Trans Fat and Diabetes

What Is Trans Fat?

First and foremost, trans fat is poison to the human body and causes diabetes. Second, it’s an artificial human-engineered oil that your body is not designed to handle. Third, it was invented to make food companies more money, not because it provided any health benefit to the consumer. Companies have many economic incentives to keep using trans fat even though there is overwhelming evidence to show it’s deleterious to the human body.

One additional helpful subject relating to this theme. Trans fat is created by an industrial process called hydrogenation. Hydrogen gas is forced through a polyunsaturated oil in the presence of metal catalysts. This process takes place at very high temperatures and the purpose is to break the chemical bonds of the polyunsaturated oil molecules and then put them back together in a different artificial way. Structurally, it takes naturally crooked molecules and turns them into artificially straight molecules. Healthy omega-3 molecules are replaced by unhealthy trans fat molecules during this process.

Why Trans Fat Causes Diabetes

Type two diabetics have damaged cell membranes that interfere with the transport of glucose from the blood stream into the cell for nourishment. A normal healthy cell membrane has lots of omega-3 fatty acids as a major part of its structure. If you have lots of trans fats and not enough omega-3 in your diet, the trans fats will replace some of the omega-3′s. This spells trouble for glucose metabolism and once it gets worse enough you’ll develop diabetes. Unfortunately, most Americans get way more than they realize and even a small amount isn’t good. Moreover, the modern American diet does not get anywhere near enough omega-3 fatty acids. The modern American diet is a recipe for a diabetes epidemic which is exactly what we’re seeing.

Trans Fat