Pure Nuff Stuff

I got a copy of this this morning from the HSI Daily Health mailout and I thought I'd share it. What with Palm Oil being featured on Panorama again recently, it's in the news again.

Palm Oil: Why is it Wrapped in Such Controversy?

Dear Reader,

It's one of the cheapest oils to produce and it's in more foods than you can imagine... In it's raw form it has been found to have numerous health benefits. So why all the recent controversy surrounding palm oil?

The harsh reality is that its production poses a serious environmental threat to the Indonesian rainforests and its inhabitants. That's not its only drawback, as once it's processed and refined, palm oil also poses significant health threats to consumers - and that includes almost all of us, given how many products contain it.

Just go to your kitchen cupboard and look at the ingredients listed on the packaging of some of the items you've bought... I'm guessing that ‘vegetable oil' is listed on many of those labels - right? Vegetable oil is usually a blend of oils and in the UK, the oils used most in vegetable oil are soya, rapeseed, sunflower, maize and palm oils.

Palm Oil: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde...

Palm oil in its natural raw form (red palm oil) promises to deliver many health benefits. Most of these benefits are linked to the high concentration of Vitamin E-tocotrienols (phytonutrient) it contains. Tocotrienol is a form of natural vitamin E that can protect against brain cell damage, prevent cancer and reduce cholesterol.

Here are some of the health benefits linked to red palm oil:

Atherosclerosis: Studies show that adding red palm oil to your diet can reverse the process of atherosclerosis. This has been proven in both animal and human studies. In one study, 50 participants were divided in to two equal groups. All participants were diagnosed with atherosclerosis and had suffered at least one stroke. With no other changes to their diets or medication, half of the participants were given red palm oil and the other half received placebos and served as the control. At the end of the study, in the group receiving red palm oil atherosclerosis was halted in 23 of the 25 participants. In comparison, no one in the control group showed any improvement.

Lowering cholesterol: In a US study at the University of Illinois College of Medicine researchers demonstrated a 10 percent drop in total cholesterol in 36 subjects with high cholesterol. The subjects were given red palm oil capsules for four weeks.

Antioxidant power: Red palm oil is the richest natural source of provitamin A carotenes (beta- carotene and alpha-carotene). It has 15 times more provitamin A than carrots and 300 times more than tomatoes, proving it to be a ‘super antioxidant food' which makes it an ideal anticancer food.

Cancer: Studies show that palm tocotrienols inhibit the growth of skin, pancreatic, stomach, liver, lung, colon, breast, prostate and other cancers. Most research to date has been done with breast cancer where tocotrienols show great promise. Tocotrienols not only prevent cancer from taking hold but actively block its growth and initiate apoptosis - a process where diseased cells ‘commit suicide'. Ordinary vitamin E does not induce programmed cell death in cancer cells. Only tocotrienols have this effect.

Given these numerous health benefits, it is hard to believe that palm oil has suffered such bad press. But why?

Palm oil consists of 50 per cent saturated fat.

Saturated fat turns to trans-fat when put through a refining process called hydrogenation or partial hydrogenation. Most of the palm oil used in our processed and packaged foods are hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated, so all that natural and powerful goodness has been destroyed and the result is simple: Man-made trans-fats with no nutritional value.

In fact, the only value it has is that it is cheap, adds bulk to products, has a neutral flavour and gives products a long shelf life.

What are the health risks associated with palm oil turned trans-fat?

Numerous health authorities have warned against the use of processed or refined palm oil in packaged foods. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute warned that the "high content of saturated fat... found in... palm kernel oil, palm oil, coconut oil, and cocoa butter" puts people at risk for heart attack or stroke. Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has also warned there is "convincing evidence" that palmitic acid increases the risk of heart disease.

Coronary heart disease: The primary health risk identified for trans-fat consumption is an elevated risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). A comprehensive review of studies of trans-fats was published in 2006 in the New England Journal of Medicine that concludes that there is a strong and reliable connection between trans-fat consumption and CHD.

Cholesterol: Eating trans-fats increases levels of LDL ("bad" cholesterol), especially the small, dense LDL particles that may be more damaging to arteries. Unlike saturated fat, trans-fat has the additional effect of decreasing levels of HDL ("good" cholesterol).

