It's time to treat seed oils like you do refined sugars

To actually be healthy, you can't just exercise or take ozempic, you have to consciously remove toxins from your diet

The obesity epidemic is real, and due to our diet and lifestyle. If you don’t take very conscious steps to live better you will end up in this chart.

Recently I’ve made much better decisions health-wise. Over 2 years ago I quit alcohol, vastly improved my diet, went off meds I was taking from big pharma (with MD supervision) and started lifting regularly. I’m down from around 215 pounds at peak to 180 now. It didn’t require doing anything other than this, no expensive or exotic supplements/pharmaceuticals necessary.

As part of improving my diet, I stopped consuming refined sugar, seed oils and most processed foods. There’s currently a big debate about seed oils, oddly with some quite intensely defending them. A good first step to health is to stop consuming any highly processed, packaged consumer goods. The vast majority of eating healthier simply involves avoiding the middle section of the grocery store, and not eating fast food. If you do this you are already are mostly removing seed oils. They aren’t in healthy, fresh, non-processed items. Basically if it has a long ingredient list, don’t eat it. Simple.

None of this should be contentious, it’s all part of the same story. And yet I’ve seen pushback whenever I post on this topic. The thing is, the packaged food industry, which uses seed oils and refined sugars in nearly everything, is running the same playbook as the cigarette industry did in the past. They know they’re poisoning the population, have known this for years, and will get away with it for a long time to come (until one day, we look back and wonder what we were doing). There’s many studies they run that serve as confirmation bias everything is fine, but we have no longitudinal studies proving this as it’s very hard (probably impossible) to do well. Also, I don’t think we need them if we are serious about being healthy, as this simply involves removing chemicals in our bodies in doses we did not evolve for. There’s not actually that many variables to account for. Seed oils are a big one, I can’t imagine removing refined sugars but then deciding “well this one’s fine.” A half measure would be silly. We’ll show you a brief video shortly that will illustrate the problem in simple terms.

It’s clear to me, as to many others, seed oils and refined sugars like high fructose corn syrup are slow poisons. And processed seed oils by some estimates are in around 70% of US packaged foods. They are impacting health over very long timeframes. A tiny amount here and there is fine, but the damage under the hood is real, and potentially cumulative. The new priest-class of academia gets a lot of money from big pharma and big food to run studies and publish data that supports the thesis they want. But even academics are now pushing back.

Some Tweets from Nissim Taleb, who writes on and understands risk for a living.

I’ve not only lost weight, but I’ve felt better and had more energy by removing these toxins from my diet. I can’t imagine going back. None of us evolved to eat what is in reality an industrial waste product.

Fast food, or as the industry calls them QSRs (quick service restaurants) are particularly guilty. It’s easy to avoid that, but takes a bit more work to remove them from what we cook. There’s a few areas it seems like you’re being healthy, like salads with low calorie dressing, but it turns out those aren’t good for you either. Simple choices like olive oil or Dijon mustard-based, homemade dressings or store-bought avocado oil based from companies like Primal Kitchen are great and made by people who actually care about our health. Enough scandals from big CPG have shown their cards. Slightly more conscious living is an imperative here, as it’s clear large industry in America does not have our health at heart. The medical system isn’t doing great either, as witnessed by the obesity trend. But when you decide to assert agency in your life, you are in full control of this.

In the current health ‘polycrisis’ (it’s not one thing making us obese, it’s several) you need to remove all bad variables. There’s no downside to doing this. I’d encourage you to watch this video on seed oils and their history (it’s well cited and referenced). It’s a waste product that’s convenient and stable used in preserved foods. There’s not an easy substitute.

For our body, if you still think it’s all a big hoax, you could consider removing them similar to this comic about climate change as a parable.

What if we made the body healthier for no reason? Seed oils are in most of the unhealthy products you eat. It’s a zero downside decision to remove highly processed oils and chemicals from your diet. You will just eat healthier, fresh foods and do things like air fry instead of deep fry for food preparation and have simple homemade dressings. You’ll eat drive-through less. All these steps are obvious.

I don’t think seed oils being toxic is some kind of conspiracy, it’s simply incentives. Anytime an industry can do something easier and profit from it immensely wherein the risk to the population is either masked or spread over a long period, they will. It’s sadly the world we live in. But as individuals we can make choices that minimize personal risk. If you find an MD or nutritionist who thinks processed foods are superior to natural diet of steak, eggs, vegetables, run away.

But what about the research? Following is some literature on seed oils that a friend (who I had on a podcast previously) took the time to curate you can peruse if you would like to read more.

