Fats& Protein vs. Carbohydrates (Part 4)

[Guest guest]

THE OILING OF AMERICA (part 4)

by Enig, PhD

ENIG SPEAKS OUT

When Enig, a graduate student at the University of land,

read the McGovern committee report, she was puzzled. Enig was

familiar with Kummerow's research and she knew that the

consumption of animal fats in America was not on the

increase—quite the contrary, use of animal fats had been

declining steadily since the turn of the century. A report in the

Journal of American Oil Chemists—which the McGovern Committee did

not use—showed that animal fat consumption had declined from 104

grams per person per day in 1909 to 97 grams per day in 1972, while

vegetable fat intake had increased from a mere 21 grams to almost

60.14 Total per capita fat consumption had increased over the

period, but this increase was mostly due to an increase in

unsaturated fats from vegetable oils—with 50 percent of the

increase coming from liquid vegetable oils and about 41 percent from

margarines made from vegetable oils. She noted a number of studies

that directly contradicted the McGovern Committee's conclusions

that " there is . . . a strong correlation between dietary fat

intake and the incidence of breast cancer and colon cancer, " two

of the most common cancers in America.

Greece, for example, had less than one-fourth the rate of breast

cancer compared to Israel but the same dietary fat intake. Spain had

only one-third the breast cancer mortality of France and Italy but

the total dietary fat intake was slightly greater. Puerto Rico, with

a high animal fat intake, had a very low rate of breast and colon

cancer. The Netherlands and Finland both used approximately 100

grams of animal fat per capita per day but breast and colon cancer

rates were almost twice in the Netherlands what they are in Finland.

The Netherlands consumed 53 grams of vegetable fat per person

compared to 13 in Finland. A study from Cali, Columbia found a

fourfold excess risk for colon cancer in the higher economic

classes, which used less animal fat than the lower economic classes.

A study on Seventh-Day Adventist physicians, who avoid meat,

especially red meat, found they had a significantly higher rate of

colon cancer than non-Seventh Day Adventist physicians. Enig

analyzed the USDA data that the McGovern Committee had used and

concluded that it showed a strong positive correlation with total

fat and vegetable fat and an essentially strong negative correlation

or no correlation with animal fat to total cancer deaths, breast and

colon cancer mortality and breast and colon cancer incidence—in

other words, use of vegetable oils seemed to predispose to cancer

and animal fats seemed to protect against cancer. She noted that the

analysts for the committee had manipulated the data in inappropriate

ways in order to obtain mendacious results.

Enig submitted her findings to the Journal of the Federation of

American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), in May, 1978,

and her article was published in the FASEB's Federation

Proceedings15 in July of the same year—an unusually quick

turnaround. The assistant editor, responsible for accepting the

article, died of a heart attack shortly thereafter. Enig's paper

noted that the correlations pointed a finger at the trans fatty

acids and called for further investigation. Only two years earlier,

the Life Sciences Research office, which is the arm of FASEB that

does scientific investigations, had published the whitewash that had

ushered partially hydrogenated soybean oil onto the GRAS list and

removed any lingering constraints against the number one ingredient

in factory-produced food.

THE FOOD GIANTS FIGHT BACK

Enig's paper sent alarm bells through the industry. In early

1979, she received a visit from S. F. Reipma of the National

Association of Margarine Manufacturers. Reipma was visibly annoyed.

He explained that both his association and the Institute for

Shortening and Edible Oils (ISEO) kept careful watch to prevent

articles like Enig's from appearing in the literature. Enig's

paper should never have been published, he said. He thought that

ISEO was " watching out. " " We left the barn door

open, " he said, " and the horse got out. " Reipma also

challenged Enig's use of the USDA data,claiming that it was in

error. He knew it was in error, he said, " because we give itto

them. "

A few weeks later, Reipma paid a second visit, this time in the

company of Applewhite, an advisor to the ISEO and

representative of Kraft Foods, Simpson with Central Soya and

an unnamed representative from Lever Brothers. They carried with

them—in fact, waved them in the air in indignation—a two-inch

stack of newspaper articles, including one that appeared in the

National Enquirer, reporting on Enig's Federation Proceedings

article. Applewhite's face flushed red with anger when Enig

repeated Reipma's statement that " they had left the barn door

open and a horse got out, " and his admission that Department of

Agriculture food data had been sabotaged by the margarine lobby.

