Technologist challenges medical personnel on edible fatsTechnologist challenges medical personnel on edible fats

Accra, Jan. 21, GNA – Dr Kaku Kyiamah, a Science Technologist on Tuesday urged nutritionists and medical doctors to stop deceiving the public about omega-3 fatty acids and its impact on health. He said recent discussions by nutritionists and medical doctors in the mass media sought to portray ‘linoleate,’ which was commonly known as omega-3; introduced into the body mainly when we ate poly unsaturated fatty acids caused heart diseases. “I beg to differ with the proponents, this is basically wrong and against current scientific research findings,” Dr Kyiamah stated in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra. He said omega-3s were a beneficial and essential form of fats, one that the body needed but could not make. Dr Kyiamah said the truth was that saturated fatty acids contained in our traditional oils such as palm oil, coconut oil, shea butter and palm kernel oil prevented heart diseases and almost all the life style diseases. He urged medical doctors, nurses and nutritionists to appreciate the current scientific findings on nutrition about omega-3 in order to avoid deceiving the public. He said heart diseases epidemic had its roots in the introduction of the technologically processed edible fats, which contained very high levels of poly unsaturated fatty acids, declaring that good fats were essential for healthy life and these good fats were contained in our traditional oils. Dr Kyiamah said bad fats; that was processed such as unsaturated vegetable oils as used in production of margarine, shorting used in bread making, soya bean oil, sunflower oil and canola all contained fatty acids that caused heart diseases. He said the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had observed that there were no studies that demonstrated a causal relations between the specific substance such as omega-3 fatty acids and reduction of the risk of health related coronary heart diseases in the general population. He however, noted that in the 1991 proposed and 1993 final rules, the FDA discussed safety concerns relating to omega-3 fatty acid intake, which included increased bleeding times, possibility of hemorrhagic stroke and reduced glycemic control among diabetics. Dr Kyiamah said some researchers believed that omega-3s helped prevented coronary heart disease in healthy people and slow progress of the disease in those who already had it. He urged Ghanaians to be very mindful of what they ate in order to avoid heart diseases and other dietary related diseases.GNA Read Full Story