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Additional literature on seed oils

• Chris Kresser: How Industrial seed oils are making us sick

• Jeff Nobbs: Death By Vegetable Oil

• Nina Teicholz: The Big Fat Surprise

• Cate Shanahan: Deep Nutrition

• The Great Cholesterol Myth

• Mayo Clinic: seed oils cause inflammation and diseases

Seed Oils by Symptom

Some studies categorized by type of symptoms they investigate, in no particular order:

Obesity

• Soybean Oil Is More Obesogenic and Diabetogenic than Coconut Oil and Fructose in Mouse: Potential Role for the Liver

  • Seed oils may make you fatter than than sugar

• Increase in Adipose Tissue Linoleic Acid of US Adults in the Last Half Century

  • This is the study that suggests the half life of seed oils in fat tissue is 2 years

• Linoleic acid and the pathogenesis of obesity

  • “This increase in LA [linoleic acid] above what is estimated to be required is hypothesised to be implicated in the increased rates of obesity and other associated non-communicable diseases which occur following a transition to a modern Westernised diet.”

• Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid status in obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

  • “Dihomo-γ-linolenic acid (DGLA) values were significantly higher in overweight or obese subjects compared with controls in all the investigated biomarkers”

  • Aka obese people have more PUFAs in their body

• An emerging risk factor for obesity: does disequilibrium of polyunsaturated fatty acid metabolism contribute to excessive adipose tissue development?

  • “Higher linoleate intake raises tissue arachidonic acid, which increases prostacyclin production and, in turn, stimulates signalling pathways implicated in adipogenesis.”

  • A complex way of saying that eating seed oils makes you fat

• The effects of potatoes and other carbohydrate side dishes consumed with meat on food intake, glycemia and satiety response in children

  • Kids ate 300 fewer calories when their meal consisted of saturated fats + carbs as opposed to PUFAs + carbs

Skin Health, Tanning, and Sunburn

• Unsaturated Fatty Acids Induce Calcium Influx into Keratinocytes and Cause Abnormal Differentiation of Epidermis

  • “On the other hand, application of unsaturated fatty acids, oleic acid, and palmitoleic acid induced scaly skin, abnormal keratinization, and epidermal hyperplasia [aka skin diseases].”

• Polyunsaturated fatty acids decrease the apparent affinity of vitamin D metabolites for human vitamin D-binding protein

• Mitigation of Radiation-Induced Dermatitis by Activation of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 2 Using Topical Alda-1 in Mice

  • “This is the first report of reactive aldehydes playing a role in the intrinsic radiosensitivity of normal and tumor tissues.”

• Nrf2 deficiency causes lipid oxidation, inflammation, and matrix-protease expression in DHA-supplemented and UVA-irradiated skin fibroblasts

  • “Our data suggest that under ultraviolet stress a functioning Nrf2 system is required to prevent DHA-induced inflammation and matrix degradation in dermal fibroblasts.”

  • Aka PUFAs, particularly fish oil in this case, increase the skins’ sensitivity to sunlight

• Protein oxidative damage in the stratum corneum: evidence for a link between environmental oxidants and the changing prevalence and nature of atopic dermatitis in Japan

  • This study has found an association between AD [eczema] severity and markers of ROS-associated damage, adding weight to the hypothesis that environmentally generated ROS may induce oxidative protein damage in the stratum corneum, leading to the disruption of barrier function and exacerbation of AD.

  • Aka seed oils can cause eczema

• Dependence of photocarcinogenesis and photoimmunosuppression in the hairless mouse on dietary polyunsaturated fat

  • “The photocarcinogenic response was of increasing severity as the polyunsaturated content of the mixed dietary fat was increased”

  • Aka the more seed oils you eat, the more skin cancer you get

Brain Damage

• Alzheimer's linked to unsaturated fatty acids in the brain

• America's most widely consumed oil causes genetic changes in the brain

  • "Soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, and depression"

• Vegetable oil-derived hydroxynonenal causes Alzheimer’s neuronal death

  • “The causative substance for Alzheimer neuronal death is actually ‘vegetable oils’.”

• Transient Formation of Superoxide Radicals in Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid-Induced Brain Swelling

  • “The involvement of superoxide free radicals and lipid peroxidation in brain swelling induced by free fatty acids has been studied in brain slices and homogenates. The polyunsaturated fatty acids linoleic acid (18:2), linolenic acid (18:3), arachidonic acid (20:4), and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6) caused brain swelling concomitant with increases in superoxide and membrane lipid peroxidation”

• Elevated dietary ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids induce reversible peripheral nerve dysfunction that exacerbates comorbid pain conditions

Microbiome/Digestive Health

• Six-Week High-Fat Diet Alters the Gut Microbiome and Promotes Cecal Inflammation, Endotoxin Production, and Simple Steatosis without Obesity in Male Rats

• n-6 High Fat Diet Induces Gut Microbiome Dysbiosis and Colonic Inflammation

  • “An n-6 HFD [high seed oil diet] consumed from weaning to adulthood induces a shift in gut bacterial profile associated with colonic inflammation.”

