Reusing oil to fry food increases trans fats, causes heart diseases

Agencies
September 30, 2017

New Delhi, Sept 30: Emphasising that India’s heart disease epidemic increased due to dietary patterns, doctors on Friday urged people to avoid reusing any oil for frying food products as it increases the proportion of trans fats, a major source of heart diseases.

According to the doctors, including from AIIMS, fats in food items are of four types – saturated, unsaturated, mono and trans, with the last most dangerous and their presence in any oil going up if it is cooked for a long duration or as soon as it emits smoke.

Vanaspati has the highest content of trans fat content.

“Our (Indian) people simply do not have any idea of what they are eating. Trans fats which are the most harmful and leading cause of heart diseases is entering into the body of humans in so many ways. One should choose cooking oils which are well balanced and has less than 4 gms of saturated fats,” said Sundeep Mishra, Professor of Cardiology at AIIMS, on the occasion of World Heart Day.

Mishra, who has several studies on the matter, says that boiling oil for hours and reuse of refined oil leads to the increase of trans fats.

Suggested that though mustard oil and olive oil were among the “good” oils which should be mostly used for cooking, the doctors even suggested mustard oil should be mixed with ghee to balance its fats, while olive oil should only be sprinkled on cooked food and not be used for frying as it leads to increase in trans fats.

Nikhil Tandon, professor of Endocrinology at AIIMS stated that one person should have only 0.5 litres of fats every month.

“Our food habits are such that heart disease becomes common. Even in market, biscuits and bhujias are cooked in vanaspati so that they can be preserved for long. This again leads to intake of trans fats, a leading killer,” he said.

Stating that other types of oil such as coconut by people in southern India used for cooking were making them acute heart patients, doctors also warned against using palm oil as it also has a high content of trans fat.

WHO says Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the major cause of mortality globally, as well as in India. They are caused by disorders of the heart and blood vessels, and includes coronary heart disease (heart attacks), cerebrovascular disease (stroke), raised blood pressure (hypertension), peripheral artery disease, rheumatic heart disease, congenital heart disease and heart failure.

Doctors also said that an interesting study by AIIMS showed only 13 per cent of educated individuals pay any attention to what they are consuming, and the number of heart bypass surgeries among youth has also increased.

Praveen Chandra, of Intervention Cardiology, Medanta Hospital, Gurgaon said that India has witnessed tremendous advancements when it comes to treatment of coronary artery diseases.

The risk of death in heart failure patients is comparable to that of patients with advanced cancer, and currently, costs the world economy $108 billion every year.

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Agencies
January 12,2020

Washington D.C., Jan 12: Disruption in one night's sleep can lead to getting Alzheimer's disease, a recent study has stated.

The interruption in the sound sleep for a single night aggravates the level of tau protein in any young male's body, thus gives rise to the chances of developing the disease.

According to CNN, the report was published on Wednesday in neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Our study focuses on the fact that even in young, healthy individuals, missing one night of sleep increases the level of tau in blood suggesting that over time, such sleep deprivation could possibly have detrimental effects," says study author Dr Jonathan Cedernaes, a neurologist at Uppsala University in Sweden.

As defined by the Alzheimer's Association, tau is the name of a protein that helps in stabilizing the internal structure of the brain's nerve cells. An abnormal build-up of tau protein in the body can end up in causing interior cells to fall apart and eventually developing Alzheimer's.

"When you get more of that deep sleep and you get the REM sleep in the normal amounts, that improves clearance of abnormal proteins which we think is good," said Mayo Clinic neurologist Dr Donn Dexter, not the study author but a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

Earlier studies have also shown that getting deprived of sleep can allow higher tau development and accumulation. Thus that poor sleep can hasten the development of cognitive issues.

Researchers caution that the study is small and inconclusive, and acknowledged they were not able to determine what the increased levels might mean.

"This study raises more questions than answers," agreed Dexter on a concluding note, sharing, "What this is telling us is that we have to dig more deeply. Despite something we do for a third of our lives, we know so little about sleep and we're learning every day, particularly when it comes to sleep and dementia."

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Agencies
July 7,2020

The World Health Organization (WHO) is reviewing a report that suggested its advice on the novel coronavirus needs updating after some scientists told the New York Times there was evidence the virus could be spread by tiny particles in the air.

The WHO says the Covid-19 disease spreads primarily through small droplets, which are expelled from the nose and mouth when an infected person breaths them out in coughs, sneezes, speech or laughter and quickly sink to the ground.

In an open letter to the Geneva-based agency, 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined the evidence they say shows that smaller exhaled particles can infect people who inhale them, the newspaper said on Saturday.

Because those smaller particles can linger in the air longer, the scientists - who plan to publish their findings in a scientific journal this week - are urging WHO to update its guidance, the Times said.

"We are aware of the article and are reviewing its contents with our technical experts," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email reply on Monday to a Reuters request for comment.

The extent to which the coronavirus can be spread by the so-called airborne or aerosol route - as opposed to by larger droplets in coughs and sneezes - remains disputed.

Any change in the WHO's assessment of the risk of transmission could affect its current advice on keeping one-metre physical distancing. Governments, which also rely on the agency for guidance policy, may also have to adjust public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

"Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence," Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO's technical lead for infection prevention and control, was quoted as saying in the New York Times.

WHO guidance to health workers, dated June 29, says that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and on surfaces.

But airborne transmission via smaller particles is possible in some circumstances, such as when performing intubation and aerosol-generating procedures, it says.

Medical workers performing such procedures should wear heavy-duty N95 respiratory masks and other protective equipment in an adequately ventilated room, the WHO says.

Officials at South Korea's Centers for Disease Control said on Monday they were continuing to discuss various issues about Covid-19, including the possible airborne transmission. They said more investigations and evidence were needed.

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Agencies
June 21,2020

Lower neighbourhood socioeconomic status and greater household crowding increase the risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, warn researchers.

"Our study shows that neighbourhood socioeconomic status and household crowding are strongly associated with risk of infection," said study lead author Alexander Melamed from Columbia University in the US.

"This may explain why Black and Hispanic people living in these neighbourhoods are disproportionately at risk for contracting the virus," Melamed added.

For the findings, published in the journal JAMA, the researchers examined the relationships between COVID-19 infection and neighbourhood characteristics in 396 women who gave birth during the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak in New York City. Since March 22, all women admitted to the hospitals for delivery have been tested for the virus, which gave the researchers the opportunity to detect all infections -- including infections with no symptoms -- in a defined population

The strongest predictor of COVID-19 infection among these women was residence in a neighbourhood where households with many people are common.The findings showed that women who lived in a neighbourhood with high household membership were three times more likely to be infected with the virus. Neighbourhood poverty also appeared to be a factor, the researchers said.Women were twice as likely to get COVID-19 if they lived in neighbourhoods with a high poverty rate, although that relationship was not statistically significant due to the small sample size.

The study revealed that there was no association between infection and population density.

"New York City has the highest population density of any city in the US, but our study found that the risks are related more to density in people's domestic environments rather than density in the city or within neighbourhoods," says co-author Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman."

The knowledge that SARS-CoV-2 infection rates are higher in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and among people who live in crowded households could help public health officials target preventive measures," the authors wrote.

Recently, another study published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, showed that dense areas were associated with lower COVID-19 death rates.

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