The Hunt For A Trans Fat Replacement Leads to Another Fat That Spikes Your Blood Sugar

As if trans fats weren't bad enough. Now the hunt for a replacement to plop into those processed foods apparently isn't going so well.

A new fat with the tough-to-pronounce name "interesterified fats" may bring a whole new host of health threats, according to a new study in the journal Nutrition & Metabolism.

In fact, as Reuters Health reports, researchers found that the new interesterified oils may not only lower HDL levels (the heart-healthy cholesterol) but also cause a significant rise in blood sugar.

In fact, what is alarming is that the study's volunteers consumed the interesterified fats for a mere four weeks and yet during that time, "Blood glucose went up quite precipitously," study co-author Dr. K.C. Hayes, a professor of biology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.

"The problem, he and his colleagues found," the wire service reported, "seems to be that interesterified fats change the body's levels of insulin, which regulates blood sugar."

Yikes! Yet another very compelling reason to steer clear of those processed, culprit carbs.

Thanks to my research assistant Jennifer Moore for alerting me to this study.