Trans fats increase risk of dementia

People with more trans fats in their blood are more likely to develop dementia in old age, said Japanese scientists. People who consume a lot of trans fats have a 52–74% higher risk of dementia than those who consume less.

The main danger, according to experts, is the sweets of industrial production: sweet pastries are probably the largest source of trans food fats.

According to experts, there are two main sources of trans fats in the human diet: natural and artificial. Natural trans fats are present in small amounts in dairy products and meat of some animals.

Artificial trans fats or trans fatty acids are the main source of trans fats in the diet and a product of an industrial process that adds hydrogen to vegetable oil during processing.

The new study used data from 1,628 people who were at least 60 years old and did not have dementia when they gave blood samples during a screening test in 2002-2003. Researchers followed them for another 10 years and recorded more and more new cases of dementia.

In the group with the highest levels of trans fats in the blood, the incidence of dementia was 29.8 per 1000 people. In the next largest trans fat group, the incidence rate of dementia was 27.6 per 1000 people. In the group with the lowest trans fat content, the incidence rate of dementia was 21.3 per 1000 people.

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