Heart Disease

• Obesogenic diet in aging mice disrupts gut microbe…leading to inflamed milieu in acute heart failure

• Use of dietary linoleic acid for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and death

  • This one is ironic because it was a study explicitly designed to show that seed oil consumption lowered the risk of heart disease, but found the opposite.

• An update on lipid oxidation and inflammation in cardiovascular diseases

  • “Under oxidative stress, polyunsaturated fatty acids…can be readily oxidized through a free radical-induced lipid peroxidation (LPO) process to form a complex mixture of oxidation products. Overwhelming evidence demonstrates that these oxidized lipids are actively involved in the inflammatory responses”

Sexual Health and Hormones

• Fatty acid intake in relation to reproductive hormones and testicular volume among young healthy men

  • “The intake of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids and trans fatty acids was inversely related to testicular volume.”

• Effect of Vitamin E and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on Cryopreserved Sperm Quality

  • Seed oils lower sperm quality, vitamin E reverses the effect

• Estrogen, statins, and polyunsaturated fatty acids: similarities in their actions and benefits—is there a common link?

  • PUFAs are basically estrogen (so are cholesterol-lowering drugs aka statins)

• Defining the Mechanisms by Which the Reactive Oxygen Species By-Product, 4-Hydroxynonenal, Affects Human Sperm Cell Function

  • “spermatozoa appear to shut down under these conditions [i.e., high lipid peroxidation] before reaching the egg”

• Free fatty acids: a possible regulator of the available oestradiol fractions in plasma

  • “A diet high in fats [which fats] may be related to an elevation in the biologically available oestradiol fractions in plasma…unsaturated free fatty acids can increase the biologically available oestradiol fractions in plasma.”

• Possible relevance of steroid availability and breast cancer

  • “We demonstrated that sex steroid protein binding is decreased by free fatty acids.” (Aka elevated estrogen is a byproduct of free fatty acids (in this case PUFAs)

• The role of free fatty acids in regulating the tissue availability and synthesis of sex steroids

  • Complicated, but it looked at a population in London with higher PUFA consumption and found they had higher estrogen and therefore higher breast cancer risk

• Does high polyunsaturated free fatty acid level at the feto-maternal interface alter steroid hormone message during pregnancy?

  • “Thus PUFA may modulate the steroid hormone message, so that the high C20:4 concentration at the maternal-fetal interface at term may help amplify the estrogen signal and inhibit the progesterone signal.”

• Origins and consequences of DNA damage in male germ cells

  • Lipid peroxidation causes DNA damage in sperm cells

Eye Health

• The ‘Displacing Foods of Modern Commerce’ Are the Primary and Proximate Cause of Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Unifying Singular Hypothesis

  • Lipid peroxidation in the eye causes macular degeneration

Cancer

• Lipid peroxidation: a novel and unifying concept of the etiology of renal cell carcinoma (United States)

  • Seed oils may give you kidney cancer

• Oxy radicals, lipid peroxidation and DNA damage

  • “Lipid peroxidation appears to be a major source of endogenous DNA damage in humans that may contribute significantly to cancer and other genetic diseases linked to lifestyle and dietary factors.”

• Oxidative Stress and Lipid Peroxidation Products in Cancer Progression and Therapy

  • “ROS can react with the polyunsaturated fatty acids of lipid membranes and induce lipid peroxidation”

• Potential Benefits of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer

  • “Increasing levels of dietary omega-6 FA [fatty acids] increase UVR carcinogenic expression, with respect to a shorter tumor latent period and increased tumor multiplicity.”

Oxidative Stress

• Determination of Acrolein Evolved from Heated Vegetable Oil by N-Methylhydrazine Conversion

  • “Acrolein has been found in various lipid-rich foods and has been isolated from the headspace of heated vegetable oils”

• Linolenic Acid as the Main Source of Acrolein Formed During Heating of Vegetable Oils

  • “Acrolein in vegetable oils may be formed from polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially linolenic acid but not from glycerol backbone in triacylglycerols.”

• Simultaneous determination of lipophilic aldehydes by high-performance liquid chromatography in vegetable oil

  • “The detection of the toxic 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal, a major compound, and 4-hydroxy-2-hexenal, a minor compound, in heated soybean oil is of particular importance because these toxic compounds have been shown to be absorbed from the diet.”

• Dietary lipids and risk of autoimmune disease

  • “Our ongoing studies reveal that proinflammatory vegetable oil could increase autoimmune disease by increasing the free radical formation by decreasing the antioxidant enzyme mRNA levels”

• Oxidation of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and its Impact on Food Quality and Human Health

  • “The free radicals and metabolites generated from PUFA oxidation may adversely affect food quality and shelf life by producing off-lavors and reducing nutritional values.”

Metabolism

• GC-MS based comparative metabolomic analysis of human cancellous bone reveals the critical role of linoleic acid metabolism in femur head necrosis

  • “This study provides a new insight into the pathogenesis of FHN [femur head necrosis] and confirms linoleic acid metabolism as the core.”