New York ban reduced consumption of trans fats.

The AP (7/17, Neergaard) reports, "New York City now has hard evidence that its ban on trans fat in restaurant food made a meaningful dent in people's consumption of the artery clogger and wasn't just replaced with another bad fat." The evidence is in "the latest study by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene" published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and finding that "the amount of trans fat in each lunch sold dropped an average of 2.4 grams after the ban."

        The Los Angeles Times (7/17, MacVean) reports the results "should translate into better cardiovascular health in the nation's largest city," and "demonstrates that coffee shops, fast-food joints and other eateries can play a major role in improving the health of the public."

        HealthDay (7/17, Doheny) reports, "Researchers compared purchase receipts from fast food restaurants in 2007, before the ban went into effect, to those from 2009, after it went into effect." And "researchers also found that the number of meals that had no trans fat increased to 59 percent after the ban went into effect, compared with 32 percent before."

        MedPage Today (7/17, Fiore) reports, "By 2009, after the ban had been in place, the trans fat content of meals fell by a mean of 2.4 g, from 2.91 g in 2007 to 0.51 g in 2009."

        Heartwire (7/17, O'Riordan) reports, "The dietary ban on the use of trans fatty acids in New York City restaurants significantly reduced the trans fat content of food purchased at fast-food chains two years after the ban was implemented