Eating seed oils is like playing russian roulette with a fully loaded gun
A lot of talk recently about them being bad for you.
But here's the actual science for you to decide for yourself
A brief history...
The biggest change to our diet in the last 100 years has been these oils.
Before 1900s everyone used animal fats to cook.
However, since then animal fat consumption has cratered and vegetable oil consumption has increased 1000x.I will spare you the entire story, but heart disease ramped up in the early 1900s...
Ancel Keys stepped in, posited that LDL contributed to heart disease and that saturated fat was the culprit for raising LDL.
This was the "diet-heart hypothesis"
The AHA signed off on polyunsaturated fats as heart healthy in the mid 1900s (oh and they were paid $1.7m by P&G who sold crisco, a vegetable oil product)
And since then we've been completely indoctrinated into the view that saturated fat clogs your arteries and PUFAs clear them
Meanwhile, despite Americans dutifully following this advice, diabetes, heart disease, alzheimers and cancer are skyrocketing.
What links all modern diseases?
Modern medicine wants us to believe that these diseases are unrelated, but they all tend to occur together and are tied to mitochondrial dysfunctionI believe one of the things that ties together all the mitochondrial dysfunction are these seed oils via three main mechanisms:
First, they remodel the cardiolipin structure of mitochondria.
This causes:
- energy to leak from mitochondria
- cellular death
- leakage of potassium
Second, these PUFAs are highly susceptible to damage from the unsaturated bonds and they break down into toxic byproducts like HNE, acrolein and MDA when oxidized.
These byproducts are linked to cancer, obesity, diabetes and alzheimers disease, as I will describe below.
Third, they serve as precursors to inflammatory prostaglandins that are also linked to every chronic disease.When people consume seed oils, they accumulate them in their fat
The average human today has over 20% of their fat as linoleic acid, vs just 7% 50 years ago
Similar to letting a bottle of oil sit out in the sun, over time this causes your body to go rancid
This is sickness
Don't believe me? Here's some evidence they're linked to all the biggest killers today.
#1 HEART DISEASE
The reason we are in this mess is because some studies in the 1950s suggested that saturated fats raised LDL cholesterol and LDL causes heart disease.However, the cholesterol in the heart disease plaques first have to be OXIDIZED to be taken up into the arteries...something diet heart hypothesis proponents totally overlooked.
And it is linoleic acid (from seed oils) that causes the LDL particles to oxidize.After being oxidized, immune cells take it up and form plaques in the arteries.
And these studies confirm that -- looking into the actual plaque in human aortas, they are comprised of polyunsaturated omega 6 fatty acids.
The sad part is that we knew this 50 YEARS AGO. This trial done in the 1960s was kept unpublished...
PUFA doubled heart attacks and increased death rates
There was a "22% higher death rate for each 30 ng / dL reduction in cholesterol from linoleic acid."Another study, the sydney heart health study, showed that the group consuming more vegetable oil had a 62% higher rate of death compared to the group eating less.
This would put it on par with the highest death risk factors there is.In the gold standard of RCTs, this shows that isolated omega 6 specific interventions increased heart disease and death.
(The confusion today lies in that many of the studies that increase PUFA intake ALSO increase omega 3 consumption, which may decrease heart disease risk).
In animals there is an abundance of evidence too.
This study below showed that in just 4 weeks the cardiolipin remodeling (discussed above) caused heart failure.
The case around heart disease is closed. Mitochondria dysfunction and lipid oxidation byproducts are the cause.
#2 CANCER
I think that we can pin a large part of the increase in cancer on vegetable oils.
Genetic mutations get the blame, but what is causing them? It looks like the PUFA breakdown products are one of the biggest culprits. In fact, these researchers argue that it is impossible to induce cancer without vegetable oils.
In this study on 850 men, those with a diet higher in PUFAs had a lower risk of death via heart disease but 2X more deaths from cancer.
This is the problem with our fragmented healthcare system -- CVD doctors think they're helping by lowering LDL but really are causing cancer.
Going back to the points above, the toxic breakdown products and altered cardiolipin profile both contribute to cancer.
Additionally, according to Thomas Seyfried, there's not once cancer that doesnt have damaged cardiolipin, exactly what PUFAs are known to do. This mitochondrial breakdown is what contributes to the inability to oxidize glucose characteristic of all cancers (Warburg Effect).
Many people think cancer feeds on glucose, but that's not the case -- it is fermenting glucose instead of oxidizing it because the ETC is broken.Two studies below suggest that breast cancer is linked to omega 6 intake.
The first shows that the prostaglandin cascade from linoleic acid leads to excessive estrogen production.
The next shows that MDA, a PUFA breakdown product, is higher in breast cancer patients. Of interest to many sun worshippers, polyunsaturated fatty acids are associated with skin cancer risk, presumably via similar mechanisms: carcinogenic breakdown products and inflammatory byproducts.
In this study on mice, linoleic acid intake was directly related to tumor incidence.
#3 ALZHEIMERS
In neurodegenreative diseases, studies find increased levels of HNE in the plaques of brains.
Similar to heart disease and cancer, these pufa byproducts are accumulating in the brain tissue, causing plaques and damaging metabolic function.Studies on mice show that canola oil reduces memory, cognitive function and leads to plaques implicated in alzheimers.This study shows that the prostaglandins -- byproducts of PUFAs -- are the main driver of brain aging
Blocking them, rejuvenates the brain and restores cognition.
#4 NUKING YOUR GONADS.
Fertility and testosterone are tanking and I believe PUFAs are one of the main causes.
They are about as bad as it gets for hormonal production and sexual function. They inhibit binding of androgens to the receptor...and they also inhibit 5-AR reductase which converts testosterone to the more potent DHT (DHT is beneficial, unlike what the mainstream wants you to believe)According to this study below, "these vegetable oils may be the strongest endocrine-disrupting substances in today's environment."
They disrupt the activation of osteocalcin by vitamin k2, which promotes testosterone synthesis.At the same time, they are "remarkably estrogenic" , especially to females.
In this study they were toxic to the ovaries and led to infertility.
In men, estrogen will inhibit the synthesis of testosterone and lower fertilitySaturated fats on the other hand increase cholesterol (a good thing if you're converting into other hormones) and up-regulate enzymes associated with steroid synthesis.
#5 Obesity
Seed oils are related to obesity through very similar mechanisms. HNE is found in obesity and induces fat storage.Seed oils also break down into the endocannabinoids, which acts similar to the effects of THC on our appetites....seed oils give you the munchiesIn this study, 3 groups of rats at the same amount of calories. The one eating safflower oil gained 15% more fat than the beef fat group
#6 LONGEVITY
One of the best markers of longeity between different animals is how saturated their mitochondrial membranes are.
A more unsaturated membrane leads to lower metabolism and more breakdown into the toxic, carcinogenic byproducts, and shorter lifespan. And here's the great Ray Peat to send us homeNot eating seed oils is not enough.
You need to hate seed oils. You need to scream at waiters that serve them. You need to throw them away in every home you walk into. You need to bring butter with you everywhere. You need to dedicate your life to taking down these oils