WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is asking health regulators to quickly finalize proposed rules that it says could save thousands from heart disease through better labeling of fatty foods.

Tuesday's urging for action on stricter labeling of fat content by the Food and Drug Administration is highly unusual. It's the first time the office that oversees federal regulations decided to publicly nudge the people writing such regulations to hurry up.

``This rulemaking appears to be a tremendous opportunity for the FDA to address the nation's leading cause of death - coronary heart disease - and save thousands of lives,'' wrote John D. Graham, the new regulatory chief at the Office of Management and Budget.

The FDA proposed in 1999 that producers of foods containing artery-clogging trans fat disclose how much is in the foods on their labels. Today, consumers have no way to know how much of this fat - which many doctors consider more dangerous to the heart than saturated fat - is in their food.

But the proposal has never been finalized. FDA officials on Tuesday wouldn't explain the holdup. A federal health spokesman said officials would consider Graham's letter.

Also Tuesday, Graham wrote another agency - the Occupational Safety and Health Administration - urging that it make placing defibrillators in workplaces a priority. Defibrillators can jumpstart a person's heart during cardiac arrest, an emergency where every minute counts if the person is to survive. They're already common in airports and government buildings.

Graham's first target - trans fat - excited consumer advocates who have argued that Americans need to know how much of this artery-clogger they're eating.

Until now, the only way to determine if a food contains trans fat is to look for ``hydrogenated'' on the ingredient list. The most common source of trans fat is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, in which liquid oil is turned into a solid. Typically, the harder a margarine or cooking fat, the more trans fat it includes.

The FDA estimates that revealing the trans fat on labels would save between 2,000 and 5,600 lives a year, as people either chose healthier foods or manufacturers improved their recipes to leave out this fat. It estimates manufacturers would have to spend $400 million to relabel or reformulate food, but said the nation would probably save billions in health care costs.

``Cholesterol levels would go down pretty quickly'' as soon as people lower trans fat consumption, said Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who met Friday with Graham to encourage his action.

Manufacturers, some of whom have lobbied FDA for changes in the proposal, believe labeling trans fat is inevitable but are split on how best to do it, said Lisa Katic of the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

From Healthy.net