Diabetes: There is growing concern that the risk of type 2 diabetes increases with trans-fat consumption. The risk is especially higher for those in the highest quartile of trans-fat consumption.

Obesity: A 6-year study revealed that monkeys fed a trans- fat diet gained 7.2 per cent of their body weight, as compared to 1.8 per cent for monkeys on a mono-unsaturated fat diet. Although obesity is frequently linked to trans-fat in the mainstream media, this is generally in the context of eating too many calories, but recently research indicates that trans-fat may increase weight gain and abdominal fat, despite a similar caloric intake.

Liver Dysfunction: Trans-fats are metabolized differently by the liver than other fats and interfere with delta 6 desaturase. Delta 6 desaturase is an enzyme involved in converting essential fatty acids to arachidonic acid and prostaglandins, both of which are important to the functioning of cells.

Prostate cancer: A recent US study at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, has found a link between the consumption of trans-fats and prostate cancer.

So even though raw palm oil is healthy in many ways it is rarely used in this form in processed foods. Instead, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated palm oil is used which has been proven to be bad for your health.

Destroying the environment

If the confusion about the possible health benefits and risks of palm oil is not enough to make you question the use of this ingredient in processed food, then hopefully this will:

Many food manufacturers and suppliers aren't sourcing their palm oil from sustainable sources.

The result is shrinking rainforests through deforestation and the total destruction of animal life in the rainforests

As a result animal species like the Indonesian orangutan and elephants are at risk of becoming extinct in the next 10 years.

How to avoid the consumption of hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated palm oil (trans-fats)

Many packaged foods now boast that they contain ‘no trans- fat'. For years, only true diet detectives knew whether a particular food contained trans-fat. This phantom fat - the worst fat for the heart, blood vessels, and rest of the body - was found in thousands of foods. But only people who knew that the code phrases "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" and "vegetable shortening" meant that trans-fat lurked in the food were aware of its presence.

To complicate matters for the consumer, in the UK, there is no specific requirement for the trans-fat content of products to be included on food labelling. However, some manufacturers have started to do so voluntarily.

On the up-side, hydrogenated fats must be declared on the label, so if a product contains hydrogenated fats, it may contain trans-fats. Look out for the words ‘partially hydrogenated' on food labels as these products may also contain trans-fats. If this is not listed on the label then ‘vegetable oil' should set off the alarm bells for you.

However, once you start looking for this ingredient you will be surprised to see how many products contain it:

Warburtons, the breadmaker said palm oil accounts for between 15-20% of the blend of oils used in its products.

Unilever, the makers of Flora margarine, Knorr soups, Pot Noodles and Dove soap is the world's biggest user of palm oil.

Premier foods, the makers of Hovis bread, Mr Kipling cakes, Cadbury cakes and Bisto gravy granules uses 30,000 metric tonnes of combined palm/vegetable oil each year.

Nestle, the makers of Kit Kat, Quality Street and Aero uses palm kernel oil in a range of their confectionery and dairy products.

Kelloggs, claims the vast majority of its cereals do not contain palm oil and, where present, it is in small quantities.

Make sure that the products you do use, contain palm oil that is harvested from sustainable sources such as Roundtable For Sustainable Palm Oil and GreenPalm.

Sources:

‘Vegetable oil allergy' published online by the Food Standard Agency in the UK, eatwell.gov.uk

‘Shining the Spotlight on Trans-fats' published online by Harvard School of Public Health, hsph.harvard.edu

‘Fats and Cholesterol: Out with the Bad, In with the Good' published online by Harvard School of Public Health, hsph.harvard.edu

‘What are trans-fats?' published online by the NHS, nhs.uk

‘Trans-fat: Health risks' published online by the Palm Oil Truth Foundation, palmoiltruthfoundation

‘Serum Trans-Fatty Acids Are Associated with Risk of Prostate Cancer in ?-Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial' by Dr. Irena B. King, published online Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, cebp.aacrjournals.org

Red Palm Oil, by Dr. Bruce Fife, published online americanpalmoil.com/publications/Red Palm Oil.pdf

‘Palm oil products and the weekly shop' published online by the BBC, news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8517000/8517093 stm

‘Orangutan survival and the shopping trolley' published online 22.02.10, news.bbc.co.uk

posted by Emily @ 12:26

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