# How dangerous are 'trans fats'?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-are-trans-fats/121123>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 27, 2002, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-are-trans-fats/121123 "2002-07-27T17:00:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bluecanary](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bluecanary/32/3614_2.png) [@bluecanary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluecanary)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-are-trans-fats/121123/1 "2002-07-27T17:00:23Z")

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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](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=127452) pit thread with regard to McDonalds fries.

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

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**Author:** ![Fred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/db5fbb/32.png) [@Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fred)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-are-trans-fats/121123/2 "2002-07-27T19:21:17Z")

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From the same article I quoted in the pit thread:

> [@](#):
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> 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](http://gladwell.com/2001/2001_03_05_a_fries.htm)

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**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2002, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-are-trans-fats/121123/3 "2002-08-06T00:11:50Z")

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Moving this to IMHO after discussion in ATMB with the OP [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=2339117#post2339117)