The Risks of Eating Trans Fat

With recommendations from health authorities to eliminate trans fat from your diet, you may wonder what happens to trans fat after you eat it. Does your body store it? Does your body turn trans fat into something harmful? How long does it take trans fat to be eliminated? Will the doughnut you ate today cause you problems years down the road?

How Your Body Treats Trans Fat

The answer is that trans fats are digested and absorbed like all other fats. Basically, the fats you eat are broken down in the small intestine, then the individual fatty acids (trans, saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated) are absorbed across the walls of the small intestine.

From there, some fatty acids go straight to the liver via the portal vein, while others—including the trans fatty acids—are packaged up into chylomicrons and lipoproteins (cholesterol) and enter the bloodstream through the lymphatic system. They're transported throughout the body and if they're not used up, they're stored as fat, exactly like other fatty acids.

The more trans fat you consume, the more trans fatty acids you'll have in your body fat. When you use the trans fatty acids as energy, they are broken down to carbon dioxide and water and removed from the body—exactly like other fats.

How Much Is Okay?

The American Heart Association recommends you take in less than 1 percent of your daily calories from trans fats. If you typically consume 2,000 calories per day, then only 20 calories should come from trans fats. That's only about 2 grams.

The American Heart Association includes naturally-occurring trans-fatty acids in that daily two grams. It's not clear that naturally occurring trans fats, called conjugated linoleic acid, are harmful—they might even be beneficial—but since they're found in meats and dairy products, they're accompanied by saturated fats that also raise your risk for cardiovascular disease. So, it's best to avoid them.

Finding Trans Fats in Foods

Here's where Nutrition Facts labels are your best friends. The number of trans fats must be disclosed on the package label, as long as there are more than 0.5 grams per serving. Since the downsides of trans fats are well known at this point, fewer and fewer foods contain them.

But what if you're eating food prepared at a restaurant or a friend's house — how do you know if you're eating trans fats?

Typically you still might find trans fats in cheaper commercial varieties of pastries, pie crusts, pizza crusts, cookies, crackers, and some forms of stick margarine. You can always ask what ingredients are used to make the dish you want to eat, or avoid the foods that you think might contain them.

There's no need to panic if you accidentally consume some trans fat at a meal. Just go back to your regular healthy diet. There's not much you can do about the trans fats you ate in the past either. If you have other risk factors for heart disease, make an appointment to see your health care provider, who can assess your overall risk and suggest appropriate dietary changes.