Trans fat ban”: delayed until FDA’s formal rules go into effect in June 2018.
• School lunch flexibility: Riders allow schools to ignore whole grain requirements and block sodium restrictions pending further research.
• Chinese chicken out of schools: Prohibits purchasing chicken that was processed in China for school meals or other federal nutrition programs.
• More kitchen equipment: Schools get another $30 million for school equipment grants.
• Horse slaughter: Banned.

Caveat: this is the House deal only.  The House has to vote on the actual bill, then the Senate.  Then the two bills need to be reconciled and the President needs to sign.  Until then, everything is up for grabs.

Let’s take a look at a rare industry-funded study with results contrary to the interests of the funders.

It addresses the question: Is naturally occurring trans fat from meat and dairy products healthier than industrially produced trans fat?

The answer: not really.

The study

Vaccenic acid and trans fatty acid isomers from partially hydrogenated oil both adversely affect LDL cholesterol: a double-blind, randomized controlled trial.  Sarah K Gebauer, Frédéric Destaillats, Fabiola Dionisi, Ronald M Krauss, and David J Baer.  Am J Clin Nutr, November 11, 2015,  doi: 10.3945/ajcn.115.116129.

• Conclusions: Total cholesterol (TC), LDL cholesterol, triacylglycerol, lipoprotein(a), and apolipoprotein B were higher after VA [vaccenic acid] than after iTFA [industrial trans fatty acids]; high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and apolipoprotein AI also were higher after VA. Compared with control, VA and iTFA both increased TC, LDL cholesterol, ratio of TC to HDL cholesterol, and apolipoprotein B…VA also increased HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein AI, apolipoprotein B, and lipoprotein(a)…whereas iTFA did not. c9,t11-CLA [conjugated linoleic acid] lowered triacylglycerol…and had no effect on other lipoprotein risk factors.
• Funding:  Supported by USDA, Dairy Management Inc., Nestlé, and Dairy Australia. The funding organizations had no role in the conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Background

Everyone agrees that hydrogenated fats containing trans fatty acids (industrial trans fatty acids or iTFAs) raise the risk of LDL-cholesterol (the bad one) and, therefore, the risk of coronary artery disease.  But what about the naturally occurring trans fats that occur in meat and dairy products as a result of bacterial hydrogenation of fats in the rumens of ruminant animals (ruminant trans fatty acids or rTFAs)?

Some studies suggest that rTFAs do not raise the risk of coronary disease.  This study tests that hypothesis.  It found that the major rTFA, vaccenic acid, does indeed raise risk factors for coronary artery disease almost or more than do iTFAs.

To make sense of the study, you need to know:

• In iTFAs, the two major trans fats are elaidic acid 25%, and vaccenic acid 10%
• In rTFAs, the trans fats are vaccenic acid 45% and elaidic acid 5%
• Therefore, vaccenic acid is the major trans fat in rTFAs

What about Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA, or rumenic acid)?

The study also looked at intake of another rTFA, conjugated linoleic acid, which seems to have more benign properties but is present in such small amounts that it hardly makes a difference.  Although this study found CLA to have no effect on risk factors for coronary heart disease, a study from independently funded investigators judged it to have effects similar to that of other rTFAs.

What took so long to get this study published?

David Baer, who works for USDA, is the senior author on this paper.  I saw a slide presentation he did on this study in 2010.  Its results were already available.

In 2011, his group wrote a review of ruminant trans fats, but did not report these results (they were known, but not published).

In 2012, Dr. Baer wrote about ruminant trans fats, disclosed his dairy industry funding, but also did not report these results.  He concluded:

It is still difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the role of rTFAs in modulating risk of cardiovascular disease as mediated through changes in LDL and HDL cholesterol. Intake of these fatty acids is typically low in the diet.

I heard about this study last summer and wondered whether its funders were holding up publication.  I called Dr. Baer and asked.  He said the funders had nothing to do with the delay.  Instead, life had intervened—collaborators left, he was busy with other things, and was having trouble getting the paper published.

The bottom line

The study was done with purified vaccenic acid, not dairy fat, in amounts higher than those likely to be consumed in diets.  The authors say

Evidence…suggests that VA [vaccenic acid] consumed in amounts and foods typically found in the diet is inversely or not associated with CVD risk.

That’s one possible interpretation, but check the title of the editorial accompanying the paper: “In equal amounts, the major ruminant trans fatty acid is as bad for LDL cholesterol as industrially produced trans fatty acids, but the latter are easier to remove from foods.”

The funders of this study must be disappointed.  It was undoubtedly difficult and expensive to do, since it involved synthesis of pure vaccenic acid and a clinical trial of more than 100 subjects.

The funders must have hoped the study would show vaccenic acid to be as benign or even healthier than conjugated linoleic acid.  They bet wrong on this one.

This brings the score to 80:7 (sponsored studies with results favorable to the sponsor vs. those unfavorable).