The other thing Reipma told Enig during his unguarded visit was that

he had called in on the FASEB offices in an attempt to coerce them

into publishing letters to refute her paper, without allowing Enig

to submit any counter refutation as was normally customary in

scientific journals. He told Enig that he was " thrown out of the

office " —an admission later confirmed by one of the FASEB

editors.

Nevertheless, a series of letters did follow the July 1978

article.16 On behalf of the ISEO, Applewhite and Walter Meyer of

Procter and Gamble criticized Enig's use of the data; Applewhite

accused Enig of extrapolating from two data points, when in fact she

had used seven. In the same issue, Bailar, Editor-in-Chief of

the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, pointed out that the

correlations between vegetable oil consumption and cancer were not

the same as evidence of causation and warned against changing

current dietary components in the hopes of preventing cancer in the

future—which is of course exactly what the McGovern Committee

did.

In reply, Enig and her colleagues noted that although the NCI had

provided them with faulty cancer data, this had no bearing on the

statistics relating to trans consumption, and did not affect the

gist of their argument—that the correlation between vegetable fat

consumption, especially trans fat consumption, was sufficient to

warrant a more thorough investigation. The problem was that very

little investigation was being done.

University of land researchers recognized the need for more

research in two areas. One concerned the effects of trans fats on

cellular processes once they are built into the cell membrane.

Studies with rats, including one conducted by Fred Mattson in 1960,

indicated that the trans fatty acids were built into the cell

membrane in proportion to their presence in the diet, and that the

turnover of trans in the cells was similar to that of other fatty

acids. These studies, according to J. Hunter of the ISEO,

were proof that " trans fatty acids do not pose any hazard to man

in a normal diet. " Enig and her associates were not so sure.

Kummerow's research indicated that the trans fats contributed to

heart disease, and Kritchevsky—whose early experiments with

vegetarian rabbits were now seen to be totally irrelevant to the

human model—had found thattrans fatty acids raise cholesterol in

humans.17 Enig's own research, published in her 1984 doctoral

dissertation, indicated that trans fats interfered with enzyme

systems that neutralized carcinogens and increased enzymes that

potentiated carcinogens.18

HOW MUCH TRANS FAT IS " NORMAL " ?

The other area needing further investigation concerned just how much

trans fat there was in a " normal diet " of the typical

American. What had hampered any thorough research into the

correlation of trans fatty acid consumption and disease was the fact

that these altered fats were not considered as a separate category

in any of the data bases then available to researchers. A 1970 FDA

internal memo stated that a market basket survey was needed to

determine trans levels in commonly used foods. The memo remained

buried in the FDA files. The massive Health and Human Services

NHANES II (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) survey,

conducted during the years 1976 to 1980, noted the increasing US

consumption of margarine, french fried potatoes, cookies and snack

chips—all made with vegetable shortenings—without listing the

proportion of trans.

Enig first looked at the NHANES II data base in 1987 and when she

did, she had a sinking feeling. Not only were trans fats

conspicuously absent from the fatty acid analyses, data on other

lipids made no sense at all. Even foods containing no trans fats

were listed with faulty fatty acid profiles. For example, safflower

oil was listed as containing 14% linoleic acid (a double bond fatty

acid of the omega-6 family) when in fact it contained 80%; a sample

of butter crackers was listed as containing 34% saturated fat when

in fact it contained 78%. In general, the NHANES II data base tended

to minimize the amount of saturated fats in common foods.

Over the years, ph Sampagna and Mark Keeney, both highly

qualified lipid biochemists at the University of land, applied

to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of

Health, the US Department of Agriculture, the National Dairy Council

and the National Livestock and Meat Board for funds to look into the

trans content of common American foods. Only the National Livestock

and Meat Board came through with a small grant for equipment; the

others turned them down. The pink slip from National Institutes of

Health criticized items that weren't even relevant to the

proposal.

The turndown by the National Dairy Council was not a surprise. Enig

had earlier learned that Phil Lofgren, then head of research at the

Dairy Council, had philosophical ties to the lipid hypothesis. Enig

tried to alert Senator Mettzanbaum from Ohio, who was involved in

the dietary recommendations debate, but got nowhere.