A major cause of cardiovascular diseases is transfat-laden food. The WHO has advised to avoid foods that contain transfat in order to stay healthy and improve the body immunity during COVID-19 outbreak. The organization also advised to have food free of industrially produced transfat during the self-isolation and quarantine due to coronavirus.
Trans-fat should be avoided from everyday diet in order to live a healthier life with stronger immunity during the COVID-19 outbreak and lower the risk of heart diseases, said health expert.
Patients with heart diseases are more likely to develop severe illness from COVID-19 infection than those without that underlying condition, according to World Health Organization (WHO).
Foods containing excessive trans-fat are unhealthy and are more likely to cause heart diseases. Around 277,000 people die each year in Bangladesh due to coronary heart diseases. In Bangladesh, about 8,000 people yearly die due to intake of high levels of transfats, according to a research done in 2010.
Assistant Director of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) Enamul Hoque said, industrially-produced trans fats, known as dalda or bonospoti ghee in local markets, are silent toxic killers. A high-level of trans fats in foods increases the bad cholesterol (LDL) and reduces the good cholesterol (HDL) in the human body, he said.
“Intake of excessive levels of trans fats can cause plaque in blood vessels, disrupting the flow of blood, leading to early heart attack and resulting in premature deaths. Trans fats can often be found in processed foods, fast food, snacks, fried food items, biscuits, cookies, margarine and others.” he added.
WHO has set a global target of eliminating industrially produced trans fatty acids from food supply chain by 2023. About 30 countries including India, Thailand, Iran, Austria, Norway, South Africa and Brazil have already taken steps to determine the maximum limit of trans-fat in food while another 24 are in the process to lower the limit to 2.0 per cent.
However, Bangladesh is still far from implementing the REPLACE action package announced by WHO in 2018 despite the target to eliminate transfat by 2023.
The Country Coordinator of Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) said in this regard that, “Transfat-laden food must be avoided to keep safe from all non-communicable diseases including heart diseases. Excessive intake of transfat can increase death risks up to 34%.
As per the recommendation of WHO, the daily intake of transfat for a person should be less than 1 percent of the total calorie intake, which is less than 2.2 grams of transfat in a daily diet of 2000 calories. The only way of abstaining from transfat-laden food is awareness. That is why awareness is the key to keep you free from risks.”
Sources from Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) have said that, the BFSA has recently started to develop a policy to reduce the maximum level of transfats to 2%.
A committee of 10 members have been formed in order to reduce the amount of transfat in all edible oils and food items and the committee has held two discussion meetings with various stakeholders, experts and consumers.
The authority has said that policy directives will be taken following the standards set out by the World Health Organization.
