If you want to keep your cool, you might want to pass up those greasy wings and gooey dessert. A new study from the University of California, San Diego, suggests that people whose diets are higher in trans fats are more prone to aggression.

Trans fats, or hydrogenated oils, have made the news in recent years because studies have strongly linked them to heart disease and cancer, and some locales have passed laws restricting their use. They are still common, however, in restaurant food and many grocery items.

Beatrice Golomb, a physician and associate professor of medicine at U.C. San Diego, wondered if trans fats might affect behavior, after noting how they interact with a type of healthy fat. Past studies found that docosahexaenoic acid—or DHA, a long-chain omega-3 fatty acid—has a calming, antidepressant effect. Trans fats disrupt the chemical process that leads to the conversion of fatty acids into DHA, which led Golomb to suspect that trans fats might be linked to aggression.

Her study, which was published in March in PLoS ONE, involved 1,018 men and women older than 20 who filled out a food questionnaire and several other surveys that measure impatience, irritability and aggression. Even after considering other influences, Golomb's team found a strong link between the intake of trans fats and aggression. “Trans-fatty acids were a more consistent predictor of aggression than some traditional risk factors such as age, male sex, education and smoking,” Golomb says. The findings were consistent across both sexes and across all ages, ethnicities and socioeconomic groups.

Although the correlation was strong, the study does not prove that trans fats are causing the aggressive behavior. It is possible that naturally aggressive people tend to eat less healthy food. Or perhaps other ingredients found in processed foods, such as added sugars, are the real culprit. “We like to think we're in charge of our behaviors, but in fact there are many factors that influence us, food being one of them,” Golomb says.

5 Comments

1. 1. Bonnie Nordby 09:52 AM 7/31/12

   I cannot wait until Stephen Colbert riffs on this. Doritos anyone?

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. sunnystrobe 11:23 PM 7/31/12

   No wonder that 'Frankenstein' oils like trans-fatty acids should affect our brains badly - it was also shown in medical research that they are providing a real shortcut on the way to developing 'Alzheimer's', by dint of changing our microRNA in a very negative way. And fast!
   So, why not avoid fast food (and practically all food that has seen the inside of a factory) , like devil's kitchen!
   For it's this unholy combination of chemically altered fats plus acrylamides, the altered sugars -cum-proteins that can cause all our major lifestyle diseases.
   Tough bikkies to change a dumb diet?
   It's as easy as finding the right fuel for your car type!
   www.youthevity.com
   
   
   
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. goshrin 07:41 AM 8/1/12

   And as it goes "You are what you eat"!!!

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

4. 4. m allworth 11:19 AM 8/1/12

   We all need fats to insulate our nerves from each other!
   Also for the formation of our cell membranes. So;-
   
   Butter is an ancient evolved fat~!
   
   So what about generations fed on Trans- fats?
   
   What is happening to their nervous systems and, their cell coverings/
   
   Best wishes,
   
   Marg/
   
   
   Are their n
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

5. 5. Bob Grumman 03:51 PM 8/2/12

   I love the automatic assumption that high trans-fat diets are "less healthy." They may reduce longevity but that makes them necessarily "less healthy" only for those who prefer sedate long lives to meaningful short ones.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this