UN health agency aims to wipe out trans fats worldwide

The World Health Organization has released a plan to help countries wipe out artery-clogging trans fats from the global food supply in the next five years.

The United Nations agency has in the past pushed to exterminate infectious diseases, but now it's aiming to erase a hazard linked to chronic illness.

FILE - In this Aug. 8, 2007 file photo, a Milky-Way candy bar is deep-fried in oil free of trans fats at a food booth at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis. Indiana was the first state to require the switch at its state fair. On Monday, May 14, 2018, the head of the World Health Organization called on all nations to eliminate artificial trans fats from foods in the next five years. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)

In a statement Monday, the U.N. health agency said eliminating trans fats is critical to preventing deaths worldwide. WHO estimates that eating trans fats — commonly found in baked and processed foods — leads to the deaths of more than 500,000 people from heart disease every year.

"It's a crisis level, and it's major front in our fight now," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference in Geneva on Monday.

Officials think it can be done in five years because the work is well underway in many countries. Denmark did it 15 years ago, and since then the United States and more than 40 other higher-income countries have been working on getting the additives out of their food supplies.

The WHO is now pushing middle- and lower-income countries to pick up the fight, said Dr. Francesco Branca, director of the WHO's Department of Nutrition for Health and Development.

Artificial trans fats are unhealthy substances that are created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil to make it solid, like in the creation of margarine or shortening. Health experts say they can be replaced with canola oil or other products. There are also naturally occurring trans fats in some meats and dairy products.

The WHO recommends that no more than 1 percent of a person's calories come from trans fats.

"Trans fats are a harmful compound that can be removed easily without major cost and without any impact on the quality of the foods," Branca said.

Countries will likely have to use regulation or legislation to get food makers to make the switch, experts said.

At the WHO news conference Monday, a representative from a leading food industry trade group said companies are working to reduce trans fats in their products.

"We call on food producers in our sector to take prompt action and we stand ready to support effective measures to work toward the elimination of industrially produced trans fats and ensure a level playing field in this area," said Rocco Rinaldi, secretary-general of the International Food and Beverage Alliance.

Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who worked with WHO officials on the call to action, called its move unprecedented.

"The world is now setting its sights on today's leading killers — particularly heart disease, which kills more people than any other cause in almost every country," said Frieden, president of Resolve to Save Lives, a New-York-based project of an organization called Vital Strategies.

In the U.S., the first trans fatty food to hit the market was Crisco shortening, which went on sale in 1911. Trans fatty foods became increasingly popular beginning in the 1950s, partly because experts at the time thought they were healthier than cooking with butter or lard.

Food makers liked artificial trans fats because they prolonged product shelf life. They used them in doughnuts, cookies and deep-fried foods.

But studies gradually revealed that trans fats wreck cholesterol levels in the blood and drive up the risk of heart disease. Health advocates say trans fats are the most harmful fat in the food supply.

In the U.S., New York City in 2006 banned restaurants from serving food with trans fats. The same year the FDA required manufacturers to list trans fat content information on food labels.

Many manufacturers cut back, and studies showed trans fat levels in the blood of middle-aged U.S. adults fell by nearly 60 percent by the end of the decade.

In 2015, the FDA took steps to finish the job of eliminating trans fats, calling for manufacturers to stop selling trans fatty foods by June 18, 2018 — a deadline that arrives next month. FDA officials have not said how much progress has been made or how they will enforce their rule against food makers that don't comply.

"The removal of trans fats from the food supply as an additive counts as one of the major public health victories of the last decade," said Laura MacCleery, policy director for the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, Center for Science in the Public Interest.

LONDON (AP) — Britain's Conservative Party, which governed the country from 2010 until it suffered its worst-ever electoral defeat two years ago, was plunged into fresh turmoil Thursday after its leader sacked the man widely seen as her greatest rival for apparently plotting to defect from the party.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said in a video and statement on X that she sacked the party's justice spokesperson Robert Jenrick due to “irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect" in a way that was “designed to be as damaging as possible” to the party. Badenoch also ejected Jenrick from the party's ranks in Parliament and suspended his party membership.

“The British public are tired of political psychodrama and so am I,” she said. “They saw too much of it in the last government, they’re seeing too much of it in this government. I will not repeat those mistakes.”

Though Badenoch did not specify which party Jenrick was planning to switch to, Nigel Farage, leader of the hard-right Reform UK party, said he had “of course” had conversations with him.

In the past 12 months, the Conservatives have suffered a string of defections to Reform UK, including some former Cabinet ministers.

Farage said in a press briefing in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, that coincided with Badenoch's statement that, “hand on heart,” he wasn't about to present Jenrick as the latest Conservative to defect to Reform, an upstart, anti-immigration party.

“I’ll give him a ring this afternoon,” he said. “I might even buy him a pint, you never know.”

The Conservatives are fighting not just the Labour government to their left, but Reform UK to the right.

Reform, which only has a handful of lawmakers in the House of Commons, is tipped to make a major breakthrough in an array of elections this May, including those to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, at the expense of both the Conservatives and Labour.

Jenrick, who continued to attract speculation about leadership ambitions despite being beaten in 2024, has appeared more open than Badenoch to the prospect of some sort of deal between the Conservatives and Reform to unite the right in the run-up to next general election, which has to take place by 2029.

Jenrick has yet to respond to the news of his sacking.

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose favorability ratings have fallen sharply since the general election following a series of missteps, questioned why it took Badenoch “so long” to sack Jenrick given all the speculation that he was looking to either challenge her or to defect to Reform.

Badenoch, a small-state, low-tax advocate, has shifted the Conservatives to the right, announcing policies similar to those of U.S. President Donald Trump, including a promise to deport 150,000 unauthorized immigrants a year.

Her poor poll ratings and lackluster performance in Parliament had stirred speculation that she could be ousted long before the next election.

However, she has been making a better impression in Parliament in recent weeks, particularly during her weekly questioning of Starmer, in a way that appears to have cemented her position as leader.

The party is no stranger to turmoil, having gone through six leaders in the space of 10 years, five of them serving as prime minister. Widespread anger at the way the Conservatives were governing Britain led to their defeat at the general election in July 2024, when they lost around two-thirds of their lawmakers, their worst performance since the modern party was created nearly 200 years ago.

Robert Jenrick speaking at a Reform UK press conference in Westminster, London, where it was announced the former Conservative MP has joined Reform UK, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Robert Jenrick with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at a Reform UK press conference in Westminster, London, where it was announced the former Conservative MP has joined Reform UK, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Reform Party leader Nigel Farage addresses protesters outside the Iranian embassy, in London, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Yui Mok/PA via AP)

Kemi Badenoch with Robert Jenrick before being announced as the new Conservative Party leader following the vote by party members at 8 Northumberland Avenue in central London, Nov. 3, 2024. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)