[GqArtguy]

Originally posted by JoshDunn:

quote:

---

Anyone explain to me why trans-fats are so bad?

My understanding is that the problem with trans fats is that the body can't digest them. So the more you eat, the more fat your body is accumulating and the fatter you get, the more health problems that occur.

basically that it.

Hope it helps.
JOSH [/quote]People freak out about them because they think that its link to higher cholesterol, higher LDL's, and a host of other crap related to heart disease. Its why saturated fat was public enemy #1 a while ago, but youll notice that that concern has fallen by the way side. The problem with a lot of trans fat studies is that 1) correlation does not equal causation, and 2) lack of controls. For example, if you throw enough variables into an equation, eventually youll explain most of the "cause" of an event. Problem with that is that is, whats the difference between a correlation coefficient of .1 vs .2? At what point do we freak out?

The second point is related to experiment design. I can test to see if hotdogs cause heart disease, so I get a bunch of people who eat hotdogs and test their odds of heartdisease vs non-hotdog eaters. Suppose I find that hotdog eaters get higher rates of heart disease. Hot dogs be damned! Right?

Well no, it may be the the case that hotdog eaters smoke more than non-hotdog eaters, or that they eat more as whole compared to non-eaters, just to name a few examples. Medical research is notorious for this kind of crap, it boggles my mind what they allow to be published sometimes.