When New York restaurants were first informed that their culinary delights could no longer be prepared with trans fats, chefs everywhere were not happy. Most eateries have already made the switch from trans fat cooking oils to healthier ones without any issues from chefs or eaters.

Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, the grease responsible for the delightful texture of McDonald's french fries, are among some of the deadliest offenders when it comes to heart disease. The oils are cheap and have long shelf lives, both qualities that appeal to the restaurant industry.

This ban on trans fats is a bold and positive move. The fact that the change is going so smoothly is heartening for restaurants and diners across the nation. With changes like this one and the bans of smoking in public areas we are slowly moving toward a healthier country.

Scientists have found a way for mice to eat whatever kind and however much fat in their diets and still not run any risk of getting heart disease. They deleted the gene that produces the enzyme ACAT2, which usually works in the body by converting cholesterol and other fats into forms that stick more easily and sometimes end up causing blocked vessels.

Of course, like all studies based on mice, there's no word yet if the same principles will hold true in people. The hope is obviously that it does, and that a drug can be developed to inhibit the enzyme in humans, therefore reducing or maybe even eliminating a person's risk for developing heart disease.

Here's to hoping! That would big.

The dangers of trans fat have been known for quite some time now. Entire cities have banned this type of fat from being used in restaurants, while many more cities are on the precipice of enacting similar legislation. The stuff is bad for you, let's just say it. How bad? Well, trans fat has the dubious distinction of being the only fat that lowers good (HDL) cholesterol and raises bad (LDL) cholesterol, thereby greatly increasing one's risk of coronary heart disease.

Like I said, we've known for a while that trans fats are bad. Well, we thought we knew, anyway. Prior studies relied on self-reporting by test subjects when it came to determining how much or how little trans fat they consumed. As a result, the accuracy of the results were always somewhat in question, as people sometimes think they do something more or less than they actually do. But, a new study conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health has found a new method of measuring trans fat intake.

Because humans cannot synthesize trans fatty acids, they find their way into red blood cells. Utilizing their knowledge of this physiological fact, the researchers noted that the amount of trans fat in red blood cells is a biomarker of trans fat intake. The researchers then examined blood samples collected from 1989 and 1990 from almost thirty-three thousand participants from an unrelated study. The researches discovered that a higher level of trans fatty acids in red blood cells was associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, even when such variables as age, smoking, and other risk factors were taken into account. Specifically, the risk among women (all of the test participants were women) in the top quartile of trans fat levels was triple that of the lowest quartile.

This study will appear in the April 10, 2007 print issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

New York, New York, it's a helluva town!! That is, unless you're trans fat, in which case it's a town from where you have until high noon on July 1st to leave. That's because the City Board of Health voted this Tuesday to make the Big Apple worthy of its healthy moniker, and they did so by making it the first city in the nation to ban trans fats in restaurants.

It's no mystery that obesity is on the rise nationwide, and growing concurrently are the number of heart related deaths. True, trans fat is credited with putting the delicious in baked and fried foods, but the long-term harm being inflicted far outweighs the temporary satisfaction. In addition to elevating bad cholesterol (LDL) levels and lowering good cholesterol (HDL), trans fats are also known to be a pro-inflammatory. All of these factors are directly related to heart disease and, so at least it seems, New Yorkers have had enough.