How dangerous are 'trans fats'?

[bluecanary]

I’ve seen and read quite a bit recently about the dangers of so-called trans fats–‘unnatural’ (according to some sources) fats created through hydrogenation.
This came up in particular in this pit thread with regard to McDonalds fries.

Are these fats more dangerous than, as dangerous as, or less dangerous than saturated fats?

[Fred]

From the same article I quoted in the pit thread:

According to a recent study involving some eighty thousand women, for every five-per-cent increase in the amount of saturated fats that a woman consumes, her risk of heart disease increases by seventeen per cent. But only a two-per-cent increase in trans fats will increase her heart-disease risk by ninety-three per cent. Walter Willett, an epidemiologist at Harvard–who helped design the study–estimates th000at the consumption of trans fats in the United States probably causes about thirty thousand premature deaths a year.

http://gladwell.com/2001/2001_03_05_a_fries.htm

[Eutychus]

Moving this to IMHO after discussion in ATMB with the OP here