Olestra

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Olean redirects here. For the city of Olean, see Olean, New York.

A ball and stick model of Olestra, showing a central sucrose molecule with ester-linked fatty acids

Olestra (also known by its brand name Olean) is an artificial fat substance created by Procter & Gamble in 1968.

Contents [hide] 1 Commercialization 2 Chemistry 3 Side effects 4 Sightings 5 Media 6 External links

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Commercialization

The Olean version of olestra, was approved Food and Drug Administration for use as a food additive in 1996 and was initially used in potato chips under the WOW brand by Frito Lay. In 1998, which was the first year Olean products were marketed nationally, sales were over $400 million. However, by 2000 sales slowed to $200 million, largely caused by the unappealing health warning label, which was mandated by the FDA:

This Product Contains Olestra. Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools. Olestra inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients. Vitamins A, D, E, and K have been added.[1]

The warning was popularly misquoted as containing the phrase “anal leakage”, which although not on the label, was indeed a problem with early formulations of olestra that were not marketed.

The warning requirement was removed in 2003, causing a new launch of products by Procter & Gamble, Frito Lay, and others. The new products were changed from the "WOW" label to "Lights."

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Chemistry

Normal fats consist of a triglyceride molecule with three fatty acid tails attached. However, Olestra is synthesized using a sucrose molecule, which can support up to eight fatty acid tails, too large to be digested in the intestine. Since Olestra does not contain fatty acid tails, it has the same taste as fat but no calories or nutritive value, for Olestra is indigestible.

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Side effects

Since it contains fatty acid moieties, Olestra is able to dissolve lipid-soluble vitamins such as Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, and Vitamin K along with carotenoids which are partially removed from foods consumed at the same time with Olestra. To counteract this, products made with Olestra are fortified with oil soluble vitamins to compensate for these lost in fecal matter.

In addition, Olestra early formulations has been known to cause diarrhea and anal leakage. This was caused by the olestra separating out in the intestine. Modifications to the marketed formulation approved by the FDA seem to have largely removed this effect — no greater effects are now seen than with ordinary potato chips.

On the positive side, it has been shown that consumption of Olestra greatly increases the rate (more than 10 times faster) that fat-soluble trace poisons such as dioxins and PCBs can be removed from the body, and Olestra does not promote weight gain.

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Sightings

• In episode 3.02 “My Journey” of the television series Scrubs, J.D. mentions that his favorite chips apparently cause anal leakage.
• In the Robin Williams comedy special “Live On Broadway”, Williams does a sketch about how Olestra causes anal leakage.
• One episode of MADtv featured a sketch pushing the shows own brand of Olestra, which was now with “10% less anal leakage.”
• In the Futurama episode, “Bendin’ in the Wind” (3ACV13), Bender consumes a bag of chips cooked with Olestra and has a stomach ache, then proceeds to drop an entire load of bricks from his posterior.
• In the romantic comedy movie The Sweetest Thing starring Cameron Diaz, Thomas Jane tells Jason Bateman's character that the potato chips he is eating causes anal leakage. Bateman then spits out the potato chips from his mouth while saying "What kind of marketing braniac puts anal leakage on his product? How can you even sell that crap?" after seeing that in fact it does say it causes anal leakage on the bag.

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Media

Olestra stereogram (info) Rotating stereogram animation of olestra. (1.69 MB, animated GIF format). Problems seeing the videos? Media help.

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External links

• Official website
• History of Olestra
• Case Study and Chemistry of Olestra Development
• A week of eating Olestra including potato chips

This biochemistry article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra"

Categories: Biochemistry stubs | Food additives | Procter & Gamble

Olestra - Reported Side Effects

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Olestra Fat Substitute Effects

More than 15,000 consumers have filed complaints saying that olestra, the indigestible fat substitute used in Wow snack chips and Fat Free Pringles, has caused problems ranging from gas to bloody stools to cramps so severe that they had to go to the emergency room.

Olestra - Reports of Adverse-Reactions

Today, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit health group, provided the FDA adverse-reaction reports from 1,080 people ranging in age from 2 to 82. The new reports add to the 1,167 complaints previously submitted by CSPI and 13,317 reports submitted by Procter and Gamble, which markets olestra under the Olean brand name. According to CSPI, survey research shows that those reports represent only a small fraction of the people actually affected by olestra.

More than 100 people in CSPI’s latest submission of adverse-reaction reports sought medical attention. Forty people went to the emergency room, where several were treated for dehydration. In some cases, doctors labeled olestra the cause of the symptoms.

Olestra - Alleged Side Effects

Victims reported that olestra’s side effects caused them problems ranging from mild inconvenience to serious safety risks. Olestra made some people soil their clothing at work or school, ruin their vacations, miss work, leave young children unattended, and vomit while driving. Two flight attendants and a military pilot said olestra prevented them from flying.

Olestra Ban Sought

In a letter to FDA commissioner Jane Henney, Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of CSPI, urged the agency to ban olestra or, at the very least, to require a prominent warning label on the fronts of packages stating that olestra can cause severe diarrhea or cramps. He urged Henney to "protect infants, children, adults, and seniors from the pain, embarrassment, and inconvenience that olestra is causing on a massive scale."

Olestra Not the Cause of Adverse Reactions - PG

The FDA and Procter and Gamble have maintained that there is no proof that olestra caused the symptoms reported. But CSPI’s Jacobson retorted that clinical studies submitted to the FDA by Procter and Gamble proved that olestra can cause severe gastrointestinal symptoms.

Olestra - Mass Consumed Food Additive

"Severe side effects might be acceptable from a cancer drug, but they are completely unacceptable from a food additive consumed by millions of people. Consumers shouldn’t have to play Russian roulette with their health when they eat a few potato chips," said Jacobson.

Dr. Leo Galland, an internal-medicine specialist in New York City who testified at an FDA advisory-committee meeting on olestra, said, "Olestra has had its test market on the American public, and it clearly flunked the test. The FDA should ban olestra before it causes even more misery."

CSPI received most of the adverse-reaction reports from its Internet web site, www.cspinet.org/olestraform. The rest came in on CSPI’s toll-free line, 1-888-OLESTRA. Eighty percent of the people said they had eaten Frito-Lay’s WOW chips, the rest had eaten Procter and Gamble’s Fat Free Pringles.

Olestra may Cause Abdominal Cramping and Loose Stools

While olestra’s adverse reactions have piled up, olestra proponents have pushed the FDA to downplay or remove the label notice that states "Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools."

Meanwhile, CSPI has asked the Federal Trade Commission to require a health warning in ads for olestra-containing products. Earlier this year, the Council of Better Business Bureaus found that certain Olean ads were misleading because they implied that olestra is a natural substance and that it looks like an ordinary vegetable oil.

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