The Washington Post [feedly]
No one was more pleased by the Food and Drug Administration's decision Tuesday to eliminate artificial trans fats from the U.S. food supply than Fred Kummerow, a 100-year-old University of Illinois professor who has warned about the dangers of the artery-clogging substance for nearly six decades.
"Science won out," Kummerow, who sued the FDA in 2013 for not acting sooner, said in an interview from his home in Illinois. "It's very important that we don't have this in our diet."
In the 1950s, as a young university researcher, Kummerow convinced a local hospital to let him examine the arteries of people who had died from heart disease. He made a jarring discovery. The tissue contained high levels of artificial trans fat, a substance that had been discovered decades earlier but had become ubiquitous in processed foods throughout the country.
Later, he conducted a study showing that rats developed atherosclerosis after being fed artificial trans fats. When he removed the substance from their diets, the atherosclerosis disappeared from their arteries.
Kummerow first published his research warning about the dangers of artery-clogging trans fats in 1957. More than a decade later, while serving on a subcommittee of the American Heart Association, he detailed the massive amounts of trans fat in the shortening and margarines lining grocery shelves, and helped convince the food industry to lower the content in certain products.
Despite Kummerow's research and warnings over the years, artificial trans fats remained a staple of processed food for decades. Well into the 1980s, many scientists and public health advocates believed that partially hydrogenated oils were preferable to more natural saturated fats. And the food industry was reluctant to do away with artificial trans fats, which were cheaper than their natural counterparts, extended shelf life and gave foods desirable taste and texture.
"The industry was very much for trans fat," said Kummerow, noting that each time a group formed to study the issue over the years, it seemed to turn out the same way. "It always ended up that you had to have more research before you could come to a conclusion."
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